Pumpkin Seeds

“We” carved our pumpkin last night.  By “we” I mean my girls pointed to the picture in the book that they wanted and then ran off to play with their cousins.  My sister invited us over so that we could all carve our pumpkins together.  I told her that my original plan was to carve it after they went to bed.  My girls will just absolutely not touch pumpkin “Slime”!  Every year I try to get them to help me clean out the pumpkin but they are just not having it.  I used to do one pumpkin for each but have at least talked them into just one family pumpkin.  Not to mention that in a few years the boys would be wanting their own too and that would mean carving four pumpkins.  I don’t think so.

I think it turned out cute.  It’s a cat!  Do you see it?

Anyway, I really wanted some roasted pumpkin seeds and after carving this pumpkin, I was just to lazy to look up a recipe. 

Here is what I guessed at and they turned out great.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Separate the seeds from the “slime” and give them a good rinse in a colander.  Pat them dry.  Spread them out on a cookie sheet.  Drizzle with a table spoon or so of Olive Oil.  Shake some salt on top.  ( I used sea salt but I doubt that it matters.)  Cook for about 10 minutes.  Pull them out and redistribute them on the tray.  Cook for an additional 10 minutes.  (I’ll admit my cook times may be a bit sketchy as I was in the middle of an hilarious freezer paper painting project that I’ll be sharing with you in the next day or two.)  You basically want to cook them until they smell and look like they are done.  Clear as mud?  I hope you enjoy them!

Mama Stellato Giveaway!

The Train to Crazy is currently sponsoring a great giveaway from Mama Stellato.  Mama Stellato has some really cute patterns in her Etsy Shop.  I have recently purchased the Amelia Top, the Bella Dress, and the Charlotte Dress. 

 

They are very detailed with lots of pictures.  Mama Stellato’s most recent pattern is the Somerset Hoodie.

 

I would love to win this pattern because it is meant for knits, something I have just recently tried my hand at.  See my post for boy hoodies here.  Head on over to the Train to Crazy for your chance to win not only a Mama Stellato pattern but $20 to fabric.com.

Daphne Dresses

 
I finally finished the Daphne Dresses for the girls.  Better late than never.  It’s not that these dresses are difficult.  I just kept getting distracted with other projects.  As a matter of fact these dresses are really great because you can purchase kits to make them and all of the cutting is already done for you!  How awesome is that?  I swear I usually take one night to cut out my patterns and don’t even get to the sewing until the following night.  Anyway, The Train to Crazy was sponsoring a sew-a-long for these dresses over the summer.  Click here to see her step by step instructions.  I finished these just in the nick of time as the girls were able to wear them for school photos.  This was the size 5-8.  My girls are big 5 year olds who normally wear a size 8.  These dresses are just fitting in the chest and arm area.  I think we can eek out a couple more months in them.  At least we have them documented in photos now.  If you want to purchased a kit for the Daphne Dress or several other cute dresses go to Oh So Sassy’s Etsy shop.

Pumpkin Bread

 

I love fall!  I grew up in Florida so we didn’t have much in the way of seasons changing.  I still get totally excited about the start of each new season and all of the fun activities that go with them.  O.K. I’ll admit that part of that is excitement is about the yummy treats that go with each season too.  Dana over at MADE asked for our favorite pumpkin recipes.  Man did she get an overwhelming response!  I have to admit that I copied and pasted the comments to this post because there were so many good ideas from her readers.  It got me thinking about yummy pumpkin recipes.  I was given this pumpkin bread recipe a few years ago from a neighbor.  I’m sure that it is a very common pumpkin bread recipe but it sure is good.  We had some yummy pumpkin muffins for breakfast this morning!  Yummmm!  I love fall.

   

 

Pumpkin Bread

1 ¾ Cups Flour

1 ½ Cups Sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp salt

½ tsp nutmeg

1/8 tsp cloves

½ cup melted butter

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 egg, beaten

1/3 cup water

Mix together dry ingredients. In another bowl, mix together butter, pumpkin, egg and water. Add dry ingredients. Bake in greased and floured pan at 350°. Large loaf 1 hr. and 10 min. Six mini loaves approx. 30 min. Cool 10 min. Remove from pans to cooling rack.

I usually make 12 muffins out of this recipe and 30 mins. works great for that too.

Enjoy!

 

Simple Ruffled Skirt

I thought it was about time I attempted to write a tutorial so here goes!  Now first let me say that I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a ton of tutorials out there for this type of basic ruffled skirt.  This tutorial is definitely aimed at the Beginner Sewist.
I wanted to make something “Halloweenish” for my girls to wear to preschool and I didn’t feel like using a pattern so I just went for something easy that I could make up as I went along.  You will only need to take two measurements for this skirt.  Measure around your child’s waist and from your child’s waist to her knee.

 

Materials: 1/2 to 3/4 yards of festive fabric (depending on how tall your child is)

1/4 yard of coordinating fabric for the ruffle

Elastic 3/4” wide (I like the no roll kind)

Safety Pin (not pictured)

Sewing Machine, Thread, Seam Ripper, etc.

First fold the fabric in half width wise and trim off your selvedges. 

(If you don’t know, that’s the strip on each end that is not printed on and/or feels a little thicker.)

