Quick Oatmeal Pancakes

This morning I wanted to try a different take on our usual homemade pancakes, so I did a search on allrecipes and found this  little gem.

They turned out dense and filling and very yummy,  even without syrup (which I didn't realize we were out of). My sometimes picky 6 year old loved covering them with sprinkles, and she loved eating them too!

Here's the recipe: 

Quick Oats Pancake 

From allrecipies.com (modified slightly by t-shirtsandtulle)

Makes approx 8 pancakes.

Ingredients: 

1 cup milk

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup milk 

2 teaspoons butter to cook with (more if needed)

sprinkles (if desired)

Directions:

1. Place 1 cup milk in microwave safe bowl, heat in microwave until bubbling, about 2-2.5 minutes

2. Stir the oats in the milk, set aside.

3. Milk the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon together in a large bowl.

3. Whisk the eggs, melted butter and vanilla in a separate bowl. Add 1/4 cup milk.

4. Pour oat mixture and egg mixture into the flour mixture in the large bowl. Stir to combine. 

5. Melt 2 teaspoons butter on a griddle (med. heat) and pour about 1/3 cup pancake mixture into the hot melted butter. Add sprinkles if desired. Heat 5-6 minutes (until top layer of batter bubbles); flip and cook other side 5-6 minutes or until evenly browned. 

6. Serve with a maple or fruit syrup. Enjoy! 

Spring tiered skort

Fun spring tiered skort!

So I have to confess that I have a problem...I love a good deal! Maybe 2 years ago now I bought a cute spring fabric remnant at Joanns, even though I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I do this all the time!

Well, I finally found something to do with it! And I must say that I love how it turned out. 

I've been wanting to make another skirt for a while now, but couldn't come up with just the right idea. Something fun, but not difficult. Something with some flair, but with shorts underneath. (My oldest daughter won't wear a skirt without shorts.) And their are lots of skirt options, just do a basic Pinterest search and you'll be blown away.

My idea for this also came out of a desire to do a skort and not wanting to make shorts. Not to mention that I have a giant pile of long knit pants that have never been worn by my children. You just don't need long pants in south Florida!

Basic idea: create a tiered skort, using a fabric remnant and an unused pair of knit pants.

Materials:
approx. 1/2 yard fabric
knit pants with an elastic waist
sewing machine, coordinating thread, scissors/pinking shears, serger (optional)

Wash and dry your fabric. Then start out by laying out your fabric, ironing it if needed and marking it off in strips. I think my strips are about 3.5 4 inches each. Obviously I just made this off the top of my head, so go with whatever looks good to you! You could also do different lengths for each layer and different colors and fabric for the layers too. And while some tired skirt tutorials will tell you to make your skirt from the bottom up, this skirt I made from the top down.

Isn't this fabric cute?

You then need to ruffle your strips. Do this on the sewing machine by adjusting to the longest stitch length and a higher tension number.  It took a couple tries to find the right setting on my machine, so don't worry if you have to play around with this.  Don't backstitch as you're basting these stitches,

Once you're done ruffling, you can start to assemble the skirt.  Think of the elastic waistband of the knit pants as the waistband to your skirt.  Putting right sides together, stretch the elastic waistband as you stitch the fabric to the skirt, using a zig zag stitch. I used one strip all the way around the waistband. The pants were a 5T.

Then you'll want to take your next strip and sew it to the bottom of the top strip. Again put right sides together as you sew. Because you're now sewing onto the bottom of a ruffle, you'll need more than one strip on each layer from now on.  I like to sew a couple strips together before I start on the next layer so that I don't have to stop and add a new strip, I can just sew it on all the way around. I sewed the strips together with a straight stitch and then finished it with a zig zag stitch. You could also use a serger to finish off your seams. 

As you can see, I did 3 tiers. The skirt has a nice spin to it! 

When you have made it as long as you'd like, finish the skirt with a hem. You're going to want to  use your iron to fold the bottom up a small amount, then up again the same amount. Top stitch. I thought about adding some decorative ric rac to the bottom edge, but my daughter liked it as it was. 

I was also planning to cut off the pants, but she liked playing with it today with the pants long, so we'll save that for another day, maybe in the summer when it's 90 degrees. :) The nice thing about knit is that it doesn't fray, and since it will be shorts under the skirt, no one will see it. You can just cut it and not have to worry about a hem. 

So there you go!
Easy and cute! Now go find some extra fabric and spruce up those boring pants!

