5 Minute Lemon Bars

So this is my super quick lemon bars.  It seriously takes 5 minutes to mix and a mere 15-18 minutes to bake.

Here is the ingredients:

 lemon cake mix

2 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

powdered sugar to dust (optional)

You mix everything in a bowl.  It is thick so you might want to mix with your hands as it will go much faster.  It looks like this:

Then you just press it into a greased 9x13 pan. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 15- 18 minutes, until it looks like this.

Then cut into bars and dust with powdered sugar.  Finally eat and enjoy!

5 Minute Lemon Bars Recipe

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix together

lemon cake mix

2 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

Press into a greased 9x13 inch pan.

Bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes

My Felt Food Adventure Begins...

           Ok, so there are a million pictures of felt food out there, and I advert my eyes every time.  I went to make felt food for my granddaughter, Norah, but do not want to be influenced by others food.  I think about it a lot.  Almost as much as I think about real food.  I was afraid to start that one of two things would happen. One that I would become frustrated with my versions and give up all hope and just go buy her some.  Or two, that I would become obsessed.  I decided to start with the easiest of all food to make...bow tie pasta.  How much easier does it get, maybe spaghetti?  Wait that sounds hard.  How about as easy as a fried egg.  I have seen pictures of an egg, so I decided, I would never make one.  So I decided to do a tutorial again, for two reasons.  One practice with writing out a tutorial.  And two, no one is reading this any way.  Not YET any way.  I am hoping that someone stops by soon.  So, in the meantime, here is my bow tie pasta felt food tutorial...

                                                                       The supplies:

beige felt

scissors

pinking shears

scrap paper

needle and thread

pen or pencil & ruler (not pictured)

I started buy cutting out my scrap paper into a rectangle 2" by 1 1/2 inches. Then I used that to mark from the edge in 2 inches.  I made several marks all the way up my straight edge.

Then I cut it out with pinking shears on one side, then repeated on the other long side.  It made it a little shorter than the 2 inches, but I was okay with that.  Then I just cut it every 1 1/2 inches with regular scissors.  Now with each rectangle I accordion holder it into fourths.  It looked like this

Now with a needle and thread starting on the inside of one fold thread it through so your knot is hidden. 

Then just go back and fourth through all layers about five or six times.  Go into the center with your last stitch again to hide the knot.  You are done with bow tie pasta number one.

This one is a little of center, but I thought and planned ahead for the rest.  I actually just got closer to the center, by trial and error.   I always thought it was center, but realized I was holding the center and sewing next to my finger.  Dork moment.  It is okay to laugh.  Here is my completed pile of bow tie pasta...

Ta-Dah!  Now I know you could have done this without a tutorial, but then I would not have gotten practice.  And practice makes perfect for future tutorials.  That is all assuming someone reads this someday.  I did learn from this post not to take pictures in my craft room after dark, as there is obliviously not enough light for pictures.  I do apologize for the poor quality.  

If you stumbled upon my blog, please any comment, even DUH I didn't need a tutorial for that.  More complicated felt food will come, so check back.  Go have a great day and hope to hear from you soon.

Hot Glue Sticks Tip

Okay so I have several older glue guns, some are still the kind where you push the glue stick from the back.  Now if you have one or more likely remember what it was like, they have a long stick refill.  Now this gun does have a trigger which does help, but it falls out nine out of ten times.

Now I do not have Go Go Gadget hands and can't extend my thumb that far back.  So do you use your chin, your boob, or possibly even your tongue.  Not that I have tried any of them, I am just guessing of course.  My solution is cut them in half.

Now that may seem like a simple solution, but it took me a long time of getting mad, burning myself, and repeatedly putting it back into that small hole.  So I am sure you already know this tip, or have a newer, better, fancier glue gun without this issue, but just in case you don't here you go.

