Some Knitting...

I've been doing a little knitting lately. Especially while carpooling with my husband, we always take his car and since he sometimes needs his car for work - he drops me off. I'm working on a couple of baby items for my Niece Katie, and some of my other friends/family that are expecting.

Recently, I was in the mood for a quick finish project. So I started a dishcloth. It was quick and easy and I had fun knitting it. So I pulled out some more cotton from my yarn stash and went to town on another, with an even more basic pattern. I started poking around on ravelry for other dishcloth patterns and found this one with a coffee cup on it and I had to have it! I thought it would be better done with a solid colored yarn, but I didn't have anything solid in cotton, so I went with what I had. And I think it turned out pretty good. See pictures of my other projects on Ravelry.

OC (Organizing Challenge) - The Junk Drawer

Before:

After
I need a few more baskets or something to contain the pens and stuff, but I am planning to move most of them to the office/printer desk. That's next on the list of things to organize.

I tossed a lot of things in the garbage, moved a few items to new homes like the 7 packs of gum, the box of envelopes that was causing the drawer not to open all the way and my never used palm pilot.

I was so into the organizing last night that I decided to do a couple of cupboards too, we had some stuff sitting out on the counter from packing lunches all week and I wanted it put away. I wish I had taken before shots of these cabinets because they were pretty messy!

To continue to motivate myself to catch up in the Organizing Challenge, I took before pictures of a lot of the spaces that I'll be working on. Including: under the sink, the pantry, the dreaded tupperware mess (it's in the pantry), the laundry closet and my disastrous dresser (it's so bad I didn't even take a picture of the drawers, just the top).

Organizing Challenge!

I know that I already posted about my ridiculously messy/unorganized craft room, I even took pictures, but I'm too ashamed to post them. I'll work up to it, I promise!

But I just found out that A bowl full of lemons is hosting an organizing challenge. I'm way late to the game, but I'm going to try to catch up! My husband doesn't know it yet, but he's going to help. Although he probably won't be as much help as I need, lol. This Organizing Challenge is a 21 day challenge (not counting Sundays) that started on Jan 1, so I've got a long way to go!

Here's what I've missed so far....
Day 1 (Jan 1) - Junk Drawer - mine is awful! Can't wait to knock this one out, look for a post tomorrow!
Day 2 (Jan 3) - Computer Desk - we don't really have a computer desk, both my husband and I have laptops that we primarily use while sitting on the couch. We do have a small desk for our (non-wireless) printer, so I'll be working on that.
Day 3 (Jan 4) - Tupperware Cabinet - umm, I totally need help with this one - any suggestions on how to organize my Tupperware?
Day 4 (Jan 5) - Linen Closet - I don't have a linen closet, but I have lots of closets and they all need to be organized!
Day 5 (Jan 6) - Under the Kitchen Sink - fortunately for me, under my kitchen sink is pretty clean and organized. We keep our garbage and recycling under there and a few cleaning products. It does need a good cleaning (I spill coffee grounds A LOT when emptying them into the trash can)
Day 6 (Jan 7) - Dresser Drawers - oh Lordy, this is gonna be a big one! My dresser, not just the drawers but the top too is a disaster! In fact most of my clothes are on top of the dresser and NOT in the drawers...oops!
Day 7 (Jan 8) - The Pantry - this one might kill me. I LOATHE my pantry. I can not for the life of me figure out how to organize it. We only lived in our house 6 months and I have re-organized the pantry twice. But even I discovered this organizing challenge, I was planning to tackle the pantry yet again.
Day 8 (Jan 10) - The Coat Closet - my coat closet contains a lot of thing and most of them are NOT coats. Can't wait to work on this one!
Day 9 (Jan 11) - Toy Organization - since I don't have any kids, we just have dog toys are our house. Which are easily contained. Sierra only has a few toys that she likes and a couple of bones. A bowl full of Lemons suggests organizing your own hobby area (shutter) in place of toy organization - this will take me more than one day I'm afraid!
Day 10 (Jan 12) - Laundry Room (closet) - mine is more of a laundry closet and doesn't get a whole lot of clutter (Thank goodness!) but it could use a little work. My washer/dryer are stackables, and the only storage space is on top of the dryer. I have to stand on my tip toes to reach the soap! We really need to add a lower shelf or two in there.
Day 11 (Jan 13) - The Freezer - my freezer stock get rotated fairly quickly due to space, and I re-organize almost every time I go to the grocery store, so I don't have much to do here, but it could use a little help.
Day 12 (Jan 14) - The spice cabinet - this is a disaster zone at my house. Cooking and baking often result in swearing and crying because I can't find the spice or baking supply I'm looking for. This was also already on my list projects to tackle this weekend.