And I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures, she was just so excited to be wearing it and twirling around! :)

DIY Baby Ribbon Toy

Today my littlest one was being fussy, so when I had a few minutes I whipped up this little gem of a baby toy. I think she's teething, because she just wants to chew on things, especially her car seat straps!

I first saw this idea as a monogrammed/appliqued bean bag on sewlikemymom here. It's a great tutorial, but you can't sell these as Taggies has a patent on the looped ribbon. But, you can make them for your kids and your friends as gifts!

I started with 2 different squares of fabric, since I wanted different textures for her to feel. They are 9 in squares. I chose six different ribbons and cut two 3 inch pieces of each.

On the RIGHT side of one piece of fabric, sew on the ribbon by folding it in half, spacing it out evenly, 3 to a side. I like to mark where mine will go ahead of time, so I make dots on all 4 sides at 2.25 in, 4.5 in and 7.75 in.

Then put right sides of your fabric together and sew around the edge, leaving a 1/4 in seam allowance, and leaving a space on one side in order to turn it right side out.

Clip your corners, turn it right side out, and use a pencil or your fingers to push out the corners. Then sew the opening shut and if you want, topstitch all around.

Now sometimes I like to add a layer of plastic to add that crinkly sound to it. I use the plastic covering to a wipes refill. I only buy Pampers sensitive wipes, so I have a lot of their refill bags lying around. I think there are 9 bags that come in the big box that I usually buy. If you add this layer, add it to the outside of your right sides together fabric. In other words, you'll be sewing plastic, wrong-side piece #2, right-side piece #1 with ribbons.

And as a side note, I just saw a friend with one of these  commercially made yesterday! How much more would a new mom love this, if it came from a friend, made with love? So go find some scraps, some ribbon and get crafty!

Freezer paper ONESIE

For Valentine's Day, I made a cute monogrammed heart onesie for my littlest one using freezer paper. I got the idea from somewhere, but for the life of me I cannot find the photo. When I do I'll post it.

If you've never done a freezer paper stencil before, you should! They are so easy and in no time, you've created something. Just be sure to irom it on really good, so the paint doesn't bleed. I've also been covering the paint with glitter, because everything is better with glitter!!

Tissue paper vase / Valentine's Day Project

The other day my good friend told me about an awesome site, craftgawker.com. It's like Pinterest, but is focused just on cool diy crafts and awesome tutorials.

I found this tutorial there for a cute vase for Valentine's Day, wouldn't it make a fun gift with some coffee filter flowers?

Unfortunately, it seems like when I get a fun idea for crafting with the kids, they get creative and it ends up looking nothing like the example. But hey, little Miss M. loved it, so that's all that's important, right?

I used an old green olive oil bottle, which we covered with pieces of pink tissue paper and modge podge. We put some pink hearts on there too, but you can't really see them....because of all the glitter! I just wanted to do a little sprinkling of glitter, but it came out a little fast for Miss M., so we just went with it. :)

And, I was able to make some more of my favorite household accessory: glitter clothespins! They make fun bag clips and add a little sparkle to the kitchen. The key to making the best glitter clothespins, in my opinion, is to invest in some ultra fine glitter, and not use the larger flaked stuff you can usually find for cheap. (I used a coupon for my fine glitter at Michael's.) These also make fun gift tag clips too!

Here are some pics! Happy Crafting!

~ patricia

Short Skirt re-do

My little Miss G. isn't so little anymore. In fact, my kindergartner is getting tall! Which of course means that the skirts that she loves to wear everyday are getting short!

I thought I'd try and fix this by lengthening her skirt, and what do you know, it worked!! As you can see in the photo of the all black skirt, I had to cut a few of the top layers off, then I added a strip of pinkish knit to it.

I made some basting stiches to help create the ruffle, and finished it off with using some glittery thread in my serger. It made a fun lettuce edge and best of all, it twirls beautifully!! At first Miss G. wasn't sure if she liked it, but the twirling is what made her love it (she wanted to wear it to bed!).

Success!!

~ patricia

Felt flower heart

After making a cool wreath for Christmas, I found this awesome tutorial for one for Valentine's Day.

It took a few nights to make; there was a lot of felt to cut! Thankfully, I had some left over from a poodle skirt I made for Halloween a few years back, so the overall cost was minimal.  In addition to the big heart wreath, I made a smaller one using straight strips to make the flowers instead of cutting circles.

They both turned out great and are fun additions to our decor!