Humphrey Bogart the 1st

I have to admit that I have always wanted to make a real stuffed animal. I made Franklin the owl earlier this year, but I wanted to make one that was ultra cuddly. I knew exactly what kind of animal I wanted to make, too. I wanted to make a whale! Why a whale, you might ask? Well, firstly because Mandy (my little sister in the Lord who graduated Bible school last summer) LOVES whales. In fact, the van that she drove actually looked like a whale. Secondly, because my Kristin  who lives in London has an adorable son named Henry. I wanted Henry to have a whale named Wales. So, I had two very VERY good reasons to learn how to make a whale.

I marched myself to the local fabric store and picked the cutest baby blue color plush fabric I could find. I also found a creme colored underside fabric for the whale’s belly. Lastly, just to add a personal touch, I chose a couple of other fabrics to cut out a little heart to put on the belly so that both my little sister and baby Henry will grow up to know that someone (ME!) loves them very much.

After the fabric was gathered, then I began to cut: the fins, the sides with button eyes, the underside or belly (creme fabric), and the upper-side piece. Here are the some of the aforementioned pieces. The fins with the blue plush fabric and the creme fabric have been sewn together. The buttons have been sewed onto the side pieces so our Mr. Whale can see! Then, both of the ends of the upper side piece have been sewn together to form a crease.

Then I connected the upper side with the two side button pieces. This is a bit complicated, but the two side pieces are then sewn to the upper-side by turning the pieces inside out and then matching the wider side of the upper-side with the heads of the side pieces.

After that was done, I sewed the bottom creme piece with the pieces still inside out. I attached the fins and then sewed it up until I had a small hole to flip the entire whale right-side-out. Then I STUFFED the guy silly until he was nice and plump and huggable. Then using this trick that my Auntie Barbara taught me when I lived in Colorado, I sewed the hole up without showing the thread. It’s a technique that is difficult to explain, but I can do a live demo if you ask. (You’re welcome!)

Alas, when all is sewn and done. You have Humphrey Bogart! Isn’t he handsome? He’s a very shy kind of whale. He loves to be loved, but only by one person at a time. He also really likes it when people tell him stories. His favorite story is the book of Jonah. He thinks it’s really funny! Currently, Humphrey Bogart is living happily ever after with his new owner in Canada and studies her medical textbooks with her as she is becoming an extremely proficient doctor. After Humphrey was born, his little brother Wales the Whale of Scotland was born a month after, and they also have a little sister who is light pretty pink in color. She’s a real southern bell of a whale, she lives in Atlanta and her name is Georgia.

  

Ms. Abby Jean’s Snickerdoodles

I have tried one to many a snickerdoodle recipe in my day including Tanya’s, McCormick’s, and Mrs. Sigg’s. They all turned out well, wellllllll, but just seemed like they were kind of all the same. Well, I went to visit a my dear Abby Jean in Austin last summer and whilst I was there – she baked me some snickerdoodles. These were not your ordinary doodles though, no siree bob, these were amazing fluffy delicious cookies that melt in your mouth. Honestly, I almost wanted to eat the entire plate full.

The other day when I was doing my usual daydreaming about baking and cooking, crafting and painting, I kept of thinking about dear Abby Jean’s snickerdoodles. I sent her an e-note,  got the recipe, and began snickerdoodling away! Here are the ingredients you need…

Wet:
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 sticks of butter

Dry:
2 3/4 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Topping: (I think you may need to double this. Its been a while since I’ve made them)
2 Tbls sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

So you make the wet and dry mixture separately. Then mix them. Finally roll the dough into balls and roll them in to topping. Bake 12-15 min at 350. Good Luck!

The Little Pioneer Apprentice

It’s been a little chilly these days and I have found myself looking for soupy-stewy-hearty type comfort foods. For the longest time (about a week now) I have been thinking of pot roast with carrots and mashed potatoes. But, I am like most people who don’t have a whole family to feed. If it’s just me, why make an entire meal? It’s so much easier to just buy something. It’s not that I don’t enjoy cooking, it’s just that I don’t want to waste a bunch of leftovers NOR do I want to eat the same leftovers for 5 days straight. It can be quite a predicament unless, of course, you invite guests over for dinner…

So recently, I met this southern college-age girl from Alabama who started to meet in my home meeting because she wanted to find Christians to fellowship with. In addition to spending time with her at our home meetings, my housemate and I have been meeting up with her over lunch or dinner to share our testimonies of pursuing and loving the Lord. It had been a little while since we all got together with the holidays and all, but she returned back from her trip home earlier this week and we scheduled to get together for dinner. Being that I love to cook, but don’t usually have the opportunity to do it, I decided that instead of going out (like we usually do) that I would MAKE dinner!!! That’s right, I was going to throw a real-live dinner party! And, I knew exactly what I wanted make too – POT ROAST! I hopped on my new favorite website and located the recipe of choice entitled, “The Perfect Pot Roast.” 

