Simple Child Pillows

I know I know you're thinking, hey I want to learn how to make that doll! The pattern is found in Meg McElwee's Book Growing up Sew Liberated
I'm showing you how to make the pillow. . Yes I know cheezy easy anyone can do it . . Here we go

Now since I didn't actually take pictures of the project my descriptions will have to be enough (they should be this is easy peasy lemon squeezy!)

Start with two pieces of fabric cut to 1/2 in longer and 1/2 inch wider than you want your final pillow to be (keep in mind that the stuffing will make it "smaller" as well when you are determining your size)

Place the fabrics right side together and sew almost completely around the border leaving about a 3 inch gap for turning and stuffing. I like to leave my gaps in the center of the end rather than at corners so that I can get a clean corner!

Turn your pillow so that the pretty fabric is on the outside.

Stuff your pillow with fiberfil or the guts from an old pillow (my daughter had a blast ripping apart an old pillow to stuff inside her new one!)

Slip stitch your seam closed.

You now have an easy pillow that id the perfect fit for your child (or project or you or you know whatever)

Baby Showers and Handmade Gifts

My husbands family has this thing it seems where every year there must be a new baby added (granted the last two years were my girls, but hey) so this means that in order for me to keep my sterling rep as a creative aunt, I make baby gifts. . . Blankets, toys, helpful items (maybe, hopefully?).

This time around it's my husbands little brothers first baby and it's a boy. This couple is quite a bit like us as they LOVE the outdoors and camping and all those things that might just leave this one in need of a really warm blanket. So we made a quilt-gan. Car seat sized.

I made a baby afgan and the face of a flannel quilt in baby colors and sewed them back to back for warmth. I could have also added a liner, but for the thickness and warmth the two layers had, I didn't see the need for another layer.

And then for good measure I made a stuffed turtle in the same fabrics to go with it using this tutorial (I eyeballed the pattern though)

What do you think?

What kind of baby projects do you make when attending baby showers?

I'm Back! Well sorta . . .

More awesome recipes projects and other musings are coming in 2013 but first an update . .
Our silence was not intentional I promise! The main computer in my household crashed and we're now re setting all of those fun programs and pictures and all that fun jazz that was lost! Oh and did I mention the pictures? No? I lost pictures! Sad Sad day! Luckily my husband never empties his camera so I still have all of the birth pictures for my newest wee one, but my camera, you know the one with the beautiful blog post photos and a few other kiddo pictures, I empty out regularly, I back up files onto disc periodically but since Zaba's birth I haven't done any of that! Smart huh? So my intended photos for you all have to be re-shot. In a nutshell what that means for you my dear readers, is that I will still be on a mini vaca whilst I fix and find new photos (and posts I had written in word and not uploaded yet).

Please be patient! I promise to return!

Stephie

Indoor Kid Fishing Sets

So this Christmas me being the crazy person I am, decided to make magnetic fishing sets for all the kids in our lives for Christmas (they are all under the age of 5) They actually were quite fun to make! Here are the individual pieces :o)

The Fish:

I cut a fish body out of felt and a few circles and triangles for eyes and fins. I sewed all of these together and stuffed them with Fiberfil. I made a braided loop with jute and glued a magnet into the edge. I then sewed the loop into the mouth of the fish to give kids two ways to catch the fish. They can be caught by the magnet or by the loop.

The Pole:

I had my amazing husband saw a couple of these bamboo garden stakes in two pieces (about 2.5-3 foot each) after sanding off the rough edges I wrapped the bottom (handle) in jute using hot glue to put a “grip” on the pole. Then I tied (and glued) a long piece of jute for the fishing line.

The Hook:

This was quite the challenge! I needed something that wasn’t going to cause severe damage if it was flung by a kid, be able to house a magnet and not be sharp edged like a traditional fishhook would be. I tried salt dough but my husband’s uncle (my kids’ godfather) proved that that wasn’t going to cut it by dropping it and watching it shatter into pieces. He then quickly twisted a hook out of thick copper wire that was almost perfect! The Magnet had to be wedged into the ends of the wire and wrapped in jute to hide, but the copper works well, is light, no sharp edges and well looks good!

The Bag:

My Simple Produce Bag pattern only made out of muslin and measured to the length of the pole.

Ta Da!! Full fishing sets for the babies!

Sprouted Wheat Pancakes and Berry Syrup

It's recipe time!
I've been experimenting with buttermilk pancakes for a few months now and I think we've finally hit a recipe that tastes good and has the healthy aspects we like. . . And if you top it with yummy berry syrup, it makes an awesome breakfast!


Sprouted Whole Wheat Pancakes

1 1/4 Cups Sprouted Whole Wheat Flour
1/4 Tsp. Sea Salt
1/4 Tsp. Baking Soda
1-3 Tbsp. Honey (to sweetness preference)
1 1/3 Cup Buttermilk
1 Egg
2-3 Tbsp. Butter- Melted

Mix together Flour Salt and Baking Soda in a medium bowl. Drizzle with Honey. In a seperate container beat together Egg, buttermilk and butter (make sure the butter isn't too hot!). Mix together and drop by 1/4 cup (or smaller if you prefer, I make "baby" drip pancakes for the kiddo) onto a hot greased skillet or griddle. Once the top is slightly "bubbly" (see photo below) flip them, they should be perfectly browned on the bottom. Cook until the two sides match. Top with Syrup (Berry recipe below) and whip cream or butter.

Berry Syrup/ Sauce

1/2 cup- 1 cup Berries
a touch of water
3 Tbsp Honey or Maple Syrup per 1/2 cup of berries

Simmer on Medium-Low until pancakes are ready and berries are soft.

Pancakes are definately a favorite breakfast around here!

