UK onesie

First of all, sorry it's been FOREVER since I've posted something on here.  I wish I could say I've been out of the country or extremely busy, but unfortunately, neither of those are true.  I have been doing a few projects here and there, I just haven't found the time to upload pictures.  Here is a onesie I did about a month ago.  Our friends Brittany and Lincoln Ogata welcomed their second child about 6 weeks ago (you may remember their daughter Amaya from this post a few months back).  Knowing how much Blake's daddy loves Kentucky sports, I had the prefect idea for a little gift to make for them; a onesie that looks like a basketball jersey.

Luckily they have a pretty short last name, since the front that says "Kentucky" took FOREVER to cut out and stitch around!  Next time, I think I'll just stick to simply putting "UK" on the front! :)

I can't wait till this fits the little cutie pie!

Also, my friend, Tara Poindexter, and I had a photo shoot with Blake and his big sister, Amaya, last weekend, and I just might have to post a few of my favorite shots from the shoot!

Much love,

Stephanie P.
 

Fabric Art.

About a month ago, as I was preparing for my brother's family to stay with us for about a week over the holidays, I knew I had to do a few projects to spruce up the empty walls a bit.  Here's one project I did.

I used fabric swatches that I had laying around, an old 16 x 20 canvas, paint, and mod podge.  You could even do this with some extra scrapbook paper too!  Even though I don't have any pictures from the process, it's pretty simple.  Paint the canvas, cut scrap fabric while paint is drying (the good about this project is that your cuts don't have to be perfect! I think the raw edges make it look more cute and organic anyways), place your cut fabric, then mod podge away once you have your fabric the way you want it.  I plan on doing more of these in the future with different fabrics and patterns, so be on the lookout!    

Just desserts.

My sweet tooth has got the best of me these past few weeks.  From holiday parties to birthday parties to plain ol' get-togethers at our place, I have definitely had my share of cookies, cakes, and other sweet goods.  I don't put up such a great fight when it comes to turning down sweets.  So, if you're not gonna fight 'em, you might as well join em', right?! 

Here are a few indulgent recipes that I have stumbled across on the interweb that I thought I would share with you all.  (And...try not to drool on your keyboards-- now you can't say I didn't warn you).

{Click on Pictures for Recipes.}

Silhouette Collages

I know this post is a little late considering Christmas was 3 1/2 weeks ago, but I did this project very last minute to adorn some empty wall space in our front room before my family got into town for the holidays.  I had a few canvas boards laying around from past projects that I had done, so I decided to make what I'm now deeming "Silhouette Collages."  I threw a few materials that I had laying around my house together to create these cost-effective, cute little gems.  All you need is a (few) canvas boards, mod podge, a paint brush/foam brush, old newspaper, and packing paper (yea, that's right, packing paper... I got a decent size roll of it from the Dollar Tree to use as wrapping paper for presents).

Simply tear a few pieces of newspaper, randomly mod podge it onto your boards, cut out any silhouette from the packing paper, then mod podge your silhouette on top of your 'collage' of newspaper and this is what you get....

The reindeer is my personal favorite!  When I was thinking of this project and how I wanted to implement it I thought of few other ways you could try such as using a pattern fabric w/ a solid color silhouette (or vice versa) or painting a black background and making the silhouette from an awesome festive patterned fabric.  But, for this project I wanted to keep it simple so I could place them in different rooms without having to worry much about matching the decor. 

Have fun exploring and playing around with the many options of making 'Silhouette Collages'! 

Warning:  More past-due Christmas posts are on the horizon (mainly just Christmas presents that I made for people that I couldn't post on here until after I gave them their presents)! 

In the kitchen.

I'm gonna spare you the details and complaints, and move on by saying... we FINALLY got our new fridge (after almost 3 months of waiting) and it's changed our lives drastically!  I never knew how much a simple little fridge can change.your.life.  For one, we couldn't really use our new oven/stove because we had nowhere to store anything, or in our case, only had a dorm-size fridge to store the absolute necessities).   In light of the entrance of this fridge and the new year, I have pledged to cook more homemade meals (eeek!!).  I am actually pretty excited about it and am usually pretty competent when it comes to cooking... it just takes TIME and EFFORT!  It's so easy these days to pick up a pizza or take out from our favorite restaurant on the way home and oh, do we fall into that trap oh so frequently.  Now that we have our fridge, excuse number one has been taken out of the mix and it's time to tackle my pledge head on and you all get to join me on this ride of kitchen experiments, mishaps, and hopefully a few kitchen successes to add to the recipe box!  YAY!  

I decided to start off easy.  This isn't what I had in mind for my pledge, but who doesn't like to make a few sweets every now & again and who doesn't need another recipe for quick and easy party snacks?!  I found this recipe on pinterest the other day and just had to try it!  It was simple, only used 3 INGREDIENTS (including one of my personal favorites... CREAM CHEESE), and didn't even require any baking... I mean, get out of town!  It doesn't get any better than that.  And now, I introduce to you.....

{Click on picture for the recipe}

The cream cheese and oreos combine to make a creamy, soft consistency that is to die for!  Seriously, you must try this recipe if you haven't made something like this before. 

Now, to tackle a real meal.  On the menu this evening:  Apple-Balsamic Pork Chops, Twice-Baked Potatoes, Green Beans, and Crescent Rolls.  More reports on this later.

Much love,
Stephanie P.

Handmade Wedding Gift, Numero Dos

You may remember this post from a few months ago of a personalized wedding gift that I made for one of my friends.  Well, I finally finished my second handmade wedding gift (a couple weeks late) for our friends Jeremy and Joanna Hunter.  I had to wait a few weeks after their wedding to actually make the gift since I planned on using one of their wedding photos... so that's my excuse for the gift being 3 months late and I'm sticking to it! Once again, sorry for the bad quality photos, I had to snap a few shots of the finished product with my phone just before giving them their gift before they left town!

 

Materials needed:

-Paint

-Foam Brush

-Ribbon

-Scrapbook Paper

-Alphabet Stickers

-3-8x10 canvases

-Mod Podge

All you have to do is follow this tutorial over at blue cricket design for the photo canvas, paint the other two canvases a color of your choice, apply stickers, mod podge over the paint and stickers, add ribbon, then you're done!  

Unfortunately, the stickers part wasn't that simple for me.  I found some alphabet stickers at the Dollar Tree that were silver and rainbow heart stickers at Michaels.  Seeing how I wasn't going for the 70's retro style, I had to paint the stickers yellow then mod podge over them so the paint wouldn't chip and they would be more secure on the canvas. 

As always, you can personalize this project by adding more photos, a quote, or anything that's significant to you.  I chose to do the couple's initials and the date they got married (I couldn't resist leaving the date out 9.10.11, how cute?!).   

 

 Go and be crafty!

Much love,
Stephanie P.