Flower Bud Baby Hat!

Just wanted to pop on to show you my latest creation while Little Bear is still napping!  

Behold!  The Flower Bud hat! 

 I saw a picture of one similar on Etsy and I just had to make it!  It for some reason brought back memories of my Grandmother reading my sisters and I The Stories of the Root-Children. (her inscription on the book reads 1992!)    

I think it turned out pretty cute!  This one I made in a 3-6 month size, but I plan on making a couple more in different colors and sizes for my craft show next month!  And Little Bear thinks I need to make one for his little sister!  :) 

I am always looking around my house to find things to display/take pictures of my crochet items on, today I found my husbands Death Star Pez dispenser and thought it would work fabulously!  

Hope everyone has a lovely week!  

Up, Up and Away!

Oh my, I haven't posted since September.  I just looked at my last post and I am seriously craving a Tomato Tart!  I'll have to get the supplies tomorrow!  

Little Bear is now 2 years old!  I can't believe it!  He sure keeps me busy, and has such a personality!  And we are expecting a little girl at the end of September!  

I've been trying to get my Etsy shop off the ground after not doing much with it for a while!  Emily's Hook Nook (if you want to check it out!)  And be sure to check out and like my Facebook page!

I am also gearing up for my next Craft Show at the end of July!  (will post the details once it is confirmed I will be participating!)  It's outside and I am already praying for a nice day!

Thanks for stopping by!

    

Such a Tart (Tomato Tart!)

If you are looking for a yummy recipe to use some of the tomatoes from your garden, look no further!  This Tomato Tart is a real winner.  My husband stated "it was the best thing I have ever eaten!" and "I could eat this everyday."  He probably could too (I made him this tart last week for when I was away and he ate the ENTIRE THING in one sitting!)

I found the basic recipe on the Sargento Website a while ago and now for the life of me I can't find it... Oh well.

What you'll need:

1 - 9 inch pie crust (bring to room temp)
1/2 cup or so balsamic vinegar
2 medium ripe tomatoes
1 cup and 1/2 or so shredded mozzarella cheese  (or so means I don't exactly measure it out...)
Fresh basil to taste

First put the balsamic vinegar in a small sauce pan on the stove on med/low and let it reduce until you get a thick syrup of about 2 or 3 tablespoons (it will be very sweet and sticky).  Keep stirring and watching it because at the end it goes really quick and you could easily burn it.

Meanwhile, Preheat your oven to 375.


On a sheet tray unroll the pie crust (you could totally make your own pie crust, but usually that stresses me out.)

Put 1 cup of the mozzarella cheese on the crust making sure to leave a 1 inch border.

Slice the tomatoes and arrange them over the cheese in a single layer.

Drizzle the balsamic vinegar syrup over the top of the tomatoes.

Top with the remaining cheese and sprinkle with some freshly torn basil leaves.

Working your way around the tart pull up the sides and crimp them together.

Stick the tart in the preheated oven for 20-25 min or until the cheese is golden brown and bubbly.  (Honestly ours took 30 minutes, but every oven is different)

Once out of the oven let stand 5 minutes or so, until it stops percolating and appears less molten.

Slice into 4 or 8 slices and top with some more freshly torn basil leaves.

 

Enjoy!!

Gonna be a long night

It's almost one in the morning and I am sitting here rocking my son back to sleep for the third time tonight.  Every time I have gotten him back in his crib he has woken up almost immediately. (Guess I still need to master the art of tip toe.)

He's not very happy with me, I am trying to night wean him.  We went to the dr. a couple weeks ago and long story short the doctor pretty much thinks I'm nuts that I usually get up with little Bear two or three times a night (sometimes more... Sometimes less) I may be a little unbalanced but I think that may because of the lack of sleep.  Anyways, I was all gung ho about it right after the appointment and we actually had a couple good nights (after a really bad one...) But then he started cutting a tooth and it was so much easier nursing a cranky teething baby back to sleep...  And here we are back to square one. I realize consistency is the key, and there will always be a reason not to wean him, but at this point there are so many more reasons to night wean him (I am sick and tired of falling asleep in the rocking chair, my neck has had a permanent crick for over a year.)

Tonight I was going to try a variation of Ferber's cry it out but after 20 min I thought I was going to have a stroke...

Any night weaning tips to share out there ladies?  And any tips on overall weaning? 

Going to put him down in his crib now, cross your fingers for me!

Insta What?!

I have a new favorite thing.  Instagram.  I LOVE it! I know the point of it is to be another social media phenom and you are supposed to follow many people and have many people follow you and like your photos.  But I just love all the filters and making my photos look cool.  So far I am only following 3 people and have no followers. 

(If you want to follow me, my instagram name is ebsterling)

Here are a couple of my pics!

My new business card!  

Two new coffee cup sleeves for my etsy shop!

