Sweet Hand-Sewing: Sock Softies & Cupcakes

Hey everyone,

       Here's a cute hand-sewing project I love to make, Stray Sock Softies and stuffed cupcakes.
The cupcake is made of felt and fabric. It has sprinkles that spell out sweet, that are beads. The swirl of frosting is just circles of felt layered on top and the little cherry is made of felt.
      My cute little frogs are made of socks ( here's the awesome book that teaches you how to make them) and fabric.
I hope this inspires you to go out and make some sweet creatures of your own!
~ Maren   

Quiche facile or easy quiche.

Ok, tired moms and women every where, here is the easiest recipe known to the world of cooking.
This is one of my go to recipes. What is a go to recipe? It's when you haven't thought about dinner and it's 5:30 pm going on 6:00, the natives are getting restless and you have brain fog.
I keep a recipe card of 7 or so easy, quick to make recipes, go to recipes.
One of my families favorites is Quiche. When I make this my family blesses my name, I become a great cook instead of the Mom who never cooks anything.

Okay, for the recipe! The one I use is from the Lion House cookbook. The ingredients are simple and fairly inexpensive: eggs, bacon, green onions, swiss cheese, and pie crust. For the pie crust you can make your own, use ready to use or my favorite Jiffy pie crust mix.
3eggs well beaten
1 cup grated swiss cheese
6-8 pieces of cooked bacon
1/4 cup of chopped green onion
1 cup of heavy whipping cream
 Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray 9 inch pie pan with cooking spray, place rolled out pie crust in pan, poke 5-6 times with fork. Bake for 5 minutes, remove from oven.
Spread Swiss cheese, crumbled bacon, green onions in the bottom of pan. Whip eggs and heavy whipping cream together in bowl, add to pie pan.  Place pie pan on a cookie sheet to avoid having to clean oven later.
I haven't had any problems with this recipe spilling over the sides but you don't want to have to clean the oven, right?
Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until firm.
This can be eaten right away or is good cold, that is if it makes it to the fridge at all. Bonne Appetite!
- Nancy

Okay Adventure fans, took me a minute to figure out how to post again. I post so little without Maren to walk me through all the steps, I am pretty lost without her.

This morning I was reading in the business section of the Deseret News (S.L.C.) about couponing vs not couponing.
For those of you who love couponing, this is not to offend your mad awesome money saving gifts. The article was saying you could save more by buying generic brands and by not buying so many processed junk foods.By looking at weekly grocery ads and planning your meals on whats on sale can save $$$.
Some plan meals by the week, month and I'm sure out there somewhere some super organized person has a years worth of meals planned.

Wow, I am just trying to figure out what to eat for breakfast, where my glasses are, and answer the phone.
I went on the website suggested Go Gingham. It has so many really interesting ideas. Check it out!

The blogger mentioned for spring break, her family is house trading. What an interesting and novel idea.
For those of you who have never heard of this, it's when 2 different households trade houses for a determined amount of time.
So say you live in Scotland and I live in England. I want to vacation in Scotland for one week. You live in England and want to vacation in Scotland for one week. You travel to my house in Scotland and stay for one week while we travel to your house in England.
You are responsible for your own meals and travel costs. Bedding and such is usually supplied by the home owners. Sound fun? Anyone want to swap houses for a vacation?     Nancy

Sweet 16 Birthday Decor

      My birthday was last month and I made the cutest decorations for my party. I made a banner out of scrapbook paper and yarn, some tissue paper pompoms, and I strung some twinkly lights. The menu was potstickers, panko chicken, chips and salsa, and cake of course! My sister made the Chocolate Mousse Crunch Cake  from the gals at Ourbestbites.com, she left out the heath bits and well it didn't exactly turn out pretty. But it tasted great! And everyone loved it! I also got some nice presents from my friends, and we played Maren Jeopardy and Accent Draw ( were everyone gets an accent and has to talk in that accent the rest of the night). We also played the tape game (its kinda like musical chairs) and Just Dance 3. We couldn't get them to leave.  Probably the best birthday ever! Sorry about the picture quality I wasn't planing on posting the decorations and food.
     ~ Maren

Isn't The Cake just lovely?

