Baby Stuff!

It seems like lately everyone is having babies!!  My mom's cousin's daughter just had a baby girl and I thought I would knit her a sweater.  I went to my favorite site ravelry to find some good patterns.  The pattern for the Garter Yoke Baby Cardi can be found here.  This pattern is super easy and looks great!  I did the booties next.  Again through ravelry I found this pattern for Mary Jane Booties.  Again super easy and only one seam to sew at the end.  For the hat I used the Fixation Newborn Hat on ravelry (no link).  I made a few adjustments, so that the garter stitch part was the same length as on the sweater.  They all turned out great, and look like they were all made to be together!

On the advice of a friend I add some yellow flowers.  I think it makes this really cute.  The pattern for the flowers is here.  I didn't add the buttons to the flowers but they still look great without them.  I also added yellow buttons. 

Waffel Hat

One thing I like to do is spend my time looking at other peoples blogs and seeing what they do.  Sometimes I think I should spend more time crafting myself, but this is a good way to find inspiration for doing my own crafts.  One day I came across this blog: Pickles  which is from Norway but has most of their stuff in English.  I fell in love with the waffle hat and had to make it.  I was a little intimidated, but it turned out to be super easy.  The whole hat is made in ribs.  So cool. I used St. Denis Nordique yarn in eggplant. 

It's a little big for Phoebe

Happy Halloween.... A few days late!

Halloween is one of my most favorite holidays.  It's probably because my birthday is the day before, but it's a really fun time of year.  I love all the candy, treats and being able to dress up as anything.  So much fun. 
Because I like dressing up so much I also thought Phoebe would too!  So I asked her what she wanted to be for Halloween, and she told me she wanted to be a unicorn.  So out came my crochet hook, and some scrap yarn and a unicorn she became.  I think she is the most adorable unicorn I have ever seen!  She was really good with it on too, as she kept on for a few hours!

Soooooo Cute!

Also on Halloween I decorated some cookies.  I did them really fast so they didn't turn out exactly like I wanted them too, but they were still pretty good.  Also very yummy!

Apple Pie and Corn Soup

As I was cleaning out the fridge the other day I noticed I had some apples that were about to go bad.  What was I to do?  Well my first thought was to put them in the composter, but then I thought, why not make a pie?  Especially because my husband loves pie, and wishes I made more of it. 

My go to recipe for pie crust is Martha Stewart's Pate Brisee, and  I use it whenever I need a pie crust. It is super easy to make, and even though the directions say to use the food processor, I just make it by hand. It seems to work out just fine. 

I wasn't sure what to do for the filing, so I just typed apple pie into Google to see what would pop up.  I found this apple pie recipe on All Recipes.  I like this site as there are reviews of the recipes on the bottom so you can get an idea if the recipe is going to be good or not.  So far I have had good success with the site!  I did make one modification to the recipe. That is I only had 6 apples, instead of 8, and only 3 were granny smith. When I was done filling the pie, I was happy I only used 6 as anymore would have been overkill.  It also felt kinda weird to put the apples in the pie, put the top lattice on, and then fill it up with the sauce.  Oh well, it did turn out tasty!

I love the stars!

So many apples, yummy!

Another thing that my husband quite often asks for is corn for dinner.  I thought I would try to be somewhat creative and make corn soup for dinner instead of just a bowl of corn. Again I like going to Martha Stewart's website and used her Corn Soup with Fresh Tomatoes.  The soup was delicious, and I really liked the tomatoes on top.  However my husband was not such a fan of the tomatoes, but loved the soup. (The tomatoes I used was from our garden). The recipe did call for fresh corn, but I just use frozen.  Good enough for me.

So Good!

Spooktacular Cupcakes!

On Friday I took another decorating class, and this time it was for Halloween cupcakes.  It was just for one evening, but it was lots of fun.  I find that taking the classes gets me more motivated to make things then I get when on my own.  I am also planing on taking a few more classes next month.  We will see how that turns out.

This is what I made:

I think that they turned out great.  This shows that there are so many ways to decorate cupcakes, all it takes is imagination. 
Here are my top three faves:

The Mummy .... So Cute

The Werewolf ....  Scary

The Grave... Love the hand coming out

iPad Case

We bought the iPad way back when it first came out in Canada but we never got a case for it.  Well I felt it was about time that we got a case so it's easier to take around and to protect it. Of course buying a pre-made case is not nearly as much fun as making my own, so to the fabric store I went.  I love the idea of a neutral colour on the outside and a big pop of colour on the inside, so I went with a gray corduroy for the outside, and a bright pink fleece for the inside.  Also I wanted all the seams to be in pink so there would be that additional pop of colour. 

This is how I did it:

Materials:
1 binder
0.5 m  each of outer fabric and lining
2 buttons
thread

First take the binder and cut two 8.5 x 11 inch pieces. (This makes the case sturdy and have more support)

two cut binder pieces

Cut the fabric as follows:
Cut two each of the outer and lining fabric in the size of 13.5 x 11 inches. (These are the outside pieces)
Cut one of the outer and lining fabric in the size of  13.5 x 9 inches. (These are for the pocket)
Cut one of the outer and lining fabric in the size of 13.5 x 8.5 inches. (These are for the flap)

Cut peices

Take the pocket fabric and place the wrong sides together (outer fabric and lining).  Sew across the top (13.5 inch side).  Turn the fabric so the wrong sides are together.  Press.  Top stich along the new seam, and another below it (I did seams of 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch)

This should be what it looks like

Place the pocket right side up on one piece of the outside fabric(13.5 x 11 inch), also facing up.  Then place the right side of the lining on top, so that right sides are facing.

