Crinkle Sensory Toy

Our little miss Shelb's has been fascinated with the wrappers that hold baby wipes. I guess it's the sound she likes? Anyways, I figured it would be pretty easy to put together a more "baby-friendly" sensory toy for her. Using the wipe wrapper of course!

The best part is, you can totally use scraps, and make it any size you want! I even added some ribbon detail, kinda like the ones on those little Taggie blankets.

What you need:

2 pieces of material

An empty baby wipes refill

Some ribbon

Sewing machine, and thread

I cut out my scrap pieces to measure 5x10". The ribbon measured anywhere from 3-6". I cut several pieces of ribbon, but in the end, only used four pieces.

Place your fabric pieces right side together. Take your ribbon piece and fold in half. Insert the ribbon, folded edge first, so it's "sandwiched" between your fabric. Pin in place.

Sew all the way around, making sure you leave a two inch opening on one end. Backstitch at the beginning and the end.

Trim around the edges, clipping the angles off the corners, but be careful not to cut through your stitching. Turn right-side out.

This is what it will look like when you turn it. Don't be like me, iron your creation. ;)

Cut your wrapper to fit inside of your fabric. Stuff the wrapper in, through the 2" opening you left un-sewn.

Topstitch around the entire rectangle, making sure that the open part gets sewn shut.

There you have it! A simple little crinkle toy to keep your little one entertained!

A little MT and NM love, t-shirt style...

A couple weeks before we left for Montana I got a lovely surprise in the mail. It was from one of my oldest and dearest friends, Kim. She's an amazing talent, and makes being a nerd, cool. ;)

She sent Ry-pie and Cal J these awesome t-shirts, she made. One for Ry-pie, exclaiming our love and fondness for our dear state of NM, and one for Cal J, expressing the new love we hope to find in MT. I absolutely LOVE these shirts! Check out her shop, and buy one! She

can make them with other states too. She's cool like that.

Have a fabulous week!

A new year....

Wow. 2012 already? We're finally (semi) settled to our new life in Montana. For a 32 year old whose never lived outside of New Mexico, I like to think that I'm adjusting well, (for the most part anyway). My sewing machine and serger were finally unpacked - man I missed those puppies! I don't seem to have as much time with my "crafting" these days, (but I have been baking quite a bit). I will be sharing some things with you soon. Until then, I'll continue spending lots of time with these guys...

Here's to a great and productive new year!

Chocolate bats and ghosts

I made some cupcakes for the cake-walk at Cal J's school carnival this week. I used store bought cake mix, and store bought icing. Since I took the easy way out on the baking, I wanted to adorn my box-mix cupcakes with something cute and clever. Chocolate bats and ghosts!

Here's what I did.

I drew several bats on a piece of paper. My artistic skills are lacking, but they looked enough like bats that I went with it.

I just placed a sheet of wax paper over my stenciled bats, which was sitting on an inverted cookie sheet.

I melted chocolate and placed it in a plastic sandwich bag (which I cut a very small hole at the tip) and traced around the stencil. Then I filled in the whole bat with chocolate so the whole stencil was covered.

I placed in the fridge until they had firmed up and placed on my cupcake.

Done.

For the ghosts. I just free-handed a (sort of) apostrophe shape.

Then filled it in.

Added some arms...

..two eyes and a mouth, (using the chocolate from my aforementioned bats). Refrigerate, then decorate.

...and done again.

It's almost Halloween. Are you ready?

Fabric petal headband (for Halloween)

Halloween is two weeks away. Do you have your costume ready? I'm still debating what the girls are going to go as. Cal J wants to be iron man. Ugh. Instead of stressing out about what to make (and or buy), I made Ry-pie a Halloween headband.

I used a camera lens as my template for the circles that need to be cut out.

I cut out 12 circles total. 4 of the orange, and 8 of the polka-dot fabric.

Take 1 circle and fold in half.

Shape in half, so the corners meet. This will cause the curved edge of your circle to turn upwards a bit. It should resemble a petal shape.

Take a needle and thread and sew through the corners which are touching.

Follow the same steps for your next circle (alternating colors if you wish), and sew, so it's attached to the previous petal.

After your petals are done and attached, it will look something like this. I chose to layer the petals so they cascade down sort of haphazardly. You could easily sew the petals together in a round shape so they resemble a flower instead.

This is how it looked from the underside. After that, I just attached it to a felt piece and then glued it onto the headband. Clearly, this is not limited to Halloween, there are may different color combo's you'd be able work with.

So cute and festive.

If all else fails, she can just wear this for Halloween, right?

Apple Ring Pancakes

I recently saw a brilliant recipe for apple ring pancakes made by Carla Hall from Top Chef. This idea is simply genius - and simply simple too!

You can find her recipe here. I actually used one of Martha's basic pancake recipe's instead. Then I added a smidgen of cinnamon and nutmeg. You know what a smidgen is right?

Peel and slice your apples.

I love the star shape in the center of apples when you slice them.

I didn't have an apple corer, and I thought it would be cute to use a little heart shape cookie cutter to cut out the core. It didn't matter, you couldn't tell what shape it was after I dipped them in the batter. Anyways, just take your apple slice and dip them in your batter and cook them just like you would a regular pancake.

Top it all off with some delicious maple syrup, and breakfast is served.

So good. So clever. So easy.

Such a great use for using those fall apples you probably have sitting around.

That's it, enjoy your weekend!