Lisa's Carrot Cookies

These are delicious, fluffy cookies that are sweet, yummy, and have vegetables in them too!

Boil 2 cups carrots (drain water & mash)
Mix carrots with 1 ½ cup Crisco or shortening
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 cups flour

8-10 minutes @ 350
(do not grease cookie sheet)


1 box powdered sugar
2 tblsp butter
Orange juice to flavor (can substitute lemon also)

Karen's Cinnamon Rolls

Combine:

½ cup lukewarm water
1 pkg yeast
1 tbspn sugar

Mix and let stand in a warm place

1 beaten egg
¼ cup melted butter
2 ½ cup lukewarm water
½ cup dry nonfat milk
1 ½ tsp salt
½ cup sugar

Mix together and add yeast mixture.
Add 8 cups flour.
Knead for 10 min on floured board.
Place in a greased round bowl. Spray with oil and cover.
Let rise until double in size (2-3 hours).

Punch down and divide in half. Spray surface with cooking spray and roll out into ½ inch thick rectangle. Spread with butter. Sprinkle layer of brown sugar and shake cinnamon. Roll up from long side and pinch ends. Cut with string in 3” widths. Place in casserole dish sprayed with cooking spray. Let rise 1 hour.
Bake at 375 degrees for 17-20 min.

Frosting:
¾ cup butter/margarine (softened)
2-3oz. pkgs cream cheese (softened)
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups powdered sugar

Easy Wall Art

We made some fantabulous canvas wall art that goes for big bucks at Pottery Barn and Pier 1, but was pretty cheap and VERY easy to make. If you want the project to be more involved, you can really go to town with different mediums and embellishments. We'll give instructions for the easy way, then extra tips for the more extravagant route. (For ideas on the more extravagant route, check out these ladies at http://winborgdesign.blogspot.com/)

You Will Need:

• Stretched Canvas, any size or dimension (available at craft and art stores, we got ours on sale at JoAnne's for half price)
• Mod Podge or other craft glue. This will be used to glue and seal our project so make sure that it is a glue that dries clear.
• Sponge brush (also available in craft stores, but also at Walmart, usually 3 for $1)
  
• Scrapbook papers
• (Optional) Cheap acrylic paints that match your papers (you can get these at walmart for about $1 a piece, and you only need a few)
• (Optional) Paint brush (something big and chunky will do the trick)

Creating the Art:

• Decide what you want on your canvas. Emily got her inspiration from some Pottery Barn flower art. You could do animals, geometric shapes, something related to your child's hobby, anything! We saw a very cute one on 3 canvases that was a catarpillar with 2 big green paper circles of different patterns on each canvas, and little feet painted on. Get Creative!
• Cut out your paper in the shape/size that you want (we made a template first so as not to make mistakes on our cute paper).
• (Optional) Use paint in matching/accenting colors to add shadow, contrast or pizazz to your shape- especially if you will be layering multiple papers.
  
• Let dry
  
• Use your sponge brush to cover the back of your paper image with glue, making sure the entire shape is well covered.
• Place in desired location on canvas and carefully smooth out any bubbles or bumps.
• Once all pieces are in place, load sponge brush heavily with glue and begin brushing over the entire canvas. Go slowly over papered areas to prevent tearing or wrinkling. It is best to work brush strokes in one direction (up and down or side to side) for a more uniform look. Brush strokes will be visible once dry, but this is part of the "look."
• Let dry, and hang!

Tips for Extravagance:

• Add pictures to your art the same way you add paper. Black and white are particularly eye-catching in wall art
• Scrapbook paper can be art in itself, create a collage of coordinating papers in different shapes and sizes, glue them on, seal with glue for a finished look and hang.
• Distress: use sandpaper to rough up the edges of papers and pictures, Ink edges with black or brown stamp pads, water down white paint and fade a picture by brushing on a light whitewash, tear papers or even pictures (gasp!) to complete that vintage look.
• Embellish: Stamp or write letters, slogans or phrases, add brads, eyelettes, decorated tags. You can also paint or ink large chipboard letters for a more stand-out look.
  
• Glue on decorative jewels after the project has been sealed to really make your project pop!
  

Banana Banana Banana Bread

My husband, being a lover of banana bread, sent me on a 3 years quest for the moistest banana bread recipe known to man. I found this one and fell in love! Enjoy!


Yeild: One 9x5 inch loaf
Prep Time: 15 min
Cook Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 20 min
Servings: 12

Ingredients:

· 2 cups all-purpose flour
· 1 teaspoon baking soda
· 1/4 teaspoon salt
· 1/2 cup butter
· 3/4 cup brown sugar
· 2 eggs, beaten
· 2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas (approx 6 large bananas)


Directions: *see extra tips below*

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.


Extra Tips:

For my oven, I had to reduce the temperature to about 300 degrees because my loaves were burning before cooking through. You may have to do a few test loaves to find what works for your oven.

Ideas, Anyone?

We are taking a little break during these summer months when everyone is so busy vacationing, and when we get back together in a few weeks we would like to plan out our crafts through Christmas, if possible. If you follow our blog at all and have any suggestions or ideas for projects, let us know! We can't guarantee that we will do them all, but we would love some help deciding. See you soon!

Making a Princess

This is a VERY long post, as we made tutus and all the accessories necessary for a princess. We'll start with the tutus, then move on to crowns and wands!

Toddler Tutus

The amount of Tulle needed will depend on the size of your baby/toddler and how long and/or full you want the tutu to be. You can also buy your tulle in just one color, or as many colors as you would like. To see some examples, click HERE.

