Wedding/Prom Garter Tutorial

As many of you know my little sister got married a couple months ago! As part of the preparations I had the fun of making her garters for her. She requested Chicago Blackhawks garters to surprise her groom with (a fantastic idea in my book). In the end they looked a little like this.

I recently had the privilege of making another set (this time Chicago Cubs) for a friend. This time around I decided to share the process :) Hope you enjoy!

Wedding Garter Tutorial

Supplies Needed:
Ribbon (1 1/2" for the widest portion; 1" for the middle portion)
Thread
Elastic
Emellishments
Straight Pins
Safety Pin
Scissors
Sewing Machine

(I have a hot glue gun in my picture but I ended up not using it.)

1. The first thing you're going to want to do is measure the leg the garter will be on. I didn't have this capability so I cut my elastic to be 14". If you are able to measure the leg, you will want to cut your elastic to be a little shorter than what you measure so it "holds" onto the leg and doesn't slide down.

2. The next thing to do is to cut your ribbon to be 1 1/2 x as long as your elastic. (In my case the ribbon was 21".)

3. Next pin your 2 types of ribbon together . You will want to center the more narrow ribbon on the wider ribbon.

(I added ruffles to the bottom of the keepsake garter shown)

4. Now you can sew your ribbon together. To do this you want to sew as close to the edge as possible down both sides of the narrow ribbon. By doing this you are creating a casing for your elastic to be fed through.

5. Now attach your safety pin to one end of your elastic and feed it through the casing you just made. Use a straight pin to attach the end of the elastic to each end of the casing. The casing should bunch up since it is longer than the elastic.

6. Now fold the garter in 1/2 so that the right sides are facing each other and sew through all layers. At this point I also burn the ends of my ribbon so they won't fray.

6. And this is what you get.

7. The last thing to do is attach any embellishments you want. To make the sports themed garters I used charms from dangle earrings I purchased online and some extra ribbon for the bow. I sewed them on but you could also hot glue them (hence the hot glue gun in the first picture). And Voila!

(Please excuse the pasty white leg :P)

Froggy Birthday Cake

We recently celebrated our youngest's 1st birthday. It was such an amazing milestone and required a great party!!  I have this thing about making my kids' birthday cakes myself. My mom always did this for us and I just love the idea of putting the thought and effort into this project for my little love bugs. I've deemed frogs as Amelia's animal of choice since she can't verbalize her favorite animal yet. So it only seemed fitting to make her a froggy cake!! 

I started with 2 cake mixes and made 2 - 9" rounds, 2 - 8x8 squares, and 4 cupcakes. I had a silicone muffin tin so I didn't need to use cupcake liners.

Once I let all of the cakes cool completely I started the assembly process. First, I leveled and stacked the 2 rounds and set them aside. Then I leveled and stacked the 2 squares. I cut the legs out of the squares something similar to this.

Once I had the legs cut out, I put the cake together. (I reused an old box and covered it in aluminum foil for my cake board.) I used toothpicks to help hold the legs in place. I also ended up cutting a little bit off the sides of the stacked rounds so the legs would sit close to the body.

At this point I started frosting the cake (It took a couple coats). I used store bought whipped frosting that I dyed with food coloring paste. Once I had the cake frosted I added the eyes. For each eye I leveled and stacked 2 cupcakes (using toothpicks again). I then afixed them to the top of the body with toothpicks.

I frosted the sides of the eyes green then used white and black to draw in the rest of the eyes and mounth (and a little pink for the tongue). Wa-la!! It turned out better than I thought it would (which is always nice). :)

It turned out great and was a fantastic addition to Lia's froggy first birthday!

Happy Birthday To My Little Lia!!!

Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Biscuit Casserole

So rarely do I ever get to watch TV during the day. My toddler normally has the TV monopolized when it is on :) However a few weeks ago I did get a chance to watch an episode of the The Chew. I happened to tune it towards the end of this recipe but it hit a sweet spot with me. Now who doesn't love breakfast for dinner? This seemed like such a Home Run for my family! After looking over the recipe a little I decided to tweek it to make it simpler and less time consuming. I also took out the chives just because I honestly didn't think it needed the extra. My family absolutely loved it (and so did my MOPS group!).  (You can find the original recipe here.)

Bacon, Egg, & Cheese Biscuit Casserole

• 1 pound bacon (cooked and chopped)
• 1 package Grands Biscuits
• 6 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cup milk
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup cheddar cheese (grated)

The recipe is for a 9"x13" pan. However, this time around I was just making it for my family of 4 for dinner so I halved the recipe and made it in a 8x8 pan. (The ingredients listed above are for the full recipe.)

 

First, you make the biscuits according to the directions on the package. I sprinkled some shredded cheddar cheese on top of mine because I love me some cheese!   