Easter Duck...For Real

Okay so, this is going to be my first tutorial.  I like to see a lot of photos when I follow a tutorial, so I am going to show all I can.  Lets see how it goes.  My granddaughter, Norah loves magnets on the ice box.  Oh sorry I am old and still refer to it as an icebox because my mom did.  I mean refrigerator.  I still have my Thanksgiving magnets up cause she loves them.  I did add Valentines day ones too, plus there is two baby announcements so it is quite the mish mosh. I decided to make her an Easter duck.  Here is what I came up with...

Here are the supplies I used:

yellow felt

orange felt

glue gun and glue sticks

paper scraps for template in these sizes:

2 1/2 by 4 1/2 inches for body

2 by 2 1/2 inches for wings

1 3/4 by 1 3/4 inches for feet

1 by 1 inch for beak

pen

ribbon for bow

feather or crepe paper

10 mm google eyes

ruler

scissors

magnet strip about 2 to 2 1/2 inches long

I started by cutting a piece of scrap paper into a 2 1/2 by 4 1/2 inch rectangle for the body.  I folded it in half, and traced a duck body onto it.  A basic ovally shape with an indent for the neck.

Then I cut that out and made made the pattern for the wings on a 2 by 2 1/2 inch piece of paper.

Then with a 1 3/4 by 1 3/4 inch piece i folded in half I made the feet pattern.

Finally with a 1 by 1 inch piece, I fold in half and drew the beak.

Then I pinned the body and wings to a doubled felt piece of yellow felt.  Because I want 2 body pieces and 2 wing pieces.  Cut them out and put aside.

I did the same with orange felt to make 2 feet pieces.  Unfold the beak piece and cut one of these out.  So you should have something that looks like this:

Remove the pins and paper and place the wings between the two body pieces.  Add hot glue onto the bottom of the body part and not the head.  Glue below and on top of the wings to secure.

Place your second body on top of this and press to seal. Glue your feet into place. Make your bow and set aside.  I decided at the last minute to add some sort of feather or crepe paper for "hair".

For the crepe piece I cut a piece about four inches long and then cut that in half lengthwise.  I then accordion folded it and cut slits in the top half.  I then placed them in place and decided that I liked the feather better.  I know everyone does not have yellow feathers jus laying around, so I wanted to give an alternative.  Here is how they each looked.

So I glued the feather between the two body layers.

Now glue the head completely together. Then I glued the bow on and glued eyes and the beak on after that. For the beak I offset it, so it looked like it was opened. If you do not have google eyes, you could make it out of felt pieces as well.  Norah likes these eyes, so that is what I went with.

Now I added a magnet strip.  I placed it completely over the neck area to stabilize the head. 

Now you have this:

Ready for Norah.

Well, I survived, and I hope if you find this blog and want to make a duck that you find it helpful.  

So that is my duck...for real.

Here is where it starts...For Real

So...I bet you wonder what this blog is about, and so do I.  It will not always be grammatically correct, or always have perfect spelling, or even always be that interesting.  Sometimes I just need an area to vent, and this will be it.  I don't know if any one will ever read it, but I am writing it for me and hope you come along for the journey.  I am hoping to share some recipes, craft ideas, and thoughts.  This is my husband and I on a beach in San Diego.  It is an okay picture of my husband, but a decent one of me, and so that is what matters.  He always looks good in photos and I hate the way I look, so I always hang and use the good ones of me.  It is on pinterest  page as well.  Heck even on my Facebook page.  I will be putting more of him along the way, I am sure, me not so much. On pinterest, oh dear God I am addicted.  Hello, my name is Wendy and I am a pinteraholic.  I will say that I do make some of the things I find, so that is good, but I have so many it would probably take me three years to do them all.  That is if I stop looking now.  That ain't going to happen.  I am hoping to share how my items come out compared to the original pin.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it is like what is that.  Speaking of pinterest, it has been over 12 hour since I pinned something, so I must go...right now, I am in withdrawal as we speak.  So...This is where we start...for real.