Peach Fluff - Low Carb Sweet Treat And More

I have a nice Low Carb Sweet Treat Recipe to share with you today.  But first, I thought you'd like to see a few of our latest finishes.

First, mom made some pretty little Straw Hat Ornament/Gift Tags:



These are just too cute and would be so pretty tied on to a Mother's Day gift!

Next, I finished up my little Crazy Quilt Hanging Pillows/Ornaments:







Each one has a vintage brooch on it as a focal point!  I sewed up several new blocks the other day so I can make a few more of these.  They are fun and I really enjoy choosing buttons for them!

Well, onto my recipe.  Actually, it isn't my recipe, it's my sister's recipe for Peach Fluff:



PEACH FLUFF RECIPE

1 package Sugar Free Peach Jello
3/4 cup Cottage Cheese
1 medium can of Peaches in pear juice (chopped into small pieces)
1 small carton of Whipping Cream
1 teaspoon Vanilla

Drain peaches and reserve juice.  Pour into measuring cup and add enough hot water to equal 1 cup.  Mix with Jello and let it dissolve.  Next, add peaches to jello.  Refrigerate until set.
Whip the whipping cream and vanilla.  Fold cottage cheese and whipped cream into Jello and refrigerate.

This recipe is so good and it's light and low carb!  My sister came up with it.  You can use any flavor of jello and any fruit that you like but we prefer the peach.

Well, I'm ready to stitch for a bit now.  I need my husband to tear himself away from the Model A and start the grill!  I have chicken marinating for salad.  Men!

I'll leave you with a photo of my little Lucy:



Is she just the sweetest little thing?  She only weighs 7 pounds!  One pound of body and 6 pounds of hair!

A Little Late On The Flea Market Finds And Another Sweet Treat Recipe!

Better late than never!  I've been busy as a bee these last few days.  A little too busy actually.  Been rearranging some things in my home, stitching, finishing and junkin!

On Sunday morning, Scott and I picked up my mom and we went to the Grayslake Flea Market & Antique Show.  The theme for this month was "Everything Vintage".  That's right up my alley!

Here are my Flea Market Treasures from Sunday.  As you know, I just love vintage hankies:





I only paid $1 for each of those hankies!  I really don't "need" any but I love them so I keep buying them.

Next, I found some buttons:



Check out those green rhinestone buttons!  They're mint and gorgeous.  So sparkly!  And, then a bagful of little white rose buttons.  Last but not least, I found some pink buttons.  I'm always on the looking out for old pink buttons.  If anyone has any they don't want, I will gladly give them a good home!

The little pink pieces are flowers.  It was hard to open them up so you could see them but when sewn down, they'll make these cool little flowers.

Next, a bag of lace and trim:



Again, I have plenty of lace but I just can't help myself!  I love it!!!!  And I adopt all unwanted lace and give it lots of love!!  :)

I just spent some time photographing our newest projects.  I'll save those photos for over the weekend.  Very time consuming actually.  But as you've probably noticed, my photos have improved greatly!

And speaking of time consuming, I've finally had enough of dial-up and have decided to get a high speed connection.  Next week, I'll make the phone calls and get the process going.  I like to read a lot of blogs (see my sidebar) and those blogs are very graphic intensive.  I get tired of waiting for pictures to load so high speed, here I come!

Let's see, what else have I been doing?  Oh, I baked this afternoon.  Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting!  YUM!!!



I did indulge!  And I don't feel guilty in the least!  Ha, ha, ha!  The recipe is from one of my vintage baking booklets:



This little book is by Walter Baker & Company, Inc.  The copyright date is 1931.  And here is the recipe if you would like to try it:

CHOCOLATE FUDGE CAKE

2 cups Cake Flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter (real butter)
1 cup sugar
2 egg yolks, well beaten
3 squares Baker's Unsweetened chocolate melted
1 1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 egg whites stiffly beaten

Sift flour, once, measure, add baking powder, soda, and salt, and sift together 3 times.  Cream butter thoroughly, add sugar gradually, and cream together until light and fluffy.  Add egg yolks and chocolate, then add flour, alternately with milk, a small amount at a time.  Beat after each addit;ion until smooth.  Add vanilla.  Fold in egg whites.  Bake in 2 greased 9 inch layer pans in moderate oven (350 degrees) for 30 minutes.

Well, I didn't make mine into cake.  I made mine into cupcakes with pink Cream Cheese frosting and they are quite yummy!  Do give them a try!

Over the weekend, I'll share a low carb sweet treat recipe.  Perfect for a warm Spring day!

