I'm entering another contest

I've considered creating a new blog just so I'll have a place to post about giveaways I'm entering. But I figure that if I'm interested in a giveaway enough to want the extra entries that posting about it earns me, the people who read this blog may also be interested in it. (Man, that was a confusing sentence to write. I hope it makes sense to someone other than me.)

So here's the latest. Tiffany over at The R Family Diaries is giving away two $100 gift cards to Target. See, I knew you'd be interested. Check out the details here:The R Family Diaries: My Big News and a $100. And make sure and check out the Fishful Thinking page linked from Tiffany's blog post to see what Pepperidge Farms is up to that has her so excited.

What's the Greek word for "yum"?

Have you tried fat free Greek yogurt yet? I actually haven't found it in the fat free variety in Vienna, but the low fat I found has less than half a gram for the whole container, so I'm calling it good. It's so much richer and creamier than normal yogurt. And when I read that you can substitute it in baking for butter, I knew I had to give it a try.



I tried this recipe from Finny Knits (warning, she uses naughty words, so scroll down to the recipe if you want to spare your eyes) and was really pleased with the results. Brian and I like gooey brownies and it was obvious from the batter that these brownies would be more cakey. So I only cooked them for about 18 minutes and they came out with a "melting cake" consistency. I know my family will know what I mean by that because we went on a cruise years ago and every night we ordered the chocolate melting cake for dessert. But in case "melting cake" doesn't mean anything to you, I imagine this recipe for baked fudge from the Pioneer Woman would be similar in texture. So not really brownies, but very good. When Brian tried them he said, "Yep, these can kill a man." And he meant it in the best possible way. I left the house shortly after taking them out of the oven and the pan was almost half way empty when I returned home a few hours later.

I think I will try the fat-free-greek-yogurt-for-butter substitution in something other than brownies -- maybe a coffee cake or pound cake. I'd love to hear if you give it a try in your recipes.

Featured on Tip Junkie

My post on the magnet toy I made my niece for Christmas is featured on Tip Junkie today! My sister Christy got me hooked on Tip Junkie a while back and I've found a lot of inspiration on the site. If you're not familiar with the site, head on over there.

And while you're there, make sure to check out the current giveaway. Laurie is giving away two gifts from the Mom-preneur shops. If you're looking for handmade goodness, this is a good place to look.

He's got legs

Have you seen BabyLegs before? I think they're adorable and probably pretty functional. I ran across a tutorial for turning women's knee socks into BabyLegs knock-offs and knew I had to give it a try -- especially considering the number of expecting mothers I know. I bought a pair of inexpensive knee socks and then let them sit around for weeks. I finally got around to trying the tutorial a few days ago and it in less than 15 minutes I had made these cuties.


You're supposed to use women's knee socks, but when I bought the socks I thought I was supposed to get toddler knee socks. So these are a little small. But that's ok since this was just for practice and the socks were only 50 cents.

I don't have a cute little baby laying around to show them off, but Sharkdog was happy to model them for me.


Ok, maybe "happy" isn't exactly the right word. But doesn't he look cute.


Work it, Sharkdog! Work it!

I used this tutorial, but there are several others out there. Now I just need to find some cute knee socks so I can start making gifts. :)

Total time suck

As if I don't have enough ways to waste my time, I've found another. Turning photos into cartoons with BeFunky.com. Within just a few minutes I turned one of my favorite photos of Sharkdog from this:


Into the cutest little cartoon beagle ever.


And while it only takes a few minutes to create, it's just so fun to keep trying more photos.

Like this one.


And this one.


Granted, I found this site because I was specifically looking for ways to turn photos into cartoon charaters, but I wasn't expecting to find something so fast and easy -- and totally addictive. Hopefully soon I'll be able to show you the project I'm working on that needed a little cartoonization. But for now, I'd better get off the computer and do something useful. I'm off to the grocery store!

