Starlight Sugar Twist Cookies

Every Christmas season my mom and I would take two weekends and make 6-8 different types of cookies for the various holiday parties we went to as a family. With each batch making 4 dozen or so, that's a LOT of sugar, flour and mommy/daughter time. One that always was the favorite were the Starlight Sugar Twists. Similar to a sugar cookie with a snicker doodle-esque quality about them. There is no cinnamon but LOTS of sugar folded in layers and layers creating a caramelized bottom of crusty goodness while still being soft and yummy on the inside! *Runs to cookie jar to eat another* Ok I'm back! So here's the recipe of these yummy goodies.

Starlight Sugar Twists

What you need: 
3-1/2 C Flour
1 C Margarine
1/2 C Sour Cream
2 Eggs slightly beaten
1 pkg dry yeast (prepare according to directions)
1-1/2 C Sugar
2 tsps Vanilla

Rolling Pin
Cookie Sheets

Directions:
1. Cut margarine into flour until size of peas. Add eggs, sour cream and yeast. Mix thoroughly and divide into two. Wrap in saran and refrigerate 4 hours or overnight.

2. Mix sugar and vanilla; cover until used.

3. Roll one portion of dough in vanilla sugar to a rectangle 16x20. Sprinkle more vanilla sugar and fold into thirds. Add more vanilla sugar and fold into thirds again. Roll dough to 16x20 rectangle again and cut into 1/2 inch strips. Cut strips into 3 inch pieces and twist several times. Place on baking sheet and bake 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from baking sheet immediately, or else they will stick like concrete!!! Cool on brown paper bag. Makes about 4 dozen.

DIY $10 Chalkboard and Frame Re-Wire Tutorial!

Since its been all the rage on Pinterest I have been wanting to make a chalkboard for sometime now. Several months ago I was walking our pup and I noticed a vacant garage with a beat up and broken mirror sitting alone in it. I went to our leasing office to make sure it was abandoned before I claimed it. The previous owners obviously broke the mirror while moving and just decided to leave it there. Once given the blessing from our leasing office that it was indeed abandoned, I cleaned it up a bit and got my supplies ready. The frame itself had a lot of potential once spruced up, and repainted from the dirty gold color that it was. It also needed to be re-wired because, #1 it was wired landscape and I wanted it portrait and #2 because the wire was bent out of shape and just needed replacing!

How it looked before!

DIY $10 Chalkboard and Frame Re-wire

What You Need:
Frame with wood back board (Free!)
Paint or Spray paint (I used existing wall paint that we had in our garage- Free!)
Paint Brush
Chalkboard Paint or Spray paint (I used spray paint cause it was cheaper - $6)
Steel Wire ($2)
Eye Hook Screws ($2)
Staple Gun and Staples
Pencil and Measuring Tape
Drill and Bits
Pliers with Wire Cutter

Directions:
1. Make sure your frame is clean and free of dust and dirt. Paint your frame your desired color, probably do two coats of paint for adequate coverage. You should probably sand your  frame before hand to ensure good paint coverage, but I was lazy and skipped that step. We will see how well it holds up! Let dry overnight.

2. Spray paint/brush paint your wood back with chalkboard paint according to package directions. If spray painting make sure its WELL ventilated! Let dry completely at least 2 hours

3. Align your back on the backside of the frame evenly. Using your staple gun, staple the board to the frame ever 3 inches or so to insure the board will stay. My hubby even stapled diagonally in the corners!

4. Measure 6" down from the top of the frame and make a mark with your pencil. Take your drill and select a bit that is slightly smaller than your eye hook screw. Drill a starter hole about 1/4" into the wood on both sides. And screw in your eye hook screws.

5. Take your steel wire and thread through your eye hook about 4" or so. Bend up and start wrapping the wire back onto itself. Twist until the wire is completely wrapped and pinch in using your pliers. Extend the wire to the other side making sure that its long enough for hanging, but not too long that it extends above the top of the frame, clip the desired length with your wire cutters, thread wire through eye hook and wrap wire back onto itself until completely wrapped and pinch the end in.

