Saturday, April 10, 2010

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:

Chocolate Orange Shortbread 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:

Crazy Quilt Button Blocks

And this is what I'm stitching on now:

Crazy Quilt Button Blocks

These will be 6 inch ornaments. 

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

Bunny Pillow

Bonnet Lady Pillow

Violets Pillow

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!

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Crazy Garden Quilt is now Complete!!!

Here is my Crazy Garden Quilt:

Floral Crazy Quilt Finished 1

Floral Crazy Quilt Finished 2

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:

Teddy Bear Pillow

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

Vintage Perfume Bottle

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

Sundae Dish Birdbath

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Happy Easter!

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

Saturday, April 03, 2010

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 Card

Happy Easter Weekend!

Thursday, April 01, 2010

Borders

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

Floral Crazy Quilt Assembly 9

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:

Easter Haystacks

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!

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