Mamma Mia

Well, I survived the trip but just barely!  I don’t know why I thought it would be easy to take for girls on a 4 hour drive.  We survived though and had a blast. 

My biggest regret is not giving ourselves more time.  The girls really wanted to go swimming and I wish that we would have left earlier to give us more time in the city.  Once we go there it only gave us 1 hour to swim and quite honestly we could have done without the swimming.  I was hoping to do nails and have time to actually eat dinner but it just didn’t work out. Summertime in Idaho means construction city and because the weather has been less than summerly lately I didn’t even think about construction.  We ended up eating only a block away from the venue but because I didn’t really know where it was we drove up to the parking garage and ended up almost being late as it took us 40 minutes to drive one block.  Which made pictures before not possible.

We made it though and the girls had a blast!  Some of the highlights:

The dresses!!!  The girls LOVED them!!!!

The binoculars!!! As before I didn’t buy the best seats so I wanted to make sure we could see every detail of the show.  We bedazzled them before hand, and got a lot of compliments on them.

Because of the time issue my pictures were after the show in the dark, yuck.  As I was trying to get a half way decent picture with the trailers in the background some of the cast came out.

We were able to meet Donna Sheridan (Kaye Tuckerman) and the daughter Sophie Sheridan (Chloe Tucker).  For those who don’t know this is a really rare opportunity, regular local plays it is common to meet the cast but not with these touring productions.  I must say Kaye Tuckerman was simply beautiful too, honestly I don’t think I have ever talked to anyone so beautiful in my life.  She was so nice and the girls were so impressed that she knew we drove such a long way to watch and that it was Princess’s birthday.  Apparently, they didn’t listen to me talking to her directly.  We spent about 5 minutes with them and it was really neat to be able to talk to them.

On the way back we stopped off and had lunch at Twin Falls.  The girls were too scared to go all the way on the observatory when they discovered that some of it was off of the ledge.

We are home and I am very glad that I was able to give the girls an opportunity to see an amazing show.

A Dress For Princess

As mentioned a few post ago I also made a dress for Princess for the Mamma Mia Show.  We had the handbag first and on one of my many trips to Jo-Ann I saw this pattern and knew that it would be perfect.

I generally wouldn’t buy the material without her input first but I just knew she would love it because it matched the purse so perfectly.  The pattern is Simplicity 4070 and it is a woman’s size pattern.  My original intent was to not buy the pattern.  I am just to cheap to spend over $10 on a pattern so I took pictures and bought the fabric.  Then luckily a week later Jo-Ann’s had the patterns for .99 cents so I went ahead and bought it, still knowing that I would have to size it down for a 10 year old.

I ended up making the dress a size 6 petite and when it came time to closing the back I sized it down.  The top is a little big but it still seems to work okay and she loves it so that is all that matters.

When I originally pulled out the pattern pieces I was thinking it was going to take me F-O-R-E-V-E-R but had I not had to size it down I could have easily had this dress done in half a day.  One more reason I LOVE Simplicity patterns they are so easy and I think the end result is lovely as well.

I must admit I was nervous about sewing the lace as I have never really dealt with it and it was a piece of cake.  Also I have heard horror stories of tulle but I had absolutely no problems with it.  In fact I was actually talking on the phone to my friend while I sewed it on the bottom of the dress and until I was finished didn’t even realize I had sewn it, seriously it was one of the easiest fabrics I’ve sewn with.

I like how the dress turned out and am super excited for tonight when the girls will be all dressed up and ready to go to Mamma Mia, more pictures are sure to follow.

Guitar Cake

Princess wanted an electric guitar for her birthday cake, and this is what I came up with.

At first she wanted chocolate cake and then she wanted white cake with it as well. So I decided to make marble cake.  I was surprised when looking how to make marble cake that the only directions I could find were for a Bundt cake, so I winged it.

