I Can Now Cook Eight Things, But Two Of Them Are Just Different Kinds Of Cookies

Chocolate Build-a-Base Cookie Cake, with cream cheese frosting and fruit

All About Cookies: A Milk Bar Baking Book by Christina Tosi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am currently the world’s most medium-low okay-ish cook, but this is the year that I’ve committed to learning how to cook better. Or, if not objectively better, maybe just more than six things that come out decent most of the time?

Cocoa Mint Chip Cookies, specifically the batch where I used up all the leftover Christmas candy!

And so far, I seem to have decided to do that by checking out library cookbooks that sound good and attempting to cook from them. It’s going… okay? I honestly tend to do better with children’s cookbooks, because they explain everything to me like I’m five, which I definitely need, and because they don’t include a lot of fussy elements, which I’m struggling to have the patience for.

The pecans in this cookie cake were also leftover from Christmas...

To be fair, though: to me, fussy more or less means anything that requires more from me than simply dumping in all the ingredients at once, stirring them together, and hoping for the best. I also have a really bad habit of switching up ingredients for no good reason other than that I want to use up something in my pantry, but at least whenever I do that I don’t blame the recipe **cough, cough** https://www.reddit.com/r/ididnthaveeggs/ **cough**.

So the major benefits of this cookbook for me are that 1) everything is explained in a lot of detail so I understand what I’m supposed to do, and 2) all the recipes that I tried are almost quick and easy enough that I mostly followed them like I was supposed to, which means that all the cookies came out really delicious!

The best recipe is for these amazingly delicious Cocoa Mint Chip Cookies. I absolutely burned them the first two times I made them, because they’re dark so I couldn’t tell when they’d browned and I wasn’t sure what consistency they were supposed to be, but they were delicious anyway. Just… crispy delicious! I have also never made them exactly the way the recipe says to, because I keep wanting to do other stuff instead. I added in the peppermint chips, which are spendy as HELL but very good, but instead of proper chocolate chips I have used, in various combinations, 1) chopped Hershey bars, 2) crushed candy canes, 3) m&ms, and 4) white chocolate chips. This is a great recipe for using up the leftover Christmas candy!

Crushed candy canes were VERY good in this!

My favorite part of all these recipes is how well everything freezes. I’ve had really mixed results trying to freeze food, or rather, trying to cook it again from frozen, with my most devastating failure being my former favorite peanut butter cookie recipe. Side note: if you’ve got a super basic peanut butter cookie recipe that cooks from frozen without turning into a weird puddle of oily peanut butter, let me know! But I ALSO don’t need to eat a full-on batch of cookies within a day. I really miss having teenagers at home, sigh. But I feel like I am living the life I was meant to live when I can take two cookies out of the freezer and bake them to enjoy over a crossword puzzle. And when a neighbor offered to bring over his tractor one snowy day and plow my driveway, and I had just enough time to pull a dozen cookies out of the freezer and bake them for him before he came back, I was all, “Ah, this is what it is to be competent!”

Not a single one of these fruits was actually in season for Valentine's Day, so none of them were very sweet. Thank goodness for all that added sugar!

I also had success freezing the Chocolate Build-a-Base Cookie, with crushed pecans mixed in, after it was baked so that when I wanted to have fruit pizza for Valentine’s Day I didn’t also have bake the cookie cake that day. Like, is this what adult life is meant to feel like? I have literally nothing else going for me at the moment, but I do have cookies in the freezer ready to bake!

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How to Sew an Envelope-Back Pillowcase

I originally published this tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

A pillowcase with an envelope back is the easiest type of pillowcase to sew!

At least for decorative pillows! If you’re sewing a pillow for a bed, do yourself a favor and check out the “magic” pillowcase tutorial.

I like how neat and polished an envelope-back pillowcase looks, even more so than one with a zipper, in my opinion. Omitting that zipper also makes an envelope-back pillowcase much more comfortable, meaning that your decorative pillow can also perform its second most important job of Naptime Support Specialist. Or, if you have two decorative pillows, the third most important job of Footrest.