6. Hang and admire your work! This is my first attempt at a graphic design using chalk! I guess I need a little practice!  I have seen many tips on writing on chalkboards on various websites, i.e. Pinterest. Also I have read that you need to 'prime' your chalkboard before you start writing on it to prevent ghosting. Take the side of a piece of chalk and rub it over the entire board and that should help. You will still see some ghosting, but hopefully not too bad! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

A craft blast from the past!

I know, it seems like this is becoming a craft blog. I assure you its not. I am just trying to go through and document all of the crafting I have done in the past two years, plus the quilts that I had done previous to blogging. Although my life isn't all about crafting, it is something that I truly love to do! The hubs may have been a little frustrated with it at first, now he understands my need to stay busy, and I think truly appreciates all the things that I create! While updating my All Things Crafty tab up top I realized that I missed some really cute and fun quilts that I had made some years ago, as well as a camera strap cover that I did last year, and a Bachelorette party menu also! While the quilts and the menu don't have a tutorial to go with them, I still thought that I would share them with you to see some of the other things I have done. Also I will post a link for the camera strap to the tutorial that I used! Enjoy!

This is the one and only quilt I have made for myself. It came as a kit that I bought at a quilt show with my mom in Ontario. We went for the day and perused all the fabrics that were to be seen. I also got fabrics for the first quilt I ever made for our dear friends The Anthony's wedding in April of 2008. Since then there has been a little disaster with this quilt as our puppy, when she was a puppy thought that it was a chew toy and gnawed a nice hole in the borders. It's really fun and funky with little kittens riding scooters and Eiffle Towers with brown and pink graphic prints! I still love it. Hopefully I can fix it! My mom also made me a tote bag out of the left over fabrics too! Oh and those little tootsies at the bottom are D's!

This quilt was made for our other dear friends the Roben's for their wedding in June of 2009. It's a little throw quilt and it was made entirely out of scrap fabric. I made it in one day with my mom's help and when it was done it had a little Americana feel to it! Again the toes belong to D! Haha

This one is another wedding quilt. For our friends the Ransdall's in May of 2010. This one was also made out of scrap fabrics and it went really well in their Tuscan inspired home with the warm reds and golds!

Please excuse the poor photo. I took this with my blackberry, when I had one, since my nice camera was the subject of the photo! I made this really cute camera strap cover. Priddy Creations had a wonderful tutorial on how to make this simple slip cover for your camera strap to show it a little personality. There was some errors in cutting that made me have to create more than one of these babies, but it was still fun and super simple! Not the most masculine of fabrics as the hubby uses this camera too, but he doesn't mind!

And finally something not sewing related. For a friends bachelorette party I whipped up some cute menu's in Photoshop, glued them to some black card stock and added a little bling bling! The idea was to make all the names be wedding related. These babies went on the table at the restaurant where we ate in San Luis Obispo. We had a great weekend dressed in purple attire, ate great food, wine tasted and all around shenanigans were had!!

DIY - Nursing Pads Tutorial

I have heard a lot about these babies from my mommy friends. Nursing pads are for breastfeeding women and are to help prevent.....ahem...'leaking' of the breast milk and stains on your clothes. I thought to myself what a great little craft to make from my scrap fabrics to include in my gift closet, with all my other goodies that I have been storing up. When I went to research sizes online I realized how BORING the store bought ones are. We all know that as women, we never like to have boring items in our wardrobe. We like our things to be cute, stylish and functional! I had plenty of charm squares left over from some place-mats that I made over the summer so I thought I would use up those.

