"Freedom Fries" (and burgers)

Well, there's been much about which to post, but little time in which to do it lately. Let's start with something relatively easy.

A few weeks ago, the remarkable Bakerella astounded me once again with yet another beautifully-photographed, unbearably-cute new take on the cupcake.

(If you didn't follow the link, here's a quick rundown: yellow cupcakes split in half for the "buns", brownies cut into circles for the "patties", and skinny sugar cookies sprinkled with sugar for the "fries".) Incredible, yes? I mean, the cupcakeburger on its own is cute, but pair it with sugar-cookie fries and put it in a handmade paper tray, and it becomes irresistable. Literally irresistable - as in, I was still in remission from my last insane cake-decorating project (post to follow), but still couldn't keep myself from making these for our little 4th of July party.

Here's the result:

I'll readily admit this isn't nearly as perfectly-cute as Bakerella's version, but they (I made 8) were cute enough to bring smiles to my nieces' faces which, after all, was the object all along. Depending on how you define "easy", this is a pretty easy project - not too messy, not too technically demanding. The issue isn't ease, however; it's time. Because cute as they are, these cupcakeburgers are a complete, time-consuming pain to make. Consider the steps involved:

1) Make the cupcakes.

2) Make the chocolate cake (or brownies).

3) Make the cookies.

4) Print the little trays.

5) Cut out the little trays.

6) Assemble the little trays.

7) Design the stupid little french fry holders.

8) Print the stupid little french fry holders.

9) Cut out the stupid little french fry holders.

10) Assemble the stupid little french fry holders.

11) Tint 3 colors of frosting.

12) AND, assemble everything (which of course includes splitting the cupcakes, cutting out chocolate cake-rounds, etc.).

Hey! It's a 12-step process!

Anyway, at least that 12th step is pretty gratifying, as you're left with amazingly cute & sugary little fast-food meals.

I chose to make my life slightly more difficult (but make the project more rewarding) by making everything - cupcakes, chocolate cake, cookies - vegan so that my little 4-y-o niece could for once fully participate in the fun dessert. Not that at 4 my niece is already making life-choices about her eating habits. She's just still (hopefully) growing out of several food allergies that prevent her from having any dairy or egg products. Meat, she's OK with, but unfortunately most cupcake recipes don't involve ground beef (not even for cupcakeburgers!), so it's hard to take advantage of this.

Fortunately - both for my niece and in this case for myself - the world we live in is fairly replete with nondairy options. For the "patties" I made what has become one of my niece's dessert stand-bys: Crazy Cake, a quick-and-easy chocolate cake recipe with none of the offending allergens:

Crazy Cake*

Mix together:

1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

3 Tab. cocoa powder

Add:

2 tsp. white vinegar

1 tsp. vanilla

5 Tab. oil

1 cup cold water

Mix well and pour into greased pan (8" or 9" - or whatever works for what you're doing).

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes.

I made this in a 9x13 baking pan so it wouldn't come out too thick and, when it had cooled, inverted it onto a cutting board and used one of my nifty Ateco circle cutters to make my cupcakeburger patties. (Helpful tip: Don't forget to grease the pan. I somehow neglected to do this the first time around and had to scrape the entire cake into the garbage and start over. Argh.) I ended up splitting each "patty" to make it thinner - otherwise they were too thick relative to the "buns".

For the "buns" I used a Cherrybrook Kitchen yellow cake mix that I picked up at Whole Foods. The cupcakes came out more like muffins than cupcakes in my opinion - both in appearance and in sweetness - but that's a minor issue, I guess. I tinted a Pillsbury vanilla frosting - which contains no dairy products (though you should always read the label just in case) - for my ketchup, mustard, and lettuce (along with a LOT of red food coloring for the ketchup). And finally, I googled "vegan sugar cookies" and came up with a plethora of recipe options for my "fries". (I went with this one because it only involved one obscure ingredient - vegan maragine - whereas others also involved tofu or soymilk or somesuch. (OK, I guess they all also involve egg replacer, but I have that on-hand anyway, so I don't consider it obscure.))

Bakerella very kindly posted a pdf with templates for the tray, french fry holder, and liner paper. (I skipped the personalized liner paper since I was unable to find vellum.) Of course, her little faux fast food meal was made in honor of Father's Day, whereas mine was for Independence Day. Thus, I did a quickie 4th of July design on the blank french fry holder template that she helpfully provides.

Finally, I couldn't resist putting little American flag toothpicks into the burgers. Since I had none of these on hand, and couldn't think of a nearby store that was likely to sell them, I did a Google image search for the US flag, scaled it to about 3/4" high, made a horizontally-flipped version of it, and printed as many would fit on a sheet of 8 1/2"x11" paper - cut them out with an Olfa knife and used double-sided tape to wrap them around plain toothpicks. The extra step of making the flag-picks sounds like a pain, but it went pretty quickly (in comparison to, say, making the food trays) and added a really cute touch.

