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.

Shaman beer cozy and Etsy avatar

Today is Craig's 34th birthday! We aren't doing anything special yet....just in case he doesn't have a job come Saturday.

But of course I still had to make him something :) It's a beer/glass cozy of a Shaman (his World of Warcraft character) symbol. I wanted it to look a little rough around the edges...to help it look a little more masculine. Of course after uploaded this picture I see stray fuzzies haha.

I also have been working on a new avatar for my Etsy site, and so far I have this one....which I'm not entirely happy with. I tried shrinking down some of my ami's to place on it...but you have to shrink them down so low that you cant really tell what they are. I think I am either going to lighten the background, or just make a whole new one.



I'm also trying to work on a Valentine's theme for my blog...but making backgrounds has never been my strong point. I'll keep working on it though!

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.

Wine Embroidery, Ninja Turtle Beanies and More!

I was planning on visiting my parents today to drop off Christmas gifts and go to the mall to try and find pants that fit for Craig's grandparents house heh....but I still was not *quite* done with all the gifts I needed to drop off. So today I'm finishing the last 2 gifts and baking, and tomorrow I'll go to San Jose.

I embroidered this little picture for 1 set of grandparents, and I got the image from Urban Threads.
This is before I ironed it obviously lol. I'm also doing another picture for the other set of grandparents that I need to finish up today.

If it's kind of hard to see, it says "I love cooking with wine, sometimes I even put it in the food."






I also made some Ninja Turtle beanies for some friends...which I hope they don't read this blog haha. The only thing I wish I did differently was to cinch the middle between the eyes, I couldn't decide on which way I liked better...and now that I mailed them I wish I cinched it.



Craig and I got way spoiled by our friends in Alaska....look what they sent us!

Top left to right:

- Blue Alaska princess shirt for me, which my belly is to big for at the moment haha, but it will be great after
the baby!
- Chocolate Moose slipper socks for me which I loooooooove.
- A remember Alaska Once in a Blue Moose tote for baby stuff.
- 3 CDs for Craig from 36CrazyFists.
- Alaskin Yoga t-shirt haha it's awesome.
- A cookbook for the Ulu they sent us.
- 2 onesies...one is a polar bear skull and crossbones :), the other says "Alaska Grown"
- A really pretty and soft shawl for me, which is currently on the back of my chair in case I need it.
- An "Alaska Grown" shirt for Craig that matches the babies.
- An Ulu. It's a type of cutting tool that is popular over there...I'm glad for it because our knives suck, I had to keep asking Craig to help me cut the sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner.



My parents also gave us our Christmas present early...a mixer! Yay! Baking will be MUCH easier now!

Christmas Ornament Swap

I signed up for a Christmas Ornament Swap over on Craftster, and I was done within a week. I guess that's what happens when you aren't currently working ;)

I'll put bigger pictures up on Flickr when my partner receives her package.








We didin't really have any specifications, except for it to be Christmas related. So I crochet a retro Christmas ornament with Roxycraft's awesome pattern. The pattern calls for it to be crochet in the round, but I did it in a spiral...it's just an easier technique for me. I used Caron Simply Soft in a Cranberry color, and Patons Divine Brilliant in the sparkly silver. They were out of the sparkly red, but the cranberry yarn had a sheen...so it worked. It looks much more vibrant in person, I had JUST gotten my new camera that day...so I was still figuring it out :)





I got the santa ornament idea from her wists, there was a beautiful handpainted santa face with a white fluffy feather perfectly glued on top. Well I cannot paint that good heh, so I got those rub-on faces at Michaels and just used that. In place of the feather I just glued some white fluffy yarn. It is a little crooked, but it's still cute :)



The embroiderd ornament is just a little snowman with the words "Let it Snow" above him. Super easy and it only took maybe an hour.



At Michaels I found some Candy Cane Pop Rocks which I thought were pretty cool, and a little tube of holiday M&M mini's. The Hello Kitty Christmas stickers are from the $1 section at Target, and the take out box I stuffed with packing peanuts for the santa ornament.

My swap partner should be receiving her package any day now, so I hope she doesn't find this post first! :)

Since I'm crazy and love crafting, today I signed up for another Christmas swap!