More Felt Food

I made a few more items last week, but forgot to post them here. Nothing terribly fancy. I'm running out of key colors of felt so it was getting hard to come up with stuff. I went ahead and put away the bag of felt and my embroidery floss for a while so that I can work on other things. It's crazy how addicting the felt food can be. You start looking at pictures on blogs and Flickr and thinking to yourself "OH! I want to make that!" and "I can TOTALLY do that!" and next thing you know, you have a wish list a mile long and very sore fingers where you've stabbed yourself fifteen times with a sewing needle because you're clumsy. Heck, maybe that's just me.

But anyway, here's the last of the recent batch:

Felt cupcakes! Come on, you knew I was going to do it eventually. I have this mini cupcake pan that sits unused in my pan rack because seriously, do you know how long I'd be baking if I made minis a dozen at a time? I'm not even sure why I bought this. I have a bigger one now. I decided to give this one to the boy, and made my felt cupcakes fit the openings.

There are only a half dozen. They're chocolate cake with fancy icing. I think when I start up again I'll make six of another kind so he can have variety.

Broccoli! These can go with other things that I've made, such as the tortellini or on the pizza to round out meals. They're really easy and stuck together with hot glue. You just take a 2 inch by three inch-ish piece of felt (I didn't measure so I'm guessing here), fold it in half lengthwise, and snip across the top, about 1/3 of the way down. Then just roll it up as tightly as possible, securing with hot glue. Let it cool, then fluff the tops. Easy.

And finally, fortune cookies. Again, these are made with hot glue. They're not the greatest thing I've made, but they work. I added a tag for Felt Food at the bottom of these posts so that you can go back and see the stuff I made previously for the boy. There's also a link under the Crafts button up on the banner. I'm telling you, it's seriously addicting!

What I've Been Up To

Which, by the way, is HORRIBLE grammar but I'm going to go with it because "That up to which I've been" isn't very catchy, is it?

I'm still on my felt food kick here. I made more felt strawberries, bringing my grand total for these up to eight. They're so stinking cute I almost want to keep them for myself! Don't they look so nice in that vintage milk glass compote I found at the Goodwill? Directions here.

Little gyoza (potstickers). These required no sewing at all, much like the tortellini. I think I'd like to make a whole set of different dumplings for dim sum. Wouldn't that be fun? Potsticker directions here.

Corn on the cob, with a husk! I used the same directions as for the banana I did the previous day. Before sewing together the inside part, I just stitched across the felt in a grid to make the corn kernels. Corn/Banana directions here.

I made the new additions to Bubba's pantry while I was working on another cupcake order. It's funny, because I' seriously have gone almost a year without a single order then BAM! Two for the same weekend. I'm not complaining though, as we could use the money. I mean, who couldn't, right?

So uh, if you're local and you need cupcakes, check out my pricing and photos on my La Confectionista blog. (okay, shameless plug over)

One of Bubba's friends from our playgroup was celebrating his second birthday today and his mom commissioned me to make the cupcakes. I made the little hard hats and traffic cones from royal icing. They were so hard because of the detail! My smallest #1 Wilton tip didn't fit into the little crevices left by the black outlines, so I actually had to use a toothpick to get the icing in there. Crazy.

Of course, after all that it's been raining here and the humidity made the black icing bleed into the colors which totally made me so mad! Even worse, last night we noticed that the boy had a slightly drippy nose and even though we specifically told him he was not allowed to get sick, he woke up at 8:00 am hacking. This meant no party for him because I am not going to be "that" mom. You know the which one I'm talking about, the one so desperate to get out of the house that she's oblivious to her own kid's suffering and doesn't stop to think that maybe no one else wants to catch what her kid has. Uh huh.

Instead, he stayed home where he played with his newest truck (a cement mixer from his party goody bag) and his father made him some hot cocoa. You can see where his cup hit the bridge of his nose perfectly when he drank. See his poor little nose is all red because we're out of Boogie Wipes and had to use regular baby wipes. Boogie Wipes are TOTALLY worth the money folks, especially if you buy the grape scented ones.

I went and dropped off the cupcakes and our gift (we got the birthday boy a Bilibo, which looks weird until you know what it is) and then headed back home to my guys.

