My First Giveaway!

My blog is almost a month old now. I appreciate the kind comments and wonderful followers. I feel like I really am meeting some great people from all over. Also I just won my first giveaway and I wanted to pass on some bloggity love.

The giveaway is for this pot holder that I made just for the occasion. It is made from repurposed denim and lined with cotton batting and repurposed cotton clothing. I have several of these types of pot holders for sale in my etsy shop (and my own kitchen, they really do work very well).

You can have several chances to win this giveaway. You must leave a comment for each chance:

1. Go to my Etsy shop and browse around. Come back here and leave a comment telling me what your favorite item is and why.  

2. Follow my blog. Leave a comment here to let me know that you did.

3. Spread the word!  Blog and/or twitter about this giveaway. Leave a comment with a link letting me know that you did.

Be sure to have all comments in by Midnight on Monday, March 2. The drawing will be on Tuesday, March 3. Please leave me a way to contact you (your blog, etsy shop, or email) either in a comment or through an email (you can email me with the email link to your right). 

Thanks for coming by!

I Won!

Look what came for me in the mail today! 

I won my first blog prize. Thank you so much Diane. I love the organizer and will definitely put it to good use. You can visit Diane at her blog and at her Etsy shop Color Me Bella where she sells some really cute earrings and necklaces. 

(and congrats on your engagement!)

I will be posting my first blog giveaway very soon. Check back and have a great day!

and speaking of giveaways The Muddy Moose Bath Boutique has a wonderful giveaway going on. It runs until Monday, March 28. Go on over and have a look!

What's New Pussy Cat?

So it seems I'm on a bit of a cat kick at the moment. I came across a picture of a quilted cat and thought, "let's give it a try". 

I quilted up a couple of these cat pot holders and will be listing them in my etsy shop this week. I am not ready to attempt faces so I thought I'd have them looking out a window. What do you think? 

I really do want to put a bigger piece in my shop

and I've decided to make it a cat quilt. I've made up a cat similar to the pot holders as my pattern. It's going to be totally scrappy with each block, border, & cat being different (there might be some repeats but definitely different enough to be called scrappy). I made one block to test out the size of the background and borders. I like the way it looks so this is what I am going with. Not sure how big it will be yet ~ twin, queen, any thoughts?  The block measures 10 x 10 3/4 unfinished. 

The snow has been falling since early this morning. I'll need to do something about the driveway at some stage. I don't have any plans of going anywhere on this lazy Sunday so it's at a low priority for me. I find that snow is much more enjoyable when you don't think about shoveling!

and finally I do follow the adage "let sleeping babies lie" (yes I know that's for dogs but it applies to babes too), But this might be stretching it a bit! go ahead give it a click ~ it's only 10 seconds long and will most likely make you smile!

Pumpkin Pancakes for a Snowy Morning

A beautiful heavy snow fell last night. Spring seems such a long way off and gardening is just a dream at this point. Here is a photo of my garden today. Last summer was my first serious attempt at gardening, it was wonderful. This year I plan on expanding. 

It was a wonderful morning (especially since I didn't have to shovel today) to make my favorite pumpkin pancakes. I found this recipe in Parenting magazine a few years back (it has been on my refrigerator ever since). They are really easy to make and cook up nice and fluffy. 

Pumpkin Pancakes

1 cup flour

3 tbs sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 egg

1 cup plain low-fat yogurt

1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree

2 tbs butter, melted and cooled, plus 1 tbs for the skillet.

1. Preheat skittle on medium high heat. In a bowl stir together all the dry ingredients.

2. In a large bowl beat the egg for 30 seconds. Add yogurt, pumpkin puree, & 2 tbs melted butter. Beat well.

3. Stir in dry ingredients and beat until just combined. 

4. Grease skillet lightly w/butter. Pour 1/4 cup batter per pancake, flip with spatula when tops bubble slightly and edges are slightly dry. Cook until other side is golden brown. 2 minutes per side. 

This is the recipe as written but I do some things differently.  I use a nonstick griddle so I don't add any extra butter to cook with.  I certainly don't cool my butter down after melting it (come on now who does that?). I also add less sugar and a little more pumpkin (I love pumpkin) they still taste great. I don't premix the dry ingredients (and have lived to tell about it). The batter tends to be a little dry for me so I usually add a little milk to loosen it up. I've also been known to sprinkle a little wheat germ in when no one is looking (ha!). Beware - They definitely do need to be cooked a little more than traditional pancakes. 

And what to do with the leftover pumpkin??? I get a few small zip loc baggies and put in 1/4 cup pumpkin & the 2 tbs butter in each. I then freeze the baggies and pull one out to defrost in the microwave the next time I make them. 

Here's breakfast! Little bear pumpkin pancakes. Yum!

Out With The Old ~ Here Comes Some New

This post won't be very interesting for those of you that live in the north country. I've only been here myself about 5 years now so snow pick up still strikes me as funny. Anyway we are expecting 6-10" to fall by tomorrow so they came and removed some of the old stuff. 

We've got snow to spare, would you like some? 

New Listings!

Here are my latest creations. I posted the floral on the left yesterday and the lion in my Etsy shop today. My goal is to list everyday. I still haven't figured out if it's better to just list them all at once or on a regular basis. I figure if I list everyday I won't get buried at the bottom of the search pit. Any ideas on that one? 

As far as pot holders go, do you feel the need to buy a set or would just one really cute one do? Many people who make pot holders line them with a special batting that is supposed to deflect the heat. I use a layer of regular cotton quilt batting and a layer or two of repurposed cotton clothing (turtlenecks, thick shirts, dish towels). I've tested them out with great success (no problem holding the HOT pizza stone).

Have a wonderful day!

Web Site Find ~ Wordle

This website was mentioned on the Etsy forums (thanks Batiz Jewelry ). It's called Wordle: www.wordle.net . The site describes it as a toy for generating "word clouds" from words that you put in. Once you get there go to "create". You'll find a place where you can simply type in words or a place to enter a website (try your blog or your etsy site). 

It then creates a super cool word cloud. Here is one I got from entering the URL to my Etsy shop. It literally took seconds to suck in every word from my listings and come out with this.  You can change the font, colors, & orientation of words. How cool is this?

The words that appear bigger are words that appear frequently on my site (like?). 

I did one for my daughter. I wanted her name to be larger than the other words so I typed her name a bunch of times then put in other words to describer her.  

I printed my Etsy one out on card stock.  I am going to hang it in my crafty nook. I'll play around with Erin's, it would look really nice framed in her room. 

There are so many ways you could use this. Someone on the forum mentioned using it to make thank you cards (or you could do birthday, anniversary, or even make it personal and frame it for a super cool gift). 

The teacher in me started thinking about how much kids would love to see their words come alive by using this program. They could make a word cloud to describe themselves, a book character, or anything they are studying in any curriculum area. Think of the possibilities ~ try it and have fun! Be sure to leave me a comment and let me know what you did with it. 

* Be sure to check this section of my shop for free US shipping (and reduced international) ending today!