Patricia Kruep's LittleBerryStudio

Peanut Butter Eggs

These peanut butter eggs were adapted from other recipes. I wanted eggs that weren’t so sweet and were also soft, not crumbly. Here’s the recipe:

• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup confectioner’s sugar
• 4 Tbsp (1/2 stick) butter, softened
• Chocolate candy melts, about half a bag

1. Combine peanut butter, sugar, and butter. Mix until well combined. Scoop about 1 tablespoon’s worth and roll into an egg shape. Repeat until the peanut butter mixture is all gone. These will be fairly soft, but should hold together. You can add more confectioner’s sugar if the mixture is too soft.
2. Freeze the eggs for about 20 minutes (longer is okay) to harden them up for dipping.
3. When ready for dipping, melt the candy melts according to package directions. Depending on your microwave, it will probably be about 2 minutes on 50% power. Don’t microwave the melts on high power, you’ll probably ruin them.
4. When the chocolate candy melts are fully melted, carefully dip the eggs in the chocolate, making sure to coat all sides. Gently remove from chocolate and place on wax paper. Having the wax paper on a cookie sheet is a good idea. If the eggs get too soft to work with, return to the freezer or refrigerator for a few minutes.
5. Enjoy!

Daisy Wallet and Fob

A sewing project I’m currently working on is a matched wallet, bag, and key fob. If those go well, I may also make an iPad case, too. So far, the wallet and fob are done:

I don’t normally go all matchy-matchy with my accessories (at least on purpose). This all evolved out of the bag project (more on that later). Because I had an excess of coordinating fat quarters–bought the wrong set, initially–I figured it wouldn’t hurt to create a unified collection. Plus, I needed a new wallet.

I wanted to approach this design project with a certain amount of planning.
Draft of the wallet’s interior:

Exterior:

Pattern pieces all cut out:

Key fob pattern pieces:

Wreaths of Grapes (Vines)

Today I pruned my two little grapevines. Hopefully I did it right and hopefully I didn’t jump the gun and prune them too soon. I figured since we were having such a mild winter so far that maybe it was a good idea to go ahead and take care of that task. Grapevines, apparently, need a lot of aggressive pruning in order to produce fruit. Since this is only my first year growing grapes (they’re supposed to be a seedless Concord variety), I din’t expect to see grapes for at least another year. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the fruits of my labor. Check out the wreath I made from the pruned vines:

Boo!

Happy Halloween!

This year CJ decided he wanted to be an Angry Bird.

Specifically, he wanted to be the blue Angry Bird (though I think the blue bird looks more sleep deprived than angry).

I would have to say this costume is the awesome-est one I’ve made to date. It’s based on a blue Angry Bird plushie we picked up back at the start of the school year.

The costume is made with fleece, an old t-shirt, and a lot of stuffing (two lage bags and change worth). We found a sweatshirt hoodie that nearly matched the costume fleece. The eyes and eye bags are appliqued on with black thread. The beak is also appliqued on with stuffing inserted. The inside of the costume is the old t-shirt. It helps hold the stuffing in and isn’t quite as warm as fleece would have been. The arm holes were made a little big. This was a serendipitous accident since it allowed for a little ventilation. The costume was quite warm with all the layers and stuffing.

Not to be out done for cute, Z wore his monkey suit:

Eventually, Z will get his own costumes, but for now he has the hand-me-downs from big brother. This monkey costume is from the McCall’s pattern M6105: Toddler’s Costumes by Tom Arma.

The original pattern has footies on the costume. You’re supposed to put non-skid material on the footies, but I was never able to find the right material. Eventually I gave up and cut the footies off and added elastic cuffs. This makes much more sense for a toddler who’s walking. Plus, how else is one supposed to show off their Scooby Doo socks?

CJ and Z are ready to strut their stuff and head out for a fun night of trick-or-treating.

Glassblowing at SunSpots

Yesterday CJ and I visited SunSpots in Staunton, VA. They were having glassblowing classes where a participant could make a glass ornament, pumpkin, or witch’s ball. CJ opted to make a witch’s ball. Here are some pics from our visit:

Inside the studio. The instructor gets a glob of clear glass from one of the ovens. It's toasty warm in here.

CJ watches the instructor roll the glob of glass on a metal table and add colored bits of glass called "frit" to the clear glass.

Back into the oven it goes. The frit is melted into the clear glob of glass and the whole thing is heated up to prepare for blowing.

The glob of glass is rolled on the surface of a metal table. I'm not sure why. I believe this acts to center the glob and compress the glob onto the rod.

The glob is shaped into something more globe-like by spinning it in a wooden, ladle-looking tool. Not surprisingly, these ladles are kept in water between use.

Back into the furnace again to heat up the glass. Now we're ready to blow. CJ stands at the ready. A rubber tube is attached to the end of the glass-blowing rod.

CJ got to go through the whole procedure three times. Most of these pictures are from the first two times. The first time, the ball got too big and too thin and clearly wasn’t going to survive the annealing process. The second time looked more promising. Unfortunately though, the second attempt didn’t survive the annealing and shattered at the top. It was also too thin. They let CJ come back for a third try the next day. The artisan was a different gentleman and much more experience than the one the previous day. We hope this third try came out okay. We couldn’t stay to pick up CJ’s witch’s ball the next day and it was supposed to be mailed to us. Hopefully it is on its way and will arrive intact. CJ is really excited to see is creation. He had a blast trying his hand at glass blowing and was happy he actually got to do it more than once. It looked like fun. I hope I get to try it myself sometime.