Chocolate Chip Cookies

I. Love. To. Bake. Period. LOL. I just do. I'm not saying I'm awesome or anything, but I haven't burnt anything in at least a week. I typically give out any good recipe I can get my hands on, but my cookie recipe- fah-ged-ah-bout-it. Same with my cinnamon rolls recipe (sorry y'all but that's my great grandma's recipe and since she isn't around anymore to tell me I can give it out, it stays a secret). What I will give you though is a couple of pointers.

I've made quite a bit of cookies in my day- that's saying something since I've only been baking for about 8 years. What I've learned so far, I will share with you:


* USE BUTTER (not margarine!) and don't be afraid to add a pinch of Crisco. Just don't use too much or else your cookies will fall flat!

* try adding a little bit of cornstarch: it'll help with keeping the cookies from falling flat too

* Add in eggs ONE AT A TIME! Seriously, I'm not joking about this! It's really crucial to getting those cookies nice and fluffy (Lord knows why though)

* Try dark brown sugar for a little extra bite. It's not a pit bull kind of bite though, more like that dog who barks a lot, but is a total sweety when you approach.

* This is one of those recipes where going "skinny" or healthy really means disgusting cookies. Don't try and make an excuse for eating cookies. Just do it and accept it... cookies are good. Just pretend you'll work out later.

* It doesn't matter what recipe you are using if your chocolate chips taste like crap. Go for the good stuff. When I was learning, I would go into bakeries and ask what chocolate chips they were using... a lot of times they would tell me... just once did the woman yell at me and wouldn't give me a cookie. It was sad. I was hungry. Then my mother in law gave me a huge bag of chocolate chips for Christmas (uh, yes you read that correctly). They were amazing and now I sneak some every time I go to their house...

* I know that these cookies are "technically" a drop cookie-----> meaning you just take a spoonful and DROP it onto your baking pan... BUT I like consistency... SO I roll my cookies into a ball (like sugar cookies) and then I push them a little and indent the very center a little deeper. Try it, you'll like it.

* Bake those cookies just until they look a little done. Don't wait til they are brown on top. Unless you are like my step-mom who likes everything with a charred taste to it. BLAH lol. Love her though. Take those cookies out of the oven and let them bake for about 3 more minutes on the cookie sheet. Then take those bad boys OFF!

* Don't want to make 500 cookies at once? Roll little balls with the cookie dough and FREEZE them. They freeze VERY well! And the best part, when you're having a bad day and don't feel like making a whole batch of cookie dough to eat as you cry and watch a Chick Flick, just pop 'em out! Bake at 325 for about 13 minutes. Voila!


This is the best recipe I have found that mostly matches what I do... RECIPE HERE!

Crochet animal hats

I've decided that being a "stay at home mom" is awesome (I get to watch my child grow and thank the good lord that we can afford it) but it does tend to get monotenous. I was an art major and I miss it. A lot. Just drawing and creating things--- and making a financial contribution to our family! So I have decided to create MOOSEink to fill some of this gap. MOOSEink is basically all the things I'm good at- Drawing, Photography, crochet and design. It's been a great way to take my mind off the fact that all I do all day is cook, clean and play with Jackson. The only thing I like of course is playing with Jackson lol. I don't plan on making this my profession forever, just until Jackson (and if we have other kids too) gets in to 1st grade or all day Kindergarten and then I'll make more of an effort to expand.
Recently, I've discovered my love for crocheting. And I think I'm getting pretty good at it. It takes a couple (OR MORE) efforts to get a design right, but -then again- I make up all my designs, so I guess that should be expected. Right now, I'm making animal hats for friends and friends of friends. It's a great feeling knowing that someone wants to buy my items! Again, I'm not planning on making a huge profit, but it's a wonderful way to spent my time! As I was debating on prices, I looked on Etsy.com and saw, to my utter amazement, how much people were willing to pay for the same items I was making. $30-70- ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?! And this was for CHILD sizes too. No way! I'm just trying to find a reason to justify why I need to go to Michael's just about every other Wednesday- NOT about ripping people off. WHen it's all said and done, making a hat is not expensive- it's the time involved in making it. If you have the time and it's not too terribly important to you, like me, then making someone pay over $40 / hat is unreasonable! So I decided that for child & toddler hats, I would charge $25 and adult, $35. That seemed reasonable to me and apparently a lot of other people think so too! Right now I'm just making hats for friends, but once I'm finished, I think I'll sell them on Etsy--- for good price!

