Crafty Birthday

In March, we had a birthday. Two actually. Mine and my daughter's. Mine totally gets overshadowed by the child's. I am totally okay with this. I made cupcakes to send to school on her actual birthday. They were strawberry cupcakes made with this Martha Stewart recipe. Honestly, I've been a bit underwhelmed by Martha's cake recipes. I made a perfect white cake (or something like that) from her site, too. And it was kind of dry. I really like that the ingredients called for in both the cake and the icing were simple, real ingredients, so that's nice. No food coloring and no artificial flavours.

While I have a this great cupcake icing kit from Bake it Pretty, with a number of large, fancy tips, the recipe didn't make enough icing for me to frost them all cupcake-shop fancy. I still need to make some cupcakes with that kit. Personally, I prefer a lot less frosting on my cupcakes and I like the homemade look of just frosting them with a spatula and dipping them in sprinkles.

Last year, I made a 3 shirt for my son's birthday. My husband insisted I put the large 3 on the back of the shirt, since jerseys don't have the numbers on the front. Against my better judgment ("It's not a jersey..."), I complied and my son has insisted on wearing it backward from day one. Funny.

I made a six shirt for Zoe. Pink pink pink. She loves pink. That six is sparkly fabric paint. I used the freezer paper stencil technique to make the six. So easy peasy. I also recently discovered in a different t-shirt embellishment project that using freezer paper as a stabilizer for the jersey knit fabric is super helpful. I could draw on the paper side and then cut the paper and the fabric at the same time instead of fussing with slippery fabric.

So, I sent my birthday girl to her favorite place in the world (school) with 30 cupcakes to share with her classmates and teachers with strict instructions not to return with any leftover cupcakes (remember how I lost 25 lbs this year?). She wasn't feeling great. I knew she wasn't feeling great, but she hadn't vomited and she wanted to go to school. On her birthday. She gets a birthday crown. She hadn't talked about anything else since January. This kid rarely gets sick. And when she does, she can time it to Thursdays (no school) and weekends. She just got her days off (her birthday was on a Wednesday).
By 10 o'clock I'd received a phone call from the school saying she was laying in the infirmary, having thrown up. Of course. So, I picked her up and she spent the rest of the morning laying on the couch at our friend's place while I took her brother to the paediatrician.

She spent the rest of the day at home, napping a little, but mostly being okay and feeling a little sad. We made pizza for supper.

The teacher saved the cupcakes until Friday (3 day old cupcakes...mmmm) and she got to celebrate with her class then.

Then we had her home party on Sunday. It was her request. And it worked out rather well because she invited her grandparents and as it turned out, my mom could make it on Sunday. She requested a Barbie cake. I looked for a picture of barbie that was mostly face, so she could have nice big eyes so she wouldn't look scary and ugly in buttercream, but alas, there were no such pictures to be found in Internet land. When Zoe announced Barbie was beautiful, that's when I knew to stop fussing with her eyes and just let it go. My cake decorating mantra: "You are working in a medium that is meant to be eaten."

She is kind of ugly though.

The 90 Minute Shirt ... Lesson

Last week on Facebook, I posted that the baby doesn't have much in the way of t-shirts for the summer. Since the budget is a little tight right now, I thought of this tutorial from Dana of MADE and figured since I have saved a few old t-shirts, I should be able to make some of these shirts for my big-headed little guy for next to nothing.

My first attempt:

To be fair, I didn't have an envelope shirt I was happy about cutting up, so I tried to make the pattern without cutting one up. My failure to follow instructions properly should in no way reflect upon Dana's fabulous tutorial(s). I definitely think this is a pattern failure and if I head back to the drawing board on the pattern, I should be able to fix it up for next time.

So, someone had posted a quote on Facebook this morning saying something about a mistake is only a mistake if you don't learn anything from it, otherwise it's a lesson. So, this is my lesson. Follow the instructions! (sigh) When will I learn this? On the plus side, I didn't spend anything on fabric. I cut up an old t-shirt of Dan's and an old tank top of mine (for the ribbing). The tank top ribbing was a little loosey-goosey so that probably didn't help the situation, but I don't think having a tighter rib would have fixed the pattern issue. I will try one of these again, but I'll have to have a pattern re-do.

Pajama Pants!

Today I made pajama pants for my Z. Having had yesterday off work, I did a lot of laundry. As I was folding, I realized Z was pretty low on pajamas and was quickly growing out of others she has had for a while. I knew I had a metre of this flowered flannel fabric in my stash, having purchased it a couple years ago when I thought I would make 3 dresses out of the same pattern. After Z refused to wear the first dress I made for her from the fabric for the first several months, I decided not to make more dresses. She is much more receptive to the things I make now and proudly declares that "My mommy made it!" when someone comments on a handmade item she is wearing. This afternoon during quiet time (I heart quiet time!), I pulled out a pair of pajama pants that currently fit her and this fabric.

Other than cutting out the pattern, I almost finished the pants while I was on the phone with my mom. And honestly, I haven't made a lot of pants. They're just that easy. Read a couple tutorials, make a couple pairs, and you can do it while you're on the phone. Besides, they're pajama pants; they don't have to fit that well.

When I presented Z with her new pajama pants, she asked if I could make her a shirt to match. I didn't have enough fabric to make a pajama top. So, I ran upstairs to her room and rifled through her drawers for a t-shirt that fit, but that she didn't wear. I found this yellow number. It had a little design across the front, so I just covered it up with a rectangular piece of fabric. I didn't use any interfacing or wonder under or anything to stabilize the knit fabric underneath. First I pinned it in place, then I basted it on, so that it wouldn't shift around as I zig-zag stitched over the edges. I thought I had a fancy applique stitch on my sewing machine, but as it turned out, I was wrong (or I couldn't find it) so I shortened the length of the zig-zag stitch to around 0.9 or 0.5 and zig-zagged around the piece of fabric.

She was quite pleased with the result and she is wearing them right now (quietly sleeping in her bed). She modelled the pajamas for me before she went to bed.

I had to include this little pose since it was so cute, even if it is a little out of focus.

 

When I showed her the pictures I had taken, she was disappointed that I hadn't got her head in the pictures. 

 

 

So she squatted down to make sure I wouldn't miss her beautiful face. It is pretty great.