Saturday, April 23, 2011

Revisit: Abstract Family Portrait

Remember these cuties? Well, they're back! Heather is now making a set for herself. They are gonna be blue and white (go Cougars!) and she's gonna put 3 birds on hers. Aww!
Well, as I mentioned in the previous post, we did an auction at church as a fundraiser. Well, I took my birds to show what I could do, and I sold 4 sets for $40 each. I know that's not a huge price, but when you look at the cost of materials and the fact that all the proceeds are going to support the youth, I was pretty proud that I sold any, let alone 4 of them. Good gracious, what fun! Here's set 1 of 4. I'll post pics of the others as they are completed.

Revisit: 90 Minute Cinnamon Rolls

The best thing in the world is probably a hot cinnamon roll right out of the oven and smothered in cream cheese frosting. And, if you've been following, you know about my 90 minute cinnamon roll recipe. (If you don't know about it, you should know about it!) So when the opportunity to make them for myself and for others presents itself, I am totally on board. Well, just this week, our church did a fundraiser for some youth programs, and I made an obscenely huge pan of cinnamon rolls to put up for auction. Well, I am proud to say that they went for $105!!! Nothing makes you feel validated quite like that! And if that's not a vote of confidence for trying these cinnamon rolls, I don't know what is!

Paper bouquet

I love flowers, and I love having them around my house, but it's hard to justify buying them because they just die in a few days. And that makes me sad. So I decided to make myself a bouquet that would never die. Check it out!

Prom hair flowers

I have some girls in my neighborhood who are going to prom this weekend and I made them some flowers for their hair. Let's see what we've got here, shall we?

#1

#2

#3

Paper rose bouquets

Check out the original here.

I decided to make my good friends some beautiful flower bouquets that wouldn't fade away. Here's what I ended up with.
Super easy, super fun, and super cheap. I got the pots and the sticks at the dollar store (though if you had pretty nature around you, you could for sure get your sticks there) and I used paper I already had to make the flowers. Just cut a big circle in spiral and spin it in on itself (see the tutorial I linked to above). Voila!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Dinner

This was the easiest dinner ever, and I felt like I should show it off:


Spaghetti and sauce (covered in parmesan), breaded chicken cutlets, Caesar salad, homemade garlic bread, and fresh berries with stevia (turns out I love that stuff). Total prep time: 15 minutes. Score!

Bowling Shirts

My brother got married this last weekend. He's a super funny kid and I just love the crap out of him and his new wife. She's just too cute and they're beyond adorable together. Anyway, because I'm me, I can't just get them something like a toaster or set of dishes (though that was part of their gift). I had to make them something, and it had to be funny. So this is what I came up with.

Bowling shirts.

Why, you ask? Easy. My bro loves bowling. (I personally hate bowling. I'm a terrible bowler and I'm too competitive for my own good, which keeps me from enjoying how bad I am at this game.) He even took a bowling class for credit at his university. My poor sister in law is dragged bowling fairly frequently, but she loves that little puke, so she is okay with the whole thing. Well, on with the story. I was at Kohl's looking at their clearance racks when I found these wonderful short sleeved button up red shirts. The fabric and design just looked like a bowling shirt. It was perfect. And it had to happen. Home I went with my clearance shirts in tow, and out came the felt. I freehanded the pattern with my scissors (because I'm crazy like that) and ran to Ben Franklin for some spray glue. Guess what? Spray glue does not work for bowling shirts. Lame! So then I just had a sticky mess that my sewing machine hated. So that meant stitching by hand and then running them through the washer/dryer. Not a super big deal (luckily Friends repeats were on the TV), but a bit time consuming. Totally worth it, though. Because, yeah, they totally have personalized bowling shirts now. I wish I'd take a picture of the finished shirts before we gave them to my bro, but I finished at 2 in the morning and had to be up at 5 to catch my flight, so that didn't happen. What you can't see in the pics is the personalized name badge on the front. Yeah, these are legit bowling shirts. And I'm pretty sure that's the coolest wedding present EVER!
My bro is showing off how the shirt is to be used. Nice form, man! And, in case you were wondering, they loved them. I thought my mom would pee herself laughing. And my new sister in law said I should make them for the whole family so we can all wear them together sometime. I'm not sure if she was joking or not, but I'm seriously considering it now...

384

That's how many mini muffins I've made in the last 24 hours. Why? Well, it's not just because I'm crazy, though that might be part of the problem (let's be honest here). The real reason is that the stake Relief Society president knows I'm a baker and has asked me to make a ton of mini muffins for the stake Relief Society activity on Saturday. Sure, she only asked me to make 240, but still, that's a lot of mini muffins. So why increase it by 144? Well... someone bought too much stuff at the grocery store and had to use it up. Sure hope those women are hungry on Saturday! What's the biggest thing you've crafted or baked?