Baby doll night gowns

It’s been a while… I’ve been busy, with other things.

I got a new sewing room for Christmas- pictures to come. Plus, the new darling curtains I’m making for the window!

My birthday is on Christmas day, so I got some new fabric to go along with my Christmas present! Christopher, who has been helping me make the curtains, keeps asking me when I’m going to use the strawberry fabric. I asked him what I could make with it- he said, “My baby needs some clothes!”

So- here goes…

Start with: One very ugly, very dirty baby doll:

And, some very cute strawberry fabric:

  Lay the baby out, and measure the body:

I cut the pattern out, sewed it together very crudely and came up with this:

It’s ok, you can laugh! I did! Really hard!

Don’t worry, I still had enough fabric to try again, for Caleb’s baby doll:

This time, I remembered to put the two ride sides of the fabric together as I cut the pattern, and I made the back piece wider than the front…

No worries, though, it turned out just as bad, if not worse!

Oh well, my boys didn’t care. See?

That’s his smiley face, I promise!!!!

Totally worth the ten minutes they took! I won’t be advertising them publicly, but if you’re interested in a crudely made, not-hemmed, way-too-tight night gown for your baby dolls… I’m your gal!

It will make for a happy child or two!

Until next time…    

Beaded watch bands

This weekend my mom decided it was time to do something I’ve been trying to do for a while. Every time I venture into a craft store I look at the beads and contemplate making a beaded watch band. I even bought a sale price watch face, but still haven’t been successful at finishing a band.

So, Monday- with hubby and Dad gone to St. George- Mom and I took the little guys and headed out to find some beads. We hit three different stores and finally found a little package of beads we were happy with (price being most important here…) at Sierra’s. We later discovered that we should’ve tried Scrappin’ Essentials because they have a large selection for very cheap. (We were in Pocatello.)

Nevertheless…. we found some cute beads. Here are my various attempts at combinating beads into a band that I liked.

I took pictures as I went, so I could choose and go back to a certain combination if I wanted. I ended up going with the last one… almost exactly.

My mom’s turned out really awesome!

My cousin Megan, who made them recently for her Mom and Mother-in-Law for Mother’s day, was there and kind of showed us how to do it. We still had to experiment with tying the string off and various parts… but it really wasn’t that hard.

I think I’ll definitely be making more! Especially if I can find more cheap faces to use as gifts!

Here’s my finished product! I had left my watch face home (since I didn’t know we would be doing this!) and was bummed because I thought the battery was dead. But when I got it out this morning and attached it, I realized it was working like a charm!

Animal Cookies

A spontaneous treat turned into a fun activity:

Animal crackers, frosting and sprinkles; plus two hungry little boys:

I microwaved the frosting for a few seconds first, and it was way easy to dip the crackers. Christopher thought this was the coolest thing ever- and it’s definitely cheaper than buying animal cookies.

Baby girl quilt

This is the first patchwork quilt I have tried, and I have to say it didn’t turn out too horrible. Most of it was probably just luck- that it turned out the right size and everything.

These are some of the “blocks.”

Here is the finished top piece:

I machine quilted along most of the straight lines, and added flower buttons in the six main intersections. I binded it first, pillowcase style, by turning it inside out and sewing the edges, then making a border…. here’s the finished product:

I just LOVE the green floral print flannel that I found for the back.

Megan is supposed to have her baby this week, probably. She’s already seen the top quilt, and loved it. I’m excited for her little cutie to have it! (And I’m excited to see and hold and kiss and love on her little cutie!)

I think I’ll definitely be trying more quilts… even more pink.

Sweet Potato fries

My mom talks about how delicious the sweet potato french fries are that she gets at Costco. I decided to make some from scratch.

They were easy.

Cut up the sweet potato into fries.

In a bowl mix: vegetable oil, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper. (just a little of each… turns out I couldn’t taste them all that much anyway.)

Cover the fries in the sauce.

Lay the fries out on a sprayed cookie sheet, then sprinkle sugar on top.

Bake at 400 for about 25 minutes, rotating once.

They turned out delicious!

Fondant Birthday cake!

My baby turned 1 yesterday! I wanted to try to decorate his cake using fondant- and it was easy with the new Make it and Love it, Make a cake series!

I started with two frozen round cakes that I made the day before.

I frosted one of them. (Most say to use homemade butter cream, but I just used store bought cream cheese frosting… I figured I can only be sooo domestic at a time right?)

I made a blueberry filling using sugar, flour and milk… and blueberries. (I’ll let you know how this tastes after we eat it tonight.)

Then… I made the fondant. (Actually, I think I made the fondant that morning- and let me tell you, it was invigorating! I thought I was going to fail miserably once my hands were stuck with melted marshmallows and goo- but it all came together and I was so proud!)

(Note that I had 2 helpers for this part… later I had 4 helpers, oy!)

I colored some of the fondant, rolled it out and covered the cake.

It took me a few tries to decide how to decorate it. (remember, I had 4 helpers… we figured out that fondant is basically like yummy, edible play dough.) I finally decided on this:

I still need to get a big 1 candle for behind the bow. But I was pretty happy with the finished product. I think it’ll taste good too.

This is what the fondant looked like when the kids were done playing with it:

We all had fun. And learned a lot!