Gingerbread Men (yum!)

Winter is here, which means putting up Christmas decorations, caroling, listening to Christmas music on the radio, and most importantly, celebrating Jesus' birth.

Happy Birthday, Jesus! :D

Unfortunately, so many forget (I confess, I have too) about the Christ in Christmas.

Oh, and check it out!

In Spanish, 'Mas' means more! So if we just combine that with Christ, we get "More Christ".

That's pretty neat.

 

Yet, it seems, we should have Christmas all year around.... no, no, that doesn't mean that we have to go through the chaos of Christmas shopping all year 'round (if so, God please help me, I'll go crazy then) and everything else we usually do in December, but we should always celebrate the coming of Jesus.

 

Now, let us reflect on these thoughts as we sit down to open the Bible and read the Christmas Story.

But a quarter way through the reading of Jesus' birth, something interrupts.

The growling of a poor, hungry stomach.

We can't have that interrupting the all-important reading, can we!

Perfect recipe for that is Gingerbread Men. :)

 

Gingerbread Men:

2 1/4 Cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

3/4 (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup dark molasses

1 egg

 

 

1. Combine flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking powder, salt, cloves and nutmeg. Beat in butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. beat in molasses and egg. Beat until well blended. Shape dough into 3 discs. Wrap well in plastic wrap; refrigerate 1 hour or until firm.

 

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Working with 1 disc at a time, place on lightly floured surface. The dough will probably be pretty sticky, so it's better that you first rub some flour in it, before pressing it down instead of using a rolling pin. Press it down to a 3/16-inch thickness. Cut dough with floured 5-inch cookie cutters. Place on a greased cookie sheet.



 

3. Bake for about 12 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. Let the cookies sit on the cookie sheets for about a minute before moving them to wire racks to cool. When cool, pipe on whatever icing you think would taste the best with lovely gingerbread men, if desired.

 

Eat! Enjoy! And don't forget what Christmas is all about! :)





 

Merry Christmas!!!

 

The Quilt Block Scarf

Fall is here, and now we can see and enjoy the colorful leaves, the interesting pumpkins, and the nice weather that usually stays between hot and cold.

But sometimes it gets a little too much on the cold side, and along with sweaters and socks, a scarf is needed.

But why go to the store and buy one long piece of cloth for eight bucks, when you can just make it yourself?

 

Introducing (drum roll in the background): the Quilt Block Scarf!

 

So first of all, after digging through piles of fabric scraps and selecting a fabric I liked, I laid the cloth out on the cutting mat and cut it into 5 by 5 blocks. I have helped make quilts before, and so this first step reminded me of those times. Hence, the Quilt Block Scarf.

 

Then, I pinned them to each other, so the bottom corners would be overlapping the next block.



Then I sewed a straight line straight down the middle of the attached 'quilt blocks'.



Then I took the side corners of the blocks, and folded them so that they overlapped each other. Next, I sewed them like that.

 

 

And there you have it: The Quilt Block Scarf. :)

 



Markers and Crayons

School is in motion, and now I am under the stress of.... you guessed it, homework. It seems as if this year of high school shall be the most stressful, and my brain is full of Electron Configurations, Rise of the Protestant Churches, AB + BC = AC, ect. ect. Sometimes it's as if school is dominating my life, including my brain. Ugh! Time to take a little break from school, and actually here myself think of other things....like markers!

I took a piece of paper, and drew a girl standing all alone in the middle of it.

That girl is me. Doesn't look like me, but it's me.

 

Then I made words go over her head, saying, "What Am I Thinking About".

This is what you can call an act of desperation to actually hear myself think, and not get mixed up in my busy brain.

After that, I began to think of stuff other than school (though there are a few statements in there that are very similar) and wrote them down in different colors.

The result: a colorful paper full of miscellaneous and random thoughts! I actually found that by doing this, it sort of took some away of the stress in me.

 

Now, onto the subject of crayons. One of the first tools you used as a tot. Perfect for making coloring pages look colorful. And, perfect for melting!



I needed to do something for my parents' anniversary, and finally I came up with melting crayons.

Weird, huh?

But the finished product was beautiful, and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again!

 

First, I bought canvas at a craft store, and then got out the Masking Tape. You know, that queer, light brown, sticky stuff.

On the table (very lightly. Don't do this if it makes your mom freak out), I arranged the tape overlapping each other.



Then I carefully peeled it off, and cut the top in an arch. Then I laid it on the canvas and pressed it down.

