12 Days of Cookies (and other goodies) Virtual Cookie Exchange 2019

Hey friends!

My 12 Days of Cookies (and treats) Virtual Cookie Exchange is happening in my facebook foodie group What's Cookin' Good Lookin'!

Come join us!

Xoxo,
E

Happy Hallowinter & Cookies!

Hello again and Happy Halloween!  We have been getting slammed with snow here in the Rockies this week.  I think we got roughly 12" of snow this week. Crazy for October, even at 6,300 ft!  Ellie didn't mind so much and the mister worked from home a couple of days. I baked and painted and spent a few days in my jammies.

I love this spooky little haunted house scene!  It took a couple of days to sketch out and paint but was so fun!

With all this snow we were craving warm, freshly baked cookies so I dug through my recipe archives for something delicious.  These Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Pecan cookies totally hit the spot!  I also painted a couple snowy winter scenes in snow globes. There is something magical about a mini scene captured in a snow globe <3 nbsp="" p="">
I used this recipe for the cookies.  I did adapt them slightly for our elevation.

https://iambaker.net/chocolate-cranberry-oatmeal-cookies/

Here are a few pic of the beautiful snow we got.  Miss Ellie just loves the snow.  She's a Texas dog who identifies as a Polar Bear...

I hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween!

Xo,

E.

New Beginnings - Do Over

This was originally posted in mid September 2019 but somewhere, somehow Blogger (or me) deleted the original post. UGH! Just putting this back up for posterity's sake... ;)


I know it has been an eternity since I last wrote anything on this blog.  It's been a crazy couple of years.  I took a needed break after we lost our Sadie.  I stopped creating and stopped writing.  It was a hard time. I don't even know where to start back up again but I feel the draw to blog again... I don't want to skim over important things, but at the same time I don't want to take forever catching up.  So much has happened (job changes, health changes, life changes), too much to write about, but our two biggest and most important happenings this season of our lives have been:

We lost our Sadie dog in January of 2017 to bone cancer.  She gave us 18 months after her 3 month diagnosis.  We miss her terribly.  She was the most wonderful puppy and we are so glad that she was part of our life for nearly 16 wonderful years.  I will write more about her here and there as I go forward.

In September 2017 we brought home a new love, Eloise Maizey (Ellie Mae).  She came from Houston, TX after hurricane Harvey and has been a light and joy in our lives. She has truly helped our hearts heal and our adventures with Ellie have been wonderful.  you will see a lot of her around these parts.  She is my constant companion, my little shadow, my foodie photo photobomber, lap hogger and snuggle bug.

So join me on this adventure and let's see where it takes us.  I feel the draw to blog about life, creativity, foodie stuff, etc.

Xo,
E 

Watercolor - A New Adventure... or Addiction

Oh goodness.. another post!  Can you believe it? I'm trying..  hehe!

I started watercolor painting this late spring/summer on a whim.  It looked fun so I figured why not.. so I pulled out the cheap-o Artist Loft brand paints from Michael's that I used to use when I was with CTMH and started coloring stamped images again for cards.  (Please bear with me as I re-learn formatting Blogger posts.  They seem to have changed the way they do photos since I last regularly blogged...)
 

 

They worked for about five minutes while I played around and explored watercolor painting.  I decided I REALLY enjoyed watercolor painting.  I used up that one pad of watercolor paper that I had been hoarding since about 2008, bought some more, and then I realized that I needed something better paint wise...  eventually I landed on these Sakura Koi Field Sketch pan paints... and then with decent paints and paper I was HOOKED.  I started playing around with landscapes and plants...

It has been a fun summer with watercolor.  I am totally addicted and have quite successfully avoided things like laundry, dishes, organizing, and sometimes and often, cooking dinner because I was wrapped up in my imagination and water and paint. (That's not always a bad thing.. just sayin'.)  I also brought my compact watercolor paints, paintbrushes, and travel size watercolor pad with us on our cruise to Alaska (posts on that coming) and painted on our balcony on sea days.   Watercolor painting is so relaxing.  It is so easy to get lost in the the colors... and it is a lot less mess than papercrafting.  ;)

I LOVE looking on pinterest and YouTube for tutorials and inspiration to paint.  There is so much out there! This is an image I sketched out based on some stamps I saw online.

I recently discovered an amazing company called Let's Make Art.   They offer a subscription service that includes and also have free tutorials on YouTube.   I've yet to subscribe, although I think I might give Santa an idea for Christmas, but I have been following their free YouTube tutorials have have been freehand sketching their designs and painting along with them.  Sara Cray is the owner and she's so fun to watch and has LOADS of great tips and techniques that she shares as you paint along.   I don't get anything for sharing the love about them... just the hope that you might get a spark for watercoloring and join in the fun.  (Always happy to enable fellow creative friends.) I love following along and painting!

