Sunday Breakfast #2: Cherry Swirl Coffee Cake

So, I pinned this 26 weeks ago, and finally made it.  Thanks to this post section I might make my way through some of my "plans."  But then again, are pins plans or just ideas?  Making a special breakfast on Saturday this week because we may go "farming" tomorrow.

Made as directed, with the exception of a half batch of batter, but a full 21 ounces of pie filling.  Spreading the batter in the bottom of the pan was difficult to get full coverage.  It was very good, a little sweet, and you can really taste/smell the almond.  Hubby said "it is very similar to your braided thing" which is a homemade braided bread loaf with a cream cheese filling and preserves spread on the top (I grew up eating it for Christmas morning breakfast, but as a new family we have moved it to Thanksgiving morning because hubby's family had eggs benedict for Christmas breakfast, so it was a compromise we had to make).

Of course as I was reading the recipe and some of the comments I decided that I needed some cream cheese in there somewhere.  My hubby was like "you haven't made it yet and you're already changing the recipe."  After eating it, I will probably figure out some sort of cream cheese mix to add in next time.  I'll let you know how it goes.

 

Schoolwork Display

Update (4 September 2012):  It's on the wall!  I chose to put it in the playroom above her toy cubby-shelf thing.  It was even motivation to get the playroom picked up so that I could take a picture.

My oldest starts Junior Preschool on Tuesday!  I can't believe that I'm sending Melodi, my two-and-a-half-year-old, off to school two days a week.  With preschool comes cute little art projects to enjoy, and with the start of school Pinterest has been teaming with beginning of school projects to do.

Here is the finished project, inspired by several pins that were rolling around in my head.  The artwork is my own, the "Melodi" was my first cut using Design Studio after getting my Cricut almost two years ago, and the alphabet pages are the contributions I made to an alphabet book swap on the Cricut Community Message Board.

How I Re-Purposed the Frame (inspiration 1, inspiration 2, there may have been more that I saw but didn't pin)

Raise frame on pushpins (inspiration), sand and paint.  Sand and paint some more.  Cut cork.  Adhere cork to glass from the frame using spray adhesive.  Trim cork.  Adhere second cork layer (wanted it thicker than a single layer).

Set cork/glass into frame.  Tap finishing nails into frame and bend over.  Add enough to secure firmly.

 

How I Made My Clothes Pin Push Pins

Take apart push pins and paint (inspiration) at the same time as the frame.  Put pins back together.  Hot glue the push pins to the clothes pins (inspiration).  Hot glue buttons to clothes pins.

I love how this project turned out, so now to figure out where to hang it and wait for Melodi to bring home her first piece of artwork from Junior Preschool. 

Mozzarella from a Gallon of Milk

WOW!  This was so fun to make and absolutely delicious to consume.  A couple weeks ago I came across this pin on Pinterest which took me to Simple Bites post about The Best Party Trick Ever: How to Make Thirty Minute Mozzarella.  I'd like to share some notes about our first two attempts to make this.

#1.  Our first attempt turned out a little tough and dry.  We used 2% milk, and think that it was heated and handled too much.  It was possible to shape it into a nice log to cut.  Sorry no pictures, I was having a rough day.

#2.  The next day our mozzarella turned out amazing, it was nice and soft and gooey.  This time we used whole milk, and heated and handled it much less.  This time it was hard to get it to shape into a log, but if we let it cool a little it probably would have been possible.

I'm working on editing the video so it's not 30 minutes long.  There are some really cool points in the video that you can really see stuff happening.

Finished Caprese Salad.

Even my 2 year old ate the cheese!

My hubby did some research on what to do with the "leftover" whey after our first attempt because he didn't want it to go to waste.  He found The Prairie Homestead's post "16 Ways to Use Your Whey" decided that he would try to make ricotta (using this recipe from Fias Co Farm/Dairy) with the second batch.  While we didn't do anything with the ricotta it turned out well, although it needed some salt and a lot of the cheese got stuck in the cheese cloth.

Ricotta Cheese.

We got about a pound of mozzarella each time even with the changes, and between a quarter and a third of a cup of ricotta was produced from the resulting whey. 

Graduation!