And there you have it - Fourth of July Burgers and Freedom Fries for the sweet-tooths (sweet-teeth?) among us. Don't worry, Father's Day and Independence Day may be behind us, but it's not too late to make these for Labor Day or any other summer get-togethers you have coming up. Just be prepared to spend some time, or find a helper to make all the paper products!

Oh, and, belatedly...

*My recipe, copied from the original in my Mom's cookbook which was given to her by a former neighbor, spells it "Crazy Kake". OK then, but why not go ahead and make it "Krazy Kake" and at least be consistent? Though that reminds me of the old "Kleen Kar" carwash next to my old elementary school, which even as a first grader used to drive me crazy. (Or did it drive me krazy?)

Brady Bunch Lunch

It’s a seminal moment in life when one’s formative years resurface as pop culture nostalgia…. Wait a second. We’re reminiscing about the 90’s already? My copy of Jagged Little Pill isn’t even dusty!

But having your teenage years serve as fodder for VH1 is nothing compared to watching them turned into American history for the preteen-and-under set. For my sister, this milestone came last fall when her younger daughter saved up and bought herself the newest “historic” American Girl doll: Julie, a young girl growing up during the bygone days of the 1970’s. Leave it to the folks at Mattel to unearth rainbow patches and Jiffy Pop as essential artifacts of American history. In fairness, I can see that our nation is young enough that you quickly run out of relevant eras to commemorate – it may not be too long before they introduce “Madison, Girl of the New Millenium” complete with iPhone, Crocs – er, sorry, Rainbows – and Jonas Brothers cd.

At any rate, my Mom had a lot of fun whipping up a bunch of clothes to augment Julie’s peasant-blouse-and-bellbottoms wardrobe: tie-dye top, loud print dresses, and cranberry velvet ensemble worthy of Laurie Partridge, to name just a few. Another project she had in mind but didn’t get done in time for Christmas was a metal lunchbox similar to the accessory set you can buy from American Girl . We tried to get this done in time for Christmas, but as often happens that time of year, other things took priority. I ended up taking it home with me, promising to send it to my niece (“Julie”?) ASAP, and giving her full permission to nag me until I delivered. (A crucial measure given my notoriously poor performance in actually finishing projects such as this.)

In fact poor “Julie” (and Julie) didn’t get her lunchbox until this summer – many stupid things factoring into the delay – but I believe she was pleased with the results.

Although I’ve tried my hand at many things, I am certainly no metalworker. Thus, to make this box I of course needed to find a small-sized metal lunchbox to cover. Often you can find these filled with candy at Target-like places, especially around Christmastime, but we had trouble this (last) year. In the end we found the perfect size mini-lunchbox, not in a store, but in one of my sisters’ minivans: a used but perfectly acceptable specimen about 4” x 2 5/8”, with the Tootsie Pop logo on both sides and around the edge.

Julie’s lunchbox features a 70’s-ish flower graphic – cute, but to me, not as uniquely true to the era. In my memory at least (and admittedly, my lunchbox-carrying days were in the 80’s, not the 70’s) lunchboxes were all about branding: TV shows, movies, and toys. My sister had Annie, I still have my old Dark Crystal, and one of us had Strawberry Shortcake at some point. I remember people with the Dukes of Hazzard, Cabbage Patch Kids, GI Joe, etc.. No doubt many would have gone straight for Scooby Doo to evoke the 70’s, but for our family the quintessential TV brand of the era will always be The Brady Bunch.

Now as it happens I have a bit of experience in the area of recovering metal lunchboxes. Several years back, in the spirit of many things Christopher Guest , I gave my brother a Mitch&Mickey full-size lunchbox that has never to my knowledge carried a peanut butter sandwich but has intrigued one or two people over the years it’s sat in his office. For the Mitch&Mickey box I just formatted scanned images into two rectangles the size of each face of the box, printed them onto sticky-back paper, trimmed, and attached. I made smaller “stickers” to cover odd existing designs along the box edges, then gave the whole thing a couple coats of clear acrylic spray to both protect and add a nice sheen. (This final step is a bit dicey if you’re using an inkjet printer, as the ink can run if you’re not careful.)

The process for the Brady Box was essentially the same, although I had a bit of trouble at first finding high-resolution Brady images online, particularly the classic blue nine-square grid which I had envisioned as one face of the box. In the end I found a few helpful sites, the best of these probably being the Brady Bunch Shrine, and also scanned some of the images from the episode guide that accompanies The Brady Bunch – The Complete Series which I just happen to have on dvd. Then I just messed around with the images in Photoshop and InDesign, formatting them to the dimensions of the box.

