Update on the Piano Wall

Got a nice jumpstart on the piano wall and mantel. I was able to fix my sagging coffee filter wreath with some handy zip ties and a grape vine wreath from the local dollar store. I think I might lower the wreath just a bit so it's centered up in the window. I also would like to make some heart garland! We'll see if that gets done amidst the whirlwind in the dining room for Sophia's big day.

I found the printable to the right on pinterest! I also had fun making the paper hearts in the wanna-be-cloche (glass from a non-existent brass anniversary clock and a small pottery plate). Thank goodness for freebies!

Fleece Hats & Gloves - Animal Style

Christmas in Ohio meant that the cousins would always get similar items. I enjoyed this! Last year, I sewed matching Spiderman sleep pants for my three nephews. This year, I knew I would need to take it up a notch to include their baby sister and my youngest niece! I found a great site with hundreds of fleece tutorials. Although their directions are somewhat lacking, the patterns are easy enough to figure out.

I used these patterns (child hat, baby hat, mittens) and ideas from Martha (Stewart, obviously) to whip up some fun gifts. No, these aren't fast projects or even that inexpensive, but the holidays are a time to invest in the lives of others!

I tweaked some of the patterns to fit the concepts. Specifically, the fleece and my sewing machine did not fair well when it came to button-holing, so instead I stitched a button hole by hand, cut the fabric inside the button hole to create a place for clip-on bows. Then I used some leftover ribbon to give Lily a bit of class. For the boys, I used the same size hat (child small) for all three (ages 3 to 7). For the mittens, I used one child large and two child mediums. The infant mittens were based on some mittens I was given for Sophia. They didn't fit as nicely as the patterned ones.

Supplies:

• Multiple colors of fleece cut to 1/4 yard
• Craft felt
• Hot glue
• Craft glue
• Thread
• A small amount of polyfil for the Viking horns (none used in the dinosaur hat)

Assembly:

1. Cut fabric on the bias so that your hats stretch! You'll regret it if you don't.
2. Stitch seams/elastic to mitten pieces BEFORE you attach front and back of mittens. The hats do not use elastic, but are simply stitched with a large zig zag.
3. Stitch any "extras" (i.e., dino spikes, shark fin, Viking horns) facing inward between your two fleece pieces. This will ensure they are on the outside when you flip your hat right side out. This is also true for the teeth on the mittens.

Advent Calendar Complete

Has anyone realized it's almost the end of January? Where has this month gone? We've been busy cleaning up from the holidays and getting crafty for Sophia's upcoming FIRST birthday! More to come on those fun projects!

As for the calendar, I finished it just before Christmas. It was so much fun to create the ornaments (some from patterns, others from general ideas I spotted on Pinterest). I used basic craft felt because it was in ready supply and the right price. Felted Wool is your best bet when creating things to last forever, but since this was my first attempt, I figured I should take it easy. Craft glue and sewing floss (typically used for cross-stitch) came in handy! I purchased the craft felt numbers from Sunshine Annie on Etsy. She's got a wide variety of colors and fonts to choose from and she shipped my order in record time. (Her card is stuck in the #6 pocket so I don't lose it, but I really should have pulled it out for the glamour shot!)

Advent Calendar Tutorial

Every Christmas, my sister and I would share the coveted responsibility of snapping the ornaments onto our advent calendar. The calendar was made by my great grandmother and was falling apart when we were kids. (It's current state has not improved with age.) The advent calendar with it's felt ornaments is one tradition I wanted to maintain with my own kiddos. Now that we've got Sophia, it's time to act on that goal!

As you can tell by the post date, we're a little late. We ran into a few snags, such as the only true fabric store in town not having any more canvas and being delayed a few days in getting to Hobby Lobby. I also had to find some inspiration. Creativity is not a strength, but duplication is!

This inspiring photo coupled with the memories of my childhood calendar led me to create the following.


   

Inspiration!                               My Advent so far...

If you want to attempt one yourself, here are the directions I made up. I hope they make sense! Stay tuned for the debut of the ornaments!

