Early July 4th Post - Flag Cake Directions

I have had several emails about how I made the flag cake in this post. Here are some quickie directions on how I did mine. I'm sure if you make one, you'll find where how you can save some time. If you do, let me know! :)

You'll need enough cake mix (white) for three layers of cake. Use food coloring to dye one layer of the mix red and one layer blue. One layer needs to stay white. To get good thick layers, I used two cake mixes and had one layer worth of batter left over, so I made those into cupcakes. :)

Bake layers as noted on the box. Once baked and cooled (cool completely!), cut the red and white layers horizontally. So now you have two small layers each of red and white and one regular sized layer of blue. Set aside one each of the red and white layers...those will be the bottom stripes of the flag.

Now, of the layers that you didn't set aside, stack them one on top of each other (do not ice them yet). Using a sharp knife, you are going to cut a circle directly out of the middle of all three layers. I used a bowl as a guide and just stuck the knife from the top...ALL the way through to the bottom using the edge of the bowl as my round guide. So now you have a ring of red, white and blue and three inner circles of the same. Does that make sense?

Take a break now and commence eating the inner circle of blue and the outer rings of the red & white cakes.

ASSEMBLY:
Frost the bottom two layers of red & white that we set aside earlier...the bottom stripes of the flag. Just place a layer of frosting between those layers. Then frost the top of the red and place the blue ring on top of that. I put a small amount of frosting on the inside of the blue ring to help cut down on any crumbs and to hold the next two stripes in place. On the inside of the ring, place the small white circle cake, top with a bit of frosting, then place the red circle cake. Frost the entire cake, as normal.

Is that clear as mud?

FYI - after I sent my cake pictures to my mom? She told me that you can use a checkerboard cake pan and it would be easier. I don't have a checkerboard pan, so this is how I had to roll. :)

A Birthday Shirt for Miss S

I am a lame aunt. I not only forgot about my niece's birthday party last weekend (until my mom reminded me the day before), but I showed up with NO gift. Ack! Hopefully, my lateness will be excused!

Thank goodness for my mom. She brought her most hated sewing machine to the party for me to take home (thanks, Mom!). Her most hated machine is WAY better than what I had before. It sews on knit. With no issues. Yesssss!

I was prompted to try this after reading a tutorial one someone else's blog (I can't remember where I found it! She did a 4 with baseball fabric for her son's birthday). It was super easy...especially if your machine doesn't hate you. :)

So happy belated birthday, Miss S! Don't hate me too much for being so forgetful.

Since I can't remember what blog I got my inspiration, here is a super quick and dirty how-to (no pics) on this project. Prewash your fabric and shirt (since they are different types of fabric, it will alleviate puckering later on). I used my Cricut to cut out a large S and then traced the S onto the shirt. Next, I ironed interfacing to my white & pink fabric and placed it on the inside of the shirt, then pinned, pinned, pinned all around the S. It's not absolutely necessary, but I sewed two rows of stitches around the S. I tried to be all nice and careful with the second line, but very quickly figured out that there was NO way I would be able to mirror the first line of stitches perfectly, so I went all wonky with them making them criss-cross, curve, etc. After you are all sewn, very carefully cut out the pink shirt on the inside close to the stitches. Then go on the inside of the shirt and cut out all of the excess fabric, cutting near the stitches again.


Linking up to these parties: It's a Blog Party, Today's Creative Blog, Creative Itch

Happy Memorial Day!

UPDATE: Go here for a quickie (non picture...sorry!) tutorial.

These pictures are proof positive that I am neither a food stylist nor a photographer. But the kiddos and I had fun creating our flag cake today. :)


Iced and ready to eat:


Surprise!

UPDATE: Directions can be found here.

UGH!

My sewing machine pooped out on me Monday night, just as I was sewing the very first seam on this. Called three repair places and, rightfully so of course, they charge a diagnostic fee...of $75. Ouch! The machine was only $150 to begin with (12+ years ago). Luckily, I have a nice mommy, who hates the Singer she bought last year and used all of 5 times. She's coming for a visit in a couple of weeks and will give it to me on long-term loan. Lucky me!

So in the interim, I will be scouring the home building sites near me and will beg for scrap wood. You can expect to see some wood crafts in the near future. And as soon as this guy comes in the mail, you can see crafts with him. Happy (early) birthday to me!

Also, we spent an inordinate amount of time at Home Depot last night picking up our new living room and dining room flooring. Installers are supposed to come on Friday. *please, please, please* Cannot wait to get rid of the ugly, dirty, builder grade carpeting. :)

Goodwill Candle Holder Makeover

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Found this candle holder at Goodwill last week (was the ONLY thing I found...pout). It was marked $3, but it had a pink tag and it was "pink tags are half price" day, so it was a whopping $1.50 plus tax. I'm not really a taper person, but figured I could make it work for something. I'm not a huge fan of the grapevine ball on top, but figured it was better than seeing the taper holder that I didn't bother trying fill or cover.

