Play Dough Recipe

 

Have you ever made homemade play dough?  I have tried a few recipes and this one is my favorite.  It was given to me last year by my girls’ preschool.  It is easy, quick, affordable, and fun!

 

Our Favorite Play Dough Recipe:

Include your child in measuring, pouring and kneading. Making the dough is great science fun. Playing with play dough strengthens small muscles in the hand, crucial to later writing skills!

Microwave until boiling:

2 cups water

2 tablespoons oil mixed with drops of food coloring

In a separate bowl stir together:

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

4 teaspoons cream of tarter

Pour wet ingredients into dry and stir together vigorously. When cool to the touch, your child can knead the mixture to blend. Store in a plastic bag or container to keep fresh. 

We made lavender and pink play dough.

 

For the lavender we used Wilton’s food coloring and for the pink we used traditional food color.  Both worked great!  The nice thing about the Wilton’s is that there is a lot more variety.

 

Oh and if you are trying to take a picture of your Play Dough title, be quick about it and watch out for cute little boys because this could happen before you know it!

Happy Playing!

Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day!
I hope you had an enjoyable weekend. I know we did!

Machine Applique and Embroidery

So I had a big birthday a couple of months ago.  No, I don’t want to talk about it.    Anyway, I got a couple of really amazing presents.  I actually can’t believe I got both of them. 

 

The first was a Brother se400 Sewing and Embroidery  Machine.

 

The second was a Brother 1034D Serger.

 

I’m working on learning how to use the embroidery machine.  It is a great first machine because it is also a sewing machine and the price isn’t too outrageous.  The only down side that I can see so far is that it can’t stitch any bigger than a 4”x4” hoop.  So if you want bigger than this save up because most embroidery machines cost over $600!  I don’t see that happening any time soon.

 

So I really like my Brother se400.  It has a great instructional cd too.  There are many helpful tutorials on the internet for learning to machine embroider and applique.  The best one that I found was HERE at Love From Texas.

Jessica gives lots of step by step instructions with photos.  She also links to her favorite sites for buying embroidery patterns.  Very helpful!

I thought that I would start with a free peace sign applique that I found.  I thought since it was round that it would be super easy.

 

 

  Ummm, I didn’t think about having to cut out the holes in the middle of the peace sign.  Lets just say that it didn’t go so well.  Even though I knew that I would have to be super careful, I still managed to cut a hole in the t-shirt.  Ughhhh! 

 

 

 

To salvage the shirt, I decided to cut through the other holes as well and sew a green piece of fabric on the inside of the shirt kind of like a reverse applique.  It didn’t turn out too bad.  I had to leave a little bit of the blue t-shirt fabric around the edges of the holes so that the stitching wouldn’t unravel.

 

 

My girls still liked it so I guess that is all that matters.

For my second attempt my girls wanted a butterfly.  Beautiful, no holes!

 

Here’s what it looks like with just the fabric pieces sewn down pre-embroidery.

Here’s what it look like after being embroidered.  I think that it came out pretty cool. 

 

I have to say that I am pretty excited about my new toy. 

I also made some cute Easter Bunny appliqued shirts for all four kiddos.

Happy Sewing!

Janey Jumper Pattern Review and Super Late Easter Post!

 

O.K., so I am super late with this post.  Better late than never right? 

(See the bottom of this post for a link to the Sock Bunnies tutorial.)

 

I used the Janey Jumper pattern by Lindsay of the Cottage Momma to make some Easter dresses for my girls.  I really love how they turned out. 

First of all, the Janey Jumper is not a PDF pattern.  It is an actual paper pattern that is mailed to you.  I loved not having to print out and piece together my pattern before starting.

There are lots of very clear step by step instructions with photos.  Best of all, Lindsay is super sweet and when I got stuck on the final step, I e-mailed her and she got back to me quickly!  Fortunately, I had already figured it out.  I would highly recommend this pattern to the intermediate sewer.  This dress is completely lined (which I love!) however, due to this it may be a little tricky for the novice sewer.

 

My favorite part of this dress is the beautiful scallops.  Lindsay gives a really genius way of making these turn out perfect.

 

Best of all, my girls loved them and they looked super cute for Easter.

 

On your mark…

 

Get set…

 

GO!!!

 

 

I also made a smaller version of this dress for my friend’s daughter to wear on her birthday.  Isn’t she cute?!!!

 

Happy Sewing!

P.S. I did a freezer paper stencil on the lining just in case the girls ever wanted to wear it reversed.

 

P.P.S.  I almost forgot to tell you about the sock bunnies.  They are from a very clever tutorial by Ashley over at Lil Blue Boo.