We adore gadgets in my house. My husband always gets me the best gifts. One year I got a minidisc player. Another year I got a Sony Clie and of course last year I got a Canon T1i.

We are getting Little peanut started early with the obsession. Check it out…

Christmas has long been over but I finally got around to snapping some pictures of my 11th hour crafting on Christmas Eve Eve (we open gifts on Christmas Eve after Church and a late late dinner. Some years you could say we open gifts early Christmas morning… say at 1am!)

So there I was trying to think of some stocking stuffers for Little Peanut when I remembered this:

We were at the Doctors office and had an antsy pants on our hands. Luckily there was a notepad and pen on the desk to keep her occupied. I remember thinking at the time, “It would be nice to have some kind of crayon roll for these moments.”

So I pulled out the sewing tools and fabrics, got to work and came up with my “On-the-go Artist” pack.

It holds 5 crayons and a small notepad (that you can find in the dollar section at Target).

It closes with a button and elastic loop.

I designed it so you can leave the notebook tucked in while coloring. There’s a 2 inch slot that you put the back flap into. It’s not quite a pocket but could easily be turned into one by sewing one side down. (Which I would do next time to tuck in some stickers!) Try as I may I couldn’t get Little Peanut to stand still long enough to snap a shot of it in action.

It fits great into my purse and is even useful for my own notes when I’m in a bind! (Shhh don’t tell the kiddo!)

It’s based off of this Crayon Roll tutorial from Prudent Baby.

The Little Peanut loves to cook. Especially to make soup for her daddy. We got her cooking pots and pans for Christmas and I figured she needed her own kitchen to go along with it.

Living in a condo leaves little room for big toy items such as a real kitchen (which I would LOVE to get if money and space were no issue!) I went for second best: Making one!

She's saying, "Let me cook in peace mom!"

The top has 4 stove-tops along with 4 knobs. There is also a oven panel with faux buttons and the time.

One side has a pocket for holding additional kitchen tools (You can see it in the very first pic). The opposite of that (in the picture below) has slots to hang spoons, spatulas and a cloth. For the oven I made the “window” out of felt because I have grand plans of cutting out felt food shapes so she can “stick” them on and pretend to cook. It’s been three months and I still have no felt food cutout….. someday!!

This was inspired by one made from Froken Skicklig’s blog. She’s taken down her blog but you can see a picture of her version on the tutorials page.

I used an ottoman as the base and opted to put the knobs on top since the height was right for the Little Peanut. I love that we can easily take off the cover and throw it in a drawer when we have guests.

She loves to put in play food and use the salt/pepper shakers from her cooking set (Educo Gourmet Chef Cookware) to season. A note about the set: the pot and pan were a bit smaller then I thought they would be.

It took me a whole day of intense work (I’m not the fastest sewer!) and was so proud to show it off to the hubby when he came home from work that day. It bummed me out to have to put it into “hiding” until Christmas!

These little red velvet cake balls are oh so yummy. If you haven’t heard of Bakerella then you’re missing out! She makes the most darling little cake pops for all occasions.

Since making my little Bakerella discovery I’ve been wanting to make the cake balls but never found the time- until last weekend. All the Christmas crafts were finished and I was feeling restless!

We actually dug into the cake after it finished baking because it looked so yummy. I used a Duncan Hines red velvet cake mix. We loved the texture and how un-sweet and moist it was.

A friend who had made them before gave me a great tip about throwing the balls in the freezer (instead of fridge) so that they would hold up to the chocolate dipping. It worked great and I had no problems.

I do wonder though how Bakerella gets her chocolate so smooth… mine had a lot of bumps and valleys as you can see in the picture but my husband said it gives them a homemade feel (don’t want some random store getting credit for my hard work!). I wrapped them up in little plastic baggies with twist ties to give to the grandma’s and got to thinking that these would make some lovely hostess and holiday gifts… that is if I can keep the hubby away from them!

Up next will be some cake pops or little cupcake pops. They look so darling!

What are you baking?!