Car Seat Redo

These are the before photos. Yuck Yuck, and thats even after I washed it twice. This was a hand me down from Evelyn's mom. I have a car seat for Brez, but when I watch Evelyn she needed a seat in my car. I got tired of the stinky ugly one, and decided to do something about it.

This is the after! I must say I am very happy with how it came out. I was really suprised, I had never done 

piping. Thanks to some great tutorials I got through it though.

Now on to a baby one!

Family Weekend

This is where JD has been for the last few months.

H-troop 5-15th CAV

This is all the grads sitting at attention waiting for the ceremony to start. If you look close you can see JD's head.

This is JD's head.

What a handsome bunch!

This is the end when the men get up and march around the whole compound.

Here they are marching....

JD is really good at this:-)

So is Brez lol

She can do it just like daddy!

Happy family moments:-)

A handsome man.

             Brezlin was glued to him for the weekend. Such a great trip even though it made me miss him more!

Home Made Quick Mix Recipes

 I am usually pretty scatterbrained and frantic.  I love the idea of homemade everything but I lack the time to make everything from scratch. I needed to simplify life a bit, remove some steps, without sacrificing quality and taste!! You can have high quality, delicious tasting food with the ease and convenience of a box mix, and its a great way to save money, and still have the homemade feel.

Bisquick
I made a big batch of this one and gave half to my mother in law. You can use it just like the kind you buy from the store, and when stored in the refrigerator it last a long time.

Prep Time: 15 minutes


Total Time: 15 minutes Ingredients:

•8 cups flour

•1-1/4 cups nonfat dry milk powder

•1/4 cup baking powder

•1 Tbsp. salt

•2 cups solid vegetable shortening

Preparation:

In a large bowl, combine flour, milk, baking powder, and salt. With a pastry blender or two knives, cut in shortening until the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal and the shortening is evenly distributed. Store in tightly closed covered container in a dark, cool place. Use in place of 'Bisquick' in any recipe.

Brownie Mix
This one I have not made but will make today. I have looked up tons of recipes and this one seems the best.

4 cups sifted flour

4 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 cup baking cocoa

1 1/2 cups nonfat dry milk

1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons salt


Sift together all of the above ingredients three times. Store in an airtight container.

To use, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine 1 3/4 cups Brownie Mix, 1/4 cup warm water, 1/4 cup vegetable oil, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1 egg. Beat with electric mixer for 1 minute at medium speed. Stir in 1/4 cup chopped nuts, if desired. Pour into a greased 9-inch square baking pan. Bake for 20 minutes, or until brownies test done. Cool in pan on rack. Cut into 3-inch squares or pie-shaped wedges.

Still looking for some cake mix recipes that look good. If anyone has a good recipe for dry cake mixes send me them.

Rya

PDF patterns how I love thee....Let me count the ways

First, you can print the pattern pieces out as your child grows in sizes!!

I have some really cute Pink Fig patterns that go from size 6m to 5T. Now these patterns cost like $12-$20 bucks each plus shipping. My daughter hits a growth spurt every summer, and I would hate to buy the same pattern every year! So I spend a lot of time tracing out the different sizes before I even use the pattern.  This is NO FUN, and I have some really cool patterns that I have not even opened because I am dreading the chore of tracing the sizes out. With PDF patterns I can just save the pattern pieces to a file and when My daughter hits a new size I can just re-print the pattern.

Second is price!

I find PDF patterns on ETSY for as cheap as $3.50, and even if I do spend $12-$15 on a pattern there is no shipping charges and it's good for years so its worth the money

Third, even if your new to sewing you can use one of these patterns easily.

There are lots of pictures in PDF patterns, and the instructions are very detailed. So unlike regular patterns you wont be stuck reading between the lines. And if your like me and you like to jump in before reading the instructions its easy enough to just fallow the pictures.



Happy New Year!!

This will be a busy year full of sewing! My New year resolution this year is to finish one project every day. I will start as soon as JD ships off on the 17th, Starting before then is impossible cause we have so much to do before he goes for boot camp. If I do one project a day I just might be ready for when the new baby comes in August.
Rya

One more Christmas present made

This year cash is tight for everyone, and our extended family decided not to do gifts for each other and rent a beach house instead.  I decided to cheat and make presents for everyone. More money to spoil  with the kids with anyway.This got me in the spirit, and made me want to make stuff for everyone on my Christmas list this year. One of my oldest friends is a photographer. So of course I was gonna make her a camera strap cover. Duh right?

I know there are TONs of tutorials out there on how to make these covers, and mine is not really different from those except for its mine. :-)

Here is the basic how to:

Supply list

Cotton Fabric 1/4 a yard of each color

Thread Fusible  interfacing

Rotary Cutter/Scissors
Iron

First I cut out all my rectangles 4in by 2.5in.

 I serged the sides before I sewed the pieces together.

Then I trimmed up the sides making the strip 27in long by 3in wide.

Then I cut a strip the same length and width for the back.

Then I ironed the interfacing on.

Sewed and serged the two strips together, also finished the ends. Then I folded the ends over an inch and made two rows of stitches.

Closed it up and turned it right side out.

All Done! The best part is I made it.:-) Hope she likes it. Merry Christmas Michelle

Lookie at the new patterns I bought

With a list of Christmas projects a mile long I had to stop by Etsy and look at patterns. I found these (in my opinion) must haves. On sale too!

An-A-Is-Just-Three-Sticks-Skirt-pattern

Rings-Of-Ruffles-Skirt-Pattern

Ring-Of-Ruffles-Pants-Pattern

Now to find time to make them!!

New Craft Space!!

OK so this is not the ideal craft room but I am just happy to have a little corner of my own. I previously used a shelf to store my stuff, and lugged stuff back and forth to and from the kitchen table when I used it. That was awful because it meant no family dinner when I was working on a project. It was way to much trouble to load up and then unload after. So I am very grateful to my husband for doing this for me.

YAY!

Stocking Stuffers

So I can't put off my Christmas list any longer. I am a total procrastinator. Anyway This is one of many little gifts I will make for family and friends this Christmas.

First off I found the template for these little baby dipes on www.skiptomylou.org.

I changed it up a bit by making it a little more ajustable.

Supplies list

Inner and outer fabric

pdf template

Velcro

Matching Thread

Sewing Machine

Straight Pins

Scissors

Iron

          First I picked out some cute fabric. Mine was flannel for outer fabric, and fleece for inner fabric.

                                Then I downloaded my template here and cut out all my pieces.

 Then I cut out my fabric. :-)

From here on i just pinned the two pieces of fabric right sides together and stitched (1/4" seam allowance) almost all the way around,  leaving about a 2" opening. Then I turned my diaper right side out through the 2" opening and top stitched all the way around. Here is my finished product.

I made six total. Great stocking stuffer for a baby doll love! r:-)

I also made two bibs but Brez woke up and I had to stuff them away before I could take a pic.

Homemade Christmas ornaments

Today Brezlin and I made salt dough Christmas ornaments. Brezlin had so much fun. Its easy to find a free recipe online to make these. Here is the basic recipe:
1cup salt
1 cup water
2 cups flour
Just mix it all up, then roll dough out, and then cut with cookie cutters in any shape you want.

Project idea

About a week ago I found this blog the magic onions.I spent all night looking through that blog filling my head with ideas. This was one I thought would be perfect to do now. You can buy Indian corn anywhere in Woodburn. I let Brezlin play with the corn while I worked. She was very interested and asked a ton of questions. The best part of the project was that the next morning when I woke up, the left over corn had begun to sprout. Brezlin and I decided to plant a few pieces and see what happens. I love watching her learn new things.