v.2

I haven’t updated my blog all week and it’s because I finally relented and joined Facebook from Richard’s invitation. It’s actually kind of fun and I got sucked in playing the music challenge and the never ending movie quiz. Sigh. Well, if you are on Facebook, let me know and we can be friends! 😉

So Saturday we had a little celebration for Sienna’s first birthday, which is officially on Wednesday. Can you believe it?? There are so many pictures to post, I’ll have to divide it into 2 posts. I made Jamaican beef patties from scratch (even the dough!), pork dumplings (my own filling!) and cupcakes. I also put out brie. Can you get the reason for this international food smorgasbord? Brenda made bacon and cheddar muffins (yum!!), Theresa brought asparagus salad (yum!!), Tammy and Mark provided the punch and since Joy was a late addition she just brought her big mouth. LOL. I’ll do the food post later.

As you can see, she really took to Mark pretty fast, just like she did with Peter last week. Hmmm, I guess we shouldn’t worry about her comfortness with males until she is older…HA!

I think Sienna was a little confused about what was going on and probably wondered why there were a bunch of people standing around staring at her! She didn’t really have much of a reaction to her birthday hat or her birthday cupcake or blowing out her candle. LOL. I gave her her cupcake and in true Sienna fashion, threw it on the floor but after she had some frosting. I picked it up and just gave her the insides and of course, it got messy!

She’s probably thinking ‘this is not my usual fare…but I’ll try it’

Here’s a video of the cupcake eating event. If you need the password, please leave me a comment!

First Birthday Cupcake from Lisa on Vimeo.

We had to do a wardrobe change after the cupcake so she can open her presents and not have cupcake and frosting everywhere! I thought it was appropriate to put her in the cupcake shirt that Tammy and Mark got her for Christmas!

Sienna really made out good! There was a gift that came for her during the week from Fed Ex from a company in Brooklyn. There wasn’t a card or message that told us who it was from so we were calling it the mystery gift and joking that Sienna went online and ordered it for herself. We found out it was from Yves’ parents! They ordered it from amazon and I guess from a third party so they didn’t have the option to include a gift card. It’s the little push thing that she can also sit on. She also got a cool ball blowing toy that also plays music from Joy, musical maracas and 2 super cute dresses from Brenda, a cute outfit and book from Theresa and a crocodile xylophone from Tammy and Mark. Hours of entertainment, that is for sure!

It really turned out to be a great time for everyone. And I’m really happy Sienna got to enjoy her first birthday party with some very cool friends of mine. I did not want to have a big blow out party so I did not invite a ton of people so I’m glad people showed up despite the rainy weather. My patties and dumplings were well received too!

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We had a pretty filled weekend! I started and finished 2 projects and am almost done with another one! Peter came over and made ricotta cheesecake with me and I helped Tammy with her baby registry at Buy buy Baby (which is soooo much better than BRU! I wish we knew last year!) So much stuff going on that I will have to make 2 posts about it! Today I’ll show my crafts because I am so proud of myself!

I’m almost done!! I still have to sew them all together and make the edging. It should be interesting to see it once it’s sewn because not all the squares are completely square! I guess I crochet unevenly. Must be from the muscle I pulled in my right arm from doing all this crocheting! And do you notice the little hand reaching for it? She took all of them (minus the 3 she couldn’t reach) and threw them all on the floor one by one!

And remember the onesie from my MIL that I said I would make into a t-shirt? I did it!!

It looks great on her!

The third project is a wristlet I made for Tammy. I was trying to think of something to get for her that is useful and thoughtful. I’ve used this pattern a few times and use the bag I made for myself everyday. I’ve gone through at least 3 different types of diaper bags, all of which I’m not completely satisfied with and the wristlet is very useful in this aspect. I can keep my wallet, keys, tissues, chapstick, etc. all within super easy reach. The diaper bags usually end up getting too stuffed once I put a few of my things in there and who wants to carry an extra purse? So the wristlet is perfect and I thought Tammy would like one. She likes Day of the Dead so I got this fabric online and started it Friday night and finished it Saturday morning. I probably would have finished it Friday night if I didn’t run into a couple of problems!

