If you give a Becka 10 min.

If you give a Becka 10 min...

Then she might decide to sit down and make a rush check on some of her favorite blogs.

And while perusing one of them she will notice that their entire post is about doughnuts!  

All of the pretty pictures will make her think that she needs one too.

So she might ask you if you will run across the street to the conveniently located Dunkin' Donuts and grab her one please.  And she will remind you that her favorite flavor is maple :)

She will be so happy when you get home, but when she pulls it out of the bag and sees it resting on it's white tissue paper, she will remember that she likes all things sweet to be eaten with a nice glass of milk.

So she might ask you to make a dash to the grocery store as well.

And then as she is walking from the kitchen with her treat in hand she will see that her lovely one year old has decided to take a well-timed nap.

So she thinks this might be a good chance to enjoy her doughnut while sitting at the computer perusing some of her favorite blogs....

And notice that someone just posted about Easter candy!

~~~~

*The first link and doughnut pic are from Bakerella , and the second link and Easter pic are from Little Bit Funky !

*This post is dedicated to my little sister, who loves giving children's books :)

What's making me happy right now

Okay, I'm a weirdo.  At least a bit of a weirdo.  If you read this post and think it's a little bit weird that this is what is making me feel so joyous at the moment, you'll understand why I am a weirdo.

This is what is making me happy right now.

Okay, that's not so weird.  Having a basket on your counter full of fruit is probably an understandable joy to everyone.  That's not actually what I was going to talk about.  I was just so happy to finally give in and spend the money on this delicious looking stuff.  We usually have a basket half as full.

This is really what I wanted to post about.

All of my grains!

yay!

I'm still learning to use them all.  I've had very little experience cooking with dry black beans.  The last time I tried we ended up with a lot of inky black mush.  Good mush, but still, mush.

My neat friendly neighbor happens to be an expert on cooking with whole grains and beans and yummy stuff of the sort.  It's something that has in the past few years slowly peaked my interest.  If I love eating bread so much, I figure I should try making it whole wheat and then feel good about eating it all the time.

She is a very patient and kind person and is so willing to share her tips and recipes, why not make the jump and start cooking the way I feel a pull towards?

We went to the church cannery and were blessed to be able to buy some good food storage.  We bought some bags of wheat there and then came home and she ground it into fresh flower with her wheat grinder!  So awesome!

And what else makes me happy?  My kind husband who is willing to spend two hours bending over the bathtub and using clorox, boiling water, and dish soap to clean out the dirty 5-gallon buckets we bought for cheap to store everything in....

What has been bringing a grin to your face the past few days?

P.S.  If any of you have any good ideas on how to somehow recreate a bunch of 5-gallon buckets into a usable piece of furniture I would definitely appreciate if you shared them.  Our apartment is just too small to have them stacked in the middle of the room....

Quilt for a Sweet Thing

I've done it!  

I finished my first baby patchwork quilt ever!  

It went surprisingly fast.  And that may or may not have had to do with the fact that I made almost all of it by machine.  I admire when a quilt is actually quilted by hand, but I don't know if I could spend the time I would need to to do this properly.

The top was so fun to piece together.  I thought for sure I would be running to the fabric store to buy everything I needed, but I decided to dig through my scraps to see what I had first.  I had envisioned a bright red and yellow theme, but with what I had this is what evolved and I absolutely love it.  

(I also love that I didn't have to pay for any of it.)

The only pieces I bought were the back and the batting.  

Now green?  Green?  Really?  

Well this is how that happened.  I've never made a baby quilt before and didn't know what the dimensions should be.  So I laid out one of my daughter's blankets and arranged the pieces on top.  The blanket happened to be a light green, and the entire time I was laying out the pieces it showed through.  I fell in love with it and when I found this bunny print at the store I knew I was sold.

Isn't it adorable?

The technique I used also explains why the quilt is square.... I wasn't planning on it being that way, but being the beginner I am I didn't plan ahead and made too few rows.  

But really that's okay, because I didn't buy enough of the bunny print to allow for shrinkage either.

I also desperately need to work on binding corners.  If anyone has a simple way to describe how to do this it would be much appreciated!

Wow I have a lot to learn!

They hold what?

I made some more play wallets, and have a few more all cut out and ready for me to find time to sew them up.  I even have one in boy fabric.

For this time around I decided to take a bit of my own approach and quilted the fabric before I sewed them up.  I think they look a little more snugly this way.

Plus it makes them sturdier.

Actually I have to be honest.  The first wallet there was designed to be a play wallet, the other two are meant more for adults.  

Yes children can still play with them too, one big pocket is easier to stuff cards in than a bunch of little ones.  But I thought they looked more sophisticated.  A bit more Little Miss Dainty.

I imagine you could use these easy peasy flap books for quite a few different things.  

They fit dollar bills wonderfully. 

Ever want to make a dash to the store without your whole purse and bulging wallet?  

This sweet thing would be perfect. 

I've finally found a place for all of my loose recipes floating around the kitchen.

And while I was stuffing all of my coupons into a torn-up worn-up old envelope I thought of these sitting in the other room on my sewing table and was so tempted to commandeer one for my couponing purposes.  

