Beanies Update #4

Merry Christmas to all!  

Hope everyone had a joyous Christmas yesterday.  We had a great time with family and friends with lots of food, lots of laughs, and lots of... presents. :)  Haha...  But really the true gift is the time we were given to be able to spend with one another.

With the hustle and bustle of the season, I didn't manage to make much.  I do seem to be on track as I finished one and started another. :) 

Beanie #4 is a Blue and Cream beanie.  I decided to use the remnants of two beanies that I made in the past.  It was actually pretty easy to attach the two.  The blue yarn is a Lion Brand Yarn - Super bulky acrylic and the cream is Wool Ease Bulky yarn (I think by Lion Brand Yarn as well).  It's another kid-size hat using the red knifty knitter round loom.

Alright, so Happy New Year, and see you next week.  I do warn that I will probably be late on the update post, as it's a travel day for me.

Lunar Eclipse Pictures

This past Monday we had a special treat in the sky.  We had a chance to witness a total lunar eclipse on a full moon on winter solstice.  So, I'm a bit shy of all the details, but it was still quite awesome to witness.  Also, the clouds cleared just in time for near perfect viewing.  I know this is a bit off topic on what this blog usually has, but I took some pictures and some actually turned out decent.  So, I'm sharing. :D

The first three came were taken thru my telescope view finder.  The last was just with my not so spectacular, but pretty decent zoom camera.

Enjoy!

For more information about this past eclipse:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2010_lunar_eclipse

Up-Cycled Newspaper Giftwrap

For a cheap alternative to giftwrap, try using newspaper.  Particularly this time of year, you'll find colorful, full page ads that would make wonderful giftwrap allowing you to save a bit of money as well as being a bit eco-friendly.  The general problem I've found with newspaper is that the ink tends to get all over your hands, and that's not what you want when you give a gift.  So, the secret to it all.... HAIRSPRAY.  Crazy, huh.

So, apparently, spraying some hairspray on the newspaper you want to use, will help seal the ink in so you don't end up with ink covered hands.  I suggest spraying the newspaper first before wrapping and allowing the newspaper to dry completely. My experimenting has also shown that the hairspray will not make the paper sticky (something, I was concerned with).

To finish it off, I also added a magazine gift bow.  You can find out how to make one here.

Beanies Update #3

With all the hustle and bustle of the holidays, I again, have not had much time to make beanies.  I did manage to complete one more for Head Huggers. :)

3 out of 10.

This one is a cream and light brown kid size beanie made with the knifty knitter.  The yarn used was a Lion Brand Yarn HomeSpun and BabySoft.

Nearing the end of December in just about half way done.  It looks like I might just be right on track to finish.

Beanies Update #2

Sadly, I have not worked on beanies at all this past week.  So, I have to report a big fat zero. :(

I've been working on a few Christmas gifts this past week and weekend.  Here's a glimpse:

1. fleece dog rope toys all different shapes and sizes.

2.  Miniature stocking gift card holders. (tutorial to come soon.)

Hope you all had a wonderful week and weekend.  More tutorials coming soon.

Beanies Update #1

I thought I'd give you an update on the beanies.  I'm proud to say that I managed to work on the beanies quite a bit this past week... As of today I'm done with 2 of 10.  Yay!  This coming week I plan to work on crafting up some Christmas gifts so, there will probably be less progress done this time next week. I'll try to make these update posts a weekly thing. :)

Here are the first two.

This first one is a white and black camo acrylic yarn (red heart) -- kid size.  This was loom knit (red knifty knitter round).

This second is a navy blue super bulky acrylic yarn (lion brand yarn) -- adult size. This was loom knit (green knifty knitter round).




For information about what these beanies are for, check out my previous post here.

New Charity Links page

Another Quick post to mention that the charity links page on Rad Linc Crafts is live:

http://radlinccrafts.blogspot.com/p/charities.html

Have a look, get inspired, and spread some light. :)

Quick Post Amazon's 25 Days of Free

Just a quick post:

Amazon's doing their 25 Days of Free mp3 music again this year.  Every day from December 1st to the 25th, they are giving away a holiday song for free.  http://amzn.to/hqt43H  Okay, so I usually wait till the 24th or 25th, and download all the ones I want then, but you can go in and download them daily if you want something to listen to before Christmas. :)

Happy Listening! :)

Leftover Cranberry Sauce Muffins

I still had cranberry sauce from thanksgiving.  So, I did a bit of googling.  I found this recipe from the serious eats site (love that site by the way). 


Recipe can be found: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/11/morningafter_cranberry_sauce_muffins.html


Here's the short version...


Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup whole-grain wheat flour
• 1 cup oats
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ cups of leftover cranberry sauce
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 
  

0. Preheat oven 400 degrees F

1. mix all dry ingredients in bowl A

2. mix all wet ingredients in bowl B

3.  fold together all ingredients

4. bake in muffin pan til you can stick a skewer in it and it comes out clean.

The recipe by itself is pretty good.  But, dare I say, tasted a bit too... healthy.  I think next time I'll skip the wheat flour and do the whole thing with all purpose white flour.  On the whole, it's quite tasty. 

Pledging Beanies

Last week, through an email chat with my good friend and loom knitting buddy, I decided to make a pledge to make as many beanies as I can from now (Dec 1, 2010) till the end of January (Jan 31, 2011) for donation to headhuggers.

Headhuggers is a project started by Sue Thompson, who accepts donated handmade beanies and caps (sewn, crocheted and knitted), and distributes them to hospitals and oncology offices, etc to patients who may have lost their hair due to chemo or any other reason.  The beanies and caps will help keep their heads warms because of all the suffering they already go thru, a cold head shouldn't be one of them.

Last year, I teamed up with a friend who wanted to learn how to loom knit and we managed to finish 5 to send to Headhuggers.  Sue was super nice to send a letter to me, thanking me for the caps, and explaining to me where they were being sent to.  Our caps ended up helping out a burn center in San Francisco.  It felt awesome to be able to help them out.  So, this year, another friend and I are going to team up to make more beanies.  With the winter months upon us, I'm sure the beanies will be much needed.

So, I thought I'd make a pledge to you all that I will make a total of 10+ beanies for the next two months for headhuggers.  I figure that this way, I can't back down.  It's official and failing is just not an option. ;)  Plus, I get to help more people which is a reward in itself.

I'll try to keep you up to date on the beanies that I make. The picture above are some beanies made in the past.  I forgot to take a picture of the ones we donated. D'oh!

If you're interested in donating handmade beanies, check out the headhuggers site: http://www.headhuggers.org/  You'll find info on the project as well as a lot of cool patterns.

Happy Loom Knitting, Crocheting, Knitting, or Sewing. :)

No Knead Baguettes, Part Two

Note: This is a two part series.  Go here to see Part One of the series.

So, now that you've had your dough mixed and it's been in the fridge for a day, you can make your bread.

Again, this recipe came from the book: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking

No Knead Baguettes, Part One

Note:  Since there is so much info in here, I'm splitting this post into two.  Part 1 will be setting up the bin dough.  Part 2 will be baking the baguette. 

We found this recipe from a book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking.  First off, awesome book.  This recipe is a mix of a few basic ingredients that gets stored in a bin until you want bread.  Bread is ready in about 1.5 hours.

DIY Christmas Ideas

It's that time of year again... where we start trying to think of good christmas gifts to give the special people in our lives.  Here are some Do It Yourself Christmas ideas that may make a special gift and maybe save you some money in the process.

Crocheted: Happy Baby Blanket

So, I like to collect those little project pages that stores like Joann's and Michael's usually have near the yarn aisles.  Most times you can find them and more online by just visiting the project sites for the stores.  Anyway, this is one I picked up a while ago.  Finally had the opportunity to try it out when I found out my friend was preggers.  Anyway, I went to work on it, and with much frustration (all due to me), I managed to finish it.  

The blanket itself, is very easy to crochet, mainly using double crochets throughout the project.  The frustration in my part was due to the fact that the yarn I had wasn't enough to make it to the end -- and I couldn't find the yarn at the store anymore. Grrr...   I also made the mistake of using both ends of the yarn skein to work with a two yarns for the blanket -- this is actually what made me run out of yarn.  To resolve this, I ended up unraveling the entire blanket (or at least half of it which was where I realized I was going to run out) and start over and mix the colored yarn with white.

The outcome turned out to be better than I expected.  The white gave the color just a lighter hue, perfect for a new baby girl to enjoy.  Here's the pattern for it. Yup, I found the project sheet online. 

So... lessons learned.

1.  Buy the amount of yarn that you're going to need all at the same time.

2.  Don't use a skein from both ends unless your project is surely gonna fit the skein.

By the way, if you're new to crocheting or wanna give it a try check out this book.  It's how I learned. :)

Happy Crocheting!

Crafty Sightings from New Mexico

Earlier this month, I celebrated my birthday by going to New Mexico's International Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, NM.  It's always been something that I wanted to go and see, and let me tell you, it's absolutely amazing.  :)  The sight of hundreds of balloons in the air at once is simply stunning. Even got to go on the field and see some of the balloons get packed away (yet another amazing feat -- how they fit the balloon in this tiny sack).

