Fall

Don't you just love fall?  Me too!  It's my favorite season.  Beautiful fall colors, crisp air, cooler days.  The leaves that fall are just made for jumping in.  You pile them up, jump in and  immerse yourself in their crunchy texture.  You can feel the excitement of my son. Enjoy!  And maybe even go play in the leaves too.

Jenny

October Baby Shower

Hello!

Just a few weekends ago I hosted (with my MIL) a baby shower.  She helped make some of the yummy sandwiches and I had fun making the decorations and cupcake treats.

The theme of the shower was pink and gold, the colors of my BIL and his wife's little baby's nursery.  Quite girly!

So we had pink, gold and white decorations.  Unfortunately, I got so wrapped up in decorating and making it just perfect, that I forgot to photograph great detail pictures of the party.  Oh man, I'm kicking myself over that!  but, I went looking through the few pictures I did manage to snap, and found that hidden in them are a few shots of the decorations.  Phew! :)

We hosted the shower in the cafe of our church.  It's a beautiful and open space, and works well for soirees.

I made a banner with the baby's name on it for the gift table, but no great finished picture here, oops!  I"m hoping my BIL and his wife will use them in the nursery.

 

My little boy thought it was amusing that mommy was up on the tall ladder hanging tissue pom poms into the ceiling.  So he grabbed my phone and snapped a picture.  I was quite impressed with his photo.

I made some awesome table decorations with pinwheels in mason jars.  Again, no great detail picture, but I did find that I snapped some shots with them hiding in the background... just look hard :)

I love the cupcakes!  I made fondant toppers, used a stamp to impress "it's a girl" and then painted them with pearl dust.  Some toppers were scallops and others weree sweet little feet.

I also made some gifts for my BIL and his wife.  I made a baby quilt, the same pattern I created for this quilt here.  But I changed the colors to all one color of pink square, and used a neat shimmery gold chevron fabric for the centers.  I used the same gold chevrons for the binding as well.  The back was this super soft pink flannel giraffe fabric.  If I had any reason to use pink giraffe for myself, I would.  I'm in love with it!!

I also made a taggie blanket and a set of hooded towels.  You can see these two gifts hiding in the bottom picture and snuck into the gift display table.

We did an open house style baby shower.  Everyone that came said they loved it.  It fit the easy-going style of the showered couple and worked well for the day.  I think it's my new favorite way to host a party.  People could come and go as they needed.  I hate being trapped playing games I don't enjoy.  You too?  Then you'd love an open house party. :)

So sorry for my slacking in picture taking.  I was über fixed on making it beautiful for everyone.  Oh well.  I know it turned out perfect. :)

Jenny

Sponge Bob Cake

Hello again!

I've made another cake at the end of the summer for a friend's son.  His favorite character is Sponge Bob and he Really loves the snail, Gary.  I really wanted to be able to add both of them to the cake.

Here are some pictures from the cake as I had made it.

Here is sponge bob and a a faux-wood sign that is supposed to look like drift wood

Gary the snail

I made a ton of coral, tubers, stars and seaweed pieces, and I forgot to take a picture of the tray as they were drying.

I made a pineapple for the top of the cake.  I made the base from rice krispies and covered it in fondant.  I made lines in the pineapple with a tracing wheel too and then I used food coloring and painted the lines and dots and smudged it a bit.  I then added some pineapple tops.

side of the cake

my friend sent this picture to me when she added Sponge Bob at home. 

I found a super great tutorial for Sponge Bob and the wood sign here.

Have a great day!
Jenny

Frozen Cake

Hello friends!

Just a quick post, with some pictures to show you a Frozen cake I made for a friend's daughter early this summer.  I'm just now getting some time to post about it :)  Now that we've had a few cool days, it's a good time for a cool idea.

Here's a few ways I started the cake:

I started making an Olaf snowman... but keep in mind I've never actually sculpted anything in my life out of fondant.  (although I do have some memories of making play clots in elementary art school...) :)  I positioned Olaf on a toothpick so he could be placed down into the cake later.

The beginning's of an Olaf

I knew that I wanted to make the whole cake covered in snowflakes of varying sizes.  I rolled these out of white fondant.  I used a large snowflake cookie cutter and then used a leaf shape and the tips from some icing tips to cut out the small circles.

large fondant snowflakes

I also printed out some snowflake patterns and used a thick royal icing to pipe out the snowflakes designs and swirls.

 Here is the final cake.  I painted some of the fondant snowflakes with an edible silver dust.  The cake was quite tall at nearly a foot high.  My friend wanted the cake to feed at least 60 people easily.  That is did!  We even had some left. :)  Lots of happy kids and parents.

Here is a front view of the cake.  I just placed the dolls on top of the cake and stuck my little Olaf down in front. 

