Skirts and more skirts...

Okay I know I have skirts to show you, but I have to take the time to show you the cutest stuff! I recently did a trade, my first one. She picked a few things in my shop and I in hers and we just traded. This is what I got.....

A cute owl hat, ruffle lace leggings, and some bows. Yes, they are all for Lucy! She loves them, and I do too! If you want to check out Jacqueline's Shop, here is her information...

http://www.uniquecreationsbyjac.com/

or her Facebook page Unique Creations by Jacqueline

or her etsy shop http://www.uniquecreationsbyjac.etsy.com/

Okay now, on to skirts. I have been making lots and lots of skirts for the boutique in July...nothing fancy, just ruffle faric skirts.....here are a few, which is your favorite?

 Love the pink and purple Cheshire look or this one!

 

I love the tiny polka-dots on this one.

These are both colors that make me think of a Caribbean vacation! I also like the polka-dot elastic!

This one just makes me happy! I love that lemony yellow!

The red and blue are so festive. And check out the elastic on the red one....

Yep! Its super sparkly! What girl doesn't love a little bling!

Last but not least...I think this one is my favorite, I LOVE the rainbow elastic.... but my Mom and Husband don't agree. What do you think??

Until next time...

The Craziness that is Life!!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. My husband had heart surgery. He is doing great now, and feeling better than ever!! My kids were all sick, then they "shared" it with me. Then my youngest broke out in hives everywhere. Although that is not an excuse, I'm going to pretend it is and get back to blogging!

I have had some new exciting things happen while I was away...

I started "working" for ruffle fabric.com. It's just once a week for an hour, but being surrounded by gorgeous fabric all the time, I really can't call it work! You should really check out her website and get some! So much fun! www.rufflefabric.com

Second, I have decided to do my first boutique!! Yea! I am teaming up with my 'little' brother, who by the way makes gorgeous wood crafts and furniture. It will be July 20-21 at the American Fork Steel Days Craft Boutique! I am crazily trying to get everything ready, and with kids and summer here, sewing isn't happening much! I'll have more information coming soon!

Well, that's about it for now!
Until next time....

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Okay so everyone has a recipe for chocolate chip cookies!! I am no exception. However, I think as we grow and change, so do our taste buds. (I really have know idea if thats true, but it sounds good right?) My recipe simply just wasn't cutting it anymore, so I went on the quest for MY perfect chocolate chip cookies recipe. I say "MY" because everyone has different tastes, ie. soft and chewy, thin and crispy, etc.

First I tried these... from Alice at savorysweetlife.com

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies EVER
Ingredients

• 1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups (12 oz) all-purpose flour *If at all possible, please weigh the flour
• 3/4 tsp. smallish-medium coarse sea salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 2 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Cream butter, sugar, and brown sugar until it is nice and fluffy (approx. 3 minutes on medium-high speed on a K-5). Add both eggs and vanilla and beat for an additional 2 minutes. Add baking soda, baking powder, salt, and flour until cookie batter is fully incorporated. Finally add chocolate chips until well distributed. The cookie batter should be somewhat thick. Drop about 2 tablespoons of dough or use a medium cookie scoop and plop the batter onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 12-14 minutes until the edges are nice and golden brown. Remove from heat and allow the cookies to stay on the cookie sheet for an additional 2 minutes. Pick up the parchment paper with the cookies still on top and transfer to a cool non-porous surface. Allow the cookies to cool on the paper for at least 3 minutes before serving. Enjoy.

Notes

*please do not use table salt, the sea salt gives the cookies a nice flavor and hints of texture. If you only have table salt, use 1/2 tsp. *When using sea salt, you will get small crunchy flecks of salt when you bite into the cookie. If you do not like this taste, go with 1/2 teaspoon of table salt.
*I realized grocery stores sell bags of chocolate chips in 12 oz bags but this recipe really needs every last chip. Otherwise you’ll get cookies with only a few chips in each one and this recipe requires lots of chocolate to bulk the cookie up. You’ll need about 1 1/2 bags.

They were just as she described them, "you get a nice crisp bottom, but the rest of the cookie is soft and chewy." I used the 1/2 tsp. of regular salt and....Good, but not really what I was looking for.

Let the hunt continue, until next time.....

Ruffle T-shirt Dress

My sweet baby girl is 3 yrs. old but wears a girls size 7. Clothes these days try to make the kids look older than they are. However, I still want my 3 yr. old to look 3.

This past weekend, I had the challenge of finding an inexpensive, cute little-girl dress to fit her. After looking at seriously 5 different stores, and finding 1 that I liked, that was $35, I just gave up and bought this clearance T-shirt for $1.50. Then I headed over to hobby lobby, got 3 coordinating fabrics, and some tulle. (I got 1/4 of a yd. of 2 fabrics and 1/3 of a yd. of 1(a bit extra for a bow I thought) and then 1 yd. of the tulle. This came to $4.

Here's what I did....

I measured where I wanted the skirt to start on my little girl, added 1 inch, then cut off the rest.

I then took some extra white cotton I had. It was only 9 inches by the width of the fabric. I hemmed one edge, then started on the ruffles. As I measured, they had given me a bit of room to play with, so I had 10 inches and cut 2 strips 5 inches by the width of the fabric. I did this with all 3 coordinating fabrics, and set the extra aside. Then I sewed the strips together, hemmed and ruffled. I repeated this on the other 2 fabrics too. I wanted a full skirt but didn't want to spend the $$ for it, I cut the tulle at 5 inches by the width just to give it fluff. I ruffled 3 strips together and repeated 2 more times.