It’s very easy to make an envelope-back pillowcase from scratch, even if you’re a novice sewist. Here’s how!

Materials

To make an envelope-back pillowcase, you will need:

• pillow form. I’m using a 16″x16″ pillow for this project, but here’s an example of a 26″x26″ pillowcase that I sewed from quilting cotton.
• fabric. You’ll need three pieces of fabric approximately the size of your pillow plus 1.5″. You’ll cut two of those pieces down to size, so read through the instructions first if you have some smaller, scrappier pieces you want to use, and you’ll see how to calculate the exact yardage you need for your specific pillow.
• bias tape. You need two pieces of approximately 1/4″ bias tape, each as long as your pillow plus 1.5″. Bias tape is SUPER easy to make from scratch, so you can perfectly match your pillowcase fabric, if you’d like.
• measuring, pinning, cutting and sewing supplies.

Step 1: Measure and cut your pillowcase pieces.

Your pillow form should have a tag that gives its dimensions. If not, simply measure its length and width with a fabric measuring tape. If your pillow is rectangular instead of square like mine, you can still make an envelope back pillowcase for it; just decide which way you want the pillow oriented, and calculate, cut, and sew accordingly.

The front panel should measure one 1.5″ wider than the pillow form on both length and width if you want a snug fit like the one in these photos, and 2.5″ or even more if you want more ease. A looser fit is easier to stuff and change, but a snug fit looks nicer, in my opinion.

For my 16″x16″ pillow, my front panel is 17.5″x17.5″. Just between us, this made for a pillowcase that’s a little too snug, because I didn’t account for how fat that pillow form is! It still fits, but there’s some whiskering across the width and if it gets a lot of wear I’ll probably be mending around that applique in a few years. So let my mistake guide you, and take the fatness of your pillow form into account when deciding ease.

Each of the two back panels should be the same width as the front panel, but should be only about 2/3 of the length. The exactness of this measure isn’t terribly important, so I approximated, since 3 does not go neatly into 16. For my 16″x16″ pillow, then, each of my back panels are 11″x17.5″.

Step 2: Sew bias tape to the envelope edges of the back panels.

Sew bias tape across one width side of each of the back panel pieces, encasing the raw edge of each. These will be the edges that overlap to create the envelope closure.

Step 3: Sew the back panels to the front panel.

Whichever back panel piece you pin to the front panel first will be the outer panel once you’ve turned your finished pillowcase right sides out. I want my top panel on the outside, so I’m pinning it to my front panel first. Pin the panels right sides together.

Don’t start sewing yet! Instead, next pin the second back panel piece flush with the opposite end of the front panel, right sides together. Visually check the overlap of the envelope back to make sure you like it, and to make sure that the bias tape sides are at the overlap, NOT the far edges.

NOW you can sew!

Using a .5″ seam allowance, sew all the way around the pillowcase, sewing both back panels to the front panel. Backstitch over both ends of the overlap to reinforce them, since they’ll be pulled on whenever you change your pillowcase.

My favorite part of sewing this pillowcase is that I don’t have to leave a hole for turning, fuss with attaching a zipper, etc. It’s so quick and easy!

Clip the corners, turn right side out, press it smooth, and pop it on a pillow!

As you can see, you can do a lot of cute things with that front panel. Here, I appliqued the logo of my kid’s college onto the front panel fabric, but I’ve also pieced and quilted pillowcase fronts, and once I even used fabric markers to illustrate one. The possibilities are endless!

What are you going to put on the front of YOUR pillow?

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How to Make 3D Paper Hearts for Valentine's Day

I originally published this tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

These 3D paper hearts are the perfect decoration for a perfect day!

My favorite projects are the ones that I can make with the supplies that I already have entirely on-hand… and my second-favorite projects are the ones that I can easily recycle, upcycle, compost, or otherwise entirely dispose of with little effort if I decide I no longer want them. Because although I love decorating for a holiday, I think I like taking down all those decorations afterwards and enjoying my (relatively) clutter-free home even more!