Supplies:

• 17"x 14" Pocket Fabric, ironed.
• 20"x 29" Calendar Fabric, ironed. (White canvas is always a nice choice for the front.) ***UPDATE: 36"L would be better!
• 20"x 29" Backing Fabric, ironed. (Go classic or wild, this side is just for you! It will, however, serve a major purpose of hiding all of your stitching in the end.) ***UPDATE: 36"L would be better!
• Four or five 6"x12" Fleece in contrasting colors (branches).
• 3"x3" Fleece in brown (stump).

Assembly of the Pockets:

1. Cut calendar fabric 21"x 36".
2. Cut 4 strips of the pocket fabric 18"x 3.5".
3. Iron both 17" sides to create a 0.5" hem. If you're keeping track, the depth of your pocket was just reduced to it's final size of 2.5".
4. Iron both 3.5" sides to create a 0.5" hem. The length of your strip is now 16".
5. Straight stich one of the 16" sides of each strip. This is the top of the pocket, so we can give it a finished edge this early in the game.
6. Take one of your pocket strips and lay it right side up, centered, and parallel to the bottom of your calendar roughly 2.5" away from the bottom and sides. (The finished calendar edge will eventually be 2" away from the bottom and sides of your pocket fabric after stitching a 0.5" seam with your backing fabric, but let's not get ahead of ourselves!)
• Below are some pictures of the next few steps!

7. The pocket fabric will NOT lay flat! Don't worry --- it looks wonky for a reason. You haven't made a mistake! We are forcing the 16" strip to fit into a 15" section. The purpose of this is to create some actual space within the pocket so that little fingers can grab those adorable felt ornaments!
8. The plan is to pin the bottom of the strip (only ironed, no stitching) to the canvas to attach the base of the pocket. To pin this wonky section, we will DIVIDE & CONQUER! I've talked about this strategy before, but if it's new to you, here's a quick review: (see image #1 above)
• Pin on the outsides of the fabric first (i.e., put a pin at 0" and 15" just within that ironed seam).
• Pin the middle of the fabric (i.e., at 7.5"). You will need to evenly divide that extra fabric onto either side of the 7.5" pin. Your fabric should now resemble a deflated M.
• Pin the middle of each side of the M (i.e., at 4" and 12"). Again, evenly distribute that fabric onto either side of the pin. Your fabric should now have 4 humps.
• Pin the middle of each of those sections (i.e., at 2", 6", 10", and 14"). Do you see how you've been able to divide up that extra fabric? Fabulous trick isn't it. You can continue to divide & conquer pin if you like just to make sure you don't get any big folds as you sew the bottom of the pocket. You'll probably end up with a few tiny ones, but nothing to get upset about.
9. Take your next pocket strip and place it 1/4" below the top of the previous strip you pinned. Essentially, you are tucking this strip just a hair beneath where the top of the bottom pocket will lay. This will disguise your stitching. You can space it out further if you prefer, just remember to reduce the size of your tree OR add more length to your calendar fabric.
10. Repeat step 9 with the remaining 2 strips so that all 4 strips are nicely pinned to your calendar fabric.
11. Straight stitch the bottom of this pocket onto your canvas following the seam line. I wouldn't try to do 1/4" or anything fancy, simply follow the line. This bottom stitch will be the only visible stitch line for the bottom of the pockets --- the others will overlap. Don't stitch the sides of the pocket --- those will come later. Pace yourself! (see image #2 above)
12. Make sure that bottom pocket is folded back toward the bottom of your calendar fabric so it doesn't get in the way as you sew the other 3 strips. (see image #2 above)
13. Now to create 6 pockets out of each strip and take a bathroom break!!!
14. Using a yardstick or other large ruler, we will pin vertical lines to divide & conquer. I lined up a piece of cardstock next to my ruler and pinned the cardstock to my fabric to use as a guide to sew the straight line. Looked really tacky, but it made a PERFECT line!

• Pin at 0" & 15". (You will sew just inside the folded hem at 1/8" and at 14 and 7/8".)
• Pin at 7.5".
• Pin at 2.2", 5", 10", and also at 12.5".
15. Stitch vertically across all 4 strips starting in with the middle line at 7.5".

