Pin 204 & Pin 205: Wristlet Key Chain with Hand-stamped Charm

Original pin:

http://prudentbaby.com/2010/11/hot-mess/accessories-hot-mess/how-to-make-a-wristlet-key-fob-2/

A wristlet keychain tutorial from the ladies over at Prudent Baby.

As I mentioned a  few weeks ago, I was putting last minute details together on Teacher Appreciation week. Like last year, I was in charge of putting together gifts for the whole preschool. Since I am on a super tight budget, I am always looking for inexpensive gifts to make for the teachers. Since I have to put together so many, they have to be quick and inexpensive. These keychains seemed to be perfect. I also was able to tie the whole luncheon theme together with the keychains. As I am sure many schools experienced this year, our preschool was entirely rekeyed with strict implementation of renewed security measures. All the teachers are having to carry their keys everywhere. We made keys the theme of our lunch.

I found a super deal on the webbing and picked up some matching ribbon. I had to order the key fob sets from Amazon because I could not find them anywhere locally. Click the picture to see the kit I am referring to:


I used the one inch width.

I brought all these supplies along on my girl's crafting weekend last weekend and went to work.

I actually skipped the step on fusing the ribbon to the webbing. I was feeling a little lazy. Instead I just held it in place and sewed along. Not much later I had this big pile of ribbons and webbing.

Time to start trimming!

I discovered a severe miscalculation at this moment. I needed 21 keychains and had somehow purchased and sewn enough ribbon and webbing to make nearly 80!! I only had hardware for 25 at my retreat so I packed the excess up. Guess I'll be giving a lot of keychain gifts in the near future!! I clamped up the 25 sets I did have and went to work on step two of my project.

Original pin:

http://happyhourprojects.com/jewelry-stamping/

Metal stamping is something I have taken up fairly recently (I asked for my first alphabet set for Christmas last year) and I kind of jumped into it blindly. I need all the help and tips I can get and this tutorial had some good advice. I picked up a few new tricks and learned that some of what I was already doing was on the right track.

I wanted to do some hand-stamped metal name charms to add to my wristlets. Lucky me! My friend across the crafting table at our retreat had some cuter stamping letters than mine so I borrowed hers and went to work.

In metal stamping, it always takes me a few tries to warm up to good stamping. Here was my first attempt at a charm that night:

I was talking and twirled the L without thinking! oops.

Just like with exercising, I must always warm up my stamping fingers before getting down to the serious stuff!

The rest went much more smoothly.

After my names were all stamped up and stained, I used a jump ring to attach them to the key fob hardware.

My busy, busy work station:

All the important supplies: stamping bench, pliers, nylon hammer, glass of wine. . . 

Once they were all put together I had these little beauties ready for all the teachers!

So cute! And fit right in my budget. 

Total cost: Prudent Baby put hers together for less than $1 each, but since I added the charm, mine were closer to $1.50. Still a pretty good price. I found a comparable wristlet selling for $9.99 without the personalized charm!

Total time: These were much faster to put together than I anticipated. Again, however, due to my sweet, sweet crafting scene, I wasn't much paying attention to time. It probably took around one hour to sew all 24 yards of webbing and ribbon together. With clamping and stamping, I would estimate another 2 1/2 hours or so. . . its fuzzy--there was pineapple lush cake involved in there somewhere. . . 

Final verdict: I love the way they turned out. They were so easy! I ordered some additional hardware when I got home from my trip to put together the rest of the wristlets. Hate to ruin the surprise, but if its your birthday. . . or anniversary. . . or if you are graduating. . . . or lonely. . . you may be getting one of these!

Pin 203: Coin purse upcycle

Original pin:

No source available

What a clever way to reuse denim! Since there was no link available, there was no tutorial available either. I had to just wing it.

My friend gave me these shorts from her daughter that had been stained but had really cute pockets. She thought maybe I could find something to do with them. I had been holding on to them a long while when I saw this pin and knew it would be perfect.

I started by laying out the shorts flat and cutting outside the large seam around the pocket so I ended up with these two pieces:

I hemmed the top edge and then pinned right sides together. I stitched around the rounded edge. After trimming flipping right side out I stumbled across a small problem (like I tend to do when sewing without a pattern and/or plan. . . )  The hardware could not be attached in this way because I had sewed completely up the sides. I had to then rip out the side stitching an inch or so.

I had to rip back until the top of the flower patches.

