Kitchen Cupboards Complete

We finally got all of the cupboard doors back on. We need to add a few handles and then my hubby can start working on the counter. I'm so glad my part is done and I can move on to something else! I just couldn't wait to post pictures of the final product so here is the current Before and After's.

BEFORE

AFTER

Yes, it is VERY white but the dark counter will offset that someday.

BEFORE

 AFTER

The next step is too remove the counter. We have some granite dark green tiles, my husband picked up somewhere. We will have to buy a different color for backsplash and to add in because we don't have quite enough, but it will mostly be dark green with some shades of brown mixed in. I hate the grooves in counters that tile causes so we are going to add a thick epoxy glaze over everything and it will keep the tiles looking "wet". 

I also decided to paint underneath the top cupboards because from the living room you can see under them and I need to lay on the floor and paint under the bottom cupboards also. I'm waiting until I'm not pregnant for that though. 

I will also be bugging my husband to add crown molding to the top of the cupboards, probably not for a year though. Today I got some new decorations to put up there since I was sick of the old birdhouse collection.

Baby Clothes Quilt

I finally finished my son's quilt with the help of hiring a long arm quilter to finish it. I really liked how it turned out and will maybe do one for my girls too. Not until the next baby grows out of some clothes though. I gave away almost all my baby girl clothes because we thought we were done at 3 kids. Oops :)

I backed the quilt with a brown minky fabric that is too die for! I recommend it for all quilts even though it costs a bit more. I made the quilt dimensions so I would not have to piece the backing. It comes 60" wide so   the quilt ended up being about 56" x 80". A little smaller than the normal twin quilt but oh well.

Today I began cutting and laying out my next quilt. I bought the fabric by Red Rooster called HeartStrings because I loved the collection. I had to pick out a pattern for it and ended up choosing the Sweet Starlet Pattern. I'm not exactly sure about it yet, so I'm hoping it grows on me. It will be a lap size quilt. 

Strawberry Jam!

Today was entirely spent making strawberry jam. We were up at 7:30 am and out the door to pick our own strawberries. Unfortunately it was not a good year for strawberries. We had some hard rain this last week that destroyed a lot of the crop and made it hard for picking, but I ended up with 18 quarts of strawberries. Then we headed to the grocery store for a whole lot of sugar and pectin! I bought 45 lbs of sugar but only used about 20. I was really unsure of how much was needed and I didn't want to go back.

Here are all of the strawberries I ended up with. I am starting to cut and haul them in this picture.

Each batch was done with just 4 cups of crushed strawberries and yielded about 4 pints or 8 jelly jars.

I added 7 cups of sugar and a little lemon juice to the crushed strawberries and then brought it to a rolling boil.

After it came to a rolling boil I added 1-1/4 boxes of Pectin and brought it to a boil again and boiled for 1 minute. Then removed heat and skimmed the foam off the top.

Meanwhile I got all of the jars and lids ready by washing and sanitizing them in boiling water. There are a lot of websites that explain the canning process better with pictures so I will leave that to them, as I am no where near an expert in canning.

Here is my final yield of 23 Pints and 8 jelly jars. I ended up doing 7 batches total. I prefer pints because we go through jelly so fast in our house. I made the jelly jars for gifts and will be using the Preserves Cricut cartridge to spruce them up later on.

It is now 7:30 pm, I am exhausted and my legs hurting from standing in the kitchen all day, but it is done and I can't wait to eat them all year long!

I ended up trying a few different methods. I ran out of pectin so I did a batch without it. I also did some batches without lemon juice and some with more pectin then others. I will update when I have tried each one. The thing I like about using pectin is that it yields more jam per strawberry, but that is because you use a lot more sugar. It is also a shorter boiling time so you keep more nutrition from the strawberries.

It comes down to:

Pectin = more sugar and more jam


No pectin = less sugar, less jam, more boiling, more WORK

Another challenge card. I love how weekly challenges give me inspiration to create cards. This week's Peachy Keen Challenge is to follow this sketch:


This is the card I created and will probably be used for a Birthday card.

 The owl is from the Hoot n Holler cartridge and the banners and circle from Art Philosophy. I trimmed the banners to make them more narrow.

Wedding Card

I created this wedding card for the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge this week but also for a couple that is getting married in a few weeks.  The challenge is called Blue Bells and there are some really cute wedding card ideas already.

 I made the card from Stretch Your Imagination and the flowers from Art Philosophy. This was my first time trying the 3D flowers. They were very easy and I even bought a Styrofoam ball yesterday so I can cover it in pretty flowers. I added little embellishments like the embossing on the bell, pearls and cut a border.

Fourth of July

I used the Cricut to make a cute July 4th/ Flag Day decoration with the kids. I have been collecting tin cans (just the ones that open with can opener, the easy open have sharp edges). My 4 year old and 3 year old helped me paint them with a few coats of blue acrylic paint. I glued red and white ribbon to the bottoms, this was the most expensive part because I did not have any in stock, Michaels had the ribbon 2 for $5 this week. I made my own stickers using the Cricut and an $.89 sheet of foam. So this project cost about $6. I had the paint and twine in my stock pile.

I made the stickers by cutting the foam to fit through the sticker maker.

Then taped them to Cricut board with foam side up. I used tape because the backing is waxy and doesn't stick to the board. 

