Chocolate and Raspberry Ice Cream Cake

I made an ice cream cake for my coworker's birthday! It was yummy and a little bit special so I'm sharing the recipe!

Chocolate & Raspberry Ice Cream Cake

Ingredients:
Brownie Recipe (or mix)
Raspberry Sorbet, 1 pint
Vanilla Ice Cream, 1.75 quarts
Hot Fudge Recipe (or jar)
Fresh Raspberries

Instructions:

1. Make the brownie base.
1. Follow the mix up instructions for your brownie recipe or boxed mix.
2. Pour into greased springform pan and bake until done.
3. Let brownie cool completely. Freezing this portion is optional.
2. Let the raspberry sorbet soften and spread evenly over brownie base. Optional: Freeze this portion now for straighter layers.
3. Add a layer of softened vanilla ice cream on top and freeze.
4. Serving the ice cream cake.
1. Remove from springform pan.
2. Warm the hot fudge and pour over cake
3. Top with fresh raspberries.
4. Serve & Enjoy!

I went a little overboard with the hot fudge; I definitely added too much for the top of my cake, but everyone enjoyed scraping the extra hot fudge off the pan.

B&W

I've been taking lots of black and white Hipstamatic photos. Here are a few of my favorites:

Texture Only

Here is another project that I haven't finished! This is the start of my The Call of the Wild Craft Book Club project.

My plan is to make a 'phases of the moon' art set with the Northern Lights in the background and silver foil for the moon. I decided to add some texture so once I placed the foil moons it they wouldn't be flat. So far that's all I've done (which is barely visible in this picture) so I'll share the finished project with you next month with the next Craft Book Club book selection. Do you have any book suggestions? (I haven't been reading either. Need more motivation for everything.)

Scarf Progress

I'm still working on this scarf. I really should be done by now, but my productivity has gone way down since starting the year. I've started several projects, but haven't completed any of them!

This scarf is mostly done though, I have to add a little bit more length then the fingers!

Winner! Winner! Winner!

Since I have three draft dodgers there are three winners!



Katie, Kari, and Wendy each win one of my lovely tree branch shaped draft dodgers/door snakes! Hurrah!

Twinsies

My sister really liked my Thermisto hat and when I was finally going to give it to her she thought it was too big for her head so I made her a matching hat (same yarn, same colors) in a smaller size. Here we are being a little silly wearing our matching hats (and coats) in front of a really cool mural.

Follow Your Arrow

Here is the other item from my November Christmas knitting preview, this is a shawl I made for my mother.

I used a special pattern, Follow Your Arrow Mystery KAL by Ysolda Teague, that is a choose-your-own-adventure knitting pattern. There are five sections and two options for each section making 32 possible combinations! I chose clues ABAAA and it turned out great! This is the most lace I have knit, which is exciting, and surprisingly the place I messed up (and left it because I realized too late and didn't want to go back) was not in the lace.

A new Christmas tradition for me is finishing my mother's knit present on Christmas Eve. This is the second year of doing this, last year was the alligator scarf. It turns out I am not alone in my present-making-procrastination; according to Ravelry, Christmas Eve is the busiest day for finishing knit/crochet projects.

Parseltongue

In November I shared with you a preview of my Christmas knitting; this week I'm showing you the finished projects. Here is the first of the two projects, a snake hat for my Slytherin sister.

The hat pattern is The Parseltongue Hat by Tiny Owl Knits and has cabled snakes all around! I used leftover yarn from my zelda slip and modified the pattern to be larger and more slouchy. Here is the side view:

And some pictures of the flat hat so you can see the snakes better:

Hisss!

Twenty Fifteen!

Exciting!
It's a new year!
This is my 600th blog post!
I'm giving away something I made!

Before I get to the giveaway, I'm going to start with my yearly resolutions/intentions. (You can look back on my previous resolutions here: 2014, 2013, 2012, and Earth Day 2010.) It was a close call on the DIY book projects, but I finished all of my 2014 crafting intentions! This year I am making the customary goal of organizing and decluttering which will probably find it's way onto the blog through various means (possibly a post on how I organized some craft supplies, I'll probably find some unfinished projects to complete, or something I haven't thought of yet). I have better luck actually completing my resolutions when I make a list of specific items so here are the crafty goals I have for the year:

• Crafts for Charity! My coworker makes and sells hats as a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society and I'll make at least three hats to donate. This should be fun, I have lots of hat patterns in my Ravelry favorites that I want to try! If you know of any knitting or sewing (I like sewing) projects for charity let me know, I might make whatever it is!
• Give Scrapbooking Another Try! I've mentioned before that scrapbooking wasn't really my thing, but I always see scrapbook supplies that I want to use and layouts that I like so I'm going to try again. I want to make two scrapbooks this year, they can be event based or topic based like a zine, I just have to make two! One idea I've had is making a recipe scrapbook filled with my families favorite Christmas treats!
• Knit a Blanket! This is something that I've wanted to do for a long time, but knitting an entire blanket seemed like an overwhelming task. I've had a hard time completing sweater sized projects in a timely manner and a blanket is several miles of yarn length. Yikes! I'm a little overwhelmed just thinking about it, but this is the year!

And now for the GIVEAWAY! If you've been reading this blog for long, or if you have looked over many of my old posts, you may have realized I like celebrating milestones by giving things away. Six hundred blog posts is kind of a big deal, that's 300 weeks of blogging or 75 full moons. To celebrate the occasion I'm giving something away!

These tree branch shaped draft dodgers/door snakes that I made when I first started my blog were in a dresser drawer in my craft room and since I'm organizing and decluttering (as mentioned above) they need to go! Do you want one? 

Here's how to win:

1. Post a comment below with your name and one of the following by by Sunday, January 11th.

     a. One of your crafting intentions for the year

     b. A charity that needs a specific crafty project

     c. The most overwhelming project you've completed

2. Wait. I'll announce the winner on Thursday, January 15th!

Note: Anyone can enter regardless of their residence, I'll ship internationally!

Scribble Doodles

It's the last post of the year and I have finished a project from my last DIY book! These are my scribble drawings from Lab 31 of Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists by Carla Sonheim.  I use to do these with my mom when I was young; basically you start with a scribble then using your imagination, turn it into something recognizable. Here they are (scribble on the left, corresponding doodle on the right):

It turns out I see a lot of animals in scribbles and cannot draw knees. Did you see something else in the scribbles? Let me know in the comments.