Valentine's Wreath & Topiary's (#50, and #51!)

I realize that Valentine's Day was so last month! But we are always running a little behind over here. I think these ideas, though could easily be made into St. Patty's Day, or Easter decorations. I'm thinking of making the same wreath (round, not heart-shaped) with green fabric and ribbons for a St. Patrick's Day wreath!

My kindergartner was home from school for a few days. Pink eye. So, she wasn't really too sick to do anything, just still contagious. So, after she helped me take down and put away all the Christmas decorations, I promised her we would make some Valentine's decorations.

All my kids love to craft, especially holiday craft, but this age, they especially seem to love it.

I was trying to come up with something that met this criteria:

1. I already had all the supplies for it.

2. Not too messy.

3. Cute

4. she could easily make it.

I saw this Valentine's wreath here. (If you want a tutorial, you really should go there, because I don't really do tutorials...)

I thought it would be perfect, because I have a whole bunch of scrap fabric and ribbons. she was so excited. I do have to confess that our turned out smaller than the one from the tutorial because the wire hangers that we get from our dry cleaners are like a paper roll at the bottom, and the wire does not continue all the way through. I didn't take a picture, but if your cleaners use the same hangers, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, we got everything all ready, and then I remembered that there was something wrong. #4. She can't tie her shoe laces. So I helped her a lot, but she was still pretty frustrated.

Epic mom fail.

This is the one she made. I probably need to trim the ribbons... I thought I took a picture of the one I made before I cleaned up the Valentine's decorations, but I guess I forgot... guess I'll show you next year!

so, I made up for it this weekend, with the topiary and the baked clay hearts...

 They at least met the other criteria, especially #3.

 

You can see my felt topiary's. I finished those while my daughter made her flower topiary.

 Confession: I thought we had enough of these pink flowers, but we ran out... (great, another mom fail!) so we took the greenery off some other flowers and put the ribbon up there to cover our bald spots. She was still happy with how it turned out, so I guess it was ok....

So, that same day, we also made salt dough clay hearts. it was a lot of fun...

 And all 4 of my kids got involved making them.

Dad even had to help, because sometimes the dough got hard to work with, and he had to knead it.

  

We put holes in the "cookies" so we could string them and hang them. After they cooled, we hung them from our light fixtures over the piano and above the dining room table. I also put some in our cake stand, and a heart shaped bowl we had. There were A LOT of them!

I realize that Valentine's Day is over, but you could easily made these for St. Patrick's Day, coloring the dough green, and using a shamrock cookie cutter... or make them for Easter!
Linked to:
The Shabby Nest

Dress Adjustments (#49)

 yes, this totally counts as a project, since it took me 2/3 of my pregnancy to finish! I have worn this dress for 2 other pregnancies- it's my favorite. And I swear, I have not grown any taller, but when I got this out to wear it 6 months ago, at the beginning of my pregnancy... it felt too short. Especially when I would sit down. So, I thought and thought of a solution, and decided to add a ruffle to the bottom. It would have been impossible to match the green, so I went with a little bit of brown knit fabric.

I love how the ruffle turned out. I actually like the dress even more now. It's amazing how just a few inches longer, and I'm suddenly feeling more comfortable wearing it. 

I did forget how hard it is to work with knit if you are too cheap forget to get stretchy thread and a ball needle. (Wow, I sure confess a lot on this blog!)

This is just a side view for my mom, so she can see how big my stomach her grandson is getting:

 I also made a "cami secret" insert for the top. Don't know how well you can see it, and I didn't want to take a close-up picture of my chest (as voluptuous as it is right now). I thought it helped tie in the brown, and I've always had to strategically safety pin so no cleavage showed any way. A Cami Secret, for those of you who don't know, is basically just a little triangle of fabric that you snap onto your bra, and it covers your cleavage. I found some at Walmart, and I have loved them, so just used one for a pattern. These are especially nice when you live somewhere hot like I do, and you don't want to wear ANOTHER layer, so you hate when your shirts need a tank/cami under them, but you also prefer to not look like a hoochie mama.

Anyway, I love how it turned out so much, that I think I am going to try the same thing on my daughter's favorite skirt that she is growing too tall for.

