It's Crunch Time!

I am a procrastinator. I alway have been and I don't see that changing anytime in the near future! I have a craft fair coming up on Saturday that has been on my books for months and I am just NOW (well, starting last week) getting sewing for it. My office/sewing room looks like it threw up fabric, but on a positve note, I am cleaning out my fabric stash so that I can feel better about buying more when this is over.

I'm making ring slings, bibs, appliqued tie onesies and maybe some hairbows if I don't run out of time. Stay tuned for a tutorial or two.

Mod Podge Memo Board

I found this memo board probably three years ago at Joann's.

Want to know the best part?

Today was Saturday and with my husband working, which is usual these days, I needed a project to do.

I started by cutting my fabric into strips. I didn't get a pictures, but using a rotary cutter makes nice straight pieces.

Then, I applied Mod Podge in sections. I started doing about a foot at a time and realized that it was better to do it a little bit at a time, like maybe six inch sections.

For the corners, I just used sissors and cut it off at an angle. Eye-balling it worked just fine.

I made sure to keep the fabric even on both sides so that I could wrap it to the inside edge of the frame. Does that make sense? Do that same thing all the way around and down the front strip and that's it!

Now I need to find a place to hang it.

And, yes, that is pink carpet.

Fabric Flowers

Cute, yes? I stumbled upon this tutorial from Sew Blessed a while ago and have made a few of these flowers to put on tote bags that I have been making and selling as scripture totes at our local LDS bookstore. I mostly used her method here, with a couple of changes.

I started with some 5 x 5 inch squares of fabric that I bought at the quilt shop. How nice to only have to cut them into quarters!

Doing that actually gave me 2 1/2" sqaures instead of 2 3/4" squares, like what is used in that tutorial. I figure that 1/4" wouldn't matter that much, and it didn't!

Then I folded them and strung them along, and because I was using 2 different fabrics, I made six petals so that I could alternate them.

Now here is where I improved upon the back. The ones I had made before had the button sewn onto the front, but the back was a mess of unfinished threads. So to fix this, I just cut a circle out of felt and hot glued it on. Then it is really easy to add any kind of clip. I used an alligator with teeth, but you could use a french clip or a pin or whatever you wanted, really.

Oh, and since I was covering the back, I didn't bother sewing the fabric covered button the front; I just hot glued it. Easy peasy.

Now I can't wait to go back to the store and buy some of the same fabric off the bolt to make matching skirts for my three girls!

Pillowcases coming soon!

I took pictures for a step-by-step tutorial of some easy pillowcases on Christmas Eve. Then on Christmas morning, David grabbed the camera, saw that the memory card was full and erased a bunch of pictures, starting with the pillowcases. >:-( So I will be adding that tutorial when I get another pillowcase made, which should be this week. My 6 year old, Jenna, has been asking for one made out of some frog fabric forever.

Peppermint Bark Popcorn

This recipe came from the girls at Our Best Bites and it is seriously good. I made it last year and it was a huge hit. I give it two thumbs up!

Caramel Popcorn

Today marks the first day of Christmas Candy making for me. I have a whole list of things to make and am going to be posting the recipes as I go. Yay!

If today had a theme, it would be popcorn. I bought a popcorn popper at Walmart just for the occasion! I love it already! I started with the caramel popcorn.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 c. popcorn kernals -This was two and a half batches in the popper. If you don't have a popper, you could use microwave popcorn. You'd probably need three bags or so.

1 c. butter

2 c. brown sugar- I love dark brown sugar instead of light.

1/2 c. light corn syrup

1 t. salt

1 t. vanilla

1 t. baking soda

Preheat your oven to 250.

Spray a big roaster pan with cooking spray. Then pop your popcorn right into it.

Combine the butter, sugar, corn syrup and salt in a 2 qt. sauce pan. You definitely don't want to use anything smaller. Cook it over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it is melted. Bring it to a boil and then boil it for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. It will look something like this:

Remove from heat and add the vanilla and baking soda. Stir it really fast as it will foam up. Pour that over the popcorn and stir it up to coat the popcorn. You don't have to worry about coating it too evenly it at this point.

Bake at 250 for a total of about 45 minutes. Take it out in 15 minute intervals and give it a good stirring. It will continue to even out the coating as you do so. And be sure to set your timer each time! My mom has a terrible habit of never setting the timer and I learned that from her. Luckily, my husband helped me break free of that.

Spread two big pieces of waxed paper on your counter. After your 45 minutes are up, stir it up one last time and then spread it out on the waxed paper to let it cool.

Recovered Folding Chairs

This is the ugliest chair ever. My uncle fished it out of a dumpster at my church several years ago and I have been using it at my sewing table ever since. I don't know why it never occured to me before, but I got the briliant idea to recover it!



So several coats of spray paint and some new fabric later, wah-lah!

And the best part? I have three more just like it waiting to be given a face lift! Should I make them the same fabric or should I mix it up a bit?