DIY Nursing Pads:

What you need:
Enough fabric scraps for (8) 3.5" Circles
Cotton Batting (Not polyester....it doesn't breathe and it is not absorbent, which is the whole point!)
Thread
Scissors
Sewing Machine

Directions:

1. Trace a circle onto the back side of your fabric and your batting. I researched sizes online and I read that they varied from 3"-9" in diameter. I chose to make mine 3.5" diameter circles because I thought that would be significant coverage and still be able to conceal them inside a nursing bra. (I used a peanut butter jar lid for my template!) If you need to adjust your sizes, make sure they're large enough to provide sufficient coverage and not so large that they stick out of your nursing bra. You should end up with (8) fabric circles and (4) batting circles.

2. Cut out your circles. Note:  I didn't have enough of the polka dots or the green pattern to do a matching one, so I made a reversible one!

3. Once cut take (2) fabrics and sandwich a batting circle in the middle with your fabrics facing right sides out. Pin in place.

4. My machine doesn't have a surging option, but if yours does, serge around the entire edge of the circle. If you don't, like me, zig zag stitch around the edge. My machine's zig zag foot had a little guide on it so get a nice even seam all around. This is to prevent your fabric from fraying. Press with an iron and use!

These are washable and re-useable and oh so cute. Better than those plain boring beige ones that you can get in the store! Try it out for yourself! Happy Crafting!

Green and Purple Batik Flag Quilt

As most of my readers know, I love to make quilts for special occasions. Mostly weddings, because it's something that the happy couple can snuggle under on cool days. This time I decided that the recipient, my dearest best friend, needed to receive one for a special birthday. We all are turning 30 this year......UGH! But at least mine is still a ways away. Considering this person has been in my life for over  12 years and in D's life for over a quarter of a century it seemed only fitting that he get a special blanket all to himself.

Months ago, knowing that his favorite color is green, asked what other colors he liked. I couldn't make a solid green quilt....well I could, but I thought that it could use some other colors. He told me greys, teals, purples. Pretty much anything in the cool family except navy. So I went to work shopping around for fabrics trying to go through all of my scraps seeing if I had enough to make the quilt from In Color Order. She had a great tutorial on this awesome pattern, albeit, a little short with some of the fabrics and I had to add additional fabric in the center blocks. I used batiks and a solid grey background fabric, with a fun overall green on the back. I think it turned out great and my bestie really loved it!

Fabrics Selections

Block Layouts

You will need:
12 print fat quarters
2-1/4 to 2-1/2 yards of background fabric (depending on your fabric width)
4 yards of backing fabric
2 yards of  90" wide batting
1/2 yard of binding (I used the scraps from my fat quarters)
Coordinating thread
Pencil, erasable marker or chalk liner
General sewing/quilting supplies

You can follow the directions listed in her tutorial here. I just listed the fabric and tool requirements cause I needed to adjust mine to make it work! I hope you enjoy her tutorial as much as I did!

Happy 30th Birthday! Love You!

The back embroidery!

Not your traditional Spaghetti sauce! AKA Quickie Spaghetti....and it has bacon!

Can you see the bacon chunks in the sauce?

Ok, first off I know, crappy photo! But hey, sometimes the presentation doesn't matter as much as the taste right?!? RIGHT?!

So at the beginning of the week I told you I had a ton of DIY's to share, well I still do. It's just getting my lazy bum to the computer and going through the photos to find the best ones! So stay tuned for those. Also I told you that I would post a family recipe that has bacon. Well here she is. I LOVE pasta. Why? #1 because it's pasta, #2 because it's cheap, #3 because it's SUPER EASY! and #4 because it's pasta! I grew up in an Irish/Italian household so many dishes that are our family traditions usually are pasta related. We have a red sauce that was brought to America from my Sicilian great grandmother and it's so yummy, but takes ALL day to make. So when the hubbs and I are in a red sauce mood, not the jarred kind (which I always dress up anyways) this is the go to. It's really quick and usually we have all the ingredients on hand.

