A Pinch of Joy

Wheels set the quart jar of thick amber liquid on the kitchen counter.   Organic honey sold by the grandfather of a fellow employee.  A quart jar!!!!  That is more than we’ve used in the last five years total!!!    A quick taste showed that it had a pleasant flavor, but not at all like the honey in the little squeezy bear.  Well – love me a challenge (and Wheels is really good at bringing them on!)    I hit the search engines.

According to honey.com, the website of the National Honey Board, “The 60,000 or so bees in a beehive may collectively travel as much as 55,000 miles and visit more than two million flowers to gather enough nectar to make just a pound of honey!   The color and flavor of honey differ depending on the bees’ nectar source. . .”.   The darker the honey, the more “robust” the flavor.

Marveling, at all the time and energy that went into making a quart of honey, I was briefly sidetracked by the free clipart and the cute Honey ecards you can find here.   (For more, check out the free downloads button.)  They also have recipes, and one of them, inspired me to narrow my search down to banana bread.  An inspiration furthered fueled by the slightly darkened bananas in the dining room fruit bowl.

Banana bread is a particularly personal recipe.  And I didn’t have the whole wheat flour on hand that most recipes seem to think went with honey. Honey has 17 carbs per tablespoon, 5 more than a tablespoon of sugar. But it is also sweeter, meaning less is needed so the end result of choosing one vs the other is about the same. Some recipes called for both!   Finally— yep – I took a bit from this recipe and a bit from that and mooshed them together!  And the results were pretty tasty, if I do say so myself.   But most of the credit goes to the honey flavor.

A couple of cautionary notes about banana bread:  1) Turn the oven on before making the recipe so it is preheated.  I flake over this step on a lot of recipes, but it is important here.  Grease your pans right after you turn the oven on.  Getting the bread in the hot oven right away is important.  2)  Mix the dry ingredients together before stirring them into the wet ingredients, so they are evenly distributed.  You can do this by dumping them all in a pile on top of the wet ingredients and gently stirring them together without pulling in wet.  OR by mixing them together in another bowl before adding.  These two notes are for the same reason.  The leavening agent – baking soda- begins to work as soon as it gets wet in this recipe.  You want the result to make the bread light as it bakes. Wasting the leavening power as the bread sets on the counter waiting for you to preheat, grease or stir it  away makes a heavy, doughy product.

I also know most recipes say to bake this size recipe in a single 9×5 greased pan for 50-65 minutes. For me, most of the time this results in underdone loaves and big slices that I usually cut in half.   I prefer smaller slices and a shorter baking time.  With less batter in the pan, I also think the loaf bakes more evenly.  If you want the bigger slice – be my guest!  And nuts are another banana bread particular  – at least in our house.  Bytes will eat walnuts from the bag, but putting those same nuts in a recipe is a guarantee it will never cross his lips and sometimes, that’s a good thing.  Do you know how much a big guy can inhale in a day??  Sometimes a few well placed nuts is a survival strategy.  I digress – some people like nuts, some don’t.  I had about a half cup of toasted walnuts that I tossed in one half of the dough – yum.

Eat plain, with a bit of butter or whipped cream cheese.  Two loaves will yield about 36 half inch thick slices about 11 carbs each.

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I walked into the Dollar Store to pick up sandwich  bags.  As I passed a rack of scarves and hats, this teal and lavendar color combination caught my eye.  Hmmmm . . . I also had doll clothes on my mind as there are three little girls on my list that absolutely adore their American Girl and My Generation dolls!  I picked up the bags and returned to the rack of hats and scarves.   An idea had begun to blossom and as I sorted through the offerings, it began to take shape.  A ribbed hat that was pretty stretchy, a big scarf as wide as the doll body and a striped kid’s scarf to tie the colors together.  For only a $3 investment, I decided to see what that nubbin of an idea would turn into!

HAT:  Sorry –I got so wrapped up in making things happen, I forgot to take a picture of it before cutting.  But you get the idea of what it looked like.  The 18 inch dolls have a head that is 12 inches around.   This hat would stretch that far folded flat which meant it was 24 inches around so I knew it would make two hats.  I cut the top of the hat off as shown above, using about 5 and a quarter inches from bottom of hat to make the doll hat.

 For the individual hat, I folded the piece in half as shown and then cut the excess off the bottom side so both sides matched.  Then I stitched around the open sides with a straight stitch as a way of basting them together.  This knit was a double layer so I had to be sure I caught all the edges.  Then I zigzagged over the cut edges so the knit would not ravel.  And all done!

SCARF:  From the striped scarf that measured 22 inches by 5 inches, I made two doll scarves.  Fold it half, cut in the middle so you have two 11 inch long pieces, trim the cut ends to match the scarf’s ready made ends and zig zag.  Done in one sentence.

JACKET – CUTTING:    Making the jacket was a little trickier.  The scarf was 8 inches by 54 inches.   I wanted to use the finished edge as the edge of my garment.  I didn’t have a long sleeved jacket in my pattern stash,   but I found a couple of patterns I could alter and mash together.  And then to figure out how to maximize the finished edge.   I began by using the ends and side to form the front of the jacket.