We attended a couple graduation parties last month.  One was for a cousin of mine and the other was for a neighbor.  I looked through my card pins on pinterest and thought I would do a patchwork card (like this one from The Paper Stamper or this one from Stuck on Stampin') for each of them, but when I sat down to craft I didn't find enough patterns that I liked in the schools' colors.

Sitting on my tables were three sets of felt flowers from Three Bugs in a Rug (The Back Porch, Luke & Lola, and Chalk Garden) that I got at the LSS Trash & Treasure sale.  Since I had just looked through my pins I had this one in mind from all things paper.  I don't think I've ever used stitching on a card before, even though I've had my Sew Easy for quite a while now.  The stitching was all done with the Sew Easy straight stitch (I added an extra hole between each standard hole) and white thread.  Everything I used was in my stash.

I really like how these turned out.

Busy Bag List

((I started this post a long time ago, seeing as baby is 3 weeks old we're looking at about 2.5-3 months))

Our second baby is due in 8-10 weeks and as I will be nursing I need something for Melodi to do while I take some quiet time with baby.  I think the best way to accomplish this is to make a LARGE collection of Busy Bags or Quiet Bins.  I'm going to start with some Busy Bags and reserve Quiet Bins for when Melodi gives up her nap, but still needs some quiet time to herself.

There is a collection of ideas that I have found on Pinterest for Busy Bags.  I figure that I will need about 4 a day for 5 days during the week, so I need to come up with 20 bags.  I think that some of these may be books, magnet sets, and chunky wooden puzzles kept "put away" for nursing time.  Of course I would like for most of them to be educational or developmental in nature, and NOT messy.

It is going to be a work in progress as I have quite a few pins to sort through.  Luckily I have 2 months to get these together, but I also have a pile of other projects.  Maybe I'll have the planning done and be ready to do the shopping when my mother-in-law is out next month to help me with final baby prep.

Current Idea List

1. Paper, colored pencils/crayons (add stickers when a little older)
2. Lacing cards
3. Pipe cleaners, pony beads
4. Matching Color Shades (a little to young still, so do a Color Matching Wheel)
5. Felt board
1. build your own cupcake
2. tree
3. house
4. doll and clothes
6. Letter magnets (refrigerator, these are better than the premade bright colored ones)
7. Number magnets (refrigerator)
8. Fishing (felt fish with washers inside, pencil fishing pole)
9. Sensory Texture Boards
10. Matching Cards (store bought since we have a couple, or homemade)
11. Button Matching Game (I like the one a little ways down this page better)
12. Quiet Books (also useful for church, meetings, etc)
13. File Folder Games (switch out seasonally)
1. The Easter Story
2. Daniel in the Lions Den (telling time, too young still)
3. Shapes
4. Flowers
5. Counting (octopus, watermelon)
6. Colors
14. Lacing Cards (make with laminated cardstock shapes and a hole punch)
15. Popsicle Stick Puzzles
16. Color Sorting
1. colored pasta into cups
2. craft pompoms onto color cards
17. Flashcards
1. color
2. alphabet
3. animals/sounds
18. Lacing Beads

Some of these will make for good car travel bags for our road trip this summer and future PCS moves.

Button Snake

I was organizing my Pinterest boards earlier this week and later that night I was watching shows on my computer.  My hands needed something to do and I remembered seeing this idea and since I had everything I needed sitting in front of me I figured I had something to work on.  It wasn't on my original list of busy bag projects, but rather quick and easy.  There are several different ideas out there, I did a google search for "button snake" and clicked on one of the images that was listed at the top which took me to Jonah Lisa Land's post.

Not too much to write so here are some pictures.  My supply list and directions are below.  I'll do another button snake using smaller buttons and felt pieces once Melodi has mastered this one.

Supplies:
5/8" grosgrain ribbon (about a yard)
2 buttons (about 1")
Thread
1.5" square felt pieces

Directions:
Sew the buttons onto the ends of the ribbon.
Cut a bunch of felt squares.
Cut a slit into the middle of each square, just big enough for the button.

Felt Board Busy Bags

Yesterday I got three busy bag felt board sets done.  While the felt board isn't made yet the labor of cutting pieces is (mostly).  I decided to make a cupcake, tree and doll set.

