January Christmas Prep Report

It's been a month since Christmas - have I done anything to get ready for the next one? I'm happy to say that I have. Exactly what I've done is a little harder to pinpoint. I'm still snowed in so haven't seen anything I ordered online. I could go back through my email and look at the order confirmations but that seems a waste of time beings I really need the stuff here so that I can sort and store it. You see, when I say Christmas prep, I'm also talking birthdays and any other gift-giving occasion during the year, as well.

So, from memory, here's my January report:

• made personalized throw pillow covers for 4 early-year birthdays
• ordered super cute crocheted hats for the 2 newest DGDs
• ordered a bunch of stocking stuffer type games (like probably a dozen)
• ordered several sets of kitchen towels

Personalized throw pillow covers

I tested a quilt pattern a while back and didn't realize I wasn't going to be happy with the color combo until I had all 16 blocks done - oops. I've been trying to figure out what to do with them and finally settled on personalized throw pillow covers for kidlet birthdays during the year. Won't need all 16 but it's nice to have extras. So I finished four and they're ready to go in the mail, plus I have another two quilted and ready to sew together. I plan to quilt them all now and then do the embroidery and finish them up as each birthday approaches.

Crocheted hats

Yes, I crochet...and I have lots of yarn...and I've even made a lot of hats. So why did I order some? Because they were just too darn cute AND on sale, of course! I'm talking less than $7 each and that included the shipping.

Stocking stuffer type games

The Best of Charades, LIFE Adventures card game, Disney Princess dominoes, etc, etc, etc - at under $3 each, how could I resist? With 11 grands, these will be great filler gifts to round out the holidays!

Kitchen towels

Seems everywhere I go, the kitchen towels are pretty ratty. So I decided that women on my list would receive new ones for their birthday. At $2-$5 for a set of two or three, how could I go wrong? And they'll be easy and relatively cheap to ship for the ones that need to be mailed.

Well, that's it for now!

What have you already done to prepare for Christmas 2013?

Watkins Economy Spice Cake

After my Eggless Chocolate Cake post, I got the following recipe by email (thanks, Marjie!) that doesn’t call for eggs, butter or milk! I did a little research and found out it’s also called a Depression cake because (are you ready for this?) it dates back to the Depression. But it’s actually even older than that! One site said it dates back to the Civil War.

So what’s in the eggless, butterless, milkless cake? Well, nothing unusual and you probably have everything you need to make it right now. If  not, go ahead and make substitutions – I did!

Ingredients (all the spices are supposed to be Watkins products, of course):

·         1 c brown sugar

·         1 c water

·         1 c raisins (or more)

·         ⅓ c lard

·         ¼ t nutmeg

·         1 t cinnamon

·         ⅛ t cloves

·         ¼ t ginger

·         ¼ t allspice

·         ½ t salt

·         1½ t baking powder

·         1½ c flour

·         1½ t vanilla

Directions:

1.     Boil sugar, water, raisins and lard together about 3 minutes, until sugar is dissolved. Put aside until cold.

2.    Sift dry ingredients and add to above mixture (I just stirred them up good with a fork).

3.    Add vanilla.

4.    Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees worked for me) in a small square tin (I used a greased 7x9 inch).

A couple of substitutions

Beings we have a bunch of chopped dates and no raisins at the moment, I used them instead, and I also used Crisco instead of lard. Otherwise, I pretty much followed the recipe. Well, I didn’t actually measure the shortening but I’m sure I was close! I also didn’t actually set aside the liquid until it was cold (or even cool, for that matter), but it wasn’t still hot…

But is it any good?

I think this cake is delicious and gave it an 8.5! But thanks to getting just 6 from two raters (what’s wrong with them, anyway?), it only comes in at a 7. It’s incredibly moist and tastes like gingerbread cookies. To top it off, it’s EASY to make and requires just simple ingredients. So go make yourself one, ok?

And be sure to check out the other recipe links on the Cake-a-Week page.

Do YOU Qualify as Head of Household?

If you qualify, Head of Household is a much better income tax filing status than Single or Married Filing Separately. Why? Because you get a higher standard deduction ($2,750 higher for 2012) and may even qualify for credits not available to folks in the other two categories. Be careful, however – filing as Head of Household when you don’t meet the qualifications is fraud and you don’t want to go there!

I wrote more about this in Can You Claim Head of Household? over at Penny Thots, so go check it out!

Cleaning Up My Online Real Estate

For Project DO this past week, I did a major cleanup of my online real estate. For this blog and two others, I went through every post and checked every link. Finding and fixing broken links was only part of the game plan, however. I also revised many posts and deleted several, too. The deleted posts were mostly sponsored posts (which I don’t do anymore) from back in 2010. Many posts needed revision due to obsolete links and content – those mentioning and linking to my Suite 101 or eHow articles which no longer exist, for instance.

