Silhouette and screen printing

Continuing on with baby shower gifts for Mike and Tricia.. I made quite a few things and didn't want to overwhelm everyone all in one post haha. I saw this circulating around pinterest and decided it would be funny to make it for Mike!

I don't make shirts enough to have a screenprinter at home, although that would be something awesome to have.. like a quilting machine too. Anyhow so I just put my trusty Silhouette machine to work. Love love that machine. Okay quick tutorial again! 

1. Take freezer paper and cut it accordingly to fit on the Silhouette mat (Or in my case Cricut haha) Make sure to place it waxy side down! Run it through the Silhouette. 

 2. After its cut iron it onto the shirt.

 3. Use fabric paint (I used the ridiculously expensive Martha Stewart paints) and paint in the letters. I let it dry overnight just in case... peel the paper off and voila! 

*If you don't have a silhouette you can just print out the image or text that you want and place the freezer paper (waxy side down) over the print out and trace it and cut it out. Easy peasy!

Stay tuned.. one more gift to come :)

EDIT: Here's the happy couple with one of the gifts.. pre baby haha. Glad it fits Mike! :)

Pink Puppy Rag Quilt :)

I love rag quilting probably more than I love quilting itself because...

1. It's so much easier (takes only about a day and a half to make) and you don't have to worry about matching up the lines exactly...there is a lot of room for error. 

2. I love the Simplicity pattern for the rag quilt shapes. It's the perfect size for a toddler or adult lap blanket hehe (I have yet to make the turtle) 

3. It's just so cute! Also lots of room for changing it up and making say.. a hello kitty rag quilt :)

So when I heard there was a little girl turning three who loved puppies a pink puppy blanket sounded like the perfect gift. 

To personalize it a bit I appliqued her name in the corner. 

I remember when I was a kid I wrote my name on everything. Or maybe it was just weirdly possessive and unfriendly me as kid making sure none of my siblings took my stuff HAHA. 

Silhouette and appliquéd onesies

So my other friends Mike and Tricia are going to have a baby girl! So I kind of went all out and made a variety of things for them. More appliqued onesies like the previous post..

Tutorial for the necklace onesie found here. 

Another home state onesie.. with a heart on LA <3

Okay.. I am pretty upset that this came out pretty bad. Sorry Mike and Tricia!!! I should have made it a solid color like Grayson's onesie and top-stitched instead of zig-zag stitched. It was way too small and my sewing skills could not keep up :(

But on another note this is the first time using my Silhouette machine to cut fabric. It is seriously amazing. That's how I got the state of California so perfect. I don't know why I didn't try doing it before.  Let me try to explain it in three pictures ... 

1. I found an image online and just used that on my Silhouette software 

2. Take the Heat N Bond and 

3. Iron it to the back of the piece of fabric that you want to use

4. And just feed it through the Silhouette! I ran it through twice just in case it didn't cut the fabric all the way the first time. 

*For those of you without a Silhouette machine.. Just print the image, cut it out, and trace it to Heat N' Bond. Iron it onto the fabric and then cut that out. 

Amazing. And then ironed that to the onesie and appliqué away! 

And yes.. that is a Cricut mat. My Silhouette mat sadly was put to rest.. and (quick tip!) found the Cricut one at Michael's using my 50% off coupon of course. Works with my Silhouette fine. 

It's monochromatic!

A while ago I made a gray chevron quilt (and a bunch of other gray chevron things) for my good friend Kris and her kiddie Grayson. Well, it's been awhile since I've seen them and thought that our next time together I would make some new things I've been seeing around pinterest. Like these super cute appliqued onesies!

So more gray chevron can't hurt haha. I appliqued an chevron elephant.. 

Our lovely home state of California with a little star at San Francisco.. since she's originally from San Fran ;)

The first syllable of his name bc to be honest his whole name would have been too hard.. haha

So this onesie isn't part of the monochromatic sceme. I made the San Fran onesie first and thought the chevron looked a little funny so I used this smaller chevron pattern for  San Diego (since she's also from SD) But after making it and comparing them the gray chevron one did look better :/

I also made some matching cloth baby shoes. Let me tell you, this is my second attempt making the shoes. The first attempt was from a Japanese cloth shoe book.. that was all in Japanese.  So I tried to just go by the pictures and the results were pretty tragic. 

Really. To say that I was devastated is an understatement. 

It actually was like four attempts. The shoe to the left was subjected to repeated assaults by my seam ripper as evidenced by the torn fabric.. until I gave up and tried to do it again with the shoe to the right. But that failed too! 

Luckily! I was on pinterest and came across a tutorial to make it. Unfortunately I can't find the link anymore but if I come across it again I'll put it up. The first shoe actually is slightly larger than the second shoe but I am so excited it came out so cute! I love it! It's a pretty good feeling to fail and something only to succeed later :)

Yay! 

