Cooking like a cutie

Pin It Now! Here is a gift that is sure to please the bride-to-be. It's a fabulously feminine and chic apron with matching potholders. This particular set is intended as a bridal shower gift that I'll be attending tonight. I love how cute it turned out with its dainty ruffles and bow, and desperately want to make one for myself to keep. As most of you crafters already know, it is a rarity to find time to actually sew something for yourself. I've been meaning to sew myself an apron for well over a year, but have always had other pressing projects to finish. One of my new year's resolutions is to save as many of my shirts from grease stains as possible by FINALLY treating myself to an apron that makes me giddy every time I put it on to cook. My own apron will be patterned after this one (which I didn't use a pattern to make), so I better hurry up and make mine before I forget how I put this one together :)

I also made some darling recipe cards to top off this gift. They fold into standard 3 x 5 inch recipe cards. I've included a pdf file for your enjoyment. The below link will send you to scribd.com so you can download it for free. (Designs and graphics created by me) When you print, be sure to print it with no scaling so it maintains its 5 x 6 inch dimensions. Happy cooking!

Mod Poppy Recipe CD

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Cooking & Menus recipe card template

Coptic Binding

Pin It Now! Christmas is around the corner and it's almost time to close my Etsy shop so I can work on my own family's gifts. I find it a bit tricky to come up with ideas for handmade gifts for men. Most men aren't into cutesy little coin purses, tissue holders, or scrabble tile pendants. Leather. Now that's manly. Looks manly. Feels manly. It even smells manly. Mix leather with paper and you can't go wrong. This is my first attempt at bookbinding using the Coptic stitch. Coptic binding is really nifty because it enables the book to lay flat when opened. I used some scrap olive green leather for the cover and strap and waxed linen thread for the binding. If you have a Tandy Leather store in your area, they usually will sell their leather scraps for about $7 per pound... nice big chunks good for baby shoes, small books and patchwork leather pants if that's what floats your boat.

This practice book is tiny... only 3 inches square. It has nine signatures (those little folded sections of paper). 5 pages in each signature. Front and back that's 180 pages in this particular book. I'm planning on making 2 to 3 more in a small journal size to give as gifts. If you're interested in learning the Coptic stitch, I encourage you to do a search on YouTube for a tutorial. I had a lot of fun putting this little book together and loved the actually stitching part of it... I found it very relaxing and therapeutic. Just what I needed during this merry, yet extremely stressful holiday season :)

Bridesmaid Dresses

Pin It Now! Remember those rad wedding garters I made a few posts ago? Well I also made 4 bridesmaid dresses for the same wedding. I drew out the pattern and did a test dress on some cheap fabric to work out the kinks. You learn a lot from making the first dress, and by dress #4 it's a cake walk. Overall, I was happy with the final product. The pleats were a pain, but worth the extra effort in my opinion. Special thanks to my dad for taking the pic... and for possibly photoshoping a flattering tan on me. I could have sworn my skin is more of a pasty shade. Dad, you rock!

Cake: More fun to eat than to make.

Pin It Now!

My friend Heidi is expecting a mystery gender neutral baby, and this is the cake I made for her shower. There aren't a ton of gender neutral colors besides green and yellow, so I decided to add a bit of brown and orange and do an autumn cake. I know, I know... autumn is SO last season, but I do like the finished results. Special thanks to Janell for sharing her techniques with me ♥


So here is the breakdown of the cake:

6-inch top tier of Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
9-inch bottom tier of Chocolate Cake with buttercream frosting.

Covered in Marshmallow Fondant and trimmed in satin poppy flowers and ribbon. Hand painted with amber cake luster dust.

The fabulous recipes are courtesy of Janell, my amazing cake decorator of a sister, and believe me, her cakes taste as amazing as they look. (She just won 3rd place in a Halloween cake decorating contest. Way to go, Janell!)

PS... want to know how I kept two little monkeys out of the kitchen when making this cake? I pulled out all our Christmas decoration boxes from storage and told them to have at it! I had ornaments, tinsel and lights hanging from every doorknob, lamp and chair in my house. Guess it would have helped them if i put up the tree first :)

Chicks with guns rock

Pin It Now!

I made this for my sister's husband's brother's fiancee Alisa (did you follow that?). It's a "keep" and "toss" wedding garter set. I bought the charms from a fabulous Esty seller called PinkSupply. Allow me to explain... Alisa is a cop and is always packing heat. I liked her from the moment I met her. Way. Cool. Chick. Anyhoo, I'm also making her bridesmaid dresses, which I'll post in a couple of weeks...holsters not included. Stay tunned.

Winter Wear for the Kiddies

Pin It Now! It's FINALLY getting chilly in Houston, and my kids have no winter clothes to their name. So instead of working on the 4 bridesmaid dresses I should be sewing, I decided to expand the kids' wardrobe.

Denny has no long-sleeved shirts because it's usually so stinkin' hot in Houston. So I whipped up a jersey knit shirt for him and asked him if he wanted any pictures on front. He's obsessed with Star Wars right now and insisted on a Jango Fett applique. Not bad, eh?

There's this great outdoor fabric store in Idaho where you can buy high quality technical fleece by the yard. I just used wind resistant fleece for this tester jacket, but next time I'll opt for the wind stopper fleece. I used my 5 year old's REI fleece jacket as a guide for making this smaller version for Ashlyn.

2d Zoo Crib Bedding

Pin It Now! My best friend growing up is having her first baby in November and I begged her to let me make her little boy's crib bedding as my gift to her. I really tried to convince her to let me use my all-time favorite little boy fabric ... Alexander Henry's 2D Zoo, and she was nice enough to give me full reign on the design. I love the end results and just had to post the completed pics before shipping it her way. Do you like my ghetto make-shift crib? It's my tiny kitchen table with my daughter's toddler mattress on top.

This is the quilt that I entered into the Etsy Handmade Kids Contest in August. I was so excited when it made it to the finals! In the end, it didn't place, but I was happy that it got seen by so many people.