We had a few cupcakes leftover after I made my delivery, so I just piped on some butter cream and sprinkled little multicolored nonpareils on them. So simple and pretty. I bought the black and white gingham cupcake liners at Smeeks in Phoenix, but you can order them online at Bake It Pretty or the Layer Cake Shop. The nonpareils are just the Dec-A-Cake ones from the grocery store, nothing fancy.

And that, with the exception of the photos I forgot to post of our visit to the fire station last Wednesday, brings us to the end of July! I am glad to see it go because it kinda sucked this year. Later, July!

Tortellini!

Yesterday I posted about some of the felt food that I made. I used online tutorials for most of them, so I didn't bother taking photos of the process, but I did figure out the tortellini on my own. They're so ridiculously easy and they look so cute!

Did you know that tortellini lore says they were invented when some lovesick Italian guy wanted to make a pasta shape to pay homage to his lover's navel? Kinda gross, when you consider these are usually filled with cheese.

But I digress!

First, cut yourself some two inch by two inch squares of yellow felt. Cut one for each tortellini.

Next, apply a thin bead of hot glue along one edge, roughly 1/8" from the edge.

Fold the square at a diagonal and seal the edge shut. The more neatly you align the edges, the better your finished product will look.

Next, take a small wad of stuffing (I use Poly Fil because it's cheap) and shove it in there. You don't want a lot, or to have it too tight, because you still need to fold this some more.

Put another thin bead of hot glue along the open edge to seal it shut. If you get any glue that squeezes out, like I did, just cut it off with some sharp scissors before moving to the next step.

Fold up the bottom about half an inch and hold it in place with one finger.

Next, fold over the left corner.

Put a dab of hot glue on the end.

Then fold over the other corner. Ta da!

Tortellini! Now, let's discuss if it's actually called Tortellini or Tortelloni. I've always wondered. (For the record, spell check says tortellini is correct)

It's six a. m.

Why the heck am I still UP???

Well, it can be condensed into a nutshell: I'm an idiot. Oh yes, I will readily admit it. I mean, who else but an honest to goodness idiot would wait until almost midnight to start making cupcakes for an order due the next day at noon?

I rest my case. In my defense though, they did come out cute:

I made these same cupcakes last year for a baby shower, and now that baby is turning one. The ones in the back are just buttercream and the ones in the front are fondant, which is why there is a slight variation in color. I was at the cake store last week but didn't buy fondant because I knew I had some - um, yeah, only it was all tinted already! Talk about panic this afternoon when I realized it was after five and I had no source to buy fondant except for that nasty Wilton stuff. Luckily I remembered that you can make fondant from marshmallows. It was messy, but it was cheaper and tastes better to boot.

So what was I doing while procrastinating so hard all day? I kind of got it in my head that I needed to make some felt food for the boy. I had made some for him at Christmas last year, but I wanted to add to that since he has been playing with his kitchen more lately. It's fun to see him start delving into the world of imaginative play and I want to encourage it as much as possible!

First, I took an idea that I started playing with a few weeks ago when I figured out my machine could appliqué. I had made three potato chips then, and the sorriest chip bag you ever did see. Today, I redid the bag and added a few more chips. I love how the stitching makes them curve like real potato chips.

Next up, I made some pasta. I really wanted to make ravioli or bow ties, but I don't own pinking shears. They're one of those things I keep meaning to get, but I don't want to just buy any old cheap ones. I'd like a pair of really nice ones. This means that I keep putting it off because there are other things higher up on the priority list and I forget about it until I need them.

Either way, no pinking shears meant no ravioli or bow ties. I thought about it and it hit me - tortellini! The boy loves them and they're an easy shape to make. I was going to sew them but didn't like how the stitching looked. I ended up using a hot glue gun instead. Seriously, these were the easiest thing ever and they look so cute. I took photos and plan on putting up a tutorial.

After I made a bunch of those, I wanted to make more stuff. I wandered around on the Internet for a bit and came across this awesome blog with lots of felt food ideas. She even made tortellini almost exactly how I had figured out how to do it! The first thing I made from her list was felt pizza.

I didn't put the wire in the crust because I was worried about it poking through the felt and hurting the baby. It was tricky sewing the sauce without a freemotion foot, but I managed. I kept the toppings simple, opting to only have pepperoni.

