Monday, September 27, 2010

Wicked Good Apple Pie… No Seriously!

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Our family went apple picking a few days ago and the weather was amazing!  I think that this is the first time that we will have apple picking pictures in our shorts and t-shirts.

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We had a blast, especially the boys who couldn’t believe that they were allowed to run free! 

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Apple picking of course means time to make apple pie.  Several years ago, a lovely woman named Mary Donnelly gave this recipe to my mom.  Now it is the only type of apple pie that we make in our family.  It is really good and really easy!

Ingredients: 5-7 Tart Apples peeled, cored, and sliced.

          1 9” unbaked pastry shell  (Shhhh, I use the Pillsbury ready made pie crust)

          1/2 Cup of Sugar

          3/4 Tablespoon of Cinnamon

          1/3 Cup of Sugar

          3/4 Cup of Flour

          6 Tablespoons of Butter

 

Prepare your pie crust and place in a 9” pie plate.  Now I used to go to all of the trouble to prepare and roll out a pie crust from scratch.  I scoffed at those ready made pie crust.  Then…. I thought it would be an excellent idea to have two sets of twins!!!!  I broke down and tried the Pillsbury ready made pie crust because basically it was that or nothing.  Guess what?  There actually good!  Best of all, no mess.  If you insist on making your own pie crust, go right ahead. :) 

Next peel, core and slice your apples and place in pie shell.

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Mix 1/2 cup of sugar with 3/4 Tablespoons of Cinnamon and sprinkle over apples.

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Mix 1/3 cup of sugar with 3/4 cup of flour.  Cut in 6 Tablespoons of butter.  The butter should be really cold.  Use two knives and just keep cutting the butter across until the mixture becomes crumbly.  Sprinkle crumb mixture over the apples.

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Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.  Lower the heat to 375 degrees and bake for an additional 35 minutes.  If the crust browns too quickly, cover the edges with foil.  Cool and top with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. 

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Enjoy some wicked good apple pie… no seriously!

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Thursday, September 23, 2010

Sharpie Tie Dye

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The girls had their birthday party this past weekend.  It was a Fancy Nancy party so we decided to do a fancy craft.  This idea comes from Char over at Crap I’ve Made.  (Got to love that blog name!)  We did some Sharpie Tie Dye.  I have to admit, I was a little nervous about a bunch of 4 & 5 year olds doing this project but all the parents helped their little ones and it turned out great!  I also printed out pictures (from Char’s site) and directions.

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The directions say that you should do nice little dots around in a circle.  During a trial run with my girls, we discovered that any old design turns out cool so don’t worry about it too much if you are working with little ones.  Basically, you place a cup inside your shirt.  Put a rubber band around the top of the cup.  Color with sharpie markers in a variety of colors.  Drip 10-15 drops of rubbing alcohol on top and watch it spread.  Be sure to have a grown up iron the shirt before washing to help heat set the color.  That’s it!!!  Thanks so much Char for a great idea.  We had loads of fun!

 

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Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Happy Birthday Princesses

Something inexplicable happened a few days ago.  My “baby” girls turned five!  How did this happen?  I keep telling them to stop growing but they just laugh and keep right on growing. 

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We had a lovely family party on their actual birthday and they are looking forward to their friend party this weekend.  I made them these cute twirl skirts from Growing Up With Rosie.  I know they are a bit frilly but I figure that they won’t let me get away with it for much longer.  The pattern was very simple and easy to follow.  They only thing I would say about it is that it runs a bit big.  Fortunately, I measured and sewed the one for my smaller girl first and ended up using it for my bigger girl.  I was then able to scale it down a bit more for the smaller one.  Of course you want it big and full and “twirly”.  I think that I would just take a few inches off the length. 

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It also gave me a chance to try appliqué again.  I have been wanting to do appliqué for ages but have always been afraid of getting a nice zigzag stitch all the way around.  Recently I have found a lot of examples of just straight stitching around the appliqué.  Of course with knit appliqué like the dinosaur I did for the boys, it doesn’t matter because knit doesn’t fray.  Even using a straight stitch with cotton fabric is O.K. as long as you know that it will have that frayed look over time.  Guess what, I’m O.K. with that if it means I can finally try my hand at appliqué. 

I appliquéd a cute little cupcake on the peek-a-boo part of the skirt and on a store purchased t-shirt.  I think that they came out really cute and I like the button cherry on top.

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I also was able to sew this cute little art tote for the girls.  I used a free tutorial from my favorite blog, From and Igloo.  My apologies to Christine for using the exact same fabric.  Lame, I know.  I had been eyeing it and trying to think of something fun to make for the girls with it and then I came across the art tote  tutorial and just had to do it. 

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They totally love them!

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Happy Birthday little girls!  Mommy loves you very much!

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Thursday, September 2, 2010

Reverse Appliqué

The girls were invited to their cousin’s birthday party last week.  I decided that it would be nice to make a homemade present.  As I mentioned in my last post, I tried appliqué for the first time.  This time I decided to give reverse appliqué a try.  It was actually easier than I thought that it would be.  I followed this wonderful tutorial.
I used a new pink shirt and a cover up that was only worn once before my girls grew out of it.
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First, cut the shape that you want to appliqué out of paper.  Then cut a square of fabric big enough to fit your shape.   IMG_4751
Turn your shirt inside out and pin the square of fabric to the inside front of the shirt.
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The next step was a bit tricky for me and I had to make a few adjustments.  Turn your shirt right side out and pin your paper shape to the front of the shirt.  Make sure it is over your square of fabric pinned to the inside of your shirt.  The tutorial says to just sew around the edge of your paper shape.  Well my shirt was pulling and tugging as I sewed and I had a very hard time doing this as you can see. 
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I decided to trace the shape with water soluble marker instead.  It is hard to tell, but the blue line to the left is my original stitching and the rest is marker. 
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I knew that my stitch line would be all wonky, so I decided to go with it.  That’s why I chose the blue thread rather than the pink so that it would show up.  I just went with the wobbliness (Yes, that’s a word!) and stitched around the edge twice so that the lines could overlap and look funky.  After you have stitched, carefully pull up the pink shirt only and cut.  Be very careful not to cut your square of fabric underneath.
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Turn your shirt inside out and trim the square of fabric.
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Viola, a cute little gift!
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 Of course this will look much nicer once I wash the marker off! :)
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