This cute 3D paper heart project encompasses both of my favorite things! Use any of your favorite papers (in these photos, I’m using vintage book pages) to craft these pretty paper hearts, and after Valentine’s Day, pop them into your paper recycling, upcycle them as greeting card or scrapbook embellishments, or shred them and mix them into your compost. Just between us, I don’t even shred them first, because I am a VERY lazy lasagna gardener.

Or keep them on display forever, because they’re just that cute!

Materials

To make these 3D paper hearts, you will need the following supplies:

• pretty papers. You need enough paper for 8-12 hearts, depending on how full you want your finished 3D heart to look. I’m using pages from a vintage book, but scrapbook paper would also be SOOO pretty. With larger hearts, the paper tends to curl if it’s very thin, so avoid lightweight papers like newspaper or wrapping paper for bigger hearts, or place thicker paper between the glued sheets to strengthen them. Cardstock would be perfect for a very large version, or even thin cardboard food packaging for a supersized version!
• heart template. You can freehand this or print out your favorite clip art, but since you’ll be making several identical cut-outs per finished 3D heart, you’ll want something to trace.
• tracing and cutting tools. A pencil and some scissors, or whatever you’ve got on hand!
• glue of your choice. A glue stick is my favorite glue for working with paper, but with all that plastic it’s not very eco-friendly, is it? SIGH! Fortunately, nearly any glue works well here. PVA glue takes a while to dry and you have to be vigilant to avoid curling, but it’s got much less plastic packaging than glue sticks do. Hot glue is in between, eco-wise, but it also dries nearly instantly and won’t cause curling.

Step 1: Cut out the paper hearts.

For the project in these photos, I’m using an 8″ wide template for the larger heart, and a 3″ wide template for the smaller one.

Gotta pay better attention to what I'm cutting out. Tuberculosis is so romantic, lol!

Trace and cut the number of paper hearts that you’ll want for your 3D version. The more hearts you use, the fuller your 3D heart will look. And the bigger your heart, the more hearts you’ll need to fill it out! For my smaller version, I used eight cut-outs and I think the end result is perfect. For my larger version, I used 12 cut-outs and I think I could have gone with at least 16 to have it look a little more full.

Step 2: Fold all the cut-outs in half.

If your cut-out is double-sided, take some time to choose which side you want to be visible in the finished product, and fold that side to the inside. The outside sides are what you’ll glue, and you won’t see them when you’re done.

Try to be as precise as you can with your folding, putting it right down the center of each cut-out, and crease the center fold well.

Step 3: Glue all the cut-outs together.

Here’s another place where you want to be so very precise!

Spread glue across one folded side of a cut-out, then stack the next cut-out exactly on top of it, pressing down to make sure that the two papers are adhered all over.

Spread glue across the folded side of the cut-out that’s now at the top of your stack, and stack the next cut-out exactly on top of that one, again pressing and smoothing to make sure the papers are well adhered.

Repeat until every cut-out is stacked and glued.

Step 4: Fluff out the finished product so the papers look nice.

Page through the whole stack of cut-outs and make sure that no glue bled through or seeped between the edges of the paper, and that none of the pages that aren’t glued are stuck together.

If you want to make your finished 3D heart into an ornament, you can insert a twine loop between the last two pages, then glue them together to seal it in. I, however, really like these opened up as a wall decoration, or, for the smaller hearts, glued to the front of a handmade valentine.

I kind of want to make a REALLY big one to put on my front door!

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Because Protesting a Fascist Government Is No Fun If Your Ears Are Cold

Or, I dunno, I just wanted to make a couple of hats.

I don't have a lot of fleece left in my fabric stash, because it picks up pet hair like CRAZY and is therefore unsuited to a home like mine, ahem, but I learned a new method of making fleece hats that are rounder, and therefore more comfortable, than the method I've previously used, so by digging through every piece of fabric I own I was able to scrounge up juuuuust enough fleece to make two new hats for my college kids.

But what I really wanted to experiment with regarding these hats is figuring out how to embellish them with fleece-on-fleece applique!

