Tag Archives: crafts

Happy New Year!

Well the holiday season is over and things are slowly getting back to a slightly normal rhythm. I have a couple days off work so Evie is itching to do some of her craft kits she got for Christmas.

Today we are stuck inside as we are having freezing rain and everything is covered in ice. We are using the time to make homemade hamburger buns. While those are rising we are trying out Fuzzeez, make your own teddy bear, it is no sew felted wool.











After 2 washes in hot water and dried in the dryer remove the clips and we have this little guy.

It did turn out pretty cute.

He was still a little too soft and some parts were not quite felted. This could have been avoided if the instructions said to use one piece stretched out.  

So we trimmed the edges, put back in form and washed and dried again. 


Overall it did turn out well. The instructions were step by step, however never mentioned filling in the feet, which led to our problem with the parts that didn’t felt properly. We were able to fix those up and it worked ok. Definitely not energy efficient and it took a long time to go through 3 hot wash cycles and then a very long time in hot dryer. 

I am still on the fence if we would buy and do another of these. Knowing what we know now regarding how it turned out and we could avoid the little problems that we had. I say probably yes and Evie said yes right away. So there may be a bunny or cat in our future!

This is not an affiliate post, we were not compensated in any way for this review, it was a Christmas gift to Evie from her great aunt and we just decided to review it for anyone who would like to know how it actually works.

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Rainy Day Picnic

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Yesterday was our first day of vacation and it turned out to be a rainy day, which totally busted all of our outside plans.  So we picnicked inside.  We also did a craft and then just before supper the sun came out so we headed out to the garden to see what was ready to pick.  We have a collection of zucchini, I think we will make muffins for the freezer to have when school starts.  This morning looks like it is going to be a nicer day. We started off by making some blueberry banana smoothies.  These are made by using about 3 sliced frozen bananas (once mine are really ripe and spotty I slice them and throw in a freezer bag) and a cup of frozen blueberries with a bit of milk poured in to mix it together.  Give it a good whirl in a food processor and add more milk if you need it runnier.  Ours is like soft serve ice cream so we are eating it with spoons.

Cinnamon Rolls and Weaving

We have been trying to update our blog for weeks, but it has been very busy with March Break, Easter and birthday parties.

Evie has been requesting that we make cinnamon rolls for about three weeks now, but since they take hours of rising time we haven’t been able.  Finally today we found the time, somewhat unexpectedly and made the rolls. 

Here are the ingredients for the dough.

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3 eggs; ¾ cup buttermilk, warmed; 6 tbsp melted butter, cooled to just warm; 4 cups flour; ¼ cup sugar; 1 envelope yeast; 1¼ tsp salt

This is for the cinnamon mixture for the rolls.

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¾ cup brown sugar; 2 tsp cinnamon; ¼ tsp cloves; 1 tbsp melted butter

Evie is my whisker, and she loves to whisk the eggs and wet ingredients in recipes. Whisk the eggs, buttermilk and butter.Image

In a large bowl, of stand mixer, mix flour, sugar, yeast and salt.  Then add the wet mixture and mix for about a minute until the dough comes together, Then mix on medium for 8-10 minutes until dough is elastic and leaves the side of the bowl, but is still a little sticky.

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Knead the dough on the counter a few times to get a smooth ball, then turn it into a lightly greased bowl and cover with a tea towel and small blanket.  Let rise in a warm place for about 2 hours, should double in size. 

While the dough is rising, in a small bowl mix brown sugar, cinnamon and cloves.  Set aside.

When 2 hours is up put dough on counter and press out into a 12×16 inch rectangle. 

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Brush with 1 tbsp of melted butter. 

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Sprinkle the rectangle with the sugar mixture.

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Roll the dough along the long end and even out to about an 18 inch log.  Slice the dough into 12 even pieces.  Place cut side down in a well greased 9×13 inch metal pan.

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Cover again and let rise to double in size another 1 to 1 ½ hours. 

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Bake in 350F oven for 20-25 minutes, until well risen, puffy and light brown. Image

Turn out onto a wire rack and let cool for about 5 minutes.

While the rolls are cooling mix 3 tbsp each of soft cream cheese, milk and 1 and ¼ cups of icing sugar.  Place this in a zip top bag and snip a small piece off the corner and squeeze over warm rolls.  They were very good! Image

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Very proud moment, can’t wait to eat it!

In the meantime, while the dough was rising Evie wanted to go weaving on her loom and has been asking to learn to crochet.  She just weaved by herself all afternoon, off and on between playing with other things. 

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When she finished her square, she got to learn how to crochet!

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All done, a little “potholder”! 

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That is going to be a pad for Mell’s orange teapot that we gave her.  That was her plan and she chose those colours to match it.  She has already started her next one and can’t wait to crochet again.