My Green Bean Casserole

Had this for supper tonight and decided to share what I add to it :)  I always make a double batch so i get the 4 cans of green beans, 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, and 2 cans of french fried onions, and you'll also need 2 cups of milk.  I add chicken, mushrooms, and onions to it though to make it a meal instead of a side :)  I cube up 2 good sized chicken breasts, chop up a whole small onion, a pre-sliced package of mushrooms from the store (easier lol) and a couple teaspoons of garlic and oil to fry that all with.  As soon as it's all cooked I add it to the normal mixture for the casserole and cook it like normal.  Not a whole lot different, but it's sooo tasty and I don't have to worry about making a main course to go with it ;) Let me know if you try it and what you think of it.  Do you have any classic dishes you've spiced up and would like to share?  Would love to hear about them!!

Crocheted Washcloths

I found the pattern for this washcloth here, but I only cared for the first pattern so I thought I'd give a tutorial for it.  It's all single crochet, but it creates a nice basket weave look that is really pretty.

Chain 32, sc in 4th chain from hook, and chain 1.

Skip next chain, sc in next chain, chain 1 and continue pattern until the end of the row.  Chain 2 and turn.

For each row you'll be doing a sc, chain 1 pattern, but you'll be sc in between the sc from the previous row.  Go right between the stitch under my finger in the first picture, and the stitch under my finger in the second picture.

As you're going along you should notice the upright stitches move closer together, which will form the basket pattern.  Be careful not to go between these upright stitches, it will separate and not look quite right.  Here's two pictures of the difference.

When you've gotten it to a square (about 24 rows total of the pattern) you'll sc all around the edge, with 3 in each corner.

When you get back to the beginning of your edge, slip stitch into the second sc and finish off.  I whipped out these 3 in just a couple hours, and that was including me doing it for the first time and then taking pictures through one of them.  The last one I had no interruptions and it took me probably about 30 minutes.  Super easy once you have done a couple and pretty quick too.  Good for gifts ;)  Or, you know, dishes...but I prefer gifts haha :)  Try it out, and check out the other patterns too, you may like them more than I did, her instructions are very easy to follow.  Hopefully going to be making some scrubbies I found a pattern for as well soon, but that's for another night.  Later! :)

Spring Happenings

I've been so busy with actually doing things I've completely forgotten to post about doing things - whoops! I've actually taken a bit of a break from doing crafty things because I've been busy with getting my vegetable garden going for the summer and trying to clean up the flower gardens around the house.  This is the first time I've done it all by myself so we'll see how it turns out, so far things are going well, so we'll hope and pray it continues that way :)
I recently held a Mother Daughter Tea at my church just before Mother's Day, my Nana took pictures but I've not been able to get them from her yet so I don't have anything to show you just yet.  However I'm also holding a Father's Day Pancake Breakfast the morning before Father's Day so hopefully I'll remember to take pictures of my own that day and I'll be able to post pictures of both events at the same time!  The tea actually went over very well, considering it was the first time I'd ever done anything like that and also for not having a lot of people show up (due to my not advertising very well, still learning).  I also held this event in the fellowship hall at my church; I used pink tablecloths for all the tables, I used a few old books topped with flower filled tea pots for centerpieces.  I got the tablecloths and the flowers from the dollar store, and the books and most of the teapots came from my Nana, and a few teapots came from another member from my church.  I made tea wallets for all the mothers that came, and I'll be making a gift for all the fathers for the upcoming breakfast as well, but that's a secret for now ;)  I also have another little party in the works that I'm planning, but that's an even bigger secret.  Coming up shortly I'll be getting back to doing crafts as I have to start making all my Christmas gifts (I have to start early when I hand make all of them).  Hopefully I'll actually get the other site really going as well soon, I'm such a bad procrastinator lol.  Out for now, but not for long :)