Whew! I hope I can catch up!

I made...er...bread!

I love reading food blogs in addition to the craft blogs that I also love. I find a lot of recipes that way. Its great, someone else tests and posts them and then I read about it and think YUM! That's what I thought when I read this post at Branny Boils Over. I've made a couple of other things Branny has posted, like this Pumpkin Cheesecake Pie - which was excellent! So when I saw her post about Oatmeal Whole Wheat Bread, I wanted to try it. I make a mean Banana Bread, why can't I make real bread - right?? right?? um, wrong!

Here's my bread...I know, it looks like a turd. I sent this picture to my husband, he didn't have anything to say about my bread. When I asked him about it later, he said, "I can't say what it looks like." To which I replied, "I know it looks like a turd."

But, the good news is that it tastes good. The biggest problem that I had with the bread was that it didn't rise. at all, not even a little bit. I finally took it out of the loaf pans (which were only about 1/2 full) and dropped it on this cookie sheet. I had 2 "loaves" of VERY VERY dry bread dough.

I realized after the fact that I made a couple of mistakes with this bread - 1) I used the regular yeast instead of quickrising yeast. and 2) I shorted myself on the butter. I read the recipe directly off my computer and so I must have read part of one line and part of another and thought I only needed 2 TBS of butter...I needed 1/4 cup. oops.

I have another batch rising at home (I ran out of time last night) and it did actually rise. I'm not sure it rose quite as much as it's supposed to. Guess I'll find out. I used the correct yeast this time, but again I shorted myself on the butter. I almost left it out entirely. I also didn't put quite as much flour in as the recipe called for. I added the flour 1/2 to 1 cup at a time and got in about 4 cups of the whole wheat flour and about 1/4 cup of the regular flour. I stopped adding flour when my dough was smooth and no longer sticky. I wanted to make sure that I didn't end up with dry dough again. So I shall report back after I bake tonight and let you know my final grade on this recipe.

Some Goals for 2011...

You may have noticed that I haven't been blogging much lately. Life is crazy busy, which is not that unusual. But the constant state of disarray in my craft room is killing my creativity. I managed to scrape out a few Christmas presents, but it was tough.

Therefore my #1 goal for 2011 is to get my craft room in order! So I'm laying it all out here...maybe you guys can keep me in line :-)
1) Wash, iron and fold/hang all fabric
2) add shelving, starting with the closet (I think)
3) Organize thread, bobbins, ribbons, other embellishments
4) get floor picked up enough to vacuum
5) Organize sewing table
6) Remove all non-craft related items from craftroom
7) find a way to store the GIANT roll of butcher paper that's not behind the door
8) paint chairs and re-cover seats

Once the craft room is cleaned and organized (which will probably take me all year), I've got a list of projects that I'd like to work on. I've organized these into 3 categories - Make Now, Make Later and Make for Christmas 2011. So I'm going to go ahead and list these here too.

Make Now:

• Dog collar
• Patchy rug for back door
• Pointer finger pin cushion
• Laptop sleeve
• Gift sacks
• Grocery sacks
• Ruffled key wristlets
• Sewn Wrist warmers

Make Later:

• Eye pillows
• Slippers
• Gathered clutches
• Patchwork makeup bags
• Best friend gift sets
• Bed organizer
• Quilt-y scarves
• Wine glass charms
• Covered clothes pins
• Fingertip hot pads

Make for Christmas:

• Tree Skirt
• Table Runner
• Table Cloth
• Gift sacks

Keep your pets Safe!

Check it out! Get your free Pet Safety Pack from the ASPCA. Safety Pack contains a window decal to alert rescue personnel that your pets are inside and an ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center magnet.

Thanks to frugalgals.com for the info!

Button