A Little Hint of our 2001 Wedding

I’ve been working on a major scrapbooking project.  I’m making a scrapbook of our wedding.  I’m in the process of sorting through hundreds of photos that our family and friends gave to us after the wedding.  After I select which photos I’ll use, I’ll start making pages for my scrapbook.

Here’s a great pic I came across:

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The Bread Rose!

In past bread-making missions, I’ve attempted to make wheat bread.  The loaves never rose very well.  I knew that drastic action was necessary.  I searched the Internet for easy/beginner bread recipes, reading people’s blogs for tips.

Click here for the recipe I used.

Here are some things I learned:

1. Use a thermometer to make sure water temp is 100-120 degrees.  When I made this loaf, I realized that the water temp was WAAAY too hot.  Oops!  I added cold water until the temp was correct.
2. Mix 1/4 cup water, 1 tsp sugar, and your yeast in a bowl.  Mix it and then walk away for 5-10 minutes.  It was hard to walk away, but I did.  I was rewarded with a foamy mixture in my mixing bowl.

I might try a different recipe next time, or I might try honey or brown sugar instead of white sugar.  I feel that this bread has a simple, dull taste.  It’s fine with cheese, but I would like to make bread that is perfect for snacking.

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More Fabric Scraps

I sorted, folded, and organized another basket of fabric scraps.  I still have a giant bag with more, but I’m making progress.  After checking various resale and dollar stores, I found the perfect containers for organizing the scrap fabrics.  Here’s a picture of what I have organized so far.  I tried to put similar colors together.

Having the fabrics folded and organized by color will help me when I select fabrics for the scrap quilt I’m working on.  It’s very exciting to think about the beautiful quilt blocks that these will make!  It’s also neat to sit down and contemplate all of the blouses, dresses, tops, etc. that I’ve made!  Do you notice that most of my clothes are blue, pink, or maroon?

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The Cookies

By the way, the cookies were absolutely fantastic! They’re puffy, full of ooey-gooey chocolate chips, and just yummy.

I made a small batch the first night that I made the dough (No, I couldn’t wait 24 hours for the dough to chill!) and we ate them ALL!

I made another small batch the next day (after the 24 hour waiting period) and they started going very quickly.

With the remaining cookie dough, I molded it into two rectangles, cut them almost all the way through with a knife, and wrapped them up with plastic wrap and aluminum foil.  I stuck the two packets of cookie dough in the freezer.  They’re ready for the next time I draw “cookies” out of the Family Home Evening idea jar or if I get a cookie craving, whichever comes first.  I’ll just thaw them in the fridge or on the counter, bake, and enjoy!

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Organizing Fabric Scraps

I’ve been looking online at how people organize their sewing work spaces.  Many people keep their fabric folded in baskets by color.  That way, it’s on display and easy to choose the fabric that you want.

My fabric scraps are mostly in baskets, boxes, or bags:

In an attempt to organize them, I took one basket and sorted it out by fabric:

After that lengthy process (for ONE basket of scraps), I put the folded fabrics, by color, into a box.  I’ll probably change containers, but it definitely looks a LOT better.  Here’s a pic:

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Organizing Craft Workspaces, Part 2

Yesterday, I began writing about how I’ve been organizing my home office.  I finally got my ever-growing yarn stash under control with colorful buckets from Dollar General.  Next, it was on to my sewing and quilting fabrics, as well as my scrapbook materials.

I have a small buffet/cabinet next to my desk.  It has two shelves inside.  I put my scrapbooking materials on one shelf, and used buckets to organize my fabrics.  Like I did with my yarn, I kept fabrics for projects together with their instructions/books.  This way, when I’m working on a project, it will be much easier to find the fabrics.  Everything will be easy to spot.  Here’s a picture:

My current scrapbooking project is my wedding album.  In the picture above, try to spot the lacy photo album.  That’s my wedding album.  Now, spot the white scrapbook underneath.  That’s going to be the new wedding scrapbook.  See the clear box under that?  That’s what I use to store my scrapbook paper, stickers, glue, etc.

I decorated the original wedding album on my honeymoon.  I covered a plan photo album with batting, satin, lace, and fake pearls.  For our wedding, we asked everyone to bring their cameras and share the pictures with us.  We also had disposable cameras out on the tables at the reception.  As we received or developed photos, they were put into this album.  There’s not much organization to it.  That’s why I want to make a scrapbook.

So far, I’ve started to take some of the photos out of the album.  I’m glad I’m doing this, because the top pages in the album are a little bent (It’s a binder album and the sides of the pages near the rings sometimes “roll” over the rings.  Plus, some of the holes are broken, so some of the pages are a bit loose).

After I get the pictures out (I think there’s a few hundred), I’ll sort them by pre-wedding, ceremony, reception, and after.

Here’s a little about our wedding:  We were married in the morning at a renaissance festival.  My bridesmaids wore renaissance dresses (they were like the dresses in the movie Ever After) and tennis shoes.  My sister wore Teva sandals.  We got to ride in a carriage and walk under a sword arch.  The chapel was covered in vines instead of a roof.  After the reception, the wedding party and all of our guests got to go around the renaissance festival.  I changed out of my wedding dress and into a renaissance costume for that!  Did I mention that I wore white sneakers with ribbon laces with my wedding gown?  It was right out of Father of the Bride!

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Organizing Craft Workspaces, Part 1

Recently, I organized my home office.  I use it for sewing, quilting, knitting, scrapbooking, couponing, menu planning, grocery planning, blogging, etc.  It’s a small area, so everything really needs its own place if you don’t want the area to look like a tornado went through it.

After purchasing some storage bins from Dollar General, I set about putting projects and craft materials into bins.

Here are my yarn shelves BEFORE (On a good day – it was really badly crowded with yarn when I started organizing things.):

I put similar yarns in buckets together.  I had a larger bin for my one-pound skeins.  If I had projects in progress, I put them in bins, keeping the instructions/books together with the yarn being used.  Here are some AFTER pictures:

Tune in tomorrow for more on how I organized my office!

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