Baking Mode

Things I did today:

I got  up early and cleaned my kitchen, starting with 1) refrigerator, 2) cabinets, 3) pantry, 4) moping, 5) chimney.

I cleaned my chimney only to light it up again. 

We were out of bread so I thought a warm homemade loaf would be great in this cold weather.

If you own a bread machine I highly recommend this book!

The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook by Beth Hensperger

It has over 300 recipes, it also has great tips on substituting ingredients, as well as a large selection of gluten-free recipes. Some of the recipes include Daily Breads, Earth Bounty (whole grains, and specialty flours), Traditional Loaves (country and sourdough breads), pizza dough, crescents, flatbreads, sweet loaves, no yeast breads, breads with jams, preserves, and chutney, to name a few. I've bought so many bread machine cookbooks and this was the one I fell in love with!

Honey Wheat Bread

the rrecipe is easy as 1, 2, 3. The following recipe comes from the book above and is for a 2-Pound Loaf.

Place all the ingredients in the pan according to the manufacturers instructions.

Honey Whole Wheat Bread (The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook)

Ingredients

1/2 cup water

2/3 cup milk

1/3 cup honey

1 large egg

1-1/2 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces

2-2/3 cups bread flour

1-1/3 cups whole wheat flour

1 tablespoons gluten

2-1/2 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon SAF (self-acting) yeast or

   1 tablespoon plus 1/2 teaspoon bread machine yeast

I set mine to a light crust (that's how we like it at home).

This is the bread maker I have, Cuisinart CBK-200. I bought this at William Sonoma for around $130.00. It is easy to use and has 16 different programmable options, I give it a 5 star!

The scent of homemade bread set me on a baking mode so I decided to bake some Oatmeal Raisin and Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I made about 8 dozen cookies.

Oatmeal Raisin/Chocolate Chip Recipe 

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) margarine or butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2  cup granulated sugar
2  egg
1  teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2  cups all-purpose flour
1  teaspoon baking soda
1  teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2  teaspoon salt (optional)
3  cups Quaker® Oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked)
1 cup raisins or 1 cup chocolate chips

Directions

Heat oven to 375°F. In large bowl, beat margarine and sugars until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt; mix well. Add oats; mix well. Add raisins or chocolate chips; mix well. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 8 to 9 minutes for a chewy cookie or 10 to 11 minutes for a crisp cookie. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets; remove to wire rack. Cool completely. Store tightly covered.

Variations

Oatmeal Raisin and Chocolate Chip Cookies; 1/2 cup raisins, 1/2 chocolate chip.

Oatmeal Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies; 1/2 cup chocolate chip, 1/2 shredded coconut.

Oatmeal Walnut/Pecan/Almond Cookies; add pecans, walnuts, or almonds to taste to the recipe above.

Charlie The Owl

Professor Owl

I"ll be storing my cookies in my cookie jars, I don't think they'll last too long. I hope you enjoy both recipes, let me know how they turn out for you.

Until next time!

Journaling

I rediscovered the art of journaling again! I had forgotten about this mind relaxing technique. I remember growing up as a child doodling all the time. I had a passion for crayons, colored pencils, markers, glue, glitter, anything that would help me create bright, colorful, and pretty things. I was not interested in dolls, they were boring! They never talked or moved for me, it never made sense why girls loved them so much. On the other hand crayons, markers, glue, and glitter spoke to me, they would brighten my days. I was able to create things that were beautiful in my eyes, those were the things that made me happy, they also gave meaning to my life as a child and adolescent.

I love keeping myself busy with crafting items and just a couple of days ago I thought of starting a new journal full of color. I'm still trying to learn the technique of using different media together to create my art journal, it's very different to all the other journals I've done in the past. This process of art journaling is a little more time consuming than the other journals I've created in the past. The following pictures include some of my art supplies and the two first journal entries I've made. Please keep in mind that I haven't drawn in a long time and I also had never tried this technique before.

The picture above are just some of my supplies that I use for all my crafting needs. They include markers, erasers, acrylic paints, brushes, scissors, pencils, water color paints, gesso, oil pastels, decoupage gel, stencils, rulers, double sided tape, stamps, card stock, scrapbooking supplies, etc..

To start an art journal you will need either a multimedia paper journal book, I bought mine at Barnes & Nobles for about $10.00, a multimedia paper spiral is also good (you can find it at a local arts store). Other supplies include gesso (found at your local arts store), decoupage gel, acrylic paints, water color paints, brushes for your paints as well as a brush cleaner, gesso, gel, and paper towels. You will also need colored paper, embellishments, glitter, newspaper and magazines for clippings, anything that your mind can make into something beautiful and creative. Use your imagination!

