Adventures on the weekend!

This is a delayed broadcast! lol

The adventures that I am referring to are from last weekend.Soooooo

Last weekend was busy for me. There were two early Mother's Day teas on Sunday! My sister her kiddlets, Sam and I spent most of Saturday busy making treats to take with us. Honestly the Kids and Sam were as helpful as they could be but honestly, their attention span is totally lacking. That being said Sam is excellent at floor cleanup.

We worked on three major projects.

The first- not food related. We worked on an upright garden in a shipping pallet

Yes, this was our resulting trip to the nursery. My sister saw the idea on a blog called Life on the Balcony and we both have pretty small backyards with limited gardening space. It is a far cry from the gardens that we grew up with, but anyway to grow fresh veggies and some strawberry plants is a good idea. She mentioned it to me and I got  a pallet from a work neighbor and we made sure that the supplies we needed were in the cart. 

To be honest we did not follow her directions exactly as I mentioned we were using some decorative plants but mostly edibles, and I have no finished photos as it wasn't filled by the two 40 liter bags of soil we used. More photos after the triumphant finish. WE did enjoy making it until the kids had their own meltdowns, but that's what happens at nap time.

The Second- Cake Pops. Yes that's right..... there are tools at the kitchen store for everything!

We mixed up a box of Cherry chip and went to town!

They looked especially interesting after they were dipped in chocolate and fun decorations.

These are cooled off and placed in a container upside-down, so please don't be concerned. WE had a great time! Yes they were yummy. You may want to know that one box of cake mix did all of this plus. I urge you to be going somewhere with these goodies if you make this kind of volume unless you plan on eating them all. Not that there is anything wrong with that plan. Just sayin'

The Third- Candy Sushi....... Stay with me.

See? not so crazy. You are looking at the genius combination of rice crispy squares, gummies and fruit roll-ups. You can find this all over the web right now, but we used Mommyknows as our inspiration. This is also a tutorial. Try it, love it!

Ya we made nigiri too! They were a big hit with the party people and very fun to make.

Turns out Sam likes sushi...... especially with marshmallows.

More knitting content next time. Hope you enjoyed this crafty diversion as much as we did making it. More projects to come I hope.

Great Gift swapping!

Sooo.... the same story I have told before, and that you may have heard from other bloggers....

The Secret Grinchy Swap.

I got and gave goodies, and much fun was had by all! It ws a good swap, and well timed, we had more than the holidays to create as we swapped on Sunday the 18th, and that meant that some of us could do holiday projects as well as this. One friend in the knitting circle is much easier to give to than all of them! LOL

Firstly... I made...... those things that I have been taunting you with...

Toasty warm Twilight Mitts.....

This was the knitted gift that I gave... the handmade aspect of this exchange made me make a fantastic gift. How could I do something ordinary? NONONO, it must be different and amazing and intresting, and yet useful! The pattern is free from Interweave press, I think it worked out great and would work well in several other colour combinations... just like the other crazy amounts of mitts I have been knitting!

I also decorated a scarf, made a heap of both crochet and knitting stitch markers, tossed in a few pirate-y goodies and some of her favorite tea. these sadly I have no image of, but if she posts on her blog, I will link over.

I did also get a few fantastic things, but I will tell you about those later.. I have to take good pics of them! The cat likes the box the best.

This is what I have been knitting like crazy... a baby blanket, I have a ton of babies to knit for... so I got crackin! This one is made of some leftover discloth cotton mixed with some colourful purple/green verrigated cotton. It is turning out so well that I think I will be making a few more blankets in thsi construction method. A "Log -Cabin" blanket, inspired by Mason Dixon knitting, even though I didn't use their patter per-se.

Hope to have more project updates this weekend too! Have a good Friday!

oooo goodies!

So I was fortunate enough to get mail today!!!! I have pics..... let me show you what I got!

oooooo so much fun!! As a warning, there are four pictures in this post and I know that I have a few more on the blog, so be aware, I don't want to have anyone upset over download time......

I seriously love swapping!!! I have reasons.... LOOK......

This is Benson, my very own pincushion!!!! LOL is he not the funniest thing that anyone could get in the mail! LOL I think that he is great! I have been waiting for him for a while! I guess, judging by the customs tape................ that he spent some time with the Canadian officials, because seriously, what customs officer would know what this guy was!!! LOL the colourful dots on him are his pins!!! LOL I wonder what he looks like going through an X-ray machine! no wonder he has a hole in his bum and some of his pin decorations appear to be broken! (incidentally he is filled with cotton batting and plastic pellets.......) oh man LMAO!!

So that was my first joy!! ( in all honesty, I don't think my family understood the joy on my face when they beheld Benson in all his glory.........)

Moving on......

*giggle*

This fantastic array of goodies is from another swapping partner.....

I got a PURSE! with SKULLS on it!!!! how fun is that! the lining which I seem to have forgotten to take a picture of, is a red snakeskin! It matches the skulls bandannas.... YAY!

In addition to that I got a spindle and some roving that was kool-aid dyed so I can try out spinning!!!! She is awesome!!! I have already thanked all these great swap partners in the proper galleries on craftster. I swear.

But wait.................there is more! yes I have received from my fat quarters swap! LOL aren't these nice!!! I have to think of something to make, I can't let them be stash, they are way to fun, and I know that I will never have this fabric again, so why not have some fun with it!?!?! Pillows maybe? I have no clue! LOL Too bad I don't quilt. You may have noticed that I have 7, not 6 that was what I was supposed to have, but she wasn't sure that I would like the golden fabric, so she gave it to me and made sure that I had 6 other anyway! Good thing this happened to me too, I have an extra for each of my partners.....
This final image is not a swap..... I knit it this weekend.... you can see it on my noggin in the top picture, I used a squash here, and it doesn't do the stitch justice........but it was all I had, the family is in bed so I can't model it on my noggin right now, and I really wanted to post.... so maybe later. I was trying to make sure that I had something done for Project Spectrum..... So I went with white as the colour, to challenge myself, I don't usually use white! This is Patons Classic Merino knit in the round into the Maple Seed Stitch hat I found on craftster.... I am now going to make several more as they only seem to take a few hours...... I love that!

I think that I may try to have a less picture oriented post next time. I realise that for some it takes a while to load this up, and that can be a pain and frustrating..... sorry about that. I will keep it light for a little while...... talk at you later!