Pillowcase Dress

Now that Christmas has passed, I can finally blog about the adorable pillowcase dress I made. I made this dress for my niece Olivia. She just turned 1 year old this past November. I went ahead and made the dress with the measurements of 2T so that she could wear it this summer. Believe it or not, this is my first sewing project since a miniature pillow I made in my 6th grade home-ec class. So, I was a little rusty. I didn't have a sewing machine at the time (I got one for Christmas YAAAAYYY!!) but my friend Rachel came over so that I could use hers and so that she could help me.

I found the fabric and ribbon at Hobby Lobby. I thought it was perfect for a little girls summer dress!

Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking about making a blog entry out of this because I was so excited about making the dress. I don't have a picture by picture tutorial.

Update 5/23/2013

Since this original post back in January, I have made several pillow case dresses. I made a 4th of July dress today for my niece Emily and shot a few pics for an easy to follow tutorial.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Measure your child from their shoulder to where you want the dress to end. Add 3 inches to that number for seam allowance. If you are like me and don't have access to the little girl to measure, you can follow these generic measurements that I got from Nap Time Crafts. 
• 6 months- 14.5" long
• 12 months- 16.5" long
• 18 months- 17.5" long
• 2T- 18.5" long
• 3T- 19.5" long
• 4T- 20.5" long
• 5- 21.5" long
• 6- 22.5" long
2. Cut your fabric width wise as well. Depending on which way the pattern runs on your fabric you will either cut it half width wise or length wise. (If I lost you with that, just leave a comment and I will try explaining it a better way). Here are generic width measurements.
• 6-18 months- 15" wide
• 2T-4T- 16"-20" wide
• 5-6- 21"-24" wide
3. Now that you have your fabric cut to size, it's time to measure and cut out the arm holes. Fold the dress in half width wise so that you can cut both arm holes at the same time and even. Make a "J" shaped cut with these approximate measurements.
• 6 month-2T- cut down 3" from the top and in 1.5" from the side.
• 3T-4T- cut down 4" from the top and in 2" from the side.
• 4-5- cut down 5" to 6" from the top and 2" from the side.
• 6- cut down 7" to 8" from the top and 2" from the side.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
4. Face the pretty sides of the fabric together and pin down the sides of the dress to make your seams. (Note: you will need two seams if the pattern on your fabric runs vertically. For example: since I did a chevron pattern I wanted the pattern on the dress to run horizontally. They make the fabric with the chevron running vertically, so I basically just folded the fabric in half width wise and cut it in half to get the front and the back of the dress. Sew one seam on each side. If your fabric pattern runs horizontally or if there really isn't a pattern to follow then you will just have one seam down the back of the dress). If I lost you there, please let me know!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Iron your seams down and now its time to sew your arm holes. To do this you will need to fold down the edges in 1/4 inch and iron. Then fold down another 1/4 inch and iron again, pin and sew.
   
6. Fold down the top of the dress 1" and sew.
   
7. Fold up the bottom 3" and hem.
8. Cut your ribbon into 2 equal pieces at 1 yard (36") a piece. Feel free to burn the ends to keep them from fraying. The easiest way to thread the ribbon through the opening is to attach a safety pin to the end.
   

And that's it! The hardest part of making these is the arm holes. If you can do that then you are good to go. Please feel free to comment if you have any questions. I also sell these dresses so if you are interested then you can leave a comment below or send me an email.

And here are my sweet nieces wearing their dresses at a 4th of July celebration in England (yeah, don't ask).

Free produce!

Food Lion has a coupon on their website right now for $5 off any $5 purchase. I just started making David baby food a couple weeks ago. He finished all of his sweet potatoes and absolutely hated peas (he even cried while eating them :( ). So, I needed to stock up on produce to make him some more food. I headed to Food Lion to pick some up. While in the produce section, a worker there handed me a coupon for a free bag of salad as well. I ended up leaving Food Lion with 3 pears, a butternut squash, 2 sweet potatoes and a bag of Caesar salad for only $.60.  The $5 coupon expires tomorrow, 12/29/2012, so act fast!!

Homemade Cream of Mushroom Soup

If you have ever read a can of cream of fill in the blank soup then you may have gotten scared. I have never realized how many chemicals (and other things I can't pronounce) are in it! I found a recipe online where you can make your own soup. I was a bit skeptical but I ended up trying it tonight and it came out great! Also, it is super easy to make. The ingredients below are for cream of mushroom soup. You can substitute the mushrooms for celery, chicken broth... etc.

