Crafty night!

It's probably pretty ridiculous how excited I was all day thinking about all the fun I was going to have once I put the girls to bed tonight.  I had to go to Hobby Lobby at lunch to get yarn to make more sock monkey hats, so I finally bought the stuff to make alcohol ink ornaments.  I planned on also working on some peg people for the girls' Christmas and making some cinnamon ornaments. 

They are lucky I didn't put them to bed early.

I started with the cinnamon ornaments, because why wouldn't I want my house to smell like cinnamon all night?  This is the recipe I used. 



This is the first time I've actually dried them in the oven.  Normally I just set them out to dry for a few days, but I have serious space issues in my kitchen and didn't want to deal with it.  I'll put a few on the tree, save a few to give away and I am thinking about putting one in the vehicles.  A Christmas tree that smells like cinnamon beats a pine tree any day. 

I worked on the peg people a little bit.  They're looking a little creepy at this stage:



I'm not much of a painter, to be honest.  These won't be super detailed.  I will work on them here and there until I'm done. 

I was most excited about the alcohol ink ornaments, though.  I've been just dying to try it since I saw this on Pinterest:

Source: cricutholiday.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Alcohol ink is kind of expensive... about $10 for 3 little bottles (that will probably last me forever, but I'm a cheapskate sometimes).  Let me just tell you a few things in case you get the urge to try this.  1)  Be prepared for inky fingers.  2)  Don't be stingy with the ink.  I was barely putting a drop on the felt pad and was getting pretty frustrated with the results.  3)  The ink dries darker than it goes on.  4)  You'll probably go over each ornament several times.

The package I bought had three colors:  Oregano, Mushroom, and some red color.  Oregano is a muddy green.  Mushroom is just mud.  Red overpowers everything.  I finally figured out how to make them look the way I wanted, but at first I thought I just wasted my money.  It definitely is a trial and error kind of thing, but the good thing is that it's hard to mess it up.  And they make a solution to remove the ink.. it's a blending solution or something.  I didn't buy it, but I know they make it.

Here is what I have so far (I may work on them more later)





I finally stopped using red altogether.  I liked the muddy green better, and you didn't really get it if you had even a drop of red.

In other news.... I got a picture of my latest finished crochet project:



The pattern was super easy (and free).  It would be a great beginner amigurumi project.  And he's just too cute.  I think if I ever make another one, I'll make his belly out of felt instead of crocheting it.... it bugs me a little, but not enough to do anything about it.  ;)

I began my mother's Christmas present... I hope she likes the colors.  She's always struck me as a neutral kind of person, but then she goes out and buys turquoise and pink blouses, so I just don't know about her anymore.



Sorry for the blur.  It's a Granny Shrug.  It should be a fairly quick project...

Last but not least, my favorite ornament of the day.... which I did not even make.  I had to drag my girls to half the stores in town in search of a white kids' sweatshirt for Zoe's Christmas program (never did find one, either) and I ran across this at Target...



Dude.... can you get much better than a lime green glittered rubber duck?  Actually, he's plastic, but you know what I mean.