Ashley - DIY Cookie Jar

Hey everyone! So my friend gave me this terrific cookie recipe so during nap time today I made them and they were heavenly. But as I was taking my baked cookies were coing off the pan I knew I was going to have to stack them on a plate and I hate that. I immediately had to have a cookie jar lol. So I set off to work. I had this container for my daughters animal crackers and so I transferred them into a ziploc baggy and began the transformation. Now this is what I started with....

This is what I used to do this:

spray paint

acrylic paint ( I used black, white, blue, and pink )

ribbon

Fray check

clear sealent (optional)

paint brushes

Scrapbook letters

and PATIENCE lol


 First I took off all the stickers and washed it. Then  took out this really rool copper colored spray paint that I had left from another project I used it on and took my lid off stood it upside down on it's top and sprayed. Make sure you watch for spot you missed, they are hard to spot. After it's all dry bring it back in and bust out the scrap book letters.

I placed them where I wanted and painted over the letters in that whole oval with black acrylic paint. After I did that and let it dry I started peeling off the stickers VERY CAREFULLY.

Then you paint the letters left behind white :) go slow and use a small brush. I also filled in all the little details on the bear in black on his paws and started painting in his eyes. 

It takes a while and there were lots of little touch ups but it looks so great after, I also painted in the little ears. Next I took it out and put the clear coat on it and again let it dry. 

After it was dry I put the little ribbon bow tie on him and used the fray check on the ends AND BOOM! You have yourself an adorable cookie jar :)

Alisha - AMH Patchwork Prism QAL

As if I didn't have enough to do already I decided to join a fantastic QAL (quilt along). Biana over at Sweet Diesel Designs is hosting and you can follow along with us on her blog. The QAL officially started on April 24th with the fabric selection process. This quilt is absolutely beautiful and I plan to be more strict with my color selections and keep to a true rainbow palette. Here are my color selections:

I was short a few medium green and yellows but I've arranged for swaps with some of the other lovely ladies on flickr. I was really excited to get started so I went ahead and cut out and arranged my first ring which was purple.

And well since I couldn't just stop after one ring I went ahead and cut our the 2nd ring out of all that lovely red fabric above. Here is the result:

I'm moving on to the oranges but I'm short a few medium tones and I'm waiting for a swap to arrive. I'll be posting more updates at the QAL progresses. Boy do I secretly wish I win one of the great prizes!!

Alisha

Ashley - Homemade double crust pizza

Hi everyone, sorry its taken so long to come back, my friend had her baby today at 4:56 this afternoon so I have been a tad busy :) So this is actually my husband's recipe that he made himself and this pizza is heavenly! He's been asked to even cater parties before with his pizza lol This makes enough for one double crust pizza and one normal pizza. So if you want to make your own delicious pizza this is what you will need :

5 1/3 cups of bread flour (can substitute in up to a cup of whole wheat flour if you want wheat dough)

1/3 cup sugar

1 tbsp. salt

2 tbsp. vegetable oil

3 tbsp. olive oil

3 tbsp.yeast

2 cups warm water

First you want to take your yeast and mix it into the water. Next mix all your dry ingredients. Then you will add your liquids in with the dry ingredients and mix everything is moistened. After mixing you will take the dough out and put it on a well floured surface and this is what ours looked like.

Now your going kneading, my husband says if you have a kitchen aid for the job do it for five minutes, if your doing it by hand you will want to do it for ten minutes.

Look at him go :)

This is what the dough looks like after kneading. So after kneading your going to cut your dough into 3 seperate pieces. Now this is where you have a choice, you can either hot rise the dough or you can cold rise. If you want to hot rise your dough set your oven to the lowest temperature you can and let it rise to about double it's original size. To cold rise you stick it in the fridge for at least 6 hours but it will be good up to 2 days :) We decided to cold rise so before you rise any dough you will want to put it into a ball. After you have balled up your dough get out your plastic wrap and line one of your cookie sheets with it and leave enough extra to be able to cover the top of the dough too. Then spray the plastic with Pam or grease it with oil.



