Fleece Lap Blankets

30" x 40" Fleece Lap Blanket

(Cut 38" x 48" to allow for fringe.)

You will need:

1⅛ yards polar fleece

Olfa rotary cutter, ruler and mat

sharp scissors

marking pen

yardstick

seam ripper

Step #1:

Fold fleece in half lengthwise. Using ruler and rotary cutter, square off left and right edges, measuring length at 38". Mark width of fleece at 24" from fold of fabric and trim.

Step #2:

Cut a 4" square from each corner that is not on a folded edge. Cut ALMOST to the corner of the square, then use your scissors to finish the corner cut. This will give you a clean cut and you won't cut into the adjoining fringe.

Step #3:

Cut 1" wide x 4" deep strips around blanket being careful not to cut any strips along the folded edge. Cut ALMOST to the 4" mark, then finish cutting to the mark with a sharp scissors.

Step #4:

Using a seam ripper, make a tiny slit in the top of each piece of fringe.

Step #5:

Feed the end of the fringe through the back side of the slit you just cut and pull through to the front to create the fringed edge.

Notice that this makes a neat design on the back of the fringe.

These are quite addicting--making just one is not enough. You will find yourself hunting for additional fabric to make more. This is just a suggested size for a lap blanket. You can adjust the measurements to whatever size you want and make the fringe shorter or longer. Whatever length you decide to make your fringe, remember to adjust the size of the square you cut out of each corner. Have fun!

"Key" Lime Cupcakes

These are so-o-o-o-o good! They are moist and the combination of the cake, filling and frosting is heavenly.

Graham Cracker Crust

¾ cup graham cracker crumbs

2 Tbsp. granulated sugar

4 Tbsp. butter, melted

Mix crumbs, sugar and melted butter in a small bowl until well blended and mixture starts to clump together. Divide evenly among 24 cupcake liners placed into muffin tins.

Press crumbs down firmly with a spoon. (It was hard to get a spoon down into the cupcake liner so I used the top of a honey container that I had saved. This helped me press the crumbs down compactly.)

Set aside prepared crusts. Preheat the oven to 350° and prepare the cake portion. 

Lime Cake

2¼ cups flour

1 Tbsp. baking powder (yes, tablespoon not teaspoon)

½ tsp. salt

½ cup butter (1 cube), room temperature

1½ cups granulated sugar

2 egg whites

2 eggs

1 Tbsp. lime zest

½ cup milk

½ cup buttermilk

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in small bowl. Set aside.

In large bowl of electric mixer, beat butter and sugar at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add egg whites, one at a time, beating well after each. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Add lime zest. Beat until blended. (I usually dump everything together when I bake but follow this method. They will be ever so light and worth it.)

Combine milk, buttermilk and vanilla in a small bowl or glass measuring cup. Whisk until blended. With electric mixer at low speed, alternately add flour mixture and milk mixture, beating well after each addition until all mixtures are well blended.

Spoon batter evenly into prepared graham cracker crusts. An ice cream scoop works well to divide the batter evenly without much mess.

Bake 20-22 minutes. Cool cupcakes in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pans and allow to cool completely on wire rack. (This is important. They must be completely cooled before adding filling.)

Key Lime Filling

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

5 oz. Key lime juice (I used regular limes)

14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk (about 1¼ cups)

Place all ingredients in an electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds then increase to medium speed and blend for 2 minutes. Place in separate bowl and refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours.

When ready to fill cupcakes, place mixture into a disposable decorating bag fitted with a Wilton #230 tip, also called a Bismarck tip. Hold the bag and tip straight up and down and insert the tip into the cupcake about one inch. Press filling into the cupcake until the top of the cupcake begins to rise up. Filling may ooze out of the cupcake. Simply scrape off with a knife and discard or save in a bowl to eat later.

You can also fill the cupcakes using the cone* method but if you're going to make more of these, I would suggest getting this tip. It comes in the Wilton Cupcake Decorating Set. Just the Bismarck tip alone costs about $3 and the kit includes 4 different tips plus 8 disposable decorating bags.

I tried to scrimp at first and just put the tip into the bag by itself. I would suggest that you attach the tip with a coupler pictured here, otherwise the filling will ooze out of the bag around the tip, creating a big mess. Any place that carries Wilton supplies such as WalMart, Michaels, Jo-ann Fabric & Crafts, etc. will also carry couplers.

There will be filling left over. I ended up eating all of it. Halving the recipe wouldn't give you enough and reducing all ingredients by 25% just makes odd amounts that are hard to measure. So either eat the leftovers or just save it in the refrigerator for another day.

*cone method: Using a small paring knife, cut out a good portion of the cupcake top in the shape of a cone. Carefully remove the cone. Fill the cavity with a teaspoon or so of the filling. Replace the cone top. Cover with frosting.

Key Lime Buttercream Frosting

1 cup butter, room temperature

6 cups powdered sugar

3 Tbsp. Key lime juice (I used regular limes)

Place all ingredients in mixer bowl at low speed until powdered sugar is incorporated. Then on medium speed beat until smooth and creamy, about 3 to 5 minutes, scraping the bowl as necessary. Place frosting in disposable decorating bag fitted with a Wilton 1M star tip. Starting at the outside edge of the cupcake top, squeeze frosting in a circle around the cupcake while continuing another circle within that circle and ending up in the center.

This sounds like a lot of work but believe me, they are worth it. Once you get the hang of the filling, the rest is a piece of cake. Enjoy and don't eat too many!