The pattern calls for one long piece for the outer layer, which essentially gets folded in half. Because of the nature of the fabric, if I did that, the skulls would be upside down on one side. I thought I was being so smart that I realized this before the fact! So I just cut it into 2 pieces and ironed it on the interfacing (which I kept as one long piece) opposite sides. I continued with the bag, did the corners pretty well and then turned it right side out.

Oops! Forgot about the rough edges! I totally spaced on this because I made another bag with similiar type of fabric and I did not leave any rough edges. I was kinda bummed about having to undo the corners that I tried to be clever and just sewed the bottom without undoing the corners. Did not work out. In the process of this, the needle broke on my machine! A first!

So it was getting late and Sienna and Yves were waiting for me for dinner so I had to continue this Saturday morning. Plus I had to rip out the seams of the bottom and did that Friday night in front of the tv.

Fixed! Yay! Tammy loves it!

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My re-interest in crocheting has not yet waned and I was excited to try a different kind of scarf (for me) from a pattern at crochet me. I would have prefered a darker yarn but after first starting with black and then brown, decided pink was the easiest to deal with so I can see the stitches since I had to count! Skippy models it here:

I really liked how it came out and maybe I will wear it but would prefer to give it to someone who likes pink scarves so if you know anyone, let me know!

So I came across this really cute rug that I wanted to try. Quite an ambitious project for me but I really liked the colors and the cute flowers. It didn’t seem so hard after looking over the pattern so I bought all the yarn I needed online. I had a few problems in the beginning and wanted to get it right from the start so had to pull it out a few times. I swear I tried it like 10 times and couldn’t get it right so I wrote to Bernat with my problem. Well, really complaining that their pattern can’t possibly be right! haha! They made me realize I was wrong and I was counting a stitch that I wasn’t supposed to be. Look how many I’ve made now!

8 more motifs to go! Here are a couple of close ups. Aren’t the colors great?
If I manage to finish this project, I plan to make this!

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Yep, that’s right folks! I finally finished the mosaic project I started in 2005! I wrote about it last January and resolved to finish it before Sienna was born. HA! The post can be found here. At least I finished it before Sienna’s first birthday! I’m not sure how I feel about the completed project yet. I’m still feeling the glow of having completed it and finally crossing it off my list. I still have to clean up the glass a little bit.

Full piece.

Up close shots.

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I have successfully finished 2 crochet projects, amigurumi animals I got from the Lion Brand website. I like those patterns a lot better than the first patterns I got because they tell you how many stitches are in each row so you can count to make sure you are on the right track. I’ve lost interest in finishing the hats for the snowball family (as Yves calls them).

I don’t think I even took a picture of the complete family. Anyway, I was so happy when I finished the snowman!

So I made the bunny.

Everybody likes the bunny…

And bunny likes coffee!

And Sienna is watching Martha Stewart so she can start her own crafts. Or multimedia empire!

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For the holidays, I did a lot of pretzel related treats. I made a lot of chocolate covered pretzels for Yves’ co-workers, the ‘band’ and the neighbors. I made paper snowflakes out of origami paper to cover up the containers. I wasn’t really thrilled with them so only did them with Yves’ co-workers. For the tops, I printed out vintage Christmas ads.

I also made a butterscotch crumb apple pie. I was curious about how butterscotchy the crumbs were going to taste. At first, I didn’t really taste it. It’s subtle and I suppose it’s better than it being overpowering.

I made more pretzel treats for Liz and her family and this time included the candy cane kisses because I know she’s a fan of peppermint and chocolate, just like I am. Plus I forgot how to make peppermint bark.