Whereas for Mitch&Mickey I could use smaller stickers to cover the edges of the lunchbox, the scale of the Brady Box was too tiny for that. I opted instead to completely paint over the edges of the Tootsie Pop box with enamel paint (like you use for model cars). The stuff’s a bit of a pain to use – very goopy – and careful as I was it was virtually impossible to avoid getting it where you didn’t want it, but two coats of the stuff did a good job of covering the Tootsie graphics. As with Mitch&Mickey, I gave the whole thing several spray coats of clear acrylic protection.

For a fun touch, I took a few additional Brady images I’d found online and made them into magnets using inkjet magnet paper (very fun stuff) to decorate the inside.
Julie’s official lunchbox comes complete with an actual (albeit inedible) lunch, including sandwich, chips, thermos, and Hostess-style cupcake. Although I’ve made my fair share of FIMO/Sculpey items in the past, for this project I opted for a more basic, and in many ways easier modeling option for the food: salt dough.

I have a great fondness for this medium. High on my roster of happiest memories are the nights we would pull out our homemade salt dough ornaments each Christmas along with our salt dough Nativity set. (My own contributions to both of these were minimal and somewhat embarrassing; I was probably about 5 when we made them.)

Salt dough is a very easy-to-make and easy-to-use dough that you typically mold, bake, and paint. (I suppose you could tint it into individual colors if you wanted.) Anyway, salt dough really deserves its own post, but here are the basics: 2 parts flour to 1 part salt to ½ part water (approximately – actually, start with that much water but be prepared to add half as much again). This forms a Play-Doh like dough that’s easier to mold than Sculpey and of course far cheaper. If you want, you can add wallpaper paste for elasticity (I don’t do this) or a little oil to make it less sticky. Because of the salt, the finished texture is a bit courser than Sculpey, but the results are pretty satisfactory. In fact, for food (especially bread) the texture is almost desirable. After molding, set your items on a cookie sheet and bake for several hours at a very low temp (about as low as you can set the oven) until hard.

My salt-dough apple attempts kept cracking (possibly adding the wallpaper paste would’ve fixed that), but I eventually got something satisfactory. I made the sandwich in separate components – lettuce, cheese, ham, bread – so they would be easier to paint, and ultimately assembled it with GOOP glue (you want something goopy to make up for unevenness). I even lucked into finding a tiny ziploc bag the perfect size to hold Julie's ham sandwich. (Wikipedia says Ziploc bags were originally test marketed in 1968, so nothing anachronistic here.)

My cupcake was the most fun; it felt like cheating to just paint the swirly icing on, so I formed my own, carefully, with the salt dough, and glued it onto the cupcake after painting. I used craft acrylic paint for everything and, as with the lunchbox, gave everything a good coat of clear acrylic to protect it.
Julie’s lunchbox comes with a cute little thermos, but I had no luck finding anything good to convert into a mini thermos. Chapsticks are too tall and thin, medicine bottles, even small ones, are too big and often have raised writing on the caps. The only other good options are made from glass, which seems inappropriate for what after all is supposed to be a toy. In the end my food took up so much space inside the lunchbox there wasn’t room for a thermos anyway, so I decided that “Julie”’s Julie probably buys milk from the cafeteria.
Assuming they even had pasteurized milk way back in the 1970’s...

Where There's Newprint, There's a Way

Like me with my Brady Piñata, my Mom hadn’t dealt with papier-mâché in years when she went about making her fantastically scary Shelob. Once she got going, however, she was inspired to further inventiveness with this incredibly handy and versatile craft-form. First, Mount Doom, but later, masks to represent orcs and Ringwraiths. (In this case, no human actually wore the masks, but they were mocked up to be terrifying on their own – and can I just say that I’m not sure I would really want to wear a papier-mâché mask on my head, at least not without its having the opportunity to air out for several days. The flour/water paste combined with newsprint is an incredibly foul smell to have so close to your nostrils.)

She started by inflating several standard-size rubber balloons to about the size of a human head, maybe a bit bigger. These she covered with two or three layers of standard newsprint papier-mâché. This yields an egg-shaped base, which when dry can be cut in half to make two basic “masks.” When I arrived in Georgia, she and my nephew had already made a couple of these into orcs by applying features such as eyes, nose, scars, and scary lumps to the half-eggs with other bits of newsprint molded and dipped into the flour glue.

Here's her orc after having its newsprint features applied.

The night before the party, while Mom made two other masks into Ringwraiths, she asked me to do a couple more orcs from the remaining bases. For inspiration, I pulled out pictures from the Lord of the Rings movies showing some of Weta Workshop’s especially unpleasant creations.