I think that it turned out okay.  I used the chocolate recipe cake found HERE and I must say it was delicious, I liked it because it was made for a whole sheet cake.  My sheet cake pan was a little bit bigger then the size asked for so I made a Better-Than-Basic Yellow Cake recipe that I had in my FAVORITE cookbook Disney’s Family Cookbook. 

This cookbook is no longer in print anymore but I must say it is amazing.  It is from the creators of Family Fun Magazine and if you can find it snatch it up.  When I find it on ebay I buy it and give it away as wedding gifts.  Seriously GREAT!
So marble it I first put the yellow cake in because there was less and then I poured the chocolate to fill in the cracks run my spatula throughout it making sure I went all the way down to the bottom.  I must say this cake is delicious.
I wanted the cake to be close enough to life size so I ended up using the entire sheet cake for the base.  I was going to make a template and go around it but I was a little lazy and I just looked at a picture while I cut out the shape.

I think it turned out okay. When I was originally making it I thought that I would finish it up at my folks house so I wanted it on two separate sheets so I could put it in the fridge.  In the end however I found something that I thought would work to place the cake on at my house and used it.  It was never put in the fridge again, and was finished at my house something I now regret.
The neck was Rice Krispy treats and everything else was cake.


I dirty iced the entire cake and the put it in the freezer.
Then I took some regular store bought fondant.  I usually make marshmallow fondant but I wasn’t up for the mess.  It tastes better, I cheaper than store bought, but it doesn’t apply to itself very well.  She wanted the guitar to be red but that is a really hard color to get so she settled with the pink, I think it looks more girly anyways.

Notice my nice mistake at the bottom of the guitar? It wasn’t my original intent to have the purple covering to go over it but when mistakes happen you can always improvise.
As mentioned before I wish I would have waited when I did the final icing.  I was tired, it was late, and I should have just waited until morning. The strings and the wording look like crap, but o’well.  I need to continue reminding myself when I am tired of something to walk away for a bit and finish it later.

She loved the cake, it tasted great, that is all that matters.
Happy 10th Birthday, Princess!!!

Party Dress For Two

My Princess turns 10 next week and the next few posts will have to do with her birthday.  Having a daughter who is turning 10 has been rather difficult to plan and give for.  She is out of the toy age and moving into the girly girl stage.  She now has an opinion to what I actually choose and generally she hates what I pick out.  Even at Claire's we had completely different styles on jewelry. 


For her birthday we have decided to go up to Boise, Idaho (a four hour drive away) and watch the touring Broadway show Mamma Mia.  She had the option of getting really good seat and just going with me and her sister or getting really bad (nose bleed) seats and bringing along two extra friends.  She chose bringing the friends along. 
It seemed simple enough except that one of her friends are quite the “tom boy” and has been rather difficult with the whole dress issue.  After becoming EXTREMEMLY frustrated I remembered this dress that I finished for Princess HERE. 

Both of her friends LOVED this dress, tried it on, and asked for me to make them one but with different colored fabric.  I pretty much laughed it off because let’s get real I was never going to make this dress again.  HA HA HA!
I made two more! 

The dress colors were chosen all because of these 2 purses.

These are to be their party favors and I have filled them up with lip gloss, hard candies, hand sanitizer, and nail clippers (they really don’t hold much).
To say these were easier to make is well…. I understand now why some of the instructions on the first dress didn’t make much sense. I made mistakes that were completely my own fault a few times which made them more difficult.  But overall much easier.  I love how we incorporated lace to match the purses.  Now Princess will have her own matching posse when we go to the musical.
I hope to have her dress finished for tomorrows post, however, for a sneak peek here is her dresses inspiration.

Chips AColor

I am so excited to have these FINALLY finished!  I have wanted to make these for quite sometime now.  It is the same concept of the Chips ACount cookies but this time with color.  There are 10 colors, white, black, blue, purple, pink, red, brown, green, orange, and yellow.  On one side there is the chips with the corresponding color and on the other side is the color that I hand embroidered.