Linked to Tator Tots and Jello

Just In Time For Valentine's Day- Table Runner Project #48

Along with my goal to use up all the fabric in my closet, and finish all my unfinished projects, I dug up my Valentine's Day fabric....

I love this fabric. 

I am almost finished with a little quilt in this fabric, and can't wait to show it to you.

Last year, I was at a friends house, and in the mail she got a lovely Valentine's Day table runner from her mom. I knew I wanted to make one, but wouldn't be able to last year. So, this year in January, I asked her if I could borrow it. I made a pattern from it, and here we are:

 I ran into some problems with mine... this often happens when I do it different from the pattern/thing I'm copying. Hers was done envelope style, and mine was bound. I decided to use pre-made bias tape. I have never used bias tape, although I have made my own bias binding before. Apparantly, bias tape is a lot stiffer than the binding I have worked with before, and this had A LOT of curves, so it was difficult to work with, and didn't always lay flat...

 I wanted to use this heart stitch on my machine, and didn't think to use my walking foot, so also ran into problems there...  my old quilt teacher, Dixie, would be scolding me right now. She said you never point out your mistakes when showing your quilt... but I confess a lot of things here that I probably shouldn't.

But, most importantly, I am really happy with how it turned out, in spite of the challenges. I love it on my piano, but think I will make another one (I have enough fabric!) and put them running down my dining room table.
What do you think?

Texas Flag Quilt- Project number 47

I bought the fabric for this last June, before I knew I would be spending half my summer on a 6,000+ mile road trip, and the other half of the summer recovering from the road trip.
Then the day before school started, I found out I was pregnant... so this quilt got put on the back burner right behind my throw-up bucket until I felt well enough to really get going on it.
Over Christmas break, when my husband was home a lot to make trips to Red Box and push play to watch the kids, I finally got to it.
It's a pretty simple quilt, since I was doing the Texas flag, I didn't even use a pattern. Just figured out how big I wanted it and added the borders...

I had made this other quilt for my son- get this: 9 Years ago!!!

Ya, I know, it's held up well. I wouldn't even believe it was that old, but I did put a label on it... 2004 it says!
And believe me, it's been washed A LOT! If you look close, you can see that it is starting to wear out... but it does make me glad I used good fabric and thread.

So, about a year ago we bought a bunk bed for my son's room. Not that he needed it, but we thought it would be nice to have for quests. You can never have too many extra beds when you and your husband both come from big families...

so I kept debating whether or not to make 2 new matching quilts, or to try and make one to match the quilt he already had.... I didn't have fabric requirements for the log cabin quilt, and didn't want to risk not buying enough, or to spend extra $$ buying too much (especially since you all know that I have a closet full of fabric already...)

So I decided that I could just make one in red, white, and blue, and it would be close enough until I was ambitious enough to make 2 new ones.

At a friend's house, I saw a Texas Flag quilt that her mother had made.
That was it! It would be perfect, especially since we live in Texas!!!

But I still haven't told you the best part about this quilt:
I have a friend that just moved here about 8 months ago. She. has. a. long. armed. quilting. machine. THAT. SHE. RENTS!!!

Yes, After it was pieced, I went to her house, she taught me how to use it, thread it, wind the bobbin, and we even did a little practice quilt for about 3 hours, and she only charged $20 for the instruction.
Then, she helped me load my quilt, backing, and batting onto the machine, and it only took me 1 hour 45 minutes to quilt it! And I did it all myself!!! She charged me $10 and hour to use the machine. Awesome deal   for those of us to will never don't currently have the money or the space for a long-armed quilting machine, but who still want to quilt our own quilts!!!

I decided to quilt the shape of the state of Texas into the star... I like how it turned out.

 You'll notice that the backing from the first quilt (9 years ago) is the same that I used on the outer border.

I made this pillow sham to go with the other quilt. It has gotten more worn out than the quilt... I've decided to make a pillow sham to match to new quilt as well.

 
And here's one more shot of it on the bed: 

 So, I'm super motivated now to get some more quilts ready to go!!

