coming soon…

almost out of the funk…

yes, those are cut band-aids!

…wait until you see what I have planned for this guy!

A bit of strawberry cake goodness!

Another not so recent post.
Still in the Funk.
I plan to get better after the aproaching long weekend mini-vacay to Mammoth!

I have received a few requests for the recipe I used for the 4 dozen cupcakes at Miss E’s first birthday a few months back, and I just received another!  It is time to spill it, including all my hints for you non-seasoned bakers (me included)!

First off let me say that I absolutely adore Sprinkles, I imagine that they are the most scrumptious cupcakes around– but I wouldn’t know exactly because I have not exactly eaten one before. BUT, I have been promising myself a trip to Beverly Hills for paper and cupcakes, (sigh) someday!  Taste aside, I love the simplistic, elegant, homemade look of them.  The swirl is perfect.  Every one is a bit different, and the marzipan marking system is brilliant and lovely.  SO, you can imagine my absolute elation and lasting excitement when I found THIS and THIS!  The exact recipe from Candace herself, EUREKA! (I realize this may not be the exact exact recipe that is actually used, but please, don’t tell me that, I am perfectly content thinking that it IS!)

I am not going to go into any detail about the making process, who am I to think that I can do any better job than Martha herself and Candace… but I will let you in on three things:

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A bit more back project briefing

I made this hankershief for Mr. K this past Valentine’s Day after he not so subtly dropped hint after hint that he wanted something hand made by ME. This created quiet the inner conflict– what the heck do I know how to make for a man, besides a card??? I make lots of things, but turns out nothing is suited for a man! Prior to his prodding I had never taken much thought to this, and was perfectly content not ever thinking about it, but the the request was made. It would not have been wise to bow out of such a challenge, so here enters the timeless monogrammed hanky with a bit of a bright twist. It doesn’t need much explanation except that it was my first stand alone embroidery project, small I realize but oh so satisfying! I used a couple small sheets of Sulky’s tear away stabilizer to help with the puckering on the thin fabric and it worked like a charm. I am not so sure if a seasoned stitcher would need such a crutch, but for my lack of consistent tension it was appreciated.

… and then of course there is always the token card that Mr. K has come to expect.

The red and white polka dots (which I see they don’t have any more, but they were part of the luxe collection) and beautiful chocolate paper are from my beloved paper-source.

Three wrens came for a visit…

I haven’t done anything crafty lately– I should I KNOW and I really have no excuse for it except that I have been in a bit of a funk. BUT I do have this picture of a project I did a couple months ago that I never posted about.

These are the quick wall hangings I did for Ella’s “baby room,” they coordinate with the, I guess you would call it window treatment, and the quilt that Lori so generously made for Ella when she was born. I had been meaning to do something with the remaining fabric from Ella’s window project but I was having trouble deciding on what. Ella’s walls stayed naked until I stumbled upon a great and simple idea from Anna Maria Horner which was then featured on The Martha Show. I already had the fabric and Modge Podge, acrylic paint is cheap, all I had to find were the square canvases. I eventually found them at a Joann’s, but not just any Joann’s, a super store of sorts, and then it was off to Micheal’s to pick up a couple great flat paintbrushes that I have wanted to own anyway! In an afternoon the project was completed and hung. Easy breezy. I decided to use the wren that Anna Maria featured because, well… I was uninspired to do anything else, and I really do like the realistic quality, not to mention my obvious obsession with silhouettes and birds lately.

They are hung above Ella’s changing table, which poses some problems when putting on pants now that she is one! They seem to be a bit irresistible to reach up and grab and knock off the wall, but I can’t blame her, they are tempting to touch.

love love LOVE

I am absolutely in love with both of my Mother’s Day gifts this year and I got the art part of it on my walls in a timely manner, which is a record actually, I haven’t even had them for a month! It really is something to marvel at considering I have other frames on my walls that have been begging for content for months.

Keith, err Ella, so cleverly ordered two fantastic items from my Etsy Wish List, these prints from Emily at The Black Apple and these perfectly great earrings. I am in love with both equally– I have worn my earings everyday, but I am so much enjoying the new prints in my dining room as I sip my tea in the mornings, I can hardly stand it.

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long awaited coasters

Since we have been married (4 years!) we have never owned coasters– despite having many nice wood surfaces that tremble at the thought of careless condensation! Pretty lame, I will admit! There is always a scramble for a paper towel, unused place mat, sock, plate, burp-cloth, you name it. It has gone on long enough! But before you jump to conclusions about the many reasons why it has taken SO long, let me tell you about a chronic condition I came down with many years ago called “I can make that.”

