Pumpkin Carving

I am artistically challenge, in that I can't draw much more than a stick figure. Seriously. So when it came to carving pumpkins, I aways just opted for an easy toothy grin, because I just couldn't come up with any better ideas that I could draw out and execute. One of my best friends invited me over for pumpkin carving, and I was struggling with an idea, until I realized I could break out my silhouette and make a stencil!

Have I mentioned before just how much I love this machine? It has made craft projects so much more enjoyabe for me, and has greatly improved my crafting skillz. I have not been at a loss for projects since purchasing my silhouette, and I relly have no idea how I got by so long without it.

Okay, sorry about that gushing. Back to pumpkin carving.

I received an e-mail from Silhouette letting me know that all Halloween shapes were on sale for $.75! I browsed the online store until I found a shape that spoke to me. I chose the Owl Jack O Lantern -owl_jack_o_lantern_C20091027181311_19210 10/28/2009 and downloaded it into Silhouette Studio. I knew that I wanted to carve a big pumpkin, so I sized it as large as I could. I ended up going with freezer paper as my material because I knew it would lay the best on a bumpy pumpkin.

Here is what my pumpkin looked like after I got through carving it:

For the chest feathers, I decided not to carve all the way through, but scraped away the flesh from the pumpkin so that they would have a nice glow when a candle was placed inside.

And now for the pumpkin lit-up:

I realized that once I could see it lit, that my stencil was a wee bit crooked, but I think it turned out amazing!

I Heart Puff Pastry

I love flaky, buttery pasty, but I hate making it from scratch.  I was inspired to make a version of a cheese danish when I made a trip to Trader Joe's with my mother in-law and found this delicious sweet and slightly tangy blueberry vanilla goat cheese. I decided that since I was buying this cheese, it would be the perfect time to experiment with puff pastry, since Trader Joe's sells ths as well for a very nice price.

After arriving home with my purchases, I scoured the interwebs for a cheese danish recipe that might suit my needs, and came across several that gave me a better idea of where to go with this. So here is my version:

Blueberry Goat Cheese Danish

Ingredients
8oz log Trader Joe's wild bluberry & vanilla chevre
3tbs. sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tsp water
1/4 tsp. vanilla
2 sheets puff pastry, defrosted

Directions
Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees

In a medium bowl, mix together the chevre and sugar. Add the vanilla and 1 egg yolk, and mix until just combined. Set aside.

Take the puff pastry, 1 sheet at a time and roll out. Place pastry onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Take half of the cheese mixture and spoon out onto the sheet of pastry. Taking a sharp knife, slice the sides of the pastry into 2 inch wide strips and fold the pastry, alternating sides, over the cheese. Repeat this process for the second sheet of pastry and the remaining cheese mixture.

Take the other egg yolk, and whisk with 1 tsp. of water. With a pastry brush, coat the tops of your pastry. Place pastry into the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. It should look like this:

This turned out just as I had hoped for, and my husband and I gobbled down one of these danish on Saturday. I decided to gift the other to a friend, but had I not, I'm sure the other would have been devoured on Sunday. Thanks to this experiment, I no longer fear puff pastry, and my mind is full of ideas for future recipes.

A Harry Potter Onesie!

I have been a bad, bad blogger and haven't been around much. We have had a lot going on in our lives lately and I've been traveling a lot for work and we had to work in a vacation in there so my crafting time lately has been limited.

I was thankfully able to work in some craft time over the weekend, and made an adorable Harry Potter related onesie for a friend of mine who will be an aunt very soon. I decided to make a Gryffindor House-ish shirt and came up with this using my Silhouette SD and freezer paper. Man, so I LOVE freezer paper stencils!

I apologize for the poor photo. I couldn't find my camera and only had my phone handy.

To make this onesie, I downloaded a couple images from the Silhouette Store. For the tie, I used this neck_ties_C00066_22902  and for the crest I used one from this shield_set_C00982_20387. The Gryffindor "G" is just Helvetica font.

I decided to fancy this up a bit by using Tulip Pearl Scarlet Red fabric paint, which has a little bit of shimmer to it, which I think added a nice pop to this lovely onesie. I had to add a tiny drop of black to get it to the proper Gryffindor shade. For the gold, I used Tulip Sunshine Yellow fabric paint.

I really like how this one turned out and I see myself making Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and even Slytherin shirts in my future.

Homemade Ice Cream!

I apologize for not posting this week. I had to go to Arizona for work and couldn't do anything crafty. Its SO good to be home!

We got an ice cream maker attachment to go with our Kitchanaid mixer and had yet to use it. My best friend and her husband were coming over for dinner and a game night, so I decided that this would be the best time to whip it out and make something delicious.

We love coconut and we knew our guests love coconut, so I scoured the web for an easy recipe to try out and found this one on allrecipes.com, which made about a quart of ice cream.

Ingredients

• 1 cup milk
• 1 (14 ounce) can cream of coconut
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1 1/2 cups sweetened flaked coconut (optional)

Directions

1. Combine the milk and cream of coconut in the container of a food processor or blender, and mix thoroughly. Stir in cream and flaked coconut.
2. Pour into the container of an ice cream maker, and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions

With this recipe it is super important to use cream of coconut, not coconut milk. Cream of coconut is similar to sweetened condensed milk, where coconul milk is similar to evaporated milk. You really need the sweetness from the cream of coconut to have a delicious, sweet ice cream.

I also added a bar of dark chocolate, which I chopped up and added to the ice cream about 15 minutes into the churning process. I made this the night before so that it would have time to set-up, but it was still a little on the soupy side toward the bottom of the container, but I realized our freezer wasn't turned down very much. Hopefully I'll have better luck the next time around, but it was still very yummy.



 

Sewing Class Fail

I attempted to sign up for the sewing classes that I had mentioned before, and found that the class was full. I was sure that there were multiple sessions of this class and even checked my flyer again to verify this. Sure enough, there were 6 sessions listed.

I checked the website multiple times over the next few days to see if they might be adding more classes to their roster, but still nothing. I had attempted to call them, but kept getting a recording, so I sent an email. It took them 3 days to get back to me just to inform me that the class is a 6 week session and that I had read the flyer wrong.there were already 5 people on the wait list, so chances of me getting in were slim to none. They assured me that if I was on the wait list, that I would be the first to get to register for classes in the Spring. WTH?!? I have to wait until SPRING??

Now, this is not at all what I had expected, and I had inquired about the class last Spring and was told I would be informed of when this sessions class would begin since the past session had been canceled. I guess thats what I get for trying to save money on sewing classes. I need to suck it up and spend some money on other, more expensive classes.

Now I just need to find one.