For the third ball I did the sae I just put it on a plate. After you've done all that you loosely wrap the balls and set them in the fridge.

Ok now it's time to preheat the oven to 410 degrees and get out your pizza pans :) you will want to either grease your pan or flour it. Now take your dough and start spreading it out to the size of your pan, you can rolling pin it a little to start out then just start tugging along the edges of the dough until it's the size you need. Once it's about an inch away from the edge of the pan use your hand and press any thick parts out. Ben has been working on his dough toss so that's how he does it lol.

After you have ti to the size you need and on the pan you will take a fork and poke some holes in the dough so you don't get any bubbles. Then you will start with your toppings. After you get your sauce down don't forget to add the oregano ( my husband is NOTORIOUS for this lol and it doesn't taste like a pizza without oregano ). Once you have all your toppings it's time for the second piece of dough to go on top. You will go around the edges of the pizza and pinch the two edges together. Now to braid you will take a little section of dough fold it to the top, hold it with your finger and then fold another piece up and repeat the process, it's hard to show in pictures but this is how it will look.

When your finished you can put another layer of sauce and cheese but here is it all done before baking.

You will now stick your masterpiece in the oven and bake for 18-20 minutes depending on your oven and when your timer goes off, BOOM, you have an amazing smelling and tasting pizza :)

Enjoy!!!

Ashley - 30 minute sleep mask!

So you know those days when the kids are down and you really want to catch a nap yourself but it's ALWAYS too light to actually get to sleep? I have that problem, unless I am incredibly tired I can't fall asleep if it's light out so I decided that I was going to make myself a sleep mask so when Melody is getting some shut eye I have the option to get some too :)

You will need:

fabric of choice ( the darker the better )

Satin ( for the liner )

Fleece or batting

Matching thread

Ribbon for the edging or you can make some binding from your left overs from the fat quarter

Elastic

Paper ( tracing paper would be best )

Ok let's get going :) First take your paper out and trace out the shape you want. I folded my paper in half and used the ribbon spool like this.

What I came up with.

Next you will take your outside fabric, your batting, and your satin and lay them out together and pin your template to them.

Cut the shape out.

Now tear the paper off without taking your pins out. It will be hard to line everything up again if you take the pins out.

Next you will take your fabric pieces and run it through your machine. You will want to use an Overcasting stitch, it will keep everything in place and make it easier to put your binding on it. While your running this stitch your also going to want to add your elastic in. The way I measured out my elastic is I measured a piece that went from ear to ear. This is what it looked like while I was sewing it all together.

After your done with that it will have a stitch that will hold your edges together but if you want a more finished look your going to want to put ribbon or binding around the whole outside.

This is withot a binding.

And this is with :) Either way it will be perfect for your nap time :) Have fun and enjoy!!!

Ashley - Trash bag container!

Hi everyone! I'm back, it's been a long week! I have a friend being induced with her fifth child on Thursday so I have been busting my rear to try and get her baby gift done ( a rocket ship quilt for her little boys room which I will post when I'm all done with it ). I know I had to get something on here and I have been meaning to do this. At the bottom of my pantry I have dozens of plastic bags that I have wanted to find a new home for because I do use them I just don't like the cluttered look that comes with putting them in the pantry. I have been looking on pinterest and there was a tutorial on how to use old lysol wipe containers and fold your bags so they dispense like the wipes do. Here is where I found the tutorial http://tatertotsandjello.com/2011/07/summer-social-guest-project-make_21.html and now I have liberated my pantry floor from all the mess! I even put scrapbook stickers on there reading the words " trash bags " as a helpful hint for my husband, we will see if they work lol. Enjoy!

Alisha - Rainbow Hexie Update!

