A bit of craft

Today I'm bringing you all a completely food free post (eek!) but I'm just too terribly excited about my new lamp to wait. I had been wanting to put another light in one corner of our living room that was a bit dark. I often lay in read in this corner but the nearest light is one that shines directly into your eyes and is more distracting than helpful. Because of the layout of the furniture in the area, it seemed to me that the only option was to hang something from the ceiling.

I had been casually browsing for ideas of something to make for awhile when I found an option in a copy of ReadyMade that seemed like it would bring enough additional light while also being simple to make. My initial attempt did not come out as planned and I almost caved and hung some Ikea china balls that were hidden away. I did a little research to solve my problems and used just a mix of glue and water instead of fabric stiffener to hold the form.

I love this lamp! The warm tone of the yarn I used brings a warmth to the light in the area as well as diffusing it from feeling like a raw lightbulb. I'd like to make a few more in other sizes and textures to add in the area.

Here is another little stuffed octopus from the holiday season. There's something really rewarding about making stuffed animals. It's as if you're adding life to your home. This little guy went to live with my nephew in Las Vegas.

Coming in the future, I have a few kittie creations to share...

2009!

I know it's a new year (first post of 2009 in fact) but I still have a few things left to share from 2008. For the holidays I tried to create as many gifts as possible instead of buying them. I made a handful of stuffed animals, knit projects and of course holiday cookies. While I started all of these ambitious tasks well in advance, there's only so early that you can bake cookies without delivering them stale to their recipients. I had decided on snowflake sugar cookies and had even acquired some edible glitter to decorate them. Unfortunately, this cookie baking session was doomed from the start. I burnt whole batches and had other mishaps including dropping an entire sheet on the floor while burning my hand. In the end, the beautiful glittered and iced cookies I had imagined did not come into fruition. I'm pretty sure the end product still tasted good though, even if it wasn't as pretty as I would have liked.

Immediately following the new year was Shawn's birthday. To celebrate he got the dessert of his choice, which ended up being peanut butter cup cupcakes. I think my favorite thing about these guys is getting to say "cup cup." Ha! As you can see, they're chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter filling/frosting and peanut butter cups on top. They turned out super good. I think next time I will have to try a different way of frosting them so that they can have an entire peanut butter cup on top (and not look ridiculous). Also, I'd love to make the peanut butter frosting a bit more fluffy. It's a great consistency for the filling but a little dense on top.

Meeme and Mochi

Also, we got two new additions to our home. We adopted two 4 month old kittens from the shelter. They're adorable, loving and playful and I couldn't be happier with them. Despite not looking alike, they're actually sisters. I'm sure they will be making some appearances on this blog in the future. In fact, little Mochi is desperately trying to help me write this by walking all over the keyboard.