Giraffe!

 I'm participating in the 2012 Handmade Pay it Forward, and decided to make a giraffe for my friend because that is what she chose for her little girl's animal. I didn't find any patterns that I liked, so I made this one up! This is one of my first completely original patterns, and I couldn't be more thrilled with how it turned out. I'm thinking I might try to sell the pattern on Etsy, but if I decide not to, I'll definitely post it here.

 A special thanks goes out to my hubby for letting me know that my original design wasn't giraffe-like enough. Thanks to him, I elongated the neck and added the spots (because apparently my first try looked like a goat). I LOVE how the spots turned out, and I'm so glad Jeffrey convinced me to do them!

Gluten Free Coconut Snickerdoodles

 INGREDIENTS

2 C sweet rice flour
1/2 C cornstarch
1 1/4 t baking powder
1 t salt
3/4 C unsalted butter
1 C granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 t vanilla extract
1/4 C granulated sugar
1 T ground cinnamon
1/4 C shredded coconut

DIRECTIONS
1. In small mixing bowl, mix together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter and 1 C sugar. Add eggs one at a time; blend thoroughly between each addition. Add vanilla and mix until light and fluffy.
3. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture and blend until dough forms. Cover dough and chill for two hours (or over night).
4. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a cookie sheet with cooking spray. In a small bowl, combine cinnamon and 1/4 C sugar. Have coconut accessible in another small bowl.
5. Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Flatten each ball into a circle that is 3/8" thick. Dip both sides in cinnamon-sugar then place on cookie sheet. Sprinkle a pinch of coconut and another pinch of cinnamon-sugar over the top side of the cookie; pat coconut and cinnamon-sugar down into cookie.
6. Bake 8-10 minutes, or until lightly golden brown. Remove from oven and transfer to wire rack to cool.

(This recipe is based off of these Gluten-Free Snickerdoodles, with the changes that I made.)

Crochet Contest!

Hello Friends! I made this adorable sock monkey hat for my nephew's first birthday. I loved it so much, I decided to enter it into a crochet/knitting contest -- and now I need help to win! If you have a Facebook account, please vote for me here. All you have to do is like the picture. You don't have to add an app or like a page. It's quick and easy, and if I win I will get some yarn (great since we're still on a pretty tight student budget) as well as a really nice crochet hook set and a knitting needle set. I want to learn how to knit so badly, but good needle sets can be pretty pricey and I don't know when I'd be able to get one. If I win, I promise I'll post lots more cute projects!

Lund Family Scrapbook

So I've been doing some digital scrapbooking lately, as a way to journal about our family and the fun things we do. Anyway, here is a sample of one of the pages I did (for Valentine's Day). I'm putting all the rest on my new blog, Lund Family Scrapbook, which is private because there are going to be lots of pictures of the kiddo (and I don't want just any random stranger to have access to them). But if you would like an invitation, send me an email at kellilund08@gmail.com.

Best Cheesecake Ever

I'm going to be making this on Sunday, and it took me forever to find the recipe so I decided I'd post it on here so it won't be so hard to find it next time. Anyway, I originally got it off the Raskas cream cheese box (so no, I am not claiming any involvement in the creation of this magnificent recipe). The original recipe calls for double the amounts, which is perfect for a 10" springform pan, or two regular 9" pie pans (like the disposable kind that comes with the graham cracker crust already made for you!). Since I'm going to cheat and buy the crust, and since I don't think we need to be eating so many calories, I'm just going to make one 9" cake using the following recipe.

Ingredients:
2 eggs
2/3 C sugar
1 t vanilla
16 oz. cream cheese, softened
8 oz. sour cream

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 325F. Prepare pan with crust (sometimes I make a graham cracker crust, but I usually cheat and buy one that comes in the tin).
2. Beat eggs until thick and lemon colored, about 5 minutes. Add sugar and vanilla; set aside.
3. Beat cream cheese until smooth. Blend in egg mixture and sour cream.
4. Bake at 325 for 1 hour. Turn oven off and leave cake in oven with door ajar for one more hour. Cool 1 hour at room temperature; chill.

