Cross stitch and paint by number

This weeks update on the temperature cross stitch.  It's coming along nicely.  Still surprised at how much green there is in it.  We may even see yellow in there this coming week, as it's going to be warm all week.

I totally finished January, outlining the month and adding in the month of April.

I made a start on another cross stitch, again Christmas themed; part of something for the end of the year.

When dd came up last weekend she brought me a paint by numbers kit she bought from Dollarama.  These are really good value for money at under $5 for the kit.

I am treating this like a puzzle.  It is set out on the table, and I do bits here and there.  The sections are very small, so it's hard on the eyes.  I must say though I am enjoying doing this.  Lot of browns and greens though.

What have you been doing to keep yourself busy this past week?

Two yeses and one no.

Got a couple of things recently and two things get a big thumbs up, the other one a big thumbs down; but does have a positive spin on it.

I saw these online and thought I'd order some and give them a go:

I got mine at Amazon here, and have to say they work a treat.  If you wear glasses, these are so handy to cart around with you.  Also as my fingers get stiff I find this easier to use.

Dd was telling me about these paint by number kits in Dollarama. Left one is a lion, right one is a peacock.

Now as you all know I don't have an artistic bone in my body when it comes to painting, but even I figured I could manage these paint by number ones, and at $4.25 each I didn't think they were badly priced.  In fact there seemed to be a lot of different crafts that has appeared at Dollarama.  I will post the finished article when I get around to doing them.  By the way they come with all the paints and brush.

Now for the thumbs down.  Hubby uses a CPAP machine to breath on a night.  He has a full face mask and saw these mask liners on Amazon, so we bought some here is the link.

Hubby did not like them at all.  They fit as promised and were comfortable, but they caused so many leaks, that it just wasn't worthwhile using them.  The upside to all of this, is the company offers a 100% money back guarantee, and refunded me right away.  So if you wear a mask and suffer from redness on the face where your mask touches your face it may be worthwhile trying them.

So two yeses and one no.........and I had to look up what the plural of yes was!!

(The plural of ‘yes’ is either ‘yeses’ or ‘yesses’. While there are some dictionaries that suggest that the word ‘yes’s’ could also be used as the plural of ‘yes’, this is generally considered not to be best practice, and thus you are better sticking with one of the other two.  As per grammarhow.com)

My Froggie Stuff

I know what a funny title, but it's actually a Youtube channel that makes furniture and things for your Barbie dolls.  I was standing in line waiting to pay in Michaels on Saturday and got talking to another lady and it got around to Barbie dolls and furniture and she told me about this Youtube channel.  There is also a blog with all sorts of crafts on it with the same name My Froggie Stuff.

I don't have the time to be making Barbie furniture at the moment, but I do have the time to watch the odd video while knitting.  These would make great Christmas gifts and seem pretty simple.  I watched the one on how to make a Barbie sized refrigerator and a sectional sofa.



I guess I need to be saving all my empty boxes and buy some foam core board!!

Quick and Easy Makeover

Popped into the garden centre on Sunday and they had buy two get one free on all silk flowers.  So I spent under $25, as I needed florist wire as well and did the following:

Started out with my plain wreath:

Bought three stems of silk Forsythia, cut them down into individual stems; only used two of the three stems:

Ended up with this, very Spring like:

Put the third stem in a vase in the house for a little Spring colour in the house. 

I was looking at Spring wreaths and they were $50 + for the nice ones.  My Spring bulbs are finally peaking through the soil.

Odds and ends from online......

Saw this over on Mother Earth and thought what a good way to use up some old t-shirts........

Full instructions here 

Back when dd got married, both of us bought a fascinator from Blair Nadeau.  She has just released her 2017 Celestial Wanderer Collection; it is gorgeous.  I struggled to find one photo I liked the best as I love all the collection but did think this was pretty:

The shoulder chains/necklace is something I have never seen before and are equally as pretty:

This next link is for the Canadians......do you remember Zellers?  Remember when all the stores closed down?  Well there are still two Zellers stores open; one in Ottawa and one in Etobicoke.....they are not your usual Zellers stores though, they are more like clearance stores for The Bay and Home Outfitters.  You can read more about them here.

And finally my dream job has been posted online: A chocolate tester for Cadbury's, you can read more about it here.  Just wish it was here in Canada not the UK.  Can you imagine taste testing all that chocolate?