And I made some ice cream with the maker Yves got me for Christmas! I only made half the recipe because the full recipe sounded like too much for just us. Yves was very good about making ice for a couple of days because you need 8-10 lbs. We found rock salt at the supermarket (the same as the sidewalk rock salt when it snows). It wasn’t as hard or complicated as I thought!

This is what it looks like after churning for 40 minutes. It’s supposed to stop automatcally but because I didn’t use the full recipe, I stopped it myself. It didn’t taste bad! A little too sweet for our tastes tho but now I can revise it for the next batch. I originally put more ice and rock salt around it to harden the ice cream but Yves said why not put it in the freezer? So I did! The cover is a pain tho because it doesn’t snap closed.

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In the quest to keep our dining room table as clutter free as possible, I made this “chair backpack.” Well, I actually made the tote part a few months ago while testing out making a tote bag from t-shirts and then abandoned the project when I didn’t know what to do about straps. I had cut up the first t-shirt too much and couldn’t use the scraps for a strap and even tho I cut the 2nd shirt better, I felt it needed double fabric in order to hold the bag well. Plus I didn’t exactly plan it out because the bag is kinda long. Then I came up with this idea in the middle of the night and decided to use the fabric ribbons that Theresa gave me from all her wedding gift packages from Pottery Barn. It really is such a nice ribbon. Anyway, I’m quite proud of this idea!

I also just started getting into crocheting Amigurumi animals and got this snowman ornament pattern here. I obviously messed it up somehow realizing it was kind of big for an ornament and Tammy pointed out from the instructions that the total height was supposed to be 4.5 inches. So it’s off by a few inches…You can’t win them all! I am in the process of making a baby snowperson and used a smaller hook so I’ll show the whole family when I’m done.

Then I wanted to make treats for the holiday mixer last week and I didn’t have the energy to make a ton of different cookies like last year so I found these real easy and simple pretzel treats.

Setting out the pretzels.

Loading the kisses on top. I think these might have been the caramel kisses.

I think the most time consuming thing was unwrapping all the kisses.

The finished product!

I made plain kisses with plain M&M’s and caramel kisses with plain M&M’s. The leftovers were given to the bowling people at the bar last week and Brenda also took some home. I’ll be making more tho unless I end up eating all the kisses and M&M’s.

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Earlier this month I got another wooden shelf for Sienna’s room to get all the stuff off of her changing table. She’s getting taller and with her constant kicking, she’s kicking all the stuff off her table! Yves got a picture of me painting it.

And here it is up!

A close up detail:

And I don’t know if I ever showed the smaller shelf I painted:

Yves asked me to make something to hold Sienna’s mittens and hats to put by the door for the wintertime.

And he had to help me put the eyelet in since I couldn’t figure it out no matter how hard I banged on the hammer! (Turns out I was just doing it wrong.)

Here’s the one I made for Yves’ hats and gloves. And maybe I’ll put my one hat in there. I think the 2nd girl from the left looks like Britney Spears. LOL

And although this isn’t really crafty, more resourceful or gluttonous, depending on how you look at it! LOL. I made cranberry bars from the leftover sauce from Thanksgiving and potato/turnip pancakes also from the leftovers. They both turned out yummy!! I’m on a roll! And I will literally be rolling if I don’t stop this eating!

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I crocheted a pair of leg warmers for Sienna last week. Since I haven’t crochet in awhile, I kept it real simple. Just a grey pair, single crochet. I tried to make a cuff in the first few rows by using a small hook and then switching to a bigger hook but I don’t think that made much difference. Here’s a video of her demonstrating them for us (try to ignore her parent’s goofy singing but I know you’re not going to).

She’s a Maniac from Lisa on Vimeo.
Then we went for a walk over the weekend and put them to the real test. It was meant to go over her pants but because this particular outfit had a wider leg, I put it straight onto her leg. They were a tad too big as they kept falling off but am confident they would stay on over pants.

The gloves go with the hat she’s wearing in the below picture but they are too big for her hands. The hat is a little big too but it’s better than the gloves. And they can’t fall off and get lost.

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