Baby shower projects and crochet baby cocoon

I've been really lacking on the posts lately, but I've been busy! I had my baby shower last Saturday and I was working on projects for that. I made around 100 truffles as party favors, along with Sculpy peapod magnets! I also made a couple of sunflower arrangements, but I don't think we got pictures of them. Oops.

If you want to see pictures of the shower, my Dad has photos on his Flickr, not sure if you need to "friend" him or anything.

I made S'mores Truffles, which were definitely my favorite...they were so rich!



And here is an assembly line for the rest of the truffles, Lime Coconut, Mint Oreo and Strawberry Lemon Cake Balls.





Here are some of the Sculpy Pea Pod magnets...



It was so much fun! I feel very fortunate :)

A friend of ours is also having a baby girl (due today! Or yesterday, I forget hehe) so I wanted to make her one of those crochet papoose/cocoons...and here is what I came up with. It is cloudy outside so I couldn't get a great picture...hopefully I can get a better one later. EDIT: Here is a better one:



I don't have a baby yet to model, but here is a teddy bear.



It measures 17 1/2 inches long, and 11 1/2 inches wide. It super warm and fuzzy and was made with two strands of yarn. I'm also going to make a little felt cupcake applique and embroider her name on it...I have to finish it today so I can mail it out tomorrow!

I wrote up the pattern and am putting it up in my Etsy shop today if anyone is interested :)

Tea Embroidery and Strawberry Banana Muffins

Here is the tea embroidery that I mentioned on Twitter yesterday. I realize this is not a very good picture, but it took me forever to put in the frame last night....so I wasn't about to take it out and do it again :)

I just drew a mini version of my crochet tea set, and embroidered "Tea is Serenity" under it. I used all six strands of embroidery floss to try and make a nice thick outline, but I didn't realize that it doesn't work like that if you have a small image! Ah well, I know for next time :)



I also made some yummy strawberry banana muffins from The Crepes of Wrath! You have to try them, they are super easy and delicious. I think I slightly undercooked mine, but they still are fine.



I need to go run some errands, but when I get back I'm going to start on a cupcake beanie pattern for toddlers!

Oh! I forgot to post about these Blueberry Peach Sour Cream Muffins from Coconut&Lime. The recipe doesn't call for peaches, but I had some frozen ones that I thought would be good. I really liked these, the sour cream keeps them from being to sweet and the peaches were nice and soft. The batter is SUPER thick though, I thought for sure I did something wrong, but nope! They came out perfect.



I don't know why I make muffins every week, Craig might have one of them....then it's just me having one for breakfast. I need to start bringing stuff to my brother or something.

More Christmas gifts and Muffins

Christmas was better then I expected this year. The drive down to L.A. took around 7 hours because there was horrible weather through the Grapevine, but for me it went super fast since I just crafted the whole time....Craig drove it all! I had no problems driving, but he wanted to.

Christmas Eve was just spent driving to L.A. and when we got there his Mom had some tamales and soup, and we rented the movie Traitor. It was just nice and relaxing, and I ended up falling asleep at like 10pm lol. I don't think I've ever been to sleep on Christmas Eve that early!

The next day we got up around 8 and were at Craig's grandparents house in Laguna Beach by I think 2pm or so. I brought all those cookies/truffles that I made a week before, and I was so happy that everyone LOVED them. They were all impressed....I thought it was kind of funny since I made the easiest things ever lol.

We then opened presents and we got a lot of giftcards for the baby, which is awesome :) One of Craig's cousins put on the scarf I made her and never took it off...it was still on when she left! I'm glad she liked it so much.

On Sunday we went to my parents house for Christmas and that was a lot of fun! We had pizza and Rave cake, exchanged gifts and my grandparents came over for a bit.

I had made this for my Dad's parents since they've been to Japan a few times, it's an embroidered cherry branch. The pattern is from Urban Threads.



This was for Craig's grandparents since they LOVE birds...they have bird stuff all over their house. Unfortunately I bought a cheap frame and couldn't get it unwrinkled no matter how hard we tried...I actually didn't finish it until Christmas morning so we couldn't even run to the store for a better one. That was pretty disappointing, but I told his grandma she could always switch frames if it bothered her, and she just said "Oh! I thought it was supposed to look like that!" I guess that's a good thing? :P

The picture sucks because I was in a hurry and there was horrible lighting in the room. Pattern from Urbanthreads.com again.




This Tinkerbell pattern took so much longer then I thought it would, but I also usually only make tiny ami's. It was so worth it though. I think she is super adorable...even though I couldn't figure out the second half of the arm pattern, so I just made one up! Pattern from Crochetfaery on Etsy



I also made my Mom this Tinkerbell phone/card holder which was just made out of felt, embroidery floss and a Tinkerbell applique from Joanns.



For my brother I made him a Triforce scarf from Zelda. I don't even know if he's gone to my parents house to get it yet though!



And because I was hungry, I made cranberry orange muffins :)

....the boxed kind from Trader Joe's lol.

Christmas Gifts and Baking

Today I'm going to my grandparents house, but I wanted to share a few pictures first. I've finished*most* of my Christmas gifts, and here are a couple of pictures that I know the recipients wont see first :)

2 "One Skein Scarves" from the book The Happy Hooker by Debbie Stoller. These are super easy and really cute, so I made them for Craig's 2 cousins. I also might make one for Shellie, depending on if we do anything for her birthday. The green picture here was taken at night so the color is a bit off, but it's a nice Olive green. Both were made using Caron's Simply Soft Eco yarn.





I also attempted freehand embroidery on a onesie that I'm going to give to Craig, it just says "Punk", but I made the U into a smiley because it was so huge lol. It's not the best looking, but eh I'm sure the baby wont mind :)



I also spent yesterday baking, and I think I might make 1 more thing, depending on if I finish my crochet projects.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies. While I really really love the flavor of these, I do wish it was more of a chewy cookie recipe instead of cake-like. Next time I will try adding banana to a chewy recipe :)



Beinjinho de Coco aka "Little Coconut Kiss". I was actually surprised how chewy these were, they are definitely more of a chewy candy then a cookie like I thought they would be. Craig said "Grats babe, you invented a new gum!" LOL. They aren't that chewy, but I think he wasn't expecting chewy either.These don't get a fancy plate because my dishwasher is the size of a toddler, so paper it is :)

This recipe is pretty much the one I used, except I omitted the cloves and rolled them in a mixture of powdered/granule sugar and coconut flakes.They have a slight natural coconut flavor, and they are really neat. I think they would be better as like a gift for a little kid, dyed all crazy colors.



I didn't get a picture of all my baking since I wanted to put it in tins asap, but I also made Martha Stewart Pecan Squares and omigosh they are so good! Superediculoustupid (can you read that? lol) fattening, but oh so good.


Chocolate Cream Cheese Truffles mmmm these are my favorite of everything I made. So good, so chocolaty and tangy....and cheap to make! They are a bit soft, but I'll just tell them to keep them in the fridge or something. I wont post her image here, because I love her site so I don't want to take her bandwidth.