Thanks to my Cricut, cutting out the fleece applique was actually the easiest part:

That line of fuzz below the letters is where the sheet of fleece slightly overlapped the transfer tape. Without that tape, that whole section of mat would look like that!

I also recently learned that the secret trick to cutting fabric--especially fleece and felt!--without ruining your cutting mat with fuzz is to use cheap transfer tape. It's essentially a giant roll of Scotch tape, and it's meant for use with vinyl, but if you put it smooth side down on the mat and burnish the fabric onto the sticky side, it works a treat at holding the fabric perfectly for the cuts, then you can peel it off and everything stays tidy and clean!

So tidy:

Fleece-on-fleece is the easiest applique in the world to glue baste, because it will stick forever with just a glue stick, but it is the worst applique in the world to figure out how to actually, you know, SEW IT. It's got enough loft that stitches really show, and it's slightly stretchy, so you always have to worry about everything staying un-wonkified. Its saving grace is that it doesn't fray, so at least you don't have to satin stitch the damn thing, but I tried two different methods on two different hats, and I'm not happy with either of them.

I tried a simple zigzag on the little kid's hat, and honestly I thought this was going to turn out great--

--but I do not love the result:

It would be fine if the stitches didn't have so much... dimensionality? I guess? But at least it's consistent, so I can pretend that it was a design choice!

I hand-stitched the big kid's hat with a running stitch, and although I still don't love it--and I don't love how long it took--I actually like the end result a LOT better:

The stitches still show some depth, but hand-stitching allowed me to adjust the thread tension enough to keep it a bit at bay, at least, and if nothing else, the running stitch means that there are far fewer stitches involved.

At least the back side of all that stitching gets well hidden inside the fleece hat sandwich:

This four-corners business is what I wanted to try. I think it looks stupid with all the corners poked out, but if you keep the corners tucked in--

--I think the hat looks super cute, and it DOES fit very comfortably!

Two hats and one snowstorm later--

--and the kids' Valentine's Day care packages, complete with snuggly warm hats to wear to all the various and sundry protests that college students attend (college students attend a LOT of protests!) were ready to mail!

The secret trick to college student care packages?

Snacks. Lots and lots of snacks.

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DIY Decoupaged Wall Plates

I originally published this tutorial over at Crafting a Green World.

You’ll have the prettiest, most mitchy-matchy wall plates with this easy upgrade!

The cheap plastic wall plates that cover every light switch and outlet in my house are also veeeerrrrrry old, which is obvious from their dingy off-white color.

Unless interior designers in the 1980s were super into everything looking like it smoked two packs a day?

Yes, new wall plates are cheap, and even cute wall plates are pretty cheap. But that’s part of the problem, because even if I donated my gross old wall plates and bought cute new ones, nobody is going to then buy *my* chainsmoker-chic outlet covers and light switch plates when they can also buy cute new ones for just a few cents more!

The good news is that I’m not dealing with any of that nonsense. Instead, I decoupaged my wall plates, and they now look awesome and, most importantly, like they’ve never touched a single cigarette in their entire lives!

Decoupaging a wall plate is one of the simplest DIY projects there is, and even simpler if you’ve ever done any kind of papercrafting. But even if you haven’t, this project is SO easy that it’s pretty much impossible to mess up.

Here’s how to decoupage yourself a new outlet cover or light switch plate!

Step 1: Source your materials–especially terrific paper!

For this project, you will need:

• wall plates, squeaky clean and dry. Oils from fingers can disrupt proper adhesion of the glue, so wash your wall plates with dish soap and water, then let dry. And don’t forget that safety always comes first! Cracked or undersized wall plates absolutely DO need to be replaced.
• paper. This is going to be the star of the show! ANY paper that can handle glue will work for this project. Scrapbook paper is fine, but so are old book or magazine pages, sheet music, or anything with a similar weight. For this particular project, I’m using vintage wallpaper samples from a sample book I thrifted once upon a time. I never really found a great use for the contents of the carpet sample book I thrifted at the same time, but I have used the snot out of that wallpaper sample book over the years!
• Mod Podge. Any PVA glue can be substituted, because you’ll be sealing the decoupaged plate separately, regardless.
• water-based polyurethane. I spray clean and disinfect my light switch covers, so I need a beefier sealant than Mod Podge. I love to keep a quart can of water-based polyurethane kicking around my supply closet at all times to serve all my sealant-based needs!
• scissors, craft knife, and awl. You can use a sharpened pencil instead of the awl, but you can’t get by without the scissors and the craft knife.