By the way, I am officially naming myself the “Little Pioneer Apprentice” because I’m determined to try out all of her wonderful recipes. The woman is a genius! And, she has red hair. So cute!

Here is a picture of all the key players.

Ingredients:

• Salt and Pepper
• 2 onions
• 6 carrots
• 2-3 tbsp. olive oil
• 4-5 lbs. chuck roast
• 1 c. beef broth or (red wine)
• 2-3 c. beef stock
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme
• 3 sprigs fresh rosemary

First, we smother Mr. Chuck Roast with salt and pepper. The woman says to be generous, and boy I was generous!

Over halving your onions and cutting your carrots, heat your pot with 2 tbsp. of olive oil. Brown your onions, but be careful not to burn your eyelashes by the oil splatter.

Take out the onions and give the carrots a turn.

And last, but definitely not least, the MEAT.

After you remove the meat from the pot, you want to deglaze with a can of beef broth. Use your wooden spoon to lift all the meat remanent at the bottom of the pot. Place your meat back into the pot, add the carrots and onions, 3 sprigs of fresh thyme, and 3 sprigs of fresh rosemary. Pour in 2-3 cups of beef stock. The original instructions say to cook it in the oven at 275 for 4 hours, but because my guests were arriving an hour earlier, I cooked my roast at 325 for 3 hours and it turned out wonderful!

See!!! So purdy and delicious too!

Owl Brownies

On one of my expeditions to JoAnn’s, I decided to peruse the book/magazine section and the cover of a brownie decorating book caught my eye. For the most part the decorations used to embellish the brownies looked like the same decorations one would use to decorate…well, a cupcake. Sprinkles, frosting, nuts, coconut…the usual stuff. There was one picture, however, that I thought was very creatively charming. The brownies that were decorated as plump cute and feathery owls.

The materials needed are:

1. Dark chocolate frosting
2. White chocolate frosting
3. A bag of Wilton’s chocolate (big circles) – you can get this from any craft store, it’s usually in the cake-decorating and chocolate truffle making section.
4. A bag of chocolate chips (semi-sweet or milk)

Firstly, bake your brownies into muffin tins with a liner and all. Then, allow them to cool down before you begin to frost them with dark chocolate. If you use a regular muffin tin (x12) and are making more petite-sized owls, you will want to cut your Wilton chocolates into quarters. If you make larger more stout owls (x6) then cut your Wilton chocolates in halves. These cut pieces will become the feathers of your owls. Arrange them in rows just above the middle of the brownie and place them evenly from left to right. For the more petite owls, you will probably have 3 layers of feathers. Layer your feathers from top to bottom until you have your brownie covered completely from the middle down. Using a piping bag or a ziplock bag and a round cake decorating tip, squeeze two small rounds of white frosting. Take a chocolate chip and place it in the center of the white frosting – flattening the frosting out as if it were the shadow of the eye. Last, but not least, using a quarter-cut chocolate – place your beak on your owl like so…

Owl brownies are ready for the home meeting!

Reupholstered Garden Chairs

In the spirit of reupholstering chairs! – I picked out some great fabric from JoAnn’s outdoor fabric section to match the aurora of my OASIS. To really execute this project, however, I needed to invest in two new pieces of wood over which to wrap the fabric and be the actual seats of my chairs. The original pieces of wood were pretty disgusting (That is an understatement by the way). So, I marched myself over to friendly Home Depot to see if some of the lumber people over there wouldn’t mind cutting down pieces of wood that matched the original pieces. Just for your reference, you can oftentimes get the employees at Home Depot to cut you straight-edged pieces of wood, but if you want them to put a curve in your wood – they really hestitate. Mostly because they don’t necessarily have the proper machinery available on hand. Fortunately, I befriended an employee who had his own saw in the back and was able to cut 2 pieces for me during his lunch break. I know, I can be pretty persuasive when I need to be!

