So... I Baked! And Made Squares!

Yes! I accomplished yet another task on my huge list. Sadly, this is my very last free week before classes start up again next Tuesday :-(. I may have mentioned this before, but I feel like my creative juices just really flow better when I'm at home; I have everything at my disposal, such as my yarns or a nice clean oven...but hey, that's what the summer months are for!

So what did I make, you might ask? I have no idea what one would call it. I took some ingredients from around the house, put them in a cupcake pan, and set the oven for 375.

I knew we had some cookie mix, and my sister had some leftover eggnogg. So those were my two ingredients, though I did put some oil in there for good measure.

Added the nog until it was about pancake batter consistency. I call this "My Experiment" because I didn't measure anything, though I believe I put in about 2 and 3/4 cups of the mix....or maybe it was 1 and 3/4? Eh, I'm not super concerned.

 Into the pan the mix went!

Just a quick bake, since it was an experiment.

little bit of nogg for myself...mmm

Add a pinch of one of my faves

are they done?

nope....not done

back into the pan the pieces (that I didn't eat) go

At this point, I was semi disappointed. I didn't use any eggs, because I figured there was enough in the eggnogg, which may be why they were very custard like in the middle. Or I just used too much nogg. Either or. I put some of the pieces back in the pan, and then put them back in for another 15 min or so.

more done than previous...

....kinda

And that was my One (Left side of photo) , the one that actually came out of the five. It tasted real good though.

and my favorite part (but not really). Dishes. Blegh. But overall, it was fun. I wanted cupcakes, but my dad said they were more like muffins. I am satisfied with that.

Right! I also made lots of squares. Best thing to do when you love a shirt but can't give it up because you're a crazy pack rat like me you for some reason can't is to make it into a quilt square! Takes up SO MUCH LESS SPACE and makes you feel good! I got lots of squares, and even a few balls of yarn for my t-shirt rugs I only ever do when I'm bored.

I also got a wonderful inspirational idea to make some baby bibs out of the leftover t-shirt parts. Maybe another project for later? Debating. They would be so adorable, but I don't know how many people would want to use a cotton bib for a child. I feel like it would stain easily and just get real gross real fast. But it could be a cute apron for an older child? Oh, the possibilities :-)

Cheers!

Now....what I actually have been doing!

There are a few things that I actually did do so far this break, though they were not on my original list that I made. These things are: (1) attempt to recycle yarn from a thrifted sweater, (2) switch up part of my room, (3) make some sense of that darned closet!

First was the recycling of the yarn. Let me say that I was super excited to do this.....until I did it. Well, I didn't do it. I attempted. And stopped. And essentially failed. I think I was too ambitious. I told myself if I was going to do this, I wanted a nice sweater, not some dumb cotton blended crap. So I found a beautiful purple alpaca sweater. Eff my life. I could have sworn I did everything right; I made sure to look for that specific seam, and I thought things were going to be great! And they started great. Until I got supremely confused. At some point everything seemed to blend together, stitches and pieces and my fingers. Bad news bears. This is how it started :

Then I ended up with A LOT of this:

Then eventually, I ended up with this:

I got frustrated. It blew up in my face, and I am very sad, because I was looking so very forward to having my own yarn that I had recycled from an old sweater and I was very excited for a wonderful alpaca scarf. Now, I have chunks of sweater, and pieces of yarn. I'm sure I'll think of something, I always do....

Now, the second project. Fix up part of my room. For a while, I've had this plastic drawer thing. It sucked. Because it was plastic, it was crapping out, and because there was so much stuff in those three little drawers, they were heavy and barely moved and made me angry. It was also kinda ugly. I decided I wanted crates. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this before in another one of my blogs. Didn't think I'd get to it so soon, but I did!
it started like this: See purple plastic-y thing. See crates. See lots of mess.

Remember Hit Clips?!? Found This Gem

Now, See Organization and Cleanliness!

Ok, so the orange bin still has a ton of crap on top of it, I'm not perfect here! But each crate is organized. Bottom two hold cd's and electronic things, such as game boy games, receipt to my laptop, you know. Middle two hold my thank you cards and other paper items, the other holds lotions, lipglosses, that business. Top hold my creativity, all my needles, yarns, artwork things... essentially happiness. Feels good, looks better, I am content! My next goal is to get a few more crates, but turn them so they are like bookshelves (sooo many books, too many on my floor *sadface*)

Then there was my most recent project, my closet. The only pictures I took were of things that I found and felt were sentimental, like alll my Pound Puppies, my Tuggle, other things of that cutesy nature, and then the dresses, but there is a picture in the last blog.


And that ladies and gentlemen, is what I've been up to. I now plan on actually doing something on my original list before I start anything more....like making my own self striping yarn with Kool Aid....

Cheers!

I've Been Bad

Very, very bad. I have done nothing. Ok, not terribly bad, because I have been doing some things, (more blogs to come) but out of my huge list of seven, I have done one. 
This one: 2. Go through my T-shirts and decide which will become squares for my future quilt(s). 
But there is more to it, I promise. I redecorated part of my room, I cleaned the top section of my armoire (which had many of the aforementioned t-shirts) anddd dum-da-da-dum! My closet! 


Now, an interesting thing about my house. In the room in which I currently reside, I have NO CLOSET. Nope, no closet. Why is this you ask? Because where a closet would go is actually a staircase. Up this staircase is yet another room in our house. Fancy, fancy. So instead I have my armoire. It's huge, and takes up so much space. I wish I could get rid of it. But again, no closet. What it holds always changes.  


So now you're probably confused, "How could she clean a closet if she has no closet? Or is she simply switching back and forth on her vocabulary with the words 'closet' and 'amoire'?"  Well friends, when I was younger I decided I wanted to live in my dad's office, instead of in my room which shares a wall with the only bathroom on the floor (terrible, terrible phobia of vomit, no idea where it came from, but I'm thinking from sharing a wall with a bathroom...) Anywhoo. The closet in my old room was filled with STUFF. and I really didn't use it  or anything in it once I moved out, except to shove in a few prom dresses. 


SO I TACKLED THAT CLOSET!


Easiest thing to hoe out. All it had was toys, and bins of clothes from when i was ten. Now, it's hard for me to get rid of clothes now. I give lots of excuses, "I may wear it...someday!!" being the most common. But this, this was easy. I can't wear clothes from when I was ten. But then i saw those cute little tshirts, The San Diego zoo, One Fish Two Fish, VDub Beetles. what is a girl to do! Cut and Quilt, cut and quilt. 


But then there was another issue to tackle. What was hanging in that closet was dresses. Little girl dresses, the kind that my mother has a memory for each and every one. I must admit, in the ~20 hours (Harry Potter Books on CD, favorite cleaning tool), my mother wasn't there for any.  It was just easier. So I put the dresses into two piles : disgusting, and oooh that would make a nice square for a quilt. I also told my mom we could give them to other little girls we know, so that way we knew they would go to good use. 


But at the end of the day, many many bags went to Goodwill. And now we have come full circle, back to my armoire. Now that my closet is clean, I can rearrange what goes where. Before the cleaning, in my armoire was random tshirts and pyjamas on the top shelf, my nice but not prom dresses hanging, along with skirts, then some polos and a few button ups, and winter sweaters I brought from school for over break.  I moved all the dresses into my closet, moved my jeans into my armoire, got rid of the polos (jr /high school dress code, hate to even look at them now), left the skirts because I need a bigger bin to put all my summer clothes in, and the sweaters are still hanging. Phew! 

27 Dresses Anyone? Mmm, probs more like 35+

Slowly but surely, I will not be drowning in my room.