Fold the scarf in half, taking care to match the corners (or rounded corner) exactly.   I matched the front edge of the pattern with the long edge of the scarf and the bottom edge of the pattern with the end of the scarf.  Cut out the other two sides — around the neck and shoulders and around the sleeve and side.  Do not cut anything on the bottom or  front of the jacket.

This is what the finished cut will look like.  Note the finished edges do not match the square bottom of the pattern.

Fold the scarf as shown and place the back pattern on the fold with the bottom edge on the finished edge of the scarf.

The cut out piece will look like this — note the finished edge on what will become the jacket bottom.

Fold scarf again so you can cut two sleeves.  Place pattern so bottom of sleeve is on finished edge of scarf.

JACKET ASSEMBLY:  Match front shoulder seam to back and stitch. Repeat for other side.  Match notches on sleeve to notches on armhole in jacket, placing right sides together.  Gently ease fabric around curve. Repeat for other side.  Beginning at bottom of jacket, place right sides together and stitch a continuous seam to bottom of sleeve.  Repeat for other side.  Turn jacket right side out.  Finish neck by running a zig zag stitch on the edge.

Done.  I cut both jackets out at once — but if you want to be really accurate or don’t want to handle  that many thicknesses at once, you can cut the first and then cut the second one from the second half of the scarf,  following the same sequence as above.  Repeat assembly directions for second jacket.

Two outfits, two hours and three dollars.

Jacket, scarf and hat for any 18″ doll.

Download jacket pattern here.

Have fun — you know the little one who receives this cute outfit will!

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Just a week until Valentine’s Day!  I debated whether to make this Busy Moms on Monday post about Valentine’s Day, because it is only a week.  But I can’t be the only one who gets things done at the almost last moment!  Besides I found some great Valentine printables to share with you — and they shouldn’t have to wait until next year!

Not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4 sets of Valentines Printables available for you to print, absolutely free, at Iced Jems.com!   They include:  cupcake wrappers and toppers, candy wrappers, Food Tents, Invitations, Drinks Flags & Tags.  Plus  Valentines Banner, Food Tents, Cupcake Wrappers, Favour Box, Cupcake Stands & Tags.   AND more!  In four different designs.

Carla, at Preschool Powol Packets, designed this game thinking it would be great for Valentine’s Day, but that heart cookies are good anytime of year. Directions are simple and the game gives your child practice counting, sorting, reviewing colors, taking turns, and more!

This pre-kindergarten printable pack found at Over the Big Moon includes

Prewriting Practice Sheets – Cutting Practice – Which one is different?

Finish the Pattern Sheet – Size Sequencing Sheet -Valentine Strip Puzzle

4-piece Puzzles – Sorting Practice – Counting Practice Cards

Color the Heart -  Letter and Sound Finding Cards

2-Part Vocabulary Cards – Shadow Matching

Letter Vv Identification – Valentine Matching

 Valentine Magnet Sheet – Letter Vv Sorting Pages

Wheels is a rock star when it comes to choosing cards!     We became officially engaged on June 10 – my parent’s wedding anniversary.  We were apart for much of our engagement, but on the tenth of the month without fail I would receive a “monthiversary” card from him.  And after we were married, the sweet, heartfelt cards continued four times a year.  My birthday, our anniversary, Christmas and Valentine’s Day.   I treasure every one — but I never go back to reread them and they are usually in a box in the closet.  And this year, I decided the Valentine cards deserved to be showcased!

I went through the box and chose nine cards about the same size and with a white, gold or red color theme.  Then I punched a hole in the corner and tied each card onto a Christmas string of red beads.  I dove into the stash and came up with ten hearts, and a pile of scrapbook embellishments.   I spelled out V-A-L-E-N-T-I-N-E  on the hearts and embellished them with glitter, buttons and other pretties.  Then I fastened them to the beads between each of the nine cards.  Needed a little fluff –curlies, and silk posies.  Some more cards on the mantel, the pink rose wreath on top of the silver mirror, and a little more fluff.

You can find a little fluff at your house to make February 14 — or any day — a special day and celebrate  relationships with the special people in your life, too!

Celebrate with A Pinch of Joy!  Follow on facebook, twitter, RSS, bloglovin’ or sign up to receive new posts by email.  If you see something you like, please use the share buttons below!  Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Linking up to these awesome parties here and   , Sundae Scoop, Linky Party Sunday, Nifty Thrifty Sunday,  Sunday’s Best Party, Creative Blogger’s Party and Hop, . .. Make it Great  Melt In Your Mouth  , Mouth Watering Monday,  Market Yourself Monday,. Made By You Monday , Motivate Me Monday , Gunny Sack ,  Just Something I Whipped Up,  More The Merrier, Show Me How,  . .    , Tasty Tuesday , Delicious Dishes,  Tea Party Tuesday, Crazy Sweet Tuesday, Totally Tasty Tuesday , Tuesday Talent Show, Topsy Turvy Tuesdays Wow Me Wednesday. . .  Whatever Goes Wednesday ,    Rock ‘n Share .thesasselife  ,  This Chick Cooks , Cast Party Wednesday, Anything Goes,  Wow Me Wednesday,  Show and Tell . . .   Full Plate Thursday , Show Off Your Stuff, Hookin’ Up, Simply Link Party , Making It with Allie,  Share Your Creation,  Thrifty Thursday,      Catch a Glimpse  , Chatty Chics,