Cable Crochet

I don't know about you, but I don't like to knit.  I'm rather fond of the little hook to help keep the yarn on the needle, I still haven't figured out how to start the knit - stick me in the middle of a project and I'm fine, but the beginning? forget it - and purling is of the devil.  Not my thing.  Sadly, I've been cursed with a deep love for cable knit things however.  I just think the pattern/look is absolutely beautiful, I've even tried to knit it before but it turned out disastrous.  And then Pinterest happened.  I found a pattern to CROCHET a cable pattern!!  It's just as beautiful and super easy to do.  The only thing that I didn't like about this tutorial is that it doesn't explain how to crochet around a post, so let me try to briefly explain. She does have some pictures at the end but they're not very clear as far as how to do that.  It's easiest on a double crochet because you have more room to work with (but I suppose in theory you could do it with a hdc as well).  Basically, the double crochet itself is a "post", so a "front post double crochet" (fpdc) would mean that you stick your needle through the pattern on the right side of the post and back up on the left side and bring your yarn through there to do another double crochet.  This is opposed to going through the top of the double crochet.  It also has you doing a "back post double crochet" (bpdc) and you would do the same thing but from the back side: push your needle up on the right side of the post from the back and down again on the left side to bring your yarn through for the double crochet.  The only other thing it doesn't explain (which, granted, is far easier) is a triple crochet (sometimes called a treble crochet): yarn over twice before you go through the top of a stitch, but you still only pull through 2 loops at a time, meaning you will do it 3 times, thus it's called a triple crochet.  I'm going to try and figure out how to expand the tutorial I found to have 2 smaller cables on either side of the middle one but so the twists are off set, I think that would look super pretty!  When I get it figured out I'll sit down and take pictures so I can get a tutorial on here for you all :)  Until next time! :)

Baby Blanket #2

When I was a little girl I had a blanket that my Great-Grammie had crocheted (I believe it was my mom's first), and it was my FAVORITE blanket for AGES.  I still have it actually :) It's packed away now for when I (someday, maybe) have a little girl.  So when my nieces piggy blanket kept coming out of the wash with a slightly gray tinge to it (it's supposed to be pink and white...yikes!)  I decided to make her one as well :)  It's basically just a granny square that I've kept going, and I change periodically between pink and purple.  I have a feeling I'm going to have to buy yarn for it a couple more times, it's no where near big enough yet lol.  If you don't know how to do a granny square here's how:

1. Chain 4, slip stitch into the first chain.

2. Chain 2, 2 double crochet into hole formed by making the circle.

3.  Chain 1, 3 dc into hole, repeat 2 more times.

4. Chain 1, ss into first chain 2, turn.

5. Chain 2 (will count as 1st dc), dc 2 times into corner hole, chain 2, dc 3 times into same hole.

6. Chain 1.  DC into corner hole 3 times, chain 2, dc 3 more times into same hole.  Repeat all the way around.  

7. At end, chain 1, ss into first chain 2.  

This is your basic granny square.  These are so much fun to make by the dozens and then sew together into a scarf, blanket, whatever you want.  What I am doing for the blanket for my niece is to just keep the pattern going.  The pattern is the same no matter what row you're on, the only thing different is in all the rows after this you have to do a dc cluster (3 dc) in each chain one spot along the flat sides as well.  Here's what her blanket looks like so far.

I'm just alternating the colors I use every so often to get a pattern.  Once I get it as big as I want it I'm going to use both the pink and purple at the same time (you need a good size hook to do this) to create an edge for the blanket.  It'll be thicker than the blanket itself, but it will give it a nice finished look.  Depending on how ambitious I feel I may try to make a hood for this blanket because she likes the one on her piggy one so much, but I may decide not to so that she can use it as she gets older too.  I have plenty of time to decide that though, so for today I'm just going to keep going around, and around, and around...Oh, and to the store for more yarn haha!  Do you have anything passed down through your family that means a lot to you?

Earring Backs

When I first started making jewelry I got some things that looking back I probably should have avoided buying, but now I have them so I am trying to find ways to use them.  One of the things I got are these beauties, which are, plain and simple, a pain in the butt to wear once something is on them. 

So I decided to transform them into normal earring wires, and it works splendidly, so now I have about a gajillion more earring wires than I did previously :)  

If you find yourself in the same boat as me and wish to make these more useful and less annoying for the general populace here's what you do:

1. Cut off the little loopy part at the bottom.  It's useless.  

2. Squish the remaining loop (the part you attach the actual earring to) together, and slip a small gold bead and a gold crimping bead on from the back all the way to where it meets the loop.

3.  Crimp the crimping bead in place.  DONE!!  SOOOO easy, and you have a perfect earring wire.

Snip, Squish, and Crimp.  Now you can make as many earrings as you want, without the annoyance of the earring not actually staying in place while you try to find a loop behind your ear...  

This also (I would think) would be easy enough to accomplish if all you had is wire.  I haven't actually tried it yet, but I'm about to embark on a wire making journey and try to make lots of fun little findings for jewelry.  But that's for a later post :)  

Half Double Crochet Headband

I know I posted about a headband a long time ago, but for Christmas this year I made 1 for each of the girls in my family, and I decided to use some variety.  I did some with a regular hdc like in the mug hugger tutorial, some with a double crochet (for my Nana who doesn't like anything very thick and warm, would be a little too holey for my taste but she loves it) and some I did with hdc clusters.  These I did for the people who usually wear a hat anyway, but would appreciate a little extra something around their ears.  To start, you will need to chain 3 for every 1 hdc cluster you will make.

