Newest Craft Project

Okay Jessi, you told me to keep you updated on my craft projects. I just made this card over the weekend!! Tell me what you think.....

Craft Projects

I was finally able to get the chance to work on one of the many different craft projects I have going! These have to be my favorite. I love making these tins because they are all different and can be used for so many things. I had one person buy one from me and they were going to use it for makeup - I would have never guessed! I have some around our house for pictures, cards, recipe box.....

The pictures are not that great, but at least you have get an idea of what I'm doing when I'm home alone!!!! These boxes are not done. I still need to decorate then with ribbon and other accents, but they will be finished soon, because I have someone that is wanting to buy some from me! YEA!!

I have other projects that I'm working on finishing up. I also make these books called squash books. They are like little accordian books that you can put different pictures in. I think they would be great to show off baby pictures or vacations....but I don't have pictures of them, they are still a work in progress. They would have to be my most time consuming project I have.

I also have been working on some homemade cards...more on those later.

On the Road Again!

The love of Dale's life is back on the road! For about a year and a half he has had to drive past his old truck (aka the '85) just sitting at the farm with out a running engine. Now, it's back on the road and he couldn't be happier! We picked up the truck on April 11th and I don't think it has had a break since.

This truck has been in Dale's life longer than I have and sometimes I think he loves it more!!!!

Yummy!!

These are my new favorite desserts!
Peanut Butter Cheese Cake Minis

Crust:

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs

4 tablespoons sugar

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted

12 bite-size peanut butter cups

Filing:

2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract or almond extract

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place a paper cupcake liner in each cups of a standard muffin pan.

To make crust, in a bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs, sugar and melted butter until crumbs are moistened. Press crust into bottom of each muffin cup. Put 1 peanut butter cup into the center of each crust.

Beat cream cheese with a handheld electric mixer until fluffy. Add sugar, flour, and vanilla, beating well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Spoon cream cheese mixture over peanut butter cups and graham cracker crusts. Bake until just set, about 20 minutes. Allow to cool completely before serving.

Painting

Our house has a lot of wood paneling. I don't like the paneling because it makes everything so dark, with a lot of coaching from my friend Lynn I got up the courage to paint over the paneling. I really wanted to paint our bedroom because some of the walls are PINK! Dale thought I should paint the spare bedroom first so we could make sure we really liked it. So Thursday night I got started on the project.

Here's some before pictures of the room. The first step was too sand the walls that had paneling on them so that the primer and paint would adhere better!

Step 2: Apply primer to the walls

This is the picture of the wall of just paneling. That took the longest because I had to use a paint brush on all of the little crevis' in the paneling - but it was worth it.

Step 3: Chocolate Break! I was starting to get tired and frustrated so I thought some chocolate would help!!

Step 4: Second coat of primer

The primer took me 4 hours. But it ended up being the best decision of the entire project because the paint went on so much better!!

Saturday I realized that I didn't have as much paint as I thought I had. I had recently painted the living room a creamy color and I thought I would just use the rest of that paint. Plus I didn't want to paint the room so bold of a color because some day (hopefully soon) I will get to use this room as a nursery. So I went to the local hardware store and started looking at paint samples, I decided that I would just paint the room whatever color I wanted because it could easily be covered up again with another color. I had a color picked out, like a blueish greenish color and the lady helping me said she had some "oops paint" that was about the same color that she would sell me for $5.00!!!! I looked at the color and it was a little more blue than what I wanted but I thought thought for $5.00 I could cover it up. So I bought it.

Here's the final product:

The quilt on the bed is one that my Great-Great Grandma and Great Grandma made together. My mom bought a bunch of their quilts at my Great Grandma's estate sale - I am so excited that this matches. IF the room becomes a nursery the quilt is going on the wall. I love it so much.

I don't have anything on the walls yet, but I think I will find something. I went to JoAnn's fabric store yeterday and got some eyelet material for the curtains, Dale should be hanging the blinds tonight. My mom came up with the idea that we would recover the window seat so that it would match the walls a little more. And I'm going to make some pillows to sit on the window seat. The pictures don't give the walls enough justice but I am so excited about getting to paint the paneling. I love it so much. Now, it took a lot of work and 3 days, but it was so worth it in the end.

I think now I have convinced Dale that we need new carpet because our currant Mauve colored carpet clashes a little with the newly painted room!

Water Friends

Dale got the great idea that we needed ducks for our pond. I went to Orschelns for their chick days to get us 4 ducks. Well, our Orschelns didn't have duck food so I didn't want to buy the ducks without having enough food for them so I asked the girl at the counter if she would hold the ducks for me. She acted like I was crazy but said she would try. Of course, on Friday when I went back they had sold all the ducks. I was a little upset.

We do though have 2 Geese the have made their home on our pond. Here are a few pictures of the geese. I hope we can get some ducks soon, they don't make as much of a mess as the geese do!

The geese have become a little more brave, they will walk around our driveway. When I came home yesterday afternoon they were in the driveway and I couldn't get to the garage, so I had to wait for them to waddle away.

Happy April!

No jokes today....but I'm so excited that it's finally April! I thought I would update everyone on what I've been up too...a lot of fun and exciting times at the Wassmann's House!

Last week just wasn't a good week for me. I was sick for the first party of the week and then my great grandma (we called her Grandma BoBo) passed away on Tuesday. She had been very ill for a while and it seemed like just a matter of time before we lost her. I was okay most of the week until the burial on Friday and I really lost it there. I did get to bring home 2 plants from the funeral, it's now my goal in life to keep these plants alive. I'm not good at doing this, so I'm going to take some time today to see if I can find the care instructions for these plants on the internet!

My friend Tedra and I got together last week for dinner and some happy hour drinks. I always have so much fun just visiting with her and catching up on all the happenings at the bank. Sometimes I miss working at the bank and then she tells me some of the drama and I remember why I like being in my office all alone - no drama when it's just me!

Saturday my friend Lynn wanted to go to the Lake to do some shopping. So, we loaded up her 2 boys and her sister and headed for the lake. It was a lot of fun even though it sprinkled on us for a while. All of our purchases were minimal, nothing exciting, but we did buy Coldstone Creamery before we left!! That was soooo good! Lynn and I ended up spending most of the night together. I was really there for moral support while she was putting the boys to bed. They just didn't want to go to sleep! I think the boys had fun spending the day with the girls, they were really good and we had fun. I was really beat by the time I got home, I just crashed.

Sunday Dale and I went to church - together. If you know Dale this happens very seldom and it's usually because we're going to get breakfast afterwards! We ended up going to 11am mass so we had Chinese for lunch afterwards. Then we went to visit his Grandpa for his birthday. We had a good time visiting a very small portion of the Kempf family!

I don't usually talk about work because it has been really boring but things are picking up and I was about to go crazy yesterday. Today is much better but I can get emails but I can't respond to them! I have someone working on this for me right now, that's why I can blog. Have a good day.

Happy April to everyone!