It's an Easter Miracle!

Not really, I'm just excited that I managed to whip together a little Easter basket for Hendrix at the last minute this morning. We are getting ready to leave soon to be at church working all day, and then all morning tomorrow. So Easter busyness, combined with all my crafty attention focused on the birthday right now, makes for a somewhat neglected holiday.

But I don't mind that. We plan on coming home after all the services are over tomorrow, laying around doing nothing, and then eating Dewey's pizza for Easter dinner, followed by loads of Jelly-Bellys.

I really cheated on this one. The fabric basket I made a long time ago from this tutorial. It was serving organizational purposes in my kitchen, but I stole it. It took about 5 minutes to slap on some belting for a handle and some felt trim. Yes, I realize now it might have been worth the time to switch to a matching thread instead of using the dark gray that was already in the machine. Lazy, anyone?

Did anyone else manage to whip up anything special for Easter? Anybody making any special recipes? I'm hoping tonight I'll have some time to make a couple of things to put inside the basket, particularly one of these bowling pin bunnies. (Not the whole set! Yeesh.)

Have a happy Easter everyone!

Kitchen Curtains

I had to take a break from the playhouse today, (only one side left!) so I fixed these little kitchen curtains I made several weeks ago. We are very close to our neighbors, so I wanted to have some privacy but still let a lot of sun in, so I made them cafe style in this bright yellow Ikea fabric.

I used up every bit I had, but they still came out a little too short on the bottom:

So today I finally added some extra gray fabric to the bottom. Love yellow and gray together. Looks much more finished now too. Well, in real life it does. Taking good pictures of rooms and decor is difficult!

It's really not that dark, here's a picture that shows the gray fabric better.

And it only took me about a year and half to make our kitchen a little home-ier, so yeah, I'm pretty driven. 

Today's crafting soundtrack: Mumford & Sons. I've been listening to their new album for about a month straight, and it shows no signs of stopping...

Kid's Chicken Recipe

I have always tried to make most of HG's food. He is old enough to eat some meats now, but also in that stage where he won't eat anything pureed. He used to love chicken pureed with sweet potatoes and carrots or apples and onions, but now he wants to eat everything with his fingers. So far, he hasn't really liked eating little pieces of grilled chicken, and I haven't wanted to resort to frozen, uh, chicken-shaped products.

But yesterday I discovered the perfect way to prepare chicken so that he loves it. He ran a train on these little chicken fingers.

You need 1-2 boneless chicken breasts, 1-2 eggs (use one for each breast), crushed Ritz crackers, a couple tablespoons of butter, and some grated parmesan cheese. 

Pre-heat oven to 350. Cut each breast into about 8 thin strips. Beat your eggs in a shallow bowl, and in another shallow bowl, put your cracker crumbs and cheese. I used about 1/2 a sleeve of Ritz and a small handful of parm for each chicken breast. Cover strips in eggs, then crumb mixture. Lay them out in your greased pan and drizzle them with a little melted butter. Bake for 10 minutes, then flip and bake another 8-10 minutes. 

Great success! I even had a couple for lunch myself.  :)

I adapted the recipe from this book by Annabel Karmel. (She just used cornflakes instead of crackers, and no cheese.)

I have loved this book. I'm not much of a cook, so it has really helped me a lot in making his food. And it has great recipes for kids of any age, so I know it will come in handy for a long time. I would recommend it for anyone who wants to make baby food, or just healthier stuff for their kids. 

ok, back to cutting out felt...

Progress!

I'm all done with the first panel! (and almost done with the second.) Now I'm really not so worried about getting it done in time. After I drew out my designs and just got started, it's been hard to stop.

Sneak peak:

The pocket holds little stuffed shapes that will velcro on to match the other shapes. For them main pieces I decided to use duck cloth, since it is cheaper than wool felt, but will hold up better than craft felt. For the embellishments, the felt is wool-blend, but I used many 40% coupons :)

The whole design will be based off of this:

I've been pretty preoccupied with circus trains ever since I read Water for Elephants. Then I remembered that my brothers and I had this 70's Fisher-Price set when we were kids. The colors are perfect for felt. Did anyone else have this train set? I LOVE it. 

Can't wait to show you the whole thing soon!!

Technical Difficulties.

I can't find the battery charger for my camera, or the cord to import to my computer. So I can't post pictures of anything I have been working on until I find them. So I guess it's not really "technical difficulties," it's just "Jessica-being-flaky-difficulties."

I am way to distracted to read blogs that don't have pictures, so in order to not become one of those (not that there is anything wrong with those), I will show you what I am attempting to make HG for his birthday...

one.      of.         these:

Yikes.

I actually just got nervous now that I have made a declaration to the interwebworld that I am doing this. Now I have to show you the finished project and I have to have it done by his party on the 9th. You can cyber-shun me if it doesn't happen. I will deserve it.

These are acceptable excuses for you not to shun me if I don't finish:

1. House fire.

2.  Termite invasion.

3. Sudden terminal illness.

4. Evil elves throw acid on my sewing machine.

The only sewing around here...

has been in my skin this week.

I went 27 years of life without getting stitches, until Tuesday. I felt like I was 11 lying there getting my hand stitched up.

I was doing dishes while HG was napping, and as I was washing a wine glass with my hand down inside, it busted and cut right through my middle knuckle. I looked down and saw my bone. Then the blood came and I panicked a little because I knew HG was about to wake up. So I taped some paper towels around my hand and called Nick. He got home pretty fast and thankfully, the boy didn't wake up until he did.

So now I have frankenfinger.

Anyway, I was planning on leaving for TN to visit my parents that afternoon. Thankfully, they didn't take too long at urgent care so I still left on time.

We've done some bouncing.

Discovered mommy's childhood toys.

Terrorized Harley.

And bonded with Nana.

I also wanted to show you how talented his Nana is at making things.

This is the quilt she made for the guest room that used to be mine. Isn't it gorgeous??!?!

She is an amazing quilter. I feel like I have too much sewing ADD to do quilts, but I really do wanna try someday. 

(Side note: I made that picture on the right when I was in first grade. It won an art contest at the mall. It's "The Mona Lisa Shopping." I don't know how exactly, but my drawing skills have steadily diminished since first grade. So I cling to this colored pencil masterpiece as the one good piece of art I have created.)

Find me elsewhere

Started doing a little blogging over here. You can visit me there today in fact, if you'd like.

But I will leave you with this:

Happy Monday.