Orc #1 was based on this attractive guy:

It was quite helpful to look at this image as a model, as I immediately realized that, while the egg shape made a good base, I would need extra dimension to really bring him to life. Taking fists-full of soggy newsprint (and momentarily oblivious to the fact that he would need to be dry and painted in less than 24 hours), I first started building up the sides of his face to form his high, elongated cheeks. I did the same to build out an area around his mouth, so that it would appear to be a cavity in the mask rather than something applied to it, and for fun added a protuberant tongue. (For lack of time, I didn’t attempt to build any dimensional teeth - perhaps a mistake.) Again for the eye sockets, I built out newsprint both below and above, mainly above. The nose was fun – more clumps of newsprint, up into which I stuck my thumbs (yes, gross) to create deep nostrils. I knew I couldn’t recreate this orc’s massive batwing-like ears without some kind of extra support – maybe cardboard? – so I went for a smaller version of the same thing. Because I was working fast, and sloppily, I found that my surface was pretty rough – even ridgier than that of my lovely orc model. Given more time, I suppose you could let the built-up papier-mâché dry and go back over with a couple smoothing topcoats of newsprint. But these are orcs after all, not beauty queens, so I wasn’t too worried about the wrinkles.

Orc #2 was based on an orc called Grishnakh – different looking but just as generally disgusting as the first model. I used the same process as before – this time giving him a wider nose and heavier browbone. I should say that all this built-up wet newsprint gets a bit heavy, such that especially for this guy the shape of the mask was somewhat distorted by the weight. In a way he looked more clownish and silly at this point than scary, but the great thing about making orcs is that it’s nearly impossible to mess up – your result might be different than expected, but it’s no less an orc. Sum total I probably spent about an hour and a half on both orcs, getting my hands completely gooey in the process, then left them to dry overnight.

Next day, I had two still quite soggy orc masks sitting on the counter. Seeing as the newsprint was more than an inch thick in several places, not too surprising. With the party a few hours away, I pulled out a hair dryer and, switching back and forth between the two orcs, began drying. I regret to say that the carbon footprint for this project was relatively large, as I spent more than a half-hour blow-drying orcs, passing the time reading Entertainment Weekly, until they were still clammy but dry enough to paint.

(That's Grishnakh on the left, Orc #1 on the right.)

As with my vase, the orcs looked quite cool in their bare-newsprint state – somehow about as scary and gruesome as you’d want them to be. As before, though, I knew that to achieve a true orc-y effect, I needed to go ahead and paint them. Again using my images for guidance, I squirted several different shades of acrylic paint onto a palette: grayish hues for #1, reddish brown ones for #2. Working quickly and haphazardly, I daubed different colors from each of the chosen palettes over each mask; this achieved a nice blotchy skin tone which to some extent made up for the loss of the patchy newsprint effect. Because I had defined the features so well dimensionally, I found not too much additional painting was necessary beyond the blotchy skin tone. However, I added dark paint to the insides of any crevices or cavities to exaggerate the depth, and did some general shading around the cheeks and brows. Then I used a pinkish white color for the eyeballs of each, and gave the grey one a reddish-black tongue and the brownish one rotted-looking teeth.

As party time neared, I was charged with the task of setting up the orc ambush scene. Mom found several odd garments to use for their bodies – old graduation robe, pancho, lengths of old fabric – which I took out to the chosen cluster of trees, along with coat hangers, wire, duct tape, and the four orc masks. Working with my brother-in-law, I found that the best method for hanging the orcs was to make two holes in each mask: one at the bottom (below the chin) and the other at the top (above the forehead). We pulled the coat hanger hook up into the bottom hole, secured it inside the mask with duct tape, and wrapped a length of wire around the top of the hook which we pulled up through the hole at the top of the mask. Then we tied the other end of the wire around a tree branch at about head height. Afterwards I draped the fabric and clothes over the coat hangers, trying to suggest some type of body mass beneath. Some of my judgments here, however, were questionable: particularly the pairing of a red length of fabric with a black graduation robe, effectively turning Grishnakh into a University of Arkansas grad. Anyway. To add a little ferocity, I found several long branches, which I propped up alongside the orcs to represent some type of staff-like weapon. (All the "real," plastic weapons were in use by the party guests.)
Once assembled in the woods, the effect was pretty cool. Somehow my initially clownish Grishnakh proved the scarier (despite his Razorback regalia), while the pointy-eared orc looked a bit goofy. Perhaps it was the lack of teeth. Neither actually came out much like my model - I guess the images wre more inspiration for my own unique creatures than literal models to be copied. My nephew’s and Mom’s orcs looked equally good, and the grouping as a whole made a great backdrop for the archery contest.
The whole papier-mâché dimensional mask idea is one that I'd love to try again - given more time it would've been fun to add stringy hair, build out the ears, use cardboard to make teeth, and otherwise get these guys a little closer to the Weta models. However, I think it was pretty good work considering the time constraints. Maybe for Halloween. Or if my brother ever decides he's Peter Jackson.

Lesson Learned: Where there's newsprint, there's a way: Dimensional papier-mâché sculpting is a really fun and reasonably quick way to achieve great effects; however, next time allow at least a full day for the thick, gloppy newsprint to dry.