Advent 2012

Advent is upon us and with that is my annual research into the holiday we commonly call Christmas. Every year I try to learn a little more about the holiday and "redeem" traditions of Christmas past.


Although I can't go into the specifics of my Christmas research right now, I'm sure you'll get to hear about it eventually on this blog. Today, I am sharing our Advent plans.


Advent is a time for us to prepare our hearts for the coming of Christmas, the day we celebrate as Jesus' birthday. For us we have decided to also try and make it a time for us to draw closer in activity and time to our kids and our family. Each day there is an activity planned as well as scripture to read. Time together as a family and time to discuss and spend with/for the Lord.


I also decided to make a simple Advent Calender for us to follow . .


First our lists . .


1. Put up the tree and decorate the indoors
   Isaiah 40:1-5
2. Decorate the front door and balcony
   Isaiah 52:7-10
3. Watch St. Nicolas as a family (on the computer)
   Isaiah 40:9-11
4. Make Paper Snowflakes
   Genesis 3:8-15
5. Watch A Little Drummer Boy as a family
   Genesis 15:1-6
6. Make Christmas Ginger Cookies for the Neighbors
   Deuteronomy 18:15-19
7. Make Neighbor Cookie Boxes
   Psalm 89:1-4
8. Make Hot Cocoa
   Isaiah 11:1-10
9. Hand Out Neighbor Cookies
   Zech 6:12-13
10. Make Cinnamon Christmas Star Ornaments
   Micah 5:2-4
11. Make a Christmas Candy (probably fudge)
   Mal 3:1-6
12. Sing and Dance to Christmas Music
   John 1:1-8
13. Watch The Toy That Saved Christmas as a family
   John 1:9-18
14. Take family Christmas Photo
   Mark 1:1-3
15. Decorate Christmas Gifts (for everyone else)
   Isaiah 7:10-14
16. Make Construction Paper Nativity
   Luke 1:1-15
17. Make and Decorate Christmas Cookies
   Isaiah 9:2-7
18. Make an Apple Cinnamon Struesel Dessert
   Matt 1:18-25
19. Make Pom-Pom Snowmen
   Matt 2:1-2
20. Make a Gingerbread Nativity
   Luke 1:15-25
21. Look at Christmas Lights around town
   Luke 1:25-35
22. Play a Christmas Game (toddler Friendly)
   Luke 1:36-50
23. Make Cinnamon Rolls
   Luke 1:51-66
24. Hot Cocoa and Christmas Cookies
   Luke 1:67-80
25. Christmas Breakfast
   Luke 2


So now that we've gone over the Advent daily activities, we can go on to how I made our advent calender. . .


I started by cutting and folding a piece of cardboard into a "Chinese take out" shaped box based on one I got with some dishtowels.'

I then folded up the edges using eyelets to hold the sides together,  I also ran ribbon with bells through the eyelets.

 I then made sleeves and numbers for our paper advent plans to reside in . . .

 I then wrote our plans out rolled them up into the sleeves and stuck them in the bucket. . .

 Cute little Advent calender for our family this year.

Oh and I'm sorry this post is slightly tardy. I was going to post it earlier, but then the baby got sick and clingy . . sad news!

Broken Silence and Thanksgiving Photo's

Sorry for the silence around here the past few days (or has it been weeks?). We have had quite the busy days lately!

We hosted our first Thanksgiving as "Real Foodies" this year and I think it was a great hit! My mom fell in love with some recipe's in the Williams and Sonoma Thanksgiving menu this year and so we tweaked and nudged their recipe's Real Food style.

We had the Turkey, which my husband didn't do "out of the book" he makes the best apple baked turkey ever so we stuck with that and although I can't tell you what's in it (because I never cook Turkey) I can say it was awesome!

Creamed mashed potatoes are another great traditional dish, which we did, but we used 1/2 red and 1/2 russett instead of the traditional all russett potatoes and heavy cream instead of milk which was an idea inspired by Williams and Sonoma, which was great! Plus whipping them with my hand blender made them extra creamy, which is a good plus!

We made cranberry compote out of their recipe book too. That. Stuff. Rocked! Of course as I'm not big on wine I substituted for the wine, but it was awesome all the same! (Oh and just and FYI type of deal, I have NO problem with occasional drinks, it's just not a flavor I like)

And there were a few other dishes, but if you ask me the show stopper was the amazing Maple Pumpkin Pecan Pie from Kelly at Imperfect Homemaking. That thing took the cake and is now my favorite pumpkin pie ever! Thank you Kelly for that recipe!

And so now you know what took up some of my absence time on to the rest.
I worked on Christmas presents and my advent list, which I'll get to more posting here soon (Kid's toy Fishing Sets, Handmade Dolls, Cloth Napkins, Vanilla etc.) But what really took me away . .

Potty Training!

My kiddo has been potty aware for quite some time now, we have been changing her exclusively in the bathroom since we moved here at the beginning of the year and have been sitting her on the potty (with this amazingly cool kid potty seat) since she was about 6 months old. Well in the past week something clicked. I made a couple new pairs of underwear for Miss Noodle and she decided she wanted underwear every morning. Although she isn't doing quite as well today as she was this weekend, she only had 5 total accidents in 3 days! One of those days she wore one pair of underwear the entire day! She has been doing better and better over the past month and I think, she may be ready for underwear during the day all the time! But of course, it's time consuming for the mommy and daddy, hence silence. . .

And now . . The awaited . . Pictures! Our table this year was simple, but I think pretty. I used a sheet for the tablecloth and made some cloth napkins out of some linen I found in my spare fabrics pile. You can tell me what you think. . .

and there you have it. Our Thanksgiving and last couple weeks!