My, oh my. My, my, my, my, my. Oh my.

 

Lookie at what I made. Just look.

 

I took these. Plain. Blah. Boring. Brown. Paper. El-Cheapo at Hobby Lobby.

 

 

I added paper, glue, glitter, greenstuff, and paint.

 

 

And I turned them into this:

 

 

Squeal!

Are they not spectacular? Do they not beam shafts of shining light into your very soul? Do you not just want to hug yourself with pleasure?

 

(click on the photo to look at the full-size version, if you want to. And you know you do)

 

 

Excuse me. I’m just the teensiest bit pleased with how they turned out.

 

 

This was the first one. I was still figuring out what I wanted to do, but it is still pretty cute, I think.

 

 

 

Then I made this one. I was in the groove with this one, man…I was feelin’ the love.

 

 

I…I…I just don’t know if I can handle the cuteness. It’s so very cute. I seriously wish I was only 1 inch tall so I could live here.

 

 

But this one…this was the piece de resistance.

 

 

My little beachy bungalow, all decked out for the holidays. *sigh*

 

 

Please notice the roofline…

 

 

And the wee little shell windowboxes…

 

 

And the terribly punny salutation over the door…

 

 

This has been your daily dose of insane cuteness.

 

 

You’re welcome.

A while back I promised to try my hand at making the delightful foodstuffs known as crumpets, whereupon I then embarked on finding the knowledge necessary in performing such an operation and immediately became crippled by fatigue at the very thought.

 

Apparently, some people think they are difficult to make. In fact, according to one source at the turn of the century (the last century, not the one we are currently residing in) “No one makes crumpets at home anymore. They are simply too much work.” 

 

Nevertheless, I had promised! And I always keep my promises.

 

Well, I try anyway. It’s probably more like 90%. Maybe 85% on a really bad day.

 

So I soldiered on, examining recipes to see just what was so all-fired difficult about it. In the end, I decided that it didn’t sound THAT hard…I mean, it involves yeast, which many people have an irrational fear of, but Hey! We Are All Adults Here And We Can Do This.

 

I also found this bit of trivia: “Crumpets were first recorded in the late 17th century. Their original name was crompid cake, meaning a griddle baked cake which was thin and thus curled up at the edges during the cooking process. It is likely that the first crumpets were made with buckwheat flour.”

 

Whatever. Let’s get on with it.

 

Firstly, you assemble the necessary ingredients:

 

 

 

They don’t look very imposing, do they? That’s because they aren’t! At all! They’re nice, peaceful ingredients. They’re here to help. They are our friends.

 

Look at me, lining them all up like that! Who do I think I am, the Pioneer Woman? The Pioneer Woman gets like 25,000 hits on her site per day. I am definitely not her.

 

Anyway, you can see that some of my ingredients are organic in nature. I am not trying to be uppity. We just recently decided to go a little more au naturale around here, and so that’s what I have. Don’t worry, you can use the poisonous regular versions, too. I’m sure you’ll live happy and full lives, even so.

 

You can also see a coffee maker in the background. You don’t need that for this recipe. I have limited counter space for fancy lining-up-of-the-ingredients shots. I also had a helper:

 

 

 

 

 

 

He thinks he’s cute. I don’t know where he got such an idea.

 

Moving on, let me say a few things about yeast. Do not fear it. It’s really a swell little organism. Forget all the scary stuff you’ve read about killing it with water too hot or not awakening it with water too cold. Just turn the tap on and stick your finger in it until your brain says “Hot!” and use that. Dissolve the packet of yeasty buggars in 1/4 c hot water and a Tablespoon of sugar.

 

 

 

Let it rest there for about five minutes while the yeast wakes up and discovers that it has gone to sugary heaven. Go to the bathroom, perhaps. Wash your hands. Then melt some butter in your microwave and add a Tablespoon to the mix. Microwave 1/3 cup of milk for about 30 seconds and add that, along with the egg. My egg was brown, but you can use white. They all look the same on the inside.

 

 

 

Whup ‘em up real good and then add 1 cup of flour and 1/2 teaspoon of salt and beat it until it’s nice and smooth.

 

 

 

It’ll be pretty runny. Slap a towel over the top of it and set it somewhere warm to rise for about 45 minutes. “Somewhere warm” could be the top of the refrigerator or the closet of a small stuffy room. I prefer to preheat my oven a bit and just set the bowl on top of it. After 45 minutes the mixture should have gotten nice and puffy and be full of bubbles.

 

 

 

Now you need a skillet and some crumpet rings. However, if you don’t happen to have any crumpet rings lying about and you are Klassy with a capital K, you can use what I used:

 

 

 

 

Why yes, that *is* a buttload of bananas in the background. You wanna make something of it? Heat a skillet over low heat and butter it up, along with the crumpet rings (or “crumpet rings,” as the case may be). Pour about 3 Tablespoons of the batter into each ring and let them cook for about 5 minutes until you see little bubbles appearing on the top.

 

 

 

Remove the rings, flip the crumpets over, and cook them for about a minute more. Remove them from the skillet and repeat until you’re done (this recipe makes about 8). Then do a happy little jig and shriek VOILA! to the world because “voila” is French for “Holy merde! I just made crumpets!” Now get yourself some lemon curd and slather those babies. You know you want to.

 

 

 

The whole recipe can be found here, if you’re interested. I am gratified to report that this little diversion was not, in fact, prohibitively difficult. But then, I’ve also been re-living labor and delivery all week long, and compared to that, just about anything is a walk in the park.