Midsummer Madness: A Birthday in Middle Earth

As noted in this space before, I come by my slight creative insanity honestly. This was clearly in evidence on my recent trip home to Georgia. One of my nephews (we’ll refer to him as “Legolas”) had just turned twelve, and my visit coincided with his party, to be attended by two friends of approximately the same age, his brothers and sister, and several of his cousins, ranging in age from two to sixteen. These kids have celebrated each other’s birthdays for years, and it’s always fun to see them have a good time together. Last year, Legolas’s parents put together an incredibly elaborate and fun Harry Potter party, which featured various activities related to Hogwarts classes, etc.; this year, he wanted a Lord of the Rings theme. (What can I say? The kid has good literary taste.) Over the course of several weeks, and making ingenious use of dollar store finds, my Mom and sister set about planning a range of activities that could see the kids through the major highlights of the saga. (My own contributions to the party were minimal [insert link], but the party as a whole is worth posting about, so due credit will be given as appropriate.) I have to say, too, that one of the things which really made this party work is the fabulously diverse nature of my parents’ lot, which provided amazingly convincing settings for many Middle Earth locales.

Before I get to the activities, I should mention that several of the party-goers were in costume: Legolas complete with pointy prosthetic ears, Aragorn, Éomer, and others in mail shirts with shields, etc., boy Hobbits in tunics (Frodo with a gold ring on a chain around his neck), girl Hobbits in cheerful vests and skirts, Éowyn in a more Rohan-esque vest, blouse, and skirt, and of course Galadriel in white gown with golden crown (crafted from a dollar store windchime). Nearly all of this was made by Mom in the days leading up to the party.

First stop for the group was The Prancing Pony, otherwise known as my parents’ back patio, where Barliman Butterber (the cleverly disguised father of the birthday boy) served the guests salty snacks with beer (that would be IBC for some, barrel-shaped HUGS for others) while local fiddlers, possibly recognizable to their party-going children as two of my violin-playing sisters, provided entertainment.

When all had had their fill, Barliman escorted the group around the side of the house to the front yard, where (possibly transformed into another character?) he instructed them on the basics of fencing, before leading them up to meet Gandalf (another brother-in-law, complete with cloak and staff) at Weathertop – conveniently located on the hill in front of the house. Here, the fencing lessons proved life-saving, as two terrifying Ringwraiths – papier-mâché masks, spray painted black, suspended on coat hangers with flowing, weblike black fabric – were awaiting them amidst the trees. Each member of the group, including the two-year-old, got a turn fighting off these fearsome baddies.

After Weathertop, the party proceeded through a creepy patch of woods, where they were ambushed by four gruesome orcs [read here about orc fabrication]. These they fought off with bows and arrows (of the suction-cup variety). Safe at last, the group continued around the other side of the house and down a steep incline to Lothlorien, the (spray-painted) golden wood. (Yeah, we skipped the Mines of Moria. This way Gandalf didn’t have to go anywhere.) Here our lovely Galadriel was put to work, presiding over her silver mirror and testing each of the other guests’ knowledge of Tolkien lore with LOTR trivia questions . Upon a correct answer (younger ones were given assistance), guests were presented with a bag of lembas, a popsicle (maybe not canon, but very appropriate considering the Georgia midsummer climate), and of course a green cloak with an attached leaf brooch (cloaks made by Mom from dollar a yard Wal-Mart fabric, with my sister and I on brooch assembly: silk leaves, stripped from their plastic veins, ironed onto a sturdy fabric backing, and highlighted with gold paint).

On around to the swingset frame, where none other than Shelob – papier-mâché piñata courtesy of Mom, with wiggly hairy legs of doubled-up pipe cleaners and eerie bulging yellow eyes – awaited the group for yet another challenge. Each guest took a blindfolded turn at defeating the horrible spider, armed only with courage and of course Sting, one of many plastic swords in my parents’ grandchildren-friendly collection.

The spider proved so formidable that our initial Sting actually broke from its hilt and had to be replaced. Mom had cleverly given Shelob a segmented body, with two separate balloon-formed cavities. The nice thing about this was there were actually two piñata-bashing victories, and two candy spillages. When at last the beast was bested, its sugary sweet insides collected by the assembly, the group proceeded inside for the final challenge.

The front hall may not look like Mordor, but there at the foot of the stairs rose the fiery Mount Doom, another of Mom’s papier-mâché creations. Each guest was given ten gold rings, and standing above the mountain, took his turn at destroying the Ring of Power (or actually, getting the highest out of ten into its opening). (The rings were a dollar-store deal: 100 for $1.)

Next, all gathered round the table to celebrate by feasting on Mount Doom cakes – mini chocolate bundt cakes drizzled with fire-colored frosting and bedecked with more of the gold rings (made by Mom) – along with miniature Ents – made from pretzel rods and green-tinted chocolate (courtesy of my sister).

