Easy and delicious!
Get the ingredients to the Nestle Tolle House Chocolate Chip cookies, decrease the butter by two tablespoons and get a pound of bacon as crispy as you can! Let the bacon cool, crumble and add to the dough when you add the chocolate chips. Sweet and salty! Mmmm!
And just for fun here are two pics I took while playing with my tiny toys and my husband Vinnie’s new camera. No Photoshop involved. For now.
Completed in 9 days which I can’t believe but I do know that I can really focus on something when I put my mind to it!
This was all made from batik fabrics which my sweet little Singer didn’t especially like, all the leftover wax made things a little gummy at times. Of course, most people wash their fabrics before but I like the “heirloom” look that you get from not pre-washing your fabrics.
The blocks were made in a pattern called “Aircastle” which I got from a new iPhone app called, “Block Tool” made by C&T Publishing. This is the BEST app for making blocks as it’s totally clear and really visual.
I did a stitch in the ditch around the “air castle” pattern and the did stippling (free motion machine quilting over the whole thing). The stippling is what gives it the old crinkly look.
Here is the back, I loved this fabric the moment I saw it. It looks like aged copper.
Comments always welcome, now I’m off to bake some bacon & chocolate chip cookies!
If you could take a minute to come on over, sign the petition and then spread the word, I sure would appreciate it! Thanks!
One of my good friends Laura just had her 30th birthday and her husband threw her a surprise party. She’s great at appreciating handmade items and I wanted to make something for her. She also has an adorable two year old daughter who needs some fun presents from me!
Because I’m active in a lot of online communities, I noticed that a lot of people have been making this ridiculously cute and easy purse called the Buttercup Bag. (follow the link to get the pattern for yourself from it’s designer “Made by Rae”).
This is an amazing and versatile pattern as you really can customize it however you see fit. I decided to make Laura and her daughter matching Buttercup bags.
For Laura’s I used the regular sized pattern, for her daughter’s I reduced the pattern by 85%. Laura tells me that they have “matching purse day” which is a great compliment and thrills me.
I used a heavy cotton from IKEA for the out part of the purse, here’s a closeup of that.
This is one of my favorite IKEA prints, so pretty without being overly “cutesy”.
The Buttercup Bag is getting a good internet following, make sure to check out the Flickr group for inspiration!
The Before:
And the After:
What do you think?
Well, first of all I’m a better crafter than blogger. I think we all know that now and that’s a dig at my blogging skills not a compliment to my crafting skills.
As of late, I have been obsessed with super cute crafting supplies from Japan. Thanks to the internet these have become available and I have been buying it up! A few months ago, I came across one of my now favorite sites. Superbuzzy. Superbuzzy specializes in imported craft supplies and every experience I’ve had with the store has been amazing; fast shipping, personal notes and even candy thrown in!
I purchased what is known to quilters as a “charm pack” which is a variety of fabrics, cut into 5 inch squares. Yardage wise this is expensive but the variety of fabrics that you get is amazing. Each of Superbuzzy’s charm packs had a total of 30 squares but the more common charm packs (made by Moda) have 40.
Early August I was looking at the squares and just started sewing them together. Then I would stack them, cut a weird angle and sew them back together creating a block filled with fabrics at all different angles.
Even if you hold the quilt in front of you, most people think that the blocks are printed this way. Not so! The other neat thing to note here is that every single fabric was a floral print. Not so “old lady”, eh?
When it was time for sashing (the green fabric around the blocks) I went with a vibrant green with tiny leaves, abstractly representing the leaves and stems of flowers.
Now to get super “mother earth goddess” on you, I chose a blue water droplet print to represent the rain that waters the flowers.
Are you rolling your eyes? I’m totally rolling my eyes and I’m the one who is writing this!
Here is the quilt in it’s glory.
(click the picture to be taken to a HUGE version if you’d like to see details!)
I’m very, very proud of this quilt. This is the first time in a very long time where I’ve trusted my creative instincts and really made an effort on not second guessing myself so much. The results paid off and I’m taking this as a valuable lesson. This quilt has become sentimental to me, I see it as turning point in my abilities and a marker in the journey of creativity.
OK to get even more disgustingly mushy, while making this I really thought a lot about the people in my life and how their love has nurtured me in ways that I didn’t think possible. I think this quilt might be a physical manifestation of the love I’ve received.
And this is where I’ll be ending the Lifetime movie segment of this post.
There are two blogs that I really, really used as resources that I wanted to point out.
1. Oh, Fransson! was my major resource and inspiration. Everything that you will need information wise is here. The probability of me writing her a craft love letter in the future is high.
2. Hello, My Name is Heather is where I learned how to bind my quilt. She provides a great tutorial!
Now that I have my first machine embroidered quilt under my belt, I’m ready to buy up the fabric stores and lock myself in my craft room!
I am so blessed to have a really tight knit circle of friends that are really and truly “there” for me when I need them. When I got married a few years back they all went out of their way to make my wedding shower and wedding day so special, so of course I wanted to reciprocate when it was their turn.
And wouldn’t you know that 2 of my 3 bridesmaids decided to have special occasions at about the same time! ARGH! Laura was getting married in May and Kristin was due with her first baby in mid-summer but she lives out of town and we needed to factor in some “safe” travel time! No one needs to give birth on a plane!