After that, I laid a strip of tape at the bottom of the canvas, and glued different colored crayons at the top with the glue gun.

Now for the fun part. I took the blow dryer, and melted those crayons. The tape prevented them from running down in those certain areas I had taped off.

Once it was melted and dry, I peeled off the tape. Then I painted two people under an umbrella, and words underneath.

 I gave the picture to my parents, and they loved it.

Warning: When you're blow drying, try to do it outside. If you can't, do it on top of a lot of newspapers, unless you want colorful specks of melted crayon all over the room. Trust me, I know from experience.





 



 

Back To School Notebook and Messenger Bag!

The summer has gone by too quickly, and now I am drowning in the misery of thoughts of going back to school. Okay, not "drowning in misery", but you get what I mean. It seems like summer break only started yesterday. But now school is beginning, and I decided that I needed to be a little more organized this year than last year. So I asked Mother for one of her Planning Books that she receives. What it looked like?

Corny, right? There was no way that I was going to school with a notebook like this! So I gathered up the scrap denim I had saved from making the Swirl Skirt. To check that out, scroll all the way down to my very second post.
First I cut card stock to fit perfectly on top of the cover.

 

 

 Then, I cut scraps out of the saved denim, and using rubber cement glue, pasted it onto the card stock. Using different shades of denim help to add character.

 The finished plan book. Compare it to what it used to look like and decide which one you like better. Adding hearts, flowers, stars, or something like that can give it an artistic touch.

 

 

 I also needed a bag for carrying my books, since my backpack is ripping and also has the strong scent of ham in it (please don't ask why). Plus, it hurt my shoulders, so I decided that a messenger bag would be better. I found a complete, burlap one at Hobby Lobby. Not the most attractive.

This bag needed serious spiffing up! So I dug through a box of my mothers old lace. Along with that was some very old, fun things, like buttons.

These buttons looked like chains coiled around. They were pretty cool. And inspired some dorkiness, since they were bigger than my eyes :)

So I pinned the lace on...

And then sewed it on.

Then after sewing on lace, I painstakingly hand-sewed the butterflies and buttons on. And then voila, I now have a beautiful messenger bag!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Swirling in the Swirl Skirt

Summer can play weird tricks on your mind. Maybe it's the fact that school is out, and you don't have to occupy your mind with (as much) schoolwork. Or maybe it's because of all the vacations and relaxing you are now allowed to do. Whatever it is, as I said, it can do some weird things to your brain. My brain, at least.
Like when I decided that I needed another skirt. Well, since stores nowadays only have miniskirts or ones that like to slip off your waist, the only option was to make one. To sew one. Just to let you know, I'm not a sewing fan. But I found a cute skirt in a sewing book, and (with the help of my Mother of course. If I did it all by myself it'd have had to end up as a potato costume) went to work!

I dug through my brothers' old pants that Mother had saved, and found three pairs of jeans with different values.

Then I grabbed another pair of old jeans that fit around my waste, and marked it all the way around (as is shown in the above picture) so that I could wallop off the top, along with the pockets.
Then, I cut out two strips from each pair of pants, and after a lot of measuring, cutting, and growling in annoyance, I sewed the curved strips to the top of the jeans.

The finished Swirl Skirt!

Despite all the extremely annoying parts (such as sewing something up, then realizing that I had accidentally made a tuck in the skirt, and then having to take it out again), the finished product was very nice, and the sewing experience has prepared me for later in life.

My Very First Blog Entry!!!

 Hey, Bethany here! I'm so excited, this being my very first post!!! Just to let you know, this blog will contain a lot of crafts and creativity and most likely no science lesson on rainbows and stars ;) So have fun, and start thinking up rainbows of creativity!

One of my first projects this summer was repainting an old bench, that we had had for quite a while. At first it was green, but then the paint began peeling and it began to look a lot more like this:

Pretty, right? This bench needed serious work. So, I donned a fabulous outfit (that did not match whatsoever, but it was good to get paint splatters on) and went right to work.

And of course, I had a lovely assistant who apparently knew everything there is to know about painting benches, and made sure that I was informed of that.

After I had thought that I had used up a can, I had given it to her. Well she worked that pump, and was holding it really close to the back of the bench. Suddenly, lo and behold, a red mist comes forth! And my dear sister pretty much sprays graffiti all over the back of the bench. If you look closely, you can still see it.  

The finished project. We transformed it from an ugly green to a bright red, that went well with the white and blue (so patriotic!). And so we pulled off one of our first summer projects with success!