Pinterest Archives - engineeredcreations

January 4, 2019January 4, 2019

Simple Crochet Christmas Ornaments

I love to make homemade gifts for people. With teacher Christmas gift time approaching, I decided to make some simple crochet ornaments (in addition to contributing to class gift cards). Gift cards, while appreciated, feel so generic to me. I like to give at least a little something that is special.

That being noted, I also bit off a little more than I could chew and didn’t finish six of them before Christmas. Better late than never, right? I got a set of three to Zoe’s three teachers before the holidays, but Jack’s teachers just got their today.

I chose a set of three free patterns from 5 Little Monsters that I found on Pinterest. Didn’t they turn out cute?

January 2, 2019

Horizontal Cable Knit Hat

Life got busy around the holidays, and I got behind on posting! One of my recent projects has been a new hat for Zoe. Baby heads grow so fast and none of her hats fit! The little jacket she wears all the time doesn’t have a hood, so she needed something to keep her little downy noggin’ warm. I was in love with some horizontal cabled hats I saw on Pinterest. I often make up my own patterns, but was interested in the construction techniques of this hat, so I bought a pattern I liked at Posh Patterns on Etsy. The pattern was quick, easy, and I love the way it turned out. We’ve already had many comments on it as we are out about town. The pattern can also easily be adjusted to use a different type of cable and now I have new ideas for how to construct a hat!

November 10, 2013

Popping the Question

When I started posting wedding stuff, I should have started with this. Immediately after getting engaged, I found this adorable pin and knew that I had to proposed to my bridesmaids. This doesn’t even really count as a craft. All you do is get a small box, fill it with tissue paper, a ring pop, and a note “popping” the question. I only got to give one away in person. I had to mail the boxes to my other two bridesmaids.

November 3, 2013

Wedding Afghans

An acquaintance who had been in countless wedding once showed me a crocheted blanket that a bride had made her. She gushed about how that gift was the most meaningful bridesmaid gift she had ever received. Since I crochet, I tucked that little tidbit of information away for later. When I got engaged, I pushed my fiance to help me pick out colors so I could start on the pile of blankets I was planning on making.

I decided to make blankets for our three bridesmaids and both sets of parents. I had to make five blankets, so I needed to find an afghan pattern that I could make fairly quickly. I have made many afghans that took me months to make. I didn’t have that much time. I had an afghan pattern pinned named “Super Quick Throw.” The blanket was crocheted with four strands of yarn held together as one with a giant hook. That’s about as quick as one can hope for. The blankets crocheted beautifully.

I do have a few tips:

The pattern is available free on the Red Heart website.
I bought yarn in bulk in our wedding colors. I chose acrylic yarn because it holds up well and for the price. It crocheted into a stiff, scratchy blanket. However, after washing and drying each blanket once, they were completely transformed. They became pliable and soft.
The pattern calls for a hook size P-16 (11.5 mm). I couldn’t find a hook this size and ended up with a 10 mm hook. I adjusted by crocheting to the correct size rather than the correct number of stitches. The pattern is easy, so it wasn’t hard to do. The rows that require a certain number of stitches have a three stitch repeat. There is a two stitch “border” on each side. This means that your starting row should have a total stitch number that is a multiple of 3 plus 4 stitches. (As written, the pattern calls for 58 stitches. This is a multiple of 3 (54/3=18) plus 4.) I don’t remember how many stitches I used. I think it was 70. Whatever gets you to a 48 inch wide blanket.
I used the no foundation row starting technique instead of the chain start technique in the pattern. Here is a good tutorial. This technique keeps your tension from being off in the first row and is easier to measure your 48 inches.
With the same “size verses stitches” philosophy, you should repeat Rows 2-7 until the blanket is the length you want. The pattern calls for 58 inches. I wanted my blanket to be at least 60 inches so I repeated until I finished on a Row 7 with a length greater than 60 inches.
The edges of the blanket turned out a little jagged. I finished the blanket off with a border. I slip stitched in each stitch on the short edges and single crocheted along the long edges. This cleaned the blankets up nicely.

Difficulty: Easy

Time Required: About 13 movies per blanket

Overall Experience: Excellent

November 1, 2013

Groom’s Survival Kit

While searching for wedding things on Pinterest, I found many groom’s survival kits. Since I knit I really liked the idea of making socks for my groom, so he didn’t get cold feet. I put my own spin on the rest of items.