Sprayed with primer first, then two coats of glossy white. Sanded lightly, then brushed on and wiped off Minwax's Dark Walnut stain. One spray of clear coat, then let it dry overnight.

Extend Your Winter Wardrobe

How many shirts do you or your kids have that are the layered look?

I went through my daughter's clothes this morning...swapping out winter for spring/summer. As I was getting a donation bag ready, I got a bit irritated that I was getting rid of things that she had only worn a handful of times, but that still fit her. I started looking at some of the shirts that she had and wondered if I could cut off the sleeves to get some additional wear out of them. Sewing with knit is not my thing, though. I know it's user error, but whenever I sew with knit, it stretches out my fabric and looks terrible. So sewing was out for me on this one! She did have a number of layered-look shirts, though, so I went after those with a pair of scissors. Now she has additional shirts in her wardrobe for spring & summer!

Here are the "leftover" sleeves. If your sewing machine doesn't hate knit, you can totally turn these into baby leg warmers in less than 10 minutes. Snip a little off the top to make them straight across, fold down for a hem and sew a straight seam. Easy peasy! :)

Family Art

Like I said in one of the first couple of blog entries, our house is a bit bland at the moment. We have very little of anything on our walls. BORING! We were looking for an inexpensive "something" to spruce up the walls and ultimately decided on a family art project. Everyone got a blank canvas and the same colors to choose from...even the 2 year old. Behold! Family Art!

Dad:

Mom - I am NO artist:

Kid #1 (age 10) - he said this is a worm den:

Kid #2 (age 2):

I came home from work today to find them in the breakfast nook. Not exactly where I would have put them (I was thinking above the tv) nor in the "shape" I would have put them (I was thinking like one large square...two side by side with two underneath), BUT my husband participated in family art and was happy enough with them to hang them up by himself. So I'm happy too. :)

Daddy's is on the opposite wall, but here's a pic of the grouping he put together (Blogger is cutting off my pic, so you can click on it to see the whole grouping).

There are a couple of good things about this project. First, it was cheap...less than $6. I bought the cheapest canvases that Michael's had, plus I used a 40% off coupon. Second, whenever we get tired of the colors, we can paint over the canvases with white and start all over! Lastly, it was really nice to hang out as a family and do something artsy together. Makes a Mama smile. :)

Terra Cotta Pot Transformation

I let the kids help with part of this one, so it's not exactly....right. But being a family project, I can't let my "issues" get in the way. :)

This "tutorial" is pretty basic since I forgot to take pics of a few steps.

I started with a couple of terra cotta pots. One was new and one I rescued from the plant hospital (aka, the back porch). I sprayed them with water to get the dust and dirt off, then left them for about 30 minutes to dry.

Spray paint the pots white. I recommend paint, not primer. But that's what happens when you are in a hurry and apparently only look at the color of the cap. Oops.

Allow the white paint to dry thoroughly (give it at least 20 minutes...more if it's humid outside).

For the striped pot, I used painters tape and placed it on the pot in the general design that I wanted. For the polka dot pot, I used some left over garage sale stickers that were in my desk (this is where my kiddos got involved and any anal tendencies toward symmetry went out the window). You can get several hundred for a buck at the dollar store. After you apply your stickers or tape, rub over them with your finger to make sure the edges are stuck down really well or when you paint over them, it will go underneath and look messy. I had trouble with mine sticking...I'm not sure if it's because I used primer instead of paint or if it's because it was humid.as.hell outside.

Now spray over your pot again with your color of choice, black in this case. No pictures of a black pot because, well, because I didn't take any. :) Allow the paint to dry and spray it again, getting any spots you may have missed the first time around.

After the black paint has had a chance to dry (another fudge up here because I didn't let mine dry thoroughly and because I didn't wear gloves, I looked like I had been fingerprinted), peel off your tape and stickers. I added a couple of coats of clear coat to help protect my awesome paint job from the elements.

Lots of sticker shape and color combos would work here. My sister is a ladybug fan, so she may get one that is red with black dots. I'm thinking of doing a triple threat this weekend...yellow, pink and teal. I'll let you know how it turns out. :)

Terra Cotta Pot Transformation

BEFORE:

I'll show the AFTER pics when I get home from work tonight. Let's just say that the title of this blog pertains to the contents of this post...it's definitely an imperfect transformation. :) See you tonight!

Tutorial: Numbered Bean Bags

I'm popping my tutorial cherry today. :)

I was inspired by this post at Lil Blue Boo (Ashley's site is one of my faves to visit...she's incredibly talented). She made a set of bean bags that spell out her daughter's name. So cute!