As I'm making these hats, I'm trying to write down HOW I made them in case anyone else wants to make them. I admit, my instructions are a little confusing so give me some time to sort them out and make them coherent... I'll post the pictures to a blog about them along with SOME of the instructions. Then you can email me or comment and I'll try to walk you through the rest of the hat--- or you can just be like me and make it up as you go! GOOD LUCK!

"To Outline or Not to Outline"

Tonight I finished my drawing for my friend's son, Kaleb. It is a wonderful birthday present for him and I hope he'll like it. As I said in my last post, I will be describing how I make my art. In tonight's session I'm going to explain when you should outline a drawing and when to leave it alone!

In art school- my teachers ALWAYS told us not to outline. "This is not a coloring book!" is the phrase I heard over and over again. It was eventually engrained into me and I never outlined again... until now. It IS ok to outline certain drawings. Outlining something makes it stand out from the rest of page. Outlining has a lot of down sides too though-
* it makes a drawing look like a coloring book
* it makes a drawing look like a coloring book
* it makes a drawing look like a coloring book
Just in case I didn't make myself quite plain here lol. But if you are drawing cartoon characters or characitures (a cartoon of a person that emphasizes ONE facial feature), then outlining is great!

If you want to make a drawing look more realistic (and - in essence- like a photograph) then outlining is not the way to go. In this case the same type of effect can be acheived by using a darker color next to a lighter color or using shadows and highlights. Whenever I'm making a photo-realistic COLORED drawing, I almost never use black. It's unnecessary- seriously. Instead, try using a darker purple, blue, red, green or any combination. It's actually overkill if you use black.

Another thing I always do is make sure I tape down my paper before I begin. I pretty much always work in either charcoal or colored pastels and they leave a chalky residue behind that can get everywhere! When you tape down your paper, not only will you avoid your paper moving on you unexpectedly, but there will be a clean, sharp line framing your artwork and it makes it look more professional. Sometimes I'll even use a larger piece of paper to do a drawing and then cut out only the portion on the drawing I was to use and recycle the rest. If you want to do that too, then don't worry about where you place your tape.

The "Toy Story" drawing I did tonight, I used a tinted piece of paper (which I LOVE!) and colored pastels. I have pastel pencils as well and I use them for finishing touches as they are able to do details better than pastel sticks. The drawing itself didn't take me long, but I am a major perfectionist when it comes to color. I don't think I've ever made someone pay for one of my drawings unless I felt like there was nothing more i could do to make it better. So that took awhile. When I finished, I sprayed it down with hair spray- which sounds odd I know- but it acts a fixative so that the chalk from the pastels would stay in place and not get all over your hands OR WORSE on your glass in the picture frame (it ruins the picture should it ever move bc the glass acts as a chalk magnet and lifts it up from the picture). So it's really important to make sure you "FIX" your pastel or charcoal picture before you frame it. I used to spend insane amount on actual Fixative at Michael's but then i got smart and switched to hair spray which is 100xs cheaper! Just remember to spray your piece while it's still taped down and leave it alone until the spray dries--- otherwise it'll roll up a lot more than necessary. Lastly, spray your piece in long strokes about 6 inches above your work--- any closer and you'll leave spray marks, but too far and you won't get any fixative on your work! Hope this helps anyone who wanted to know about pastels!