Moccasins Kit from Alaska

As I mentioned in a previous post, I went to Alaska this year on a family vacation.  You can see some of the crafty sightings here.  Okay, so while I was there (I believe we were in Ketchikan),  I bought myself a souvenir... a moccasins kit.  I was thinking, "oh cool real Alaskan moccasins... me want. What? $30?  That's a lot... but moccasins would be so cool. Sold."

Sigh, sadly, that did turn out to be overpriced as I saw the same exact kit (same brand, etc) at a local Michael's for half the price.  Oh well.  Now that you know where to get them, here are some tips I learned on putting them together. :)

1st tip:  Make sure you pull the cords tight.  Going back because you ran out of lace is very annoying.

2nd tip:  If you still have to go back and re-tighten because you ran out of lace, you can use a crochet hook to pull the cord.  It just gives you a better grip of the cord.

3rd tip:  The kit comes with 5 laces.  If you're like me you'll automatically think... "Am I missing a lace?"  The answer is, you're not.  It turns out that you use two and a half laces per moccasin.   The tie at the back of the moccasin only requires a small bit of the lace, so half does fine.  It doesn't exactly explain that in the kit.

4th tip:  When you're done, you can trim the laces at the back (the laces that you cut in half).  Then put a flame to the ends of the cut laces, and this will seal the cord close.

Overall, the kit was easy to put together, but some of the instructions were a bit understated. Hope this helps if you decide to put together your own kit.  Also, I made a copy of the undone pieces, so technically I'll be able to make more (I'm thinking fleece) -- will share the results, if I try it.

Homemade Granola Bars

It's been a while since I've done a Food post... so I thought I'd share with you a recipe that I found on allrecipes for really easy and tasty granola bars.

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/Easy-Granola-Bars/Detail.aspx


This recipe is a great basis for making your own granola bar creations.


Base of the granola bars:


3 cups of quick oats
2 tbsp butter (melted)
1 can of condensed milk


3 1/2 cups of mix-in ingredients  (i.e. a combination of chocolate, nuts, raisins, dried cranberries, etc)


For these ones, I made two different types of.  Here are the mix-ins that I used.

First Half


3/4 cups coconut flakes
1/2 cups dried cranberries
1/2 cups mixed nuts (walnuts, peanuts, cashews - rough chopped in a processor)

Second Half


1/2 cups miniature chocolate chips
1/2 cups raisins
1/2 cups mixed nuts (same as before)
1/4 cups coconut flakes


How to:
1.  To make them, start with preheating the oven to 350 degrees F.


2.  Mix the melted butter, oats, and condensed milk.

3.  Put the dried mix-ins in a bowl (or two separate bowls).


4.  Mix in the oats mixture to the dried mix-ins (you'll need to split the mixture in half if you have 2 bowls)

5.  Cover a jelly roll pan with parchment paper.  I add a small amount of oil before putting down the parchment paper, just to help the paper stay put.  Add the mixture into the pan and press down.  It helps to use a sheet of wax paper to press down on the mixture into the pan.  You want it squished together so that it' forms a better, more solid bar.

6.  Bake for 25 minutes.


7.  Remove from oven, put on a cutting board and cut with a sharp knife or pizza cutter (tho, I think a knife might work better.


8.  Let it cool completely, and they're ready to be packaged up and/or eaten.

Enjoy! 

Chinese Staircase Friendship Bracelet

And my friendship bracelet kick continues...

Here is another easy friendship bracelet to do. It's on of the first bracelets I learned to make because of it's simplicity as it consists of using one string to tie a knot around all the others in the bunch.  A bunch consist of however many colors you want to include in the bracelet.

Here's how it's done.

Material:

DMC floss -- as many colors/strings as you want.

Holder:  Cardboard and binder clip (or clipboard)

*Note: The length of the floss will vary depending on the length of the bracelet and the amount of strings you want to use.  A yard should work as a good starting point. You can adjust length on the next bracelet. :)

How To:

1.  Hold all of the strings together and tie a knot near the top.  If you chose to make a bracelet with a few colors you'll probably want to double the length, fold it in half and make a knot near the fold like shown.

2.  Clip the bracelet to the cardboard with the binder clip just above the knot.

3.  Separate the a string of the first color you want to use.  Holding everything aside from the separated string, tie a knot using the separated string around the bunch.

4.  Continue to make knots using the separated string around the same bunch until you've reached the desired length for that color. If you make all the knots the same way, you'll notice that the knots will form a twist around the bunch, a bit like a spiral staircase.

5.  When you're ready to switch to another color, grab the next color you want to use and let the previous color rejoin the bunch.  You can now start making knots again.  Watch where the knot bump is landing, try to position it so that the spiral staircase continues unbroken.