While I started with a list I definitely didn't stick to it when I got to the store.  I ended up with a large (12x18) and a small (9x12) stiffer white felt which I plan to attach to something to use as the board.  This is more than half (15) of my pile of felt (24) so I bought too much felt since I have a lot of usable scraps left to finish up other busy bags.  Since I was making some dolls I decided to get some printed felt also (3).

 
Here are my cupcakes.  I used this pattern from Money Saving Mom.  The only pieces left to make for this bag are the toppings for the cupcakes.  I skipped making them because I want to use the scraps but started with this set.

I designed this tree in Publisher.  Get the file below!

For the dolls I used the Dress Up Dolls pattern from Little Gene Green Bean.  I created the dress by pinning the tank top and skirt next to each other and cutting it out as a single piece.  The hair was made by drawing around the head on a piece of paper to make a template.  I still plan to make shoes since they are Melodi's favorite.

As promised, here is the tree template.  VIEW PDF

It was a busy but productive day.  Hubby finished up Melodi's new dresser and watched Melodi while doing it.  Definitely nice to have a crafty day while not having to watch Melodi.  I was also able to get some pictures done and backdated posts finished up.

Easter Photo Props

Since we didn't do Christmas photos in 2011 or get birthday photos done in February, we decided to go to an Easter Mini Session hosted by Danette Kay Photography to catch up.  This means I'm completely ready for Easter, as far as Melodi's outfit goes with a dress, decorated basket, and hat.

My first instinct when looking at buying clothes for Melodi online is to go to JCPenney's website because I'm partial to Penney's.  Of course the one I liked was only available online and I didn't have time to have it shipped.  My next thought was about a gift card I had in my purse for Sears.  I will definitely have to start shopping at Sears more for cute dresses because they had a lot to choose from.  Since I had found an idea I liked at Penney's I went into Sears looking for the same design and had a few choices that were similar to the dress I found at Penney's.

JCPenney Dress

Sears Dress

This is the first Easter (even though it's her third) that Melodi is walking by herself so she gets a real Easter basket.  I wanted to find a plain basket that would be easy to decorate each year to match her outfit.  Target had the basket in several colors so I decided on a white one over the brown one.  I wove two layers of fuchsia tulle that I had on hand and two ribbons (one solid green, the other pink with white pokadots) through the weave of the basket and finished it off with a bow.

Recognize the grass?  It's from the Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Party we had for Melodi in February!  I love having supplies on hand to make a project more cost efficient.  We did put some eggs in the basket for the photo shoot, and we're lucky to have found some in the "right" colors.  I went to JoAnns, Target, and Walmart in order to find eggs that would work, I probably could have stayed closer to home by going to Hobby Lobby but it was Sunday so they were closed.

For Melodi's hat I had one of those crocheted hats on hand that was the right color to match her dress.  I based my design off a Lollitop that Melodi received from a friend at Easter last year.  This was another project that I had just about everything that I needed on hand.  The only thing I had to buy was dowels to make the curly ribbon and thicker white ribbon to weave through the hat, I didn't even have to buy starch since hubby spray starches his blues shirts.  The bow (directions below, sorry no step by step pictures) is a removable hair clip that can be used on the hat, on a headband, or in Melodi's hair.

I had a blast doing these projects and it is always nice having a hubby that support my crazy crafting crazes.

Steph's Curly Bow Directions
Materials

Ribbons
Dowels
Clothes pins
Spray starch
Alligator clip
Hot glue
Needle and thread

Steps

1. Wrap dowels with ribbon and secure each end with a clothes pin.  Do not overlap the ribbon.
2. Spray starch on each ribbon wrapped dowel.  Place on a foil lined baking sheet.
3. Bake at 275 degrees F for 25 minutes.  Let cool and remove from dowel.
• While baking the ribbon cover the alligator clip with ribbon using hot glue.
4. Trim ends at an angle since they didn't get sprayed with starch.
5. Cut ribbon into smaller sections, 3-4 inches each.
6. Stack ribbon holding the centers together.
7. Put a small stitch into the center and secure.
8. Hot glue the bow onto the covered alligator clip.

