Busy Wonderful Weekend

Wow- I need a weekend to recover from my weekend!!  The highlight was on Sunday.  Our family was able to hear President Uchtdorf speak here in Texas.  Here is a link to a mini message from one of his talks- create  - so you can see what a wonderful opportunity it was to hear him in person and for our kids to get to shake his hand-

These white chocolate macadamia nut cookies were one of the handouts that I gave the ladies at the women's conference in our area.  On Saturday morning I had the opportunity to teach (about 130 women) about food storage and a tiny bit about emergency preparedness.

 My theme was tropical and I had leis and brightly colored tablecloths, etc.  We talked about filling our pantries by buying two cans extra each trip to the grocery store- and I made kind of a cheesy- but fun -connection about remembering a toucan (two-can)  every time we're at the store- over all I think it went well.

Saturday night we had about fifteen people at our house for a BBQ.

This Wednesday sixty women from church have been invited over for me to teach them how to make simple earrings- probably only five or six will come- now if I could just wave a magic wand and have my neglected house cleaned....

I'm planning to run away with my hubby for a few days next week and I can hardly wait!!!

Short Bloggy Break

I'm busy preparing a presentation for 130 women- it's this Saturday!!!  I'll be back when that project is done & 150 white chocolate macadamia nut cookies are made and packaged (and a few consumed)!

Layer of Ruffles Skirt

One project that did get completed last week was this ruffly skirt for my daughter.  Many prefer to wear this style so that it hits above the knees, but we wear things long around here.  I wouldn't attempt this skirt without a ruffler foot on my machine- unless you're patient and ambitious. 

Ruffler foot woes:  I have purchased three ruffler feet, tried them on all three of my machines, read several blog posts and repeatedly watched you-tube videos and I FINALLY, after over a year, found a combination that works.  YIKES!  I bet the company that makes generic ruffler feet would sell ten times more if they actually included direction with the foot they sell!  Aye, I digress. 

After looking at this tutorial for an adorable skirt I came up with my version. 

I used a knit fabric and didn't make any hems- really cuts the sewing time down- but it definitely is a more casual look.  I used a needle specifically for stretch fabrics and sewed each seam with a slight zig zag stitch.

First, measure the length you want your skirt.

Measure your widest point- usually hips-  and add about an inch on each side for a seam allowance.

Put these measurements into play and cut a rectangle of your desired fabric.

Then sew up the length side of your rectangle making a tube.

Out of the remaining fabric I cut strips five inches tall and as long as my fabric piece came.  I ran these through the ruffler foot on a setting of a gather for every six stitches.

With the right side out, and the seam placed at what will be the center back of the skirt, I used my frixion gel pen to draw a line every four inches going up from the bottom of the skirt tube.  Then I attached the ruffles by lining them up with the lines and sewing in place- starting at the bottom and working up. 

If my ruffle strip didn't make it all the way around the skirt I just picked up another piece, folded the raw edge under about an inch and placed it so that it slightly overlapped the previous piece and started sewing again-

When attaching the final layer of ruffles- I sewed the ruffle on "upside down"  so that I could flip it down- covering the stitching.  I pressed that edge down as well.

To finish I folded down the waistband and inserted a piece of elastic the measurement of my daughter's waist.  I love how it turned out!

If you want real directions to another super cute skirt check out what Anna made here.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! 

Suggestions for a Food Storage Presentation

Anyone out there have great ideas for a 30 min. presentation on food storage???  - I'll be giving a thirty minute class that repeats three times- estimated total of 140 women???  ANY ideas to make it fun, guilt free, fear free, but still motivating, etc.?  There is a gigantic diversity in the economic situations of the class members...   help...

Royal Princess Activity Day

The following ideas are a conglomeration of ideas from Sugardoodle and Family Fun.

I am delighted with how this weeks activity went.  We have a very small group- only four kids and here is what we did:

For this activity with my favorite group of 8-11 yr. old girls we had a princess  birthday party.  I found princess party invitations at Dollar Tree.  On the blank where it said birthday girl- I put "you".  When the girls came we had pink birthday cupcakes using this recipe, a plain white cake mix with white chocolate pudding, a layer of strawberry and a layer of butter cream frosting (you can't have too much frosting!).  Delish!

We played princess party games.  Instead of pin the tale on the donkey we played "smack a kiss on the frog"  and the blindfolded girls tried to get their paper lips onto the frog's.  We also hid a fake diamond and the girls tried to find it playing hot and cold.  For our third game we filled a glass pie plate with candy conversation hearts and gave each girl a pair of chopsticks.  We gave them one minute to pick up as many hearts as they could (no cheating by scooping)!

I had found some cute notebooks at WalMart on clearance for only $1.50 a piece.  I copied a group of quotes about the princess within and being a daughter of God, printed them on cardstock, mounted them on adorable scrapbook paper and placed them randomly in the notebook.  I also made a daily prayer and another daily scripture study chart to add to their books.  Here is the file of everything I used- although it didn't load the correct fonts, etc.  We took a few minutes to go over the quotes and discuss how they made us feel. 

We also watched this video about sometimes feeling like an ugly duckling.  Each notebook was placed in a gift bag- (their birthday present)- oh, and the crowns are from dollar tree in packs of 25-  with a box of conversation hearts and a bright colored pencil. 

To finish the activity we opened our gifts and then each girl wrote one thing that they liked or admired about each girl in that girl's book- so that she'll always have a reminder of some of the special things about herself.  It was one of those days when everything just fell into place and everything felt "right"- I'm so grateful!

Random and Real

Here is the keeping-it- real photo of all the Valentine projects that didn't turn out right or that I didn't get finished- and there isn't much hope of getting to them....

And for the random:

Did you know that having an eleven year old that bakes awesome brownies and chocolate chip cookies is lethal to your waistline?! 

And our local radio station writes the names of both teams playing in the super bowl on an egg and then places the eggs in the microwave-and zaps them- the first egg that cracks is predicted to be the losing team- and they have been right for the last TEN years?  Weird.

Small Framed Silk Ribbon Embroidery

I haven't done much silk ribbon embroidery in a long time.  I've been feeling the urge to pull out all the stuff and enjoy it again.  I decided to do a little Valentine floral and was trying to decide how to finish it off when I found these little frames in the dollar section at Michaels.

I spray painted it the color I wanted and here it is!

I tried out a hot pink Frixion gel pen (made by pilot) (via Bari J.)  to draw a pattern directly onto the fabric.  Jet pens.com has a better selection and better prices- you can use friction or an iron to make the marks vanish.  When I was done stitching I just ironed my fabric and the bright pink ink magically disappears- very nice for all sorts of fabric crafts.

Victorian Rose Label

While I was busy making subway art packaging I decided to use some of my Victorian looking scrapbook paper to make a few more envelopes to slip small gifts into.  I also made rose stickers by printing images onto avery package labels and cutting them out with a 1" circle punch.  I chalked around the edges of the stickers as well.  I finished off by tying bits of crochet lace around each envelope and used the vintage rose label below to address the package that I put everything in- (I printed the labels out on avery package labels paper, too). 

There is a copy of this free victorian rose printable on the sidebar under the freebie section or you can link to it here.

Great Blog

New-to- me blog:  Twig and Thistle, (via craft),  Tons of great printables and craft ideas- check out their "older entries" to see all the goodies- like these adorable printed brownie bags- genius (picture from their site)!