That's our lovely Éowyn with an Ent in hand, partially obscured Mount Doom on her plate, with Legolas besider her (note the Vulcan - er...Elvish ears).Desert plates were then whisked away and replaced by cards for a special LOTR version of Bingo (my sister’s creation), with L-O-T-R across the top of the card and various characters arranged below each letter. As characters were randomly drawn and called out (eg., “R-Treebeard”), players marked off their scorecards with precious gems (er…dollar-store green glass tiles). Adults were amused that each round of the game was won by one of the very youngest party guests, but that’s the lovely, equalizing nature of Bingo.
Finally it was time to depart Into the West – that is, about five minutes away to the home of Legolas – where presents were opened and Hobbit-hole cake (made and decorated by my sister) was served. Then, exhausted with knife, sting, and a long burden (or something like that), the adults crashed while the older kids stayed up watching The Return of the King and younger folk watched the much shorter Lord of the Beans. A fitting, restful ending to a truly fun and memorable day.

Lessons Learned:

#1 Kids' birthday parties ought to include cake and ice cream, but that's not to say you can't also introduce a little bit of culture into the festivities.

#2 Never underestimate the potential of papier-mâché: from piñatas to fearsome creatures to fiery mountains, newsprint and glue can be a great friend.

Baby Blanket 101

Well, not quite.

So I had this cute fabric by Erin Michael for Moda Fabrics (I heart Moda!! - they have great fabrics!). The fabric was supposed to be an apron for a friend who turned out to be a toxic friend almost 4 years ago. Then I found out that Little Sister was pregnant and I thought to myself "What is cuter than a sock monkey baby blanket besides kittens? Nothing!"

I bought some of that fuzzy, soft red fabric that you can find in the kid's section at most fabric stores. I don't even know what it's called but it feels like a chinchilla. So soft.

My thought was to simply take the two fabrics: sock monkey and soft fabric, and sew them together (right sides together). Then I would turn the blanket right side out and add a simple satin blanket border. Easier said than done!

The sock monkey fabric is 100% cotton, which means it only stretches, if at all, in one direction. That red, fuzzy, soft stuff stretches in every direction! So, by the time I finished my edges, I had huge bubbles in the blanket between the layers! So annoying.

My blanket was fairly large at this point (I researched different sizes on Etsy and finally ended up with a 54" x 60" blanket) so I decided to go ahead and turn it so that the right sides were facing out. I flattened it out with my hand as much as I could and pinned it. Then I sewed it again. Well, it did better this time, but still not great. So I did it again. This time it was still bubbly but not nearly as noticeable. Third time's a charm, right?

Now that I had the blanket the correct (but smaller) size, I needed to add the border. I thought that a yellow border would be so cute with the red in the blanket. Oh it was...minus the fact that if you buy the pre-packaged blanket binding in satin, you can see right through the satin. Well, my seams weren't too pretty from all my resewing of blanket edges, so I had to come up with some other method.

I finally decided to use the stripe fabric I had bought with the sock monkeys. The colors are all coordinating so that was good. I took the fabric and cut it how I wanted it. I think I ended up with a 8" piece. I folded that in half and ironed it (and starched it!). I then ironed each of the sides in half so that it was 1/4 of it's original size. This way the fabric could basically act as a "bread" with the blanket being the "meat" in the "sandwich." Yeah, I know. Dumb analogy.

I had to do the striped border in 4 pieces because I didn't have the length to do one big piece that I could fold at each corner. Therefore, being my first baby blanket with blanket binding, my edges look horrendous, but passable. I also had a problem with the bubbles coming back along the edges while I was sewing but I did the best I could do given the circumstances.

Regardless, the baby will just be pooping and puking and drooling on the blanket anyway, so I'm not TOO worried about it being perfect. It's cute and that's all that matters in the end!

Kids and Babies: The shopping and ideas

Here's the dealio:

Never tackle a project without having a good idea about what you want to do.

As I have said before, I believe in getting ideas and making them my own. That's the way I am. So, as I was looking for ideas for both Wyatt and Leah's bedrooms, I found a lot of fun websites for all kinds of decorating ideas for little ones.

Shopping:

Modern Nursery - the cool design place to go when you have too much money, apparently. Who gives their babies real designer furniture? Anyway, an impressive collection of all things baby and all things ultra modern with a hint of funky.

Modern Tots - same kind of idea as Modern Nursery

2 Modern - Yup. It's too modern for my budget, but I love it!!

A super cute bath idea!

Storage ideas for kids!

Ideas:

Dollar Store Closets - transform your kid's closets with dollar store finds!

Pops of Color Kids' Rooms - you heard it: color!

Vroom to Grow - A transportation room of from every boys' dreams!

Animal-Themed Bedroom

Rock star nursery - my words, not theirs

Idea-packed nursery

Calm and Collected Nursery

Baby Room Details - ideas for any nursery

Leah's Room Redux

Now for little Leah's room. Real little since she's still in her mama's belly!

