About those New Year goals...

Well, I did learn to crochet. Aaaaand now I'm addicted. I'm on my 1½th (one and a halfth) amigurumi turtle (didn't finish the first one yet) and I have about eight other projects I'm going to do "next." I have a sneaky feeling, however, that since I hate hand-sewing, either I'm going to suck it up and get used to it, or I'm going to have a million projects in little pieces all around the house. My fabric stash may just have to move over and make room for some yarn...

Baby booties are supposed to be gratifying, right?

They are a cute, useful project that can be completed in an hour or so. Right? Hm. I've been working on mine for weeks. I'm not even sure I'm happy with them! And Coen can't wear them because the bottoms are slippery and he's learning to walk. Although it might be fun to watch, I doubt it would be very kind or helpful to him. Whenever I let Kalten pick out his clothes, he chooses his helicopter pants that I made for him. They were cute a year ago, but they're extremely short now. I don't dare take them out of circulation until a new pair can be made (I have quite a bit of that fabric left; thanks, Fabric Fairy!). Those ought to take an hour, too. *snort* Maybe I'll make both of them a pair so they can match and drive Paul crazy.

So what's new?

I haven't been blogging because I haven't been creating! But Coen has discovered how fun it is to not necessarily be held all the time, and maybe I can finish up some things!

I've closed my Etsy store because it has been taking me way too long to do custom orders and I'd rather just not take them than have someone be unhappy with me. So it's on my to-do list to weed out the "custom" slots and just sell the readymade items for a while. One of my New Year goals is to blog more and to add one new item to my shop every week. I have yet to even open it, so you can see how that is working out for me.

Another goal is to learn crochet. I am fascinated by the little amigurumi animals and objects and I'd love to be able to do that. I've also bought supplies for stamp carving because that looks like a lot of fun to me. And I don't already have too many craft supplies or anything. Not at all.

Owl screen printed camisole

So I tried the screen printing thing a few years ago, failed on my first attempt, and gave up. I've been stenciling for a long time, and there's one I do over and over and I thought it would be so much easier and faster to have it on a screen. But my chemicals long ago expired or dried up or got lost or spilled, I can't remember. So I started playing around. I grabbed this little guy from my stack of freezer paper stencils I never cut out, cut him out, and ironed him onto the bottom of my screen instead of onto the shirt. Boom, owls on everything! I was able to wash and reuse the screen with the owl still on it. I wouldn't recommend washing too often, though. managed to catch this pic as it was blowing off the fence, lol

Chocolate-drizzled caramel corn from scratch!

My dad bought this tiny bag of caramel corn drizzled with chocolate, and it was kind of expensive but so good! His birthday is today, so I thought, I can make him some of that stuff! Here's what I did:

Preheat the oven to 275 F
Make 1 cup of popcorn. You can heat it a little at a time in 2 Tbsp oil in a pan over high heat, or airpop it, or make two bags of microwave popcorn and take a little out. Grease a roasting pan or two cake pans, and put the popcorn in them in the oven to keep it warm.
You'll need:
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
3/4 cup butter
1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 regular package chocolate chips, divided in half

Melt the butter in a large saucepan and add the brown sugar, corn syrup, and salt. Stir well, bring to a boil, and continue cooking for 5 minutes without stirring. Turn the heat off and stir in the baking soda and vanilla. Pour it over the popcorn, distributing evenly. Bake for 15-25 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes.

Spread caramel corn out on wax paper. Melt half of the chocolate chips in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time until smooth. Dip a spoon in the chocolate and drizzle over caramel corn. Let cool and turn as much of it over as you can (it will be in clumps) and repeat, drizzing the other side. Let cool and store in an airtight container.

with walnuts: add nuts or other additions to the sauce before pouring over popcorn, or else it won't all stick together.

both

close-up: the chocolate was still melty

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Cool blog giveaway!

Over at Domestic Disaster, ThreadsOfGray is hosting a giveaway of a super cute wristlet of the winner's choice - check them out here! All you have to do is post a comment, answering the question, "If you had all the money in the world…what charity would you support and why?" There are some great charities already listed in the comments, go check them out.

Baby hats