Pigs in a Blanket

Two piggies, two blankets....Let's roll...

And snap...Two piggies IN blankets.The end.

Crayon Rolls

I made these a few years ago for Christmas gifts for my boys and nieces (you can see my original blogpost about it here). I have long thought of making a tutorial for them but then just the other day I saw one on The Pleated Poppy (aka Imperfect), a blog I follow.

Lindsey from the Pleated Poppy actually sells these rolls in her shop for a whopping $18.00. Her tutorial is very detailed and picture heavy, so even inexperienced sewers can manage. You can find it here. You will not regret making one of these - I made mine almost two years ago and I still use them all the time.
The one at The Pleated Poppy is just for crayons and rolls up nicely. I didn't use a pattern or tutorial when I made mine so I just winged it. I included a little notepad. If you wanted to do the same you'd just need to adjust the height as well as how many spaces you sew for the crayons, then leave a space big enough for the notebook you want to include (all of this would depend on the size of notebook you use). I found my notebooks in packs of three for $1.29 at Walmart, so they are inexpensive to replace once your kid fills them up. I think Lindsey's has enough room for 18 crayons, while mine only fits 8 or so.
This is what it looks like folded up (yours will be a roll if you don't include a notebook). I sewed ribbon on to tie it shut, but if I had to do it again, I'd definitely go Lindsey's method of using a hair tie and button. They hardly take up any space in your purse, they hold up great, and they can be thrown in the wash. A lot of times, before we head out to a restaurant, I'll print some coloring pages off the internet to take with us, and my kids are always entertained and are perfect angels ;).

Create your own I Spy Book

cars

I was searching for a picture to send to a customer and came across these pictures of an I Spy project I did last summer that I had totally forgot about. I made them in anticipation of a 12 hour road trip we took, and I thought with summer fast approaching there are sure to be many of you out there with trips and vacations planned. Keeping your kids busy/entertained is high priority on a road trip.markers and crayons

I bought some little 4 x 6 photo albums from a craft store for just a couple dollars each. Then I began staging photos. These pictures are just a few ideas you can do to create your own I Spy pictures. Obviously these are not as elaborate or creatively done as the real thing, but they were NEW to my kids, which means they were more entertaining than their old I Spy books.

canned goods

For your reading age kids, just write out a little paragraph for what they need to find and slip it in next to the corresponding picture in the album. Neither Schoo or Thatch were reading when I made these so I drew really simple pictures for the items needing to be found.

Knights and Dragons Castle

There are a lot of other ideas you can try out that don't involve doing a lot of staging - some of my shots took awhile to set up and clean up. You can take pictures of:

- The inside of your fridge
- Your kitchen junk drawer
- A messy playroom
- Any collection or group of objects
- Your child's favorite color
- The garden, or yard

- Sandbox toys
Stuffed animals

The fun part was once I had things arranged, I hid little things with them that didn't really belong. If you know much about I Spy, a lot of times there is one thing that is hidden in ALL the pictures. Can you figure out what I hid in almost all of my pictures?

green stuff

puzzle pieces
blue

This was a really fun project to do (there's no sewing involved!) and my kids LOVED it. Even if you don't have trips planned there are always occasions you need to keep your little ones quiet.

The Cake

This was Thatcher's birthday cake. Looks a little plain doesn't it? Just wait until we cut into it...
Oh, yes, there are six layers in that baby. I have never made a cake this big before. This cake idea came from the Cheeky Kitchen, a really fun food blog I follow.
In the original recipe, each layer has fruit - raspberries, orange zest, lemon zest, lime zest, blueberries, and blackberries - though I left all that out, figuring all that extra work would be lost on Thatch. He was just impressed with the size and color of the cake.
It was pretty tasty even without the added fruit flavors and the frosting was really good too. It had a package of white chocolate chips melted into it - something I've never added to any of my butter cream frosting endeavors.
All in all, it was a pretty easy cake to make, just a little more time intensive with all the layers. I might go get myself a piece right now....

New to the Shop

Pansy Tea Party Set - two mini vanilla cupcakes with two truffles (a new item for me, plate is included).

Red, White and Blue Star Sugar Cookies (plate included)

Busy Bee and Little Ladybug chocolate mini cupcakes (listed this yesterday in the shop, and sold the same day).

Little Lollies. Another new design for the shop. I'm having a lot of fun making 'candy' sweets instead of 'baked' sweets.

A couple weeks ago my computer decided to stop loading pictures. No explanation. Today, it has decided to start again. I'm not asking questions, I'm just happy it is working again. Schoo's b-day has come and gone and he loved the decorations, as well as the shirt I made him. I almost just scratched the whole idea since my first attempt ruined the tee, but I still had Thatch's tee and didn't want one boy to get a birthday shirt, and one not to. That's pretty much how it is around here with two kids, both boys, and close in age - they get a lot of the same stuff. Keeping things even helps keep the peace.
These are the shirts just stuck on with Heat N Bond. I then attempted to zigzag the edges and ruined the blue one. I ended up buying a whole new shirt and fabric.
I didn't get a good close up of it, but you can see it ok in this picture. He told me repeatedly all day long how much he liked it. I made my own pattern by printing a number off of word at around '700' in size. Just remember to use the 'outline' font setting to save yourself ink. You'll need either a fat quarter or 1/4 yd of fabric. Like I said, I ironed mine on with Heat N Bond to keep it in place, then sewed a straight line around the number.
Here is what he came down to on his birthday morning. I already posted about the birthday banner, but never got to the tissue paper pom poms. I am so not a fan of balloons even though kids are crazy for them. They are nothing but trouble if you ask me. These pom poms are from Martha Stewart. They are cheap, and so easy, and so fun to decorate with - you can find the directions here.
The "schooler" part of the banner has come down, and will be replaced with "thatcher." His b-day is tomorrow. Can't wait!

Project #2

Project number 2 just met its demise via my horrid zigzagging skills. I'm so disappointed. Zigzagging is serious business and I will not be messing with that function on my sewing machine again any time soon. Boo. Here is a picture though that has nothing to do with the deceased project number 2.
The newest creation for the shop. Rainbow colored taffy. I also have finally created pizza though I have no photos to post and I can't list it in my shop yet either. My life has come to a halt with my camera and/or computer refusing to upload photos. Double boo.