Basically, Little Sister wanted to keep the old nursery, which was Wyatt's, and convert it into a little girl's nursery. Who can blame her? Nursery bedding is freakin' outrageously priced! The nursery bedding was pretty gender neutral as it had blues, yellows, reds, pinks, greens and leopard print in it. However, it was heavy on the blue, so we needed to make it more girlie.Mom took on the nursery as her personal project. Yay Mom!

Mom and I fell in love with the jungle theme in the bedding. So cute!

Alicia, with the help of Stacie, had painted the bedroom pale yellow on the bottom and white (I swear to you that it's a pale blue, but Alicia claims it's white) on the top and put the border up in the middle that matches the bedding.

She found the same type of wooden pieces at Walmart in jungle animals as I had for the sports balls (technically, she found them first). Originally, we were going to take some canvases she had bought at Walmart ($3.88 each - 10"x10"), wrap them in gingham and then do this little project that was featured on Martha Stewart. However, time always catches up with us and by the time we were working on the canvases, the last thing we wanted to do was paint something else! Instead, we put Alicia to work on hot glue the cute little wooden animals to the pre-wrapped gingham canvases (thanks to Mom and her staple gun). We hung them over the area where the crib will go (I'll get crib pictures as soon as they are sent to me).
Another project was painting an existing dresser that Alicia had from her childhood. One lesson learned (as Christie would say): never paint in extreme heat/humidity. First, we painted a couple of coats of Kilz2 primer (latex, baby!) on the dresser and then added 3 layers of the red paint leftover from Wyatt's block wall (multi-tasking paint). It could have taken a third coat, but like I said before, we were DONE painting! It kind of looks like a distressed dresser now. Woo. Anyway, the reason to NOT paint in a garage in extreme heat/humidity is because our paint gooed up a bit on top of the dresser. Luckily, the top of the dresser will be covered mostly with baby diaper paraphenalia (see the picture below...minus NB diapers that are going into the vertical gingham/red basket). I got the red gingham baskets in a set of 3 (one big, two square) at IKEA. I heart IKEA! Of course, no project can go perfectly for us and after getting the drawers back in the dresser, we realized that the trim between the dresser drawers was curved (while the drawers aren't) and we (I) missed painting that part! Darn! Alicia said she'll go back and fix it. I hope so! Also, I didn't get all the cute little knobs on the dresser before I left (time ran out!!), so we hotglued them on for the picture. We also hot glued the leftover butterflies on the dresser because they were TOO CUTE!! Mom got the knobs at a discount store for $7.99. Yup! They are the jungle themed animals! How perfect! And cute!
For the square mirrors above the dresser(see picture above), we simply took the mirrors, taped them off to make sure no paint got on the mirror, and spray painted the crapola out of them with some red paint Mom had. That Mom...she has lots of stuff hanging around! After they dried, we took the tape off and hot glued the cute butterfly and spirals. We spray painted the spirals with a pale yellow Mom had hanging around. The spirals are similar to the blue spirals in the wallpaper border.

All I did in the closet was move the white storage shelves in...they had been sitting in the dresser area and I thought it would be easier to put them in the closet to HIDE stuff instead of keeping them out in the open. We added some cheap storage boxes and that was that! Whew. I love closets.
I hung the IKEA net in the corner, over where the glider will be placed, to get the stuffed animals off the floor. So many stuffed animals! Now I can see why stuffed animals drove my Mom crazy! They're everywhere!!Mom bought the little leopard print lamp shade at Walmart in the clearance section for $3. We just added the red ruffle (that matches the window shade) with what? Hot glue!!
The roman shade in the window was made by Mom. She got the idea from either an Urban Outfitters catalog or an Anthropologie catalog. Either way, they are cute! She used the bright yellow gingham on one side and a swirlie butterfly print in yellow on a white background on the back side. That way, when it's rolled up, you can see both patterns. She added a line of red rickrack along the top and a line of the red ruffle for extra color (our favorite colors for the room: red and yellow!). She used red satin ribbon for the tie ups. Cute! It's a simple project...all you need is a sewing machine, fabric, thread and the exact dimensions of the window.The decals, that match the jungle animals, on the walls I picked up one day at Target while I was just wandering around. I love wandering in Target! You never know what you'll find!!Mom took the glider cushions (etc) home with her to recover them. I think she picked a cute animal print in a suede like fabric, but I guess we'll never know until she gets it done! She also took the ottoman home with her...

Stay tuned for crib and chair pictures!

Wyatt's Room Redux

So my little sister (technically, my step sister, but some technicalities fall by the wayside whenever you act like real sisters) found out she was pregnant. This will be her second baby (and her last, according to both her and her husband). The first, a boy, will be 3 in December. He's getting so big!! Anyway, she's due late September and lo and behold, it's a girl, even though she swore up and down that she was always going to have boys (due to the track record of her husband's side of the family).

