Mini Pumpkin Pies

I love pumpkin pies, no whipped cream. My mom told me this morning, “I’m making pumpkin soup!” and I immediately got sad that she would be using the only can of pumpkin that we had in the house for the soup. I went through some scenarios in my head: we could split it 50-50 and she could make a half batch of soup and I could make half a pumpkin pie; I could just make the pumpkin pie before she has the chance to make the soup; I could hide the pumpkin pie can and then “find” it after she left for work.

In the end, she made pumpkin soup with 3/4 of the can and I was left with a tiny amount with which to do something. I decided to make bite-sized pumpkin pies.

Filling:
1/4 can pumpkin
2 tbsp evaporated milk
Sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon to taste
Crust:
6 tbsp flour
3 tbsp oil
2 tbsp water

Mix up your crust ingredients and then make into small rounds. Refrigerate for about 40 minutes, then bake at 375F for 5 minutes.

Mix your filling ingredients, then spoon them on top of your rounds. Bake at the same temperature for about 10 minutes.

Take them out, let them cool, then eat them. Offer one to your younger brother even though he hates pumpkin pie, and then look disgusted when he puts one inside of his mouth, decides not to eat it, and then puts it back on the tray. Make him eat it anyway. He still hates pumpkin pie.

Grey Sweater Embellishment

I’m in Michigan this week for super fun Thanksgiving times, and looking for crafts to do because I forgot all of my craft supplies in Chicago. My parents have a limited amount of craft supplies, like needles, thread, and glue.
My mom and I decided to clear out her costume jewelry cabinet, because she loves costume jewelry. We found this little delicate bracelet. Oh wow, I am amazing at taking pictures.

I decided to embellish this grey sweater. It’s a fine sweater, normal, but since I’m trying to buy fewer clothes AND I was sick of this sweater, I thought it’d be a great idea to alter it.

I positioned the bracelet in the middle of the sweater and then stitched it to the sweater. Here is what it looks like.

Embellished necklines are great in winter when you don’t feel like wearing necklaces because the dumb necklace always gets tangled up in your scarf. Wearing necklaces and scarves simultaneously is such a chore. You have to match a sweater, a necklace, AND a scarf. Matching is a chore, also. This is why I make most of my fashion choices choosing to power clash, not that you really can power clash gray and diamonds.

DIY Gift Idea: Catchall

Hey, I’m apparently bad at blogging and thinking of cool things to make by myself, so sometimes I go to the Anthropologie website because I am a hack. So I found this cool “reclaimed wood” catchall

and decided that I wanted to make one for myself, out of cardboard, largely because who has $68-78 dollars to spend on a pencil holder?

I modeled in in Solidworks, because that’s what cool people engineers do.

Oh, I almost got the correct angle. I’d open Solidworks again, but as every CAD engineer knows, that’ll crash my computer and I’ll have to restart it and then in the meantime, I guess I’ll make some more ginger lemon tea to aid my digestive system. I wish I hadn’t eaten my lunch enchiladas so quickly, because then I could still be eating them right now.

I cut out a bunch of cardboard. Oh gosh, I did not document this process thoroughly. I got the dimensions from the Solidworks model, and then I cut out a bunch of pieces of cardboard, twice as many of each piece so I could glue them together for reinforcement. (Sidenote on reinforcement: I always think of those hole reinforcing stickers for 3 punched paper. Probably a very pointless, lucrative invention when we still used 3 ring binders. Why haven’t I made my binder full of women yet? Next project.)

I attached the pieces together with glue and packaging material. Not packaging tape, like that crushed paper material that comes to fill up a giant box that holds like a tiny phone. Why do you need a 1x1’ box to hold a phone, Amazon???

Wow, I was really not good at the whole “what angle should I capture this image?” thing.

Hey, if anyone actually wants to make one of these, I’ll make a better tutorial with actual dimensions. Or, if you pay me, I will make one for you.

Cost: $1 if you don’t have glue on hand. Cardboard/Packaging material rescued from recycle bin.
Percent that it actually looks like the original inspiration: 5

Wow, has it really been a year since I’ve updated this blog?