Here are a couple fun paints just in time for Halloween!  I have to admit I have really enjoyed painting spooky pictures! Black watercolor is kind of a pain to work with because it tends to want to go gray (watercolor paint is transparent) and you have to drop a lot of paint in to get a really rich black.

 

Wednesday night the temps here dropped 60* overnight.  We had aobut 3" of snow on the ground Thursday morning... our first measurable snow for the season so that meant we spent the evening watching Disney's Snowball Express and enjoying a warm fire.   I made my best ever Hearty Chicken and Dumplings and pulled out my paints.  Recipe is here in my facebook foodie group, What's Cookin' Good Lookin'?

I painted this Floral Truck while we watched the movie and it was so much fun to paint!  It's my favorite color after all...   The flowers were also a ton of fun! 

Have you watercolor painted?  Do you like it?  I am thoroughly loving it so far!   Happy Friday! I am off to snuggle this cute puppy...

XO.
E

Products I love for watercoloring:

           

        

Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles

Long post ahead. Shared in my foodie group (www.facebook.com/groups/whatscookinGL) and thought I'd share here as well...

It's no secret that I don't like pumpkin... and since it is officially fall now we can talk about it!

Ha! But I DO like pumpkin spice. You know why? Because there's no actual pumpkin in it! It's Pumpkin Spices (sometimes also called Pumpkin Pie Spice) - a blend of delicious spices, not pumpkin flavored spices.

So many folks can be confused. Say it with me now, "pumpkin spice is not pumpkin." Haha! 

The pumpkin (pie) spice blend is a lot like the apple pie spice blend...

🍎 Apple Pie Spice blend:

Nutmeg, Allspice, Cinnamon (And some recipes call for cardamom and sometimes ginger. I generally just do the first three ingredients. )

🎃 Pumpkin (pie) Spice blend:

Nutmeg, Allspice, Cinnamon & Ginger I especially like the ginger in both!  It adds a little zip and zing. And I like to make my own blends. They are pretty easy and I always have the ingredients on hand.

Here are a couple recipes so you can make your own.

Pumpkin (pie) Spice https://www.crazyforcrust.com/diy-pumpkin-pie-spice/

Apple Pie Spice https://www.taketwotapas.com/apple-pie-spice-homemade/

 ****************************************

Yesterday I made my first pumpkin spice flavored anything. I made Pumpkin Spice Snickerdoodles! (Note: no pumpkin in these, although you can find some recipes with pumpkin actually in them.)

These were super yummy and super quick! The recipe said it makes 24 cookies, but I only got 21. I did cit the sugar back about 2 Tbs for high altitude so that may account for part of the missing 3.. there also may have been some tasting. ;)

Here's the recipe: https://www.crazyforcrust.com/pumpkin-spice-snickerdoodles/

If you give these a try let me know what you think of them!

XO,
E

Summer

It has been a rough summer here at the Grotegut house. Brent was unemployed for three months (the company who hired him last fall was somewhat not so great) but just started working again a little over two weeks ago.  In July Sadie started having some health issues, which we treated and thought were resolved... until a week ago when we ended up in the vet  ER and found out she had a broken right humerus.  Last Tuesday she had surgery to repair the break which resulted in her acquiring some new jewelry which includes a pin, 6 screws and a bone plate.

More details and updates can be found here:

Http://Www.gofundme.com/SadieBug

I am sorry I have been such a neglectful blogger.  Someday I really hope to get back into.it.  For now I have been focusing on my health and little family.

This is a test.

I just downloaded the Blogger app... hoping that this will help me want to blog again.

Test test test

Ladder Scarf Tutorial

Hello again!

This post is a follow up to yesterday’s Frozen Scarf post.  I figured with all the photos it would be better to split it into two posts and keep the tutorial separate.

This is the scarf I shared yesterday:

Today I am going to give you a very basic tutorial to make this scarf. 

Disclaimer:  I have never written a pattern/instructions for crocheted ANYTHING… but this is so ridiculously easy that I don’t think I can mess it up too badly :) I am writing this for a  scarf for an adult… shorten as needed per size of the wee one.

LADDER SCARF PATTERN/INSTRUCTIONS:

This scarf is perfect for using up ends of skeins of yarn and misc scraps of yarn.  Mix the colors and textures up as you choose.

Hook size used for this project is a size “H/8-5.00 mm” 

Step One:
- Start first color with a long tail, roughly 7”
- Chain 315 stitches.
- End with a 7” tail. 
 