Kick Buttowski Birthday Cake

A few weeks ago, a friend that used to live by me (has since moved to another part of town) called to see if I could make this cake for her son's birthday.

Of course, I said yes!

I didn't know then that I would end up having emergency surgery last week, at 6 months pregnant.

I wasn't sure I was going to be up for it, and almost called and cancelled, but it was such a simple cake, and I could do it sitting down, so I went ahead with it.

I didn't know who "Kick Buttowski" was, so I had to do a little research. 

He is a little daredevil cartoon character from the Disney Channel.

 Well, I think Jaxon like it, so that's all that matters!

How to make a last minute Zombie cake

I was trying to think of something to make for our ward trunk or treat party for the Spooky Dessert contest. After looking around pinterest, I decided I wanted something gory/spooky, not just cutesy/spooky.

I knew I didn't have time for a trip to the store, so I needed to use stuff I had at home. In my Halloween stuff, I remembered that I had these skull head cup cake toppers.

 

 then I remembered this Bride Cake I made a few years ago...I had sent the rest of the cake home with the bride, since it didn't all get eaten. The mother of the Bride had washed the barbie doll cake topper and brought it back to me. So, I had saved it with my cake decorating supplies, thinking I might use it again...

 

hmmm, the skull seemed about the right size, so I popped off the doll head, cut a hole in the skull and popped it on. Then I cut off the doll face (which I left laying around the house and it kind of freaked out my kids, so I think I might use that for something...) and glued the hair to the skull.

I didn't have the time to make a real cake, and they cake be a little finiky in the skirt shape anyway, so I did rice crispy treats.

Also, I had no time to make fondant, and my husband broke my Bosch, so I would have had to do it by hand... uh, no thanks. No, buttercream it was.

I was in such a hurry, I left the back uncovered. Viel was cheesecloth slightly shredded, and the black part of my baby's Halloween costume that I had to cut off so she wouldn't trip on it.

I was hoping fake blood would be enough for the gory factor.

I think it was. BTW- to make quick edible fake blood, just mix corn syrup and red food color. It will even puddle cause the corn syrup is thick enough.

 

You can't really see it, but she's standing on a black doily and there are some skeleton hands coming out from under her dress.
My 5-year old was observing the process and was quite perplexed, "Why are you cutting that doll?"
"Why does she have a keleton face?"
"Why is she bleeding?"
I finally told her that she was supposed to be scary, and that she needed to make up a story to go with her. Then she smiled and said,:

"There was this girl, she was getting married, and um, on the first day when she was getting married, somebody shot her in the heart. And her face to turned into a skeleton. Her husband ranned away."
Suddenly she was Ok with it.

To me, the best part (aside from winning 1st place) was the girl that was serving it said that some of the kids would come up and look at it, and when she asked them if they wanted some, with big eyes, they would shake their heads and back away from the table. But then, if she pulled out a plate that already had a cut piece on it, they would take it. Funny.

"Spa-aaah" birthday party cake

The plan for this cake was going to be that I also made flip flops and nail polish bottles out of fondant and rice crispy treats.

But let me remind you in case I don't say it often enough! I'm freaking I'm pregnant, though, so just having a homemade cake is accomplishment enough

I tried to match the "Spa-aaah" writing from the invitation,

And since I was just doing buttercream anyway, I thought I would practice my rope border and some stars. Hmmm, probably not the best picture to show you for that...

The cake was from a white cake mix (which I added lemon zest to, because I have decided that it makes it so yummy!) which I divided into 2 pans, and tinted one neon blue, and the other green. her party also had teeny tiny bits of dark pink, so I added a layer of fresh strawberries to the middle.

My daughter did say, to make me feel better, that it was ok that I didn't get to the fondant, because she's the only one who likes fondant, her friends don't. Which just goes to show that I'm not raising a total brat she does have a sweet bone in her body.

I'd love to say, "Fondant and Rice Crispy treats next year, fer shure!", but the reality is I'll have 5 kids by then so forget it! I may not be up for it then either.

You might just get some day old doughnuts with a match stuck in one...

Or 12 birthday spankings and a kiss on the cheek.

Ya, that sounds more like it.