A Photo A Day [Days 160 & 161]

Continuing with the food pictures. Treated myself to an early Valentine's Day present in the form of these cutesy donuts.


California Pizza Kitchen's Thai Chicken Pizza. The dinner of champions!

Peanut Butter Nutella Brownies

Photo source

Happy World Nutella Day! Oddly, I made these brownies last night completely unaware that today was the big day of celebration for one of my favorite foods. Honestly, had I known I would have tried to come up with something more intricate and impressive. Which isn't to say these Nutella brownies aren't deliciously infused with lots of Nutella flavor and worth the loss of nearly an entire jar of the stuff. The chocolate in the recipe comes entirely from the Nutella and when combined with oodles of butter and brown sugar the brownies are fudgy and flavorful. Add in some peanut butter chips for the win!

A Photo A Day [Day 159]

Nutella Brownies
Recipe from Sweet Bliss

1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup Nutella
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and brought to room temp
3/4 cup peanut butter chips

1) Preheat your oven to 325 F. Prepare a 9 inch square pan by lightly greasing bottom and sides or lining it with parchment paper and spraying it with non stick spray.
2) In a small bowl, sift flour and salt together. Set aside.
3) In another bowl, mix Nutella, eggs, brown sugar and vanilla on low speed until well incorporated and creamy, about 2 minutes or so. Add flour mixture in 2 batches, alternating with the melted butter. Fold in peanut butter chips.
4) Spread in your pan and bake for 25-35 minutes. You want the center to be just set if you like them fudgy.

A Photo A Day [Day 158]

Got a new book from the library today. Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies is sure to be a tour de force, assuming I survive long enough to read it.

A Photo A Day [Days 156 & 157]

This is my cat.
This is my cat on drugs.
Any questions?



Gettin' steamy in the kitchen.

A Photo A Day [Day 155]

The Daily Shoot's theme: "Make a photograph that features repetition."

Embossed Stamped Stationery

Believe it or not, there are a few sections of the craft store that hold little interest for me: the fake flowers, clay, unfinished wood, and, until today, the rubber stamps. The latter have always seemed a bit pricey to me and I couldn't think of anything worthwhile to do with them. I'm not sure this latest craft counts as worthwhile but it's something fun to do to fill a lazy Sunday evening.

A few days ago I spotted Food, Wine, & Mod Podge's tutorial for embossed stationery and was ready to rush out and buy all of the necessary supplies. But I was patient and made the rounds to all of the nearby craft shops so I could dutifully use my coupons and not pay full price for anything. JoAnn Fabric happened to have embossing powder on clearance, Michaels had nice notecard/envelope sets on sale and lots of ink to choose from, and AC Moore had the embossing heat tool at 40% off with a coupon. Despite my efforts, I invested close to $20 in this project even though I was able to use the stamps I already had on hand. I'd picked up the two skull stamps around Halloween and my wonderful uncle gave me the Edward Gorey ballerina stamp last year. I'm so glad I now have a perfect way to put them to use!

The tutorial is spot on so if you're interested in trying this for yourself I'd recommend following those instructions. The only notes I have are to be sure to clear all of the embossing powder off before applying heat. There are a few smudges and spots around my stamps where I accidentally left some. I read somewhere that you might need to use a small brush or toothpick to do the job so I'll give that a go next time. Also, the heating process took less time than I expected, just a few seconds over each spot. The glossiness showed up almost immediately so be sure you don't overdo it with the heat. Still, even with a few errors I'm happy with my custom stationery and can't wait to start sending out notes.

I'm afraid this means I have a new crafting obsession as I spent the better part of the evening browsing Etsy for cute little rubber stamps. Looks like there's also one more aisle of the craft store for me to check out, much to my husband's chagrin.

Pac-Man Baby-in-the-Hood Jacket

I have a habit of entering every single contest I come across, whether I want the prize or not. So when I got an email notifying me that I'd won a copy of Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnings I wasn't exactly surprised that I'd won something so poorly suited for me. It's a book designed to prepare for the arrival of a baby and anyone who knows me is probably snickering already. Not only do I not have any kids but I also intend to keep my life child-free. No offense to those of you who want to reproduce but it's just not my thing. Still, the thrill of winning was enough and I did eagerly flip through the book when it arrived, making note of the few projects I could make even without a young 'un in residence. There's a bag that looks promising and a maternity shirt that, with enough alterations, could make for a cute summer top. Or a great top to hide my belly after a cupcake binge.

Then I realized that I have not one, not two, but three cousins all expecting babies this year. Good to know they're making up for my lack of cooperation in the baby producing arena and carrying on the family genes. I thought it might be nice to make them some handmade gifts and what better source for inspiration than the book I just happened to have tucked away in my craft desk? Going in chronological order by due date I picked which cousin I'd sew for first and I already had the perfect fabric on hand.

While I never make New Year's resolutions for various philosophical and psychological reasons, I did tentatively plan to try to use up as much of my overgrown fabric stash as possible this year without adding lots more. Yeah, that lasted about a week before I saw the Pac-Man and Space Invaders fabric at Fabric.com. I managed to stop myself from purchasing it for nearly another week. But then they put it on sale, I had a coupon for an additional 15% off, and the rest is history. What really gave me the excuse to buy it was knowing that it would be perfect for my cousin's baby, which doesn't explain why I bought two yards of the Pac-Man fabric and even more of the Space Invaders fabric. What can I say? I'm a weak woman.


The book is as beautiful as you'd expect anything from Anna Maria Horner to be, full of her gorgeous fabrics being used to create gorgeous items. There are a lot of useful projects to choose from so if you or someone you know is expecting I do recommend it. The pattern that immediately caught my eye was the adorable baby-in-the-hood jacket and I was thrilled to discover that I had the perfect fabrics already in my stash to coordinate with the Pac-Man fabric. Must be fate. That and a snow day off of work were all I needed to dig in and get started.


I love that baby clothes require so little fabric. Even this fully-lined jacket barely made a dent in my yardage. The instructions are very clear and, aside from a few blips where I had to re-pin due to my own misjudgment or misalignment, everything went as planned. It's just that it took me forever to sew. Maybe it's because it was my first experience with the pattern or maybe it's because I was extra careful since it's a gift, but after a full afternoon of sewing last Saturday I still had the last page of instructions left to complete. Fortunately by that point I was able to see it coming together, which was enough to convince me that my hard work would pay off and spur me on to finish yesterday.

The pattern is really a clever one with all of the seams neatly tucked away. I could have used more illustrations and diagrams but the written instructions are clear enough that, once I forced myself to read them thoroughly, it was easy to figure out what to do. The only thing I might do differently next time is make the extra effort to switch out threads and bobbins so there's no contrast stitching. I'm confident enough in my ability to sew straight that I lazily used black thread everywhere but think I'd prefer the more invisible look of color coordinated thread better.


Still, as proud as I am of the end result I'm not sure I'll be repeating this performance for the other two cousins. I'm thinking of finding something a little less time-consuming to make for them, but I'll be sure to make it with just as much love. Although this jacket is so darn cute!