Saturday, December 24, 2011

Our Gingerbread House Lacked Structural Integrity

Today we decided to make a gingerbread house. I had made gingerbread dough and knew that it was chillin in the fridge. We were just going to make cookies but got it in our heads to make a house. My mother in law busted out her gingerbread house templates and we made a big old batch of royal icing. It was fun and we learned a lot. But we do not have a finished house.

Here is the best picture we got. This was before the crash. It looked really nice. Here are the things I learned. A gingerbread house is not a 1 day project. You should make the gingerbread walls a few days in advance and let it dry out. Then you should build the house and let that dry before you make an attempt to decorate. Had we done all that maybe this would not have happened.

I had even tried to add some flying buttresses. It did no good. You can also see we put cans inside the house hoping they would hold it up. Nothing helped. It was just too fresh and moist and well just turned into a big big mess! However it was really really fun.

And we did make cookies out of the leftover gingerbread dough. I made a batch of brown sugar vanilla icing and the cookies tasted really great.

So if your gingerbread house lacks structural integrity, don't let it get you down. Just see what you can learn from it scrape up and eat what you can and move on.

We will be having a fun time here in the not so cold north. I hope that where ever you are that you are having an awesome Christmas!

Peace Out! C

Monday, December 19, 2011

Ode to the world's best babysitter!

My daughter loves her babysitter Ms. Linda.
From the heavens above someone did send her. 
She is sweet and kind. 
She never runs late of falls behind. 
Oh Ms. Linda we love you.
There is no one we would place above you. 
She brings fun snacks. 
Car seats? she has two in the back. 
How she does it I will never know.
But we will follow her where ever she shall go.

Ok so this may not be following the ode in the strictest literary sense but I think you get the drift. Just wanted to make sure she knows how much we love her. She has helped us when we were in a pinch many many times. And she and M genuinely love each other.  M is always excited when Ms. Linda is coming. She has other babysitters that she likes but some how those two have a super special connection. 

I managed to finally get around to making Ms. Linda a Christmas gift and wrapped it up. She took it home to put under her tree. So if you are reading this Ms. Linda I warn you stop now if you want to be surprised!

A few weeks ago Ms. Linda asked me to make her a crayon tote like one that I made for us. I made her one that I thin turned out pretty darn cute.

It is a basic lined tote bag with a little pocket on the front and back that is divided out to hold individual crayons.

The tote is just slightly larger than a coloring book. And I managed to put one crayon in the little crayon pockets to show you those.

As if by magic the crayon pockets line up with the polka dots and makes the whole think look like I planned it out super well.

I have to admit that I did not really think about lining up the dots. Maybe I sew so much that subconsciously I was able to make it work. But It did turn out nice so if you make one you should think more about it.


The handles and pockets are made from this super sweet fabric that has tiny, tiny elephants on it. It contrasts nicely and is little kiddish without being to silly.

I hope she likes it and is able to use it. I know that she knows plenty of children to share it with.

I have another fun post planned for tomorrow! Hope you are having a great Christmas Eve Eve.

Peace Out - C




The invisible zipper and I have a terrible relationship!

My favorite skirt that I have her bought is a leopard pencil skirt from of all places, Chico's. Yes they do usually have old lady clothes. No a leopard pencil skirt does not sound old lady-ish.

A couple of years ago I was feeling like I needed to start being more practical and went in there looking for more practical clothing. What I came out with was said leopard pencil skirt and two tank tops. Since I live in the ATL (aka 11th circle of hell in August) tank tops are practical right? One thing I love about Chico's is that they have their own sizing system so the tank tops are a size 0 and the shirt is a 2. I do not even want to know what sizes those translate to and they make me happy so lets just go with it.

It was my favorite skirt until I gained weight and popped the zipper with y big ol' booty. I have since lost the skirt popping weight and got back into the skirt. However the zipper was a mess.


With my usual combination of braveness and naivety I decided to replace it myself. I am only marginally good at installing invisible zippers into my own original creations. Replacing a broken zipper added a whole level of craziness that I had never thought about before.

I am going to be honest and tell you that it looks so crappy that I am too embarrassed to show you a picture of it. But my husband says that no one but him should be looking that closely at my butt so I have been wearing it any way. The short version is that it was crazy hard! And you can see some of the not so invisible zipper. However I am excited to report that the skirt fits nicely now and I did not pop the zipper when I was wearing it.

Peace Out - C


Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Project for myself!

I have been away for far too long! I know. I can report that the last craft show went well! And all the merchandise I have left is over at Home Grown Decatur while it lasts! I will be working over there on Friday 10 -2 and Saturday 5-9 so if you are out and about in Decatur GA stop on by and say hey! Might find yourself some cute holiday gifts!

I am pretty excited that in the midst of all the holiday and life in general caos I made a project for myself! Cape!

Capes are super in style, but it is funny every time I told someone I was making myself a cape they apparently envisioned a more super hero style cape than a coat style cape. So yes I did make the later but it sort of makes me feel like I am a super hero!

The pattern is from the 8/2011 issue of Burda Style  magazine.

The outer fabric is some sort of tweed blend that I actually bought for a different project that I have not gotten around to... yet.

This little jem was so cute I had to make it. The pattern did not call for lining, I decided that it needed some. I lined in in some cozy white fleece.

Made the cape from the pattern shown on the left page here.
I know my finished piece is very like the original, which I have been doing more often lately. But hey I liked it because I knew it worked. However since I am larger than this gal in the picture I chose a smaller print so that I would not look like a line backer in this thing!

I also changed the closure. I decided that big sew in snaps would be functional and cute. The thing that makes them extra functional is that you can just snap the top couple and let the cape fly a little (super hero-ish) or if it is cold you can snap it all up and be snugly warm.

I do like the snaps but a word of caution if you are going to use them.... I did not think about the fact that each piece has to be sewn on SIX times. So basically there are 5 snaps each with 2 pieces so that's 10 x 6 = might as well have sewn on 60 buttons!

I often say if sewing were easy everyone would do it. And well it was actually pretty easy just time consuming. In the end it was worth the effort.

Alright off (in my non-super hero cape) to do some more shopping and such! Hope you are having a great day! And a great holiday season.

Catch you peeps later!
Chrissy