Cooking Bread in the Car!

Don't believe me do you? This is called a Wonder Cooker Box (courtesy of our Relief Society Activity). Go ahead and google it. I experimented with a loaf of bread and took it in the car while we went to baby animal days at the American West Heritage Center. Unfortunately I didn't really have the right equipment, so water got in the bread and ruined it. Other than that it was a little dense but otherwise cooked. Dad hated it, Scott didn't care for it, but I bet Kevin would think it was cool. I'm going to try the pumpkin chocolate chip muffins next.

Boys Can Sew!

I just wanted everyone to see that boys can sew too. Spencer will love me for this, but it had to be done. He was fixing his sweater and refused to do the "finished product" pose. Hee Hee Hee Hee Hee!

I give up.

I officially give up trying to make cute things and "crafty" things as you all put it. I have just come to face that my sisters can do everything better and mine always mess up so what's the point? But as I promised, here are Penny's and Scott's birthday cupcakes.

How to make a birthday cake for a boy obsessed with Thomas the Train

1. Google "Train Cakes"
2. Find idea
3. Think about it way too much
4. Make
OK, I had much more fun than that. I liked the look of the tunnel on one of the cakes I saw online. I also liked the idea of the tree. I made my tree out of chocolate melts (just sketched a tree on paper, put wax paper over that, and filled in with chocolate). The rocks are chocolate as well, but I just went to Walmart for those. The best part of the cake (which is rainbow chip with a homemade strawberry jam filling) was not how much sugar it contained (did I mention 2 1/2 batches of frosting) but how big the eyes of the boy got when I put the train on the tracks. He was a happy boy.
The back view. On the many train cakes I looked at one had a tunnel on the back side. I thought that would be more exciting than nothing. And I did like the tree so I threw another on as well. I originally was planning on writing "chugga chugga choo choo" on the back. I tried it in black frosting- it didn't turn out. I tried it in blue, and ended up scrapping that off as well. so I settled for just clouds and birds. I liked it. More importantly, so did the birthday boy who woke up this morning asking for "train cake".

So True

I have been looking for something to decorate my laundry room for a while, and while flipping through a magazine at a friend's house I finally found the perfect phrase. I love my Cricut. I think I use it more to cut out vinyl than any scrapbooking type project. Now I just need to find the perfect idea for my apple-themed kitchen.

Puppy Pillowcase

The middle small fry has a thing for puppies (she also likes babies and Tangled, but when we started decorating her room a year ago she had a fixation with puppies). It has taken me a while but I finally got around to making her a pillowcase. It is a good thing that I waited cause a couple of weeks ago a good friend came over to make pillowcases for her boys and showed me how to make something much cooler than what I was imagining in the first place. So I shall share her knowledge with you.

Materials needed: 3/4 yd fabric
1/4 yd contrasting fabric
7/8" double wide bias tape (or folded stripe of fabric about 1" wide)
(the width is just the width of your fabric, I held up another pillowcase and got a general idea and then promptly forgot the measurement I took)
Pin together fabric, right sides together with bias tape in between.
Sew 1/2" from edge, being sure to catch all (preferably in a somewhat straight line)

Roll up longer fabric inside shorter section.

Pin (making sure not to catch the longer fabric section in the seam).

Sew along original sewn line. Pull center roll of fabric out. Admire hidden hem, and iron.

Then just sew sides and bottom together to make it look like a pillowcase. I used a french seam to hide all of my seams cause I don't like fraying edges.

Now the small fry has a pillowcase to match her room.

(The bone shaped pillow was a project from a while ago. I just sketched out an over-sized bone, cut two pieces out of fleece, sewed together, and stuffed)

April Fool's

We had a ward party and I was signed up to bring a dessert. It also happened to be on April 1st, hence the inspiration for the cupcakes. I took them from Hello, Cupcake! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson. Oh, the things you can do with some frosting, strawberry preserves, and chocolate balls to confuse people.

A few odds and ends!

Okay, a few crafty things from Valerie and Carol. The first is the diaper cake from Karyn's baby shower, the next is the apron I made for Carol, and last, but not least, the cupcakes Carol made for Thomas' birthday. I'm also posting the cake I made for him so you can have a side by side comparison. And yes, I did forget that he was turning 4 and wrote a 3 on accident and then had to fix my mistake.