You will be using the entire width of the fabric for your skirt.  This should be approximately 44”.  Now measure from your child’s waist to her knee or your desired length.  I wanted the main body of the skirt to end at the knee and for the ruffle to go bellow the knee so that we could get a couple of years out of this skirt.  So, lets say that your child measures 15” from waist to knee.  Now add 2” to this number to allow for the elastic casing and the seam allowance with the ruffle.  So if your child measures 15” from waist to knee cut your fabric 17” long and the entire width of approximately 44”.  Got it?

 

Now you will cut 2 strips of fabric for your ruffle.   You can choose to make a wide or narrow ruffle.  For my skirt I wanted about a 2 1/2” ruffle.  I added an inch to this to allow for the hem and the seam allowance to the main part of the skirt.  That means that I cut two 3 1/2” strips of fabric the entire width of the fabric.  You want to cut two strips and sew them together to form one long strip.  Lay your strips of fabric right sides together and sew down one short end.  Press your seam.

Fold up one long side of your strip of fabric about 1/4” and press.

   

Fold up another 1/4” and press.  This will encase the raw edge.  Sew along the top of the folded edge for the entire length of the strip.

You have now made your bottom hem!

 

Now lets turn this long strip of fabric into a ruffle.  Sew one line of basting stitches about 1/4” from the top edge of the strip and another row of basting stitches about 1/4” bellow your first row of stitches.  What is a basting stitch you ask?  It just means that you are going to set your stitch length to the longest setting and do not back tack at the beginning and end of the row of stitches.  After you have done this, you will pull on the bobbin threads or the threads on the bottom. 

Continue to pull and spread out the gathers until  your ruffle strip is as wide as your main skirt piece.

Pin the ruffle right sides together with the bottom of your main skirt piece.  You will be matching up the raw edges. 

Don’t forget to set your stitch length back to the regular setting.  Sew the ruffle to the skirt piece.  Sew your line of stitching between the two basting lines of stitches.  Next you will finish off the seam allowance by sewing a zigzag stitch as close to the raw edge as possible.

Press the finished seam allowance towards the top of the skirt.  Top stitch the ruffle.  This means turn your skirt piece over to the right side and sew on the main skirt piece close to the seam.  You will also be sewing through the ruffle seam allowance that you pressed towards the top part of the skirt in the last step.  One row of basting stitches will be visible on your ruffle.  Pull this line of stitching out with your seam ripper.

 

Fold the skirt in half width wise and right sides together.  Match up raw edges, pin and sew using 1/2” seam allowance.  Be sure to match up the ruffle finished edge and upper seam.  Finish off the raw seam allowance with a zigzag stitch.

Fold down the top edge of the skirt about 1/4” and press.

 

Fold down again about 1 1/4” and press.

Sew around the entire top folded edge of the skirt.  Sew as close to the top folded edge of the skirt as possible. 

  

Now sew as close to the bottom folded edge.  Do not sew all the way around though.  Leave about a 2” opening.

Take your child’s waist measurement and cut a piece of 3/4” elastic the length of the waist measurement.  Attach a safety pin to one end of the elastic and insert it into the opening you left in the folded top band of the skirt.  Use the safety pin to work the elastic through this casing and out the other side.

Pull enough of the elastic out so that it is easy to work with.  Overlap the ends by about 1/2” and sew together with a zigzag stitch.

   

Give the top of the skirt a few tugs until the elastic works it’s way back inside the casing.  Try the skirt on your child to make sure that the elastic feels comfortable.  Sew the 2” opening closed.  It helps to hold the fabric stretched out while you sew. 

 

Viola!  You have a cute little ruffle skirt!

 

Da na na na BATMAN!!!!

I decided that it was time for another boy project!  The shirts were made using Freezer Paper stenciling.  I first discovered this trick at MADE.  See the tutorial here.  I have also posted about it previously here and here.   Basically you trace your desired stencil onto freezer paper (shiny side down). 

Then iron it onto your shirt and paint with fabric paint.

 

Apply two to three coats with dry time in between.

 

Then peel off your paper.  Lastly, put a piece of fabric over your design and iron to heat set.

 

That’s it!  Easy Peasy and now the boys have cool new shirts. 

I also came across this cute and simple tutorial for a bat mask at Living With Punks.  (I had a chuckle at this blog name because we call the boys the little punks!)  

 

This little super hero loved his mask!

 

This one, not so much.

Of course, if your little guy is going to be a super hero there is sure to be some running around your house.  I have found some nice comfy socks at Target but they only have the grippers on the bottom in the little baby sizes and those just don’t fit my guys anymore.  I thought that I had read somewhere that you could use fabric paint on the bottom to make your own grippies.  Then I found this tutorial at I am Momma Hear Me Roar!  Of course she got really snazzy and made neat pictures on the bottom.  I actually considered this and then realized that that would mean actually matching up socks.  Ummm… not going to happen in this house so I just did dots.

Now one thing that I did discover is that you want to use the Tulip paint that says SLICK and not PUFFY.  You would think that it would be the opposite but, the puffy paint just soaked right in and the slick paint stayed more 3D.

Now a word of warning!  If you happen to have two little super heroes in your house…

They may be sneaky and hide in the couch cushions!

 

They may even start to wrestle each other in those couch cushions!

 

Trust me that is not just a brotherly hug.  I think I see a bat bite coming on!

 

Then when they finally get all tuckered out, they may pretend to sleep under your couch cushions.  Complete with saying “Night Night” over and over and fake snoring!  I swear, when these two aren’t making me feel totally exhausted and overwhelmed they are pretty darn funny!