After I had gotten my pieces of wood, I cut down some thick batting that I got from Joann’s and fitted it on top of the wood piece. I matched up my fabric to the envelope the wood and pulled the edges tightly together. Using my handy-dandy staple gun, I was able to finish this project in just an hour.

And they look so pretty!

Reupholstered Chairs

A couple of our dining room chairs have seen better days. I’m not sure if those couple of chairs were the ones that my parents set us on as children and allowed us to somehow tear it to pieces. Not only did we manage to break through the plastic glossy covering, but we also mutilated the fabric itself and compared to their dining room chair-counterparts they are in MAJOR need of TLC. That is why I took it upon myself to reupholster them.

After recruiting my mother to sort through our danger-zone bonus room and into her cupboard of old fabrics, we found what I had hoped to find. The original fabric to our dining room chairs. Mind you, I was prepared for the worst, having to go to the fabric store to find a comparable pattern of fabric. Nonetheless, we did not have to do that. We were able to find extra pieces of the original fabric that would be adequate to cover the sad-looking chairs.

I located a staple gun and 3mm 5/16 reupholstering staples to fit into my gun. I shot a few practice runs and began reupholstering. Firstly, size up the material to adequately fit around your platform and cushion. Pay special attention to the corners. You may want to examine your other chairs to ensure that they look the same. Then you neatly fold over the extra fabric and staple gun into the platform. In order to complement the look of the other chairs, I got a piece of thick plastic to cover as a second layer on top of the fabric.

Once you are finished and your edges are nice and clean, place the reupholstered cushion back onto the chair frame. Using a drill, screw the cushion into the frame so that it does not move. Now, the dining room set looks up to par!

Next, we will be moving on to reupholstering the garden chairs…

Garden Flags

I saw some super adorable garden flags at the people’s market the other day. It did not look very complicated to make, it was just a bunch of cute fabric pieces shaped into flags and strung together with a pretty ribbon. So, I thought to myself – why don’t I do that? Afterall, I am working on making my garden a pleasant OASIS. Soon thereafter, I came home and flipped through my personal stacks of fabric and found some that I thought would be nice strung together. For some reason, I was feeling especially patriotic (if you didn’t notice – I think it had to do with it being Veteran’s day).

Once I decided on my fabric pieces, I began to cut them into triangles using my quilt accessories (cuttter, self-healing board, ruler etc…). I made the triangles of varying sizes (large-medium-small).

Then I began to lay them out. Much like a patchwork quilt piece. Once I figured out how I wanted a particular strand to look. I began to sew my fabric flags on to grosgrain ribbon (ribbon that would match the fabric, of course).

The very first strand of garden flags was given to my housemate as a surprise gift. The others I placed in a simple vase of rocks and attached them to bamboo and wood sticks with a clothes pin.

Like so! Five down and six more to go! Doesn’t it make you want to sing 4th of July songs?

Day 2 Project: OASIS

I love succulents.  I would like to introduce you to my new addition to my outdoor-arboreutum-sanctuary-an inviting-situation, a pot of beautiful succulents!

So, I finally decided on “paprika” color paint for my herb-garden sink and I recruited the help of 3 very expert-like friends in the general layout of my big project OASIS.

Profiles: A.Casey knows all that there is to know about pretty much anything. She is not afraid to get her hands dirty nor is she inhibited by any task – big or small.

A.Hale is well-informed about interesting crafty techniques and tricks, has researched pinterest and other home renovating/diy websites and blogs thoroughly, and has extensive experience of her own in this area.

Last but not least is S.Barton, my housemate, who has a natural eye for beauty because she, of course, is a woman of beauty 🙂 You should check out how she decorated her room.  It is beautiful. In addition, she does not hesitate when it comes to jumping right into a good household project.

It happened to be my birthday when my housemate gave me a new rustic-looking outdoor table and hanging decoration for our OASIS. We spray painted the sink several times and placed it on top of cinder blocks.  We did one last coat for our vintage chairs.

 

 

 

 

When all that paint was dried…In went my herbs to their new happy home!

