Snow White Birthday Party, Regan turns 3!

I love this little girl.  When asked how old she is her reply is "28."  Which fits her personality.  She had flip flopped on what party theme she wanted but this was the main request so that's what we did.  I love celebrating with my family and friends.  Regan gave quite a birthday girl performance smiling and posing for the camera, what can I say she takes after her mother.

I made the cutest little apple cupcakes.  While they were a bit more time consuming than say frosting a cake, they were totally worth it and easy too.  I found the idea on Pinterest and a cute little blog Design Dazzle.  Seriously the best ideas.  The day before her party was Dr. Seuss's Birthday and a local bakery happened to be giving away free cupcakes to kids that told them what their favorite Seuss book was.  So I picked up some cake doughnuts to make the apple cupcakes with and birthday breakfast, making it easier on myself for the next day.

Apple Cupcake How To:

You will need:  Red cupcake liners, cake mix, red frosting, red sugar, regular tootsie rolls, green fruit tootsie rolls and doughnuts (you need 1/2 doughnut per cupcake).  You will also need a cutting board, scissors and a toothpick.

Bake your cupcakes and once cool slice the top off.  Attempt to not eat all of the cupcake tops.  While they are baking you can cut your doughnuts in half, like how you would cut a bagel, mix your red frosting.  When cooled and cut dab a bit of frosting on the cupcake to hold the doughnut half.  Frost the doughnut and then cover with red sugar.  Once they are all frosted and sugared its time to make your stems and leaves.  For the stems take a pair of scissors and cut a piece of the tootsie roll off, lengthwise.  You can bend it, twist it, roll it to get a stem look.  For the leaves you will want to roll out the tootsie roll and then cut out a leaf shape.  Use a toothpick to make patterns on the leaf.


The Decor:

I decorated our wreath with tulle and a spray painted "R" tied on with red satin ribbon.  I made a bunting from scrap vintage red and blue fabric and vintage yellow bias tape, I love being able to use up fabric scraps and upcycle something.  I hung red, blue and yellow balloons from the ceiling using push pins and clear string.  We decorated the table with a plastic blue tablecloth and red ribbon.  I also did the birthday chair with the excess tablecloth and larger ribbon (I just hot glued that ribbon on to make it stay up!)  I got some dirt and sticks from outside and hot glued some little birds on the "branches."  That along with her Snow White doll and a stuffed deer we already had were the table decoration.

Snow White couldn't walk around in just anything so I made her a yellow tutu and embellished it with a red satin bow.  I dyed one of her shirts blue and sewed some tulle onto the arms, another way to upcycle and use something we already had.  I also make her a red head band to complete the look.  I used the same ribbon for her tutu and head band on the table, chair and wreath.  The tutu was so easy to make, it was my second one ever!  I'll be giving a tutorial later this week!

It wasn't the fanciest or poshest party but it was perfect for our family and for my sweet and feisty Regan.

The back view, I love this tutu!

The Apple Cupcakes!

The decor.

The wreath.

Such a happy girl!

The Upcycled Jean Pillows and a Pocket Pillow Tutorial

So yesterday I showed you my Upcycled Jean Quilt.  I had some extra soft material from the center cut of the blanket that I used for the pillow covers and I embellished with scraps leftover from the jeans and some vintage buttons.  If you are a real quilter please don't take offense to me using the term quilt and to my non-traditional methods.  My Grams was a real quilter and I sometimes wonder if she would just be happy that I'm sewing or if she is rolling over in her grave at my really non-traditional ways of doing things!

These are pocket backs, meaning the back is made to create a pocket for a pre-form pillow to go in.  I did measure these :).  First you need to decide what size pillow you want or have.  These require 3 pieces of material.  Alright we're going to do some math here, prepare your brain if necessary.

Say you want to make a a cover for a 12x12 inch pillow form.  For the front piece you will need to cut a square that is 13x13.  So for any front piece you need to add 1 inch to each side.  Now for the two back pieces.  Divide the longest side in half and add 3 inches (12/2)+3=9  So each side piece will be 13x9.

Here is another example using a rectangle.  You are making a cover for a pillow that is 16x12.  The front piece needs to be 17x13.  The back pieces need to be 11x13.  Got it?  Shoot me an email if you have any questions, math and sewing can be tricky.