Here’s how it usually goes: “oooo, this is GREAT! Honey do you like it!?” “Yea, that is great, lets get it, how much is it?” I turn it over to reveal the price and then tell Honey with disappointment. “That’s not bad, seems worth it,” he says. “WHAT? That is awful… I can make that.” I say as I put it back on the shelf and longingly step away. As we get ready to leave the store Honey says “Aren’t you going to get that?” “What?” “The thing.” “No, I can make that.” “But you don’t!” “Shut up!” And so my list grows, more ideas clog my brain and our lack of coasters continued.

These little quilted gems are from Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts, which I am in love with by the way. I decide to do these coasters over something much more simple because I learned to use my fancy quilting foot, it worked like a charm. Instead of one rectangle to make the folded square that resulted in the same pattern on both sides, I created the rectangle with two different fabrics from Joel Dewberry’s Aviary collection, and then continued the directions by the book. The pattern calls for a high loft quilt batting as the facing which I used, but I am not all the impressed with the idea. They turned out much more flat and non-cushy than I was hoping, I think they would have much better absorption and probably even look loftier if two or three pieced of cotton flannel were used in place of the batting. I am sure that I will be making at least a couple more sets of these as I have proved to be pretty repetitive with new projects, meaning my current obsession with totes and bags, so when I try it I will let you know.

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Happy 1st Birthday, Haislea!

This week Ella and I made a sweet little tote for her new friend Haislea who turned one today! I love the way it turned out and I think that I will finally be making Ella one, that is, after I get done with other gifts for the baby shower I am going to in a week! I am yet to complete anything for us to keep. I really do need to remedy that! Until then, here are the stats:

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sewn thank-yous

These are a few of the Thank You cards that I sent out from all of us at Christmas. I also gave a couple sets away as gifts. They were super easy, and fun to make. I think the simplicity of the cards are great in real life b/c they are set off by my beloved luxe paper from paper-source. Before zig-zagging the fabric on the card I used a small piece of double sided adhesive to stabilize the fabric when I sewed it on the machine. This is one of those small and simple projects that was very gratifying when I finished all of them. I could sit and make tons of these if people didn’t mind getting the same style of thank you in the mail from me occasion after occasion. Next time I will probably print the text so I can say a bit more and have a wider variety of fonts than the stamps I have.

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want a boy? eat breakfast cereal! Honest!

A new study out of the University of Exeter suggests a strong link between high glucose levels in the early days of your pregnancy and preconception and having a boy.

“According to a survey of 740 British mums to be, a high-calorie diet is more likely to lead to a baby boy in nine months’ time.”

“The level of calorie intake was the main dietary factor that affected offspring sex, say the researchers, who report their research in Proceedings of the Royal Society B ¹. Overall, women in Matthews’s study who produced sons ate an average of 180 calories more per day than those who had daughters — “the equivalent of eating a banana”, she says.”

Higher glucose levels were found in mothers who gave birth to boys, but interestingly there was also a correlation between mothers who routinely ate breakfast cereal.

“The researchers are unsure of why this happens, although they suggest that it could be to do with levels of glucose in the blood. Male test-tube embryos generally require a more glucose-rich growth medium to survive in the lab — Mathews suspects that a similar process may operate in the uterus, so women with higher sugar levels are more likely to nurture a male embryo as it is implanted in the womb lining.”

So eat up! Or don’t. Personally when that time comes I am going to load up on Whole Food’s Fruit Loops!!

christmas 2007 gift making

Wow, wee! This is old news, especially for those of you who received one of these bags– but there are some people who have not seen my sewing marathon and have been asking to. These are pretty much my first sewing projects ever. My actual first bag never got photographed before I washed it and it fell apart! I was very bummed, but on the up side I learned a lot about linen and what not to do. The pleated bags for Sheri and my Mom came from the sewing book I learned how to sew out of, Bend-the-Rules Sewing, which my dear Lori gifted to me for my birthday last year. I gobbled the book up as soon as I opened it and have done many other projects since.

I recommend this book as a great first book for beginner sewers, but I can not speak for the advanced lot of you as I am far from that; however, please check out the Bend-the-Rules Sewing errant page before starting a project! Trust me, it is frustrating to be 100% sure that you are doing something correctly and still have it not come out right at 1am, only to find out after much cursing, fist pounding, and loads of disappointment that you are NOT crazy and there truly was something wrong with the pattern or given measurements, honest!

NOTE: Sometimes the botoom photo feed breaks from flickr, I’m working on it, but in the mean time check them out here.