For now, I'll leave you with a photo of my Nightmare:



I swear, there is no creature on this planet who can make themselves more comfy cozy than a cat!

Chocolate Orange Shortbread Cookie Recipe

I've kept myself quite busy today!  Ran errands, stopped at a garage sale (will share those treasures tomorrow), been doing laundry and made some cookies:



Here's the recipe:

CHOCOLATE ORANGE SHORTBREAD COOKIES

1 pound salted butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoons vanilla
grated rind of 1 medium orange
4 cups + 2 tablespoons flour
1 bag mini Chocolate chips.

Mix butter & powdered sugar together.  Add vanilla & orange rind.  Add cocoa powder.  Add flour 1 cup at a time.  Add mini chips.  Mix well.

Roll into 1 inch balls and place on cookie sheet (I use Parchment Paper on my baking sheets).  Press with a glass dipped in sugar.  Add pretty sprinkles.  Press again with glass dipped in sugar.

Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until done. 

Heaven help me!  These just melt in your mouth!

In other news, I've been stitching on a few small Crazy Quilt blocks.  These 2 are ready for sewing together:



And this is what I'm stitching on now:



These will be 6 inch ornaments. 

Finally for today, I thought I'd share my mom's latest projects with you:







These are crayon tinted, embroidered and beaded! 

Tomorrow we have a nice Flea Market to go to.  Oh, how I love my flea markets!  Scott & I will pick mom up around 8 am and we'll head up there in hopes of finding some nice vintage treasures. 

See ya tomorrow!

Crazy Garden Quilt is now Complete!!!

Here is my Crazy Garden Quilt:





As my long time readers know, I deal with Seasonal Affective Disorder Syndrome, among other things, and I decided that I needed a nice Winter project to help me get through the dreadfully cold, gray Winter days.  What would be more helpful than to make a crazy quilt with a garden theme!

I started this back in October (I think) and my timing was perfect!  I finished stitching the last block in March and yesterday, completed the quilt!  I used a vintage machine-embroidered handkerchief as the focal point for each of the 9 blocks.

I'm so pleased with this quilt and it very much suits my "shabby chic" tastes and "cottage style" decor.  Heaven knows I love pink!  If you would like to see close-ups of all 9 blocks you can find them here.

So now that my Crazy Garden Quilt is done, what's next?  Well, I have tons of projects planned.  Art dolls, mixed media projects, more re-purposed items, more CQ cat dolls....the list is endless.

I'll leave you today with my latest Etsy additions.  First, this gorgeous original by Mom:



And another project by Mom, a re-purposed perfume bottle:



Last but not least, my latest birdbath, created from a vintage sundae dish:

Happy Easter!

Wishing every one of my sweet blog readers a very Happy & Safe Easter!

Happy Easter Weekend!

Good Morning everyone!  Well, I'm almost done with my Crazy Garden Quilt.  All I have left to do is to put the back and sleeve on, top stitch it and hang it!  I'd like to get the back on tomorrow morning before we head over to mom's.  Still not sure if I will try to do that or not.  When I do the top stitching, I'll do that on mom's machine.  Hers is much newer than either one of mine and it's electronic so there's a bit more precision there.

In the meantime, here is an Easter card that I made:



Happy Easter Weekend!

Borders

I just finished sewing the pink satin borders on my Crazy Garden Quilt:



My mom has tried showing me about 2 dozen times how to do mitered corners but unfortunately, my crazy ADD brain just can't seem to get it.  So, to quote Frank Sinatra, I did it my way!

The next step is to hand-sew more of the trim along the inside edge where the quilt meets the border.  I have a little straightening up to do and then I'll start on that.

I won't be using the pink satin on the back.  I just don't feel that it's sturdy enough of a fabric to support the weight of this quilt.  Instead, I have some light pink Quilter's Cotton that I'll use.  When I get that to that step!

I was thinking more on my Crazy Button Quilt.  I'll be putting that one together not long after I finish up on this one.  The Button Quilt will weigh at least twice what this one does so instead of supporting it with quilt batting, I plan to use a heavy weight muslin.  If you would like to see those blocks again, click here.  I did these before I got sick and never got around to doing the finishing.  I plan to hang the Button Quilt over my husband's dresser in the bedroom.

In the meantime, I made some Easter Haystack candies this morning:



For mom's birthday, I made them with chocolate.  This time, I used white almond bark (which just tastes like vanilla) and I tinted it with food coloring.  I tucked a Cadbury Mini Egg on top.  Aren't they pretty?

In other news, I finally re-posted my Tutorials in my sidebar.  If you're looking for how to do Crayon Tinting or How to Wash Vintage & Antique Lace, you can find the directions in the sidebar on the left.