In order to make way for Baby #2, it was decided that Baby #2 would move into the current nursery and Baby #1 would be placed in the current guest room.

My first dilemna was the fact that Little Sister isn't exactly the most organized person in the world and the room (both) was a total wreck. She did a fairly good job dividing and conquering much of the mess before we got there, but it still needed places to go. I'll get back to that in a bit.

I knew that I wanted to do a blue, brown and red palette. I kept seeing cute boyish comforters in blue and brown/khaki stripes and knew it was a popular color. I am a firm believer in visual research and found the exact idea (plagiarism? Who wants to reinvent the wheel?) in a nursery scheme. It wasn't exactly the right colors, but it gave me a good foundation. I then came up with this idea (only confirmed after a trip to get paint) of taking the block scheme and using two shades of brown, two shades of blue (both on the same paint chip) and bright red.
First, I painted the focal wall (the intended block wall) white. It was such a relief to paint over the dirtiness of the existing white wall. White paint may seem like an easy color when you are going neutral, but just remember it's like wearing white pants to a barbeque...everything is going to be highlighted in all it's dirty glory when it gets on the white. After the paint dried, I measured off 20" blocks. I started with 24" blocks but those looked too big and 18" blocks looked too small. Since I like to do things 6 - 12 times instead of just once, I ended up remeasuring the blocks about 12 times. I finally came up with a composition that I liked...and that was perfectly centered on the wall. I used my laser level to make sure that the tape (I used a 1.5" painters tape as it would come off nice and smoothly...although where we had to use masking tape when we ran out of painter's tape, some spots are so nice and smooth) was as straight as Carrie possible. (humanly possible for other people).

According to my good buddy, Martha Stewart, after the tape is placed in the appropriate spot on the wall, you should seal the edges of the tape (where you are painting) with an acrylic gloss sealant. I could only find this sealant in spray form and since Little Sister is pregnant, I chose a different product that ended up working just as well. It was some kind of clear glass acrylic. Basically, it just sealed the edge without adding color.

After a full day of watching the boys play grown up volleyball, sitting out in the shade, enjoying our independence (in Independence!) painting the closet and remaining three walls the beige color, I made a color drawing of the block wall in order to come up with a pattern (or NOT pattern in this case). I wish I had taken a picture of my drawing: it was on the back of my flight info and was colored with an array of crayons that were not even close to the colors they were representing. After following the pattern, we painted. We had to paint two layers on the beige and light blue, three on the dark blue and brown and 4 on the red because after putting two coats up, we decided the red was too pink and bought a new red. It looked much better after the change.
Once the paint was dry, we carefully peeled off the paint. Of course, there were still some areas that bled under the tape, but overall it was a lot less bleeding than if we hadn't sealed the edges. I was incredibly happy with the overall look...Little Sister and the kid loves it too.
After finishing up the walls in the bedroom, we tackled various other little projects.

We added (hot glue is my bestest friend EVER) some painted wooden pieces that we picked up both at Walmart and Joann's Fabric (already painted) to the dresser and nightstand. Cute!!We also painted a 5 hook shelf we found at Joann's Fabric for the rock bottom price of $10.99. It came unfinished so we just used the leftover paint from the walls to do it in two shades and then added the balls with hot glue. Cute!! Johnny had to hang it after I left because it wasn't done when I left (even though Little Sister and I were working up to the very last second before she took me to the airport).We wanted to put his big toybox in the closet so that when he is going to sleep at night, he isn't distracted by toys. Because of that, we had Johnny cut some boards down for us and painted them the light blue and hung them in the closet. Perfect for the $3 and $4 crates we bought at Dollar General.
We found the football toy box at a yard sale for $10! Score! It was fate...right? I mean, how often do you see a football toybox at a yard sale on the weekend you are turning your nephew's room into a sports themed bedroom??Little Sister purchased the comforter at Walmart for a mere $25.Mom made the curtains one evening with fabric from Joann's. I had my handy dandy 40% off coupon that I receive every few weeks from them so that was a nice deal. The cute football curtain rod was found at Walmart for $10. It went too perfectly with the sports theme to pass up!The lamp we bought at the Goodwill for $5. It was a Pooh lamp so we removed the shade and painted the yellow lamp with a nice coat of red spray paint my mother had hanging around. She added leftover fabric from the curtains with hot glue and I added the double bias tape to the edges in the contrasting blue (also with hot glue).The letters over the bed I decoupaged a few weeks ago...I will post a "how to" post as soon as I can (I'm working on it, but needed visuals).The green square mirrors beside the window were these mirrors from IKEA. We simply spray painted them (make sure to tape off the mirror or you'll be scraping off spray paint for days!) and attached the sports balls with hot glue. Once again.
The square canvas frames I had painted before the Redux. You can view that entry here.

So that's that. I hope you enjoy!

Don't forget to check out Leah's Room Redux too!