Crocheting for a Cause

Over the past year and a half, Make It Happen Monday has given us the opportunity to create a lot of meaningful gifts for our close friends and family. Now we want to use MIHM to help children in our local community. As we master crocheting, the Girls Team will be making blankets for Project Linus, a national organization that accepts handmade blankets for children in need. Once our blankets are complete, we'll drop them off with Project Linus who will give them out to children in foster care, hospitals or homeless shelters. Check out this video for more information about the local Project Linus chapter.

Before we can start our blankets, I needed to learn how to crochet. Last night, my mom started teaching me and WOW, crocheting is hard! Honestly, as an avid knitter, I thought it would come to me much quicker and easier. It didn't. While I was learning to chain and double crochet about 2 inches of yarn, my mom was cranking out squares for a Grandma's Afghan like it was no big deal. Lucky her! I was starting to get frustrated, but I am trying to see this as a lesson in a new technique...and a lesson in patience.

I can't say I left MIHM last night with much confidence in crocheting, but my mom is a great teacher so I'm sure I'll figure it out soon enough. She even sent me home with some homework: a half-completed crochet square that I need to practice my stiches on. Here's hoping I can graduate to crocheting grandma squares by next week!

I'll be studying this book for a while!

The pattern we're using.

Practice squares my mom crocheted over the weekend.

Shadow Box Banks

If there's one thing the Girls Team LOVES it's a vacation. Unfortunately vacations aren't cheap. This week we created a fun way to save for trips we hope to take soon. We saw piggy banks made from shadow box frames on Pinterest and figured they'd be a great project to try, and a helpful reminder to save our change!

All you'll need for this project is a shadow box, a printer and photo paper (and some power tools but we'll get to that later). I made a quick trip to Michael's and bought two black 5 x 7 shadow box frames. Luckily I stumbled upon buy one get one free week on all frames so the total cost for this project was $11!

My mom and I printed our images onto photo paper. She chose the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite to represent a stay at an iconic lodge at a National Park of her choice, and I chose a tropical beach photo because I'm saving for a tropical vacation. (Any location, I'm not picky!)

Here's our step-by-step tutorial on how to put together your own shadow box frame bank:

Size your background picture to fit your frame,

then print onto glossy photo paper.

 

Mark the spot on the frame where you want to cut the slot for your money.

 

Ask your very handy dad for help with the power tools.

Thanks dad! :)

 

Up close and personal view of the money slot,

which will fit both coins and dollar bills.

 

Use a paper cutter to cut your picture to size.
In our case, 5 by 7 inches.

 

The shadow box frame should come with a piece of velcro to help attach items. Stick the velcro onto the back of the photo, then attach it to the fabric covered frame backing. Once your photo is attached to the frame backing, secure it to the frame like you would any other photo.

 

Here are our finished shadow box frames. Aren't they awesome?!

First dollar in the bank...vacations here we come!

 

The Girls Team loves our shadow box banks! Not only was this an affordable project, it was also quick and easy. While we worked on the photos, my dad cut the money slots so we were able to complete this project in about 30 minutes. The black frames are simple so they don't stand out against the decor in our homes like DIY projects often do. Unlike many craft ideas on Pinterest, these banks actually look better than the sample ones we saw online. 

 

Plus, this is a project that has some longevity. Since the money slot is already cut, once we take these vacations, we can easily change the photo image to start saving for something else...like another vacation. ;-) When we're ready to take the money out we won't need to break the bank. We'll simply remove the back of the frame, empty it, and refill.

 

We decided that the banks are probably best used for saving coins; adding a few $1 dollar bills quickly covered up the photo. And while covering the photo completely means we're on our way to a great vacation, we want to savor the motivational photos for a while because they are both very pretty!

 

Another successful DIY project from the Girls Team, with help from our resident power tools professional! :)

Mardi Gras King Cake

This week we got together for MIHM on Fat Tuesday and decided to celebrate Mardi Gras with a New Orleans themed night! I knew about King Cake from my trip to NOLA in 2008 and my mom and I thought it would be a great challenge since neither of us had ever made anything like it before. 

After googling a few different recipes, some of which called for the dough to rise for over 12 hours, we chose this recipe which was relatively easy to follow. We used RapidRise yeast to try and cut down on the time we'd have to wait for the dough to rise. We were trying to get this cake baked before the middle of the night! 

Dough ingredients. 

Following the recipe, we combined the butter, milk, vanilla extract, yeast, water, flour and sugar to make the dough. Then we placed the dough onto a floured cutting board, kneading it for 8 minutes until it was smooth and stretchy. This was such an arm/hand workout! 

Working my hand muscles.

After kneading the dough, we set it in an oiled bowl, covered it in plastic wrap and waited two hours for the dough to double in size. Some Downton Abbey DVDs kept us entertained while waiting! 

Pre-rising.

It did take about two hours to rise, and then we rolled out the dough into a 10 by 16 inch rectangle. Then we spread the cinnamon, brown sugar and butter filling onto the dough. 

Not quite a perfect rectangle but it works!

The toughest part was rolling up the dough with the filling and twisting it into a circle. So tough, we don't have a photo. The dough and filling were really thick, so twisting it into a circle was a bit challenging. The cake was probably 4 inches tall after rolling it up like a jelly roll, but the ends were skinner so our cake was not at an even height all the way around. Before baking, we placed a ramekin in the middle to the cake would keep its shape in the oven.

Before baking, we cut slashes 1/2 deep into the top of the dough.

Straight out of the oven and bursting at the seams! 

After cooling the cake for about 20 minutes, we whisked together milk and confectioners sugar for frosting and added yellow, green and purple sprinkles generously on the cake.  

A beautiful king cake made by two California girls! 

Cinnamon filled center, yummmm.

We had a great time making this cake and learned a few new skills along the way. Making the dough from scratch was a new challenge for us, which is what MIHM is all about - challenging ourselves and learning new techniques. Our King Cake tasted like a giant cinnamon role with tougher crust, but we could have baked it for about 5-10 minutes longer. Because our cake was thicker than it should have been, the center of the roll was still a bit doughy. 

The Girls Team loved our King Cake and would encourage all of our readers to try making their own! It took some strong hands and a little patience, but this cake was worth it! I love everything about New Orleans and am proud to say I've tackled this southern tradition with my mom. So from the Girls Team to you, Happy Mardi Gras!