• 2 year old: 6 yards for a full, floor-length tutu, 3 yards for a full knee-length tutu
• 1 year old: 3 yards for a full or knee-length tutu, 1 1/2 yards for a very short, traditional tutu.
• Elastic for waist (measure her waist for exact measurement)

Optional Tutu accessories

• Ribbon for tying into Tutu (you can get organdy ribbon in the bridal isle of craft stores for 99 cents a spool)
• Flowers from the dollar store (we will be making accessory flower clips for the tutus, but these can also be used to be stitched straight onto the tutu

Making the Tutus:

• 
• Cut your tulle into 4" wide strips, length depending on how long you want your tutu to be **Remember, we will be knotting the tulle in half over the waist elastic, so cut your tulle twice as long as you want your tutu to be**
  
• Cut your waist elastic to the desired length
• Tie elastic to two chairs, then separate the chairs so the elastic is stretched tight.
• Fold one strip of tulle in half. Hold doubled strip under elastic, then pull free ends over the elastic and down through the loop formed by the folded end. (sorry, that's hard to explain, but the pictures will give you a better idea...).
• continue with all tulle strips until finished
• To close, you can knot or sew your elastic ends together. I wanted mine to be adjustable, so I tied a bell to one end of elastic and made a loop out of the other, that way I can tighten or loosen it depending on how the loop is tied.
• Embellish with bells, flowers, ribbons, beads, etc.

Extra tips:

• If you want a fluffier tutu that doesn't tangle as easily (tulle is not very stiff and the strips can tangle) tie 3 or 4 strips together in each knot. This will keep the fluffiness but keep them straightened out better.
  
• Tulle vs. Netting: If you can afford it, netting might be better than tulle just because the tulle is so lightweight, it takes more to make it puffy and it can tangle, but Tulle is not as itchy as netting.
• I have also seen tutus made of pure ribbon (wired ribbon). Again, if you can afford it, those are beautiful as well.

Wands & Crowns

Here are the things you may need, depending on which style you choose:

• headband
• silk flowers
• dowel (12 inches)
  
• tulle (netting)
• satin ribbon to wrap dowel
• organdy ribbon for streamers
• curling ribbon for streamers
• rhinestones
• wire
• beads
• bells
  
• paint (if you want to paint dowel instead of wrapping)
• glue gun
• terrifically tacky tape
• glitter spray

Making the Wands:

• 
• Run two strips of Tacky Tape the length of your dowel (one on either side). This will keep the ribbon from slipping.
• Hot glue the ribbon to the side of one of the dowel ends.
• Pull the ribbon over the end and begin wrapping dowel with ribbon, continuing to end.
  
• Hot glue ribbon over end of dowel.
• Wand Embellishments: We put large beads on pipe cleaners, shaped them, and glued them to our dowels BEFORE gluing on ribbon (so ribbon will cover up pipe cleaner ends). We then tied ribbon and pieces of tulle, pearls, etc to our creation.

Making the Crowns:

• We bought soft, fabric covered headbands at Walmart (so they would be less irritating to our girls heads) (I believe the were $1.99 for 5), and because the colors matched our tulle color choices, we did not cover them with ribbon. If you want to cover yours with ribbon, we suggest putting tacky tape on your headband, and then using hot glue to wrap it the same as the wand.
• For beaded shapes on your crown, string beads onto a pipe cleaner, create the desired shape, and then hot glue the pipe cleaner to the headband.
  
• Tie strips of tulle to your headband in the same way you did for the tutu (if you did beads with pipe cleaners, this will cover up your pipe cleaners!). Add a dab of hot glue to the knot to keep it in place.
• Embellishments: You can glue on flowers, strands of pearls, or other embellishments as you wish.
  

Easy Single Stitch Beanies

(For whatever size head you're looking to make)

This pattern is not a crochet how-to post, just a pattern for those who already know the basics of crochet. Really all you need to know for this is how to do a single stitch, and how to work in rounds. The 9 rounds given here should be big enough for the average toddler's head.

Time for a math refresher! This pattern is all about multiplication by 6's. Until reaching the point of the beanie size desired, you'll be counting/multiplying by 2's- 9's (give or take beanie size) and keeping multiplying until reaching #6. Then you are done with that round.

Round 1; 6 single stitches in 1st loop (6)

Round 2; 2 stitches in each single stitch (12)

Round 3; 2 stitches in 1st, 1 stitch in next; repeat (18)
(Stitch pattern= 2,1,2,1,2,1,2,1 etc..)

Round 4; 2 stitches in 1st, single stitch in next 2, repeat (24)
(SP= 2,1,1,2,1,1,2,1,1...)

Round 5; 2 stitches in 1st, single stitch in next 3, repeat (30)
(SP= 2,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,2.....)

Round 6; 2 stitches in 1st, single stitch in next 4, repeat (36)

Round 7; 2 stitches in 1st, single stitch in next 5, repeat (42)

Round 8; 2 stitches in 1st, single stitch in next 6, repeat (48)

Round 9; 2 stitches in 1st, single stitch in next 7, repeat (54)

• When your beanie has a round "placemat" look and it's about the size of the crown of the head you are making it for. (It's the size of the crown when it looks like the small head covering Jewish men wear) Finish the Round you are on and then stop adding stitches and do only single stitches until the beanie is the length desired.
• When finished, tie off the yarn and cut it a generous distance from the knot. Then use a yarn needle to thread the remainder up through the weave of the beanie.
• The tightness of your yarn will play a huge roll in how many Rounds will be needed in your beanie. Example- tight stitches will equal more rounds.
• The goal is to gradually "grow" the beanie so there won't be bumps or lumps.
• For beanies to fit a larger sized head, continue adding a single stitch between the double stitches as you've done before. (example: Round 10; 2 stitches in 1st, single stitch in next 8, repeat (60) )