 You will need to have an even amount of hdc clusters for this pattern to work properly.  I decided to go with 4 clusters, so I chained a total of 12.

You need to chain one more, this makes a loop on the end, which you will be using in the second row.

 HDC 3x into the 4th chain from your hook.

 Chain 1.  Skip 2.  HDC 3x into the next chain.

 Repeat until the end of the row.  You should end up with your last hdc cluster in the first chain.

 Chain 3 and turn.

In the chain 1 spaces from the previous row you'll do a hdc cluster.

 That loop that we made at the beginning of the last row?  That will be your last hdc cluster.

 Same for all rows after this.  See how in the above picture the first row of hdc clusters have a big hole at the bottom where it pulled the chain up?  Once you get going that will start to disappear.

 Once you get it as long as you want it (keep pulling it as tight as you want it around your head, you don't want it too loose or too snug) slip stitch the ends together, just like the mug hugger tutorial.  This seam isn't nearly as noticable as the seam from the Tunisian Crochet Headband so I didn't make another little piece to cover it, but of course you can, or you can make a little flower or bow to hide it too :) Once you've slip stitched the ends together you can go out into the frozen arctic temperatures and be confident your ears at least will stay warm ;)

My Parent's 25th Anniversary Party

For the crafty side of their party :) I had so much fun making up the invitations and setting up the fellowship hall at my church!  Everyone else seemed to enjoy it too so I think I did ok ;)

For the invitations, I got silver cardstock, cut each piece in half width wise, and folded each one of those in half to form the card.  I then cut out each insert to fit with a 1/4" allowance around the edge and glued them together just along the backside of the fold.  I then cut a TINY slit about an inch from the top and bottom along the fold line to put a piece of red ribbon through, which I then tied on the outside.  My nana helped me cut the velum for the front with a 1/4" allowance all around.  I stamped "25th" on the front of each card, used a tiny piece of double sided tape on each corner of the velum to place it over the top of the stamped card, and then used glue dots to place tiny pearls over the corners to help hide the double sided tape, and also for more decoration.  The pearls came on a sheet with approximately a million on it (okay, maybe slightly less...) and the sheet itself was a clear sticky material, but it showed too much.  I popped each pearl off and used the glue dots instead to stick them on.  Tiny, meticulous work, but it was worth it.  On the back of the card (I forgot to take a picture of it) I stamped 1 Corinthians 13:7 "Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

For the hall, I was blessed to be able to use the fellowship hall at my church without cost.  There are 3 pillars in the room, so I strung red and silver streamers in between them and from the outer ones to the walls, with 4 balloons on each pillar, 2 red and 2 silver.  I pushed 3 sets of 2 long folding tables together on one half of the room and on the other half I butted 2 together up against the wall for all the food.  Each table had a (plastic) silver tablecloth on the bottom, and then I cut a (plastic) red one in half and laid them on each table diagonally to create a diamond shape.  In the middle of each diamond I placed a mirror with 2 fake tea lights on top of it.  It gave the tables a little bit of elegance without going over the top.  The last, but not least, thing I did was set up a table for all the gifts at the back of the hall, where I also had my laptop going with a slideshow I made of pictures of my parents from the time they started dating (prom in the 80's...WOW!!)  through a few days before the party.  I snagged a LOT of pictures off social media, but I also had to sneak through all their shoe boxes of pictures to take some home to scan them and then sneak them back without them knowing anything.  That was a fun time haha.  Everybody loved the whole set up, the most common thing I heard was that it was beautiful without being overdone, which is exactly what I'd been aiming for!  The slideshow was a definite hit!  I still have it saved on my computer so I can watch it from time to time :)

Oh, and for the record, I got most of what I needed at the dollar store, or with coupons at Michaels.  There are benefits to planning things well in advance!  The mirrors were from the dollar store, they were framed but I just took the frame off and washed them and you'd never know the difference, the table cloths were all $1 or cheaper (I found the silver ones on sale for 50 cents a piece), the streamers and balloons were all $1, even the tea lights I think I only spent $5 on.  The velum, cardstock, and pearls, along with the different types of glue I used were all from Michaels and either on sale or I had coupons for.  Shout out to RetailMeNot, a fantastic little app that always has coupons for Michaels, check it out if you haven't yet.  I spent most of my money on food, typical of me haha.  Have you planned any fun parties that you'd like to share?