Quickie Spaghetti

What You'll Need:
3-4 Slices of bacon chopped
1 cup chopped onion (yellow or white)
1 15oz can of tomato sauce
1 15oz can of water
Pepper (to taste)
Pasta of choice (I either use Angel Hair or Fettuccine)

Skillet
Stock Pot (For the pasta)

Directions:

1. In a skillet over med. heat place your chopped bacon and onion. Saute until bacon is fully cooked.

2. Once cooked, add tomato sauce, water and pepper. I say to taste, but I use a LOT of pepper. Probably 1/8 to 1/4 of a teaspoon. It just adds flavor in my opinion. I kind of coat the middle of my pan with pepper, stir, then coat again and stir. Not really measurements, but hey sometimes you just dump and go!

3. Cook sauce on low-med heat uncovered, 30-40 minutes or until thickened. While sauce is cooking prepare pasta according to package directions.

4. Serve over pasta. I like to coat the pasta with the sauce and then add a little extra on top!

See what I mean about EASY! What are your household dinner staples for those nights when you just want to have a quick meal fast?

Trying for some consistency

So, I know over the last 2 years this blog really hasn't been consistent, I mean sporadic posts and sometimes weeks without one. The main focus of this blog is really about my life with my hubby and our puppy and also the happiness, struggles, and all things that are surrounded in our lives. Since we have been trying to have a baby that has been a huge focus, and taken some away from other areas! Such is life, but I feel like the content of my little blog has suffered. It's been a journey until now and we are still chugging along. That being said I think I need to make a schedule for all of you.

Since I have had baby on the brain I have been crafting like crazy! We have not conceived, but I keep seeing all sorts of great items to create and have a ton of scrap fabric so I think to myself.....well I can just keep it all on hand for baby showers or birthdays....that sort of thing. Just to keep my craft bug alive. D watched football yesterday (Sunday) and I sat at my machine and plugged along like crazy! So I have five, 1234....Five, tutorials to post!!!! Honestly the only reason I stopped yesterday was because I ran out of thread! ;-D So I will start posting a DIY/Tutorial post once a week.

Also, we have gotten bored with our meals that we do. So much so that most nights it's a struggle to come up with a meal that's fast, easy and relatively inexpensive. So in my quest for new food, I will scour Pinterest and Food Gawker for new recipes. If they work out, I will make sure to share! I have a family recipe all ready to share! If you like pasta and bacon, this is a recipe for you!

So that's the plan! Hopefully I can stick to it! Check out below for a preview of some tutorials to come!

Ground Beef Pot Pie

Ok I don't usually post a lot of recipes on here because I don't really like to cook. I can do it, but there are other things that I enjoy more....like sitting at my sewing machine, not standing in front of a hot stove, but I digress. We have to eat. Since it's been chilly we have been wanting some comfort foods...enter the Beef Pot Pie. I have only ever had chicken or turkey, also not being a big fan of pot pies either so this was intriguing! The hubby loves them so I obliged, and as it turns out it was super yummy! I may be a turned pot pie fan!


What You'll Need:
1lb 80% lean ground beef
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 cups diced unpeeled russet potatoes
2 cups frozen mixed veggies
2 cups diced tomato's with Italian herbs
1-1.5 12oz can beef gravy
1/8 tsp black pepper
1 box refrigerated pie crusts
1 egg white, beaten

4-6 individual ovenproof bowls (this recipe made enough for 5 pot pies)
Cookie Sheet
Skillet

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 425. Spray your oven proof bowls with cooking spray and place on cookie sheet. In your skillet cook beef and onion over medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until beef is thoroughly cooked; drain.

2. Stir in potatoes, mixed veggies, tomatoes, gravy and pepper. Reduce heat to medium-low; cover and cook 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are almost tender.

3. Removed softened pie crusts from box and place flat on work surface. You can get all fancy with a 5" round cutter, or you can just attempt to cut even circles, then end up with a haphazardly cut one like I did! Presentation not so great, but tastes the same. Cut enough circles for the top and bottom. I like crust, hence the bottom crust, you can easily omit the bottom crust. Place a crust on the bottom and spoon beef mixture evenly into bowls. Place crusts over beef mixture; seal to edges of bowls. Cut several slits in each pie crust. Brush crusts with egg white.

4. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until crusts are golden brown.

See what I mean about the haphazard one?

Note: You can use less gravy and go with just one 12 oz can, however we like gravy and that additional 1/2 can really makes the difference when it cooks out a little. You can also add a little chopped parsley to the top of your pie before you bake it for a little added flavor, I forgot it at the store, but it tasted just fine without it!

Yummy Filling!

This recipe was a Pillsbury adaptation!

Knotted Headbands and Scarf DIY Tutorial

So, this year in an effort to save some cash, but still give great and thoughtful gifts, and also try out my old re-learned skill of crochet. I learned as a child, but fell out of the craft and in the earlier part of 2012 I picked the craft back up and was making small items; i.e. washcloths, little appliques for baby clothes....things of that sort. However I wanted to try my hand a a slightly larger project, enter the scarf and headbands. It has been unseasonably freezing in SoCal this winter and thought that it would be the perfect cold weather gift! I made 5 scarves and 2 headbands. (The above photo is a headband and cowl scarf that my mom made for me. She used the same headband pattern as me but changed it up a bit....I'll explain below.)

Single Crochet Scarf

What You'll Need:

Size H or 5mm crochet hook
9 oz worsted weight yarn
Darning needle

Directions:

Chain 17. This can be adjusted narrower or wider depending on the look your going for

R1: Sc in 2nd ch from hook and in each chain across (16 sc)

R2-?: Chain 1.  Turn.  Sc in 2nd chain from hook and in each chain across (16 sc)
I kept this action going until it reached the length I desired. About 6 feet or so. You can adjust this to accommodate any length!

Take your darning needle and sew in your loose ends.

3 of the 5 colors; Burgundy, purple and med. gray

Light gray scarf with headband

Double Crochet Headband:

This gave me a little bit of trouble because I have such a small pinhead! Nothing fits my head properly! So when I followed the tutorial from All About Ami, the headband just slipped off my head. :-S So I had to super adjust the length. I will adjust her tutorial for all the small headed peeps out there...if you don't have a small head you can follow hers along as written!

What you'll need:

Size H or 5mm crochet hook
9 oz worsted weight yarn
Darning needle

Headband:

Chain55-60, I just chained along and checked the length against my head along the way to see how tight it was. For the gift ones I chained 65.

R1: Dc in 2nd ch from hook and in each chain across.

R2-6: Chain 2.  Turn.  Dc in 2nd chain from hook and in each chain across. Finished piece is about 3.4”/8.6 cm wide after six rows.  Fold the crocheted piece in half and sew the edges together with your darning needle.  To create the ruching look, pinch the middle rows of the headband  (approximately Rows 2-5) and sew them together (about 3”/7.6 cm across).  Be sure to pinch the middle rows where the ends of the headband were sewn together to conceal the seam.

Knot:
Chain 10
R1: Dc in 2nd ch from hook and in each chain across.
R2-8: Chain 2.  Turn.  Dc in 2nd chain from hook and in each chain across. 
Finished piece is about 4.6”/11.7 cm long after eight rows.  Wrap this crocheted strip around the pinched portion of the headband.  Sew the ends together with your darning needle and sew in any loose ends in the knot.

Note: my mom did a twist on the ones she made for me.  She did a half double crochet and did 9 rows instead of 6. She adjusted the knot length as well. I think I wanna try one with a puff stitch! So many options!

Here's some....ahem...bad photo's of them on my head. Please don't mind the poor quality! You can either wear the knot in the center or off to the side. I think I prefer off to the side, but to each their own! Oh and in the background you can see my new throw pillows chilling on my bed!

Twist on a standard baby bib - Denim Bib DIY!