This was the first journal entry I made two days ago.

 For this entry I used acrylic paints, gesso, decoupage gel, scrapbooking paper for the bird, water color paints for the tree, a green colored marker and Sharpie for the letters, newspaper clippings for the leaves, and decoupage get to paste the leaves and bird.



This is the start to my second art entry.

1)To start off, I painted my paper with acrylic paints.Using a disposable plate, I mixed  yellow and red to create this orange. I lightened the color using a bit of white and also thinned the paint towards the center of the pages by brushing it with water on the paper. I then blotted the excess water and paint with a paper towel.
2)My next step was to brush the gesso on both pages. I used a disposable spoon to place some on my disposable plate with my color. I also thinned it with water on the page until I reached the colors and consistency of the gesso that seem right for my mood. I blotted the excess water and gesso off with a paper towel.
3)Time to let it dry. I can let this air dry or I can speed the process by using a blow dryer.
4)Once dry, you can add more color or gesso repeating the same process as above, or you could start by using your water color paints and making your drawings. I added water color at this step and more gesso, until I got the color I liked.
5)Dry again.
6)At this point I started to paste my cut-outs (see picture below) by brushing with decoupage gel. I painted the color of the cut-out with water colors, outline the detail to the wings and skirt of my angel using a Sharpie pen. Once that was dry I added more gesso and wiped the excess off with a paper towel. You can start with adding the embellishments, cut-outs, glitter, or whatever you want to your colored paper at this point.
7)Play around with your paper and use your imagination, use whatever you might have handy. Repeat any of the steps at any stages as you please.

Finished second entry.

Remember that all creations are beautiful and unique!

Until next time!

Back In Time

Last Friday morning, after a long and stressful week I decided it would be nice to go to one of the local antique malls. I had a few errands to run that morning but decided I could squeeze some time to relax with something I absolutely enjoy doing. We arrived as usual at the antique mall and started browsing our customary way with no particular object in mind, just looking around admiring some beautiful things and making faces at those we didn't like.

I usually go for the old pictures, ephemera, jewelry, books, art, and small figurines to see if there is anything of interest to me. While browsing through some old pictures and postcards I came across something that just grabbed my attention, it was a clear Ziploc bag with what seemed to have a little advertising card made in Japan, from the late 1800's, early 1900's. I picked up the bag, the price was only $3.50, it contained a journal that was so old it was falling apart. I didn't think about it twice and I took it. On my trip I also found an old music book from the early 1900's, I'd say 1920 or so. I also found a wonderful and beautiful book called Labeles of Gold published in the 1950's. I was excited to have found some very interesting pieces all for under $20.

I was anxious to get home and look through the old journal to see what kind of information it contained. Once I got home I prepared a space on the kitchen table by placing some tissue paper on the table where I would pull the book out of the bag.  I was afraid the journal would turn into ashes as I pulled it out very cautiously out of the bag. I opened it and started reading it page by page, the journal was dated from 1916 to 1922, it had the owners name and place where she lived. It was amazing when we googled her name and found that all her personal information was accurate! The journal contains all types of entries, birth dates, deaths, poems, and clippings of news papers. It also contained an journal entry which said something like April XX, 1920, name of person that was born. "We had to shoot her Month XX, 1932." This little girl was only 12 years of age when she died, it does not go into details, but it did shock me to read "we had to shoot her."

This person had her own little history to tell in this journal, good or bad, but it was her history! The following pictures contain a clipping of a calendar with some entries and clippings of newspapers from around the 1920's.

My daughter and a friend thought it was freaky that I would have bought this journal, it was an impulse to do so. I have a project in mind and I intend to use the journal to complete that project. If it tuns out the way that I have it visioned in my head it will be great! This journal also gave me the idea to start my own journal with all my poems, short stories, lyrics to songs, as well as newspaper and magazine clippings of interest to me. Who knows, maybe one day my journal might be old and be found by someone as curious as me.

Until next time!

Abduction

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday....! I was finally freed Friday by my abductor, work. It didn't matter how hard I worked or how fast I tried to rush things, I was held captive against my will. Do this, do that, go here, go there, work was forcing me to do all sorts of things I didn't want to act on. It seemed that by Thursday work was almost tired of me and was getting ready to release me. Yay, I thought, I have finally beat it and I'll be freed! I went to bed that evening hoping that work would not force me to do any more of what I didn't want to do.