May was shower month, it wasn’t actually too horrible just tons of list making and thinking and planning. I’m also so lucky to have a Mom who *loves* hosting things like this so she really lent a huge hand.
I had the perfect shower favor in mind for both that I got from the Soap Queen blog (excellent, excellent blog!) but I altered it a little bit. Her recipe is for bath bombs (bombs fizz in the water) and I changed mine to solid bubble bath (crumble under running water for bubbles!). I didn’t go with the bath bombs because we’re in St. Louis which can really be known for it’s humidity and a batch of 50 ruined favors would make me go ape shit crazy. Seriously.
So, here is the batch I made for Laura’s wedding shower:
Pretty cute, eh? I was really proud of them!
Here’s a link to the receipie that I used for the “cake” part.
For the “frosting” I used the Soap Queen’s recipe listed on the link at the top of this post.
Here are the baby themed one’s I gave away at Kristin’s shower:
How lucky was I that Kristin was having a boy and that Laura’s favorite color is blue? Believe me, being able to color all that icing the same saved me some major work!
I also wanted to share with you some tricks that I learned from making these!
The best compliment I received regarding these was when one of the guests pulled me aside and asked if I would be interested in making some for an upcoming wedding shower that she was hosting!
Let me know if you have any comments or questions and please, please, please let me know if you make these. I’d love to link them and show them off!
Well, this is going to be something new; I’m going to talk about my crafty intentions instead of a crafty project.
Long story short, my husband and I purchased our first home in November. It’s been great, we really love our home and have been enjoying the slow but satisfying journey of putting our stamp on it. We are on the verge of finishing our kitchen which has been painted and outfitted with new appliances, counter tops and cabinets. We’re about to install a back splash and make the surprisingly difficult decision regarding hardware.
The hall bathroom might be the next candidate for some color (the whole house was painted in a very neutral beige that was great in the beginning but now I look at our walls and yawn) as I’ve been stalking this gorgeous shower curtain and will hopefully be purchasing it this week.
The one area of our home that is in desperate, desperate need for some love is our bedroom. It’s painted in the boring beige and it literally has nothing decorative in it, it’s purely functional. I keep looking at comforters online and in stores and nothing has really excited me. I’ve decided that once I figure out the bed covering, I’ll use that as the foundation for styling the room.
So, I’ve had horrible luck in finding something so it’s come to the time where I’ve decided to make something. I already have a nice down comforter, so I’ll make a duvet cover for it. As far as bedding goes, a duvet is a simple thing to make as it’s really only two large pieces of fabric sewn together. Once the duvet is made, coordinating pillows and curtains can follow. Easy! (Isn’t it funny how I’m saying the project is easy before I even start it?)
I’ve decided to make things a little more complicated to really bring home that “one of a kind” feeling. Here is a MS Paint version of what I plan to make.
1. Instead of searching for and purchasing yards and yards of fabric patterns that I like, I’m going to purchase bleached cotton to dye from Dharma Trading Co. Because I need a lot of yardage (duvet, pillows, curtains) and I need a decent quality, this fabric and the appropriate amount of dye will be the most cost effective way to go.
2. To create an interesting pattern on the blocks, I’m going to screen print a pattern on fabric and then add a few details of embroidery here and there. For the screen printing portion, I have my heart set on purchasing a Yudu, one of those new fangled screen printing machines. (Side note! Every purchase from my Etsy shop goes toward the Yudu! Go and buy!).
3. I have not come up with the pattern that I’m screenprinting yet. Hell, I haven’t even decided on what colors I’m going to use! to dye the fabrics!
So, there’s my prelimary battle plan of the start of the bedroom. I didn’t even touch upon the refinishing of the 100+ year old chiffarobe that I inherited and was told that I would be killed if I ever lost possession of.
Instead of just hoarding my pretties, I’ve finally decided to make some things with them. Today I made some pendants using my vintage beads and buttons.
Here’s the group shot:
And here are some different angles of each one:
Pretty Maids One – PDF Embroidery Pattern by loopsies
I actually purchased these a few months ago with every intention to at least create one. Unfortunately, I have even transferred one of these sweet dollies on to fabric. Shame on me. After ordering these, the PDF was in my inbox in about an hour, you can’t beat such amazing service. I am a huge fan of embroidery patterns that allow you to really get creative with customization like these. Can you imagine a whole quilt of these sweeties?! Make sure to check out her shop for set 2 & 3.
Bird Measuring Spoons by beehivekitchenware
When I first saw these, I IM’ed my husband and said that I was pretty sure I would die if I don’t have these in our new kitchen. I don’t own them yet but I still thinking death will be imminent without these. The funniest thing is that I actually am not a fan of birds in general but I do love all the cute bird imagery that’s out there. These spoons come with the mounting rack so they are actually functional art.
I am a huge fan of yellena’s style and would love to get a series of her prints for my living room. I really like how she can really capture a fresh, delicate feeling but use intense, saturated colors. I am a huge fan of color and am always trying to straddle that line of using as much as I can without looking like I live in a circus tent.
