Nursery basics and some baking

We had family out for the blessing and since my mom was driving, I offered to return her surger. Borrowing it has been fantastic but made Michael think that I need one of my own (not necessarily a bad thing). He couldn't keep a secret so he gave a surger for Christmas. In October. I was able to whip out the babies Halloween costume (to come) and a crib cover. The baby has been teething on the edge of his crib and while I don't care about the damage, the idea of him essentially eating paint was less than ideal so I made a quick cover out of flannel. I FINALLY made some changing pad covers, previously we were using disposable sheets and it was just silly. I also cut out the alphabet with my cameo and made a garland to decorate the nursery. I'll have to sneak a picture tomorrow.

My birthday was the weekend before the baby blessing so we celebrated with all the family in town. Of course I wouldn't let anyone BUY me a cake so I made some boston creme cupcakes (yellow cake, center cut out and filled with vanilla bean pastry creme and topped with chocolate). I found them to be very tasty. For the baby blessing I made chocolate oatmeal bars, apple cinnamon rolls and gluten free chocolate brownies. 

First, the apple cinnamon rolls are divine. We had tons of apples from our backyard but they are only really good for baking so I was searching for recipes. I haven't been terribly successful with cinnamon rolls in the past but I followed the recipe near exact (for the filling I just cooked the apples a little in some sugar and butter and then did the usual butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and apples for the filling). The caramel icing is essential, and this coming from someone that doesn't usually care for icing. I made a batch for neighbors and they were so good that I made another batch for the party.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2013/12/caramel-apple-sweet-rolls/

Second, when most people think of gluten free baking, usually the idea of fancy flours and ingredients come to mind but this recipe for gluten free chocolate cake/brownies is seriously the easiest thing on the face of the earth. There is minimal room for messing it up and it's one bowl (for me anyway. I melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave and then add the eggs and dry ingredients). For the ganache I just melted some chocolate chips and cream together, super super simple. This is a tiny cake I made for a friend who is gluten free. It's so cute. 

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Flourless-Chocolate-Cake-14478

cork letters

Ok, so this one is really old. I was going through the picture folder of my crafts and saw this. I'm really proud of how they turned out so I thought I'd share. I have some friends from high school that got married and I couldn't make it back out for the wedding so I wanted to make it up to them. I think I asked people to collect their wine corks for me but it ended up being like 1/8th of what I needed so I ended up buying some on ebay. I got the letters at a craft store and painted them white. And then I hot glued the corks on. It was A LOT of hot glue. I ran into the problem of the sides and curves and eventually learned how to slice through a cork with an xacto knife, a skill that I am not too excited to ever use again. Turns out that it takes a lot of corks to fill in 6 letters but the result was worth it, in my opinion. I don't know if the pictures capture it but some of the corks had UNITY down the side of them and that's where my love of the word came from. It just seems so tough.

More completed projects

I made this shirt earlier this week. With a v neck shirt I wasn't sure where to place the whale so I went for the side. When viewing the picture I took I realized that I put a whale on my muffin top, how appropriate and funny. I traced the whale image in my cameo software and the geometric print was downloaded offline. I layered the two pieces of freezer paper and I think that is why there was so much bleeding. Lesson learned, I'm sure I could have easily layered the two images in the software. I'm thinking about adding a 2nd whale but sometimes simplicity is best.

I have 2 smaller totes of outgrown clothes and the collection started because of this sweater. I'm not sure why he bought it but the husband wanted to get rid of the sweater because it was too big. I had been reading craft blogs and saw posts on making pillows out of old sweaters so I stashed it away. While unpacking after the move (many many years later) I came across the totes and the sweater. Saying that the sweater was too big was an understatement. I think it was XXXL. Either way, I knew it belonged in the nursery so I hacked it up, threw on a side zipper and made a quick pillow out of muslin and stuffing.

We've been quilling for a few years. It was an inexpensive hobby and something to fill our time. I wanted to make something for the nursery and after viewing a few quilling samples online, I wanted to make it more intricate than anything else I've made before. Below is the result. It's like a weird sample of every quilling shape possible. I don't love it but it will do. I reviewed pictures of quilled gifts I've made and well, I think I've improved. If you were so *ahem* lucky enough to receive one of these and actually display it, please let me know so I can have the chance at a do over.

Reviving the beehive

Hello!
Over 4 years of hibernation and man, do things change. Although I have started multiple blogs during this time; I like the name of this one the most, so, here I am. Since I've had my dedicated craft room situated, I've been cranking out projects left and right. And I want to brag. Facebook didn't seem like the best venue so back to blogger I go. Honestly, the other half is anti google these days and might convert it to tumblr but until then, I'll keep it simple and go with the established route.

For my birthday (3 days ago) I got a cameo silhouette from the husband. Truth be told, I was giddy. I LOVE it. There are a few die cut machines out there but I like the cameo because it doesn't require me to purchase cartridges and it cuts fabric. IT CUTS FABRIC!
In the past I've made onesies and tshirts for friends and family and with the cameo it SIGNIFICANTLY cuts the time. I used to find the image online, size in photoshop, print, cut, trace onto fabric or freezer paper and cut again. Recently I skipped a step by buying tracing paper, whew, big spender right? Now with the cameo, if I don't already have the file I load the image into their software, use their tracing feature and send it off to be cut.
For instance, I made this in about half an hour. I've been keeping an eye out for something to put in the hall bathroom and last night I thought of this. I traced the platypus image from an online source and just cut and layer. I would never attempt to make something this intricate by hand and it was so easy with the cameo.

Ok, enough of my cameo gushing. Little E is getting blessed this weekend and since he doesn't need to wear white, I scoured the internet for cute outfits. If he was a girl, it would have taken me 15 minutes but cute (and somewhat affordable) formal boy outfits are surprisingly hard to come by. I found the pants and hat first at Janie and Jack. They also had a beautiful vest but it was over $30 and I couldn't bring myself to spend that much money on a simple vest that surely I could make myself. At the fabric store I found something that was good enough but price was covered and really, I wasn't paying attention until I had a half yard cut and it was like $37 a yard! Good thing I had my trusty coupon in tow. I started drafting a pattern, cut it out of muslin and tried it on Little E. Naturally, it was way to small. Guys, I edited and sewed over 6 little muslin vests, no exaggeration. Then I did what the husband referred to as "throwing good money after bad" by buying a pattern at the store. Except I didn't notice the size and the smallest was 3T. I tried scaling it down myself but after yet another muslin vest, it still looked terrible. So I finally did what I should have done in the first place, use a free pattern/tutorial that I found online. Made ANOTHER little muslin vest and it worked! Finally! Between the cost of the fabric and the pattern that I didn't even use, I maybe saved $10 and considering how much trouble it was, it would have been $10 well spent. But, nonetheless, here is his adorable little outfit.