Hehe. Sorry had to add this. LOVE FRIENDS <3

Some LA love :)

So I've mentioned before that I am going to school and working and unfortunately have not had much leisure time to make things anymore :( Unless of course it's a request or a baby shower (ugh because I am totally getting to that age where every other weekend is a bridal or baby shower) Life so far consists of school, work, catching up on my tv shows and fitting in exercise when I'm not being lazy.  However! I did make time for two awesome events in Los Angeles that I found out about this year.. (thanks Emi!) Challenge Nation and CicLAvia. For those of you living in the LA area these are a great way to explore this wonderful city especially if you're like me and lived here for about twenty years and rarely venture out of suburbia haha.

Challenge Nation is basically The Amazing Race. It's a scavenger hunt in downtown LA. You get a group of people and are given a list of twelve clues and sent on your way. It's mostly picture taking..

Like above.. we were given clues that led us to Grand Park.. and the instructions were to start hula hooping and take a picture in front of city hall :)  It said that it should be about a 3 mile walk.. but that's if you figure out the clue right and you don't have to back track. 

CicLAvia is a cycling event which they close down the streets in LA to bike on to promote a healthier form of transportation ..  and apparently this year is the first year the route went from downtown to Venice beach, about fifteen miles I think. Riders of all ages with many different bikes going a plethora of different speeds. It was so cute to see the little kids on their little bikes! There were a few runners along the route too. Crazy. It was also tons of fun and a great change of pace from just running around the block on Sundays :) 

Venice Beach! And yes, we biked back to where we parked. There's the option of taking the metro but we decided not to. 

On another note, I am happy to say that I FINALLY figured out how to braid my own hair.. ala Katniss style. Yes, young adult literature is my secret guilty-pleasure. I mean have any of you picked up John Green's The Fault In Our Stars or Looking for Alaska? I love his writing and also follow him religiously via tumblr and on his vlog :)

Yup. Only took several hours in front of the mirror and now I will wear this hair style everyday hahaha

Happy Birthday Benjamin!

Yes, I have totally been lagging on my blog and I apologize for that one person out there that reads this ;) School and work have been keeping me busy. YET, when Benjamin's birthday came by I had make him something.  When he turned one he got a book.. but since this boy loves dog's so much I wanted to give him something canine related. So here is.. another rag quilt puppy!

With a "B" for Benjamin of course :)

Fourteen and Pupcakes

It's my dog's birthday! Well technically it was yesterday.

Fourteen years old and still going strong. I remember the day my dad allowed me to adopt her from the shelter. She was only six weeks old! Which I think is not allowed nowadays haha. She was a wild one but my eleven year old self was beyond ecstatic she was totally the best thing that ever happened to me. Even now when I come home she always gets up to greet me which I know is hard for her arthritic joints. I wanted to make this day special for her and I remember clearly the last time I went to a dog bakery the dang cupcake cost $8 AND THEN the party hat cost another $8. What a rip. So of course for this occasion (being the cheap person I am) I went on pinterest to look for some easy dog friendly cupcakes to make her and a tutorial on a party hat :) Which of course I found and am totally willing to share for those of you dog lovers who want to throw your own pooch a partay.

This recipe was really easy and the best part is I was able to use ingredients that I already had around my kitchen. I posted it here in case you were too lazy to click on the link. 

Banana Peanut Butter Pupcakes <-- isn't that so cute i love this! PUPcake :)

Makes 6 full sized cupcakes and 15 mini cupcakes

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1/3 cup rolled oats

2 ripe bananas

1/2 cup natural, unsweetened applesauce

1/2 cup natural peanut butter

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

2. Mash up bananas.  Add eggs, vanilla, applesauce and peanut butter to mixture.  

3. Combine flour, oats, baking powder and baking soda.

4. Add flour to wet mixture and stir.

5. Scoop out batter into regular or mini sized cupcake tins.  Feel free to use liners but make sure that you take them OFF before you feed them to your dogs!

6. Bake for approximately 15 minutes and VOILA! 

I halved the recipe since my dog is not friendly to any other dogs except Skippy (my sister's dog) and so no-one else was invited to the party :/ I made it both in a mini muffin pan and a regular sized muffin pan since there was no way I was going to allow Skippy eat an entire cupcake. I also did not add on the frosting that the recipe had. I figured it was too much and diarrhea is not cool for an apartment dog, let alone an old and aging apartment dog. 

And yes. I did try it. It tastes like a banana muffin without any sugar. It wasn't too bad. 

Skippy and his mini pupcake. And totally hating the party hat. 

Birthday girl! She devoured the pupcake.

Here's the link to a party hat tutorial. Instead of the ribbon I used this elastic thread that I had on hand. Waay easier for putting on a dog. Which she actually let me for about 30 seconds before she knocked it off. Long enough for a picture at least :) 

Happy Birthday Pennybaby :)