Today as I sat down to make some more decorated letters, I had a revelation about creativity. Something of an epiphany, only without the angelic voices and clouds parting. The gist of it was that being creative all boiled down to one thing:

 

messing around

 

You may be one of those types of people who says “I’m not creative” but believe me when I say that all you have to do is equip yourself with a few creative-type items and then give yourself permission to simply…mess around.

However, giving yourself permission to mess around also generally means two more things:

 

1. It’s going to take some time, and
2. It’s going to be messy

 

So if you’re ready to deal with that, you’re ready to be creative, I don’t care how craft-impared you think you are. Okay? Okay! So let’s make some purdy decorated letters, shall we?

 

Firstly, the supplies. You need some letters (ha! didn’t see that one coming, didja?) I have been buying my letters at my local Hobby Lobby store, and right now they have the most adorable curly-q type letters on sale, no less. I don’t think these letters will be around forever, though, because they’re only on an endcap and, well, they’re on sale, which means they’re trying to get rid of them. So I’m enjoying them while I can. They’re about ten inches tall and have hanging holes in the back.

 

My Hobby Lobby store also sells other thinner, smaller wooden letters (about 6 or 8 inches) in a less-adorable font style that I will be forced to use when these curly-q letters do, indeed, go bye-bye. I’m coming to grips with that.

 

Basically, you can use any wooden letters that you can find, as long as they have a smooth, flat surface and are relatively easy to trace around. Here’s what mine looked like all naked and cold and barren and neglected and pale and unadorned:

 

 

Do they not veritably cry out for prettification? That’s what I thought too. They say “MINE” as in “BE MINE” because there’s that holiday of pink and red approaching and I love that holiday. I’m a sap that way.

 

I also bought these to adorn for a friend of mine who has two boys and a woeful lack of pink in her house:

 

 

They’re the thinner, smaller sort.

 

Then you need to get your hands on this stuff:

 

 

Mod Podge is a glue-like substance used for decoupage-type activities. “Decoupage” is a French word which means “paper craft that was beaten nearly to death in the ’60s and ’70s”

And then, if you are a glittery, girly girl, you might want some glitter glue:

 

 

I’m not really a girly-girl, but I do love glitter for some reason. Probably because it’s sparkly. My colors today are pink and white because even though I’m not really a girly-girl, I love pink and white. Probably because they’re pretty.

 

Oh! And you need scrapbook paper. In this area you are free to pick any pattern you like, depending on what your letters spell out and what theme you might be making them conform to. If you are spelling the word “KILL”, for example, you might like this paper. Since my letters are all about peace and love and possessing the hearts of all who know me, mine look like this:

 

 

I must emphasize that any paper is fine as long as it makes your heart go pitty-pat. Or flappity-floppity. Or bing-tiddle-tiddle-bong. Patterned paper frequently does that to me, because I do love it so. Or maybe I have an undiagnosed heart condition. Whatever.

 

So gather your supplies and get set to have some fun. Turn the paper over and lay the first letter face down upon it. Trace around the letter with something very sharp and long so as to get into the nooks and crannies of the shape…a mechanical pencil works well for this. When the lead breaks, refrain from cursing. Instead, whistle a happy tune and repeat “It’s all about the journey” 16 times in your head.

 

 

My hands are really veiny.

 

When you are done tracing, take a pair of sissors that are, ideally, small and very sharp (aka craft sissors) and cut the shape out.

 

 

Then take a paintbrush and paint the whole (right side this time) of the letter with mod-podge. Just a thin coat. But not too thin, because mod-podge dries insanely quickly. So take your time but hurry it up, if you get my drift.

 

 

Then you simply lay the cut-out paper upon the surface and smooth it out.

 

And here is where I share a grievous truth:

 

My paper rippled again. I don’t know why. When I made the SNOW letters, I did not have this problem. Yet I have done nothing differently and the subsequent times I have done this, I got ripples. I can offer no ideas as to how to avoid them, so my advice is to embrace them. Embrace the ripples. Remind yourself that along the journey of life we will all aquire a few ripples here and there.

 

Some of us more than others.

 

SO. When the letters are done drying, you get to decide just how fancy-schmancy you want to make them. I experimented with a few ideas. Here is one that did not make the cut:

 

 

I thought it looked a little strange…like a boot. Or an elephant nose with an elephant-nose-warmer wrapped around it. Anyway, it was weird, so I tried again.

 

Do you see the process here, folks? It’s okay to try an idea and then discard it! That’s called messing around. So then I messed around again and came up with this:

 

 

Which I liked a lot better.

 

Repeat this process with all of your letters, and use whatever you can find. Buttons, silk flowers, stickers, etc. Glue these pieces down with more mod-podge, and when you are done, paint the entire surface once again with mod-podge. You can paint the surface as many times as you want until it’s as lacquered as you like, but make sure each coat dries in between. When you’ve got as many coats as you want (my decision was, uh…one coat…because I’m patient that way), you can take your glitter glue and mess around with it. I like to use it to highlight special little patterns on the paper and also to trace around the entire edge of each letter.

 

 

And here are all of the letters together:

 

 

Some details:

 

 

 

And here are the letters I made for my pink-deficient friend:

 

 

Rawther adorable, if I must say so myself. And I must. Because when you craft, you must pat yourself on the back frequently and tell yourself that you are brilliant.

 

When I was done with the letters, I cleaned up my mess, laughed maniacally, and ran around the house fourteen times because I had been sitting still for four whole hours, concentrating hard, and my brain was on the brink of exploding.

 

This is a little-known risk you take when you craft. Just so you know. Also the fact that your house goes to pot because you are not paying any attention to the toddler coating her hands with lipstick right behind you.

 

Not that something like that ever happened to me. I’m just sayin’.

 

So there you have it. Now get busy messing around.