As I woke up on Friday morning I only hoped work would not appear and let me free for the weekend, at least only to accomplish some things I needed to do for myself. It seems like it felt sorry for me and decided to leave me free after all.  So as I tried to catch up on things I needed so much to do, I failed to work on one of my crafting projects.

I had promised to post instructions on how to crochet a poncho, you have to remember this is my first poncho and I don't know how many granny squares I need, but I think I am half way done with them. I have 29 squares and I think I need a total of 60. I have the instructions written down but I need to make a small video of the steps to help you along the way too. Hopefully, I can post those instructions within these next few days.

Lets hope that work does not sneak up on me again, that would be dreadful, to fall back into the will of it. I just hope that you don't become a victim of it for it will leave you tired and exhausted. It could also take days to recover from the mental strain you may experience.

Until next time!

A New Project

I opened my eyes, and I scanned around the room, it was dark, cold, and a complete silence surrounded me. I peeked out of my blankets and realized the door had been closed all the way as if someone didn't want me to escape from my bedroom. Immediately I turned to my clock only to realize that I had slept longer than I had anticipated. How comfortable I was, my bed and blankets kept my body warm, holding me as if they did not want me to get up and leave them. As I tried getting up, I could only hear them speak to me "don't leave us, we love your warmth, we love holding you and we don't want to let go." Oh, how hard it was for me to get up! I didn't want to disappoint anyone or anything at this point. "Enough," I cried out, "that's it, no more keeping me in."

I finally jumped out of bed with the intention of completing everything I had to do today. I got dressed and headed out the door, desperate, wanting to finish my errands as fast as I could to get back home and work on a new project I started last night.

"A new project?" Interesting you might think, "but what kind of project is she working on now?"  I can't keep a secret so I will tell you what it is. Yesterday, Allie, my daughter gave me the idea of crocheting a poncho, yes a poncho. I'll have to be honest with you, this is the first time I make a poncho. I have crochet scarves, booties, slippers, hats, and afghans, but never a poncho. So this will be a learning experience for me, I will post pictures as I progress through my project and I will also post how-to's for those that want to learn how to crochet a poncho, afghan, or a scarf . This is a beginners project so I'm sure if you want to make something for yourself or as a gift you can do it!

I am organizing instructions, I will be posting those very, very soon!

Until next time!

Magic Wand

...I was on a quest to find a magic wand, I asked my friends and my family to see if they had seen one or if anyone had one for me to borrow. I was on a massive hunt for one so I decided to post it on facebook as well, however no one had a clue as to what I was talking about. No one had one and no one knew where I could find one. Someone suggested Harry Potter but there was no way for me to get a hold of him. "Mary Poppins," my friend said but she was no where to be found.

For the past week I had been trying to finish a project I had yet to start. Due to the fear of the tedious project I had been postponing it until today. I found no magic wand, no Harry Potter, and no Marry Poppins. I was to tackle the project on my own! As I searched the house for something to help me, I could only find a broom. There was nothing special about the broom, no magic, it was just there staring at me as if it didn't want to tackle the job that was ahead of us.

Finally, I grabbed the broom, slowly and quietly I walked towards the back yard trying not to make a sound so that my shed would open the doors and I could attack the mess that was inside. As I opened the doors the mess stood still, frozen, scared of what was in store for it. "Oh my!" was my first thought, "what am I getting myself into?" I attacked the mess with no remorse, I felt no pity! One thing after another came flying out the shed, a pile for wanted goods and another for the unwanted. I'm sure the mess was terrified, but not as much as I was.

Three and-a-half hours later, I had finished with the so unwanted project. I'm sure my mess cried to see some of it part, but I can honestly tell you that I don't regret doing any of it. I accomplished it, that's all I can say, my shed now stands in the corner with a happy smile.

Until next time!

A New Year

This year I start with new goals and plans as I also work in completing those that I have previously started. Something that I've always failed in is keeping a journal, as much as I love writing I can't seem to make myself stick to it, maybe that can be my resolution this year.

What can I tell you about my self? I'm always busy, I'm a mom of two, wife, daughter, sister, business owner, student, homeschooling parent, some what of writer, crafter, and baker. So you can imagine I'm always on the go, always busy.

With this blog I'd like to share some of my ideas, experiences, recipes, thoughts, and stories that might pop up in my head. You can say that my blog will be a little bit of everything, a Hodge-podge.

Until next time!