6.  Repeat steps 4 and 5 until the desired length of bracelet is reached.

*Note: Step 7 is only really useful if you folded the strings in half to make a top loop in Step 1.
7.  Once the bracelet length has been reached, put the whole bunch together and divide the strings evenly into two.  Here, I braided each divided grouping for about 1.5", tied a knot in the end and cut the excess string.  These braids are what is used for tying the bracelet (only works if you made a loop on top).

That's it.

Enjoy making these easy bracelets.

New Design

I have spent part of this weekend playing around with the design of this site.  I wanted to go for a more simplified look, and wanted to take advantage of blogger's page feature.  I've created two new pages: "About me," that goes into a bit of info about why I started blogging in the first place, and "Project Archives," which has a better list of projects categories in specific sections like food, pets, crochet, etc. I'll be tweaking these pages a bit more in the next few days.

I also have a rotating image for the header.  It appears that the sizing is slightly off in IE8 and below. I am aware of it, and am looking into it (something to do with the background-size not available in those browsers).  A few other changes, the tag cloud has been condensed considerably, as it only represents tags that have been tagged more than 3 times.  Also, I've brought back the Blog Archive list for quick blog browsing. In the future, I plan to also include a Charity page and a Recommendations page.

Anyway, let me know what you think of the new design.

Thanks again for reading and Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day. :)

[Update 9-21-10: I believe I fixed the sizing of the header for all browsers.]

Wider Square Knot Friendship Bracelet

So, apparently, I'm on a friendship bracelet making kick.  Here's another friendship bracelet that I made using generally the same method as the previous post, only with more strings.

In this bracelet, I used 8 strings.  Each row is made up of 3 sets of square knots (where a set of square knots is equal to a square knot and it's reverse knot , 2 knots total).

Make the first set with the first 4 strings (just like before).
Make the second set with the last 4 strings.
And lastly, make the last set with the 4 middle strings.

Ta da.

Happy Weekend!

Square Knot Friendship Bracelet

A few weekends ago, my sister, cousin, and I decided to make some friendship bracelets.  We made a couple of different kinds including the knot friendship bracelet that I blogged about last year.  The square knot friendship bracelet is one of the types that we made.  We used cord to make these easy bracelets.  Also, we thought of a better way to hold the cords while making bracelets.

Okay, so here's how we made them.

Crafty Sight Seeing in Alaska

I recently came back from taking an Alaskan Cruise with my family.  We had a wonderful time, saw some beautiful places and things, and witnessed some pretty amazing things.  Our cruise started in Seattle, then continued on to Juneau, Hubbard Glacier, Sitka, Ketchikan, and lastly Victoria, BC before we headed back to Seattle.  I must say, my goodness they were beautiful places... and not nearly as cold as I was expecting.  It was actually quite warm in Juneau.  According to our tour guide, we came on a good day, as it wasn't overcast and foggy.  Sitka and Ketchikan, however, were overcast, but still beautiful.  After the cruise, we stayed in Seattle for the weekend, and I just have to say... what a crafty city. Anyway, here are a few collages of things I saw:

Today, Rad Linc Crafts Turns TWO!

Wow, I can't believe I've had this blog for two years already.  I can't thank you enough for reading my adventures in crafting.  Radar and Lincoln would like to thank you too.  Wanna meet them?  Here they are! :)

Radar
Radar is a Laborador Retriever (probably mixed breed) that was given to us by a friend who couldn't keep him, when he was just a pup.  He'll be 7 years old this coming December.  He loves swimming, car rides, long walks, and showing off his awesome tricks (for a treat, of course).  Words we can't say around him are (unless we really mean it) "Walk", "Treat", "Are you Hungry?" His favorite tricks are playing dead, balancing a treat on his nose, and bowing.

Lincoln (Linc for short)
Linc is a Laboradoodle.  We rescued him from a local no-kill shelter when he was 1 and a half years old. Linc   is now 5 years old and is just a super sweet dog.  He loves long walks, meeting new people, and likes to cuddle (especially on cold days).  He's an oversized lapdog, in my opinion, and I love him for being so. His favorite tricks are: spinning around, jumping up, and begging.

Those are our boys. :D  A bit crazy and strange, just like their owners.

From our family, thanks for reading.

Images from Flickr

On occasion, I plan to feature images shared on Rad Linc Craft's flickr group.  Today, I'd like to share images from flickr user: myfairg.   She has shared several of her beautiful nylon flower creations onto the flickr group.  Here are a few of her beautiful images.  

Check out her other creations on her flickr photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/handcrafted__florals/


Keep up the good work, myfairg and thanks for sharing your images.