Once the biscuits are done you can let them cool and move on to the bacon. I make my bacon in the oven which cuts down on mess. That & no matter how hard I try I simply can NOT make bacon in a skillet. . . To make bacon in the oven line a cookie sheet with either aluminum foil or parchment paper and bake it at 400 degrees for 15-18 mins. I ended up making a full pound and am glad I did because I ended up burning 1/2 of it. (See I told you can't cook bacon. . .somethings just elude me. . .)

Once the bacon is cooled, chop it up. 

Now you're ready to start assembling your casserole!

Start by slicing your biscuits in 1/2. 

Then layer the bottom 1/2 of the biscuits in the bottom of your buttered casserole dish.

Next, sprinkle all of your chopped up bacon and shredded cheese over the biscuits.

And finish off the layer with the tops off the biscuits.

Next, you're going to whisk your eggs, milk, salt & pepper together and pour it over the entire casserole. 

Cover the dish and let it sit in the fridge for about a 1/2 hour to let the juices really soak in :)

Then cook it covered at 350 degrees for 45-55 minutes are until the eggs are set. (I spaced the cooking it covered part so mine got a little crisp on top. . . But oh so yummy!!)

 Bonus - if you make it for dinner and have left overs you have breakfast the next morning! Score!

Wedding Card Box

This week is WEDDING WEEK! My little sister is getting married Saturday! It's just crazy to think that just the other day we were little kiddos playing together and now we have families of our own! I'm so happy for my sister and her fiance and have been doing what I can to help with their big day!

A few weeks ago I was asked to handle the card box for the reception. Figure out what to do and get it there basically. So I went to work on Pinterest (have I mentioned before how much I LOVE Pinterest) doing some research on some card boxes b/c I couldn't just do something boring :) I found the idea of using a mailbox as a card box. Now I know this isn't any new idea but I figured I would give it my own twist. I didn't use any of the decorating ideas I came across so I figured I would share what I did :)

I started with a black steel mailbox that I found on craigslist for $5 (score!).

Not this exact one but one pretty similar :)

I took this sucker and sanded it down 'till I was breathing steel dust (ok maybe not that much but I did sand it all down :) ). Once I was done sanding I spray painted. It obviously took a few coats since I started with black and spray painted it white and of course didn't take the advice of my husband and spend $$ on primer . . .

I painted the flag silver since my embellishments were going to be silver.

I got my spray paint from Hobby Lobby. I used the Krylon Indoor/Outdoor Gloss paint and it worked fine for what I needed.

Once the mailbox was finally dry I brought it inside and got busy decorating. I had borrowed my friend's Cricut for a different project I was working on and decided I'd attempt to use it to decorate this mailbox. So I went out and found some silver self-adhesive vinyl and got to work :) I used 2 cartridges to do my designs. One for the grass and one for the letters. I used the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge for the grass and the George & Basic Shapes cartridge for the lettering
.

At this point it was just a matter of cutting the decorations out and sticking them on the mailbox. I was very happy with the way it turned out!

The World Champion of Staying Awake

Look at all these great books I just got from Discovery Toys!

DT just came out with a new book line. After being hesitant (I have no idea why) to purchase them all I went to a training seminar, saw them, and HAD to have them :) I thought I'd share my favorite one with you today and possibly a few others in the weeks to come.

The World Champion of Staying Awake is a whimsical book about a little girl named Stella. The story starts with Stella's dad telling her it's time for bed.

However, Stella has a problem. Her 3 friends: Cherry Pig, Thunderbolt, and Beanbag Frog simply aren't ready for bed.  In fact they deem themselves the World Champions of Stay Awake!

Through the story Stella comes up with ways to get them each to sleep by using her imagination to create soothing environments.

Eventually all of her friends fall asleep and Stella herself is able to go to sleep. This book has quickly become part of our bedtime routine :) With its fantastical illustrations and fun story line my 2 year old asks for repeats of it most nights.




(If you are interested in this book please visit http://www.discoverytoyslink.com/amandamcindoo)

Sounds Like Learning

For the longest time we had Sophia falling asleep at night to classical music. Well precious little Sophie, being the hyper active little girl she is, wasn't buying it. She needed something else. So after racking my brain trying to figure out what we could do I finally pulled out a CD I got with my Discovery Toys starter kit a couple of years ago. Sounds Like Learning is full of educational songs that are very melodic. And what do you know it worked! All Sophie needed was something with words. Something she could listen to that would hold her attention and lull her to sleep. Not only is it helping her get to sleep at night it is filling her brain with wonderful things like the months of the year, phonics, and numbers (up to 30), and other fun things of the sort. Its a fantastic CD for other things as well, such as preschools/day cares and for playing during the day when kids just need to calm down (I'm sure we all know the feeling :) )!

 And it comes with this fantastic insert that coincides with the Apple Apple A a a song on the CD.

(If you are interested in this CD please visit http://www.discoverytoyslink.com/amandamcindoo)