I'm still here...

I know, it's been a while since I posted...sorry. I have been slammed with school (final weeks of the semester...pray for me!!!!), a cold, Thanksgiving, and a new kitten. Between all of this I have barely found time to sleep, yet alone craft. Although my mother did teach me how to sew over Thanksgiving since I am picking up a new hobby, quilting. Mom bought me a little kit with fabric pieces already cut and you just had to sew them all together. This is what I ended up with:



I'm not going to show you what the back looks like, let's just say I learned some lessons on keeping your seems flat. I have caught the bug now, and I'm asking for a sewing machine for Christmas. Hopefully though this won't turn into another craft that I do for a little while and then give up on.

Anywho, I also have rescued the cutest kitten I named Luna. She's about 5 months old which means that I basically have a child. She demands a lot of attention. For instance, did anyone else not know that cats teethed?! It's true between 5-7 months of age kittens get their adult teeth. So that means the kitten teeth have to go! I freaked out when I found Luna in my kitchen playing with one of the teeth that she had lost! The vet laughed at me when I called in a panic. She then told me that unlike children, cats teeth will grow in behind the kitten teeth until they fall out. All I heard was that she will have two rows of teeth for a while, which means her bites are going to hurt for a while!! In any case she is a purr monster who loves to snuggle when she isn't being a crazy kitten, and she stole my heart from minute one!



Needless to say she has also become the most recent subject of ALL of my photography lately. It's all right since she doesn't seem to mind.

I hope to get some crafts done soon, but I think it will be another two or three weeks before that happens since that is when my papers are due for classes. After this though only one more semester till I graduate!!!!! On a final note, it looks like I won't be doing the craft fair like I thought I was going to. There was some miss communication and I ended up not having a table, so please go to my etsy site and buy some cards, and afghans. In the next few weeks I'm going to try and have all of that updated with new stuff, and add to what is already there. There's a link in the sidebar to get to my page on etsy. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE support my work, I don't have any other form of income right now so your support will be a HUGE help with living expenses and helping me get on my feet when I graduate.

Thanks guys and hopefully it won't be as long to my next post. =)

Getting in the Holiday Spirit

I am trying to get myself in ANY form of holiday spirit. I'm having a hard time this year being excited about any holiday with all the work that I have been doing recently...school, family, school, personal life, school, housework, and have I mentioned school yet?!?!? Needless to say I am MORE than ready for Thanksgiving break! In an effort to get myself in more of a spirit for any holiday I have been crafting and cooking like mad! For instance today I made pumpkin cream pie's...I do not even have the words to describe how wonderful these are!

Seriously though...just look at them!!! I have no idea how fattening they are, how bad for me they are, or how I'm going to prevent myself from eating the whole plate in one sitting! My friend Elizabeth wrote about how much she wanted to make these on her blog, but living in England they apparently don't have canned pumpkin so she couldn't. I generously offered to send her pumpkin (before I knew how much that costs!!! Yikes!) if she sent me the recipe, and I am so glad we made that deal!!!! Elizabeth you rock!!!!

All right on to other things that won't make my mouth water! I have also been working on more holiday cards! A few people have told me that they will purchase whatever I have leftover from the craft fair...well here is what I have to say to that, Why Wait? I have my Etsy site back up again and there is a link in the sidebar that will take you directly to my store. Granted I have posted just a few of the many cards I've made, but please feel free to purchase them. I will have plenty of cards in time for the craft fair so you are taking nothing away from me. Also if you see a card that I've posted on my blog, but isn't on Etsy let me know and I'll be more than happy to sell it to you. Now on to the recently made cards!



All right that's all I can manage right now. I just submitted a fellowship proposal for school, and getting it written has put me a little behind in other course work, so I better get back on it. Keep your eyes peeled for more cards soon. =)

Cardmania!!!!!

Okay...I've been busy! Last week I began to work on more holiday cards since I know that these are going to be the things that most likely sell the best at the craft fair on December 4. Over the weekend I got the flu (leave it to me to get the flu even after I had gotten a flu shot!) and because I had been sick and didn't have the time to study over the weekend I missed class on Monday. Needless to say I have had a bit of time recently that I normally would have because of a random weirdness of events, so I made cards. =) I decided to try something different and make a slide show of all the cards that I have made since there are so many of them! Naturally this is not near enough since I'm hoping to sell a lot, and I'll still need some to send to people this year!!! Yikes!!! Needless to say, Christmas is getting closer and closer for me and I don't feel near ready enough!

So I didn't put these in the slideshow since it's a postcard and I thought that might be a little confusing. =)

And I've even made a few Halloween cards to send to friends this year near and far away!