Now how about that tree...

I had mixed success trying to make this a measurement game and ended up cutting the tree pieces multiple times. My best suggestion is to use the space you have available and divide it up as you see best. I placed my stump at 1.5" above the top red pocket. Based on the length of the fabric left (approximately 15.5" minus the top 2.5" for the hem and border = 13"), I drew a tree with 4 layers on cardstock and then used those as templates for my fleece tree. I didn't like how skinny my tree looked, so I made some wider ones. Once I was happy with the shape, I stitched around each piece of fleece starting with the stump (brown thread), then the bottom branch (hunter green thread), then the next (lime green thread), and so on.

Pie Pumpkins

"You're going to do WHAT to my pumpkins?"

I first saw these at the grocery store a few years ago and purchased them for each of my students for Halloween. They were doubly excited when they found out that they could actually eat their pumpkins! I have to admit that I never cooked mine. It ended up in the trash after the holiday had passed and I never thought about it again, until I saw a recipe for pumpkin baby food!

Baking the pumpkin was the easy part! The most difficult task was cutting it in half! I followed this tutorial to bake my pumpkin face down in a 9x13" glass dish. While it was in the oven, I separated my seeds & innards with a method I'll coin "Squeeze The Guts" in light of Halloween (which I realize was a month ago, but you can call it that next year). I grabbed handfuls of the guts and seeds and simply squeezed them in my fists over a colander. The seeds fell effortlessly into the silver colander...and so did a few bits and pieces of the guts, but nothing I couldn't fish out. The seeds needed to dry overnight before baking, so I laid them out on a cookie sheet and went about my day.

Back to the pumpkin. It cooked for about an hour in the 1/4" water. Then I scrapped it out, pureed it, and poured it into ice cube trays. I reserved 1/2 cup to mix with some Granny Smith apples I had simmered with just a touch of cinnamon.

As for those tasty seeds, I tossed them in butter mixed with garlic salt and baked them for 30 minutes at 300*F. Another variation I saw was to boil the seeds in salt water immediately after harvesting, rest overnight to dry, then toss with butter (and garlic powder if you prefer) before baking at 300* for 30 minutes.

Christmas 2011

I love the holiday season! The decorations take up more space in the attic than any other group of items we own! We've just finished the tree. We found our tree for $35 at Edwards & Wade Hampton from a North Carolina family. The tree has some inconsistent branches which made it tricky for decorating, but it is incredibly wide for the price! It took 10 strands (1000) lights and has over 120 glass bulbs. Brian has replaced a few fuses in the light strands for me. Apparently, you cannot connect 1000 lights and expect them to all run on the same circuit. We had break the group up, so every now and then the bottom half will flicker as I get close to blowing another fuse. (Brian believes that part of the problem is that I am using 2 strands that use to decorate our deck outside...I ran out of lights and went on my own scavenger hunt to find reinforcements...outside.)The tree also has over 25 pine cones and some antique ornaments. One of the ornaments broke this year - our First Christmas Together from Hallmark. It shattered into hundreds of pieces. It wasn't the only ornament I dropped; pregnancy has a way of making your grip less sure. It took about 5 hours total to get the lights and decorations up on the tree and we couldn't be more excited!

From Drop Box

In addition to our exciting photo Christmas cards that we mail out each year, we like to do a little something extra for our wonderful neighbors. Last year we made hot cocoa jars. They were a bit more expensive to assemble than I estimated and they were quite labor intensive. This year, we opted for White Trash stuffed in Target tins I had purchased for $0.50 each during the Christmas clearance last year. The recipe made a TON! After 8 tins, we still had 2.5 gallon size bags of the treat left over.

White Trash Recipe (mix in a LARGE mixing bowl, makes about 1 gallon bag)
-2c Rice Chex
-2c Corn Chex
-2c Honey Nut Chex
-1c Mixed nuts
-1c Mini pretzels
-20oz bar Almond Bark (melted in the microwave)

Mix and pour out on a piece of wax or parchment paper to dry. Break apart and place in lined tins.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box