Eggless Banana Chocolate Chip Bread

So I wanted to make dessert today and needed to figure out what I could make with what I had on hand. I had three bananas* in the freezer (which kept falling out every other time I opened it), so I decided to make banana bread. But everything is better with chocolate, especially bananas (my roommate and I used to make banana-chocolate chip pancakes in college all the time, but I haven't had them in such a long time because of Jeffrey's strange and unfortunate aversion to bananas -- except in banana bread, because he doesn't think it tastes like bananas). Anyway, I found a recipe for chocolate chip banana bread and started making it before I realized I didn't have any eggs. So I used unsweetened applesauce as a substitute. I also used whole wheat flour for a third of the flour called for. Anyway, it came out so moist and delicious! In fact, by the end of the day there were only two slices left (and we would have probably eaten all of it if we hadn't eaten so very much for dinner).

*Note: I let the bananas thaw a bit, peeled them, chopped them up, then let them continue thawing. Some of the liquid separates when you have frozen the bananas, and I know a lot of people drain it, but I just mash it all up with the liquid because I figure it came from the banana and getting rid of it might affect the taste and texture.

Here is the recipe I based it on.

INGREDIENTS

1/2 C butter, softened

1 C white sugar

1/4 C unsweetened applesauce

1 T mayonnaise (I actually used the Kraft mayo with olive oil, because that's what we had on hand)

3 very ripe bananas, mashed

1 C all purpose flour

1/2 C whole wheat flour

1/4 t salt

1/2 t baking powder

1 t baking soda

1/2 C semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9"x5" loaf pan.

2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in the applesauce, mayonnaise, and bananas. In a separate bowl, stir together the flours, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Blend the flour mixture into the banana mixture; stir just enough to evenly combine. Fold in the chocolate chips.

3. Bake at 350F until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 50 to 75 minutes. Cool loaf in the pan for 20 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

St. Patrick's Day Granny Square

So I only had one skein of Caron Simply Soft in dark sage, and I really wanted to make something for St. Patrick's Day. So I decided to make a mini-afghan, or I guess you could call it a chair back. Anyway, I wanted to make something to drape over our beat-up, kind of yucky couch to make it pretty and festive. Anyway, the pattern for the squares is below. I hope it makes sense; I often write patterns in my own special short-hand, so it might have some confusing parts. I made 9 (the skein could have made 10, but I thought a 5x2 would look weird), then whip stitched them together. If you had two skeins of the green, you could definitely make 20 and do a 5x4, which might actually serve to keep someone warm. For the white, I used a big skein of baby sport weight, and just crocheted a little loosely. It would probably work better if you had the Caron brand of white, or at least a similar soft, acrylic worsted weight.

CLOVER SQUARES (the center is based off this pattern, but I made some adjustments)

Using an I (5.5mm) hook

1) w/ green MR8sc, slst
2)ch3, 2dc S, ch3, sk 1sc; {3dc in next, ch3, sk 1sc}3times, slst 3rd ch of beg ch3
3)ch3, dc S, dc, 2dc, {ch3, 2dc in next dc, dc, 2dc} 3 times, dc in 3rd ch of beg ch3
4) (slst, ch1, slst) around joining dc, sk sc, 5dc, slst, 5dc, sk sc { (slst, ch1, slst, ch1, slst) in ch3sp, sk sc, 5dc, slst, 5dc, sk sc} 3 times, (slst, ch1) around joining dc, insert hook in joining dc-sp, YO w/ white and complete slst
5)ch7, tr same sp, ch3, sc top 1st shell, ch3, sc 2nd shell, ch3, * (tr, ch3, tr) in ch3 sp, ch3, sc top 1st shell, ch3, sc top 2nd shell, ch3**; rep * to ** 2 more times; sl st in 4th ch of beg ch7
6)sl st into sp, ch3, (2dc, ch3, 3dc) in space, ch 1, {3dc in next ch3 sp, ch1} 3 times; * (3dc, ch3, 3dc) in corner sp, ch1, {3dc in next ch3 sp, ch1} 3 times**; rep * to ** 2 more times; sl st in 3rd ch of beg ch3
7)slst in next 2 dc and corner sp, ch3, (2dc, ch3, 3dc) in sp; work around square (3dc, ch1) in every ch1 sp, (3dc, ch3, 3dc, ch1) in every ch3/corner sp; slst 3rd ch of beg ch3
8)work as R7
9)slst in next 2 dc, insert hook in corner sp, YO w/ green, complete slst, work as R7 beginning with first ch3, FO