Sources
Adapted from several pins and web search directions.  Some starch and bake, others just bake, and of course there is little consistency with baking temperatures or times.

• Glorious Treats
• Notes from the Patch  

There is one more (from a general how to site) that I remember looking at but I can't find right now, and it's time for bed, so goodnight and I will try to find it tomorrow.

Card Making Machine

This weekend has been busy with card making.  I made up a set of thank you notes for Melodi's birthday earlier in the week and finished them up this weekend, they are at the bottom of the Melodi's Second Birthday Party post.  A couple of birthday cards were also on my to do list, one for my grandma and one for my bestie Liz.  Finally, I finished up my Christmas thank yous, but that was only because the last package arrived and I had some extras from December/January left laying around (I really did get the rest of them out earlier than 2 months after Christmas).

Birthday Card for Grandma
This is an original design of mine.  I used the Cricut cartridge Straight from the Nest for the bird and used the CCR for to cut all layers.  Any sentiment could be used, I used the same "happy birthday" as on the next card, stamped in brown on the inside.  I used the brown card from the DCWV Solid Box of Cards, a Bazzill brown from my scraps, the cream and green both came from the DCWV Latte matstack, and the red goes a long way back as it was in my scraps from my WSU graduation announcements.  The green ribbon is from an Offray microspool.

Birthday Card for Bestie
I found this pinned for a hello card and when I was looking through my Papercrafts: Cards board for a quick and easy card it is the one that won.  Once again the card is form the DCWV Solid Box of Cards.  The pink and green ribbons are from Offray microspools and the yellow is from an Offray Spoolo' Ribbon.  The flowers are form the $1 bin at Michaels.

Christmas Thank You Set

This was a pin that used a ladybug and the sentiment "thank you."  The cards are from the $1 bin at Michaels.  The green paper is from a cardstock stack of basic colors, embossed using my Cuttlebug.  I don't remember where the red ribbon came from, but there are two different sizes there.  The patterned paper came from my scrap stash as I used it for photo ornaments and layouts for Christmas 2010.  When I started writing them I decided that I needed to score a line in so that the card front could flip up easily, so I scored the line and glued down the top.

Did you notice the new watermarks on my photos?  I did them in FotoFlexer.  More on that in my next post.

Pinspired Project: Index Card Calendar Journal

There are a couple of calendar journals floating around Pinterest right now.  The first I saw was made out of vintage postcards (as the dividers), index cards, and a fruit box to hold it all in and featured on Design*Sponge.  While I didn't pin this particular one because it wasn't really my style I found one pinned from Wit & Whistle that used a recipe card box filled with index cards and chipboard(?) dividers.  I pinned this one with the note "diy calendar journal. maybe for the new baby?"  Since Melodi's birthday was coming up I decided to get the supplies and start one for her to see how it goes.

I had seen the project but hadn't decided to do it when Hobby Lobby had stamps on sale and I came across a "Months Of The Year" set by Stampabilities that had each of the months and numbers 0-9 in a tin, so I picked it up thinking I would use it for something, someday.  We were out one evening so I popped into the Office Max and picked up a pack of 500 white index cards, 100(?) colored index cards (you know, the pastel ones), and a plastic blue index card holder.  I got 4x6 cards because I knew I would end up writing a lot.  So, I had everything I needed for under $20 (even less if you take out the stamps since those will be used for other stuff) and a week before Melodi's birthday.

I took one evening to get February done (speaking of which I need to think about March sooner than later).  First I sorted out the colored cards for dividers (blue for January, pink for February, green for March... you get the idea) and folded February's to "contain" the date cards for the month.

Then I counted out the cards for February (29 to account for leap years!) and stamped the numbers 1-29 with a pale pink chalk ink in the upper right corner. 

 

Finally, into the box it all the cards (400 white, 12 colored, folded divider template) went to wait for Melodi's birthday.

So, Melodi's birthday was about a week ago and I have written on the index cards each day since.  I am glad I chose the larger index cards because I am writing two lines a day.  It was time consuming to find the card I needed to write on so I put a little post-it note on the date card that needed to be written on next.  Eventually I will get around to getting and decorating a Paper Mache Recipe Box for each kid, maybe in "their" assigned color.