My Cousin Geogia and My Sister Josie 

Cake and icecream, don't forget the Ginger Ale

Scrapbook Banner in the background with my balloons and twinkly lights

mini orange pompoms

The guys enjoying their cake

More decorations

Upcoming Blogs

It has been so long since I have blogged. I have been quite busy with school and projects. But we are always to something crafty we just never post it. It is my goal to post my creations this year. Please support me in my crafty endeavors!

Some of the stuff I have done lately is, made cupcake pincushions, sewn a medieval top to wear to a medieval etiquette dinner, I am also working on a dress for a fashion design contest completely made of reused and recycled materials. I plan on putting up the pictures soon! But I can't promise anything.

~ Maren

Wow, it has been almost one year since Maren has blogged. She just said "I'm sure they have blogging for dummies." She wants me to check out some blogging tutorials. Man, she makes me laugh.

For those who don't know how we started this blog, it was Maren's idea to start it and being the supportive Mom that I am, I said sure.
I can count on one finger the times that I have actually posted anything. I still have to ask "Whats the name of our blog?" She says "It's posted right above the computer (On the cute bulletin board she tricked out for us).

I am blog phobic. Not afraid to read and look at other people's awesome blogs, but afraid that everyone will correct my bad grammar and what nots.
So if you're willing to read this and not judge or correct, then we have a deal.


Maren want us to post some of our New Year goals for this blog, so here's a few of mine.

1. Post some blogs, just a few to start out with, nothing major.

2. Get more followers, than our current 3. (Thanks to those 3 if you are still checking our blog site).

3. Learn how to actually take pictures and post them on this blog, because we do some freakin cool crafts and stuff.

Ok, my head is about to explode from thinking up 3 actual goals, so I will get back to my book that is calling and post again soon. Plus Buddy is saying "I got to pee".
(Our little baby chihuahua)
Peace Out everyone!

February Adventure: World's best Bread!

Hey Bloggers! Do you love homemade bread? I know we do! Making your own bread is cheap, healthy, and so tasty! Now some bread recipes aren't the easiest, but our recipe is almost fool proof. The only thing that hard about it is having enough time and having the right mixer.

Easy Bread Recipe

Makes 2 loaves

5 cups of flour ( you can do anything from all purpose to whole wheat)

1 1/2 tablespoons of dough enhancer

1/2 tablespoon of salt

1 Heaping tablespoon of yeast

1/3 cup of honey ( you can use sugar, but honey makes the bread softer)

2 tablespoons of oil

2 cups of hot water

Cooking Spray

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Briefly mix dry ingredients ( this recipe works best with a bosh).You only add 3 cups of flour at this point. Put the salt on one side of the bowl, yeast on the other. If you put the yeast and salt together, the salt will kill the yeast and your bread will be flat. Then pour in honey, oil, and water. Then the remaining flour, then mix. If the dough is too wet add a tablespoon of flour, if too dry add a tablespoon of water. Then on a low medium speed knead the dough for 8- 10 minutes ( this is the easy part the mixer does all the work for you). Turn off the oven (we just needed a warm place to rise our dough, but we don't want it hot.) Spray a clean part of the counter with Cooking Spray. (Instead of kneading the dough out on flour we are going to use oil this will make the bread less dense.) Lay down the dough and knead it, making sure there are no air bubbles. Form the dough into a ball and cut the dough in half with a knife (instead of tearing the dough we will cut it so we don't tear the gluten. It will also result in a straight edge when you cook it.) Put the dough into pans that have been sprayed and let it rise in the oven for 30 minutes of until it is double the size of the pan. Once it has risen Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes until golden brown. Carefully take out the bread and put it on a cooling rack. When cool enough to touch, slice and serve. Enjoy!