Cricut fun

So for the last one and one half years I have owned a Cricut Create and did nothing with it. Well now I have! Thanks to my friend Jackie, I learned a few things, first of all I learned that I could connect it to the Cricut Craft Room which, for some reason, I thought only the newer ones could connect to the PC. Well I was wrong of course!

Here's a funny (not really) story!
I hooked up my Cricut to my pc after downloading the Craft Room and it said I needed to update the firmware. I attempted to numerous times, called the company- they had me load the old verion of the room, try a differnet browser and run through the update a few more times, bought and used a new USB cable.... IT DIDN'T WORK!
Asked Jackie for help.....
Turns out, like any other tech issue, it was an operater error. Wrong firmware (well right firmware wrong machine). Sadly I'm suppose to work in the IT field. :-(
End of funny story!

Anywho, I played around with a couple different cartridges just to get the hang of learning the buttons. I even had the chance to purchase some Heat N Bond iron-on fusible interfacing. So with all of that being said these are the sad thing I attempted to make my first go 'round.

The two items on a black background are adhered to black cotton fabric using the fusible interface. The others are on basic card stock.

Now I know how to use the machine and the software.

THANKS JACKIE!

Poppin Tags!

Poppin Tags!!

(not sure if rights are reserved to that saying... :-/  )

I am a super fan of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, thanks to my good friend Too Real. After buying their album "The Heist" I fell in love with the song "Thift Shop". Too Real and I every now and then go 'diggin' through bins at the Goodwill Outlets to find either items for the family, ourselves or to use as fabric to craft. It's great you are not spending nearly as much money as you normally would but you are helping in return. There are some pretty awesome things in the outlet.

While I was there I found an older dress, green and cream(probably white at one time) picnic patterned dress. Of course when I saw it, I liked it for what is was, it screamed retro and that's my world. But when I got home I decided to hack it. Something simple since I am just getting into the sewing game. So I got home soaked it in baking soda water and then washed it. After dring I cut the top off, hemmed it and made it into a crop top. More than likely I will pair it with a pair of cream shorts for the summer or pants for the spring. Or maybe even a dark green pair of shorts.

yes it is a dark green,

I forgot to take a picture prior to cutting the top off!! (SILLY ME)

I may add some elastic to the hem to get a closer fit.

This craft was inspired by "Thift Shop" , Too Real and Refashionista

Sewing Beginner

Super Beginner

So here's the deal, my friend [TooReal] and I have begun to sew. Each of our reasons for sewing vary, I wanted to learn to sew more so to hem pants for the boys and to upcycle shirts and long skirts for myself and to learn to make accessories like ties and vest but anywho.... I started messing around.

First, I suck at learning things, I tend to not want to take baby steps. I want to jump right in and do complicated things knowing goodness well I should learn to thread the machine first. Cortney had to come fix my machine for me because whenever I would sew the thread would bunch up under the fabric. She definitely got to laugh at me, I had the thread on the bobbin winder instead of the spool pin! The tension was wrong, so I called the company. The sent me a PDF version of the instruction.

Sewing first

So as you may have noticed I jump from craft to craft, this time it was sewing. I made a conscientious decision to not purchase a dress from a store for my command Christmas party so I went hunting for an easy dress to make. I Google searched and looked on Pinterest and ran across SewPetiteGal.

She created this simple and easy to make dress that I loved.

But of course two things happened, it didn't come out the way I wanted it to and I had other visions in my mind of what I wanted it to look like in the end. 

I followed her instructions and made the one shoulder dress, which was fine, but for some reason I am fasinated with trains (maybe because it makes me look shorter! Sure that's what I will tell myself!!) So I added one some kind of way. (Needless to say it didn't look good)

this is the color of the fabric I chose. The blue interlock of course for the dress and the organza for the train I decided to add. This is how it turned out...

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not cute!

So I started playing around with the sewing machine (by the way the dress is only the third thing I ever tried putting stitches in by machine) and laying the fabric on my body different ways and landed a great look. So I added jewelry and took funny photos!

                         sexy huh!!                                   

But that wasn't good enough! Then it turned into this.....

 still not too bad, but there's that train again!!

But after a couple hours for a couple days I decided I can be myself. I want a sexy retro look with a new twist. All those years of seeing 1930's, 40's and 50's movies I wanted to be old school beautiful.

So I bought long black gloves, rhinestone jewelry (bracelets, earrings, necklace and rings) and pinned my hair up and under like the lady in 007 Skyfall. I even jeweled the shoes. All in all I love the dress I made and I felt beautiful in it.

 

 

   and I made a poncho style coat!!

Learned a few sewing things but all in all I was more than happy.

Thanks to my friends Kay and TooReal for putting up with the emails asking for their opinions!!

