A little cooking post

Ok, so the Brown Eyed Baker is hosting an amazing giveaway. And I want to win. To enter you create a post on your favorite holiday recipe. Well, during the holiday season I usually bake more cookies. So that will be the recipe I share today.

The recipe is for my all time favorite cookie. It's different and unusual. It comes from a cookie cook book my mother has used for years, ever since I was a wee girl. It calls for one ingredient that I can no longer find. If anyone knows of how to get a hold of it please, PLEASE, contact me. Even though you can't find the exact ingredient you can substitute. Curious? Just read on.....

Egyptian Rose Leaves*
(and yes they taste like a rose)

1/3 cup of shortening (I use real butter)
2 eggs
1 tsp rose soluble liquid (this is the ingredient that I can no longer locate. So if you have any ideas let me know. Rose water, cooking quality, is what you will need to use as substitution, but I would increase it to 1 1/2 to 2 tsp depending on how strong your rose water is)
2 cups of all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
red or pink or green decorators sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Mix shortening, sugar, eggs and rose soluble until fluffy.
Stir in flour and salt.
Mix thoroughly.
Chill for several hours or overnight.
Using 1/3 of the dough at a time (keep the rest refrigerated) roll into 1 inch balls.
Place on lightly greased baking sheet.
Flatten with the heel of your hand to about a 3/8 inch thickness.
Cut two slits 1/2 inch down at the top.
Pinch the bottom to form base of leaf.
Sprinkle with decorator sugar.
Bake for 8-10 minutes until very light golden brown.
Then enjoy!

You will note when eating these cookies that at first you will not note really any strong flavor. That is until you breath in. Then you will find that your head will fill with the most delicate, lovely rose scent. Ahhhh, heavenly.

If any of you happen to try these I would love to hear what you think of them.

Good luck to anyone else that enters the Brown Eyed Baker's contest and wish me luck too!

* This recipe comes from the Betty Crocker Cooky Book. My mother received hers well over 40 years ago as a gift. Here is the modern version. Whether it contains the same recipes, I'm not sure.

One thing leads to another

Well I'm back and I'm not alone. Ooooo doesn't that sound sinister? It's not I assure you. I've come back to show you the completed project from that last post. The project didn't take all this time to finish, I'm just bad about getting photos to post here.

So without any further ado... Here's Flora the Hedgehog.





She's not your typical hedgehog, as I'm you sure you can tell. But I'm happy with how she turned out. I created her to be a pincushion, although she hasn't been used in that capacity as yet. Mostly she coyly sits on the shelves above my sewing machine and watches as I sew. She's such a sweet young lass of a hedgehog. It's nice to have her keep me company.

Miss Flora was kind enough assist in showing off the fabric that I used for my next project. I will admit that I already finished this project as well. It is a fabric bunting/garland using Patty Young Mezzanine fabric, that I purchased from Fabric Closet on Etsy.

I didn't use any specific pattern. Just sort of winged it. I'm going to use this one as part of our Christmas decorations this year. I had a lot of fun making it, and already have my eye on some other fabrics that I would love to use. Maybe a garland from either this fabric or this one. I'm really drawn to the second one since those are the colors that are more prevalent throughout my home. Yet the first one, Paula Prass' Flights of Fancy collection, has had me intrigued for some time. I love the Air Mail print in the collection. I have so many other projects on the horizon I'll have to just move those to the bottom of the projects list for now.