Then I laid out my white cotton and started with a row of tulle just an inch above the hem. I continued to add tulle then fabric until I got to the last row of fabric. It looked like this.

Then with right sides together I sewed the cotton edges together, leaving out the ruffles. (I sewed these individually after I sewed it on the T-shirt. Then you couldn't tell where the seam was.) I then sewed the skirt part onto the T-shirt. Just the extra part at the top was used. I wanted it to lay nice, and the ruffles would have been bulky in the seam. You can see it in the 2nd picture above.

Once sewn, it looked like this.

Then I needed to cover up the ruffles seam. I added a strip of ribbon, attaching it to the just below the seam of the ruffles and the T-shirt. It looked like this.

It still didn't look right, so I cut the sleeves off at the elbow and used the extra material I had reserved for a bow and added a bell sleeve. I also added a bow in front for "extra beauty"!! And I used some of the extra ribbon around the waist to make a bow and this was the end result.

A very happy little girl (and Mom too!!) Dad loved it too, especially cause the final cost was $7. Give it a try if you have any questions, feel free to ask. I know my instructions and pictures aren't the best, I should have waited for better lighting, but I am learning!!

Until next time....

Jean Blanket...6 years in the making!!

Okay...so I know I have been lazy!! I have been doing things, like this......

And I made this for my little girl!!

I made a few of these...

some of these...

And a LOT of these...

See so I did do something!! :)

Okay but for the post at hand, I wanted to share a project that begin a while ago, when my husband and I found ourselves with jeans that had so many holes in them they were near unrepairable, or had been repaired so many times, it wasn't worth it anymore. I decided to collect all the jeans in this sad state and make a jean blanket out of them!! Well, I got them cut into 9 inch squares, then they were boxed up and put away and never given a second thought. Three moves later, my husband dug them up, and that began this project....here's what I did, I hope you see it was super easy and it's already been loved by everyone!

To start I cut jeans and baby flannel into 9 inch squares.

The jeans were fun to decide if I would use a pocket, or a seam to make it more interesting!

Then I put wrong sides together....

And made rows of 8 keeping all the seams on the jean side, for fraying later...

Then I worked my way sewing each row onto the next until I ended up with this...

Sorry the kids were so excited seeing the scraps of things I had made for them in the quilt they insisted on being in the pictures. So all seams are on the back and it looks like this....

Again sorry for the crazy picture, my family thought they were hilarious!! :)

But you can see all the seams on the jean side. Then all that was left was to clip all the seams and sides of the blanket (oh I did sew around the edge of the blanket in about an inch). Now to fray the edges all it needs is a good wash and dry, however, this is a mildly heavy blanket, and I didn't want to dry it several times in my dryer just for the "look" of it. My suggestion, take it to a laundry-mat. The industrial dryers will do a great job, and it won't wear out your one at home!!

Think about it, I hope you give this a try, it is super easy and no one will ever notice if the seams aren't quite straight, they will just love it, like we love ours!!

Until next time.....

Alternative to the Crayon Roll

The Crayon Roll is a great crayon holding device!!

I love it, but I kept thinking, I could make it better, this is what I came up with....

It is a book that ties to close, but when you open it.....

You have everything you need for quiet, creative fun!

16 crayons on one side...

A tablet of paper for coloring or writing on the other.

And the tablet can be removed/replaced when it runs out. And you can also use the pocket to put your best work in to save until you get home!!

Well, that's it, my great creation for the day!!

Hope you enjoyed!!

Please be kind and remember that this is my creation. Although copying is the greatest form of flattery, please do not reproduce or sell this.

Thanks.

Christmas Goodies....

I love Christmas goodies. Actually I love all goodies, but Christmas is when I get them the most!! YUM! Well, like some of you may do, I bake treats and take them around to the neighbors. This year I have been wanting to mix it up a bit and do some new recipes along with the old and trusted favorites.


I first started with the divinity. Growing up, I had a neighbor that made the best melt in your mouth delicious divinity. Last year I finally found a recipe that is just that good. But as I was making it, my kitchen aid, (which I think the motor is going out in), started to struggle. I figured I would save the mixer and cut the last 2 minutes of whipping the mixture.....BAD idea.
However what I ended up with was absolutely delicious homemade marshmallows. Who knew? If you have ever had homemade marshmallow, you know what I am talking about!! SO YUMMY! So I decided that I would dip them into chocolate and count it as my new recipe to add to the neighbor gifts!!


Just in case your mouth is watering thinking of either homemade marshmallows, or divinity, I'll post the recipe.

Perfect Divinity or Marshmallow

2 ½ C. sugar

½ C. corn syrup

½ C. water

¼ tsp. salt

2 egg whites

1 tsp. vanilla

In a 2 quart saucepan, combine sugar, corn syrup, water, and salt. Cook to hardball stage, (260 degrees), stirring only until sugar dissolves. Meanwhile, as temperature of syrup reaches 250 degrees, beat egg whites till stiff peaks form. When syrup reaches 260 degrees, very gradually add the syrup to the egg whites, while beating at high speed with electric mixer. Add vanilla and beat. For Marshmallow, beat 1-3 to minutes. For divinity, beat 5-6 minutes (it will start to loose its shine). Quickly drop candy by the teaspoon full onto wax paper, swirling the top of each piece. Let cool.

Enjoy!!