A Lamp Redo

I have seen lamps with flowers and I thought it would be really cute in my daughters room.  She had broken and drawn on two previous lamp shades so the one that was on her lamp was the wrong size.  I let her pick the color of flowers (I was thinking pink) and she chose blue.  I bought hydrangea flowers at Michaels.  Here are a couple of pictures of all the before parts.

The lamp

The flowers, plucked from the stems

And here is the finished lamp!

I hot glued the flowers to the shade (one of the ones she had previously colored on) and my daughter decided not to have any extra pearls, beads, or jewels.  Although blue is not the color I would have chosen i think it turned out pretty good.  My daughter loves it and that is what is important.

Christmas Cards

Over Christmas break I mentioned to a neighbor girl that I had a blog (that I sometimes post to) and she wanted to know if she made something would I put it on my blog.  I told her I would so she and my daughter got to work making Christmas cards for the blog.  It's a little past Christmas but here are their cards!

I was going to apologize for the quality of the picture (the kids took them while I was napping) but they really aren't any worse than the ones I take.  I would like a new camera and maybe a class on how to take good digital pictures but that will have to wait.

Mug Rugs and Spice Doodles

I often have quilt patterns or designs in my head that I would like to try but I don't have the time to make many full quilts.  I liked the idea of mug rugs (small quilts for your cup of coffee and a couple of cookies) but didn't know who to make them for.  Well...my in laws have cake and coffee every evening and so I thought these might work for them.  Below are the two I made.  I have no idea who makes the fabrics so please don't ask. :)

For Papa:

I made some log cabin blocks with green and yellow and then after seeing how big Mama's was I added some stripes along the side and bottom.
For Mama:

Her favorite colors are blue and red.  I had wanted to try a zig zag for a while and this was a great opportunity.  I like how it turned out.  The back is a cute print with birds on it (one of my favorites).

Now for the best part of these pictures: the COOKIES!
They are called Spice Doodles and I found the recipe in Better Homes and Gardens The Ultimate Cookie Book.  This book has lots of fun easy recipes that I usually make at Christmas.  It was different this year because my son was diagnosed with celiac this last year but I still made some of the favorites for my husband and I.

Spice Doodles

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Lightly grease cookie sheets and set aside.  In a large bowl beat butter and shortening.  Add in sugar, baking powder and salt.  Beat until combined.  Beat in egg and vanilla.  Beat in as much flour as possible and then stir in rest.  If necessary cover and chill one hour or until easier to handle.

Preheat oven to 375 F.  In small bowl combine remaining sugar and pumpkin pie spice.  Shape dough into 1" balls and roll in sugar and spice mixture.  Place on cookie sheet 2" apart and bake for 10 to 11 minutes or until edges are golden.  Let stand one minute and transfer to wire rack.

Yield: about 40 cookies (I usually double it because they don't last long in our house)