Bedtime Tales IDs

Need a fake ID?  How about one of these?

Or a library card?

 

What about a train pass?

Coming soon... Bedtime Tale IDs and other cards 

for your little child's wallet!

And here are the back of the cards:

 

Watch for them soon!

-CK

jam recipe

I had a reader ask about the reduced sugar jam recipe I used.  Well to be honest, I have no special recipe, I used the one that came with the Ball No Sugar Needed Fruit Pectin.  These people have jam making down to a science, they have to, or else no one would buy their pectin.  So I strongly advising using any of their recipes, but follow the measurements!  

You don't have to buy one that looks like the above.  At Walmart Ball sells the same pectin in a little green box.

I also do not have any fancy jam making equipment.  I think some techniques call for a jam water pot?  I'm not really sure.  I learned to just make it using the recipe given, I didn't immerse them in water, and they sealed and set just fine :)

You're comments are so amazing!  It is sooo encouraging to have feedback on this blog.  Thank you so much!

S

obvious construction fail

I've been wanting to make something for my cousin's new daughter.  I've been through several patterns.  Nothing seems to come out just right. 

I basically dream of finding a (free) teddy bear pattern that is simply adorable.

This was my past venture.  I found the pattern on the internet described as an 'easy bear pattern'. 

It looked simple enough.

And yet... I was just utterly disappointed with how she turned out.

The pouchy pointy tummy and nose shown in the picture are actually after I altered them and tried to take them in a bit.  

The head seems a little wide, and squat.

And the legs cross naturally unless the bear is sitting down.

I will venture to say that I obviously had no sewing skills in this project and have no idea how to read a pattern.

Alas, this bear will never be sewn shut.  Stuffing is just too precious to me.

And I'm hoping I can cut up enough scraps of the material to make something new.

Any fails lately?  Something that just plain did not turn out how you had expected?  

....I'm hoping I'm not the only one :)

mmmm jam

And what does one do with fresh strawberries?

Well this time I made homemade jam!

This was a feat for me because the only other time I have made jam was with my mother by my side.  She came from a family of ten children, and my grandmother made jam making into an art.  So finding myself across the country without either of them to guide me, I spent a lot of time on the phone, reading directions, and cooking it up with a friend.

This friend was a little adventurous, and decided to make hers with reduced sugar.  This meaning we bought special pectin, and only ended up using half a cup of sugar for each of our batches.  Usually a batch of jam can requires up to 6 or 7 cups of sugar.  Well guess what?  It turns out that strawberries and apple juice are quite sweet on their own.  These jars turned out great!

Now what to do with my left over strawberries?  I'm so tempted to try the dried yogurt with pretzels thing.  My great cousin left a comment on my last post with a recipe for this I would like to try.

Or maybe I could make fruit leather?

Eat them plain?

S

Last time my husband and I tried planting a garden on our balcony, we ended up with 1 inch long carrots and onions that were so tiny you had to bite down hard to get the taste out of them.  This time we are keeping it simple.  

Peppers.

And basil and oregano.  

I am so excited about the herbs.  I was completely flabbergasted when they sprouted like this.  I could have sworn we only planted a couple of seeds, and they took forever to sprout.  But maybe that's how they work?

I have a lot of farming to do before I become a pro...

Loving the season

Virginia weather has taken me a while to get used to, but I must say, the spring is awfully nice.

My friend and I took our daughters to a strawberry patch this morning.  Wow! 

I've never been to a field to pick fresh produce before, and it was amazing!  

There was hardly anyone out there.  Just us in a huge strawberry field in the middle of green forrest land.  Red berries everywhere.  So fun.  

They had a little store to the side that was selling blueberry yogurt covered pretzels.  Now that is a recipe I am in need of.  Do any of you know how to make that type of yogurt?  You know the kind that you can dip things in and it dries, but melts in your mouth?  If you do, please share!  I will be looking for one.  If I find one I will definitely let you guys know!

Broken machine

Becky's sewing machine is broken.  I thought I'd make up for her lack of post with this:

Sewing Machines: So That’s How They Work! 

from http://www.dump.com/2010/05/12/sewing-machines-so-thats-how-they-work-gif/

I stare at it for hours and I am still confused.
Good luck fixing your machine, Becky.

-CK

swan princess / goose girl

This is my newest doll.  She is themed after the Swan Princess.  But I feel like she could be a goose girl as well.

These are storytelling dolls.  Dolls to help illustrate a bedtime story as you sit at your child's bedside at night.

The girl is only 6" tall.  They are both machine and hand sewn.  The hair was sewn on by hand.  The way they are stuffed makes them feel so delicate.