Eminem Showers

Today was my hubby's first day back to school after a two week break. (He's a math teacher) We did not get off to a very good start. Every school day I set my alarm for 5:45 am so that I can make him coffee. This morning I must have turned off my alarm with out waking up. My second alarm did wake me up almost an hour later, and also woke Little Bear (who I was hoping would stay asleep...) Grrrr.
My hubby likes to listen to music while he gets ready though usually the baby is still sleeping so he can't.  This morning we were treated to Eminem's angry rap music... What ever gets him rolling.
So I'm feeling kind of blah so I decided to make myself a cafe mocha. Yum! I put a couple spoonfuls of hot cocoa mix in the bottom of my favorite pink mug, and poured some hot coffee over it. Added a splash of milk (too cool it down) and a sprinkle of splenda.  Four large marshmellows top it off rather nicely!

AHHmazing

So sorry it's been so far between posts.  My hubby is on break from school!  It has been nice to have him home, but he sure does use the computer a lot!  (it's that Fantasy Football time of the year again, it's this season, fall through February that I wish I had my own lap top, but I am extremely happy I have my smart phone!)  Eh, it's all good, I've been busy with a couple million projects!

In honor of the start of football season.  I'm gonna add this cozy to my etsy shop!

Yarn crafters do you ever start a project with full intentions of giving it to someone else (or in my case selling on etsy) and then you fall in love with it and don't think you can bear to part with it?  I found this yummy yarn in the clearance bin at Joann's.  It's Lion Brands Amazing in Vineyard, normally $6 or $7 per skein, on sale for less then $2.  Yes Please!!  It's a blend of acrylic and wool fibers and with its subtle change of colors (purples, pinks, greens, oh my!) I thought it would make a perfect circle scarf!

It worked up quickly with my K hook, each one of the beautiful vineyard colors merging into the next.  The fabric it created was so light, but warm at the same time.  When I was finished I knew that it had to be mine.

Thank goodness I bought two skeins!

Finished!  

I think it suits me!  

Here's a Toast

Funny how things change isn't it?

I remember when I was little and my parents burnt toast, they would take a butter knife and scrape off the edges over the sink (we are not talking charcoal here, just a bit too crispy around the edges)  For some reason I never liked when they would do this.  "Why don't they just make me another piece of toast?" I thought, "I will never do that to my kid's toast!"

Well one day I was fixing breakfast and got a bit distracted trying to do eight things at once, and the baby was yelling, and the edges of the whole wheat toast in the toaster got burnt (which really doesn't take very long as our toaster is about as hot as the sun....) I quickly pull out the toast and guess what I found myself doing?  Yup, you guessed it!  I scraped off those burnt edges, cut it up into bite sized pieces and served them to Little Bear, which instantly stopped his yelling.

I get it now.  :)

Nap time is cleaning time...

At least today it is...  Usually it is nap time is craft time.

It's hard to believe but today is my husband and I's four year anniversary.  We decided no flowers, no gifts, and no cards.  I still want to do something nice for him so for the past couple of days I have been chipping away at the mess that is our bedroom.  I know that the mess drives him crazy, and it is pretty much all my fault.  (In my defense I am hardly ever in our bedroom for longer than 2 or 3 hours at a time...) It is slowly but surely getting better though, at this point it only looks like my closet exploded.

I also crocheted us matching turquoise coasters (the ones we use now have seen better days.) and I made a set of crocheted bowls one to put spare change from my pockets in, and the other to keep the jewelry I wear most often in.  (I also made a coaster for my cell phone to sit on, I HATE the sound of it buzzing against my nightstand when someone texts me or the alarm goes off.)

Little Bear is napping now, lets hope it's a long one!!

Wish me luck!

Coasters!  The big one is for my cell phone (or a giant mug of coffee!!) 

Little bowls!  

Oh so stack able, aren't they cute??!!  

Oh dear... I hope my neighbors weren't looking...

I got Little Bear down for his afternoon nap and wanted to change my clothes, so I  tiptoed down stairs to get my shirt, on my way I noticed that something needed to be thrown out, from there I noticed that some dirty laundry needed to be put in the hamper, after that I noticed something needed to be put away.... Every time I got something straightened up or put away I saw something else that needed my attention.  Then I noticed I still had not put on my shirt and that I was in fact walking around in front of the windows with the shades wide open....

We Have Lift Off!!

Oh man, have I been a busy Mama the last couple of days!  I like being busy though!

Little Bear has started walking, he's not completely done with crawling but he's getting better and better at balancing.  Last Thursday he walked the longest amount, though I couldn't tell you how many steps he took.  When he fell forward towards his Daddy he started clapping for the first time.  (Can you tell how we were cheering him on?!)  I was so proud of him!  And he certainly looked proud of himself!

