Cooking Activity: Deviled Eggs

How Disney at family.go.com says my eggs should look

Today, I am covering something new- food! For those who do not know me, I can make: peanut butter sandwiches, PB&J sandwiches, peanut butter and banana sandwich, cereal (all varieties!), popcorn, TV dinners, and finally... Shake 'N Bake.

However, I have always loved Deviled Eggs and so I decided to expand my horizon and ask my mom to show me how to make them. Her instructions were simple. 

1. Hard-boil eggs according to altitude. I live in high altitude so I boiled for about 8 minutes and then let sit another 5 in the water. I started with 5 eggs. 

2. Peel and slice the eggs in half, top to bottom, not side to side.... like I did haha

3. Remove the yoke from the eggs and mix that with two regular sized drops of mustard, a big spoon full of mayo, and sprinkle of salt and pepper. After, taste test a bit of the concoction, and add more of any ingredient as needed. 

4. Scoop mixture into the crevice of the egg halves and sprinkle with a bit of paprika. 

This was how I heard it; however, there are a lot of well written directions out there. 

Here is a link to good directions:  http://family.go.com/food/recipe-810813-deviled-eggs-t/ 

And below.... is how MY eggs turned out. Nevertheless, they tasted great!

How my eggs looked 

Adorable Neopets

I apologize for not posting anything new lately. It has been a crazy last few weeks. I have been on-call a lot at my local ambulance garage, and then track season has started. Between the practices and meets I feel swamped, yet thankfully the weather has been glorious, making it all the more worthwhile. 

Baby Chomby

To relax, I have been drawing much more than normal. It's much more calming to do simple drawings rather than large projects. However, I have a few shirt designs so there will be shirts done and posted soon! 

Back to these drawings! Ever heard of Neopets? Cute children website with games and the option of adopting pets, pets for your pets and finally pets for your pet's pet! You can buy houses, toys, food and paint your pets different "themes." Not that I ever play Neopets anymore... child's website.... ;) 

Pirate JubJub

Sick day :)

Well today was relaxing! I wasn't feeling well so sat on the couch all day watching movies. First was Red Eye, staring Cillian Murphy and Rachel McAdams. I was so impressed, words cannot even describe! I was quite hesitant to watch it, as my wonderful, glorious, beautiful friend who suggested it, told me it was a psychothriller, which I agree with now. However.... it looked like a horror to me when I looked at it! I am absolutely terrified of watching horror movies. I almost think I get more freaked out at the prospect of getting freaked out. When that scary music starts and I KNOW something is going to pop out... and then it does not.... then when I'm not expecting it, something does pop out. That whole little routine drives me up the wall. Why can't these scriptwriters make things logical and have the serial killer hide in the right places!? Ok, now that is not quite the point of horrors, being logical and all but oh well. Red Eye did not scare me at all, yet it had a great plot, Cillian Murphy was gorgeous and intimidating, and Rachel McAdams was great plus her character was a beast and she stood up for herself.

Next, I watched the Dark Knight. Fantastic movie. Humongous fan of it.

Then came LiarLiar with Jim Carrey. Hilarious.

Fourth, Peter Pan, the live action with Jeremy Sumpter and Jason Isaacs. Isaacs was amazing and a terrifying, complex character as Hook and Sumpter was delightfully childish, truly bringing to life Peter Pan.

Fifth (geez, did I REALLY just sit around all day watching movies?!), Larger Than Life with Bill Murray. Also funny, it is the story of a man, who inherits an elephant, as he travels across the US.

Then I drew a dinosaur (see top!). Hi! Say hi Billy. Billy... say hi! Awww he says he loves you! Say night Billy. Billy's gotta go to sleep now. Tomorrow's Monday... have a great week everyone!

Spiral Hemp Necklace

Spiral hemp necklaces can be very pretty and are very easy. Possibly easier than the straight. If you start by crossing the right long string over the middle, then continue starting with the right. This will cause the spirals! Try it and enjoy!

Hemp Necklaces

For a long while now, I have enjoyed making hemp necklaces.

Supplies: Hemp (most craft stores in a roll), clasp, charm or beads as one wishes.

1. Cut hemp, I average 16 inches for the necklace, by the time I tie the clasps, 14 inch. There are four strings, two should be the length of the necklace. Two should be five times the length (unless there are extensive beads). Rather than having four strings, I use double and two strings and tie them at the end. Just easier to deal with!

2. Put the two short strings in the middle with one long on each side. Cross right long over the two short.

3. Bring the left long over right long and BEHIND two middle short. Lastly, back over right long. Pull tight. Be sure to pull firm to keep the knots even.

4. Do the reverse, starting with left over middle short. Bring the right over left and behind the middles. Tighten.

5. Repeat.... endlessly! Or until necklace is done. To keep the design straight one must do one right, one, left, repeat. To add a charm, slide onto either long string and continue the knots. At the end, attach the other end of the clasp. I usually put varnish, paint, glue or something on the end knots just to assure they stay.

When completed, the necklace will be itchy during the first few wears. I will usually soak the necklace in warm water for a few hours to help ease the scratches. Questions? Feel free to ask or else Google is filled with plenty of instructions.

Sewing Project- Gloves

 This project was my first attempt at sewing .... well anything! Now enter my lame diagrams. This diagram is for the making of one finger-less glove. This was my first attempt to learn how to sew and so I used VERY cheap fabric. More precisely, the fabric I cut off of the bottom of my Pon and Zi shirt. The original pieces of material have the dimensions of 9 inches by 4.5 inches. This all varies on the length of the glove one wants and the width of ones wrist. The length was good on my hand but the width could have been less. I'll probably end up adding a ribbon to tie it tighter.

