Lace Stenciled Cupcakes: Guest Post at Snips and Spice!

Hi there! Hope you're having a wonderful day! 

I'm guest posting over at Snips and Spice for her fabulous Cupcake Month celebration. I hope you'll stop by and check out my lace stenciled cupcakes and Malory's other cupcake ideas as well!

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Reverse Applique: a tutorial

This is a really fun, simple project. Yet another way to fancy up some plain tees or a great fix for old shirts with holes. 

It takes a little practice to master sewing a curved design like this one. I'm definitely not there yet but, I was pretty impressed with myself this time around. If you're unsure of your sewing skills try finding a design with straight lines i.e. a cross or monogram of your initial. 

Materials:

Fabric

Fusible Interfacing (one side)

T-shirt(s)

Stencils (optional)

Tutorial:

For this project, you can choose to draw your own design or use a stencil. I just googled Texas outline and found this:

Texas Outline Source

Draw your design backwards onto the non-fusible side of a piece of interfacing.

Fuse the design onto the wrong side of your fabric.

Turn your tee inside out. Pin your design to the front layer of fabric. 

Carefully sew over the marked line. Be sure that you're only sewing through the front layer of your tee. 

Tie and cut off loose strings.

Cut off the extra material around your design.

Make a snip through the knit at the center of the design

and cut off all the extra fabric on the inside of your stitches.

I finished by marking an x over my hometown (because a heart was just too hard!)

Here's one I did using my own drawing:

And another:

(:

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Pumpkin Muffins

Back to school means cooking for myself again. I've been pinning all kinds of recipes to my "yum" board in preparation. This one was first on my list. 

This lovely recipe is from the Big Red Kitchen.

source

 

There's only two ingredients. That's right, just the cake mix and the pumpkin (15 oz.). No oil, no eggs, no water, nothing else. The end result is an amazing, incredibly moist muffin/cupcake with a hint of pumpkin flavor. 

It felt kind of strange not to add any liquids to the mix but it came together nicely into a thick batter.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. 

Add a dusting of powdered sugar, or better yet some homemade cream cheese frosting for added awesomeness. 

Yum!

*Update*

Made these with chocolate mix too. Read about how they turned out and other ways to alter this recipe here. 

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Peach Oolong Tea: a recipe

I'm back from camp and it was absolutely amazing. It felt so great to see all of our hard work pay off and see our kids have a great time. We had 7 wonderful girls in our cabin and I loved getting to know them and their stories. It was week full of a lot of laughs and also some tears. I wish I could share pictures with you all but it's against Kesem's policy. Can't wait for next year!

I apologize for being such a bum blogger as of late. August has been an absolutely crazy month for me. Between vacation, camp, and preparing for some upcoming guest posts I haven't had much time to sew.  On top of every thing I just moved back to College Station and still have this to tackle:

Eventually this will become my sewing space:

I hope to get back on track in September with some fun, fall sewing projects!

Okay back to the purpose of this post...

While in Epcot earlier this month we stopped for a Peach Oolong Tea in "China". It was delicious and incredibly refreshing. It seemed simple enough to recreate so, this is my best effort.

Ingredients:

Sliced Peaches 

(canned, fresh, or from a jar)

Tea 

(couldn't find oolong, so I settled for green)

Fresh Peaches 

(for garnish)

Sweetner

(I used sweet n' low but you could use honey or agave for a more natural sweetner)

Recipe:

Begin by making a quart of tea according to the package directions.

Drain peaches

Measure roughly 1 cup

and grind to a very fine puree.

Cut up your peach for garnish

Combine the tea and the peach puree. Cool down in the fridge for about an hour or so before drinking. 

Be sure to sweeten to your taste and enjoy!

Yummy and refreshing. 

And yes, it does taste better out of a mason jar (:

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Going to Camp!

This week I'm working as a camp counselor at Camp Kesem. Kesem is an amazing organization that I am involved with through Texas A&M . It's a 100% free camp for children of cancer patients. We've been fundraising all year long to be able to provide this opportunity to a total of 60 children. Kesem gives kids the chance to connect with their peers who are going through the same trials as they are and more importantly, a week to just relax and have fun!

I won't be bringing a computer with me so I'll be taking a little bit of a bloggy break for the next week. Feel free to email me anyways, but I may not be able to answer for a little while. Thanks for understanding!

Interested in finding more about Camp Kesem?

Visit the website here

or

Email me! I'd be happy to answer any questions if you, or someone you know is interested in applying for Camp Kesem.

Click here if you'd like to make a donation. Thanks for reminding me Tiffany ;)

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Lengthening a Dress : a tutorial

It didn't occur to me until recently that maybe the reason dresses and skirts are always so short on me is because of my height. I always just thought that they were made to sit mid-thigh. At 5'9" I tower above the average female. Finding a modest dress is easier said than done. 

I tried on this cute ship print dress at Forever 21 and refused to give it up even if it did come up dangerously high. Not this time. Nope, I decided to find my own solution. 

Anyone else have this issue?

If so, read on and find out how to add some extra inches to your favorite dresses.

Materials:

Fabric (I used about a half yard of navy blue silk)

*How much you will need depends on the style and size of your dress*

Tutorial:

Measure the circumference of the hem of your dress. Be as accurate as possible. I measured twice to double check myself.

To determine how wide and long to cut your strip of fabric:

Length

Circumference of dress bottom  +   4 inches

i.e. I measured 41 inches around, so the length of fabric I cut was 45 inches

Width

Inches you'd like to add   x  2   +  3 inches

i.e. I wanted to add 5 inches to my dress, so the width of the fabric I cut was 13 inches.

Cut the fabric to the predetermined dimensions. Mine was 45 inches by 13 inches.

Fold fabric hotdog style and pin down

Sew with a 1/2" inseam

Iron the seam open and turn the tube right side out. Give it a final press to get rid of wrinkles. I ironed the seam to one side so that it wouldn't be visible.

Turn in one of the short ends of fabric in and press.

 Should look like this:

Insert the raw end into the pressed end

Measure the circumference of your fabric. The measurement should be exactly the same as the circumference of the dress. 

When you're positive you have your fabric to the perfect measurement, sew the ends together.

Pin around the hem of the dress, right sides together.

Sew all the way around. I sewed right along the existing stitch so that the inseam was about 1 inch.

All done!

Much better! 

Linking to...

Mommy by Day, Crafter by Night

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