I had to hand embroider the words and I am still learning how to do it so it isn’t as clean as I would like it but I think they still turned out ok.  Maybe one day I will have an embroider machine to do it for me.  My sewing machine does do letters but they are so small that I just didn’t like how it looked on them.

I hope with time to tweak these a little bit differently but we will see.

I even created my own labels to go on my items.  These were intended to be temporary until I can afford to buy actual labels but I think they look great so I may keep them.  I had some iron on, printable fabric (another thing I bought when Joanne’s was going out of business) and I just shrunk the design and put my etsy shop address on them.  What do you think?  Keepers?  The cost was great too because I know the package cost under $1 when I bought it. I had an extremely difficult time trying to get images of it.

Chips AColor are now in my etsy shop as well, if interested just click on the link to the left.  They are currently priced at $12.50 but just a note I will be rising the price at the end of the month to $15.00 and shipping will stay the same.  So if you want one for a few dollars less now is the time to buy them.

Little teapot, Big teapot

I have wanted to make these for awhile they are my version of big sister, little sister shirts.  I planned on making these for a girl I went to school with so that I could convince her to be one of my test groups.  She agreed before I made these though, I mean who doesn’t like to receive free gifts?  I still had the shirts though and these are now in the mail.

I used my silhouette for this project but it can easily be done without one.  I found a teapot design that I liked and forked out the 99 cents for it.  I originally planned on having the phrases, “I’m a little teapot” and “I’m a big teapot” but I eventually settled on “little teapot” and “big teapot.”

I thought about doing the lettering in fabric but I really am enjoying using the heat transfer vinyl so I used that in place of the fabric which also meant I had less sewing.

I think these turned out cute and I’m thinking for a boy’s maybe “big truck” and “little truck”?

Stuffed Frog

As I mentioned yesterday I am in the process of testing out a new business venture, it will be several months if not a year before I launch it as I want to get all of the bugs out but here is a sneak peak of one of the gift sets I put together.

It includes a blanket, 2 burp rags, a 2 month onesie, a 3 month onesie, a frog onesie, a diaper clutch (designed my a lemon squeezy home), and the stuffed frog.

This gift basket is intended for the child for the ages of 2 and 3 months and my original intent for the frog was to make it a touch and feel type of stuffed toy.  I didn’t quite work out how I intended but I think it still came out rather cute.

Let me explain what I originally intended. His legs were to be a different type fabric then his arms.  I had a corduroy fabric but I made the legs too thin and was unable to stuff him, if I make him again I would make slight adjustments.  I was going to have them filled with different materials, and had a squeaker that I intended to put in the foot.  Even though it didn’t work out I still like how his hands and feet turned out.

I was surprised looking around cyber space that the stuffed frogs don’t have tongues. I mean to me that is what a frog is for to catch fly's with his long tongue.  I even made a little fly out of felt and hand stitched it to his tongue.

As I mentioned earlier he was supposed to have different textures, my original plan was to have the body be fleece, the eyes flannel, arms felt, and the the legs corduroy.  Had I known I wasn’t going to be pleased with the legs I would have made the eye fabric match the body but I had already hand stitched on the eye pieces so I kept them a different color.  I also filled them with some thin clear vinyl so that when you touch him his eyes will make a crinkling sound. I think his eyes are a little bit further apart than I like but I think overall they turned out ok.

I was going to feel the body with some Styrofoam beans but ended up just stuffing it with polyester fiberfill and I put the squeaker in his body.  My original plan also had the feet and arms coming from the bottom so I put an extra piece of fabric on the bottom of the body, which also makes it easier for him to sit up with.

He came together really quickly and from design to finish I would say it took about an hour to make.  Would anyone be interested in a tutorial?  I think I may try again but this time make it an actual touch frog, what do you think?  Anyway I can easily put a tutorial and pattern together if anyone is interested.

Now I just need to think of a name for him, hmm?