Little Airplane Bags

I am starting to worry about the 7hr plane ride we have next year, more specifically how the kids are going to behave. I have seen all sorts of tricks from having something new to give them every hour, to giving ear plugs and chocolate to the people sitting around you. I will try and have lots of things for them to do, but otherwise we may just have to wing it (ha ha). 

I am going to take a few of their smaller toys as they will often play with them for a while, especially Chloe who has a great imagination at age 4. I also want to have a bag of special treats to eat that I can pull out every now and then. So what do we need for both of these things? Bags! I found this cute remnant of cotton with aeroplanes on it at Spotlight and knew just what I would do with it.

Inspired by this tutorial I made a couple of bags. It was a very easy to follow tutorial and they turned out quite cute, and perfect size for a few special treats.

I then made an adjustment for a drawstring version (mainly as I had lots of material and didn't want to use up all my velcro). 

• I left out the co-ordinating strips along the top and went straight to sewing the lining to the outside fabric. 
• Before sewing the 2 sides together I sewed 2 buttonholes close to where the lining joins the main fabric (for the drawstring). 
• Once it was all turned in the right way I sewed to lines around the top to create a tube for the drawstring to go through.

 The drawstring used to be the handles from a bag I got from a clothing store when I bought a dress. (MUST KEEP EVERYTHING!!)

Showing the buttonholes and 2 lines of sewing to create the tube for the drawstring.

Finished drawstring bag - inside

So cute!

 The finished bag fits all the animal toys perfectly, and as they currently have no storage container it will be very useful.

Polka Dot Cake

I just love Pinterest. I am getting so many ideas there and its so easy to find them again! This one from Once Upon a Pedestal caught my interest and I thought it would work great for hubby's upcoming birthday. Of course I had to try it out so it won't really be the surprise I had hoped. Oh well.

I had to make a couple of adjustments as the blog calls for a cake pop pan and I wasn't going to spend $30 on one for just one cake. So after a bit of internet searching I found a post that says you can just crumble up a cake and squish them into balls. Now, I should have trimmed off the browned edges first, but this was just a trial anyway. It took some pretty firm squishing but it worked. 

 The balls are butter cake and I decided to put them in an easy choc cake to change the flavour a bit. The result was very tasty! The coloured balls were a lot denser giving the cake an interesting twist.

The cake balls are hidden in the middle

Not too bad for a test cake

Next time I will put a bit more cake mix in the bottom of the pan before putting the cake balls in.

Baby bibs

My step-brother and his wife are expecting their first baby in February and I am really excited for them. I had made a few things for my step-sister for her little ones and I got the idea to do some embroidered bibs for his bubba. I made sure to do them nice and neutral as the gender will be a surprise. Now I just have to hold on to them for a while so that it doesn't seem like a ridiculously early gift. I'm thinking christmas as we are moving overseas in January and that way I won't loose them in the move.

The back is toweling, the top of the front is white micro-fibre so it is super soft around the neck (it looks cream in the pic), and the bottom is flannelette. I put in 2 domes so it can hopefully last a while. I also like the square shape as it covers more of bubba's tummy and, lets face it, with babies more coverage is always better.

Little crochet squares

 I have a lot of leftover wool from various projects so I thought I'd make up a bunch of little squares and eventually, maybe make them into a blanket....one day.

The squares are made up like this:
5mm hook
DC - Double crochet
ch - chain
Sl st - slip stitch

• Magic ring, chain 3, 
• In magic ring: 2 DC, ch 1, (3 DC, ch1) 3 times. Pull magic ring tight and join to first ch3
• Chain 3, turn
• Next row: 2DC in corner next to ch3, ch1, 3DC in same corner, ch1, *(3DC, ch1, 3DC) in next corner, ch1. Repeat from * 2 more times to complete the square. Sl st to join to the ch3 and finish.

Now I know that is not as neat as normal crochet patterns as I'm not used to writing them out, but I hope it makes sense.

Newborn Owl Hat

I couldn't resist this pattern from Repeat Crafter Me. There are so many gorgeous ideas and patterns on this site so it is well worth a look. I already had some wool I had stocked up on a while back and never used which was nice and fluffy and soft. It is just too cute but of course I don't have anyone to give it to. Another one for Beanies for Babies I think. 

The hat took 1 evening to make up including making the eyes. I had to get some wool for the beak and some big black buttons so 2 nights total.

Butter Cream Icing and CAKES!

Milly's Kitchen run cake decorating courses and I have been interested in doing one for a while so when I got some vouchers I decided now was the time. I chose to do the decorating basics as I haven't done any fondant work and this course was just for butter cream.

The first surprise was we didn't use butter - it was all done with vegetable shortening which, when made with icing sugar and water, can be kept in the cupboard. The other new addition to the recipe was meringue powder which firms everything up. 

First week was being told and shown all the basics. Second week was doing them all. The train cake was my first attempt. It's amazing how long you can spend trying to get the first layer of buttercream smooth on the cake. the train design was transferred to the cake using piping gel so the rest was kinda like colouring in.

Cake number 1

 Week 3 was cupcakes and practicing using different tips in our piping bags. Week 4 was the last one where we learnt to do roses and then were let loose to do what we wanted on our last cake.

Cake number 2

A couple of weeks later, after a trip to the zoo, Chloe and I decided to make a zebra cake. She told me I had to put a zebra on the top so I used the piping gel transfer technique.

And then the big ta-da for the inside! I'm really happy with how well this worked. You put 3 Tbsp of mix in the middle of the tin, then 3 Tbsp of the contrast colour in the middle of that and keep alternating until you run out of mix. Chloe made her own which was eaten before I got a pic but it worked really well too.

TA-DA!!

Soft Tutu Skirt - kinda

When I was little my mum spent FOREVER making me proper tutu's for my ballet competitions. If Chloe ever gets into that then I'm sure I would do the same, but for now I have followed the pattern I have seen many places where you simply knot the fabric/tulle around either a ribbon or a piece of elastic. 

I opted for elastic as I thought Chloe could put it on easier. I got some white, pink and purple soft netting and cut myself some strips. This was all completed in an evening and I thought Chloe would enjoy playing in it....I was wrong. For some reason she didn't like how the colours striped at the top so it was given to a friend. I'm going to try this again sometime with stiffer tulle to try and get a more stand-out tutu.