Raise your hand if you noticed the wooden pallet next to the sink? If you did, you get a gold star!! I was taking a walk around the neighborhood, you see, for exercise and I came across some items that some neighbors were throwing out. Just in case, I asked them if those things were up for grabs. They indicated that they were and so I am a proud new owner of TWO WOODEN PALLETS! I also got my hands on some mason jars. (I can’t believe people throw out mason jars, you can use them for so many things!) Needless to say, I already have some ideas of how I’m going to integrate these items into project OASIS…

Monogram Burlap Tote

I purchased a plain burlap tote bag. Although I kind of like it as it is, I also had high hopes to transform it into something unique and perhaps more personalized. The bag itself has a picture of tomatoes adhered to it that I wanted to either somehow remove or cover. I initially thought of using vintage-y floral fabric to cover it up, but after reviewing all of my vintage-y fabrics I decided that nothing paired with the burlap that well and gave it the look that I was after. So, I reconsidered while staring out of my desk window. On the window sill of my window, I have a bunch of coffee mugs and teacups. A couple of those cups have monograms and many of them are black and white in color. They became the inspiration to my burlap tote.  After all, what can me more personalized than a monogram?

I searched the house for some sturdy black fabric and came across an unused bag. I cut it into a square that would cover the picture of the tomatoes.

Step 1: I jumped onto my computer and created a lower case letter r – finding the font that I thought would be just right. I printed it and cut the letter out. 

Step 2: I taped down the corners of the black fabric to make a border.
Step 3: I put double-sided tape on the r Step 4: And then adhered painters tape to the double-sided tape side of the letter so that you are fully covering the letter.

This is the letter covered completely with the sticky side out. This then becomes the letter you will use to stick to your fabric.

Step 5: Cut out the letter and discarding the extra tape and remove the paper letter so that only the sticker letter remains

Step 6: Place sticker letter in the center of the fabric piece.

Step 7: Then, using white fabric paint cover the black fabric surrounding the letter.

Step 8: After the paint dries, remove the taped letter.

Step 9: Spray Artist’s Adhesive to the back side of the black fabric and place the fabric in the center of the tote. Be sure that the corners and edges are securely fastened onto the tote. When you’re done, you have your very own personalized monogrammed tote bag!

Step 10: Wait a second!  Just a little something more to complete the look…

Tie a piece of matching fabric to one of the straps!

Now you are ready to go! Perfect for going organic-food shopping!

Franky vs. Franklin

Introducing my very first patchwork stuffed animal owl! Dedicated to D.Dueck

One afternoon, I decided to spend some quality time with a dear trainee. I brought her one of my favorite afternoon Starbuck sips (Venti-shaken-black-iced-tea with lemonade and 1/2 the usual amount of classic syrup) and then took her to a favorite Anaheim stop of mine, M&L Fabrics. It was her first time to the store and being that she is an amazing seamstress, I thought that it was only fitting that she meet the stacks. Yes, stacks and stacks of different fabrics at discount prices! Additionally, she is on the sewing service for the training – SO not only when her knowledge of this store benefit her personally, but the entire training!

We spent a good amount of time there and then headed back to Grace. We chit-chatted with a few others in the house and then she and I came up with an idea of making stuffed patchwork animals. Excitedly, she promised that she would look into patterns and I promised that I would do something too…you know to contribute. Although I was not exactly sure what my contribution would truly be because I’m just an amateur. Nevertheless, I was true to my word. A few weekends ago, I got really sick and so I was stuck at home. To “rest,” in my book, simply means to remain at home rather than go OUT 🙂 so I rested by making my own patchwork pattern of an owl. I sketched the owl that I wanted to make and then created a pattern to go off of.

Then, I started to choose my fabric using old remnants from an old tattered j.crew bag and such. I cut my pieces of fabric: the front, the back, the eye shadow, and the beak. After I went through my own button collection, my housemate let me shuffle through her jar of old buttons. Through all of the button sorting, I still could not find two matching buttons! It was interesting how much buttons or the eyes can affect the overall image of the owl. One set of buttons made the owl look like a Harley-Davidson motorcycle riding leather jacket wearing bad boy owl named Franky and the another set of buttons made the owl look like an Albert Einstein book-smart owl genius prodigy named Franklin. After much consideration my housemate and I voted on…

Franklin J. Smarts

The Very Wise Ole’ Owl.