Ingredients

- 2 tbsp. butter

- 1/2 cup of chopped mushrooms

- 2 tbsp. flour

- 1 cup of milk (if you are doing cream of chicken then use 1/2 cup of chicken broth and 1/2 cup of milk)

Directions

1. Melt your butter in a saucepan and cook the mushrooms with it. 

2. Add the 2 tbsp. of flour a little bit at a time and stir continuously.

3. Add the milk a little bit at a time as well while stirring. 

4. Let the soup cook for 3 minutes on medium heat. I added a little bit of extra flour to thicken the soup up a bit. The longer you cook it the thicker it will be.

The picture isn't great, but you get the idea:

Easy Chicken Pot Pie

To be honest, I have never made any kind of pie my whole entire life. I have only bought pre-made pie crusts and never my own. I didn't want to start on that journey today. I came across a Chicken Pot Pie recipe that didn't involve a pie crust. How easy is that! I also ended up using left over turkey from Thanksgiving that I had frozen instead of chicken. It turned out pretty tasty!

Ingredients

- 1 whole rotisserie chicken (remove all meat and shred it)

- 10 oz. of frozen mixed vegetables

- 1 can of cream of mushroom soup

- 1 can of jumbo biscuits

- 1/4 tsp salt

- 1/4 tsp pepper

Directions

1. In a casserole dish, mix together the shredded chicken, can of soup, vegetables, salt and pepper.

2. Cover with foil and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

3. Place your biscuits on a cookie sheet and bake for 5 minutes. This will brown the bottoms of the biscuits. I did this during the last 5 minutes of baking the chicken mixture.

4. Take the biscuits and chicken mixture out of the oven. Place the biscuits on top of the chicken mixture and bake uncovered for another 15 minutes (or until the biscuits are golden brown). 

I also made my own cream of mushroom soup for this recipe that I will post on another blog entry. After reading the label of canned cream of mushroom soup, I figured it was worth a shot! I'm trying to stay away from as much chemicals and preservatives as possible. 

Holy Christmas Angel Cookies

Happy Saturday! For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Julianne’s adorable little sister Laura. OK, so maybe it’s not appropriate to call me adorable at the ripe old age of 23… but I’ll take what I can get.

You’re probably thinking “Wow! I bet homemaking skills run RAMPANT in that family!” Let’s not get ahead of ourselves… I can bake a sweet treat and sew a button back on a shirt, but that’s pretty much where my expertise ends. God bless the man that ends up with me, we’re probably going to have cereal for dinner every night.*

As Julianne’s very FIRST guest blogger**, I’ve decided to get into the Christmas spirit with some delicious Christmas cookies! As with most recipes we women get these days, I found this one on Pinterest. It’s somewhat between a sugar cookie and a Snickerdoodle, and it is the PERFECT classic cookie to bring to your cookie exchange this year! Here they are: Holy Christmas Angel Cookies (I’m calling them this because they tasted heavenly. Also it’s a pretty Christmas-y name, don’t ya think?)

*You really can’t put a price on a good cereal-to-milk ratio.

**She didn’t know I was going to be a guest blogger until I told her.

Yield: 5 dozen

(I halved this since I have no use for 60 cookies)

Ingredients:

1 cup softened butter

1 cup shortening

1 2/3 cup sugar

½ cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

4 cups flour

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 ½ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar OR sugar sprinkles, as decoration

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

3. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the shortening, butter, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla. 

(This is the moment when I decided this recipe was bloggable.)

4. Gradually add in the dry ingredients, scraping the sides of the bowl down with a rubber spatula when needed. Make sure all ingredients are well incorporated.

5. Shape the dough into balls and gently dip into sugar or sugar sprinkles. I used a combination of sugar and red and green sugar sprinkles for mine!

6. Place balls sugar-side up on ungreased cookie sheets and bake for 12-14 minutes.

I hope you all enjoy and have a VERY merry Christmas! 

I will sign off now with this precious naked baby, who is also my nephew, who is also Jules’s son.

Courtesy: Irresistible Portraits

-Laura

Salt Dough Ornaments

I'm sure you have seen salt dough ornaments every where these days! I actually made these for Sam for his first Fathers Day. David was only 1 month old when I made them, so it was kind of difficult to keep his hand flat for the imprint. But, I think they turned out great!

Ingredients

1 cup salt

1 cup plain flour

1/2 cup warm water

Directions

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl. Kneed the dough until it is smooth and stretchy. If the dough is too sticky then add more flour.If the dough is too dry then add a bit more water.

2. Then take the dough and divide it in half. Find a shallow bowl and press the dough down into it. Then carefully remove the dough from the bowl and flip the dough up-side-down. This will give the dough a flat surface to work with.

