Thursday, October 20, 2011

~Birthday Cake~

Have you ever made yourself a birthday cake? I never have, but I'm considering it this year. I'm vascillating between these two cakes:



OR



Which do you think you'd make?

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

~Pinterest: Failed Projects~

There are lots of awesome ideas on Pinterest. I love trying new things, but sometimes someones great idea for them doesn't work out so well for you. Here are some things that just didn't work out for me:



Turn a bar of soap into hand soap. I ended up with liquid my dad would deem "snail snot". LOL I read the comments on the blog post and it looks like the failure rate is pretty high. A lot of people had problems with it, so at least I wasn't the only one!



5-minute coffee cake (microwave cake). This was disappointing, the topping was good but the cake part was not appetizing.



Colored ice cubes for a toddler to "chase" in the tub. These melted in seconds, leaving the bathwater a murky brown. I had to drain the tub and start over.

So there you go. ;-) A few things I tried that didn't work out.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

~Buttons Memories~

I love buttons. Buttons and swatches of fabric can bring back a flood of memories for me!

I recently went through my button jar to pull out a button for a project. The button was from an outfit my grandma made me for my 11th birthday. Somehow I ended up with three of the buttons in my button jar.

Here's my outfit:


I thought I was sooooo grown up!

When I got this outfit, my grandma lived in Ohio at the time and she flew in the night before my sister was born, which was the day after my birthday. My grandma's luggage got lost so the next day she wore my dad's bathrobe while she waited for her luggage to be found and delivered. She commented that she had my birthday present in her luggage, so my little 11-year-old heart fervently desired for her luggage to be found, and soon. Naturally, I was concerned about my present. The luggage was eventually delivered, and I sat on the bed and opened my gift, with my mom and baby sister right there. My grandma had made me two outfits - two jumpers and two blouses which were mix and match. I loved those outfits so much, and the fact that I could wear either blouse with either jumper! One of the blouses had little square buttons, and I loved those buttons so much. In the picture above you can see them if you click to make the picture larger.

I made my daughter a hair clip to go with her new pink jumper, and sewed the button in the middle:


If my grandma were still alive and in good health, I know she would make my daughter special dresses. But she taught me how to sew, and so I sew for my daughter using the skills she taught me. It was fun to use a button from something my grandma made for me, for my daughter.

Thursday, October 06, 2011

~Pink Jumper~

Last Thursday I started another jumper for my daughter, and finished it up by Saturday evening so she could wear it to church on Sunday.

I used McCall's 3737, which I was thinking I had purchased a year or so ago. However, I couldn't find it on McCall's site, and the copyright on the pattern is from 2002. So I most likely bought this pattern to make a jumper for my youngest sister (but never did).



I made view C, size 3.

The fabric is the softest ever baby corduroy. So soft. My mother-in-law sent it to me with the patterns and other sewing things that she sent me from her friend. There was just one yard, and I was so happy I was able to get this jumper out of it. The only thing I had to purchase was a zipper. I also bought some ribbon so I could sew bows on the tucks like the pattern suggests, but I couldn't get the bows tied right and I liked the way the jumper looked with the thrifted turtleneck I found to go with it, so I left it plain.



I would like to make my daughter several dresses, but I think I'll go back to size 2 for those. A jumper can get away with a little growing room but dresses look a little sad if they are too large!

Wednesday, October 05, 2011

~Green Tea~

I recently read in a magazine that people who drink 8-10 cups of green tea daily get 30% fewer colds and flu than those who do not drink green tea.

So I'm supposed to chug down 10 cups of green tea day in and day out and I still have a 70% chance* of catching someone else's cold?

I want to take something with a better rate of return!

*Maybe someone who has a better handle on statistics could tell me the percentage of chance someone with 30% less chance of catching something would have? Statistic math confuses me. :)