Step 2: Glue the front of the plate to the back of the paper.

It will feel upside down, but I think the paper adheres more evenly if I lay it face down on the table, coat the front of the wall plate with glue, and rest it face down on top of the paper.

Press evenly on the back of the plate to make sure that the entire front is adhered, then flip it over and use your fingers to smooth out any bubbles by coaxing them off the edge of the plate.

Finish by trimming the extra paper away from the plate, making sure that you leave enough around the edges to cover the sides of the plate.

If you’re doing proper decoupage by adding additional layers of paper or cut-outs or other embellishments, you can wait and do it as the last step before sealing the finished plate.

Step 3: Cover the sides of the plate.

When you trimmed extra paper away in the previous step, you left enough to cover the sides of the plate. One side at a time, coat the back of the paper with glue, then use your fingers to press it down and mold it to the narrow side of the plate. Don’t tuck it under the back–you can trim any extra again after the glue dries.

Each additional side you work on will require you to fold the edge of the preceding side’s paper under, just like you’re wrapping a present. When you get to the last side, you’ll need to fold both edges under, so add extra glue as necessary.

Step 4: Cut open the holes for the light switches or outlets.

You’re also going to cover the interior sides of these openings with paper, but it will be easy!

Face the plate down on top of a self-healing cutting mat, then use the craft knife to cut through the paper covering each opening as if you’re cutting pie. If your opening is rectangular, you can get away with four slices of pie, but if your opening is circular, you’ll want to cut it into more slices.

Coat the back of the paper with glue, then use your fingers to fold each paper pie slice neatly over the side and to the back of the plate.

Trim as needed to avoid covering any screw holes.

And speaking of those screw holes…

Step 5: Open up the screw holes.

From the back side of the plate, use the sharp tip of the awl or a sharpened pencil to make a tiny pinprick or dent in the paper covering each screw hole, then from the front use the same tool to poke a proper hole. No glue needed!

Step 6: Seal the wall plate.

Follow the directions on your glue package for the drying and curing time of the glue, then follow it up with two or more coats of your favorite water-based polyurethane sealant, also following the directions on the package for dry time and cure time. My polyurethane, for instance, required additional coats separated by at least two hours from the previous coat, and a cure time of a full week before subjecting the wall plate to full use.

My light switches themselves are clearly still gross (any tips for getting old paint spills off of a light switch?), but the light switch plates are beautiful!

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In Which I Am Completely Normal About This AU Captain America Fanfic Turned Gay Hockey Smut Book Series

Game Changer by Rachel Reid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Did I like the romance plot?

No.

Did I enjoy the sex scenes?

Also no.

Am I nevertheless rating this 5 stars?

Absolutely yes!

Finally, I have found a hockey book series in which the protagonists actually play hockey!

Scott and Kip have your stereotypically cringey insta-love meet-cute, and their relationship progresses equally unrealistically--I think Scott beat out all the lesbians with how soon he brought out the metaphorical U-Haul. I also LOATHE the voices that this audiobook’s narrator chose for each guy; he literally should have switched them? Or just chosen ANYTHING besides cartoon “Brooklyn” meat-head who can’t pronounce r’s or t’s. I had to have a genuine serious talk with myself by the end of chapter 2 to see if I could even make it through this audiobook as-is. I only managed by pretending that these were real people, because obviously you can’t hate someone’s actual real voice. Or, you know, you can, but only silently inside your own head and outside your head you just have to deal with it. Also, Kip clearly has a very big speech impediment and it would be very wrong to hate him for it.