3. Then press the hand or foot down into the dough. It may take several attempts so don't get overwhelmed! If you are turning this into an ornament, then remember to make a hole at the top to put your ribbon or string through! 

4. Bake on a piece of parchment paper on cookie sheet for 3 hours at 170 degrees. 

And that's pretty much it! Feel free to comment if you have any questions. I would love to see yours if you make one :)

Chocolate Chip Cookies (the best!)

I made chocolate chip cookies from scratch for the first time a few months ago. I seem to make them every time I have to bring a dessert for something. Well, they seem to be a hit. My sister brought it to my attention last night that I haven't added them to by blog yet. Yay Laura for noticing! The recipe makes a lot of cookies... like 3 dozen. So, feel free to cut it in half if you don't need as many.

I found the recipe via Pinterest. Here is the original post.

Ingredients:
1. 1 cup of butter (aka 2 sticks... yikes! it's worth it though.)
2. 1 cup sugar
3. 1/2 cup brown sugar
4. 2 eggs
5. 2 tsp. vanilla
6. 2 1/4 cup flour
7. 1 tsp. baking soda
8. 1/2 tsp. salt
9. 12 ounce bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips (i prefer the mini chips)


Directions:
1. Soften butter in microwave and then cream together with both sugars in the mixing bowl.
2. Add the eggs and vanilla to mixing bowl.
3. In a seperate bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking soda. Add this mixture to the mixing bowl a little at a time until well combined.
4. Add the bag of chocolate chips to the cookie dough. Leave the mixer at low speed while you slowly add the entire bag of chips.

5. Scoop the cookie dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet. I make each dough ball about the size of a golf ball.
6. Bake at 375 degrees for 9 minutes.

Mini Meatloafs

It seems that anything made mini tastes better than normal sized. I came across this meatloaf recipe on Pinterest awhile ago and have made it several times. I have changed up the recipe a bit but if you'd like to see the original go here. I figured I would post it on my blog to share it with you guys! 

The plus size to this meatloaf recipe is that they are made in muffin tins. Meaning that they cook a lot faster than meatloaf made in a loaf pan. So maybe I should called these meat-muffin as apposed to meatloaf? Anyways, here is the recipe:

Makes 12 mini meatloafs

Ingredients

1. 1 1/2 lbs ground beef

2. 1 medium onion, chopped

3. 1 large egg, plus a splash of milk

4. 1 cup plain bread crumbs

5. 2 tbsp. steak seasoning

6. 1/2 cup BBQ sauce 

7. 1/2 cup salsa

8. 1/2 cup ketchup

9. 1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

10. Vegetable oil to coat muffin tin.

Directions

1. Combine ground beef with chopped onion in a large bowl.

2. Mix the egg together with the milk and add to meat bowl.

3. Add the bread crumbs and steak seasoning to the meat bowl.

4. In a separate bowl combine the BBQ sauce, ketchup, salsa and Worcestershire sauce. Stir the sauces together and add 1/2 of the mixture to the meat bowl.

5. Mix everything in the meat bowl together with your hands. 

6. Brush the muffin tin with vegetable oil.

7. Make 12 mini meatloafs by rolling them into balls. 

8. Top each meatloaf with the remaining sauce mixture.

9. Bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes.

Yummmmm.....

Breakfast Bake with Biscuit Crust

If you are looking for an easy yummy breakfast, this is for you! It only has a few basic ingredients and bakes quickly.

Ingredients:
1 can of 8 jumbo biscuits
1 lb of breakfast sausage
6 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup milk

Directions:
1. Brown the breakfast sausage in a skillet. Drain and let it cool before using in the breakfast bake.

2. Butter or spray 9x13 baking dish.

3. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

4. Take each biscuit and tear in half and press down into baking dish making a solid crust. You should end up with 16 biscuits total.

5. Sprinkle the crust with the cooked sausage and then top with the shredded cheese.

6. Mix the eggs, milk, salt and pepper in a separate bowl. Carefully pour the mixture over the breakfast bake.

7. Bake for 20 minutes or until firm in the center and cheese is melted.

This breakfast bake is always a huge hit with friends and family! It feeds about 6+ people depending on how large the portions are. Enjoy!

Mirror mirror on the wall...

