Nueve de Mayo 50th Birthday Celebration!

Margarita cupcakes in cups

Last Thursday was my boyfriend's brother's 50th birthday. He came into town from Las Vegas to celebrate with family and friends. The family threw him a Nueve de Mayo celebration.

Pete turned the big 5-0!

For our contribution to the fiesta my mother and I made desserts. She made Mexican spiced fudge brownies, Mexican chocolate snickerdoodles, and dulce de leche cheesecake bars. The cookies didn't excite me. The brownies were pretty darn good (and I'm not a brownie person) they were gone quick. The dulce de leche bars turned out good too. I was surprised when I tried one. I wasn't a fan of the individual components but they came together nicely. I don't know what I was thinking. I didn't get a picture of any of her desserts!

Margarita cupcake cake

 I made margarita cupcakes and ice cream tacos. I thought the cupcakes turned out really good. I used this cupcake recipe from the blog Tide and Thyme and this frosting recipe from the blog The Kitchen is My Playground. The ice cream tacos were a hit. They actually looked like tacos! and they tasted good.

Ice cream tacos

Pete had a nice birthday and got a chance to visit with his friends and family.

You can follow my mother on Pinterest here.
You can follow me on Pinterest here.

Crochet Tote Bags

It has been a while since I've posted anything. I thought today I'd share a project I finished this morning.

I found my inspiration via Pinterest. I had pinned it a while ago and decided it was time to give it a try.

Lacy V Market Bag by Cathy Phillips

I'm really bad at following patterns for things that sizing isn't too important like blankets and totes. Usually though I try and follow them the first time. With this one however I didn't do that. I just used it as my guide. Turns out I'm pretty happy with the way these totes turned out.

For the first one I used Bernat Handicrafter Cotton in Emerald Isle Ombre and Bernat Handicrafter Cotton DeLux in Seaspray. I used an H-hook. The tote measures 19" wide x 15" tall.

I was quite pleased with the way the first bag came out and decided to make a second. This time I used Bernat Handicrafter Cotton in Chocolate Ombre and Lily Sugar' n Cream in Red. The colors in this one remind me of a sock monkey! I used a J-hook with the bag coming out in a 17" square.

I'm not sure which one I like better. I just want to keep going and make more. I kinda have a thing for tote bags.

Pinterest Project: Photo Strips

photo credit

I saw this pin on Pinterest and thought these were cute. I decided to make a couple photo strips of my own.

Last weekend friends of our had a beer tasting party. Like usual I took a few photos with my iPhone. Early this week I remembered the photo strips pin and knew where to start.

As fun as Instagram is, I don't like that once you edit your photo you must post it to Instagram in order to save it (has this changed since the last time I used it?) Sometimes I don't want the rest of the world to see my photos (on Instagram). Now I usually use the app Camera+.

The tutorial from College Prep involved Photoshop. I tried giving it a whirl and really had no idea what I was doing. I didn't read the directions I only skimmed them, that may have had a little to do with it. I quickly switched over to Illustrator where I am more comfortable. I still needed help and asked the boyfriend how to get my photos in the rounded square shape I wanted. (It's nice having a graphic designer around to answer questions whenever I have them!) He quickly showed me how and I was off.

 I put my photos into Illustrator (I made each pic a 1.5" square), printed them on 5x7 photo paper and trimmed them down to size. Voila! Fun photo strips to pin to our friends refrigerator next time we go over there.

Goodbye Card

At work, tomorrow will be my Thursday volunteer's last day with us. She has been there since before I started working there. I have really enjoyed getting to know her, sharing stories, and exchanging treats.

I made her a little goodbye card to show her my appreciation.

I also made some Salted Caramel Pecan Bars that I pinned from Beth of the blog Eat. Drink.Smile.
They are okay. Nothing I would have to make again though. Too many other things to try!
*Update* They were definitely better once they sat overnight (like most things!). I still don't think I will be making them again though. I would if I had all the ingredients and needed something quick.

This evening I also made Garlic and Thyme Quinoa Patties from the blog Cook Republic. They were delicious. All three of us agreed we would eat them again.
*Update* These too were more delicious after sitting. I will definitely be making these again.

A Little Procrastination

My birthday is Friday and I'm having a little party at our house. That means I need to clean. That means I'm going to get in some procrastination time.

 I've been seeing a lot of rocks/pebbles/stones, floating around Pinterest, with mini works of art on them. I've been wanting to make a few myself. I started by doodling on a few pebbles I took from the bathroom floor. We are tearing out the pebble flooring disaster that was in there and replacing it with something else soon.

I recently bought frames at Ikea for Joe's sports autographs. I decided it was time to put them up. I tried this method for hanging a gallery wall...Maybe I should have used a level?

Then I decided to make a card to send to my grandma. I made a very similar version Sunday morning for a friend who's dad recently passed. I liked the way it turned out and decided to do the same thing for this card. I liked the first one I did just a little bit better.

Now I think I am going to see if I can find/finish a valentine I started making last year. It's a good thing I'm an Aquarius; we do things in our own time.

Or maybe I'll go to bed, see if I can't be more productive tomorrow.

Art on the Cheap

Magazine ad

While cleaning my craft room I came across an ad I pulled out of a magazine. I liked both the style and content. When I pulled the ad from the magazine I had visions of the piece hanging downstairs in the bar. It needed a little work before it could be hung. That is how it made it into a stack of papers in my craft room.

To make my magazine ad worthy of hanging I had a couple of small steps to do. Although teeny-tiny I didn't like the web address and other junk printed at the bottom of the ad. I trimmed down all of the edges. I did however like the yellow border printed on the ad. I cut down a similar color piece of card stock and mounted the ad to it.
Then I went searching for a frame to put it in. I happened to have the perfect 8x10 frame. I had picked up this frame at a garage sale this summer with the intention of painting it a different color once I decided where to put it. As it turns out the blue frame with yellow accents perfectly compliments my champagne ad.

Voila. A lovely piece of art to hang in the bar. It took me longer to write this post than to do my project. And it didn't cost me a dime!

Cleaning...again

YARN!

I'm really good at getting my craft room ALMOST clean. Then it gets tricky and I stop. Then I craft and don't put things away and buy new things and set them on the floor. Then my craft room looks like this again:

What a mess!

Right now my biggest problem is yarn. I started crocheting almost a year and a half ago. I've managed to acquire quite a bit of yarn. I had it in my closet in a set of shelves, some baskets, and one of the upper shelves of the closet. The biggest problem with my setup was seeing in my shelves. The lighting in this rooms isn't very good. Then Michael's had an awesome deal on yarn in November and I bought even more yarn.

A couch full of yarn!

I bought some new storage containers and separated my yarns by color. I came out with 8 bins (reds/pinks, oranges/yellows, greens, greens/blues, blues/purples, blacks/whites/greys, browns, and 100% natural fibers)

It's kinda like a rainbow

I have so much more space in my closet with this system. It may not be pretty but I think it is going to work great!

I still have a bunch of finished and works-in-progress pieces to find a home for plus a couple baskets to go through still. But I feel like I have a much better handle on the situation.

Hats, and scarves, and blankets oh my!

I think I need to make a to do list of projects that I would like to start/finish this year. I have a lot of them and there is so much more than just yarn.

I have a bunch of crochet projects I completed the past couple of months to share soon.