I've received several email messages from some of my very sweet readers, asking me how I'm feeling.  I don't talk about it too much anymore as I'm trying to focus on my creativity, my blog and my Etsy shop.  I'm doing ok.  I still have some physical pain, well discomfort really, mainly in my back.  I still have that awful feeling of crushing pressure in my body.  Although it's not as bad as it was and yes, my head still feels screwy.  Again, not as bad as it was.  I still can't feel much in the way of emotions but I do get twinges of it now and then.  I really try not to get discouraged.  After 15 months, I do feel sometimes like maybe this is as good as it gets.  I'm told it'll go away in time so I try to keep that in mind.  Still, I just want to feel like myself again.  It's been a long time.  I'm always tired and still go to bed at 7 pm but some of that may be the Zoloft.  Geez, when they say "depression hurts", they ain't kidding!

Finally for today, I'm thinking of adding a list of my favorite Etsy shops to the sidebar.  I really do believe in "Buying Handmade" and I'd like to help promote that.  If you have an Etsy shop and you make pretty, feminine "cottage style" items, please email ( please don't post it in my comments) me your shop address for consideration.

That's it for now everyone.  Have to wash some dishes, fold a load of laundry and then I can sit and do a bit hand sewing.  Have a good night!

Crazy Garden Quilt Assembly Continues.....

Just a quick post for today everyone.

I've sewn the trim down the seam lines on my Crazy Garden Quilt:



The next step in the process will be to put the borders on.  I won't be doing that today but we'll see what tomorrow brings.

For now, I'd like to let you know that my friend Cathy S. at Treasured Heirlooms blog is have a Contest Give Away.  Please do check out her blog.  It's beautiful and Cathy creates the loveliest cottage style adornments!  Be sure to scroll down to Cathy's March 20th post!

Crazy Garden Quilt Assembly In Progress

I know so many of my readers have been eagerly awaiting the completion of my Crazy Garden Quilt.  I started the process!  First, I had to trim off the excess fabric:



Some may think I waste a lot of fabric.  Well, I do but I have my reasons.  First, I like to stitch in a hoop so I make sure that my ground fabric will fit in a 12 inch Quilting hoop.  I use a vintage one.  I feel it's more sturdy and better made than the new ones.

If you look close in the first photo, you should be able to see that I mark my sewing line and add a 1 inch border around that.  I do this for several reasons.  I have a tendency to push the envelope when it comes to beading!  I mark that line and then run a basting stitch so I know how far I can put beads.  I leave the extra inch around that for "squaring up" the block.  With the stitching, the beading and the weight of it all, CQ blocks can get "out of shape".

So, the first thing I do is remove the basting stitch and then trim the block 1 inch from the sewing line.

Next, I square it up leaving a 1/2 inch seam allowance.  Again, the 1/2 seam allowance helps to support the extra weight of a CQ:



Once I had the blocks all trimmed up, I laid them out on the floor to be sure I was happy with my arrangement:



Next, I started sewing!  I first sewed them into vertical strips:



Generally, crazy quilts do not have a batting layer inside.  Again, my crazy quilts weigh a ton so I need the batting layer to help support them.  To this, I sewed vertical strips together horizontally but directly onto the quilt batting:



In the next photo, you can see where the quilt is sewn onto the batting.  Once I had that done, I top stitched along the outside edge to keep everything in place.



I can't go any further on the machine now until I hand-sew the trim on the seams.  I'll do that while watching TV.  You can see the pink satin fabric that I chose to border the quilt with.  It's such a pretty shade of cottage pink!  Anyway, the excess quilt batting is there for when I get to the borders.  Once I have the borders on, I can trim the excess batting away.


And all the while, I had my little supervisor overseeing my work:



That would be my Simba!

Anyway, once I get the trim sewn on the seams, I'll post another photo.  In the meantime, mom and I have completed a few more projects so I thought I'd share them:

First, is mom's little Swan Trinket Box:



Seems like I have a lot of bird items today!  This is my "trash to treasure" Dove In A Basket:



The basket was a broken vintage candle holder.  Now, it's a dove in a basket of flowers!

Last but not least, I just had to do another Birdbath:



I just love doing these!  A vintage candy dish turned birdbath!

I'm also thrilled beyond words that one of my Etsy items was featured on Paper*Cakes Finds.



How exciting huh?  Thank you so much!!!  Do visit the Paper*Cakes Blog.  Lots of pretty handmade eye candy there!

