5 Days of Crafts, Day 3

I'm going to have to put together days 3 and 4.
 My craft for these days is to make a cute little knitted headband with a crocheted flower for my niece.

 Pattern:
Cast on 30st
knit 1 row, turn
purl 1 row, turn

Repeat alternating the rows until reaching the desired length (in my case, 19" for a 2 year old).
Cast off

Join ends together.

**Updated**

5 days of crafts, Day 2

Missed posting yesterday...
 Yesterday was a graphic arts kind of day. Looking for design ideas for a new logo for an ultimate league this is a rough go at one of the ideas.
 I first started by sketching out my design on paper (deep down inside... I'm a paper and pencil kinda girl) and scanning it in, I was able to bring the scan into Photoshop. Very kindly, a friend let me play with his Microsoft Surface. After finally getting the hang of it (mostly) I was able to duplicate the image that I had sketched out.
 The lines need a bit of smoothing, but all in all for a first go at things... I was pretty impressed with the ease of it all.

5 days of crafts, Day 1

I'm on holidays this week! (Well.. between the end of one job, and the beginning of another... but I'm still going to call it a holiday!)
Cleaning out my craft room, I realized that I have quite a few supplies that I've purchased over the years that haven't gotten used. So, with my week off I'm going to attempt a craft a day and see if I can't use some of them up.
Goal:
1 craft per day using only supplies I currently have on hand.

Day 1: Felt elephant plushie

Rapunzel Towers

Two different towers from recent travels to B.C. The first one we found on UBC Campus, the next in Victoria.
While I do realize that these are not actually Rapunzel Towers... it's what they reminded me of. Because really, who doesn't sometimes daydream about a Prince Charming to come and rescue them? I was drawn to the one in Victoria also because of the super awesome stairs running up the middle of it!
 After showing the pictures to a friend it was pointed out that if these truly were Rapunzel towers
"...they just don't make princes like they used to. Ladders and stairs for Rapunzel towers..."

Sad but true.

Not even the distance can separate us

One of my friends is getting married this summer, I was at a total loss as to what to do for her for her bridal shower... until looking around Pinterest I found a link to an Etsy store that was doing maps of different states and I thought I could apply the same basic concept, but using two countries rather than two states.
 I also decided that instead of hearts, to use a heart lock and a key, and to add in some text so it wasn't just a blue background.

Anyways, not super complicated if you're looking to try this for yourself!
What you'll need:
Outlines of the countries that you're wanting to work with (I traced images in AutoCAD)
Desired images to mark each person's current city of residence
Basic photo editing skills
Photo editing program (I used gIMP, because it's free)
Word processing program (I used Microsoft Word)

Directions:

• Create .png files of the countries, and locating marking images. Make sure that they have transparent backgrounds associated with them so you don't have a white box around the image when you place it into Word.
• In Word, set the page background to be your desired color.
• Add in your .png image files and set them to having text going over the image, don't be afraid to try a bunch of different layouts!
• Add in any text that you want showing
• Add in the line objects (the red dashes shown above)
• PDF and voila!

I had also thought about doing this as a pillow (similar to my trip pillow from a previous post). I still might... we'll see how much free time I can find myself!

Not so paleo (but super yummy!) New York (with chocolate) Cheesecake

So I must share.. last night I finally managed to make my first cheesecake that didn't crack!

New York Style Crust

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

2 tablespoons sugar

¼ cup unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for greasing the pan

(see bottom of post for a gluten free/paleo crust)

Cheesecake

4 packages 250 gram packages of cream cheese, at room temperature

1 1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 large whole eggs

1 large egg yolk

1 ½ cups sour cream (not low-fat), divided

1 ½ cups dark semi-sweet chocolate chunks

2 teaspoons lemon juice

Cheesecake Assembly

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

2. For the crust, stir the graham crumbs, sugar and melted butter until evenly combined and press this into the bottom of an ungreased 9-inch springform pan. Bake this for 10 minutes, then cool. Brush the sides of the pan with a little melted butter.

3. For the cheesecake, increase the oven temperature to 400 F. Beat the cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add the 1 ¼ cups of sugar a little at a time, and scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl often. Beat in the cornstarch and vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at a time, on a lower speed, and scraping after each addition, then beat in the yolk. Still on low speed, beat in ¾ cup of sour cream. Add chocolate chunks. Scrape this over the cooled crust.

4. Bake the cheesecake for 10 minutes at 400 F and then reduce the oven temperature to 360 F and bake for 45 more minutes checking at 30 minutes for done-ness. While the cheesecake is baking, prepare the sour cream layer.

5. Stir the remaining ¾ cup of sour cream with the remaining 2 Tbsp of sugar and the lemon juice. Spread this over the top of the cheesecake as soon as it has come out of the oven. Allow the cheesecake to cool completely to room temperature, then carefully run a spatula around the outside of the cheesecake to loosen it from the pan, then chill the cheesecake for at least 6 hours before slicing and serving.

6. The cheesecake will keep, refrigerated, for up to 4 days

(this cheesecake was adapted from a recipe found on the foodnetwork.ca)

Things I learned (and what I think helped along my success)

• I always have before put a pan of water in the oven with the cheesecake in hopes of stopping cracking. Before embarking on this adventure I did a bit of research and ran across a website that recommended placing the springform pan in a larger pan, and filling water approximately half way up the springform. I tried it this time (with only a small amount of fear that it would leak into and ruin my cheesecake) and I think that it really helped!
• Use dark semi-sweet chocolate. The cheesecake is rather sweet as it is so I chose to use the semi-sweet to contrast. Instead of getting sweet cheesecake with sweet chocolate, your taste buds get a surprise with the slight bitter taste of the semi-sweet. Next time I may also consider adding a tart fruit (like raspberries or sour cherries)
• When a cheesecake it done, it should jiggle. A PDF found on www.preparedpantry.com provided a lot of good tips regarding the whole cheesecake process that I found to be quite helpful. Some of them I disregarded based on the recipe directions, but the ones regarding done-ness of the cheesecake were invaluable!

If you would prefer to do a gluten free/paleo crust...

Crust (gf/paleo)

1 cup of nuts (any, although I would personally choose cashews)

8 large medjool dates (about 225 grams), pitted

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/8 tsp salt

4 Tablespoons of cocoa powder

Crust Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400F

2. Press dough down into a well greased 8in springform pan and set aside (no pre-baking required)

3. Proceed with cheesecake directions from above.

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