First let me say that I absolutely love the way this quilt is turning out. I wasn't sure I would like the rainbow effect but boy is it stunning! If you follow me on flickr then you saw the last update for my rainbow hexie quilt but look at it now!! This is 370 hexies measuring 1" on each side. I've been funding my rainbow hexie quilt with all of the rainbow charm swaps I've been in, 2 of which were 5 yard swaps! I can't wait to add more hexies!

Can you see my acrylic ruler on the right? It measures 24" to give you an idea how large the quilt top is at this point. I'm guessing the top measures about 34" x 28"
I've considered putting the rainbow on the diagonal starting with yellow maybe? What you think?


And just because they look so cool, here are the hexies stored..

Also last week I was able to finish up a really cute skirt for Anika. You can find a tutorial by Made by Dana here. I really like how it turned out but if I make it again I might make the ruffles a bit wider so they cover more of the connector pieces. I also would love to get my hands on a serger as this skirt would be so much more pretty inside!

Last but not least I was able to get my hands on a twin size quilt kit for the Spiked Punch pattern. Pink, red and aqua will look lovely set against the Kona white. I'm going to try and start this soon!

Alisha

Ashley - Bags I've made and useful tips for making your own

Ok I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back on here, my hubby returned to me broken and so I have been tending to him. If you were to ask Alisha what I am best at as far as crafting goes she would say making bags, I love making them. I have made quite a few of them out of army uniforms for other amy spouses and a even a couple bags for air force wives and marine wives. Let me show you a few that I've made and tell you some of the techniques and products I use to make them.

purse design by http://www.madebyrae.blogspot.com  A very cute purse.

A laptop tote, I used Velcro on the sides and 1in. foam in the center divider and if you don't have your laptop on you then you can just take that out and use all the spacein the bag.

Diaper bag

One thing I always use on all of my bags is fusible interfacing. They have different kind whee some are stiffer then others but it will give your bag structure and you can still have the option to wash the bag if you ever need to which is AMAZING. Another thing that I do is the way I line my bags is I make an outside bag and an inside bag then so I don't have any seams showing on the inside of the bag ( you will see this in that pleated bag tutorial so if you use this tip you can hide the seam ) I just put the inside bag in the outside bag and fold them in and pin the whole top down like that. Then run an 1/8in seam around the top and then just trim down your thread and your good to go! I should have a more in depth how to on a bag on here shortly, I have another bag to make for an army wife so keep your eyes open!

Alisha - Quilt Bee Block Updates

I've been so busy this month but I had to squeeze in my bee blocks, I was late with a few last month and that's just not cool.

This block was for the Piece Bee With You bee. The hostess was asking for cat blocks and posted a picture of her kitty. This was my take on her cat sleeping on a self. I've very happy with how it turned out!

These blocks were for Annaliese from The Pewter Acorn . This pattern is from Quilt magazine June/July 2011 page 45, Deep Blue Seas by Nancy Rink. This is for her daughter who is headed to college in the fall - what a great idea!

This block is for MaryCatharine in the Modern Blocks Bee. All block bees can be found in the book Modern Blocks. This block is named Potager and can be found on pages. 146-147. The fabrics are from the Nicey Jane line and I think this will be a beautiful quilt.

These 3 blocks are from the Simple Bee and are based on colors requested by the hostess each month.
Anna requested pink and green (I'm also doing this color scheme)
Swedish fishie requested aqua and red (a favorite combo of mine)
Hrbrae requested celery green and yellow

The tutorial for the block can be found here - it's super fast to put together.

These two blocks are based on a tutorial by Elizabeth Hartmen called Mod Mosiac found here. Heidigoneaussie requested blocks based on Kona cotton solids. I chose to do Orange and Canary.

These two are for the same bee Mod Mosiac and were for Smoooche. She sent a sample of the pink, purple, yellow and gray for the sashing - the rest came from my stash. This should be a great quilt!

This is a granny square block for Phoung from the Gone Quiltin' Bee. She sent all the squares and I pieced it. The tutorial can be found here. I've been in several charm swaps and I think there will be a granny square quilt in my near future!












Thanks!!

Alisha