Normally this is the point in my post where I say that I'll post more things soon...well as much as I would love to say that I will be, I think I might need a bit of a break. I promise that there will be more, but it might be a week or two before I post anything, lol. =)

More Cooking and Jen's Quilling

All right this is going to kind of be a bit of a random post. So it's Fall and this means two things for me...First I'm going to be sick for the next 9 to 10 months (already got the flu and I even got a flu shot!) and second I'm going to be cooking up a storm! It seems like as soon as the weather begins to turn cool I become a magnet for germs...and I love to cook. Maybe the cooking thing is just to help keep the house warm, lol. In any case I made my first pumpkin spice roll of the season the other day. As anyone who knows me and has had it can tell you, it is by far the best recipe that my sister has ever found!!! I also decided to make potato bread since the oven was warm, and now have 2 loaves to last me for a while. This evening I decided to embark on unknown lands and made a butternut squash soup. I love butternut squash, but normally just roast it with some brown sugar and butter and call it a meal, but today I decided to be daring! It turned out all right with some feta cheese sprinkled on top, but I think I need to "Liza-fy" it and add something else...it was just too plain for my tastes.

Ready to be cut up and enjoyed, this one is all mine!!! =)

Cooking the butternut squash with homemade chicken stock!!! What is wrong with me that I've become so domestic?!?!?

The finished soup with a bit of feta added for some extra flavor...yum!

Now on to the next random topic in this post...my sister. Now she is random, and I only claim her when I have to, but she has discovered a new craft that she is really good at and enjoys. Quilling is rolling small strips of paper and gluing them together to create a decorative design. This was apparently a popular pastime for European women in the 18th century since it was seen as not to taxing for their minds. (This is taken from Wikipedia...I'm biting my tongue and many of you will know why.) Anywho Jen has begun to do this and is fairly good at it. She has made quite a few designs, but hasn't been up here to make cards with them yet. Last time she was up though she took some of her first designs and made a few holiday cards.



All right I may have given her a bit of help on the card design for this one.

And then there is the random Halloween card she made, lol.

I'm sure this qualifies as a totally random post, which is why I am going to end it. Two things before I turn my computer off for the night though. One I have been busy working on Christmas cards for the Hanover craft fair so look for another post from me in the next few days with pictures of those. Second, the Hanover craft fair will be December 4th at Hanover College in Hanover, Indiana...Please come!!!! The fact is that I hopefully will have a table if they aren't too expensive and I'll be selling cards and crocheted items. Since I am a poor graduate student, without a job right now I need all the money I can get so this may be my only source of income for a while. So come out and support me, tell your friends and family and tell them to support me too. =)

Cooking

So most people spend their evenings making a quick meal and vegging out in front of the television. Me I study and cook. Paper crafts have had a hard time finding their way into my schedule since classes began, but I have been a crocheting machine, and I've been cooking a lot. For instance this evening I made chicken pot-pies. Fairly simple, but it sure feels like a meal that is special.


These will feed me by the way, for the rest of the month I think! I really enjoy cooking, and love cooking for other people but I don't get a lot of visitors. :-( Yes I am trying to guilt you all to come and visit me. ;-) I even create my own recipes and I'm thinking I should people to test them out since I've dabbled with the idea of seeing if I could get a cookbook published. I dream big, lol.

In other news I crocheted a baby blanket with some leftovers from Jennifer's blanket. It's uber adorable and has a hood, which I have found out a lot of moms really like. I haven't photographed it yet but this is what it looks like, only in red.


That's all I've got for now, but as the school year continues I hope that I'll be able to post a few times a month. Now to go enjoy my creation, and watch some TV shows that are premiering! Yay for Criminal Minds, and the Big Bang Theory tomorrow night!!! =)

The J. Broad Post

So Jennifer's seem to be abundant in my life. My sister is a Jennifer, and one of my best friends (she's also a former roommate, and sorority little sister) is a Jennifer. This post though is dedicated to the recent crafts that I have made for my friend Jennifer. I was going to wait to post these until I gave them to her, but since we have had some schedule issues and haven't caught up with each other in person for some time (Skype is wonderful though!) I decided I was going to post these anyways. First up, the chipboard album that I made a while ago but had waited to post.


Next up is an afghan that I made for a member of her family. Since he is really into the Disney Pixar movie Car's I naturally had to make a themed blanket seeing as I am a former devoted Disney cast member myself. The 95 is the character Lightning McQueen's number, and since his name is Lightning I'm sure you can figure out why the lightning bolt. I tried to make it look as much like a checkered flag as possible too. My only concern is that unlike the number's the lightning bolts are just embroidered on the afghan, and since this is going to a little boy who knows how long they will stay on there. I think it will still look cool even if they come off though.


All right that is all I have for now. With classes back in session I'll be doing a lot more reading, writing, and studying so even though I will try and keep up with my crafting, who knows what I'll end up doing through the winter. Keep checking back for more of my craziness! =)

Christmas is Coming Early...

Well Christmas cards at least. I decided with school starting again, stores beginning to put their Halloween merchandise out, and hopefully cooler temperatures on the horizon that I needed to start preparing for the holiday's. Since I'm planning to sell cards at the Hanover College Craft Fair I needed to increase my stock of holiday cards since I imagine they might sell well that time of year. So I got myself into a crafting mood and began work on some cards that I wanted to make last year but never got around to. I made five different designs, and three of each design. I don't know yet if I will be selling them as a collection or individually, but I think they look fairly cute.


So I'll be posting more holiday cards as time goes on. Since it seems like I am back in a creative mood I think I may be posting more crafts soon. I'm almost done with a new afghan which I think is super cute so I know that will be posted as soon as I finish it! Merry Christmas in August! =)