Now sew a seam along the two sides and the bottom.  Turn the fabric inside out, don't forget to clip the corners so they turn easier.  This will be the front panel.

Take the last outside pieces (13.5 x 11 inch) and place the right sides together.  Sew along the two sides and bottom.  Turn inside out, remember to cut the corners to turn better) This is the back panel.

Do the same for the flap piece.  Place the right sides together, sew along the 3 sides, turn inside out. 

This is what you should have (I took the plastic of the binder pieces)

At this point I made my button holes int the top flap.  This doesn't need to be done at this point, but this is when I did it.

Now take one of the binder pieces and put into the panel with the pocket.  This part is a bit tricky, but pin the binder into the middle of this piece.  This is to make sure that you don't sew over the binder.  Now turn in the open seam and press in place. 

Sew along the top seam.  Again I did a 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch seam allowance. 
Now put the other binder piece in the non-pocket piece, and pin into place just like above.  Again turn in the seams and press.  Again tricky, place the top flap inside the opening and pin into place.  Sew along the seam where the flap and the back piece meet.  I did the two seams again.

Inside pinned together

Outside pinned together

Now that these two pieces are sewing together, place the back piece with the flap lining side up and the pocket piece lining side down.  Sew along the three sides, take out the pins.  Sew the buttons into place, and it is now complete!!

The finished case

Inside of case

iPad sitting comfortably

This is my first pattern I made myself.  It turned out quite well, and I like how putting the iPad in and out of the case cleans the screen!


(Please use pattern for personal uses only)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope everyone is having a good Thanksgiving weekend!  This year for Thanksgiving desert I made Pumpkin Cake with Brown butter icing from Martha Stewart.  I have made this cake before and it is so good.  It is really moist and tasty.  The icing is really easy to make, and probably one of my favorites.  I am always impressed by how well the caramelized walnuts turn out, although I used pecans this time as they did not seem to have walnuts at the store.  

Pumpkin Cake with Brown Butter Icing

Side view, so yummy!

Crobots - Retrobot

I have finished Retrobot, which is also the last of the "easy" crobots to do.  (They are rated on a scale of one cogwheel to four, one being the easiest)  I didn't have the valves to put on for the arms, but I used some screws in place of them.  I am starting to find, the more I do of the crobots, the easier they seem to be.  I guess it is true, practice makes perfect!

Retrobot

Phoebe and Retrobot, taking a break

Crobots - Zombiebot & Mechanobot

I have completed a couple more crobots.  The one I was most looking forward to making was Zombiebot and it turned out great.  I especially love the arm falling off.  It took me a while to finish making him as I needed to get a hold of some screws and more springs.  For the screws I went to the MCC thrift shop and got a bag of miscellaneous screws and nails for only 50 cents. Woo Hoo!   For the springs I went to the dollar store and got a bag of pens with springs, as I was tired of looking around my house for pens I could tear apart. I think they both turned out really great.

Zombiebot

Zombiebot sneaking up on Phoebe......On No!!!!

Mechanobot

Phoebe shocked by Mechanobot's awesomeness!

**No cats were zombiefied in the making of this blog**

Gathered Clutch

I came across this tutorial for a gathered clutch on the Noodlehead blog and thought I have to try it.  The hardest part of making this was picking out the fabric.  I have a habit of going into Fabricland, looking around at all the fabric I want, then leaving empty handed.  After doing this a few times I finally told myself I was not allowed to leave the store until I had all the stuff I needed to make this clutch.  The next hardest part was finding time to make it.  Well last night I decided would be the perfect time to put this all together.  It turns out it was not hard at all, and I had a lot of fun doing it.  This is the very first project I have done with a zipper and a lining and I think it turned out really well.  I added an extra set of card holders inside of the clutch as I have a lot of cards I like to carry around.

Front of Clutch

Back of Clutch (Love the birds!)

Inside of Clutch

Crobots - Bopbot

The next crobot in the book is Bopbot.  It took me a bit to finish as I had to find some sequins and a retractable ballpoint pen for the spring inside.  Also, I was also supposed to get a screw top jewelry fastener for the headphones, but I finally decided to just finish it without.  If I come across one that I already have I will add it to Bopbot in then, but for now I think it's just fine.

Bopbot

Bopbot chilling with Phoebe

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Butterfly Specimen case

I was browsing on some blogs when I came upon this post on homemade by jill on paper punch art with butterflies.  I loved it and just had to make it.  So I went to the local MCC thrift shop and found a really cheap picture frame that had glass in it for $6.00.  It was not pretty so I needed to spruce it up so I sanded it down a bit and spray painted it.

Front of Frame

Back of frame (Weird)

Taken apart ready to paint

When the frame was all painted I was ready to put the glass back inside.  However, I broke the glass that came with the frame which was so frustrating.  So I had to go back to the store and buy another frame with glass, another $8.00, which was cheaper then buying just the glass at a craft store.

The spray paint I used and the glazier points used to keep the glass in place

 After I had the glass in place I needed to start on the picture.  I bought the Martha Stewart classic butterfly punch and started punching out butterflies from old magazines.  I tried to find different patterns to punch out so each butterfly would be different.  In total I had to punch out 378 butterflies!  It was now time to lay them out.  I bought a sheet of mat paper and used that as the background.  To give the butterflies some depth I used foam circles to give them some height.  I used the samster Mommy blog for instructions on how to lay out the butterflies.

When all the butterflies were attached I was ready to attach the picture to the frame.  I just used masking tape and some thumb tacks.  Then I re- attached the hanger and it was ready to hang!

Back of picture

I absolutely love the final picture.  It turned out just like I wanted it to!!!!

The final picture