Blackout Curtains Tutorial

These curtains are pretty basic, but I thought I'd do a tutorial for them anyway.  You will need to measure your windows to see how much fabric to get.  You will need cute fabric for the front panels, and then blackout lining for the back.  I got the same amount of blackout lining as I did my other fabric.  You will end up using a bit less, but only a couple inches or so.  I also got spring rods to hang the curtains on.  The closer you can get the curtains to the window, the better they will block out the light.

 fabric for curtains

blackout lining

spring curtain rods

Make the front curtain panels just like you would normally, but don't finish the top until after we add the blackout lining.  I added this 4 inch block of white at the top of mine just for some added interest.

I don't have a serger so I just did a zig zag stitch on all the edges.

Hem the sides of the curtain and make sure to do a larger hem so that we can attach the blackout lining later.  I did an inch.

I wanted to do a blind hem on the bottom so I found this tutorial.  Luckily I even already had a blind hem foot.  Yes!  It looks so good!

Now that everything but the top part of your curtain is done, you want to attach the blackout lining.  I cut the lining so that it was even with the edge at the top, but then about 1/4 of an inch shorter on all the other sides.  The nice thing about the blackout lining is that is doesn't fray, so you don't have to finish any of the edges.  Pin the lining in place.

Now just sew on the sides and the top a simple straight stitch to keep the lining in place.  Sew right on top of your existing stitches on the sides, and I just did a longer stitch on top just to keep it in place.  Don't sew the bottom in place at all.

Then sew a loop at the top for your rod to go through.

And hang the curtains.

And block out the light.

Cupcake Icing

The Carrot Cake Cupcakes I made last week tasted perfectly delicious but didn't look like Kara's. I wanted the frosting to have the same mounded up look. I found a cupcake decorating kit in WalMart that included triangle-shaped plastic bags and several decorating tips. The tip that I found made the perfect look was the Wilton 1M tip included in the kit.

This tip put out a thicker bead of frosting and I was able to make it mound up nicely.

These look so much better than the flat swirl look I had before.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

4 eggs

1½ cups vegetable oil

3 cups finely grated carrots

½ - 1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350°. Place about 24 cupcake liners in cupcake pans. Lightly spray liners with non-stick spray shortening. Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Add eggs and oil. Blend until combined. Add carrots and pecans. Pour into cupcake liners, filling ⅔ full. Bake for 20-24 minutes. Cool completely, then frost.

 
Cream Cheese Frosting - Updated
½ cup butter, softened
½ cup Crisco butter flavor shortening
8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, room temperature
2 lbs. powdered sugar (7½ cups)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. almond extract
½ tsp. coconut extract
1 Tbsp. milk

To spread frosting, I put frosting into a quart-size Ziploc® bag and cut out the corner to create a round hole then squeezed the bag as I was decorating. You should probably keep cupcakes refrigerated due to the cream cheese in the frosting but take them out 30 minutes before serving to soften slightly.

Shirred Sundress

I've been seeing a lot of smocked and shirred sundresses at the store lately and I thought, I bet I could make that. Also, quick note, a lot of stores market an item as being smocked but most of those are really just shirred. I was looking up how to do smocking and not only did it look way too complicated, it didn't really look like the stuff I'd seen at the store either. Anyway, I looked up some tutorials online and it looked way too easy, so I tried it and it really is that easy. First you need to get some elastic thread. Something like this...
Next you need your fabric. I had an old tank top that I never wear anymore, but I still liked the pattern so I decided to make a little girl sundress. To measure, you just take a chest measurement and then do 1 1/2 times that (plus seam allowance) for the width of your fabric. For the length you just measure from arm pit to where ever you want the dress to hit.

I just chopped off the fabric on the bottom half. The nice thing about using this shirt was that the edges and bottom hem were already finished, so I just had to finish the top edge.

After you have the top and bottom hemmed, you just start with your shirring. Take your elastic thread and hand wind it onto your bobbin. Don't pull it tight, just wind it normal. Load the bobbin into your machine. Use normal thread for the top. I picked a contrasting color. You might want to play with the stitching length on a piece of scrap fabric to see what you like best and make sure that the shirring is actually working. Then start sewing straight lines of stitching across the whole bodice of the sundress. Just start at the top...

And work your way down. You can space them out however you want. I just did to the side of the presser foot.

Do as many rows as you want. Obviously you will need more for an adult one than you do for a baby one. I did 10 rows. And Viola!

A shirred sundress! You can leave it like this if you want to. For a young child I decided that the dress needs straps. I kept the hardware from the original top so that I could reuse it on the sundress.

I think that it gives the dress some added interest, but it also serves a useful purpose, because if the child outgrows the strap length but not the dress, you can chop them off and add new ones. I thought that tying ribbon through there and having bows at the shoulders could be cute too.

I used some of the left over material to make straps. Double fold so there are no raw edges.

And sew up the middle.

I just pulled through the loop and sewed the strap to itself. Or you can just sew the straps directly into place on the dress.

And now you have a really cute little dress. And maybe I'm just really vain, but I feel like it looks just as good as the ones you can get from the store.

Homemade Decorating Sugar

This is a really easy way to make your own colored sugar sprinkles for decorating cakes and cookies. Buying the stuff at the store is so expensive, and it's ridiculously easy to do at home. It's so easy I almost didn't make a tutorial for it, but I figured I might as well share just in case you hadn't seen this already. All you need is sugar and food coloring.

Put desired amount of sugar in a bowl or ziplock bag.

Add food coloring one or two drops at a time.

Mix it up.

Keep going until the color is uniform.

And you're done. How easy was that? I was worried that maybe the sugar and food coloring would turn into goop, or that the colors would bleed once you sprinkled them onto your frosted goodies, but it turned out perfectly. Now sprinkle on your favorite baked good. I prefer mini cupcakes, they are cute and little so you can eat as many as you want.