 Here is a little up close and personal look at Olaf.  In hindsight, his carrot nose was a big extra carrot-y.  Oops :)  He was super cute as a first time sculpting adventure!

Enjoy!
Jenny

Christmas Quilt 2014

Hello!

I have been around, don't worry! ;)  I actually have been working on lots of things behind the scenes here, I just don't always keep up posting.

I made this Christmas quilt top this year in August.  It came together rather quickly, the tedious part was cutting and chain piecing all the little dresdens.  It's a pattern from Gigi's Thimble.  (I added an extra row to the square quilt).   I've had this pattern a year or two and have been waiting for the perfect Christmas fabric, nothing too dark, and bright cheery reds and greens.  This fabric, Solstice by Kate Spain for Moda was just the perfect match.

I started early on this because I'm working on hand quilting this cute little guy.  The quilt will end up about 53X68.  I  nice lap size to snuggle with.  I've never hand quilted before and wanted to try it at least once.

I have one square completed and hand quilted.  I stitched a snowflake I bought a template) in the center of the dresdens and then holly (I made my own stencil) on the corners and swirls that connected the holly.

Snowflake in the center of this dresden

Here in the bottom right corner you can see a little peek of the quilted holly corner.  You can also see how I"m planning on quilting the borders.

I tried using a hoop, but I didn't like it.  Maybe my hoop was too large for me to handle, but I actually like quilting without a hoop, I feel like I can move it more easily and get exactly where I need to see.

I also made my own holly stencil with swirls for the 5 inch border.  I couldn't find anything I liked or that was big enough.  I like a challenge. :)

Last I LOVE the backing fabric- it looks a bit like a fern pattern with berries.  I made my own paper-piecing pattern for the Christmas trees.  I haven't made my own paper piecing pattern before either, that was fun!

Jenny

Zippred Pouch

Hello!

I've made several zippered pouches following this awesome tutorial from Noodlehead.


She has a wonderful and easy to follow tutorial on how to create these.  I've followed them and have also played with a few different sizes myself to get a taller of skinnier bag.  It all depends. 

Here are a few pics of ones I've created.


Here they are:

for my sister

I added a little hexie flower and hand stitched around it

For mother's day gifts

for my son's preschool teachers at the end of the year

I've had fun making these super cute pouches, I bet you will too!
Jenny

Taggie Blanket

Hello!

I know there are man y tutorials out there for these awesome baby taggie blankets.  I thought I'd just show you a few extra tips that I use when making my blankets.  I like the make my blankets a bit longer than just the 12x12 size.  My blankets usually end up about 36 x 44.  Just about the exact size of a yard of fabric (minus just a bit for 1/2 inch seam allowance).

After I measure up and cut the fabric, I turn the fabric right sides together to get ready to sew.  I divide my fabric into sections and then pin the ribbon facing to the inside, so that it sews the right way later.


I sew using a half inch seam allowance and turn them right side out.  I give them a little press and tuck in the area i left open for turning. I then sew all around the outside to close to blanket.  Easy peasy, just like the other awesome tutorials out there. 

But here comes my own next steps that I use:

I use a wide masking tape (about 1.5 inches wide) and measure In 6 inches from the seam and tape all the way around.  I use my long quilting ruler to help keep it straight.

measuring 6 inches in from the seam

I also tape another line on the other side of the ruler, this would be about 12 inches from the outline of the blanket.  This will eventually give me two outlines of boxes on my blanket.

full picture of how I measure my tape lines

Then I take this all to my sewing machine (with a few pins holding all the fabric in place, but out of the way of tape lines).  I sew on the outside of my tape lines.  I try not to run over the tape with my stitching, but if it happens, I don;'t panic because the tape will still come off-remember, it's just masking tape!

Then I peel off my tape and enjoy my blanket!  The masking tape doesn't leave any residue.

You can see the outline of the two boxes.  This type of sewing just keeps the blanket together, like quilting.

Hope that helped you find a new way to make a large taggie blanket more stable!

Jenny :)

Baseball Pants Patch

Hello friends!


I don't know about you, but my little boy has a way of putting holes into his pants.  But he only puts a hole into the left knee. every. single. time.  At least he's consistent :)

So, I've gotten creative with making a patch to cover said hole... enter- the baseball patch!

I made the patch from the twill jeans iron-on patch, but used white.  I used a small bowl to trace the size circle I wanted.  I used red embroidery floss/thread to free-hand the ball stitches.  Then, just iron on over the hole.  Voila! :)

My little guy absolutely loves it-plus it already has some grass stains now to accent the baseball patch.  We put things to work around here...


Enjoy!
Jenny

Baby Girl Quilt

Hello all!

