This Year Cooking Will Be Fun

One of my New Year’s resolutions for 2013 is to learn how to cook. So, I was thrilled when I received this mini cookbook from Nicole for the Out With The Old, In With The New swap.

Nicole, who loves to cook, included simple recipes she uses all the time and uses and tricks for common spices in the cookbook. All the recipes were hand written. My favorite part of my new cookbook is the beautiful illustrations, which were hand drawn with pencil, paint, and color pencils. I also like the personal comments Nicole wrote with each recipe. For the Pizza Poppers, the personal comment said, “These are super easy, and dangerous for your waist line.” On the back of the cookbook is a list of Nicole’s favorite food blogs, which are “friggin great,” according to her.

I can’t wait to try all my new recipes. Here’s to making cooking fun!

Click here to see what I made for Nicole.

Put Your Big Girl Panties on, and Stop Whining!

To stop whining and acting like a grown up lady was one of my Out With The Old and In With The New Swap partner’s New Year’s resolution. My swap partner name Nicole also wanted to go to the gym more and save money since she was recently engaged. From the three resolutions she gave me I had to choose one to make her something for this swap. The stop whining and acting like a grown up lady resolution seemed to be the most challenging and fun. After brainstorming many ideas, I came up with this funny encouraging frame to help remind Nicole to stop whining.

I took pictures of the process of making the frame. I hand sewed eight mini panties out of old t-shirts, all different colors and fabric. I embroidered my favorite part of the frame, the saying – “Put Your Big Girl Panties on, and Stop Whining!” I positioned the mini underwears were I wanted them and marked were I planned to embroider the clothesline. I embroidered the clothesline with white embroidery thread and glued the clothespins holding the underwear with a hot glue gun.

For this swap project we had to incorporate at least two unwanted craft supplies from our own personal materials. I already owned the old t-shirts used for the mini panties, I had the blue fabric from my thrift shopping trips, and I also owned all the embroidery thread used. The only items I purchased were the clothespins and the frame. The main idea of “Out With The Old and In With The New Swap" was for us to use our old items and make something new out of them for someone else.

“LOVE IT SOO CUTE,” was Nicole’s reaction when she received her frame. I’m thrilled she loved it and like all my babies, my handmade creations, it was hard to see it go. I still have supplies left over from this swap project and plan to make one soon and sell it on my Etsy shop. No need to get your panties in a twist. You can own a Stop Whining frame like Nicole too.

Check out the other awesome Out With the Old and In With The New Swap creations at Bee Creative Swaps on Facebook.