~~SUgar CAne NATuraL & nUtS~~

I am the coordinator for my area for Bread Beckers Co-op. We compile our orders to save on the shipping of grains, beans, honey and a host of other items. Quarterly orders are shipped to me where I commandeer the garage organizing individual orders to be picked up by the co-op members. All those white buckets of wheat and beans, wow, you should see the huge 50 pound bags!! Last quarter a 50 pound bag of sucanat was mistakingly left with us and we decided to buy it for ourselves. I'm not all together familiar with cooking with the sweetener so I need to get with it and learn!!

We filled one and a half six gallon buckets for easier access and safer storage.

Okay - so here's where we started...

I was making some of my annual Spiced Nuts for Christmas goodie-giving and didn't realize that I had very little sugar. But wait!!! I have FIFTY POUNDS of sucanat!!! I wasn't sure if the sugar could be replaced but if it could... oh, the possibilities!

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SPICED NUTS

1/2c sugar (or sucanat)

1/2t salt

1t cinnamon

1/4t ground cloves

1/4t nutmeg

2T water

1/2c walnuts

1/2c pecans

Butter cookie sheet. Combine sugar with spices and water in small pan. Cook, stirring constantly until mixture forms soft ball when dropped in cold water. Stir in nuts. Remove from heat. Stir until no longer glossy. Spread thinly on cookie sheet and allow to cool completely. Store in air tight container.

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I had enough white sugar to do a normal batch. Then I got out the sucanat and replaced the sugar. I was a little concerned that the heat of getting it to the soft ball stage might go wrong and it was beginning to look a little darker than the sugar batch. So I took it off the heat a little sooner than usual and finished up the steps.

The top pan below is the sucanat batch and the bottom one is the sugar batch. Can you see a slight color difference? It tastes the same to me. And my husband agreed. So, how about that?

~~you'VE bEEn FramEd!!~~

About four years ago I found some reclaimed window panes for $5 each and went ahead and bought them without a specific idea in mind. I pulled one out last year and set it in the middle of my table with a lovely Thanksgiving themed centerpiece. Without much enthusiasm I hung it (slightly crooked) on the wall until this Thanksgiving when I took it down from the wall for the table centerpiece again.

I finally saw so many ideas for reclaimed windows that I decided on one project because there were just enough panes for my pains... er, children. I used the clear photo corners that I had from Creative Memories.  Now I can update the frame whenever I'd like without much trouble. I made these photos 4 inches square, in black and white, printed on card stock. I love it when a plan comes together...

~~geEKifiED MoTheR's daY~~

Okay - a brief moment to brag on my husband and show you my 2011 Mother's Day gift.

A little while back my niece was visiting and she was wearing a big white watch. It immediately reminded me of this...

So, ever since, I have been swooning over the idea of wearing a BIG WHITE WATCH. Well, since Mother's Day was the closest day to (somewhat) justify a gift... my husband stepped up to the plate. And in his endearing "geeky" way this was the awesome outcome...

That, my sweet friends, is a Nano with a watch band... a BIG WHITE watch band! And now... the force is with me...

~~cRaFt NitE~~

Yup, it's that time, my homeschool homies...

Since May is the month of graduation we normally cancel our homeschool mom time, however, there are some of us who are not quite at that stage in our schooling so I decided to host a CRAFT NITE for those ladies that were free.

Here's our project this month!

Cute, eh? Well, I can't take credit for it. I am a follower of the My Chic 'n Scratch blog (Angie Juda is the creative genius at work) and she has posted all the instructions for her original rendition. I have altered mine only to accommodate the supplies I have on hand. This finished project measures 4-1/4" x 4-1/4" and has ten surfaces inside to decorate with your favorite snapshots.

Well?! Why aren't you RSVPing *right now*?!!?!

~~cOVeR 'eM up!!~~

As I was pursuing my plethora of blogs that I follow (there were 500+ posts to review... nope... I didn't make it through all of them... so, I moved on...) I spotted this particular post at Craftaholics Anonymous for a really cute nursing cover.

I went to her Etsy shop, Ruffled Begonia, and purchased the Summer Love Ruffle Nursing Cover PDF.  The instructions were to the point and simple. The owner of the shop, Linda, even offers to be available via email if any questions or confusion crops up... although I didn't have ANY problem.  I was able to complete it in a day with my sweet five "distractions", pesky pooch, and severe weather warnings... not bad, eh??

I used a poly blend for the ruffle and neck strap but a medium weight cotton toile for the apron part.

This one is for one of my gal-pals who had a new baby girl recently. Now I need to get on with another one for me!! Do you think an additional ruffle at the bottom of the apron would be too much?

~~eAsTER teAcUPs~~

Well, hello again!! I found this cute little project yesterday and thought that this would be a fun thing to do for my Community Bible Study class tomorrow. There are so many ways to dolls these babies up and here's my attempt...

So, first I headed to the Dollar Store and got a package of 18 plastic eggs. Gotta love the Dollar Store... And these ones were attached by this little tab of plastic. Handy, but for this project - not.  

So I got one of the MILLION fingernail trimmers that we own (what is up with this house and the plethora of finger/toenail trimmers???) and tidied up the little hangy-outty thingies - sorry to use such a technical term.

Using the one of the halves, I got a 3/4" button and glued it to the bottom of the egg half with E6000. I don't know if that is a little overkill on the adhesive. I just used what I had. And the fact that the button had a concave center on one side was rather advantageous.

Then I got my Sharpies out and started drawing little designs from swirls, to hearts, to butterflies, to flowers... you know... whatever you would doodle... I noticed that if I tried to draw where my finger were that the Sharpie didn't take as well. I had just made a batch of bread and I think the olive oil was not *entirely* off my hands. Good for moisturizing my skin but obviously not for crafting.

I really enjoy messing with my paper punches so I used some of my pretty papers and punched the butterfly shape for the "holder" part of the cup and then put an extra base using the flower and scallop shapes. Again, attaching with my E6000.

So, there they are! Cute, huh??