Ok, in other news, I'm tweeting now!  Ha, ha, ha!  Makes me laugh!!!  If you tweet, please look me up!  I could use some more followers.

I guess that's my news for today.  I just pulled some Banana Chocolate Chip bread out of the oven.  Oh, does that smell good.  Now to put some salad together for dinner!

Widgets, Gagets and Do-Dads!

As you can see, I've been playing around with all sorts of Widgets and so on.  This is all way more fun than it should be!  I also set up a Twitter account but I'm having some troubles with it.  I tried adding it to my Facebook page.  It asks for my Username & Password which I type in and then it tells me something went wrong and it can't log me in.  After fooling around with that for about 10 minutes, I said enough for now!

I don't have anything terribly exciting to share today.  My sister came yesterday to update some things on my computer.  I'm not always comfortable updating certain things myself so she came and we got some of that taken care of. 

I also put out a few of my Easter do-dads:



You may remember the shabby basket that I bought at the junk store awhile back.  I said I was going to fix it up for Easter with my glittery bunny and metallic eggs.  Well, that's what I did!  I think I'll dig around in my fancy ribbon stash and add a bow to it.

I didn't put out a lot of Easter things.  Just a few as it's only a week away.  I really prefer it when Easter is in the middle of April.

Today, I'll be heading over to mom's to play with some projects there.  And later this week, I'll be working on putting my Crazy Garden Quilt together.

Kitty & Me!

I've been trying to get to blogging all day!  I was at my mom's and was going to blog from dad's computer but I couldn't remember my Flickr password.  Arggggg.....

Well, I'm here now.  I have bread mixing in the Kitchenaid and I'll be starting on a pot of Italian Tortellini Soup momentarily.  In the meantime, I have a few new things to share today.

First are some sweet little Trinket Boxes by mom:



Aren't those just the cutest little Ragdolls?  And mom made the little quilts too.  I don't know if I'd ever attempt to sew up 1 inch squares!

I did finally finish up my little Cat Dolls yesterday:







It's been awhile since I made some.  I designed the pattern a few years back when Pat started The Comfort Doll Project.  I made quite a few for the project and then got a little burned out on them.  I was going through some of my "ready to stitch" projects and found that I  had 3 cat dolls all ready to stitch so I pulled them out, stitched them and put them together.  As you know, my little black cat is my signature and these dolls are based on that.

In other news, last week when I was in Hobby Lobby, I found some beautiful pink satin fabric.  It's the perfect shade of pink for my Crazy Garden Quilt.  I started the process of getting the blocks ready to put together.  No photos yet but stay tuned.
I have quite a few "works in progress" going on right now.  There are about 3 in various stages at my mom's house and at least 5 here!  I have to pace myself but it's good to have a few different things in the works.  That way I have options depending on how I feel at any given moment.  And I'm feeling the need for a new purse!  I pulled my Easter purse out this morning and will use this for the next week or so:



As for a new purse, I haven't been able to decide on what theme to do.  Again, I have quite a few purse blocks sewn up.  It's been awhile since I did something with a Seascape theme.  I have one ready to stitch with a beautiful vintage hankie that belonged to my grandmother.  I have a pink & green one with a cutsy pink butterfly and I've also been thinking about another peacock purse.  Oh, too many choices!!!!  What do you all think?

Well, finally for today, I'm going to share something with you that I don't usually do.  My dad gave me my Freshman School year photo today.  He suggested that I blog it.  I suggested that he put it on the firepit!  Ha, ha, ha.  Ok, I'm a fun person so here it is:

This was 1976 and I was 14 years old here.  Oh, those braces!!!!  Ick!!!!  I don't look that young anymore but who does!  Like I always say, it's not the years, it's the miles.  And not the physical miles but the mental and emotional miles!

Just for the record, this what I look like now:



This was taken about 4 years ago.

Have a good evening everyone.  I'm off to make soup!

Marie Antoinette Mixed Media Art Quilt Is Now Complete!

I've kept myself quite busy today.  First, I finished up on Marie:



And here is a closeup of the center portion:



I'm so please with this!  I must do more!  I have Mozart playing around in my head now!

When I finished that, I made some Polyclay faces.  One will be used on my next Marie Antoinette project!  Wait until you see that one.  Still thinking through the "how to's".

While doing laundry (again) I posted several new items by Mom and I. First, Mom sewed up another pretty gift bag.  I think this one is my favorite:



And I added my little Hat Ornaments:



If you would like to see larger versions of the images, just click on them to go to my Flickr site.

Well, that's the news for today everyone!  I'm off to deliver a new litter of kittens!  Crazy Quilt Cats Dolls are coming soon!