I also used her directions to make peanut butter and jelly to go with the sandwich set I made at Christmas.

The tomato was made using Martha's tomato pincushion directions.

Then it was back to Helping Little hands for a peel-able banana...

and her link to the cutest felt strawberries you have ever seen. I still have five more of these started that I will work on this weekend. After those, I'm thinking corn on the cob and maybe some muffins!

ABC - The Aftermath

As I stated way back at the beginning of the month, my motto for the month was ABC - Always Be Crafting. I may not have crafted every minute of every day, but man, it sure felt like I was coming close sometimes! I had so much to get done before family came to visit. Being on a very strict budget made it all the more necessary to stick with it as well. Here, in no particular order, are the projects that I can remember off the top of my head. I'm pretty sure this is almost all of them.

Pajama pants

I wanted us to all have matching pjs on Christmas morning, but it's really hard to find ones that come in both adult and infant sizes. I'm sure even if I were to come across them, they would not be cheap. I also have a problem buying things in holiday themes because then you can't wear them past the end of the holiday without looking like a total doofus. I ended up buying three pairs of men's pj pants on sale for $8 a piece at Target and making the third pair into baby pants using the directions in The Creative Family. I'm not so good with the pattern making though, so the baby's pants fit a little bit big and had to be pinned up in the back. That's okay, it just means he'll grow into them, right?

Knit washcloths

I made both my mother in law and my sister in law a half dozen each hand knit cotton dishcloths. I switched to these myself from cellulose sponges a few months ago, and we love them! They're textured just right to make them great for scrubbing, but they won't scratch anything. They're better for the environment because they're reusable. You just toss them in the wash at the end of the day so you don't have a sponge in your sink breeding bacteria. Some people think you can toss the sponge in the dishwasher and that sanitizes it, but oh, is that a yucky, yucky myth!

I forgot to take a photo of the finished ones. Duh.

Baby Non-Skid Socks.

Bubba was slipping and sliding all over the kitchen floor when it got cold enough so that he needed to wear socks. Someone told me that if you put puff paint on the bottom of them it would make them non skid. I also read it in Parents magazine, so I decided to try it. Not only did it not work very well, the paint peeled off after a couple of washings!

I like to call these his "Bad Word" socks.

Pinwheel Quilt

I don't even know if I should count this one. I bought the fabric, cut the squares, started sewing and pressing and sewing and piecing... and then ran out of time. I even managed to get about half of the actual pinwheels completed using the directions on V and Co's blog, but I was insane to think that I would be able to finish a full sized quilt in time for Christmas with all the other stuff I had going on. As a result, my sister in law and her fiance received a box with all the pieces and a promise it would be done in time for the wedding in May.

Felt Food

Now that Bubba as a play kitchen with pots and pans, I decided he needed some play food to go along with it. I know there are tons of play sets available out there with play food that are very reasonably priced, but the problem is that they're usually A) plastic and B) made in China. I'm not giving that to my baby who still feels the need to shove everything into his mouth! EW! There are some wooden ones that I liked (and plan to get in the future) as well as some really nice felt food on Etsy, but they're also kind of spendy. It's just not in the budget right now.

Fortunately, felt is super cheap! So is embroidery floss. I actually happen to have a ton of both in my stash of craft supplies already (I bet you're so surprised) so I decided to make up some things. I didn't have patterns, and just was winging it. I looked at photos of felt food on Flickr for inspiration. There was also a couple of orange wedges and a few slices of tomato for the sandwich that I didn't photograph because they were done after I took the photos. Oh, and the syrup on the waffle is detachable!!!

I sewed all these by hand while watching Bewitched on Hulu, starting with the first episode. That's also how I passed the time for a lot of my knitting!

Glitter Buckles for Ribbon

When I saw these on Jaimee Rose's blog a few months ago while going through her archives, I knew I had to make them. She said she paid $12.50 for eight of hers at a local shop called Melrose Vintage. Again, not only am I poor, but I am cheap as well, so I made some. I sketched out my own pattern before learning that Martha had one available on her site. Duh. I then traced it on scraps of chipboard leftover from other projects. Next, I took a Bic Mark-It marker that coordinated with the glitter I was using for that particular buckle and used it to color in the edges of the chipboard. Finally, I took Stickles and covered the fronts of the buckles. They had to dry overnight because I put a really thick layer, but they were worth the wait because the Stickles don't flake loose glitter everywhere like regular glitter and glue does.