Going forward, I plan to be so much more careful about linking. While including links to relevant content on other sites and blogs is a great idea, my big cleanup has shown me that doing so may not pan out so well. So from now on, unless a site looks completely rock solid to me, I’ll likely not link to it – I really don’t want to deal with all the broken links again due to whole websites or specific content vanishing from cyberspace.

And I'm cleaning up my hard drive, too!

A related area I tackled is my filing system for posts – boy, have I ever created a mess! From here on out, I’m filing all posts by subcategory within each blog or site folder rather than having all posts jumbled up in one folder per blog or site. For instance, all my Project DO posts will be in the Project DO folder, which is filed under this blog. Now, why didn’t I think of this before? Well, partly because way back when I started blogging, I didn’t think far enough ahead to consider what it would be like when I had hundreds of posts.

I also plan to rename all my post documents to match the actual post title. Huh? Why on earth would they not be that way already? Well, because I often come up with a different title when publishing and just didn’t think to go back and change the doc names to match. And not only am I going to update all my doc names slowly over time, but I’m going to be meticulous about further organizing future post docs by adding an identifier when appropriate. For instance, my doc for this post will have W3 as the beginning of the doc name so that I can easily find a specific week’s post on my hard drive if I want. And beings all the Project DO posts will be in the Project DO folder, they’ll all also be in order.

And last but not least, I’m now separating out drafts and ideas from published posts, which I’ll move to a designated ‘published’ folder when they go live. And I’m including a blog identifier in the folder names so I can easily differentiate between blogs. This way, I avoid having subfolders with the same name inside multiple files – after all, I’d hate to have too many folders all named ‘published’ scattered across my hard drive.

Project DO Progress – Week 3

·         Ran a link checker on all blogs and sites (no broken links on 4 sites – yippee!)

·         Found/fixed broken links on 3 blogs (well, maybe not all fixed but I know about them and am working on it!)

·         Deleted obsolete posts (35 from 2010 and 3 from 2009)

·         Developed a way better filing system for my posts

In addition to all of the above, I got a decent start on reorganizing the rest of my computer files, too. But that’s another post!

So...

Do you have online real estate and/or computer files in need of a major cleanup? If so, set aside 10 or 15 minutes each day and tackle one task at a time. And before you know it, you’ll be done!

First Memorial Quilt Pattern Published!

First memorial quilt pattern from
CustomMemorialQuilts.com

Well, I'm excited - after several days of fine-tuning, my first memorial quilt pattern is ready to publish! How cool is that? It's been a long time coming, that's for sure. But thanks to technological advances and the evolution of the Internet, my dream is finally a reality.

A little backstory...

During 6+ years of creating custom memorial quilts from clothing, I've also given guidance to others whenever asked. I have a wealth of experience and am happy to share.

Several years ago, I even submitted a book proposal to one of the quilt/craft specific publishers based on creating keepsakes from clothing. It was turned down, however, due to the very reason it was written. Apparently, a book that encourages people NOT to buy fabric isn't very appealing from a marketing standpoint.

So I decided to self-publish but the time wasn't right. Figuring out the marketing and distribution were the major obstacles but all that has changed!

Now, self-publishing is easy!

I have several publishing goals for 2013 and it's so nice to have already accomplished one! For now, my patterns will be available on Craftsy. And when I get a full book written, I will gleefully publish it through CreateSpace.

Pattern specifics

The Loving Arms Wrap Quilt requires basic sewing skills and just 10 shirts for the quilt top. Then you need backing, batting and binding to finish your quilt.

While the cover quilts are each 56x70 inches, I've also included cutting adjustments to make both a larger and a smaller size. In addition to the detailed instructions, the 15-page pattern also includes extra tips and notes, color examples, and a to-scale quilt layout grid.

If you or someone you know would like to create a memorial quilt, please send them my way. Just go to the pattern page on Craftsy or check out my Custom Memorial Quilts website for info and ideas.

Project DO - Continuing to Organize with Calibre

Over the past week, I uploaded all the Kindle books from my Cruz Reader. Then in the Kindle-specific library, also created a couple of custom columns and tweaked the tags for even better organization.

Custom columns

·         DRM – it’s more convenient to read on the Calibre viewer so now I know which books I can and can’t

·         Location – so I always know whether the book in on my Cruz or Kindle for PC (or both)

Tags

I removed all preset tags and created my own so that I can easily find books based on a categorizing system that makes sense to me. For the most part, I don’t want too many tags – just broad categories. If (when?) this system quits working for me, I can add more tags for subcategories.

Now, copying the books from my Cruz Reader to Calibre was easy but it doesn’t appear to be so simple going the other direction. But this is a non-issue as I probably won’t ever anyway. The reason for Calibre is to know what I have and where it is. And if a book is DRM free, I can read it with my Calibre viewer, if I choose. Otherwise, I’ll just open Kindle for PC or fire up my Cruz.