I have recently been trying to catch his walking on video, I've got a couple short snippets, but they are all kind of blurry and well, really short...  

A new purpose!!

Huggies baby wipe bin, cute pattern! 

If you are a mom like me you have probably had a couple of these baby wipe bins laying around your house.  (At one point we had baby wipes in multiple rooms, you know, just in case.)  Now that we don't need as many of the boxes I have been looking for ways to re purpose them.  I know in the past I have seen them reused as crayon holders.

I turned mine into a yarn dispenser!  They are the perfect size to hold a ball or two of yarn.  It has a built in slot where the wipes would feed through.  And since it's made for a child's item there are no rough edges that you could snag your yarn on!

I had tried to use a Folger's 29 oz (HUGE) plastic coffee can for this same purpose, but I couldn't get the smell of stale coffee out of it, and I don't want my projects to smell like gross stale coffee!    

There's not really much you need to do to turn the wipe box into a yarn dispenser.  Once you have used all the wipes make sure the inside is clean and dry.  Then just stick the yarn you are using into it, feed the end of the yarn through the slot, close the lid, and viola!  You are ready to crochet and knit away with out having to worry about your yarn balls flinging across the room and being stolen by your toddler/dog/cat/monkey/etc....    

Yarn!! 

Beginnings of a project! 

If you have any great ideas for re purposing these baby wipe bins please feel free to comment below, I would LOVE to hear them!!

Thanks for reading!

Oh Mr. Coffee!

Why hello there Mr. Coffee!

I'm working on a couple new projects to put on my etsy shop!  This is my newest coffee cup cozy design.  I love him...  Kind of 007 esq?  Or for when you want to bring your coffee to a black tie affair?  

Sure wish it was full of coffee and not just my demo cup full of scrap yarn...

Have a great day!  Thanks for stopping by!

  

Cupcakes!

Yesterday I was in the mood for something sweet.  So I hit up etsy.  Keywords: crochet, baby, hats.

AWWWW, so sweet!!  (except for the ones that use creepy dolls as their models, Yikes!!)

I stumbled upon a super cute cupcake hat and knew that Little Bear NEEDED one. I don't know why I couldn't have found it before his birthday.  It would have been an awesome first birthday photo prop.  Oh well...

So I started crocheting, a pattern forming in my mind.  Had to rip it out a bunch of times.  It got later and later, but I had to finish, because if I didn't I might not remember where I was going with it, and it might not turn out right, or I might not finish it at all.

1:30 am.  DONE.  Tired, but excited that it looks so adorable.  (Maybe a little girly...) Tiptoe up to bed, lay head on pillow, cue crying baby... Of course.  Ha!

Please enjoy the pictures of our photo shoot!  It was so hard to choose just one!

The Cupcake hat

Top view

My hat model

A funny blooper pic!  Looks like Ari is trying to eat the cupcake!

Had to make a chocolate chip cookie to go with the cupcake,
gave it to Little Bear so he wouldn't rip the hat off his head, but
he wanted nothing to do with it...  

The hat would look so adorable with pink "Frosting" and bright pink sprinkles, maybe a cherry on top?!  So many possibilities!!

Petition

Hoping you all can help my husband out by signing this petition.  He has worked in  a Title One school for the past 5 years, this means it is a low income school.  By working for a low income school he was led to believe he would qualify for the Stafford Loan Forgiveness Program for Teachers.  He met all the criteria for the Program except that he started schools before October 1998, meaning that he does not qualify for the Loan Forgiveness.

By drawing up this petition we would like to bring attention to what we believe is an injustice, not only to my husband, but also to the countless other teachers who did not qualify for this program based on when they started school.

The link for the petition is here. Thank you so much for your help!!

Olympic Stitches

I LOVE watching the Olympics.  I enjoy hearing the stories of all the different athletes.  And as a newish Mom I am enjoying hearing about the Mom's of the Olympians.

I especially love watching the swimming competition.  Probably because I swam in High School and I actually understand the sport.

While watching I will be working on various projects as I try to build up my shop on etsy.  I do however get nervous for the athletes while they race, and have been known to hold my breath as they complete their final lap.  I noticed this morning during the time trials that as they got closer to the finish, my stitches got tighter and tighter.  (If you crochet/knit you know that if your stitches aren't mostly uniform, the end product could look really wronky...)

Needless to say I had to rip out a couple rows.  I may want to put down my crocheting during the Phelps/Lochte 400 IM tonight!!

Lotion Headaches

I want to write about something that has irked me for a couple of weeks.  Maybe by writing about it I may not be so annoyed anymore.

Two weekends ago I got a coupon for a free 2 oz lotion at Bath and Body Works.  As someone who is trying to live more frugally it is not a store I hit up often anymore.  I had been out to the mall to visit the yarn at Michael's, so I figured I would stop over and get my free lotion.