I'm already starting on another Christmas geared project, another decoration. Here is a glance at the start of it...
Yes it's another wee creature. The fabric is just serving as a background and won't have anything to do with the actually creation of the wee thing. Although the fabric might be used as an accompaniment to it. Again nothing is finalized. Yes, I'm just wingin' it, as usual. ( grin)

Along with this I am going to work on some hooded cloaks and fabric light sabers for the Wee Ones for Christmas. I just have to buy the fabric and come up with a pattern. Another wingin' job. I know there are patterns out there for cloaks, but I already have a picture of one in my head so why not just use that idea. And the light sabers are the same way. The Wee Ones have one light saber that used to be The Boy's when he was small. All the Wee Ones do is fight over it and then end up hitting the other one with it. So I thought I would make them two soft ones so that they hopefully won't fight and they can still hit each other with relative safeness. At least that's my plan. (snicker)

Anyway I'm off to work on the new wee creature. The Wee Ones are upstairs in "Daddy Land", terrorizing their dear father and The Boy. (sigh, smile)

Till next time
Ta Ta for now.....

A small project

Today I thought I would share a small project that I am beginning to work on. It's a pincushion. I won't tell you what the pincushion is gonna be. Suffice it to say that is a small creature. And no the color I chose is not indicative of the actual creature. I have truly taken creative liberties here.



I am using some felt I purchased from The Daily Pincushion. The felt is just lovely and is some of the nicest I have worked with. I want to order this set next. I'm going to use it to make some decorative mittens for the wee ones for Christmas instead of hanging stockings. You know in my free time.

I have been busy. I swear I have, and here are some photos to show you. They aren't the best photos. But maybe if you squint a little and stand back from the monitor in a dimly lit room, they might improve.

This is the second quilt top I have been working on. I read other peoples blog on how they complete these great quilts in a week and I'm lucky if I can sew for about an hour in a week. So sorry for the slow progress.

I realize in this photo the squares aren't sewn yet, but play along and imagine they are. This shows the center square with the blue floral. I also did this layout with green floral square as the center.

Then I did something that was a wee difficult at first. I cut them in fourths, through the center of the block. I know, I know you are thinking that this is very clever, and I will agree with you, but it wasn't me being clever. I found it on another blog. Which one? I'm glad you asked. The Moda Blog.


There again, play along, I know they aren't sewn, but it at least gives you an idea of what I'm doing.

Hopefully I will have better photos to show you soon. Stay tuned!

Oh my good-good-ness

t is not very often that I have the opportunity to rave about something so surprisingly wonderful...but here I go.

Miss Darcy had a cool contest a bit ago for a sampler of some hand lotion. I left a comment, and, to be honest, forgot about it. Well Darcy contacted me and let me know that I was one of the winners. Woo Hoo!
Today I got my little prize package in the mail. I opened up the sample called Hippie Chick. I knew from reading the description that it was patchouli-like. I put a small dollop of the creamy white lotion on my hands and began to have the most wonderful scent drift seductively through my nose. It is sexy, warm and clean without being cloying or overpowering. The lotion absorbs beautifully and leaves your skin feeling .....(sniff, sniff) refreshed and soft. No greasiness what-so-ever. (sniff) I'm surprised I can even type this post. See....


I have to keep stopping to smell myself. How crazy is that! And I have a strange chemical make up. Certain scents go all sorts of wrong on me. Take something like Calvin Klein's One fragrance, for instance, it smells like decomposing watermelon on me. Or Elizabeth Arden's Red Door, decomposing watermelon. Ah yes and let's not forget the wonderful reaction you get when I wear something like Giorgio. Yup you guessed it...decomposing watermelon. So when I find a scent that does not do that I'm thrilled. (snifffff) And you might ask what is this amazing hand lotion that I can't seem to stop singing the praises of called ...... Happy Hands Lotion. And mine are. If you haven't heard of or tried her lotion before, please go over and check them out. You can purchase sample packs to try out. Which I think is a great idea. And if you have tried them before then you know exactly what I mean about the feel and smell of this lotion.

Now I am going to play devils advocate here. Am I saying this is the best lotion I have ever tried? No. Because I haven't tried all the lotions that I probably will in my life. But I am saying that I am highly impressed and very pleased about how this lotion feels and smells. So much so that I am going to go over to Los Gringos and purchase some right now.