Attaching the hardware was not easy. The type of hardware I had purchased required hand sewing. I had to borrow a thimble to hand stitch the hardware through the thick denim hem. No tears, but quite a few curse words later the hardware was attached. I had to re-sew the side seams by hand as best as I could. Phew, finally complete!  Thankfully, I was returning this to the original owner, a sweet little girl who will never notice a couple of flaws.

Don't look too closely at that hardware stitching on the end there. . . 

Total cost: A few dollars in hardware

Total time: Maybe two hours?? I did this during my crafting retreat last weekend and the time just drifted away. . . 

Final verdict: A cute idea. Next time I will try to find some hardware that isn't hand stitched on. And I will also know to leave the sides open until after the hardware is placed.

Pin 202: Chocolate Peanut Butter Marshmallow Bars

Original pin:

http://dessert.food.com/recipe/chocolate-peanut-butter-and-marshmallows-287376

L picked out these delicious little bites a few weeks ago at a potluck and he picked well. These were so delicious we had to go back for seconds.  When the event was over I ran home and searched for the recipe. Luckily I found it quickly and I just had to make them this week for our mom's group.

These could not be easier. Even my "junk builder grade" microwave whipped these together fast. It actually took the exact time called for in the recipe to melt the chocolate chips and peanut butter together.  I didn't have quite the amount of chocolate chips called for but I did have semi-sweet baking chocolate. I used a combined amount of chips and squares to equal the weight called for.

I also did not have the called for size of pan so I improvised with my 9 inch round cake pan. Guess I wasn't too prepared for this one!

I whipped this together the night before and tossed it into the fridge to cool overnight. In the morning I pulled it out ready to cut. It was well hardened to the pan so I dipped the bottom of the pan in a sink of warm water to loosen them up a little bit. Next time I will line the pan with parchment paper sprayed with cooking spray for some easy release.

Because it was round, I cut it into nice little pie slices.

Due to my larger pan size, my chocolate was not layered up quite as thick as the one in the original pin's picture but they were still delicious! They are soft and creamy and oh, so yummy! I had this burst of inspiration after I tried the first slice and here I bestow the greatest gift on you: 

Grab something to write this down because you are going to want to remember this. 

Get close to the screen so you will be able to read this important information well. 

Ready??

Cut the bars into squares and put them on a graham cracker. Ahhhhh! (Chorus of angels singing!) Like a s'more with peanut butter!  Do it!

If you leave these out of the refrigerator they will start to soften a little. You can either re-chill them or just start eating them with a spoon. 

Total cost: $0   I had all these items in my pantry.

Total time: 2 minutes!! 

Final verdict: Delicious. This is one of the easiest, fastest recipes I have found on Pinterest yet. It is my new go-to recipe for work potluck nights. I will be squishing these between a couple of graham crackers though. 

Pin 201: Baking Soda Mattress Refresher

Between working, illness, baseball, not to mention a zillion other things, I haven't been doing much pinning lately. Lucky me--this weekend I will be zooming off to a relaxing crafting retreat with some of my favorite crafting ladies. I'm hoping to have a slew of posts for you in the coming weeks. (Teacher Appreciation is coming up. . . hint, hint!) Meanwhile. . .


Original pin:

http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2012/05/the-countless-uses-for-baking-soda-besides-baking.html

Let me tell you, Jillee over at One Good Thing is one smart lady. She has a long list of great uses for baking soda. This one that I tried was a method to refresh your mattress.

Spring is in the air around here. Nothing gets me more in a cleaning mood than a cool spring day where I can throw open the windows and air the house out. Last week I did just that. I stripped the beds bare and laundered all the bedding (it was due). While they washed, I put together this concoction and went to work.

I recently bought this bottle of scent for use in another project (still looking for the final ingredient before I can try that one.) I figured there was enough here to spare a couple drops for this one.

I used about 8 drops per cup of baking soda. I whisked the scent into the baking soda so that I had a light, fluffy powder. There were a few baking soda clumps to break up.

An extreme close up of my powder!

I was staring at this trying to determine the best way to sprinkle it onto the mattress when I remembered some glass spice jars I had tucked away after they were empty. I funneled the powder into the jars and was able to fill three. I sprinkled a little more than one jar over my queen sized mattress.

An hour or so later I came back to vacuum it up. My whole room smelled delicious and fresh. I don't have any fancy attachment for the vacuum so I just climbed up there with the whole vacuum and went to town. My three year old thought I had lost my marbles.

