Thursday, December 22, 2011

Christmas Stockings

Just wanted to show these photos of my latest project....
Homemade Christmas Stockings




When I was looking online for a pattern, I found these stockings for sale (no pattern) and I fell in love.  I love the different faces, the large scale of the characters.  After I found these, I couldn't find anything that even compared.  These are just so our style.  And with that, I knew I was making up my own pattern for them all.

I just love how they turned out!
Usually when I make something myself, I hate the finished product. I notice only the mistakes.
But not these.
I am really happy with how they turned out.
When the husband opened them, he couldn't even tell they were homemade.
Now I consider that a successful sewing project!


And now I just need to finish embroidering our names on each of our stockings.
Maybe if I start now I will finish in time for Christmas next year!

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Eggplant

I have been dying to try this Eggplant Involtini recipe I came across on Pinterest.  Eggplant is a new taste I'm loving these days.  Why I didn't know about eggplant before, I have no idea.
Anyway, we tried the dish tonight, and it was a.ma.zing.  Seriously, you gotta try the recipe out.


And on the eggplant, there was a recipe for Easy Eggplant Pizzas.  It will officially be my next eggplant adventure.  Basically, just slice the eggplant into rounds, top it like you would normal mini pizzas, cook it at 425 for 12-15 minutes, and enjoy!

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Cake Sprinkles

It has been soooo long since I've posted.  I'm still around - just busy.  Anyway, I just quickly wanted to post this little secret of mine for how to decorate a cake.

1. Print off your image, etc. that you want to use.  I made this for my son's first birthday cake, so all I needed was a number 1.  Tape to cardboard and using an exacto knife, cut around the image - cutting the cardboard at the same time.


2. After frosting your cake, lay the stencil on top of your cake.  Shake your sprinkles over the stencil and pick up the stencil when done.  I also put sprinkles all over the cake, but you don't have to do that.


Here's another example.  I made this cake for Halloween.  Please note this image is not my exact cake, this is from the original source.


Friday, September 30, 2011

Fabulously Frugal Fall Fashion: Floral Challenge

Yay for another frugal fall fashion challenge from Aqua Seventy Six.  I love this!

This week the challenge was using florals. 
 Here are the original inspirations:


And here is what I came up with.
Using entirely stuff from my closet.
Yay for free!


Cost Breakdown:
Boots $0
Jeans $0 (totally a pair of capris I unrolled)
Floral Shirt $0
Belt $0

Total Cost: $0.00  FREE!



AquaSeventy6
 
UPDATE:  I was totally featured for the challenge.  Woo hoo!!  Check it out here.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Frugal Fall Fashion

While perusing around on blogland today, I found the coolest challenge on Aqua Seventy Six.  I immediately loved it and wanted to play along.  Check out their Fabulously Frugal Fall Fashion Friday post.  Wow, that's a mouthful!!

Okay, I know I'm behind on starting on their challenges, but I just wanted to play along for their first challenge, even though that week is long past.

Inspiration:

I love that dress on the left.  But I don't own a white dress.  Darn.  But then I remembered I own a white skirt... hmmmm.... 

Here's the finished product:

What do you think?
I'm still in a little bit of denial that Fall is here, hence the no boots :)

Cost Breakdown:
Dress $0 (yep, it really is a skirt)
Cardigan $0
Leggings $0 (shhh...they're my old maternity ones)
Shoes $0

Total Cost: $0.00.  FREE!!

Friday, September 16, 2011

A Finished Project Finally

I'm infamous for starting projects and never finishing them.  I have good intentions, but I just get side-tracked when something new comes along and I seem to forget about the other cool thing that I was working on.  Anyway, I've recently decided I have toooooooo many unfinished projects around here.  I'm really trying to just plug away and finish stuff now before I start on anything else new.

And cue the most recently finished project...


Do you love it? 

And here's the original where this idea came from:


I can't remember how much the original canvas was at the store, but I do know it was way too much.  And I knew I could make something similar.  With a quote we like better.  We don't really like to focus on losing around this house...

Total spent on this project: $3.00.  I bought a canvas at the DI for $3 and had all the paint supplies already.  I just printed the words from MS Word and a baseball from google images, traced, and painted.  How easy is that?

And let's have one more look:


This will be perfect in our son's baseball-themed bedroom!

Quilt Inspirations

The State Fair came to town - and I loved walking around the quilts on display.  They are beautiful, and people are so talented and creative.  Check out these quilts that are going on my "Some Day" list...

Love the vibrant colors and how the simple background makes them stand out

Some day if I have a girl

LOVE how the animals poof out! And the border is so fun!

Yep, I need a girl!

Monopoly Quilt!!!

MY FAVORITE!!  So creative and how fun would this be for a boy?  I can't even imagine how hard this would be...

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Crochet Vest

I don't have any step-by-step photos, but it was really easy.