I have been shopping for a large mirror to go over the big empty wall over our couch. Unfortunately, mirrors are expensive and you rarely see coupons for them. A couple months ago the Sissine family was yard sale-ing and I came across this gold mirror. The lady wanted $50 for it and I politely declined. A few hours later we went back and the mirror was still there. I offered her $20. She said "$20?! But its a real mirror!". The first thing I thought was "As opposed to a fake mirror?". I didn't say that to her of course =) I just stood there and looked at her. She finally accepted my offer and we stuffed it in the Prius!! So now that I finally have it hanging, I am contemplating painting it black or not. Any opinions? Paint it or keep it gold? Here are a couple pictures of it:

Crock Pot Apple Crisp

There are two desserts that I love to order at restaurants. Either brownie a'la mode or apple crisp a'la mode. I have made brownies several times but I have never attempted apple crisp. I heard about a great recipe on allrecipes.com and figured I'd give it a try. I did alter it slightly so if you want to see the original recipe feel free to visit their site.

Ingredients:
(makes 6 servings)

8 medium apples (I used granny smith and gala); peeled, cored and chopped
1 lemon (or 2 tbsp lemon juice)
1/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Topping:
1/2 cup of butter; cut into pieces
1 cup flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 pinch salt

Directions:

1. After you prepared your apples place them into the crock pot.
2. In a separate bowl combine the sugar, cornstarch and cinnamon.  
3. Add the combination into the crock pot with the apples. Juice your lemon over the apples and stir.

4. Now to the topping. Combine the flour, light brown sugar, cinnamon, salt and pieces of butter into a bowl.  
    Mix with hands or a fork until a crumbly topping forms.

5. Sprinkle the crumb topping on top of the apples.

6. Set crock pot on high for 2 hours or low for 4 hours.
7. Take off lid and let cook on high for 1 more hour so that the topping hardens.

8. Serve with ice cream!!

I must say, it was just as good as the restaurants and much much much cheaper!

Triple Coupons at the HT.

In case you haven't heard, Harris Teeter is now tripling coupons with a face value of up to $1. Meaning if you have a coupon for $1, they will TRIPLE IT to $3!! (cue the hallelujah chorus).

I created my grocery list using the greatest website ever, Southern Savers. She will tell you what items to get,  what coupon to use and where to find that coupon. I will explain the steps in another blog entry.

Anyways, now the good part. I got $54 worth of groceries for $10. Yes, you read that right. I was so excited that I put all my groceries away as soon as I got home instead of taking a picture of it for this blog. Fortunately, I left out a few items so I just took a quick picture of them:

Here is a run down of what I got:

• Nestle Semi-sweet morsels bag- $.96 x 4
• V8 Fusion Juice- $1.33 x 3
• Covergirl Eyeshadow- $.03 x 2
• Colgate Toothpaste- FREE
• Secret Outlast- $.99
• Aquafresh Toothpaste- FREE
• Stouffer's Lasagna (single serve)- $1.39 x 2
• Ore-Ida Tater Tots- $.22
• Ore-Ida Hashbrowns- $.22

Not too bad if you as me! I ended up going to another HT later in the afternoon and was able to get some more deals. I love couponing =)

Baby 'stache

Today I had a wonderful time hanging out with my friends Courtney and Rachel. We had lunch at the delicious Hwy 55 restaurant and then headed over to Hobby Lobby. We were browsing the fabric section and came across this SUPER cute fabric:

Rachel and Courtney are much better at sewing than me (and when I say much better I mean that I haven't sewn a thing in my life and they have made many things) so they are going to use the fabric to make a cute outfit for each of their baby's. Since I am new to the sewing world, my first project will be a baby blanket for David. I even got that super soft bumpy baby fabric for the back of the blanket. I CANNOT WAIT TO USE IT! And of course you know, I will post the final project next week =)

Delicious Pasta Bake

If you know my husband and myself well (or really at all for that matter) then you know that we both LOVE pasta. We eat it at least once a week and go to Olive Garden often. So, when I came across this recipe on Pinterest (via this blog)... I knew it had to happen! It's a great recipe to make if you are wanting to make something easy. It is also a great recipe if you coupon. I don't know how many boxes of noodles and jars of pasta sauce I have gotten for free or close to free. This is a great way to have pasta a different way. I'm sure you could also add some veggies or meat if you'd like to jazz it up a bit :)

Ingredients:

1 jar of marinara sauce

1 jar of alfredo sauce

2 cups of mozzarella cheese

1 package of penne noodles

parmesan cheese to sprinkle

Directions:

1. Cook noodles as normal.

2. Once you drain the noodles, return them to the pot.

3. Combine noodles with both sauces and mozzarella cheese.

4. Pour the pasta into a 9x13 pan.

5. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

6. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and bake for an additional 5 minutes.

Side note- I learned something pretty awesome on Pinterest awhile back and would love to share it with you. If you put a wooden spoon over your boiling pot, it prevents the water from boiling over. Genius!

Homemade Flour Tortillas

If you can make a pancake, you can make a flour tortilla. They really aren't that hard to do. Plus, they taste much better than the packaged ones and cost so much less!

