Handmade Sheets for the Boat!

Check out the sheets I made for our boat on our sailing blog here. So happy to be

creating fabulous DIY again!

Solar Cooker

In the process of making a solar cooker. I've wanted to try one for a long time. I'm going to try cooking something delicious tomorrow and will let you know how it goes:

I think I'm going to start easy and bake some cookies from pre-made dough, just to see how this things cooks. I'm just going to leave it out during the day at school and make sure it is at a good angle to the sun as the day goes by. One of my students is bringing her solar tea kettle. We'll have a feast!

**Update** the cookies are "cooking," which translates to mean: I put them out in the sun on a black cookie sheet and now I'm waiting. No idea if this will work! I'll post pics a bit later!

We just used some pre-made cookie dough and my student brought the tea and solar tea kettle from her house. Here we have the cookies as they'll look when we place them outdoors:

From what I've read you can cover your cooking with a glass lid or top or an oven backing bag (clear) to keep off flies and to trap heat but I'm just trying this today sans cover. (Haven't seen any flies yet so cross your fingers.) Honestly there will probably be more saw dust in these cookies than flies as my students are constructing medieval weapons today on the same balcony that the cookies are baking on.

Below are the cookies 25 minutes into baking. It's working!!!! I turned the sheet around to create oven baking. I'll probably have to keep rotating it every 20-25 minutes. The cookie sheet was HOT to the touch. Will use a hot pad for the next rotation:

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Update: It's 12:14 and the cookies still aren't cooked, but they're cooking. I've had to drag the cooker to follow the sun and at one point I found it in the shade, so I'm not sure how long this will take. The problem is we're on the third floor of the school and the outside patio has a big cover on it so I'm working with an angle of the sun. I wonder if they'll be done by this afternoon?

Update: Well I finally pulled the cookies out of the cooker at 2:30 as we started to clean up for the day. They had started to firm and crust up but were still raw and doughy in the middle. I had a few student volunteers thoroughly wash their hands and then pinch off bits of the cookies from the pan as they were too undercooked to pick up as single entities and eat. The cookies disappeared but I think that's because people like chocolate chip cookies cooked or uncooked. This is what they looked like at 2:30 when I pulled them off. One bummer about using store dough was how oily they were. I don't think homemade dough would have released this much oil (as homemade dough doesn't use oil).

I'm going to try another batch tomorrow. I'll start at the same time but try to position them in more direct sunlight the whole time. I'm very interested in seeing how good I can get at solar cooking with a homemade cooker as the ones I've seen online to purchase are fairly pricey. It would be great to know how to use one while we're sailing, especially in the South Pacific and other hot areas. The cabin will be unbearable if I have to use the oven or stop during the day to make meals.

Cool Photo and Boat Organizing

I'm at home with a nasty cough so I thought I'd share this awesome photo of me and Eric taken at a friend's wedding in July. I had so much fun dancing with Eric that night:

If you're interested in life aboard a sailboat, I have an update on my sailing blog on some of the organizing I've been doing onboard here.

We're Expecting!

I'm happy to announce that we're expecting our first child in late July. This is one of the reasons that I've been pretty quiet on the blog lately. I'm 13 weeks and was sick with all-day "morning" sickness from weeks 6-12. Eric has been an incredible support through this. He's going to be a great dad. Just wanted to introduce the world to our little gummy bear.

We are still planning on living on our boat and raising the baby on board. I'll be making posts on my sailing blog about the specifics about life on board with a baby. Feel free to follow along if you'd like at http://rebelheart.squarespace.com/charlottes-blog/

This is him/her at 8 weeks and and 12 weeks:

Projects for the New Year

It's January and I have a new digital camera! Hallelujah. I'm offering the same DIY/Craft class at school as I did last semester so I'm looking forward to meeting my new students and seeing what creative projects they come up with.

The first projects I'll be working on are this storage container created by ReadyMade Magazine. It's Pringles cans covered in Contact Paper and glued together. So cool.

I'll also be refinishing some beautiful teak lawn chairs and of course, working on my jewelry display boxes.

What are you working on?

Meaningful Gift Giving

My camera is officially dead. This is so, so sad. I like to document my progress on the shop and post what I've done, but until I get a new camera you just have to believe me that I'm working on things! Things are good and I'm making progress.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about Christmas. Eric and I have never been big Christmas spenders. Last year we took off for the holidays and celebrated our honeymoon instead. What a stress-free way to go through the holidays. We're planning on doing a repeat again this year, but I still want to get Eric something.

Meet the Giver's Log. This is a beautiful blog about giving gifts, wrapping gifts, and gift ideas.

Inspired by this blog post, I'm thinking of getting Eric something he wants, something he needs, and something he can treasure. I'm always trying to not spend a lot of money, so I've got to be thrifty and creative. I think the 'treasure' gift may be something I create that can be printed on this free canvas being offered by http://www.canvaspeople.com/.

How do you approach gift giving each year?

My Shop - Progress Update

I came up with the idea to open my own Etsy shop in April of this year. Since then I have spent approximately 100 hours researching Etsy, small businesses, photography, crafting, and the potential market for my jewelry display boxes.

This weekend I worked on filling in a few gaps in my boxes with wood filler and sanding them to perfection. This week I will be painting and working on stenciling some designs I've found. My camera recently died (RIP), but I want to keep my blog posts going until I can get a replacement.

I'm hoping to do a soft opening of my Etsy shop during the Christmas break and will keep you posted on my progress.

If you read this and are also working on a big project, how are you doing? What are you working on now?

(Pillow from www.pillowfarmer.etsy.com. Isn't it fabulous?)