HTV and more cameo love

Historically I've been the freezer paper queen when it came to making shirts. But after the smashing failure of my beehive shirt, I figured that there had to be a better way. I started looking into vinyl and thought that vinyl might make a better stencil and then I realized that duh, I can just get heat transfer vinyl and then I wouldn't have to deal with paint at all! I got white, black and 2 glitter vinyls in blue and copper. I'm not a glitter person but I figured that it would be good for making stuff for the cousins. 

Anyway, here is my trial run. We call baby E the billy goat baby because he tries to eat anything that he can get his mouth on. He specifically likes to suck on our jeans which is pretty gross. At thanksgiving the cousins were showing off their turkey shirts and they were pretty surprised and confused when I unzipped the babies jacket and he had a goat on his shirt. It was pretty funny. The image is fairly detailed and worked out great! It's been through the wash half a dozen times and still has held up. Success! 

Diaper bag

I knew it would happen, but I fought it for a long time. Having kids means becoming a pack mule and hauling around your entire house in a bag. I was using a Vera Bradley bag but the handles are too short for me so it never stayed on my shoulder. Then I started using a reusable fabric shopping bag that I got in Japan but it was just one giant bag where it was impossible to find anything.  Eventually I got to the point where I was carrying my wallet (wristlet actually), had a binky in my front pocket and a burper tucked into the band of my pants, phone and car keys in the back pockets. Pretty ridiculous.

For my birthday my sister gave me some fabric that I've been lusting over. I put them in my craft room and would just lovingly gaze at them. I wanted to just cherish and pet the fabric until the end of time but that was just silly so I decided to make myself a "diaper" bag. The blue fabric is from Joanns and it's a heavier almost canvas and the lining is a mustard yellow that I got from Hobby Lobby.
I used the below pattern. Overall I'm pretty happy with the bag with the exception that the back pocket is too big and I'm going to put a snap on the top so it doesn't flop open all the time and you sew the handles directly to the inside of the bag which seems a little tacky after going through all of the effort of making a lining and everything. I also extended the straps by maybe 2-3" and they're a tad too thick, it makes it easier to turn them inside when making the bag but overall the thick bands feel a little "homemade" in my mind. The bag is large and in charge and organized.
http://www.make-baby-stuff.com/free-diaper-bag-pattern.html

Front

Back

The flower fabric is below. It's a medium weight, between a quilting cotton and a canvas. If you love it, buy it, it's discontinued. 

http://www.hawthornethreads.com/fabric/designer/joel_dewberry/notting_hill_sateen/primrose_in_midnight

The pinterest trap

Before attempting to make cupcakes for a friend (see below), I had pinned a recipe for lemon pull apart bread that looked AMAZING. I decided to give it a go. First I nearly left out the eggs which means that I added them later in the game and while it wasn't a deal killer, it was pretty annoying. Secondly, I didn't roll out the dough thin enough. I have a habit of going too thin and making life difficult for myself so I went the opposite direction. I feared that the pieces were too thick and would be dry so I decided not to give it to the friend, I have a reputation to protect after all. I "sampled" the loaf and it really wasn't bad. In fact I had to toss it in order to keep myself from "sampling" the entire thing. It is quite pretty and doesn't taste bad but I just don't think it's worth all the effort.
http://www.barbarabakes.com/2012/10/lemon-pull-apart-bread-a-giveaway/

It was the husbands birthday this week. His favorite thing is breakfast, french toast specifically. There is a french bakery downtown that makes the most amazing cinnamon bread but I didn't want to bother with it since it was around Halloween and all so I decided that I would bake some myself. Bread is a huge pain in the butt. Mixing it is nothing but I started at 6:15pm and didn't pull the loaf out of the oven until 9:30pm and that was with a cheat in the rising process! It turned out well, it was beautiful and tasty but didn't touch the bread from the bakery. Wahhh wahhhh. If you're in the mood to spend the day watching bread rise, this might be a good recipe for you.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/08/homemade-cinnamon-bread/

Imperfection

I would hate to present the image that everything I do turns out well so I'm proud to share some of my recent failures. This is a shirt I thought of; get it....Utah..beehive..all things bee. I had intended to put the name of our furniture blog on it but it turned out so crappy that I don't want to associate the two. The paint bled under the freezer paper and getting a bright color on top of a dark color was also a poor decision. I was able to touch it up that it's not an outright embarrassment but yeah, a few lessons learned on this one. 

While visiting a friend he presented a box of baby clothes to go through. It was odd because he has no kids but once I got to it, I noticed that it was all 80's clothing. Sweeeet! As a form of payment I offered to make him cupcakes. Wanting to try something new and knowing that he loves coffee, I fiddled with my chocolate cake recipe and replace the water with espresso. Obviously something went wrong. I was using a new setting on the oven, I overfilled the cups and I think that the coffee messed up the chemistry of the batter. As if it's not annoying enough to toss out 2 dozen cupcakes but I also had to scrape the overflow off the cupcake tins. Today I made a recipe specifically for coffee cupcakes and they turned out lovely.