I get up the counter, with my coupon, and of course the woman wants to sell me something else.  I politely decline. (I understand that the store uses those coupons to get people in the store so they buy more than just the free lotion.  They don't figure there will be people like me who will just get the freebie.)  Then the girl looks me up and down and asks rather harshly 'haven't you been in here earlier today?'  Here manager who was standing right there said. 'No she hasn't.'

I was so embarrassed, I took my lotion and left.  I think it bothered me because I generally consider myself a decent person.  When someone insinuates otherwise it hurts my feelings.

Eh, maybe I'm just too thin skinned and taking it too personally.  What do you think?

I will definitely think twice about going there again, coupon or no.

The worst part?  The lotion's scent makes my head hurt....  

Brownie Mistakes...

I am so mad at myself right now.  I fear I have made a huge rookie baking mistake, and I broke one of my dieting rules.

My husband's work is having a picnic tomorrow, and he asked me to make something for it.  I didn't know what I was going to make until I looked in my cabinet and saw brownie mix, I had seen this recipe for Brownie Mix cookies on Allrecipes.com and thought they looked perfect.

Here is where things went south.  I usually replace the oil in recipes with apple sauce so I used some of my homemade sauce.  I have a ton of ripe bananas and I had heard you can use 1 banana/1 egg in baking.  The recipe calls for two eggs so I mashed up two bananas and mixed everything together, dropped them onto cookie sheets, and baked them up.

They needed to be baked a lot longer than the 9 minutes the recipe said, and getting them off of the pan was a nightmare.  They all got scrunched up and crumbly.  I am not even going to show you a picture of them they are that ugly.

I ate two of them because I didn't want them to feel bad, which is how I broke my dieting rule to not eat when I am by myself.  The idea is that if I have to wait to eat with someone like my son and/or my husband, then I won't mindlessly snack.  I will also be more likely to make healthier choices because I want to model healthy choices for my son.

Ugh, my husband just got home and he didn't even like the cookies.  (and he will pretty much eat anything...) He's just going to have to bring a bag of tortilla chips and salsa, cause this chick is done with baking for the night.

Anyone have any ideas on what went wrong?  Shouldn't have mixed the applesauce and banana?  Not a good idea making cookies out of brownie mix?  Let me know what you think!

        

Peace, Love And Coffee

I have been trying to get better about planning out our family meals for the week.  I do write it down, but I always end up losing that piece of paper, or it is accidentally thrown away.

I saw this neat idea on Pinterest.  Can't find the pin that I saw originally, must not have pinned it myself.  Darn!  But the idea was to use an eight picture frame as a dry erase surface for the purpose of hanging in your kitchen so you can write down what you are having for dinner each night of the week (and a spot for notes!)

Instead of using scrap book paper, I wanted to take my own photos.  I started making shapes as I was cutting up some fruits and veggies, and thought that it would make an awesome photo.  Then I went even more wacky and wrote out words with different foods.  Peace - Peas of course!  Love - toasted oats and strawberries.  And - chocolate syrup and raspberries. Coffee - chocolate chips and a Gerber Arrowroot cookie.

I found the eight picture frame on sale at Jo Ann Fabrics (plus I had a 25% off coupon!!)  It came out to be over 50% off and cost me less than $14!

I got all the pictures together, and stuck them in the frame and fell in love.  I think it turned out pretty sweet.  I think that it looks way to cool to write on, which was the whole purpose of the project!



      

Peace Love and Coffee <3

Frame with the dry erase.

I think that I won't be using it as a dry erase board.  The writing is to hard to see and it is covering up my photos!  I'll just have to think of something else!  

Let me know what you think!      

Northern Lights and Fireflies

Did you hear about the solar flare the other day?  I don't really know the ins and outs of it but apparently because of that flare it could have been possible to see the Northern Lights/Aurora Borealis right here in Upstate NY.  I have always been intrigued by them and wanted to see them first hand.

So last night we packed up our car and headed up to Lake Ontario.  We sat under the stars, listening to the peaceful sound of the waves lapping the rocks in front of us.  Fireflies made the trees look like they were sparkling.  It was a beautiful star filled night, my baby all cozy wrapped in a blanket, sleeping in my arms.  I tried to take a picture of the stars, but it just wasn't working, so I put the camera away and just LIVED it.

The only down side to our peaceful evening was the mosquitoes.  I have a ton of rather large welts all over my body, and apparently, my shirt wasn't long enough and my pants weren't high enough because I have five or six bites in a row on my lower back/butt area.  Awesome.

I am happy to report Little Bear did not get any bug bites!

We didn't get to see the Northern lights.  A little too cloudy?  Too many lights from the neighboring town?  Not late enough?  Dunno.  I do know that I will continue my quest to see the elusive Aurora Borealis.  Maybe in a couple years (or twenty) I'll head up to Alaska.  Something to dream about!