When all the sheets and bedding were clean and dry and it was time to put the bed back together I grabbed my shaker again. Growing up, my mother would always put talcum powder on the bed when making it. It lends a nice smell and absorbs moisture. I decided this would work great for this purpose so I sprinkled the top of the mattress pad before I put the bottom sheet on. It left a nice scent and really refreshed my room.

I have a little more than a jar and a half left and I will keep sprinkling this on with my sheet changes until it is gone. I don't have carpet any longer, but if I did, this would be a good carpet deodorizer.

Total cost: I had both of the items on hand, but baking if I were guessing, it was probably less than $.30 worth of baking soda and fragrance.

Total time: 5 minutes to mix up

Final verdict: My room was so fresh! I loved it. The original calls for essential oils which I didn't have, but I did have this fragrance that worked great. I can't wait to use it again and again. The fragrance oils were so cheap that it would be easy to make a few different scents to go with the seasons.

Pin 200: Single Serving Chocolate Chip Cookie

Original pin:

http://prudentbaby.com/2012/04/entertaining-food/one-minuteone-cookie-how-to-make-a-single-microwave-chocolate-chip-cookie-in-a-minute/

What better way to celebrate my 200th pin milestone than with a warm, gooey, chocolate chip cookie??? Prudent Baby shared this recipe for making a single cookie in the microwave. I scribbled down the recipe on a post-it note and went to work.

My microwave is nothing fancy. Honestly, it is something very cheap and a little sad. A repairman once called it "a builder grade piece of junk." It has a giant crack across the front plastic but works well enough for now. All that being said, it took much, much longer to soften my butter than described in the original recipe. I would just advise you to check and make sure your butter is, in fact, softened before you continue to add ingredients. Minutes later I had stirred up this concoction in my mug.

I poured it onto my plate and popped it in the microwave for the instructed 45 seconds. Now, I know I said my microwave was a piece of junk, but this surprised me. It was so liquid that I didn't feel any amount of time would firm it up.

That is really, really sad looking.

I thought it must need more flour, or less liquid, or hmmmm. . .  I looked at my little post-it scribble and went back to the computer to discover. . . AHA! I wrote tsp instead of TBSP when it came to the flour. I scrapped the first one and started over. My second batch looked much less liquid and more like cookie dough.

I plopped this on the plate and put it in the microwave. 45 seconds later, while not completely done, it was looking more cookie-like than version one.

It is kind of hard to see in this picture, but the middle top was baked-looking and the edges and bottom were very raw looking. I put it back in for as long as it took to look consistently baked through. In all, it took about 1 & 1/2 minutes to achieve this beauty.

It looks so good in the picture it is making my mouth water. And it was good! It was very hot and melty so I ate it with a spoon. MMMMMmmmmm.

Total cost: $0 I had everything on hand.

Total time: 10 minutes for the first flop. The second one was more like 5 minutes. It took a bit to gather all the ingredients. The second time, I had some of them out already. Plus I had some of the recipe memorized. One more batch and I won't even need that old post-it scribble.

Final verdict: It was great in a pinch and great for a single serving. It was no match for fresh, oven-baked batch of chocolate chip cookies. I definitely don't need a whole batch though. It squelched a craving quite nicely. As it cooled to room temperature, it wasn't as delicious, so I would recommend that you eat it while still warm. I would also recommend a giant scoop of vanilla ice cream (BlueBell if you've got it!)

Pinprovement! French Bread Recipe

I may have said this ad nauseum, but I just love making bread. You'll probably think I'm a total dork now, but I am going to admit something to you--sometimes, when I'm making bread and it is baking and making my whole house smell delicious, it makes me cry. Absolute tears of joy. I could never go carb-free.

In October I posted Pin 144, a recipe for one hour French bread. My family liked it in its original form but it was very dense and something was just not quite right for me. I tinkered around with the recipe a little bit and found a combination that I like a little better. It is no longer one-hour, but more like 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours. Still much faster than some other recipes I have tried. I make this recipe regularly and freeze the extra loaves. When I want one, I simply pop it in the oven and soon I have fresh, hot, homemade bread again.

As I mentioned in the original post, there were a few steps that I was just itching to change up. The first one of those was the yeast.

I swapped out the regular yeast for fast rising yeast. I was looking for a fluffier bread so I wanted to use maximize my yeast activity and rise time.

My recipe looks like this:

2 1/2 c warm water
2 packages of Fast Rise yeast
2 T sugar
1 tsp salt
3 T extra virgin olive oil
7 c flour

Add yeast and sugar to warm water and let sit for 5 minutes until you see lots of bubbles. When I first started making bread, my number one mistake was not getting my water warm enough or getting it too hot. It should be 105-110 degrees or as indicated on your yeast package. My advice to new bread makers is to actually measure the temperature of your water.