Please go and check out her store and really think about buying at least the Autumn Treat sampler. It's a great price and I think you will be really quiet "happy" with the results. (sniff..sniff...snifffffff...grin)

It's interesting how a craft can take over your life, kind of sneaky like. I'm talking about quilting. For some reason it seems to be the craft my mind wanders to, when my mind has the chance to wander at all. I'm not sure if it's because I have my sewing machine out now and can see it. Or if it's a visual thing. Reading blogs and seeing the quilts that have been made can be very inspiring for me. Or if it's the newness of the craft. I'm just not sure what it is. But I seem to be smitten with it. I do tend to lean more towards the simpler quilts like this or like this. The more involved quilts are impressive. Yet when I look at them I just end up thinking "I gotta cut all those pieces" Ugh!

Remember the black, red and cream quilt that I started with? Well of course you do! Anyways, I'm at the point in which you sandwich the backing on and start the actually quilting process. (Pause, blink, blink) Yeah well it's kind of been at that stage for a wee bit of time now. Yes, I admit it, I'm intimidated by the process. The whole getting the sandwich thing done, that I'm ok with. It's the whole machine quilting thing that kind of makes me pull up short. So right now it sits on the back of my couch waiting for me to complete it. Yet the intimidation I feel about the machine quilting has not stopped me from carrying on creating in this craft. I have already started on another quilt top. And I have about 4 others planned.

Have I given up on knitting? No I haven't. I am still working on my red scarf. I work on it in the evenings when I'm just not worn out (hence the reason it seems to be taking so long). I just seem to be more focused on the whole sewing thing. I have quite a few ideas in my head for sewing. Some of them are the quilts and the others are for garments. I would love to try Amy Butler's new pattern Liverpool. But have a hard time spending that much on a pattern right now. (of course if anyone would like to buy it for me I won't object....grin....just saying...wink)

Oh, oh, oh and before I forget I was reading the Fabric Shopper blog's post about and independent fabric designer, and saw Spoonflower. You really should check out the site. It's all sorts of cool. You can create your own fabric design. I love that idea. The price might seem a bit high, at least for me, but I haven't seen any other place offering this service. Hmmm, maybe I should check that out. Hey I know in my free time. (chuckle)

Been Awhile....

Geez, it's been a wee bit of time since I last posted anything. Sorry 'bout that.

I've been busy chasing children and getting up early to chase trash. Yes it's an exciting life.

I have been doing some crafting. I have a red scarf I am knitting on. I'm using the wonderful yarn I won from Miss Shortly. It's the Vintage Purl in a beautiful red colorway. If you have not had the pleasure of working with this yarn before, you will have to just take my word that it is truly wonderful. The color, the feel and the fabric it produces, WONDERFUL. She was so sweet and kind for hosting such a great contest. The pattern this yarn is being transformed into is from the Double Ewe Yarn Shop, Suri de Arana scarf. It's a very easy and forgiving lace pattern that gives very pretty results.

I have also been trying to work on my quilting. It's been a little harder for me. I really, really have to work on it when the Wee Ones aren't awake and running around. Too many interesting and cool implements (i.e. scissors, pins, measuring tape, rotary cutter) for them to get a hold of and play with. And when they finally do go to bed, and I get done with eating dinner and chores, I seem to find myself feeling quiet tired. Just in the attempt to write this small post I have had to sing a song from the Polar Express movie with the smallest Wee One, scoot in a chair for the middle Wee One, fix the same movie 'cuz it gets stuck in one part, have a chat with my husband (no he really hasn't made it back to the DH status), all the while trying to remember what it was I was trying to write in the first place. In other words the same ol', same ol' . The same thing every other woman goes through in a normal day. (sigh)

Anyways just wanted to touch base with all of you and let you know that yes I'm still alive. I better go otherwise I can already feel this post deteriorating in to a series of nothing but misspelled gibberish nonsense. (cough, cough as though it isn't already grin)