Eggless, Milkless Peanut Butter Cookies

Those butt-ugly black chickens (Australorps don't stay cute for long) haven't started laying yet and I don't trust the cow milk not to be radioactive, so I quit buying it. 

I basically threw flour, butter, peanut butter and honey together with some baking powder and baked it, but I did take the trouble to measure as stuff went in!  Just in case I had a winner.  And I did!  They were great! 

1 and 1/3 sticks of butter (not cups)
3 and 2/3 cup wheat flour plus 1 cup barley flour that I found in a baggie
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 of a 36 oz jar peanut butter
1 and 1/4 cup honey

I scooped them from an old ice cream scoop that has its handle broken off but I still use for cookies because it still works better than two spoons, flattened them with my hand (they're for family) and baked at 400 for 6 minutes with the fan on. 
The fan does make a difference! 
And boy, that oven cooks better since I got it fixed.  Duh, right?  It's had a bad thermostat for like two years now and I was too cheap to get it fixed.  It would take forever to preheat, but I'd just turn on the broiler to speed things up and then it would limp through.  
It cost TWO HUNDRED BUCKS for the guy to come out, but I admit it's nice to have the cookies come out right again  :-) 

Calendar, Pattern and Yarn

Oh, not much. 

Germany Calendar, marked down to $2 because it’s already March.  The pictures were gorgeous!!

Also bought a cute skirt pattern, and some yarn.

I guess I'm celebrating my relative-youth, when I still think it's a really great day because I got new yarn. 

I Cleaned My Toaster

I cleaned my toaster.  Why is this remarkable?  Oh, only that I’ve never cleaned it before. The first time for something is always notable!  I've owned this hardworking little toaster for ten or fifteen years now.

I should have taken a "before" picture.  It had dark blotches all over the side and gunk on top. I scrubbed it with a scrubbie all over and oh, my, would you look at it shine now!  It looks like new!

Yes, that is a revelation– at least for a lazy slob like me 🙂

After that I went and cleaned the dried accumulation of gunk that was causing a dark line behind the bathroom faucet.

Where will this madness end… I don't know.

Someone else's great free Barbie dress pattern to print

Isn't that pretty?  And the tutorial looks better than mine  :-) 


http://mellebugandme.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/vintage-barbie-doll-dress-tutorial/

Check out her lovely blog for other projects and stuff for sale!

Cardboard Device Holds Buttons for Sewing

Here's the gadgie I made out of cardboard for sewing on buttons.
It holds the button still, and lifts it above the fabric so the thread forms a shank. 
The two pen lines are where the edge of the fabric should be, to keep all the buttons the same distance from the edge.
Pretty cool, no?  

Three-Cycled Washcloths

So, our money's been devalued and all the factories are in China!  Now that the debt bubble's burst, cheap imported crap isn't gonna be so cheap any more.

I needed more washcloths, and after putting it off for about a year, I went shopping.  There's some as thick and luxurious as tissue paper for $3, or halfway decent ones for $7. 

Long ago I made bathrobes for the children out of bath towels.  Three towels made a nice robe and the price was reasonable, even for good quality towels.  After fifteen years of use the robes are outgrown and shreddy around the hoods, but the rest of the towel fabric is still thick and nice.  I hated to throw that away.

Old towel-bathrobe too disreputable to give away:

Sleeve to washcloth: 

They serge the edges of real washcloths, too. 

If only I had not been too lazy to change the serger thread. 

Eight washcloths for $0

Boy pants

I thought my boys would grow up and not want to wear homemade pants any more. Nope, they say they prefer mine, and don't want store-bought pants. Mine are more comfortable!
The seams up the middle were the seams of the denim skirt I cut up to make these.