Here is the shirt I started with:


After cutting the shirt along the crochet piece to make arm holes for the vest, I sliced open the back of the shirt (which is now the front of the vest) and attached the fabric from the sleeves, just to make the vest a little more drapey.  Does that make sense?  Well, anyway, here's the final product:


Sorry, no photo of the front of the vest.  Maybe one day I'll add that.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Friday, August 12, 2011

Homemade Baby Food

And the real reason for the lack of crafting posts.... I've been making my own baby food.  Best. Idea. Ever.  My son loves the food.  I feel better about what he's eating.  And I love that is so much cheaper than buying the pre-packaged baby food at the store.  $1 for one Gerber container vs. $1 for a bag of carrots that makes a week's worth of baby food.  Easy decision.

I won't give you the full tutorial on how to cook and make your own baby food, because there are LOTS of websites out there that show you that.  But here are my top two favorite baby food websites:

Momtastic
Homemade Baby Food Recipes

But I will show you how I freeze and what I use regularly to thaw the frozen food.

When I am finished pureeing the cooked food, I freeze in ice cube trays, and when they're frozen in the trays, I pop out and put in a plastic freezer bag, label the food and date, and stick in the freezer.

Then, each night, I pull out a few cubes for the next day, stick them in the plastic Gerber baby food containers and put in the fridge overnight.

By the next day, the cubes are thawed and ready for my little baby to eat.

So easy!  I sometimes make a big batch of baby food at once, or some nights I boil just a couple carrots or just an apple, while I'm making dinner anyway, so it's no big deal.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Flower Bows

We had some family in town recently, so all the girls got together to make some hair bows.  So fun!  I just wish that I had a little girl to use the bows more than I will in my own hair :)

Puffy bows.  The black has a layer of polka dot material, a layer of black lace, and then a cute matching button in the middle.  The pink is satin and tulle mixed together in both layers.

Yo-yo flowers.  By far the easiest to make. Love. 

Pinwheel flowers.  This is from a 4" square.

More pinwheels.  These are from 2" squares.  Wouldn't they be super cute for a toddler girl with pigtails?

And a belt bow headband.  Fun.  It's just an old belt that is cut and glued together, with a hair elastic attaching the two ends together to keep in your hair.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Ruffle Henley

Sorry for the lack of posts lately!  Lest you think that I have given up on crafting, I better start posting all my recent projects!  Over the next few days I'll be sure to post what I've been working on.

For today's project, I decided to make a ruffle henley.  I saw these henleys in the Old Navy ad this week and fell in love.  Too bad though that recently I have bought plenty of clothes,
and I just couldn't justify the purchase.

Lucky for me, I had an extra shirt around the house that I could make my own ruffle henley!  Yay!

Oh my gosh, this was the simplest shirt to make ever.  Start to finish was all completed while my son was down for his nap.  Now that's a great project!  Here is what I did:

Step 1: Cut the sleeves off to the desired length

Step 2: From the sleeve portion, cut open the seam, and cut off the finished edge

Step 3: Sew the finished edge from the sleeve onto the front of the shirt. I sewed so that I could fold the added piece over so that there was a nice finished edge to the henley opening.  And then I cut along the shirt right where the seam is now.

Step 4: Cut strips from sleeve portion, make ruffle, and sew onto shirt.  Step 5: Fold over the edge and sew the buttons on to the strip.

This was taken before the buttons were sewn on, but you get the idea.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

4th of July Cake Pops

This is a story about a failure.
What was originally supposed to be these beautiful 4th of July Cupcake in a Jar gifts for my VT girls...

Aren't they beautiful?
Mine did not turn out in any way like that.  My cake colors weren't as vibrant.  The cookie cutter didn't cut as neat and clean as I imagined it would.  The cakes were A LOT more difficult to get in a jar and have them look cute afterward.  The layers of frosting didn't turn out as pretty either.  Wow.  Cupcakes in a jar are apparantly not destined to be my specialty. 

But now I had blue, white, and red (ok..pinkish) cakes...what do I do with them?  Enter this lovely idea I remembered seeing online...


CAKE POPS!
When the directions include "tear apart your cake you just baked", I knew I could make these with the mess that was my cupcake in a jar attempt.

And here's my finished product:

They were so easy to make! 
I totally want to make some more.  Like all of these pretty things:

Adorable!
The baseball cake pops would be a huge hit around here.
But I love them all.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Headboard Accent Wall

Our latest home makeover project: A Headboard Accent Wall.  First, take a look at our inspiration photos:



Don't you love these walls?  When I saw them online I totally fell in love!  You can see the full post HERE.  We also used Decor Chick's Tutorial for this project as well. We used Decor Chick because that was the perfect tutorial to teach us all the steps.  We decided we didn't want an all-white wall, so we first painted our wall a beautiful green.  We were also going to go with a different pattern then she used, but in the end our vision looked too busy, and so we went with exactly how she did her wall.  And I love it!

Here is our boring before wall:

And here is the "After" wall that we are so in love with:


Our bedroom is starting to come together!  We're hitting up every yard sale we drive by on the lookout for some nice nightstands.  And next project on our to do list is a headboard.  We look all over, but just can't seem to find one that we love, so assuming that is still the case, we'll start making one soon.  I was also thinking of making a bedspread, but now I love our current comforter a lot more with the change in the wall.