My favorite ones were the ones made with the Platinum Stickles and gray Mark-It. The Black Diamond didn't turn out very well. I think it would have worked better if I had colored the chipboard base black before covering it in glitter. After they were dry all I had to do was thread some wide ribbon through them. These would be great for gifts that had to be shipped because they look pretty and you wouldn't have to worry about the bow getting crushed.

Cake Pops and Cake Truffles

I decided to stop calling them "Cake Balls" and start calling them "Cake Truffles." I think that sounds nicer. I had someone order some cake pops, and had a lot left over. Then I ran out of sticks so I had to switch from pops to truffles.

Pops are DEFINITELY easier.

Stockings

Since family was coming over, we were going to need more stockings! No way in hell was I going to pay $15 each for six new stockings (because you know they HAD to match) so I started to troll local thrift stores in search of fabric to make into stockings. I found this large lime green check for $5 and had enough to make them all with some leftover. I got the red burlap at Hobby Lobby for $3. Grand total - $8 for six new, MATCHING stockings. Not bad!

Tamales

I'm counting these as crafting because they are a LOT of work. I had my friend (pictured above) over to help. This was only my third time making them myself, and it was SO NICE compared to last time. I had the stand mixer to make the masa instead of having to hold a hand mixer. I had the Multi Pot which held a lot more water under the steamer basket and needed less monitoring than the smaller pot I used last time. I also had better help - he didn't whine and complain the whole time and was eager to learn. That's always nice! We made about 8 dozen, which isn't a lot compared to what some people made, but we also only ever had two people at a time working on them.

I just lack a posse of tias and cousins to help, I guess.

Peppermint Marshmallows

Another thing I got from Jaimee Rose. I tell you, that woman is a bad influence on me! The recipe is from Martha, the containers are from the Dollar Tree, and the labels I made in Photoshop and punched out using my EK Success scalloped punch. I was surprised at how easy they were and am no longer a candy-making virgin. I even have the candy thermometer to prove it!

Sugar/Gingerbread Cookies

Again, technically not a craft, but still requiring a lot of time and work and some level of craftiness, so I'm counting them! I made so many of these. Some were sold, some were given as gifts, many were eaten. I hung most of the gingerbread ones on the tree in lieu of ornaments this year as I didn't want the baby knocking any of my ornaments off and breaking them.

Ornament Wreath

Yet another thing found by Jaimee Rose, this wreath was made using the directions given by Eddie Ross on his blog. I was lazy and skipped the hot gluing part, and regretted it when I lost a couple ornaments. I used shatterproof ones I got for $10 at Target. If I put this out again I'll go back and do that step. I also ran out before I completed the loop and just filled the gap with a big-ass bow.

Christmas Cards

I went super simple this year - the boy's photo with Santa photoshopped into a simple background with a short greeting. I made them 4" x 6", sent them off to Walgreens with a coupon code, and had them printed for ten cents each. They were then mounted on a rectangle of plain white cardstock to make them feel more "finished" and mailed out in envelopes that I ran through the printer.

Play Kitchen "Art"

I made this little sign in Photoshop for the baby's play kitchen. It got printed out here on photo paper and then put into a frame that my husband found at the Walmarts for $3.

So there you have it - I spent more hours making stuff than I did sleeping. Come to think of it, I didn't sleep a whole heck of a lot this month. There were more than a couple of all-nighters pulled. It's the only way I was able to work without Bubba Grabby-Fingers distracting me. I would just take a nap with him in the afternoons to try and catch up a little. I had a few moments here and there where I worked on my own December Daily album. I do still need to wrap that up though, as having family in town puts a serious halt to projects like that.

People are always asking me how I find the time, but the truth of the matter is that you find time for what is important to you - this was important to me. If you think about it, I really don't go out much, I hardly watch television, I don't go to the gym or work out at all, and I don't have a job besides caring for my child. I decided that since I wasn't very good at anything else, I was going to rock this domesticity thing as hard as I could.

Next month though - I'm taking a break! HA!