A Crafty Year in Review

Project Life for the New Year

I have just ordered my 2012 Album from Shutterfly! (I'm assuming nothing spectacular will happen in the next 24 hours). I designed the cover using Crystal Wilkerson's Hodge Podge collection.

Here are a couple of my favorite layouts for the year:

I am so excited to get started for 2013.  This year I am using Project Life Sea Foam edition.  I already love it! Happy New Year!

Project Life

This year instead of daily photographs, (which was stressful and time consuming), I am doing a monthly 2-page layout, and then adding extra pages for those events in which I have lots of pictures.  This is my layout for June.

Applique Pillow

 This summer I made an applique pillow for each of the boys.  They each picked out their own fabric and applique design.

 I used Heat N Bond to adhere the applique, and then then stitched around the design on my sewing machine.  Tutorial to follow! (Maybe)

A Story About A Casino

My dear husband was in San Diego (a whole other story) for a conference on our anniversary this year, so he decided to surprise me with an overnight stay at a casino resort when he got back.  He woke me up on a Monday morning and told me we're going on a trip.  I had recently heard that this particular casino had a wonderful steak restaurant and was looking forward to trying it out.

We dropped the kids off at Grandma's, and made the 3 hour trip.  We stopped at Dick's burgers on our way, because we always have to stop at Dick's. It was 10:00 am and I was not yet hungry. (Foreshadowing)

We got to the casino and proceeded to lose $50 in the first 20 minutes.  The husband was not a happy camper.  We played for another hour or so and I mentioned that I was hungry. The husband screamed- "Well I'm not ready for a steak dinner yet! Why didn't you eat at Dick's? I offered to get you a salad or something somewhere else!" Apparently, he thought that I meant that I was ready for our sit down meal that we had been looking forward to all day, which I was not. (He was also in a very pissy mood from all the losing we had been doing.) I was just letting him know that I needed to find a sandwich or something to tide me over.  So I yelled "I didn't want to eat Dick's! I hate Dick's, and I wasn't hungry yet!" It is at this point that we decided we should part ways for a little while. 

I did a little wandering around, where I discovered the steak restaurant that we had been looking forward to eating at was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.  Hmmm. Today is Monday. I went to the food court and got a sandwich. I tried to call the husband to see where he was. No cell service.

So, 4 hours in, and we have lost a nice chunk of money, we had gotten into a fight, the steak restaurant was closed, and I couldn't find my husband. Yay.

I spent the next 20 minutes wandering around trying to find him. I finally do and tell him that we will not be eating at the restaurant we had been planning on. We continued playing slots, and actually winning.  (I was particularly fond of the "Zeus" machine. On Mr. Zeus, I won $60. I eventually lost it all, but I choose not to dwell on that.)

I started getting tired of losing all of my money, so we checked into our hotel room, where I stayed and watched t.v., while the husband continued gambling. He came to get me around 7:30, so we could go eat. He wasn't done gambling.  We decided we would go to the buffet.  But he wasn't done gambling.  I looked at the menu and told him what our choices were. But he wasn't done gambling.

I finally drag him away from the Star Wars machine and go to the buffet, where the cashier is counting her till.  He asks "Can we still eat?" she says, "You have 10 minutes before they pull the food." He looks at me, I shrug my shoulders, and we go for it.

I have never eaten so fast in my life.  We literally ran through the buffet, unloaded our plates on the table, and immediately went back to get more. I didn't even look at what was on my plate until I sat down to eat.  I ended up with an extra large cinnamon roll, mashed potatoes and gravy, clam chowder and some shrimp. Wha?

We scarfed our food down and were done in 15 minutes. I went to bed. He wasn't done gambling.

I've been published!!!!

Check out my quilt on page 74 of the newest edition of Simply Homemade Baby!

http://northridgepublishing.com/store/display/simply-handmade-baby-2012

UPDATE: Now that I have gotten my quilt back from the publisher I can share a picture.

Fortune Cookie Tutorial

I made these candy filled fortune cookies for my son's class for Valentine's Day. I got the idea here but wanted to use patterned fabric instead of felt. This is how I did it.

For this Project you will need: 1 6"X6" piece of fabric for the outside, 1 6"X6" piece of fabric for the inside, a piece of Heat N Bond, a 5" piece of wire and a 6" diameter bowl for tracing.

After tracing your bowl onto the Heat N Bond, iron it on the wrong side of your lining fabric and cut out.

Peel the backing paper off, and center the wire in the middle of the circle.

Iron your outside fabric to the lining circle, and cut it even with the lining.

Fold the circle as shown.

Fill with candies and a message, and fold to look like a fortune cookie.