@hillarynorwood #heatedrivalry #gamechanger #kipandscott ♬ original sound - BGuy

I also hated that even though our rich and famous the man, the myth, the legend Scott Hunter insta-fell in love with a poor, it’s clear that Kip is a virtuous poor--and therefore deserving of love from a rich-and-famous--because he’s too proud to let Scott pay for things. Like, bro, we get it. You’re not a whore, and your love can’t be bought. But also, you work in a smoothie shop? And your boyfriend is a millionaire? Just let him pay off your student loans, which are a predatory scam designed to keep you poor, anyway!

Other than Kip’s moaning about not wanting to take Scott’s money, Kip has such a bad time for the majority of this book that I felt terrible for him. Scott Hunter was an asshole for almost this entire book. He took that beautiful social butterfly of a man and turned him into his dirty little secret, isolating him up inside his empty penthouse, making him feel uncomfortable talking to his own parents, much less all his friends, because he felt he had to maintain his boyfriend’s closet, and generally making him more miserable for the majority of the book than when he was still living at home with his parents and working a dead-end low-wage job. That scene in which his best friend, the only person Scott has allowed him to tell about their relationship, says she’s moving across the country, and when Kip tries to tell Scott about it he couldn’t be less interested or more irritated, got me in the gut. Poor Kip! What Scott should have done was leave that beautiful man alone, get a bunch of therapy from a licensed professional, come out properly, and then ask Kip out when he could finally deserve him. But some guys just have all the luck, and I guess it turned out fine in the end.

My first favorite thing about this book is how Scott actually plays hockey in it, and we get some mid-game drama, a couple of fights, gossip about players on other teams, trade deadline stress, dealing with the rookies, etc., but my second favorite thing about this book is, as in Heated Rivalry (which I read out of order), the real Big Bad is 1) toxic masculinity, closely followed by 2) the NHL as a whole (see: toxic masculinity). And I do think that Reid’s version of how the first openly gay player in the NHL comes out is just about the only realistic scenario. She starts with a remarkably empathetic and close-knit team, as evidenced by the removal of the team’s big jerk early on, and she makes the closeted gay player the team’s long-time and very beloved captain. He also has to be one of the best players in the league, and closer to retirement than not so he’s got a legacy of greatness and a terrific reputation. And although Hunter planned to come out at the end of the season regardless, it’s very important that it happens right after winning the Stanley Cup, just so nobody can pretend like Hunter’s sexuality affects his game or the team’s success. If any real NHL player actually wants to come out--and I really, really hope some NHL players will!--circumstances close to that would also be their best-case scenario.

I like Heated Rivalry so much better than this book that I’m wondering if it’s the fact that this is a reskinned Captain America fanfic that’s throwing it off. (Yes, it is. YES, IT IS!). Like, you can have some amazing writing in fanfic (see: All the Young Dudes), but it’s very, very different in most cases from a “proper” book, and every book I’ve read knowing that it’s a reskinned fanfic I think has suffered from it. In this specific case, there's some backstory that it's easy to gloss over in a Captain America fic, because we already know that Steve's mother died when he was young, for instance, so you don't really need to build all the ways that affects him into his character yourself, because your readers already know it's there. But when you reskin the brief paragraph in which Steve Rogers mentions his mother's death into one in which Scott Hunter does, you've got the same backstory beat, but you DON'T automatically get the same understanding of all the ways that affects him, because Scott Hunter's backstory isn't part of the cultural canon the way Steve Roger's is. I think Reid could have done a lot more to make Scott Hunter a more sympathetic and realistic character by showing how his isolation and lack of family has led to some of his problematics behaviors towards Kip, especially, but I wonder if he was always Steve Rogers in her head, and so she didn't notice that she needed to. In contrast, I think she handled Ilya's emotionally complicated backstory in Heated Rivalry very adeptly, and I can even see some places where I think she's foreshadowing some more things for Ilya and Shane in her later books, so she's very capable of writing a full character when she's not having to wade through a whole other IP to get there.

Maybe the lesson is to keep the concept, keep the plot, but otherwise just pretend like you’re writing a brand-new story and start it from scratch.

Other than the characters of Clint Barton and Natasha Romanov, that is. Those two should obviously be characters in EVERY book.

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