Step Two:
- Start second color in the same manner, leave a 7” tail.
- Chain 15
- *Count 15 stitches on the first chain and find stitch #16.
- Once you have found chain #16  single crochet with your second color (this will be stitch #16 on your second color) for the next FIVE stitches  You will have connected your two colors to each other with FIVE single crochets.  
-  Chain 15 more stitches.
- Repeat from * until you reach the end.  You should have 15 chained stitches at the ends with a 7” tail string.

Steps  Three – Eleven (Or however wide you want to make it):
- Continue this process until you have reached the desired width of scarf.  My Frozen scarf was 11 rows wide.

Finishing:
- Trim your tails to all the same length.  I tied knots in the ends to prevent fraying.

NOTE:  If you want more space between each row of the scarf you can do five double crochets  or five half double crochets instead of five single crochets.  This will give just a bit more spacing between the rows. 

Here are the instructions in photo format. 
(I have only crocheted a short length to illustrate the process.)

Find your size H/8 –5.00 mm hook

Step One:
- Start first color with a long tail, roughly 7”
- Chain 315 stitches.
- End with a 7” tail.

Step Two:
- Start second color in the same manner, leave a 7” tail.
- Chain 15
- *Count 15 stitches on the first chain and find stitch #16.

 

- Once you have found chain #16  join your colors with a single crochet (this will be stitch #16 on your second color) for the next five stitches  You will have connected your two colors to each other with FIVE single crochets.  

 

-  Chain 15 more stitches.

 

- Repeat from * until you reach the end.  You should have 15 chained stitches at the end with a 7” tail string.

Steps  Three – Eleven (Or however wide you want to make it):
- Continue this process until you have reached the desired width of scarf. 

 
NOTE:  If you want more space between each row of the scarf you can do five double crochets  or five half double crochets instead of five single crochets.  This will give just a bit more spacing between the rows.  {I believe in the original pattern, the artist used double crochet (posts) for her scarf. }

AND THAT IS IT!

And that’s it… easy peasy, especially once you’ve attached the second row/color.  You only have to count the 15 chain stitches and can zip right through the scarf. 

Here’s a peek at the chunky yarn scarf I made to test the pattern.  Chunky yarn crocheting achieves length very quickly with fewer stitches.  I think the length on this one is 150-ish stitches and the spacing is 10 chains, 5 single crochet.

Thanks for popping in.  If you decide to crochet this scarf I would LOVE to see it :) Link up in the comments.  (Miss Jeanne, I sure hope to see one or two made for your girls .. hehe..)

Inky Smiles!

~Erin

Baby, It’s Cold Outside… A Scarf Inspired by Frozen

While much of the country is freeezing their bums off covered in a blanket of snow, here in Colorado we have been enjoying a lovely, sunny 57* – 63* most of the past week.  (Mind you, we had a visit from the great Polar Vortex just prior to this faux Spring, so it’s been much welcomed, and a tease, because I know what is coming….)

Remember this sneak peek?
I know I promised I was working on the post for it. Here it is…

My niece had her 5th  birthday on Saturday.  And she just LOVES the movie Frozen, so her birthday theme was “Frozen”…  She  is a lot like I was a child, bright, independent and creative.  She looooves to pretend with her dolls and dress up like her favorite characters.

I decided that I wanted to make her a Frozen scarf… Kisha and I had found a fun scarf pattern on Pinterest a while back, but when I looked up the instructions they were in Finnish.  Thankfully someone had posted some very basic roughly translated instructions in the comments.  I made a big chunky yarn version to start with and LOVED it so I went ahead and made a smaller version.  This scarf didn’t have an official name for the pattern, but I am going to call it a “Ladder Scarf”.  It looks kind of like a ladder…  I used a variety of different types of yarn  for this scarf.  I love how the fringey white yarn looks like snow.  It was a pain to work with, but the finished effect is awesome.

Here she is opening her prezzie… So excited! (Forgive the pic quality… images from texts from my sister.)

I think it turned out FABULOUS.  In fact, I really want to make one for myself with fun frilly yarn like this.  (We told my niece it was snowflakes and icicles…. she wasn’t quite sure why all the pieces weren’t completely attached in the spaces… “Mom, tell Auntie Erin she needs to finish it and make all the pieces stick together.”   Hehe… )

 

 

 

 

 

And later that evening… in her Anna dress…. One happy little 5 year old!

 

Thanks for dropping in!   I loved making this little scarf and I am glad my niece loves it. :)    For you crocheters - I have written a tutorial and it will post tomorrow morning. Inky Smiles! 

~ Erin