Ever have one of those days where you feel like you should just go back to bed? My hair decided to look like the cowardly lion this morning when I blew it dry, my morning caffeine still has me feeling groggy, and when I got to work I realized I put my underwear on inside out....TMI? Well it's just been one of those Wednesdays! At least I was productive this weekend and finished a craft!

With the invention of the internet and Pinterest, having your own ideas isn't as common as it once was. While perusing the DIY and crafts section I saw this super cute twist on baby bibs from Thimbly Things. I just about died, as I had some scrap denim that has just been lying around my house waiting for a project. I figured I could make some bibs to have in my gift closet. Even after making 8 bibs I still have some leftover for some other ideas I am planning! Stay tuned for those! Anywho, without further adieu.....le tutorial:

What you'll need:
Bib Template (I printed one off the internet that was actually an infant size, oopsies! Hey it still works. You can use your own stash for templates as well)
Denim
Scissors
Pins
Quilters Cotton (16 different patterns; (2) coordinates per bib) (I made 4 boy bibs and 4 girl bibs)
Sewing Machine w/ detail stitch options
Coordinating thread

Directions:

1. First fold the denim in half lengthwise, pin the template down and cut around one side of the template. I had 4 pant legs, so I did this eight times. Actually I did each step eight times, I was tired at the end! Haha

2. Cut one fabric large enough for the back, about a 10" x 11" square in my case and cut the coordinating fabric 2" by width of bib, mine was about 9." Take your 2" strip and press a folded over 1/4" seam on both long ends to avoid frays and zig zag stitch it into place....about a third up from the bottom. Note: If you wish you can use Steam a Seam Lite to help make your pressing easier. Cut it 1-1/2" x length of fabric and press down centered inside the fabric. Fold over your 1/4" seams and press down. Then press to adhere to denim.

Select your coordinating thread to go with your patterns and sew detailed stitching on either side of the patterned fabric. Depending on the pattern this can be time consuming so choose wisely. Also my denim was a stretchy denim, so some of the more dense patterns wanted to pucker and I had to press them flat. So keep that in mind.

3. Place your bib and back fabrics right sides together, pin and trim the back fabric the same size as the bib. If you wish to re-pin for easier sewing, please do. Sew a 1/4" seam around the entire bib, leaving about a 3″ opening at the bottom of the bib for turning. Make small perpendicular clips around all your curves for easier turning, just make sure not to cut your seam. The area on my neck, where the snaps go was very small so I trimmed the edge in that area to about 1/8"

4. Gently turn bib right side out, using closed scissors or a blunt edge tool to carefully push out the narrow curves.

5. Press bib, pin your turning opening and stitch along all edges about 1/4″. You can use a decorative stitch here also. I used a wavy stitch with a denim blue color thread and a coordinating bobbin thread to the back fabric.

6. Choose a closure and attach as directed. I chose hand sewn snaps because the area where they would go was just too small for velcro, but if you have more space you can definitely use it!

Once your all done admire your new and super cute bibs! My favorite one has to be the boy one with the construction zone fabric on the front. I really like the girl bib with the ABC back and arched pink stitching on the front!

Crazy pups and Plenty of Finished Projects!

Since Christmas 2012 was with D's family, although we is see my family, we needed to make a trip up north to have a weekend to exchange our gifts and just spend time with my parents. So, this past weekend we went up and spent some time with them. We got our pups re-acquainted and they played NON STOP all weekend. My parents puppy is a 10 month old boxer and full of energy. Our 5 year old ridgeback, with a leg sprain, held her own but they wore each other out both days.

We just enjoyed each others company, exchanged gifts and visited the construction zone that is the new house to see all the progress. We always have a wonderful time, albeit on little sleep because of the pups, and was sad that we had to cut out trip short because the snow and sleet started coming down and we couldn't get stuck.

I was also able to finish a couple of projects this weekend. A quilt top for my dear friends birthday at the end of the month, although the finished photos will have to wait until he receives it. As well as some denim baby bibs! Stay tunes for a tutorial on those babies later in the week, but I'll give you a photo preview!

Happy January!