You can look (but you better not touch)

You know how I've mentioned before that sometimes I spend way too much time trying to come up with a clever title for a post? Well, this is one of those times. This post is about how my husband is freakin' awesome and about one particular thing he bought recently that boosted him from "awesome" to "freakin' awesome". Here are some other potential post titles:

A Good Man is Hard to Find
It's Hard to be a Saint in the City
Part Man, Part Monkey
A Night With the Jersey Devil

Any ideas what he bought?




Anybody?






Bruce Springsteen tickets! (All of the potential title are Bruce Springsteen song titles, in case you haven't made the connection.) Now go on and just try to tell me I'm not married to a freakin' awesome guy.

Tooting my own horn

My sister sent me a couple of photos of a project I helped her with recently and it turned out so cute I just had to share. But first, I just want to say how much fun it is to work with my sisters on projects. Who would have thought that moving overseas would help us stay better connected!

On to show and tell. Remember the magnet toy I made for my niece for Christmas? Apparently it was a big hit with one of my niece's friends who recently had a birthday. So my sister asked me if I could use some photos of the girl and her family and photoshop them into photos of Disney princesses (and princes, for the guys). Thanks to Flickr and the generous folks who use a Creative Commons license on their photos, I was able to find some great photos of Disney characters. And while it looks a little unusual to have a kid's face on a grown-up's body, I think they turned out really cute. My sister found the background photos (also on Flickr and licensed under Creative Commons licenses) and printed the images on magnetic paper.

Without further ado, here are the photos:




The magnets were created from altering the following photos:

• Aladdin and Jasmine - flickr.com/photos/truello/2843750009/ by truello
• Aurora - flickr.com/photos/jeffchristiansen/2620465785/ by JeffChristiansen
• Cinderella and Prince Charming - flickr.com/photos/thomwatson/3199625483/ by thomwatson
• Snow White - flickr.com/photos/armadillo444/2056683114/ by armadillo444
• Belle - flickr.com/photos/armadillo444/2060325911/ by armadillo444
• Ariel - flickr.com/photos/armadillo444/2055976939/ by armadillo444
• Cinderella Castle - www.flickr.com/photos/expressmonorail/2689632910/ by Express Monorail (Joe)

And while I'm showing off some of the stuff I've made, here are some links to photos of the gifts I made for family for Christmas. I didn't posted them earlier because half of my side of the family just received their gifts today. (And I can't blame the postal service for this -- it was all my fault.)

• After a long wait, my younger sister received pajama pants and an applique shirt. Her husband received a magnetic poetry-style magnet set with LOLCats words. Both he and his friend love LOLCats, so I decorated an extra container and sent my sister the file of words so she could make a magnet set for his friend. I hear it was a big hit, but I forgot to take a photo.
• I also made a magnetic poetry-style set for my dad. It's hard to come up with good handmade gifts for guys, but I thought this would be good to keep at the office. Everyone likes little distractions at the office, right? For all of the magnet sets, I bought candy tins and found an appropriate CC photo on Flickr to create a label.
• My mom and older sister both received purses. (Mom's purse - Amber's purse.) I sent matching purses to my nieces as well, even though they received their Christmas gifts on time.
• I asked my sister for gift ideas for her husband and she said that all he has time to do is sleep and work, so he got a pillowcase. I used iron transfers to create blocks with photos of the family and then sewed it together.
  

Somehow I managed to ship the gifts to my in-laws without taking any photos. I was trying to get them to the U.S. as close to Christmas as possible (they arrived a few days late). I made my MIL an apron that I loved so much I was tempted to keep for myself. (I have since bought fabric to make one for myself.) And both of my SILs received the hippo pj pants (one red, one green). I planned on making them matching shorty robes, but ran out of time. I think I still have enough fabric though, so maybe one day. My BIL received a journal made from an old German book I bought at the Naschmarkt. I gutted the book and added hand-torn blank pages. My FIL received permission to give me a hard time the entire year. :) Like I said, finding handmade gift ideas for guys is difficult.

That's it for show and tell. At least for today.