Don't worry, I saved them for you :)

Favorites

My lack of posts this week is due to my taking time to make a quilt.  It is one of the first I have made and my first patchwork quilt.  Don't worry, I'm almost done and I don't make quilts often, so I will be back to posting a little more often very soon.

I was thinking of some of the things that I fill my little jar of inspiration with and decided to share some of them with you.  Here are some Etsy shops and items that I have marked under my favorites:

Oh how well this shadow puppet would fit into my children's future rooms.  I dream of telling stories with fun props like these.  From Isabella's Art.

From brightcolorart's shop comes this darling miniature painting of a little girl and her birds.  I absolutely love the colors and how simple and sweet it is.

I found these candy colored dolls at Little Pink Posies.   They come with a variety of little girl accessories, or you can simply buy a small group of them.  The artist sure has a knack for making each unique.

From Little Pink House I found these sweet hand embroidered pictures.  They remind me of some sweaters I had when I was little, with little images on them.

You can sure tell that this artist loves what she does.  The time she puts into her toys and dolls is just astounding.  You can find more like this little pony from SugarElf's shop.

This mouse has been an inspiration for me from the beginning of my doll making.  I can't even explain exactly why.  I love how whimsical and simple he is.  I found him at colourspace.

And I just thought this little guy was so colorful, I know you'll love him too.  Find more at Kathy Panton's shop.

I'll be sure to post about my quilt when it is finished!  

Starbursts and Easter Giveaway Winner

A Joann's fabric store is closing in a nearby town.  Poor town.  I'd almost feel bad for them except that the reason they are closing is so that they can relocate their store to my town!  Mine!  Yay.  I took advantage of their close-out sales, and came home with some of this sweet stuff.  

There are good things and bad things about close-out sales, it's all at a great price, but it has been nit-picked to death.  I wasn't able to find black or white thread for instance.

And this little trinket is the reason for the given title of this post.  My daughter loooves wallets.  She loves digging through them and pulling out all the cards so she can hide them under the rug.  I felt it high time I made her a play-wallet for all of those oh so insignificant and unused old cards you always have stuffed in your wallet taking up space.  

As I was picking the colors I thought I wanted it to be bright, and this is a little on the warm side I think. The colors remind me so much of candy starbursts.  

Red, pink, yellow and orange.  Yum!!!

She loves it. 

~~S~~

And the winner of the Easter goodie-bag giveaway is:

Jamie!

Jamie, if you could please contact me at madebybedtimetales@gmail.com that would be wonderful!

Easter Goodie Bag Giveaway!

I've been looking forward to this Easter themed giveaway for so long!  I've slowly been collecting little goodies to fit into this little bag, and I'm so excited to find out who gets it!

It's full of fun little trinkets to get your creative juices going, like easter egg ribbon and the cutest little bunny stamp you've ever seen.  I almost wanted to keep some of it for myself.

See the little list of followers there on the left?  I will be randomly choosing a winner from one of MadeByBedtimeTales' followers this coming Monday, the 15th.  Please share the news with at least one other friend, the more the merrier.  

It's super easy to sign up!  Anyone can participate.  

Make sure you come back on the 15th to find out who wins.  If the prize isn't claimed by the winner within 24 hours of it's announcement, I will have to choose another.

I hope to get one of you started on your Easter cards soon!

I love to see the Temple

http://www.etsy.com/listing/81751398/pattern-love-to-see-the-temple-softie

I have a friend who came up with the best idea.

She thought that my little two inch dolls would be a great quiet toy for during church.

back

Then she pointed out that the little puffy houses I had in my shop would fit into a church bag better if they were flat.

front

And she also thought that a great idea for a church toy would be something you could teach with, like getting married in the temple.

I'm sure glad I have such creative friends because I don't think I could have come up with such a cute idea myself.

***UPDATE***

Hi friends!

We now have a pattern for this toy in our shop!
here

http://www.etsy.com/listing/81751398/pattern-love-to-see-the-temple-softie

Catching on

My daughter, Lizzy, is 15 months old and is discovering the world full force.



She takes challenges head on. The word 'no' drops from our mouths, bounces off her super rubbery Ignore-You shield and falls helplessly to the floor. My husband observed that she takes her age as an advantage. She knows that we aren't entirely sure when she understands. So it's easy for her to pay us no mind and go on pretending that she just doesn't know what we are saying.

These are her two mini-dolls. I made the one on the left, and the kewpie doll on the right is from her great-grandmother. Lizzy looked a lot like a kewpie when she was younger, and this doll was an instant favorite... of mine.

Recently she has begun to realize that these two dolls can play and interact with each other. I play with one while she acts as the other. I make one of the dolls talk to the other and ask for hugs while her doll responds... mostly by just standing there motionlessly in Lizzy's hands while she watches me get animatedly into my part. But I think it is dawning on her what I am doing. The other day we were playing with them and my doll asked if hers wanted to dance. Mine started to jump and dance and she excitedly caught on. It was cute to see how she made her doll dance. She held it in place on the couch and wiggled and swayed her own body back and forth to the music.



If only life were really so simple.