After 5 minutes--I have bubbles completely across the surface.  All the white is bubbles, you can see a bit of clear water at the edges. 

Add salt and oil. Stir to combine. I make this bread using my stand mixer with the dough hooks. If you don't have one, you can stir by hand until it is too thick and then knead by hand to combine all the flour.

Time to add the flour. I increased the recipe to 7 cups. I add flour 1/2 cup at a time and allow it to mix.  The original dough was really sticky and difficult to handle. Depending on your dough and your environment, you may need a little more or a little less flour. Here is my very scientific, expert method of how I determine when I have enough flour.

The poke test:

Gently poke a clean, dry finger into the dough:

Pull finger out. If it is covered in sticky dough, it is still too wet. Keep adding flour.

When you have enough flour, the dough is pulling away from the side of the bowl more and your poke test will look more like this:

Now it is time to let it rise. My poor husband usually gets dish duty. I try to keep the dishes down to a minimum so here is a little cheat step. Doing this cheat step saves me one large bowl from dish duty.

The right way to do it: Coat a large bowl in olive oil. Place the dough ball inside, turning over once to coat all sides.

The cheater's way: LIGHTLY spray the sides of your current bowl and the top of the dough with non-stick cooking spray (like canola spray).

I also spray the side of the plastic wrap that will come in contact with the dough.

Then I put the bowl in my warming cabinet. (heehee) If you didn't read Pin 144 about my warming cabinet I like to rise in, let me sum it here. Preheat the oven to 350 for 1 minute, then turn it off. Place your bowl of dough inside and let it rise. It is perfect! My dough always rises perfectly in there, it is undisturbed and warm no matter what the actual temperature of my kitchen is.

Allow the dough to rise 30 minutes to 1 hour. The longer you let it rise, the more air pockets you create for fluffier bread. However, keep your eye on it. After 30 minutes in the warming cabinet this is how tall my dough is:

Which is also why I spray every surface with cooking spray.

Next, I spray my working surface with cooking spray and dust with flour. Punch down the dough and divide the dough into four parts. You will see in the pictures that I can not divide evenly. My loaves are always a bit differently sized so do not stress if your loaves are not even.

Place one dough ball in the center of your workspace. Cover the remaining parts with your plastic.

Pat the dough ball into a flat, long oval. Do not overwork the dough. You will know you are overworking it if you can not get it to cooperate with you. If it won't pat out to an oval and keeps bouncing back, cover it with plastic and walk away for 10 minutes or so. Then come back and try again. Starting with the edge nearest you, roll in a jelly-roll fashion to create the loaf shape. I kind of roll with a little, teensy, stretch along the way.

This may be a good time to mention herbed breads. If you want four loaves of herbed breads, you can knead in your herbs after your flour, before your rise. If you don't want to knead them in, or if you want different kinds of loaves, you can do it here. I don't like to knead them in in this step--the bread seems to get too overworked. I sprinkle the herbs on top of my oval before I roll it and it bakes out pretty evenly.

Place on prepared baking sheet.

How I like to prepare my baking sheet for bread:
Spray sheet with cooking spray. Place parchment or wax paper on sheet. Spray parchment/wax paper with cooking spray. You can also dust with cornmeal, but I don't find that this recipe needs it.

Once you have all four loaves on the sheet, cut slits in the top of each loaf. I use kitchen scissors to snip the cuts or you can use a sharp knife. Cover with plastic until ready to bake. A second rise is not necessary. I usually just let it rest while the oven preheats.

Place in a oven, preheated to 375 degrees. Bake 30-35 minutes or until your desired brownness. I like to brush melted butter on the tops as it comes out of the oven.

For a crisper crust, place a dish of hot, steaming water in the oven below the bread pan during baking.

Thirty minutes later I had these beauties (see my little runt loaf? Nothing wrong with a runt.)

The final result is beautiful, isn't it? Here is the fluffier inside:

I hope you like my adjustments! If you want a denser bread, or if you want to try out the original, go check out the link from Pin 144. 

As I mentioned in the beginning, I freeze these loaves. Wrap in aluminum foil and pop in the freezer. When you are ready to eat it, pop it into the oven, still wrapped in the foil, at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until heated through. I'm not sure how long these would keep in the freezer because we usually go through ours at about a 1 loaf/week rate. 

Good luck and Happy Bread Making!!