               

Strawberry-Kiwi cupcakes

So it has been quite some time since I have shared my creations. This time around I made sure to make a photo/video journal of the kitchen mayhem I created! These cupcakes were a thought to put my two favorite fruits together, which has already been done in drinks, so why not a cupcake.

FRESH INGREDIENTS, CUPCAKES MADE FROM SCRATCH.

As usual my husband and co-worker are my taste tester! At work I have them fill out little critique cards, I can't get better unless I know what is wrong. I think they hate the cards but haven't received any bad critiques. So here it is....

Three variations of a Strawberry-Kiwi cupcake.
*All three variations had kiwi frosting in order to add the kiwi flavor.

I decided to do a (1) Strawberry cupcake, a (2) Yellow cupcake with Strawberry compote and a (3) Strawberry soda cupcake

(1) STRAWBERRY CUPCAKE

I used the syrup, from the strawberry compote as well as more fresh 

strawberries when I made the cake batter.

(2) YELLOW CAKE WITH STRAWBERRY COMPOTE

I make the strawberry compote prior to baking the cupcakes as the cupcakes bake I slightly chill the compote. After both the cupcakes and compote chill I remove about 1/2 inch from the center of the cupcakes and pack down the remaining center, so that the compote does not seep through the bottom of the cupcakes. Then pour compote, ensure the liquid goes in first and then the fruit pieces.

you can either use a fruit/veggie corer (left) or the end of a potato peeler(right)

after the compote is poured in your cupcakes, this is what it will look like. 

(3)STRAWBERRY SODA

The Strawberry soda cupcake was made with just that strawberry soda! Of course I made a simple white cake batter and substituted less sugar and no baking powder for the soda.

So there it is 3 versions of a strawberry cupcake. The soda version more than likely can be used with a boxed cake mix and the compote version is probably best suited for those who like strawberries but do not LOVE them.

    

                                                                                                    

The retirement cake

Okay so it has been a couple months since I made my chiefs retirement cake. But her it is. It was a full sheet cake, half strawberry and half cannoli cake. The writing is very child like and well my rice cereal treat molds were much better than when I first tried to make it. I am not super proud of the final product but I was happy with it, I am a little hard on myself only because it does not look as professional as a normal retirement cake. I am happy because the family was happy. Because of this cake I am surely making plans to take the 2 week Wilton decorating school and get a diploma in Pastries at the Art institute of Virginia Beach.

I made a "dixie cap" with the name of his first ship and tried to make a chief's cover. Around the edge of the cake I used Ghirardelli Dark Cocoa chips. Once again I thank Mr. Hickman and his family for allowing me to make a cake for such a momentous occasion.

Something new....Something small....Something easy??!

So have you ever seen something so cute? These are the new fad "Cake Pops". They are bite size cake in many shapes and colors. The one above is a wonderful creation from "Bakerella", she has been seen on Martha Stewart for her tasty and sight entising cake pops. More of her edible art can be seen on http://www.bakerella.com/ . Anyway I searched to find an easy recipe to try and trust me there were many to choose from, so the decision was a little harder than I had presumed. I eventually decided to just use the Wilton videos from Youtube and put my own twist to it. I decided to make chocolate pops. I started with my own homemade cake batter and used Nutella instead of frosting to form the shapes. I must say when I first shaped them they didn't look very appealing.

But I kept working on them I know in the end they were going to be one of two things, tasty or beautiful, and well by the looks of things I sure hope tasty! Well I have learned if you don't follow the instructions, everything they tell you it may NOT end well. My first mistake was the type of stick I used to make the pops. I did not take the time to purchase lollipop sticks, instead I decided to maintain my frugal-ness and use skewers. Well they don't hold up very well, the cake rounds just kinda slipped down the stick. It seemed that that was the begining of my issues. I had noting to hold up the pops after inserting the stick so that I could decorate them. Next mistake is marshmallo fluff! Well I did know that fluff doesn't harden like regular marshmallow. That was a mess trying to dip and watching it drip.

As you can see I tried to use a deep fryer pan to hold up the pops, this is when I learned the fall off the sticks for being too long. So I chopped down the sticks and dipped them in chocolate, my oh my did they look much better.I was afraid that the chocolate was not going to harden like I wanted them to but alas it looked much better, by the time I finished dipping the last pop the first one had already began to harden. This time I used some styrofoam that came from my new laptop box. Worked wonders for me. 

Well I got my icing, tried a couple different tips to decorate and went to work. I have to work on maintaing a steady hand but I guess I will learn that when I finally take a decorating class. Until then I will keep playing around to perfect my home made recipes. But I hope you like the photos below. I must say I knew they were tasty, shucks, pretty much anything made with Nutella is going to be good. But I am glad they came out just as beautiful.

In the end the recipe was quite easy but you must always follow directions and much easier if I had the correct tools.