The typical groom’s kit list comes with a piece of paper that says something similar to the following:

Groom’s Day-Of Survival Kit

Socks to keep cold feet away
Lifesavers to keep you from drowning in emotion
Small bottle of alcohol to calm your nerves
Mints to ensure a fresh kiss
Ring pop in case you forget the essentials

Looking at the list, there were lots of things I didn’t like about it:

Socks–Loved the socks idea
Lifesavers–Neither one of us are emotional people. I’ve been called a robot by several people, and he isn’t any better. He got me a shirt for my birthday that says: “Feelings are boring. Kissing is awesome.” Lifesavers were off the list.
Small bottle of alcohol–I wasn’t sure when I would give this to him, and we got fined if we got caught with outside alcohol at the ceremony site. A small bottle of alcohol was off the list.
Mints–This implies that he NEEDS a mint. I didn’t want to imply that he had bad breath. That seemed in poor taste.
Ring pop–Apparently the essentials are that he buys my jewelry and/or candy? I didn’t like this one either.

That left me with one item. Socks. I decided to replace the items with different items that matched our personalities better. I wrote a note on a tag on each item. If you click on the pictures above you can see them. Otherwise, each note is listed below:

Socks–So you don’t get cold feet
Lip balm–For the perfect first kiss that tastes like me (I wear Burt’s Bees all the time.)
Flask–In case you need courage of the liquid variety (that won’t get us fined…he could fill it at the venue)
A bottle opener key chain that says: “I’LL LOVE YOU UNTIL THE ZOMBIES GET YOU”–So you know exactly how long I’ll love you
52 REASONS CRAIG IS AWESOME–So you remember where we began and why we are doing this

Each of the items (except the lip balm) was hand made, not necessarily by me:

Socks–I made the socks. See my Don’t Get Cold Feet post.
Lip balm–I actually had an unopened lip balm laying around because I buy them in bulk.
Flask–The flask came from Scoutmob.com. Scoutmob is a site that features products by independent makers. It’s pretty cool. Check it out.
Key Chain–The zombie key chain came from Etsy. The maker, FleurDesigns, was great to work with. I got the key chain crazy fast.
52 Reasons Book–I made the book during our first Valentine’s together. See my 52 Reasons Book post.

October 27, 2013

52 Reasons Book

Note: While this does not appear to be a wedding related post, it will become relevant in a later post.

This was in fact the first pin I ever brought to life. A couple of years ago I saw Pinterest start popping up all over Facebook. I understood it to be a digital pin board where one can organize his or her ideas. I don’t keep real notebooks or pin boards, and didn’t see the point of a digital one. One day I was bored and decided to see what all the hype was about. I was immediately hooked. There were SO MANY craft and recipe ideas.

I started using Pinterest about a month before Valentine’s Day. This would be my first Valentine’s Day spent with my now husband, Craig. We hadn’t talked about Valentine’s Day gifts. I wanted my gift to “match” his. I didn’t know if he was getting me anything. I found this adorable idea on Pinterest. I decided to make him this and bake something.

Materials:

A deck of cards
Scrapbooking paper
Multi-colored pens
Scissors
Hole punch
Binder rings
Scrapbooking glue dots (or adhesive of choice)

Instructions:

Make a list of 52 reasons you love your man
Cut 54 pieces scrapbooking paper to an appropriate size (the amount of playing card you want behind the paper is totally up to you)
If you want the border look I used, cut 54 solid color pieces of scrapbooking paper slightly smaller than a patterned piece
Write one reason on each piece of solid paper
Write a title and an opening message on the remaining pieces of solid paper
Glue the solid pieces of paper onto the patterned pieces of paper
Choose the location for the binder rings and hole punch each card
Remove the two jokers from the deck (these will be your front cover and your message page)
Glue a message on each of the normal 52 cards
Glue the opening message on one of the jokers
Glue the title on the back of one of remaining joker
Put all of the cards on the binder rings

Difficulty: Easy

Time Required: 2 movies

Overall Experience: Excellent

XKCD pretty much described my dilemma.

June 11, 2013

Melt in your Mouth Chicken

So… it turns out that I’m cooking a lot this week. I found Melt in your Mouth Chicken on Pinterest. It sounded good, so I made it. I’m not overly salt sensitive, but I found the chicken to be extremely salty. It was so salty that I found myself taking a drink after every bite. I adjusted the recipe. It now has a great flavor, and I’m not overwhelmed with salt. It’s also super easy to make.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese

1 cup of plain Greek yogurt

1 teaspoon of garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon of seasoning salt

1/2 teaspoon of pepper

2 lbs of chicken tenders

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
Wash chicken tenders, trim any unwanted portions of chicken, place in bottom of baking dish
Mix the remaining ingredients and spread on top of chicken
Bake for 45 minutes

There is one oddity. When the chicken comes out of the oven, you will find that it is sitting in quite a lot of water. This has happened every time I have made the dish. See the picture below.