Here's a little baby quilt I made for a friend's baby shower recently.  I made up this little pattern myself.  I don't have any fancy quilting program, I draw it out "old-school."  :)  On graph paper.

This little sweetie quilt finished about 50x50.  Just the perfect size to snuggle with or to use as a play mat for the floor.  As she grows as could also use it as a first toddler bed quilt.  So many options! :)


Here's a quick picture of sewing the block together.  I sewed the top and bottom over the square first, then sewed on the side strips.  I laid them out on top of each other as I had it planned out on my design I wrote up.  I then kept them in this order the whole time, and stacked the rows as I went.

I added this next picture to show you how I lay out the quilt.. and to show you a semi-picture of the back.  I tape my quilt backing to the floor with masking/painters tape (whichever I have on hand).  then I sandwich the batting and lay down the quilt top.  I use pins to baste, but I don't have a picture of that.

 The backing fabric came from Joann's.  I found the cutest pennant fabric and a nice teal dot fabric that matched the colors of the front perfectly.

To quilt it, I did an echo quilting 1/4" around the insides and outsides of the boxes.  I also stitched straight lines in the borders to make the corners cross into a grid pattern.

So sorry this picture isn't the best of the finished quilt... I finished it late one night and snapped a quick picture before I wrapped it up to give away.  My friend (and the rest of the shower attendees) LOVED it.  So excited to bless her little one with this quilt.

Have fun!
Jenny :)

Plastic Easter Eggs

Hello friends! Welcome back!

I don't know about you, but we have lots of those colorful, lots of fun, hard to find storage space for, plastic Easter eggs.  Plus, they always seem to multiply each year, right?


I found a great way to store those eggs! 


I use a plastic zippered bag-you know the kind you get with some sheets sets or mattress covers?  Right, those things!


After all the activities are complete, I toss all the plastic eggs in the sink with warm soapy water and let them soak for a bit {I don't want to store residue from stick candy or dirt from outside egg hunting :) }  Then I rinse them off and let them air dry for the day.  Then I just get a cute little helper to close up the eggs and toss them into our storage bag.  Zip it up and save them for next year!

Enjoy a quick tip!
Jenny :)

Rose Ombré Cake

Hello to you!

Recently I made a cake... I jumped on the ombré and rose cake bandwagon.  I'm glad I did!  It turned out pretty awesome, especially for a first try.

I made a strawberry cake with varying shades of pink icing.  I just used my red icing gel to make the color.  It took several batches of icing to make this cake.  It was just about an icing overload...

I love my blue mixer in the background! :)

I used a Wilton 1M tip to create the roses

Top of the cake: Got the hang of icing it by the end...

I love the ombré colors

The pretty cake plate is from HomeGoods.  My sister bought it for me for Christmas.  Thanks, sis! :)

Have a crafty day!

Jenny

Team(s) Spirit Wreath

Ok... so have we all heard about the "house divided" concept?  Two different favorite sports teams within the same family?

Yup- we have that over here too.  But ours is also a house divided, but the same state-kinda teams.

Go University of Louisville, (UofL) Cardinals!

Go University of Kentucky, (UK) Wildcats!


And here is (was) our public display of team affection...

Now that basketball season is over... I should take this down... maybe later? :)

Jenny

New Pillows

Hello!

Recently we bought new couches for our house.  It's been almost 9 years since we bought our first and only couch.  Since we've moved several times, and our old blue had seen better days, we got two couches this time, and replaced our old friend couch. :)

I made some cute new pillows to match our colors.  I made the blue ikat and the yellow "irongate" (my phrase) pillows.  The funky geometric pillow in the back corner came with the couch.  I kinda like it as I'm into geometric prints right now.  ;)

They were supposed to decorative, but with a preschooler in the house- they quickly got re-purposed: pillow fights, fort supports, plastic fish cave (don't ask),  floor movie pillows... you get the idea!

Enjoy the crafty day!
Jenny :)

Recap Part 2

Hello again!

Here's one more recap from 2013.  I told you I was busy, just not blogging, so sorry!  I've made other things, but not all of them made my recap. :)  It was already a growing list.

Let's roll...

1.  I made a quilt for my son for his 4th birthday.  He has loved all the quilts I've made, and really wanted his own "special mommy quilt".  So, I picked out a few patterns and let him decide what he liked best: arrows it is.  The patterns is called Every Which Way bi Gigi'sThimble.  I doubled the pattern and then added one more row.   (Patterned fabrics are mostly "Cruiser Blvd" by Riley Blake, with a bit of "On the Go" by Riley blake, with a few chevron patterns and other Riley Blake mixes. The solid blue is Kona Navy).