I had to stick the deep blade in the machine because the regular one just doesn't cut it. With the deep blade in I used blade 5, pressure 5 and speed 4. With blade 6 it cuts all the way through the foam and wax paper but with 5 it doesn't, so it all depends on what you want. It is easier for my 3 year old to peel off the stickers if the backing is not cut through.

 The star is cut at 1-1/2 from the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge.

The leftover foam can be put back in the sticker maker the other way to make custom pop dots. 

Happy Bird-Day!

I got an email from the creative Redheaded Crafter with this adorable bird birthday card idea. I loved it so much I made my own this morning. I have been wanting to try a shaped card so this was a good experience. Instead of using the welding method on the Cricut Craft Room I just made an indent along the hat and glued the hats together. I added an extra sheet of card stock to the back piece to make it more sturdy. The bird is cut at 5" just like Amy's but I think I would go bigger next time.

I thought I had the Happy Bird-Day stamp but I didn't and I know I have wanted to use it before so I ordered a set of Wild Life Puns from Joys Life and will have to add it later. I do love puns in my birthday cards!

I had to literally dust off my Cricut today. I have been so busy finishing my son's quilt, painting the bottom cupboards and my daughter's ballet recital rehearsals that I have not cut anything in over a week! Well I got it out today to work on a father's day card. Today is also my anniversary, but I don't have time for that one. I wanted to enter a father's day challenge this week first. I'm not going to enter this one though, I will try again tomorrow.

This card was fun because I finally got to use my Peachy Keen face stamp, my new Martha Stewart Bone Folder, and tried out the Cricut Craft Room for the first time.

Thank goodness for CCR. I just got the Paper Dolls Dress Up this week and opened it today to find the overlay is the wrong one! I was able to use CCR to find all my cuts without trial and error on the machine. I did call Cricut and they are going to send me a new overlay.

I wasn't really sure about the accessories in this cartridge because there aren't any layers. It would be nice to have some dimension and color to the dragon. 

I never had a chance to make another Father's Day card even though I did purchase the Campin' Critters cartridge. So I am submitting this one to the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge

Loose Ends

It's been one of those weeks where I have a lot of half done projects and anxiously trying to finish them all up at the same time. I am the type of person that hates having lose ends, so I actually do finish most of what I start. I've been meaning to make this toothbrush holder for traveling that I found on Pinterest. I think it is a great idea since I have been sticking them all in one ziploc bag and of course this is reusable! 

It took me approximately 5 minutes max. to make this since my sewing machine was already out. I used a hand towel instead of a washcloth since there are 6 of us, but a washcloth would have worked too. You can see some of my sewing lines. I made 7 pockets and then sewed a piece of ribbon on it to tie it together. Easy right? 

This was an extra towel I had laying around and I really didn't see the need to make it pretty, but you could get a nice decorative towel and really jazz it up if you wanted.

With a little ironing, my son's quilt is ready for batting, backing and quilting. I'm really hoping I can make a huge dent in this today at naptime.

I have also been gluing down the beadboard inside my cupboards, which I am totally excited to finish and post before and after pictures of! 

While I've been tying up loose ends my kids have been enjoying their sensory table filled with water and toys. I made this table for my 3 year old's birthday in April before I started the blog. I will have to make a new post about it because it is one of the coolest presents we have made for them and all the little supplies to go with it. Winter will be a lot more fun this year!

Baby Boy Clothes Quilt Part 1

I took a break from my Cricut for the last few days so that I could work on my son's baby clothes quilt. I put a pretty good dent in it this weekend.

I had already sorted out his clothes and cut each one apart removing seams and collars to make it easier to make blocks. This week I cut 209 4-1/2" squares. I used this size because I have a plastic block that makes it so much easier. My hands were a little sore after all that! My basic supplies:

After all the squares were cut I needed to cut the fusible interfacing for the backs to stabilize the stretch, thin material. I purchased 7 yards of Pellon SF101 from my local quilt store.

This fusible interfacing is applied using a LOT of steam. I placed the Pellon on the wrong side of the fabric and then applied a damp press cloth. The iron was set at highest heat and I pressed each part of the block for about 10 seconds. I also kept my iron filled with water to create more steam.

The cutting and steaming took me two nights to finish. My hands were pretty sore from all the cutting and then the steam wrinkled them all up.

Piles of Pellon and fabric squares.

After ironing Pellon to fabric. This is only a third of all my squares.

Yesterday I laid out all of the squares on our bed. I wasn't really picky I just wanted the colors to go diagonally across the quilt and not just have a random order. I didn't realize what I was getting into laying them all out. I didn't want to lose my order so I had to sew all of the strips together that night so that we could use our bed. My bed is on the opposite side of the house from the sewing table so it was a lot of walking back and forth, but I got them pieced together. Today I will finish ironing the seams and sew the strips together.

I did 19 squares by 11 squares. I will also add a 1-1/2 and 5-1/2 border all the way around. My size should turn out to be 58" x 90". The backing I want to use is 60" wide so I wanted to keep it under that, although it will be close with no wiggle room.

Recondition Mat

I have only had my Cricut for 2 weeks but it just wasn't sticky anymore. I was taping the edges of my paper because I was sick of my paper slipping and ruining the cut. So today I picked up Easy Tack from Micheals with my 40% off coupon it cost $4.79.

I washed and dried the mat first then taped the sides of the mat with painters tape and then sprayed the mat once with the Easy Tack. It's as easy as that! It may ruin my warranty but honestly I am not buying a new mat every two weeks, nor am I going to deal with slipping paper.