What I Did Today

What a day!  We are back at our apartment, the hub's got to come home a week early from his business trip (yay!) but has to leave for another one Sunday (boo!).  Not that I'm unhappy that he's home early, 'cause I sure am, but it did kinda throw my week off.  I was planning on having more time to get the apartment clean before he got home-not that it was messy, we hadn't even really been here while he was gone-but the floors needed to be swept and mopped and the bathroom needed to be cleaned and there were some other things that needed some tidying up.  So I spent a good chunk of my day cleaning toilets and tubs, sweeping and mopping floors, all in between chasing after my runny-nosed little man (he's cutting some teeth and is just a snot factory at the moment.  Not so fun.)

Oh, but wait, the fun doesn't stop there.  I also had two birthday presents to make for tonight for the hub's twin sisters-their actual birthday is Wednesday, but between everyone's work and school schedules, we celebrated it tonight.  I found that out last night.  I already had one present all figured out-Anna asked for a cheesecake and I was more that happy to oblige-finally an opportunity to use my new spring-form pans!  But I was stumped on Sara, especially last minute.  Then I remembered these rag bracelets I used to make-BINGO!  So while the snot factory took a nap, I made cheesecake and bracelets. Anna, I hope that cheesecake was good, and Sara, I hope you like your bracelet!  Here's what I did today:

First, the cheesecake.  I didn't have all the ingredients to make the recipe I usually use and with a sleeping baby, I couldn't very well go get what I needed.  So I improvised.  This is actually parts of two recipes-the crust is from Bakerella (I didn't have enough cream cheese to use her filling recipe) and the filling is from Moms Who Think.
For the crust:
2 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 tbsp. sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted


Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Combine graham crackers and sugar, then stir in butter til moistened.  Press firmly into bottom of 9 in. spring-form pan and 1 in. up the sides.  Bake for 10 minutes and let cool to room temperature.


For the filling:
2 8 oz. pkgs. cream cheese, softened
2/3 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla


Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Beat together ingredients until smooth.  Pour onto graham cracker crust.  Bake 25-35 minutes.  Cool on rack.


Next, the bracelet:

I was actually going to do a tutorial for this, but as I was reading through my blog roll before heading over to post, I saw that Kari over at U Create had posted one she found over at It's A Hodgepodge Life!  How cool!  I really like the way that Gay's turned out too-go check it out and learn how to make one for yourself!  They're super-easy and fast.  

What I did for mine:

I took two hair ties of different sizes and thicknesses, wrapped them in fabric (I double-wrapped each one, gluing the ends with hot glue so that the fabric didn't unravel over time), tied them together with some hemp and added a little beaded charm I made to match the blues in the fabrics I used.  

I'm really happy with how mine turned out and I hope that Sara is, too.

Hope you two have a great birthday!