Placemat Turned Pillow

I had seen others make placemats into pillows, but never saw one that I really wanted. That changed this week. I found this really cool "We the People" placemat that goes well with my bedroom set. The placemat needs to have two layers (a front and a back). You simply make a cut on the back side big enough to stuff. Stuff. Whip stitch shut again. It's that simple. And I love it.

Baby Toys

I've recently learned to make a few baby toys. They are really easy and great baby shower gifts. The baby block I found here. You can find the pattern and everything at that link. Her instructions are really great. You use a charm pack to make them. Since you only use 6 squares per block you can make 6 or 7 blocks per charm pack. I found a charm pack that had both boy and girl colors in it so I only had to buy one.


The baby lamb I found here. This website is a great place if you like embroidery or redwork too, which I have been into lately. I will post about that later. This little lamb is harder to make than I thought it would be. Not bad, but a little harder. They have the pattern and instructions at the link.

Quilted Bag

Okay, so I don't have great instructions for this bag, because I started to make it before I knew I was going to do this blog, but I still wanted to share it. A lady in my ward holds a quilting class in her garage on Wednesday mornings. We do a lot of charity quilting, but recently she's been teaching me how to do other things too. You pick out a 12"x12" quilt block for the middle and sew a 5" border around that. The block I chose represents the pioneer wagon wheels. This woman also has a long-arm quilting machine that she has so kindly let me use..what a treat! I got to pick out my quilt pattern and quilt the sides before I constructed the bag. We also made a lining for the inside (about 1 yd of fabric) so we didn't have raw edges, and we could add pockets. We also added quilted handles. I use it for my church bag, and I love it! The fabric I used was Martinique by 3 Sisters for Moda.

Black Apple Doll

I saw these dolls about 6 months ago in the blog craft world and wanted to make some for birthdays, Christmas, etc. Then last week a girl taught a class on how to make them for Relief Society, so I got some more tips and new ideas for them.

Here's what you do. Click here and download the pattern and instructions. Then visit here for more ideas and inspiration from the creator, Inside a Black Apple. You can design so many ways! At first, I used buttons for eyes and designed the "dress" with more detail. At the class I just took,the teacher had fabric markers to use for the face, kept the "dress" plain, and made a shawl to go over. There's not a pattern for a face, you can be as detailed or simple as you want. I played around with the size of legs and arms. I wanted them a little bigger that the pattern showed. I might even go bigger next time I make them. You can change the color of the legs to make them look like panty-hose or socks. You can also make an all nude body and construct a pioneer like doll wardrobe! So many possibilities...

When Your Tree Hands You Lemons....

Make Lemonade!One of the things we love about our place here is that we have a lemon tree. We collected quite a few this week and decided to make lemonade. We juiced 8 lemons (varying sizes) to get about 2.5 cups of lemon juice. We put that in our gallon pitcher and added 1.5 "ish" cups of sugar. Then filled it almost up with water and stirred. Yum!

Birthday Cake

My favorite cake EVER is Wacky Chocolate Cake. It's moist, not to rich, and still good days after you make it. It's "wacky" because you don't use egg. Here's the recipe.

3 c. flour

2 c. sugar

2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
6 Tb. cocoa
2 tsp. vanilla
2 Tb. vinegar
3/4 c. oil
2 c. cold water

Mix everything and put in a greased 9x13. Bake at 350* for 35-40 min.

I frosted with cool whip and chocolate pudding this time.