Project DO Progress – Week 2

After uploading the Kindle books on my Cruz Reader, moving over most of the rest of the ebooks hidden on my hard drive, and combining the quilt/sew/craft ebooks and digital patterns and magazines libraries, my second week Project DO organizing totals are:

·         437 Kindle ebooks (yeah, I admit it – I downloaded a few more, too)

·         229 other ebooks

·         396 quilt/sew/craft ebooks and digital patterns/magazines

·         154 hardcopy quilting/sewing/craft books

·         39 other hardcopy books

As you can see, I’ve made great progress on my digital file organization but not so much on hardcopy books.  But that’s ok – while it’s great to have the hardcopy books so beautifully organized on Calibre, they were actually an afterthought. My goal was to get my digital book and pattern files organized and I’m nearly done with that!

Shiny Object Syndrome Strikes Again!

Well, I have to fess up – I could have easily been done with everything I need on Calibre and finished up with this phase of Project DO but I allowed myself to get distracted. But I got distracted doing other Project DO tasks, so it’s ok, right? Of course it is! And Calibre will need ongoing maintenance to keep it current. After all, if it’s not current, what good is it? So, the fact is, Calibre will never actually be done.

So what else did I DO? I got a good start on cleaning up my blogs (full report next week) and finally went through and organized most of the scattered notes and patterns-in-progress in my sewing room. So see? I haven’t been slacking!

So...what Project DO tasks did you accomplish this past week?

Eggless Chocolate Cake

Well, it’s my turn to make the cake this week and we’re low on eggs. Yes, we have eggs. In fact, we have a few dozen because the guys snow-shoed some in a couple of days ago. (They didn’t realize they’d be on foot when they bought the eggs but that’s another story.) Before that, we were down to just five. Beings I don’t know how much longer we’re going to have all this beautiful snow making it hard for us to get supplies in, I decided to make an eggless cake. So here goes…

Not pretty but oh so delicious! Our rating - 7.5 out of 10.

Ingredients:

·         1½ c flour

·         3 T cocoa

·         1 c sugar

·         1 t baking soda

·         ½ t salt

·         1 c water

·         ¼ c oil

·         1 t vanilla

·         1 T apple cider vinegar (plain will work, as well)

Directions:

1.       Mix the dry ingredients together until completely combined.

2.       Mix the wet ingredients together and then stir into the dry ingredients until smooth.

3.       Pour batter into a greased and floured 8” square baking pan.

4.       Bake 35 minutes at 350 degrees.

Ok, can we have cake without frosting? I don’t think so – at least not today. Not wanting to make buttercream icing and noticing the multiple jars of marshmallow creme in the pantry, I decided to experiment a little bit. Here’s what I came up with:

Chocolate Marshmallow Creme Frosting

Ingredients:

·         1 jar marshmallow creme (7 oz)

·         2 T butter, softened

·         2 t cocoa

·         ¼ c powdered sugar

Directions:

1.       Mix the ingredients until smooth (try not to burn up your mixer!).

2.       Pour over center of cake and spread toward the edges so it can flow over the sides.

Warning! This frosting is extremely sticky – yummy but sticky. I wouldn’t recommend using it on cupcakes or if you have small children and don’t want it all over the place.

Enjoy!

Oh! And check out the Cake-a-Week page for links to the rest of this year's recipes.

2 Critical Components for Christmas Prep 2013

If you'd like to join me in prepping for Christmas throughout the coming year, the two most important things that you need right now are:

1. a way to track the 4 Ws (who, what, where and when)
2. a dedicated storage spot for your gifts

Let's take these one at at time, shall we?

Gift Tracking

Simple gift-tracking list.

To keep track of the 4 Ws and avoid duplicating your great ideas (how embarrassing), you need a way to track gifts that actually works for you. Over the years, I've tried many ways to track gifts but have settled on paper and pen. Yes, I tried a spreadsheet on my computer, one of those glitzy online gift-tracking sites, a cutesy little notebook, etc. But what actually works for me is a printout of a simple table with appropriate columns across the top and my gift recipients clustered by family down the left side. Now in my seventh year, I can say conclusively that this is the method for me!

If you'd like to try this basic way to track your gifts and you'd also like to track birthdays and Mother's/Father's Day like I do, I'd be happy to share my table with you if I could figure out how to upload it here. Beings I can't, I included an example. But you can easily create your own in your word processing program or by hand on a blank sheet of paper. I write in the year at the top and I like to start with Christmas beings it's the biggie, so my current list is actually 2012-13. If it works better for you to just stick with the calendar year, that's fine, too. Since not all of the columns apply to all recipients, I simply draw an X in the boxes that don't apply. Now, how simple is that?

Gift Storage

The other thing you need is a dedicated place to store your gifts. If you don't have enough space in one location, figure out a couple of spots but try to limit yourself or you may lose some gifts (experience talking here!). And if you buy gifts ahead for specific people, make a note where you stashed them right on your gift list. If you're in the habit of buying gifts and deciding on the recipient later, make doubly sure that you know where all your gifts are hidden! It is so easy to forget...


So, what are you doing to prepare ahead of time for Christmas?