Replacement Head

I have the hardest time getting a picture where all of the boys are smiling and not goofing off. (Ellis. When I say "the boys" I mean Ellis.) I got one good shot of Ellis being semi normal, but the proportions were wrong for printing an 8X10. I would have to cut the boys legs off and I wasn't really feeling the amputation vibe.

This picture worked better for cropping to 8X10, but Ellis was being a Dorkasaurus Rex and was looking down, so I didn't want to print them off and give them as gifts.

Sooooo, I cut his head off and replaced it with the first one. Thank you Photoshop Elements for saving the day!

Now that I look at the pictures next to each other, I think I made his head too big. Oh well.

My brother's quilt

The one Christmas gift that I got a head start on was my brother's quilt. I decided in October that I would make him one, and then informed my sisters that I had chosen him for our annual gift drawing. I used this pattern and made the twin size version, which uses 10X10 inch squares instead of charm squares.

I used a walking foot on my sewing machine to do straight line quilting. I was still working on the binding the day before I gave it to him. Yay for procrastination!

Scalloped Flannel Blanket Tutorial

For this blanket you will need:
2 yards of flannel (1 yard for each side of the blanket)
1 yard of batting
Matching thread
a bowl or cup to trace around
1 yard piece of butcher or wrapping paper
Fabric marker (one that will wash out in the laundry)


Step 1-

Make a pattern by cutting your butcher paper into a 34x34 inch square. Use your bowl or cup to make an even scalloped pattern around your square. The size of the bowl depends on your own taste. Mine was 6 inches in diameter. (I have seen similar tutorials where they just trace around the bowl directly on the fabric, but I like making a pattern first so that I know that all of the scallops are even.)

Step 2-

Sandwich your fabric and batting as in the picture above. The fabric should be right sides together and the batting should be on the wrong side of one of the pieces of flannel. Place the sandwich batting sided down.

Step 3-

Place your scalloped pattern on top of the fabric, pin, and trace with the fabric marker.

Step 4-

Remove the pattern, smooth out any wrinkles and pin all three layers together.

Step 5-

Sew along the marker line. Make sure to leave a gap to turn your blanket right side out.

Step 6-

Trim around the scallops. Clip the inside corners.

Step 7-

Turn right side out. Be careful not to rip your stitches near the opening.

Step 8-

Iron the edges of the blanket flat. Pin the opening closed.

Step 9-

Top stitch all the way around the blanket.

Step 10-

Hand stitch the edge of the opening.

Back to School Treats

I made these little cookie jars for my kids' teachers on the first day of school. (PJ says its called sucking up, I just think its being nice.)

First bake some sugar cookies in the shape of apples. Any recipe will work, I used one with lots of butter. The cookie cutter is from Wilton, which I bought years ago from Walmart

Next, make up some royal icing. I use this recipe here, which uses meringue powder. Make a thicker royal icing and outline the apple in red.

Add a little water to the red icing and flood the cookie.

Using icing a little thicker than flood consistency, make your stems in brown, and leaves in green.

To make the these tags, download the printable at the bottom of this post, and print out. I sized the tags to fit a Stampin Up! 1 3/8" round punch and then I used the scalloped punch to mat it in red.

Back to School Printable

Birthday Tags

I figured out how to share PDFs here on the blog.

I made these tags a long time ago for some cards I made on this post.

They can be used for gift tags by printing out on card stock, trim to size, punch a hole in the top, use a little ribbon and attach to a gift bag.

Birthday Flower Tags

In order to print, click the download button (the cloud with the down arrow) and then print.

Week 1, Day 2

Couch to 5K stats: 2.19 miles, Average running pace: 10 min. mile, Average walking pace: 17 min. mile. New additions to my playlist: Headstrong- Trapt, Barracuda- Heart, Kashmir- Led Zeppelin and Enter Sandman- Metallica. I know, right? Weirdest combo in the universe, but I didn't quit so it must work for me. I also have been watching Food Network as I run on the treadmill. So to sum it up, the keys to successfully running for me are: Watching people eat while listening to many decades worth of music.

I'm cooking up some back to school treats which I will post about next week. So fun!

Cookies, Cookies, Cookies, and Cake

I was in a sugar cookie making frenzy this summer. I kept finding these really cute cookie decorating blogs and tutorials on the internet and I had to try some out for myself. The key to making cute cookies is Royal Icing. You can't get the nice smooth finish if you use butter based frostings.


Angry Bird Cookies! I made these early and froze them for his party.


I found this adorable onesie cookie cutter for 65 cents and had to use it right away.


Lemon flavored sugar cookies.


Angry Bird Pig Cake for Ellis' 7th Birthday.