I wonder who came up with this idea?

I guess it's one way of relaxing you if you have trouble going - just sniff the toilet paper.  I bought some as it was the same price and size of the regular toilet paper.

I went grocery shopping on Friday and spent $85.20, with savings of $10.00.  A couple of good deals for me were mushrooms at 99 cents per half pound container.  Remember when buying mushrooms, to transfer them into brown paper bags, as they keep longer.  I get mine at the dollar store.  I have started buying a little more at a Canadian store called Giant Tiger.  They always have one of two good deals on.  This week jam was on sale for $2 for a 500 ml jar, which is a fantastic price.  Also  got half and half for under $2.  Click on this link to see what half and half is...LOL

I saw this link on Facebook and thought it was really neat.  Dd made Our Little Munchkin a similar mobile for her bedroom.

Now I'm off to the bathroom to sniff some toilet paper!!

Bacon Weaving anyone?

Everything tastes better with bacon!


not bad for such a small home:

 this is different:


total opposite of the bacon, looks so good though:

Have a great Saturday.....

I wasted four hours of my life.........

turning this:

into this:

 I will never ever use a skein of yarn as is, it must be put into a ball before I use it!!

I picked up this magazine the other week, I love it, it has so many great ideas in it.  You can get it in Chapters here in Canada:

 It came with a free kit to make a spotty dog key chain.  So I wasted an hour doing that...LOL

Did manage to get the closet doors finished, that has been a job and a half, due to my incompetence.  You wouldn't have thought I have been painting/decorating houses since we bought our first house when I was 18 years of age.  I swear I am getting more senile as I get older.

The other day Craig featured the following artist.  I had never heard of this guy before, but his is very talented:

All things creative today

How to make pinwheels:

How to make fruit roll ups....yummy!!


Here is where I am in my knitting, over half way through the yellow ball of yarn, two more to go after that:

Putting together a quilt top for dd that I started, ages, and ages ago.  First four rows done, it's a lot brighter in real life.  The blocks are a pinwheel variation, that I had done here.

Bought a ball of dishcloth yarn in an attempt to try and learn myself to crochet..........not holding out much hope though!!

I already have the crochet hooks, so it's not costing me a lot to see if I can do it.

I just posted another book review "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan," by Lisa See if anyone is interested?  Great book I gave it a 5 out of 5!!

Okay stop the whining I give in........

I have had a couple of people complain about the lack of blog posts recently.  The reason for this is a couple of things.  

• I have got hooked on my Kobo and once I get into a book I forget about everything. 
• I am busy with sorting stuff for moving, which is still including decluttering and getting rid of 25 things per week.
• I just can't be bothered, as honestly nothing overly exciting has been happening and who wants to hear me whine constantly about the bloody weather.........and yes it snowed again this morning; "God please grant me patience with this rotten weather!"

Anyhow it turns out "stuff" has been happening and one thing in particular I "forgot" to blog about and I am getting told off for it.

The other week I was at dd with her best friend and her mother and we had a crafting day making this wreath:

Now little did I realize this would involve me doing work!!  I went to socialize and look after Nora.  Anyway, dd and best friend "K" had other ideas!!  This started out with Styrofoam wreaths that had to be wrapped with grey yarn.  Do you know how long those bloody wreaths took to wrap with yarn???  TO LONG!!!  My poor hands were killing me, but did dd and "K" care, NO !!  Suffice to say I had plenty to say on the subject and as usual they both ignored me.  Both "K's" mom and I managed to wrap one wreath each while we were there.  The girls made all the flowers out of felt, they said if you go on Pinterest there are plenty of instructions on how to do this.  The bunny was made with stiffened felt and it can be taken off to display year round, not just at Easter.

I must say it is pretty impressive looking and it could be hung on your front door as long as it's kept out of the weather.  In my case it has to go inside.

One other thing dh and I did was babysit Nora on the weekend.  So please come back tomorrow to see how that all turned out!!!  Suffice to say I hope to have my energy back by the end of the week!!

It was an extra peg/clothespin day on Thursday...

If I hadn't have put in extra pegs, goodness knows who or what would have been wearing my laundry!!!