Ingredients:

• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 5 tbsp. vegetable shortening
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 1 cup very warm water

Directions:

Add the vegetable shortening to the flour/salt mixture and mix together with your hands.

Add the warm water to the mixture and blend with fork until dough forms.

 Add dough to floured surface and form into a log shape.

 Break up the log into 10 pieces and roll into a ball. Place plastic wrap over the dough balls and let sit for 20 minutes.

Roll out each ball into a very thin circle. The first time I made these I didn't roll them out paper thin and the tortillas ended up turning out as thick as pita bread.  Make sure you roll them out thin! Go ahead a warm up your iron skillet to medium-high while you roll these out.

 Place the tortilla on a warmed iron skillet and let sit for about 45 seconds on each side. You will know when to flip the tortilla when it starts to bubble (just like how you make pancakes!). I usually stack the finished tortillas and cover them with a damp paper towel to keep them from drying. 

And that's it! I have used these to make tacos, enchiladas  grilled cheeseburger wraps and to just eat plain. The more you make them the easier it will get. 

Auntie Anne's Pretzels- Copycat Recipe

I made homemade pretzels for the first time last weekend. They turned out super delicious. I found the recipe on Pinterest via Yammie's Noshery. Don't let the recipe intimidate you. I have never made bread before in my entire life and I did this. If you know me, I am not known for cooking or baking. This is something new that I am trying. So trust me, if I can do it, you can do it. I used my KitchenAid Classic Series White Stand Mixer - K45SSWH (Google Affiliate Ad) mixer for this which made the job much easier.
Just like usual, I wasn't thinking of making a blog entry out of this... so I only have a picture of the finished product.

Ingredients:

2 cups milk
1 1/2 tbsp. active dry yeast (or 2 packets)
6 tbsp. brown sugar
4 tbsp. butter, melted
4 1/2 cups flour (I used all purpose)
2 tsp. fine salt

1/4 cup baking soda
2 cups warm water
Coarse Salt (pretzel topping)
6 tbsp. butter melted (pretzel topping)

Directions:

1. Warm the milk in the microwave for about 1 1/2 minutes. It should be warm enough for you to comfortably leave your finger in it. Make sure it is not too hot because it will kill the yeast. Stir the yeast into the warm milk and let sit for about 3 minutes.

2. Add the butter and brown sugar and mix.

3. I then changed from the whisk attachment to the dough hook attachment. Add the flour about 1 cup at a time. Then add the fine salt.

4. Kneed for 10 minutes in your mixer or by hand.

5. Place the dough into a greased bowl and cover with greased plastic wrap. Let it sit and rise for about an hour in a warm room. The dough should double in size.

6. Punch down the dough and divide it into 12 balls. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

7. Roll out each ball into a long dough strand by hand. The thinner the strand the thinner the pretzels will be. You will see in my picture that I didn't roll them out thin enough because they came out kind of thick.

8. Twist the pretzels into a pretzel shape and submerge it into the warm water/baking soda mixture.

9. Place the pretzel onto a greased cookie sheet or parchment paper. Sprinkle the pretzel with the coarse salt.

10. Bake for 7-11 minutes, until brown. Brush each pretzel with melted butter and top again with coarse salt.

11. Enjoy!

French Toast Bake (made with canned cinnamon rolls!)

My husband, Sam, is obsessed with french toast. I am not so much of a fan. But I do love cinnamon rolls. I found a recipe on Pillsbury's website for a cinnamon french toast bake using their cinnamon rolls. I changed it up a little bit to make it easier and not as sweet.

Ingredients:
2 cans of refrigerated cinnamon rolls (the regular size, not the jumbo ones)
1 tbsp. butter (melted)
5 eggs
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 tsp. vanilla
1/3 cup of milk
Maple Syrup

Directions:
1. Coat 13 x 9 baking pan with non-stick spray.

2. Open both cans of cinnamon rolls and set aside the icing for later.

3. Cut each cinnamon roll into 8 bite sized pieces and put into baking pan.

4. Combine eggs, milk, melted butter, cinnamon and vanilla into a bowl and mix until well blended.

5. Pour mixture over cinnamon roll pieces and drizzle with maple syrup.

6. Bake for 30 mins at 375 degrees. Let cool for 5 minutes and top with icing from cinnamon roll cans.

Serve and enjoy! My husband usually adds peanut butter, powdered sugar and more syrup as toppings. I eat it just as it is, your choice. I hope you like it =)

Oh... and sorry for going a little overboard with the pictures. I got a new camera as an anniversary gift and I have been practicing!