I can't decide whether to put them in my shop or not.  I feel a little attached, but I'm not quite sure my 1 year old is ready for something like these.

What do you think?

This post is linked up here:

Candied Tarts!

Ooooh, I'm just so excited to share my newest characters with you!  

They were sooo fun to make!  

They are my two inch dolls, only simplified.  I love how each has such a big personality and yet they are all just so tiny.

Blueberry tarts, Raspberry tarts, Kiwi tarts, and Orange!

They just scream flavor!

And that's not all...

They come with little homes too!

Like these nifty little sleeping bags.  I like to call them robyn's nests.

And some come with little houses.

That they fit snugly inside.

They make me so happy, I just had to share :)

S

A couple quick fixes

I've been blessed enough to find some amazing finds at the thrift store and church swaps.  With such tiny kids around, sometimes you take what you can get.  We are on a super tight budget right now, so to find summer clothes for my growing girl I sometimes have to get creative.  We found some new plain white Gerber tees at the thrift store.  Three brand new tops for just a couple bucks!  But white and plain as can be...

I've figured out what to do with two:

This first tee I thought was pretty tight.  I used an awesomely simple Crafterhours tutorial to fix that!  I simply added fabric down the sides.

I love the peek of blue.

The second I chose to save as a layering shirt.  I thought it would go great under this sweet tank (also thrifted), but I had to take in the sides of the tank first because really?  my baby is not that wide.

So how did I take them in?  Well let me tell you :)

I laid it on top of a nice shirt that fits her loosely, so that it will fit well layered.  I then pinned along where I would want the new seem to be.  This is all done while the shirt is inside out.

I noticed at this time there was a funky split on both sides at the bottom.  I wanted to keep these so that there would be moving room.  

I sewed along the pins I marked, and ended just above this split.  I then trimmed the edges 1/2" out and added a zigzag stitch so as to help with fraying.

I folded the edges around the clip in twice and sewed them down, reinforcing along the top of the split.  It looks a little messy, but I was just copying what I found on the original.  Actually mine looks cleaner on the inside.

And here's the finished product.

Honestly I've never refashioned much before, but I'm finding that in just 20 minutes sometimes you can fix something up nicely so that it is perfectly wearable.

Now what to do with my last tee?  I've always wanted to try freezer paper....

If you're happy and you know it...

Eat a smore!

They're one of my favorite late night treats.  Okay, I don't eat them all that often, but they can be a good motivator.  If I am a good girl throughout the day, and feel like I have been exercising healthy eating habits, I let myself have a treat at the end of the day... you know, after the kids are in bed.  

So lately it has been smores.  With all those extra graham crackers laying around, I can't help it, they are so simple and so delicious.  I can't help but fully enjoy my tiny relaxation time ending up in a sticky gooey mess.  When I was in high school I went through a similar phase and learned that my favorite way to eat a smore is not around a campfire, but near the microwave.  This way the marshmallows blow up to jumbo size while being zapped, and the chocolate gets melted too.  Melted chocolate is a zillion times better than hard chocolate.  I think that's why we let it melt in our mouths.

Recently we have been using some really old chocolate chips, or at least I think that is the problem, because they don't seem to be melting in the small amount of time the marshmallows can be microwaved....  Either that or I might have piled a few too many chips on there.  Anyways, my husband suggested that to remedy this we let the chocolate chips melt slowly on a graham while in the oven, and then fit the product to it's marshmallow covered cookie counterpart when they are soft enough.  I personally think this is a lot of work for a smore, so I was willing to eat my chips hard.  Well the other night, just to show how manly and awesome he was, he prepared something like this for me, (without me knowing of course).

And boy was it a little piece of heaven.

The nice yellow lighting is due to the lack of bright sunlight late at night.

Observe how he neatly and painstakingly lays out the chocolate chips in an orderly fashion.

... The marshmallow mountain is my own doing.

S

And now to some fun stuffs.

I finally found time to finish making the quilted wallets for youngsters I cut out (quite a while ago unfortunately).  Here are the results!

My daughter is still very happy to receive our old and no-longer-needed cards that get booted from mommy and daddy's wallets.  She continues to stuff them into her own kiddy version and feels quite accomplished when she can get them into the pockets all by herself.

I find these to be a fun and creative teaching tool, with the added perk that my little one gets to feel all grown up.

These three will be up in the Bedtime Tales shop by the end of the night.

Have a great evening!!

... and after the kids are in bed go round up the spare graham crackers and marshmallows.  You know what to do :)