By the time I had got it all hung out, it was as stiff as a board as the laundry was frozen despite the sun shining, and I wasn't much better!!!  Mind you I had a couple of supervisors over the fence watching my every move!!

Now for you over achievers out there (and you know who you are!!), here is a fun little project.  Decoupaging your clothespins/pegs!!!

(image from here, no I haven't done it!!)

For full details and to download the templates click on this link.

This week's Home of the Week is a bit different as it is a work and live place.  Not that changes anything as it's way overpriced and ugly!!  $3.2 million no wonder it's not selling. However what do I know???

The Condo of the Week, can't say I'm loving that either?  For nearly $3 million I think there are a lot better properties out there, plus you won't have to pay nearly $2,000 a month in maintenance fees!!

Pretty miserable week with those two!!!  Another month or so and I am guessing the Cottages will be featured as well.

Strawberry-Banana Bread.....

Got this recipe from the March 2013 edition of Woman's Day Magazine and it's a keeper.

Strawberry-Banana Bread

Ingredients:

1 cup vegetable oil
3 cups all purpose/plain flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking/bicarb soda
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/tsp salt
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp grated lemon zest
2 large ripe bananas
1 lb strawberries, chopped
1 1/2 cups walnuts, chopped
1 cup icing sugar
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1. Heat oven to 350 oF  Grease and line a 9 x 13 in. baking dish.  In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg and salt.

2. In a medium bowl, lightly beat the eggs.  Add the granulated sugar, oil, vanilla and lemon zest and whisk to combine.  Mash the bananas, (you should get about 1 cup) and stir into the egg mixture.  Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and mix until incorporated.  Fold in the strawberries and walnuts. 

3. Transfer the batter to the prepared baking dish and bake until a wooden pick inserted into the centre comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes.  Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool for 5 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk together the icing sugar and lemon juice until smooth.  Spread the icing over the warm cake, then let cool completely.

I didn't have walnuts or lemon zest so I didn't use either.  You don't need to use the electric mixer for this, it can be all done by hand.  I takes around 47 minutes to cook in a regular oven.

This makes a big pan and would be ideal to feed a crowd.  The recipe although in the magazine is from The Casserole Queens and here is a link to their site

They also featured a wreath made of cupcake liners which is really neat.

(Photo Credit)

  Also here is a step by step on how to make it here

What do you think these are?

They do look good; but we might not like the taste as it's called Bird Breakfast and are "cakes" for the birdies.  The recipe is from the "Company's Coming, Gifts from the Kitchen," book and here is the recipe:

Bird Breakfast

1 1/2 cups quick cooking rolled oats (not instant)
2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup chunky peanut butter (no salt, no sugar)
3/4 cup suet, vegetable shortening, I used lard
1/2 cup commercial bird seed
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup cream of wheat cereal, I left this out as I didn't have any
1/3 cup chopped dried cranberries, I used fresh

Cook rolled oats in boiling water in large saucepan for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until very thick.  Remove from heat.

Stir in peanut butter and suet until melted.  Stir in remaining ingredients.  When cool enough to handle shape into patties and place on ungreased baking sheet and freeze until hard.

When frozen store in a freezer bag and remove as many as needed.

I decided to mold them into mini cup cakes and I also had enough left over to put into the bottom of a couple of yogurt pots.  I added some more nuts I had in the house that needed to be used up and extra cranberries. Simple idea if you ask me.

Dd is getting both us and her in-laws restaurant gift cards for Christmas.  We requested it and I think so did her in-laws.  So to "fancy" them up a bit she made custom gift card covers for them.  I thought I'd share:

By the way I have no idea if these are ours or the in-laws ones?

Another classic Christmas song:

Look what dd is into now..........

Since the wedding dd has been "project-less."  Yes there was Christmas to do all sorts of projects on, then she decided my blog needed a make over.  She now has found another thing she likes doing:

They are actually quite easy to make and super cheap.   She bought a straw wreath from Michael's and covered it in plastic wrap.  She bought a big ball of wool and wrapped that around the wreath.  The flowers are made of felt.  She took a small piece of scrap felt and covered it with the yellow felt to make the middle of the flowers and cut the petals from the cream felt and glued them all together.

So got the idea from the web where they were charging up to $70 for the same thing.  Cost for dd using coupons at Michael's well under $15.

I think I may be hinting about how nice one of those would look at our house!!!