Sunday, September 27, 2009

Quilting adventures

I am going to make my mom a quilt for Christmas and I have all the fabric bought and I even drew up my own design which I really like. The only problem now is, I hate math and I'm not good at it. Joe can do math, so he is being really good at drawing it up on graph paper, but he is having trouble figuring out the dimensions. We started trying to find quilting programs that could help, but they are either expensive or the free ones really don't help. Grrrr...frustrating! I know, I should just find a pattern and go that route, but I just can't find one I like and I like making things one of a kind and unique. I like the idea of designing this from the ground up, but it is difficult! I'm sure we will figure it out, I am just stressed about it because I want to start putting it together because I am anxious to see it finished.

On another note, I have some iron on vinyl in the mail on it's way to me, so I can start Hannah's (my 5 yr. old niece) art smock for Christmas. Hannah LOVES arts, crafts and baking (just like me!) so she is an easy one to buy/make things for. I still need to figure out what I am making for Emma (my 4 yr. old niece) because she doesn't really have things she absolutely loves to do like Hannah, she is more like her mom. Whom surprisingly I figured out what to make her for Christmas right away. Well, I think that is all for today, hopefully I'll post more tomorrow, I'm getting a little better at this!

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Autumn...Oh my!

I'm a few days late on posting since the first day of Autumn was actually the 22nd, but that okay! I love fall, it is my favorite time of year. Changing leaves, the fresh smelling air, the crisp cool weather, pumpkin patches, apple cider, I could go on and on! I love it all! Then of course it leads in winter which is equally my other favorite time of the year! Snow, Christmas, fire in the fireplace...okay, I'm getting ahead of myself, it only just turned fall, back to that. I hope to get lots of crafting and baking done this fall. Both for Christmas presents and for (fingers crossed) my Etsy shop. Lots of planning done, now I need to get to the doing.

But for now, I am just going to leave with some of my fall pictures I took last year.



On another note, I just bought some white and brown rice flour. I am excited to start experimenting with that making some gluten free (or mostly gluten free) baked goodies!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Birthday Time

It was my birthday yesterday, pretty much like any other day. Joe worked all day, then I worked at night. Got lots of birthday wishes from my friends, so that was nice. Took myself shopping and got some nice new clothes. Not overly exciting, but I enjoyed myself. Haven't gotten anymore crafting done. I need to get going on Christmas presents if I am going to get them all made this year. Going to keep this short and sweet and I'll post some more when I get something more exciting accomplished! :-)

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Zippers are evil!

Okay, so they aren't evil, but they aren't exactly my friends either. I am not going to give up on zippers for good, but I will definitely be sticking with buttons more often!

So I finally got around to making a project from one of the books I mentioned in an earlier post. I made one of the first projects a little zippered pouch which was supposedly easy. While it really wasn't as bad as it sounds, I am just not a fan of sewing zippers. Maybe it was just the size of this project that I had some problems with or that I just have absolutely no experience sewing zippers. Either way, the zipper had me frustrated, but I persevered and made a complete little zipper ouch with no tears! Yay! Here is a picture of my finished product:



Speaking of buttons, oh how I love them so, I got a nice little stash the other day from JoAnne's. They had a lot on clearance and my friend didn't get me away from them fast enough.

Aren't they beautiful?



Plus, I bought a couple more zippers besides the one I used, so I will have to use them at some point too. After I work up some more patience for them. *sigh*



On with the crafting! :-)

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Fabric Maker

I just made my first purchase on Spoonflower for some fabric I designed (sort of)! I can't wait to get it! I can't really talk about it on here just in case the person it is for reads this. Sorry, you'll have to wait until Christmas to see the fabric and what I make with it! I really love this idea I came up with and trust me I wish I could share any of it on here.

I don't have much more to post about today. I've been working and babysitting so haven't gotten much done but I have lots of projects in mind for Christmas presents and hopefully I can get some projects done to put up on Etsy. Plus I have a lot of birthdays coming up that I will be making cakes for. So it will be a busy next couple of months!

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Fresh Lemon Bars

So I actually made these about two weeks ago and haven't posted about them yet. We bought some lemons at Trader Joe's so naturally I decided to make lemon bars because they sounded so good. And let me tell you, they were AMAZING! Better than I could have imagined. I got the recipe from Bakerella, by the way she is amazing and I plan on trying many more of her recipes and ideas.

Mine were not as pretty as hers, but they were tasty and oh so worth freshly squeezing 4 1/2 lemons. (And getting lemon juice in the little owies around my fingernails, you'd think that would teach me from still picking. Hmm..nope.)

Oh yeah, and these made the perfect dessert for when we had dinner last week while my parents were visiting. I added some blueberries to the plate. It made a pretty and light dessert after another amazing meal Joe made.

Anywho, I think I will leave you with a picture so you will want to make your own.