Materials: 2- fabric 9 inches by 4.5 inches
                needle
               thread
               ribbon, 5inches long

STEP ONE!

Cut and then hem along the lines which I marked orange but resulted in a pinkish-red line. On B, one should cut off approximately 2.5 inches. On A, one should cut off a triangle of fabric from each side. The red/pink line on A is roughly 3 inches.

 I will attempt to explain the hem stitch my mom taught me. The well drawn diagram (*wink*) I created hopefully will show you how to line up the fabric. The black is regular fabric and the red/pink shows where the fabric was folded over.  If you can make any sense out of this picture I will be very impressed. The blueish/green is the string.

                  1. Start by threading your needle, and tying a knot on the end of your string to prevent it
                         from coming out of the fabric.
                  2. At the edge of the fabric, starting at the bottom, pull the needle through both levels of
                         fabric.
                  3. Thread the needle through the TOP layer only about
                         0.25 inches.
                  4. Thread the needle through a few stitches of the fabric underneath the top layer and
                        then up through to the top. This should bind the two fabrics together.
                  5. Repeat instruction 3 and 4 until you reach the edge of the fabric, then tie a knot and
                        cut the remaining string.

STEP TWO!

After the sides are hemmed to prevent fraying, you can start to sew the two pieces of fabric together. Fold slightly the edge of B before placing it over A and sewing. This fold once again prevents fraying and makes it look nicer afterwards.

STEP THREE!

Sew the ends of the ribbon to the tip A. I honestly have no suggestions on how to do this. I just experimented. I tied a knot on the end of the string, starting from the bottom of the hem on the INSIDE of the glove ( looks nicer if all the hems are on the inside), and then up through the ribbon. I then tied another knot and cut it, so far it's held up well. Another option would be to simply hot glue the ribbon to the fabric.

I apologize for the coarseness of the instructions. This project was pretty haphazard as my mom was trying to explain sewing to me :) I plan to attempt to add beads to the top of the glove for decorations and either more ribbon or a snap on the "backside" of the glove, the side pictured below to tighten it around my wrist.
This project isn't dressy, yet is cute for around the house or dress-up for a young girl.

S.A.D.D Middle School Dance

This last Thursday, I had the pleasure of DJing a middle school dance for Students Against Destructive Decisions. It was so much fun!

We did it as a Sweetheart's Dance. The Middle School TATU (Teens Against Tobacco Use) members helped decorate. They did a wonderful job. On the entry doorway, they hung a sign saying "love bugs only!" Also, there WERE balloons everywhere (most were popped within the first half hour.

Lastly, we tried to supply lots of goodies. We had a ton of cupcakes, Valentine's Candy, pizza rolls, pizza, pop, water, popcorn. I can't even remember everything!

The middle schoolers did surprise me with some of their music choices.

Group Dances/ Classic Dance Songs

1. Cupid Shuffle- Cupid
2. Cha Cha Slide- DJ Casper
3. C'mon N' Ride It (the Train) -Quad City DJ
     * Not readily known, no instructions in the song, but very fun!  
         Check it!
4. Macarena - Los Del Rio
5. Jump On It- Sugar Hill Gang
     * This was so popular I had kids asking constantly for it! I saved it  
         to be the third to last song I believe. They seemed tramatized at
        the thought it might not be played.
6. Crank That- Soulja Boy
7. Thriller- Michael Jackson
     * This went over very well because our local dance studio learned this dance, and many others just knew
        it out of love for MJ!
8. Stacy's Mom- Fountains of Wayne
    *Can you believe this!? 8th/7th graders knew the song... 6th GRADERS CAME UP TO ME AND
       SAID THEY HAD NEVER HEARD IT BEFORE! o.O
9.  We Will Rock You- Queen
   *Get the kids stomping and it is AWESOME!
10. Cotton Eyed Joe- Rednex
                                                                                                       
                                    Techno/ Remixes

 11.  Party on the Floor- DJ Earworm
              * Did not go as well as I thought... what's wrong with these
                 kids!?
 12. Sandstorm-Darude
     * It suprised me, hardly any kids recognized the song, as a result  
        we got on the mic and said "ON THE COUNT OF THREE
        EVERYBODY JUMP AS HIGH AS THEY CAN!" That got
        some results after we presented them with a challenge!

                                     "Dance offs"
13. Get Low- Lil' Jon
14. You Shook Me All Night Long- AC/DC
     * Prize for best headbanger/ air guitar!


Other good songs!

15. Hey Baby Drop it to the Floor- Pitbull
16. Save a Horse (Ride A Cowboy)- Big N Rich
17. 1-2 Step- Ciara
18. Super Bass- Nicki Minaj
      * Goes over WAY better at High School dances
19. Club Can't Handle Me Right Now- Flo-Rida
20. Honky Tonk Badonkadonk- Trace Adkins
21.I Know You Want Me- Pitbull
22. Yeah! - Usher
23. Say Hey I Love You - Michael Franti
24. Low - Flo-Rida
25. Party Rock Anthem- LMAFO
26. Give Me Everything- Pitbull
27. 2012- Jay Sean

Requested were:
28. Young Wild Free- Wiz Khalifa
   * It surprised me- the kids REALLY danced to this.
29. The Final Countdown- Europe
   * Yeah.. they didn't dance....or even really care...

Then there were plenty of slow songs added in there for Valentine's Day. Just some ideas :) Also, If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them to add to my playlist!