Change of Pace

Stepping away from my creative crafty side, I want to talk about other things.  Too much has been whirling in my mind and I need to purge.

Baking has been my oldest hobby.  It certainly became my therapy in recent years.  Although lately, since being diagnosed as a diabetic, I don't eat any of my baking.  Thankfully, with my husband's job, I have hundreds of greedy mouths to pawn off all my creations.  I mainly stick to cookies, but I'll do brownies or muffins and such for a change. 
In my eagerness to try something new, I decided to make some no-bake cookies.  I remember making some as a teen over at a friend's house.  I remember pretzels (or chow mein noodles -- something crunchy like that), peanuts and melted chocolate and butterscotch.  I remember there was no oven.  And I certainly don't remember a stove.  I remember melting the chocolate in the microwave.

However, when I went searching online for some no-bake cookie recipes, every last one of them involved boiling a sugar mixture on the stovetop. 

I have several issues with this:

1.  While technically this is a no-bake recipe, it still involves cooking.  I thought the idea was to not heat up the house while making these????  {for the record, I call these recipes 'cooked cookies'}
2.  Cooking sugar to the soft-ball stage is tricky, and certainly not for the beginner candy-maker.
3.  All the sites bragged about this being a kid-friendly cookie recipe.  I wouldn't let kids near a stove with boiling sugar.  This mixture can cause some serious burns.

Anyway, I selected a recipe and proceeded to combine the ingredients for the boil.  The recipe said to combine it all in a small saucepan.  Without thinking, I immediately pulled out my 1 quart saucepan.  I got the thing going and as soon as I got the little bubbles starting to form on my sugar mixture, I realized my mistake.  This pot was going to boil over.  This type of candy boils up big.  I remember from my lollipop making days that sugar forms lots of foamy big bubbles.  If I was to do this again, I wouldn't use a 2 quart pot either; I'd go big...like 3-4 quart, which I consider to be a LARGE saucepan.  Small saucepan...who wrote this recipe?

After dealing with the boilover and trying to recover as much as I could, I was finally at the 'mix all the ingredients together' stage.  It was hard to stir.  Very hard.  When I got it completely coated, I dumped it all in a lined cake pan.  I wanted to cut this into bars.  So I spread it out and left it alone to set for the recommended 30 minutes.  Two hours later (because I get distracted easily), I went to de-pan my cookies and cut them into squares.  However, my cookies weren't set.  They were still the ooey-gooey mess they were when I dumped them in the pan.  I tried chilling the pan; no good.  I went back to the web and searched for a way to save my cookies.  Nada.   Most sites let on that all you could do was dump the goop in the trash.  Not this chick.  There's a lot of chocolate, oats, sugar, peanut butter, etc. in this mix.  I don't habitually throw money in the trash.  Being at a loss, I packed the mixture in an airtight container and stuck it in the fridge until I could figure out what to do with it.

Fast forward one week.  I'd been thinking about it all week and finally decided that since all the ingredients in this no-bake cookie recipe were basically the same as a regular cookie recipe minus a few, I could add the missing few and just make a regular baked cookie.  I pulled the container of goop out of the fridge and it was still as gooey as it was when I put it in.  I mixed it all with another stick of softened butter.  Added two beaten eggs.  Then I added 2-1/2 cups of flour with some salt & baking soda.  Mix till blended and I scooped and baked for 10 minutes.  They came out delicious.  I had saved my disastrous no-bake cookies.  I will feed them to my cadets tonight and I'm sure they will enjoy the chocolaty, oaty, peanut buttery cookies.

I doubt that I will attempt that no-bake cookie recipe again, but I know that if I did and failed again, I know how to save it.  Too bad I can't contact others who have had unlucky no-bake cookie flops before they chuck it in the trash, but perhaps somebody will find my blog and be rescued.

Oh well...

Craft fair was a bust.  Made $45.  Minus application fee.  Minus material costs.  I think I'm deep in the hole.

Well, if anyone is interested:

Card size Boxes:  $20 each

Fits standard A2 cards with envelopes.  Store photos, candy, tea, playing cards, jewelry.

6-3/4" x 5-1/4" x 2-1/2" deep

Ladybug

Snowflake

Pine Cone

 

Poker Chip

 

South Pacific

If you need other pictures or descriptions of the above boxes, just ask.  More boxes to follow:

Catching up

Too much of my real life has occupied my time all week.  So today, I'm scrambling to get a few more things done for the upcoming craft fair.  I could get away with what I already have done, but I really wanted to do a couple more themed boxes.  I might not have enough space to display everything, so let's hope that lots of people come by and decide to buy.  I'd hate to have to bring home all this inventory.

So if you're in the Melbourne area, please stop by the Indian Harbour Beach City Art Show at Gleason Park on SATURDAY, 20 November from 9 AM - 5 PM.

See you there!

Daisy Blues

I love pretty paper.  I 'collect' too much of it.  I hoard it.  It's my disease.

I'm forcing myself to use it.  Making these boxes is the easiest way to use it up.  I've been starting with some of my favorite patterns just to get the big separation emotions over with.  Plus it helps to see how well the boxes come together when I'm loving the paper.

I made this box yesterday.  I've had the paper for a year or so.  It's relief embossed so the daisies are puffed out.  I just love the way it feels!

When coordinating colors, I found the striped paper in a stash from SU! that I've had for years and years.  I think the striped papers have the best WOW effect for the tray part of the box.  It's getting it lined up that's the hardest part.  And I'm so particular about that too.

I think it looks best open!

Craft Fair Samples

Here's a composite pic of some of the items I'll be selling at the upcoming craft fair.  From top right, clockwise:  Card Box, Pencil Box, Pocket Calendars, Recipe/Photo Box.  I'll post other samples later.

Blue Dazzle

This is the latest box I've made.  It's for a friend's birthday.  While it's hard to see in the photo, the flower paper is embossed and glittered.  It really is sparkly.  I paired it with a red print texture and then a soft pale polka dotted blue for the inside tray.  The tray fits standard A2 size cards and envelopes (as do all the ones I'm making right now). 

Here is a picture of the box open.  I hope she likes the paper I've chosen.
BTW, the backdrop is a crocheted lapghan that my husband made for her.  YES, he crochets (and knits).  That's because he's WAY more talented than I am.

First Box

This was the very first box I made.  It had its imperfections, but overall, it came out better than I had expected.  It's a drop spine version and it was probably about 5"x7".  At the time, I had a hard time visualizing paper lengths, so this was done in more pieces than I had hoped.  After this, I re-engineered the box size and used my paper more effectively.

I gave this box away a couple of days after I completed it, so I didn't get many pictures of it.  The colors were soft golden yellow and deep olive greens, though the picture looks more brown.  This was before my husband built me a light box too.  I hope the lady who owns this box still uses it.  I have a special attachment to it, mainly because it was my first attempt.