So being inspired, I decided to make alphabet bean bags for my 2 year old. 5 minutes into the project, I decided the alphabet was going to be too much work. I wanted something that would only take me a couple of hours. A nap time project! At this point, I went from 26 beans bags to 10. The nap time guesstimate didn't work out, though. All together, including taking tutorial pics, it took me about 5 hours. It could have taken about 3, but you'll see where I used some optional steps.

For me, one of the best things about this project is that I only had to buy beans. All of my material was scrap.

You will need the following materials:

• enough fabric for 20 squares
• enough fabric for your numbers (you won't need much of this)
• Wonder Under
• typical sewing accoutrements (pins, scissors, thread, etc)

I cut my squares 6" x 6", but you can go as big or small as you like, depending on what you have available. So here's how I did mine. Hope the directions are easy to follow!

I started by printing off the numbers 0-9. I used a text box in Microsoft Word so that I could easily size the letters based on the size of my squares. I used Calibri font in bold and made my letters 3" high by 2" wide.

Next, I traced my letters onto some Wonder Under using a ball point pen (per their instructions). There are a couple of ways you can use Wonder Under. I didn't want to have to cut my numbers more than once, so I used the trace method. I traced my numbers onto the BUMPY side of the Wonder Under.

One you get all of the numbers traced, iron them, bumpy side of the Wonder Under facing down. Yes, you are now looking at the mirror image of your numbers.

Now you'll cut out your numbers. This is time consuming. If you are going to satin stitch these onto your bean bags, being precise isn't necessary, but if you're not planning to do that, then get it as close as you can. I tried very hard to cut just inside my pen line because I didn't know if the ink would have bled through to the white fabric (FYI, it did!). Here are the numbers all cut out!

Next, I cut my bags out of some polka dot fabric. I made my squares 6" x 6", but like I said above, you can make them any size (or better yet, any shape!) you want. For the numbers we are doing (0-9), you'll need to cut out two pieces for each bean bag. You'll wind up with 20 squares (it only looks like 10 in my photo, but the other matching color square is underneath). My fabrics didn't have a precise pattern to them, so I actually cut 4 layers of fabric at one time (this will go quickly if you have a sharp blade on your rotary cutter).

Before we get to sewing, there is one quick step remaining. We now need to iron the cut out numbers onto the fabric squares. At first, I had a hard time pulling the paper back of the numbers, but if you gently fold it (don't crease the fabric) in your fingers, it will pull apart and come off easily.

The Wonder Under directions say you're supposed to iron these on with a pressing cloth. Oops! :)

This particular step is totally optional. I chose to sew around the edges of the numbers because I know how hard my kids are on toys. They are not gentle giants. :) If you're going to sew around the edges, I have no tips for you. Just...good luck. It took me over an hour to sew around 10 numbers. If I had it to do over again, I MIGHT do it by hand with long running stitches or I might just use stencils and fabric paint and paint numbers on.

Once your numbers are on the fabric (whether you sew around them or not), it's time to start putting them together. Place right sides together, add a couple of pins, and sew around all four sides, leaving a 2-3" opening on one side. Trim your corners.

Next, turn your fabric right side out and poke out your corners so they are nice and square. I'm an advocate of ironing, so iron your right-side-out bags so the edges look pretty and crisp. :)

Now it's time to fill your bags with some sort of filler. I used 3/4 cup of pinto beans (you may want a little more or a little less), but you can use any type of bean, rice or the little balls that bean bags are normally filled with. The hole in the side of your bag is difficult to put beans through (unless you want to spend HOURS doing it one by one). I attempted to use my kitchen funnel, but the opening wasn't large enough for even one bean to go through. So I improvised...I tore off a small bit of a piece of paper and quickly taped together a funnel shape. Stick the funnel inside the hole and pour small handfulls of your beans in. My 10-year old helped with this part. He was very intent on not spilling the beans. :) You can barely see the funnel in this pic.

After you have filled all of your bags, top stitch all the way around, making sure the catch the edges of your opening on each bag. As you are sewing, you'll have to putz with the beans a bit to keep them out of the way. Believe me when I tell you that if your needle hits a bean, it's toast.

Ta da! All done! Commence playing. :)

On this blog, I do plan to show my imperfections, so here's today's insight: this could have taken WAY less time than I put into it. :) There were a couple of places where I could have saved a lot of time.

• The first one I have already mentioned. It is not necessary to sew around all of the numbers. You could iron them on and leave as-is or you can use a stencil and use fabric paint (as Ashley did in my inspiration post...that would also save the time of cutting out the Wonder Under-ed numbers).
• The second place to save a little time is to not sew them together inside out. It would be perfectly reasonable to sew the wrong sides together (using a 5/8" seam and leaving a small opening), use the opening to fill the bag with beans, closing the opening, then pinking the edges of the squares. I may actually do an alphabet using this method.

I hope you found this tutorial helpful. If you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to have at it in the Comments section! :)