Now if you want to add any embellishments you need to do it before you sew the front and back of the cover pieces together.  Trust me its really difficult if you don't.  I made jean "flowers"  by cutting out different size circles and stacking them together.  I sewed them down and then added brown vintage buttons.   For the striped pillow I took strips of denim and sewed them down.  Once washed they did they fray thing.

Once your embellishments are on its time to sew it up.  I got lucky and used the edges of the blanket for the back pieces so that I didn't have to hem them.  If I was making one from scratch I would hem the two back pieces along one of the longer sides, just a half inch hem will do.  If you don't have a serger (I don't) use a zigzag stitch.  Place your right sides together of the front piece and one back piece, pin and sew.  Make sure you back stitch when starting and stopping so you won't get any loose threads later on. Then place the second back piece on, making sure that it goes over the other back piece creating the pocket, pin and sew.  Trim your edges if necessary and clip the corners (careful don't clip your stitch) and turn your pillow cover out.  All done!

No perfect straight lines for me, I love the zigzag effect here.

New Look

No you're not lost, I changed my blog template.  I needed something fresh and new and I love it.  I began working on my posts for this week and realized I had an insane amount of food related posts.  This might make readers think that all I do is eat.  I wish that were the case, it takes a lot of restraint not to.  My husband and kids on the other hand are given a ridiculous amount of new food to try.  I blame Pinterest.  I will go on there to look for something non food related and almost always come out with a new recipe.  It's a good thing that amid all of the scrumptious looking food is some chick with abs of steel telling me I shouldn't quit and how its my fault if I don't work out.  Point taken hot chick.  So today I'll show you the really awesome stuff I got when I "went to get my haircut," a trip that should have been an hour long, but took two because I was ALONE (squeals of delight, yes I mentally shouted that while typing) and I refuse to torture myself (or my kids) by bringing my children with me to my favorite Main St. shops.

The vintage horse fabric is for Jack's birthday, which isn't until June but I know it will be horse related.  There is much more than what you see pictured and while I'm not exactly sure what I'll make with it, I can't wait to hear him squeal with delight.  Jack loves 3 things, horses, cars and trains.  The vintage "Mrs" tea towel will be something, I'm just not sure what yet.  Then my favorite fabric shop was having an open house and I got 3 fat quarters of cute fabric (on sale!) for a DIY for the next chance I get to sit at the sewing machine.  I really should go out for a haircut more often!

Easy Fabric Scrap Bunting

I love buntings and wanted to make one just because.  So I pulled a bunch of fabric scraps and cut them into strips, varying in width and length.  I sewed them onto some vintage seam binding making sure to leave enough on each end to use as a tie.  I decided to add some letters to it and put it in the mudroom as a welcome banner.  I think it would probably be cuter with fabric letters, but I love the versatility that the reusable vinyl letters have.  If I want to change the greeting I can!

Come on in!

How to turn a Cloth Napkin into a Throw Pillow

I love finding sweet little vintage things and turning them into something I get to see everyday.  I spied this little cloth napkin and while I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it when I got it, I couldn't pass it up.  It was only a dollar so I wasn't breaking the bank either.

I didn't want to lose any of the details along the edges, so I just folded it in half right sides up and stitched along the sides.  When it came to the flower details on the front I carefully and slowly stitched around them.  I left a little hole for stuffing and once stuffed I hand sewed the rest.  Total time was maybe 15 minutes.  It always takes longer to stuff than it does to sew!

I love how it turned out.

See the stitches above the leafs?  I couldn't sew through them.  

Room with a View

If you are like me you spend more time in the kitchen than you'd probably like.  My kitchen window, above my sink, has a view of our fence.  Not exactly what I would like it to be.  So when I change out my wreath I change out my window display to give myself a room with a view.  It makes such a difference to do this little thing just for me.  It also makes doing dishes and shining my sink not such a chore.

The fence, what a view!  Now I only see the things that make me happy!

Epsom salt, red bird and branches.  In the other jar I have coffee beans and a candle.  When the candle melts into the coffee beans it looks really neat.  Also a place to put my jewelry.

Epsom salt on pine cones to look like snow.  Epsom salt in a jar with a candle.  

Same wreath from Christmas, minus the ornaments.

I added Epsom salt snow to the pine cones and the ribbon has snow flakes on it.   Simplicity!

Decorating my house is like pampering myself.  I love a few touches of vintage and making it feel like the season inside, even if sometimes I could go outside in a t-shirt.