Silvermist Fairy Mini Cake

I made a 6" round mini cake for my niece's 3rd birthday with a left over fairy from the Tinkerbell package and some other "left over" items. I was going for ultra easy and fast. I think this one might be even cuter than the Tinkerbell cake. Maybe just a little more sophisticated I guess. Not too 3-year old like, I guess. "Silvermist" is the fairy of water for those not properly educated in fairies.

Clown

I sooooo have not made anything lately. But I had another opportunity to do some face painting for monkey pants' "Circus Day" at preschool. I used this video for reference.

Simple girly birthday cake

Really trying to keep it simple this time for an adult birthday cake for my friend. I still spent probably about four hours on it, in part because I decided to try to make swiss meringue buttercream from a recipe in The Confetti Cakes Cookbook (which I frugally and very uncharacteristically checked out from the library). I usually use cherry or raspberry pie filling or opt for the safer and time cutting store bought icing. The store bought icing is super stable and you don't have to worry about it melting, plus you don't have to clean up bowls and beaters. I'm not a fan of the cleanup process. On the down side, it's made up mostly of hydrogenated vegetable shortening and various preservatives.

Anyway, the recipe promises the swiss meringue buttercream is great for sculpted cakes and very stable. You can even leave it out at room temperature for two days! I was convinced to try it. It's made with sugar, egg whites, and unsalted butter. So I tried it, but I did not find it to be stable at all. It was a bit thin and fluffy. It tasted great, but I was afraid it would get runny. It was fine, but I'm still not too confident with it.


It was nice to not have to make any decorations in advance and wait for them to dry; and also not have to worry about stuff falling off. I like these casual and simple ribbon style rolled flowers. They are super fast and easy. Although, coloring the fondant red is fairly difficult to achieve. I still wanted to try, but I would definetely buy premixed red next time if I really needed something to be red.

For the birthday celebration, we went out to eat at Olive Garden. When everyone was getting close to being done eating, I sent my husband out to get the cake as it was kind of a surprise (the cake, not the celebration). He came back much faster than I thought. He proudly reported that he parted the seas with the cake as he re-entered the restaurant, doors were opened for him and people moved out of his way with "oohs" and "aahs".

Tinkerbell Cake

I made something!


A friend of a friend ..... needed a cake made for her daughter's fourth birthday. I came up with a few ideas, trying to keep them uncomplicated. She opted for the more traditional nine inch round cake with decorations. I thought it would be simple enough, but it always ends up taking me way longer than I anticipate. I wish I could go to a professional cake decorating class by Debbie Brown or Rebecca Sutterby so I could learn some techniques like how to get things to stay glued on. I could never be a cake decorator -my time to money ratio is kind of ridiculous. But here it is. Monkey Pants now wants a Tinkerbell cake for her next birthday too, of course. I need to wake up early tomorrow to make sure she's not eating the mushrooms off of it. (It's happened before).

Pajamas

I did it! I managed to post make absolutely nothing in January. What a way to start the year. I guess I'm kind of backwards in that respect.

Anyway, I just realized I never posted any pictures of my matching family pajamas I made for Christmas with Heather Ross Mendocino fabric that I mentioned in my Upcoming little projects post. I think it's because the only pictures I got of them were on Christmas morning when it was still dark and it was -- well, it was morning. I'm not a morning person. But here's what I managed to scrounge up.

Here's a picture of the back of monkey pants's head and the mama pajamas pants. I used a different color at the bottom of mine because I didn't want to order more than a yard for budget reasons and I figured I could use the left over from monkey pants's yard. You might be able to tell her pajama pants are the same fabric.

   

Monkey pants's reaction - not sure whether this is really cool or some kind of sick joke; looks to Dad for his take on this.

   

I decided to just make the pants for everybody in the same octopus print in different colors. For the little guy I used a smaller sea horse print. Then I got a camisole and t-shirt from Old Navy in bright coordinating colors for me and "Dada". I got a plain white onesie and a fitted shirt for the little ones and put the octopus print and swimming girl prints on them with t-shirt transfer.

   
   

I did want to make a little something extra for monkey pants. I got some aqua fleece for a robe but couldn't find a traditional robe pattern so I did some online searching and found this one, Simplicity 7068 on eBay. Yeah, I wish patterns were still $1.25. I made the robe a little shorter, just a bit past the knee. I love the rounded lapels and pockets.

Nothing is easier than sewing pajama pants; a great starter project for a beginner sewer and probably a lot more gratifying than sewing a pillow case.

Partridge in a pear tree

I wanted to make fabric apples for monkey pants' preschool teachers from Heather Bailey's Fresh-Picked Pincushions pattern for Christmas gifts, but I couldn't convince myself to spend almost $13.00 plus shipping on a pattern to make apples and pears. By the time I convinced myself, it was too late to order it. Well, it all turned out because I found this cute, free online bird pattern from Spool. What could be better -free and downloadable.

It was such a fun, quick, and easy little project and it was specially sweet because monkey pants was so excited to help make it for her teachers. She picked out the fabric scraps, I cut and sewed the birdies, she stuffed them, and I hand sewed them shut. She was surprisingly good at stuffing them and didn't even abandon the birdies half-way as I might have thought.

We simply stuffed them into clear gift baggies and attached a home made card with ribbon. I made the card using this adorable little figure from a free gift tag download from Kitty Genius.

I think her teachers were pleasantly surprised by the fact that monkey pants had helped to make these with her own hands and I felt it made it all the more special.

Emmeline Apron 2

Just got done with this one. Another Emmeline Apron for a Christmas gift. I wanted to try something different with my choice of fabrics this time, although not too different since they are still Amy Butler prints. I chose some darker blue fabrics from the Daisy Chain (Aquatic) line that I wouldn't normally be drawn too. But I'm glad I did. I really like the result.

This time, I did a few things a bit differently. One thing about the pattern I'm not fond of is the wordy, yet poor instructions on how to place the waist straps onto the sides of the apron at the right angle. I really don't know why the correct angle isn't just printed on the pattern. So to minimize the trial and error approach encouraged in the pattern instructions, [TIP:] I laid out the fabric and the strap as it would appear once constructed and simply marked a line on the strap corresponding to the angle of the apron. Then, I flipped both apron and strap layers over together; lined up the strap with the marking flush to the side of the apron and pinned; then basted in place.


I also didn't cut the halter straps on the diagonal. I don't find this necessary at all and it just takes up more fabric. Last, I was able to get away without hand-sewing the finishing touches. As long as the bodice top and the straps are well pressed, you should be able to pin them in place and just top stitch through everything and come out with a fairly decent top stitch on the other side too.

I added the oven mitts from the Amy Butler patchwork apron pattern and that's it.