~~~~

On an exciting note, The Rusted Chain is having a giveaway on Oh my Handmade Goodness! Go ahead and check it out!

Oh so easy, oh so good!

I was invited to a lovely luncheon this week and when I asked what I could bring I was told that either a finger food or a dessert would be nice. Now 'finger-food' struck no cords in my brain, but dessert I can do. I finally decided to try a new recipe in my book that has made me drool every time I see the pictures. I didn't realize how easy it was going to be until I began the cooking. So easy that I would hardly call it cooking at all.

Basically all you need to do is to:
~ Preheat oven to 325 degrees
~ Melt about a 1/2 cup of butter in the bottom of a 9" x 13" pan
~ Pour 1 1/2 cups crushed graham cracker crumbs evenly over the butter
~ Spread small 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk over the crumbs
~ Sprinkle 1 cup of chocolate chips on top
~ Cover with 1 1/3 cups shredded coconut and press down
~ Add some chopped walnuts if desired (I had none)
~ Bake for 25-30 min. or until golden brown
~ Try not to burn yourself as you begin eating the massive cookie right away



Now what is so wonderful about this awesome treat? Well besides the fact that it is super easy, while making it I realized that it could be changed to fit any taste. It's sort of like a glorified candy bar. The sweetened condensed milk turns out all chewy inside, and the coconut gets just a little crunchy. I imagine you could add a Mms layer in there, or pretzels, or even caramel. Peanut butter chips wouldn't be bad either.

...now only if I could recreate a Twix

Basically I can find no fault with this treat, other than the unfortunate long-term side effects of having downed the whole pan. Graham cracker bottom? Good. Chocolate? Perfect. Sweetened condensed milk? What can possibly go wrong with condensing sweetness?



It will make your house smell divine.