“I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate.”--Julia Child

I realize my blog is about crafting.  But today’s post is about cooking.  Uh, cooking…crafting…close enough.

I truly believe we’re all good at something.  No, wait.  We’re all GREAT at something.  However, the schedule on which we find the thing we are great at doing isn’t the same for everyone.  Some people show aptitude for their great thing at five years old and others at seventy years old.  As for myself, I am thirty years old…okay, almost thirty-one years old…and desperately trying to find my great thing.  I just hate waiting, ya know.  I’ve recently decided that my great thing isn’t coming as quickly as I would like because I’m a dabbler.  I try new things.  I build a basic knowledge of the new tried thing.  And then I quickly move on to the next new thing without mastering anything at all.  I’ve done this with cooking, jewelry making, sewing, gardening, cooking, guitar lessons, knitting…and, oh, did I mention cooking?

I dream of being a great cook and baker.  For years I’ve gone through spells where I cook or bake like a mad woman.  I gather insane amounts of cookbooks from the library and pour over them like they’re sacred texts.  I choose a few recipes and end up cooking meals and desserts meant to serve ten people for me and my husband.  Then after a failed recipe or kitchen mishap, I become discouraged, quit and return to my usual take-out food routine.  And while I realize that quitters never win, I also know that quitters never burn their houses down because they catch an oven mitt on fire or give food poisoning to their loved ones.*  So, I say all this to explain that I’m currently going through one of my cooking phases.

This particular phase has been brought about by the most recent edition to my kitchen:  a KitchenAid mixer!

I chose this recipe for Jam Thumbprint Cookies as my first foray into mixing! 

I will take a moment to be a bit smug and say I think my cookies turned out awesome!  The downside, however, is my husband, my official test-taster, was sent on an unexpected business trip to San Francisco this morning.  I guess I’ll just have to eat all thirty-six cookies myself.  Darn the luck.

*Disclaimer: I have never burned down my home or given anyone food poisoning.  However, I’ve caught two oven mitts on fire—one at home and one at work.

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."--Plato

I really wanted to buy one of the super cute signs I kept seeing on Etsy that list house rules like “Be Happy” and “Elbows Off the Table”.  I decided it would fix the little kitchen problem I mentioned a few posts ago.  But what kind of crafty girl would I be if I bought off the Internet what I could make myself?  So, I made one.      

 

First, I got a blank 28x48 canvas.  Okay, what really happened was I bought a canvas but on the way to put it in my car a gust of wind caught it.  It flew out of my hands and across the parking lot almost hitting a parked car.  Thankfully, it instead landed in one of the only empty spaces.  I mean how do you leave a note on someone’s car explaining your canvas went airborne and hit their car?

When I finally got my canvas home, I painted it.  Okay, I painted it three times because I couldn’t get the right shade of purple.  Next, I made a list of my own house rules while waiting for the paint to dry.  I have to say this was the hardest part.  I wanted a nice balance of me and the husband—the things we do, strive to do and remind each other to do.  

Then I traced some letter stencils onto the canvas spelling out the rules.  Afterwards, I traced my tracings with a paint pen.  Lastly, I filled in the tracings with white paint.  It sounds easy, right.  Uh, not so much.  It was crazy time consuming—and totally worth it.  But it’s still not done.  I’m not happy with the unfinished look of the lettering.  I think I might crackle the letters?  Oh, and I’ve chosen to ignore that some of the lines are crooked.   

There’s a reason I call my blog Craftin’ Ain’t Easy, right?