{Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real}~ December 14, 2014

Joining Like Mother, Like Daughter for {phfr}!

{Pretty}

Not long ago, we had some very cold weather and the pond formed a thin skin of ice that remained for several days. One night the pond frosted over and was lined with long shadows the next morning. It is wonderful to watch the pond transform with the changes of weather and season.  Each stage is beautiful in its own right.

{Happy}

I've been busy since October making Christmas gifts and still have two to go (though both are in progress).  I really, really enjoyed making these finger puppets for Arane.  Each one took one and a half to two hours from start to finish, and I made a total of ten, one for each chubby, little, two-and-a-half-year-old finger.  I borrowed, and in some cases adapted, the patterns from this book.  I haven't worked with felt since I was in grade school and I was surprised and pleased by how enjoyable it was.  I plan to make more things from felt in the future!

I whipped up a little storage pouch with a velcro closure~
easy for little fingers to open and close!

Though I like them all, for some reason this little guy is my favorite!

*~*~*~*~*

Coming up with gifts for second babies is hard, don't you think?  Mostly they use hand-me-downs from their older siblings, especially if they are the same sex, as with my two grandbabies.  Books and toys are always good, of course, and we have bought some for Verity, but I wanted to make her something.  I found this carseat blanket on Pinterest and thought it looked practical and cute and fast.  I made it in a couple hours.  I will cut and sew the holes when I have access to her carseat so I can get them in the right place.  I found the fabric at Jo-Ann.  So sweet!

{Funny} and {Real}

I spent Tuesday morning making Dave's favorite Christmas sweet~ fruitcake.  This is the first time I have attempted it in this kitchen with this oven and using parchment paper instead of a paper bag, so I was a little nervous.  The recipe calls for dousing the half-cooked cake in whiskey at fifteen minute intervals during the last hour or so of the baking process.  The house came equipped with a double oven, one large and one small.  I chose to use the small oven despite the little niggling doubt that bounced briefly around in the back of my mind.  After the last dousing and with fifteen minutes of baking left to go, I went out to get the mail.  I came back in to a smoky house and a husband asking me if I had heard the explosion outside.  

!!!!  

Explosion?  What explosion?!  Apparently, the whiskey-soaked parchment had ignited and the explosion had blown the oven door open!  There were bits of ash floating in the air.  I feared for my fruitcakes, but they were miraculously unscathed, if slightly singed around the edges.  Here's the evidence of the mishap:

The black bits are mostly the burned-up parchment paper.
When I peeled the paper off, the cakes looked pretty good!

Dave thinks the smallness of the oven contributed to the ignition, and I think the parchment was more flammable than a paper bag.  Next year, I'll use the big oven and a paper bag.  Ah, well, live and learn.  Christmas 2014 will be remembered as the year Martha caused an explosion while making fruitcake!