Between a couple days in the hospital in May to have the new baby and a month visit back home late this summer I have to come up with a plan to keep up with this calendar journal without hauling it all with me.  Currently my idea is to put the needed index cards in a ziploc bag, but as I write this I am thinking that an envelope for each child with all the envelopes in a ziploc might be better.

Eventually I hope to journal a line that the kids give me for their journal and when they get old enough they can write out their own sentences each day.  Unless of course I decide to be greedy with the project and do it all myself.

Melodi's Second Birthday Party

We hosted Melodi's birthday party yesterday.  My in-laws were able to make it to celebrate with us.  There was a huge influx of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle party ideas on Pinterest and I thought that would make an adorable party.  My Cricut was much less used this go-round than Melodi's party last year, but I still had a bunch of DIY elements.  Most of my ideas came from Pinterest pins to other blogs or etsy, there are even a few original pins made by me during my planning.

If you haven't read, or don't remember, the storyline the jest is a little caterpillar eats through a bunch of fruit during the week, a bunch of junk food on Saturday, a green leaf on Sunday, then enters its cocoon, and finally emerges as a beautiful butterfly.

INVITATIONS

Since we live in such a digital age I did my invitations by e-mail even though there were so many cute invitation options out there.  Publisher has a great e-mail feature that I learned about through my FIL who uses them for Lions Club e-mails when I was picking up a public affairs position in an national alumni organization.  As I was editing the picture I realized that I put 2011 on the invite instead of 2012... oops!

FOOD

We followed the storyline for the food, providing apples, pears, plums (prunes), strawberries, oranges, sausage, and swiss cheese (also cheddar).  I made little signs for the food using white cardstock and sharpies.  I did some searching (and therefor original pins to Pinterest) for DIY card holders and found a binder clip tutorial by www.got2stamp.com (even better, I had enough binder clips in the house already).

CAKE

There were so many ideas I had for the cake, and kept finding new ones on Pinterest or during my random trips for nothing important to JoAnns or Walmart.  I settled on cakepops (cupcakes weren't going to happen because last year was pure craziness trying to make a cupcake out of cupcakes).  The simple recipe to make cakepops is:

1. make a cake
2. crumble it up
3. add a little frosting and mix
4. mold into balls
5. chill overnight
6. dip in chocolate or candy
7. chill
8. serve

I used the Cake Pops recipe by Veronica's Cornucopia.

For the layout I had seen a caterpillar shaped line of cake pops on Cupcake Takes the Cake so we went with that as the starting point.  Mine was much longer and not double layered.

For the base we had a piece of scrap wood in the garage that I covered with wrapping papers for a "cakeboard" to which we taped some desert foam (floral foam that holds water) and connected the foam with toothpicks, then covered with Easter grass to "create a habitat."

DECORATIONS

The only decoration I did not related to the food or cake was a balloon caterpillar tacked to the wall.  We blew up some balloons, tied them to a long strand of fishing line, and tacked it up.  It ended up being short by 2 balloons so we individually tacked the last two up.  If I were to redo this project I would individually tack up each balloon to get a better shape.

PARTY FAVORS

When I decided on the theme for the party I looked up caterpillar party favors and found several barrette ideas, mostly on Etsy.  I chose to do this one but didn't do eyes or antenna.  Obviously you can't give a little boy a barrette, so we got some little wind up caterpillars from Party City (talk about blowing the party favor budget out of proportion).

BIRTHDAY GIRL OUTFIT

I asked my mom to embellish a shirt and make skirt for Melodi to wear for her party and she did a great job.  We found some Eric Carle fabric from an online quilt store to use.  I attached one of the caterpillar barrette party favors to a headband, but it didn't stay on Melodi's head very long.

THANK YOU CARDS

More about these when they're done...  Ok, so they're not done and in the mail, but they are created, four have been written, and the remainder will be written today.  Then it's off to the post office tomorrow!

The green cardstock is 4.25" x 5.5" and the white is 4" x 5.25".  I used a Fiskars pop-up round punch to punch circles to make the caterpillar, a Thank You stamp from my pile (it's actually the one I purchased for my wedding thank you notes), and a green chalk ink pad.  A basic black journaling pen was used for the eyes, antenna, and legs.