2.  Here is the back of my son's quilt.  Its a twin size quilt (appx. 68" x 92").  I mace up with the pattern design on the back myself.  I draw out my patterns on graph paper and figure out all the dimensions.  (I was inspired by the traffic light idea here).

3.  I tried my hand at my first tiered cake for my son's birthday.  We had a Cars theme party.

4.  I made a tree skirt for my new-this-year "fancy" tree (as my husband calls it).  I found a great tutorial here.  I used satin for my skirt so I made a small hem on the edges instead of serging them.  I love the look and drape of it.  Looked beautiful under my blue and silver tree!

5.  I was inspired by several different looks on this.  I have liked all the felt wreaths floating around on Pinterest.  So, I cut out brown felt circles and glued them to my styrofoam wreath.  I found these great tutorials for the sunflowers and mums.  I also loved the look of the leaves from this blog.

6.  I made apple jelly for the first time this year.  It tastes wonderful!  I also made TONS of great eats with the 80 lbs of apples we picked in October 2013. :)

7.  I made a mini quilt for my husband's Granny for Christmas.  It's 24" square.  I used a pattern called Kentucky chain, since that's where they live.  I found a great tutorial here.  (I did not paper piece, I cut the pieces out and sewed them the second way).

8.  Sorry, somehow I don't have a finished picture of this mini quilt.  But it was a paper pieced quilt: I picked up the pattern at a quilt show last year.  I taught my mom how to paper piece with this little design.

9-12.  I jumped on the mug rug/snack mat train last year and made several of these last year for Christmas gifts.  There are even a few more I made that I didn't snatch pictures of before I gave them away.  #10 I found a tutorial here, and the others I just made up as I went along.


Enjoy!

Maybe I'll finally try to keep up better this year, seeing as it is already April...

Jenny :)

2013... Where did I go?

Hello, long lost friends!

(Or maybe that was just me...)

I'm back, and I've some recaps of projects from 2013.  I'm not going to write about each one as a separate blog, but I'll show you a collage and then give some links under it with more info as needed.  Let's get started!

1.  I actually finished my Swoon quilt last April and we've been enjoying it on our bed all year long.  I did a "quilt-as-you-go" method because there was no way I was going to fit this massive quilt into my machine; it finishes about 92" x 92", a very generous queen size.  I quilted each block separately and then added borders and sewed the blocks together.   I've previously posted in progress work here, here and here.

2.  I cure little pinwheel card I made for my niece for her birthday.  I used my Cricut to cut out the pinwheels.  I believe I used the "Just a Note" cartridge.


3.  A card for Mother's Day last year.

4.   This is the front of my picnic pinwheel quilt.  I found a great free tutorial here from SewMamaSew.  The fabric was Catalina by Kanvas for Benartex, I used a layer cake.  (There are a few extra scrap pieces with stars I threw in the mix).  I used just the red, white and blue fabric colors.  I used a white background, and then used extra pieces to create a "piano key" border.  I used stabilizer on the border.

5.  Here is the back of the pinwheel picnic quilt.  I used states fabric from Joann's.  I made up my own pattern for a tic-tac-toe board as well as a checker board.  I thought all of these would be great for summer picnics!  I believe the while quilt finished about 72(ish) inches square.  I also sewed ribbon on one side to roll up the quilt and tie it shut.

6 & 7.  I got these great patio chairs from my mother-in-law.  They weren't using them anymore, so I snagged them up.  I used several cans of spray paint by Rust-oleum.  I used Summer Squash and Midnight Blue, both in a satin finish.  I then used a clear satin to help seal on protect the chairs.

8.  I made water sponges to play outside with.  I found many tutorials online, but this is a great one that uses elastic hair ties instead of string to hold the sponges.

9.  I made a Kitchen Aide cover for my Artisan mixer using... an old bridesmaids dress.  Actually it was just the shawl, and the dress is still intact for another time of creative crafting.  I found a wonderful tutorial here.  It has a template as well.  I also made it reversible, with a black and white damask fabric, should I choose to change it up.

11.  (Apparently I can't count when I make a collage late at night!)  I made a sign for my laundry room out of a canvas frame, free Home Depot paint and a free cricut cut one week.

12.  My mom asked me to make a card for my grandfather to give to her dad for his birthday.  He used to make beautiful and amazing stained glass projects.  I so made the card with torn bits of paper to look like stained glass.

13.  Again my mom wanted a card to give to her brother for his birthday.  He was turning a big 60, so the card says, "Maybe a cupcake would help?"  I was amused at least ;)

14.  I made a pillow for my bed with the swoon quilt with the HST scraps left over.  I found inspiration for the design from this post.


Thanks for sticking withe the long post and thanks for rejoinging me after my long hiatus from blogging!

Keep crafty,
Jenny