Monday, January 23, 2012

Barbie Girl Twirl Skirt Birthday Outfits

Our Morgan May turned 6 this past weekend. I was going to do a birthday post for her, but I was too bleary eyed from working with Big K on the Barbie Glamour Fashion Party plans. Tattooed Mama believes in Birthday Celebrations. As in week long pull out all the stops and invite no less than 35-40 people kinds of Celebrations! Cake and presents for breakfast on the actual day of the birthday? Absolutely! Family night out Birthday Dinner? Of course! Then the Birthday PARTY! 

That's just how the Tattooed Mama thinks birthdays should be. We go along of course.


My contribution to this gala event was making the outfits for Morgan and Abby. I had originally planned a 3 layer bubble skirt, with the matching T-shirt for Morgan, but then Tattooed Mama decided it would be cute to make a matching outfit for her friend Abby, so I ended up with two different skirts because I didn't have enough fabric. 

I made two drop waist twirl skirts and one has a black tulle ruffle on the bottom with pink satin bows all around it and the other is a black tulle overskirt with a satin ribbon on the waist. 

I got the T-shirts on clearance and printed the Barbie silhouette and ironed Ultra Heat and Bond to the two different fabrics, taped the pattern to the paper backing of the heat and bond and then cut them out with my tiny super sharp embroidery scissors. And my hands were aching by they time I got all 4 of them cut out. OUCH! I used Super Bond fabric glue to glue the ribbon bow to the ponytail. 

I found out that one of the silhouettes had to face the other way because the t-shirt has a teeny-tiny pocket stitched on the left side, so I turned her around. Of course the girls couldn't line up with them facing each other like they were supposed to. ahhh well...
 There were mountains of new Barbie's and accessories.
Happy Barbie Girls!
A bunch of random pictures of a very special girl. How you have grown! 






























And you have always had the style to wear whatever you want and look like a Princess, 'cause you know in your heart that's what you are!

I linked up to these great parties! Go take a look!





Snuggy Up Your Kindle Fire

I was so excited to get my Kindle Fire for Christmas! (Thank you, from the bottom of my heart Big K!) I wanted a cover for it right away, but the prices are a little steep for what I have left in my Amazon gift card balance after Christmas. 


I have seen a couple of tutorials for Kindle and tablet covers that use elastic or pony tail elastics to secure the Kindle in the cover. I think the Fire seems a little heavy and worried that it might slide around or slip out. So I did some studying of the store bought ones and after thinking it over for several days I came up with a plan to make one with a fabric "window" to slide the Kindle into. 


It turned out to be a little harder than I originally expected. Isn't that the truth about everything though? It seems that way for me anyways. I did take some pictures for a tutorial and I will try to explain this the best I can, but I just wanted to note that this is probably not a project for a novice unless you are just extremely patient and don't mind fooling around with it for a while until you get it right. That said, I'll start with the easy part. 


Find some pretty fabric scraps that you like, and an 8 1/2" X 11" sheet of paper for the pattern. You will also need some medium to heavy weight fusible craft interfacing, about 4-5 inches of Velcro and a piece of Wonder Under or Heat and Bond. Wonder Under and Heat and Bond are paper backed sheets that you iron onto one fabric, then peel off the paper and fuse it to another layer of fabric. I think it is usually only sold in fabric stores, or Hobby Lobby and WalMart if they have a fabric department. 


I actually used a scrap of fleece for the inside lining of my snuggy because I liked the softness and the idea that it adds a little padding if my Kindle gets bumped around. Also, it happened to match the fabric I picked for the outside of the cover.


 For the outside and inside pieces I ended up using the 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper as the pattern, which left enough extra for attaching the fabric window and top stitching around the outside to hold all the layers together. So you can just forget about tracing around the Kindle and cut two rectangles of fabric and 2 rectangles of fusible interfacing. 


The pattern for the window ended up looking like this. Trace around the Kindle as close as possible. This is where I had trouble, my first one ended up being too big. You want the outside edge of this pattern to almost exactly match the size of the screen side of your Kindle. One end of the Kindle has the charger connection and power button so you will need two tabs on that end with an opening for leaving that exposed. The other end has speakers or something that you need to leave exposed so draw that tab in the center. There are two larger tabs on the long sides, one will be sewed onto the cover, the other will have a Velcro strip to close it up after you slide the Kindle in. Now draw the window opening, making sure that it is covering the dark black area around the outside of the viewing area. I measured in 1/2" from the edge and drew a straight line with my ruler on each side, then rounded the corners.


 Fuse the interfacing to the outside cover and the lining  piece.
 Now cut two rectangles of fabric and one rectangle of interfacing large enough for the window piece and fuse the interfacing to the wrong side of one of the fabric pieces. 
 Iron the Wonder Under or Heat and Bond onto the wrong side of the other fabric piece according to the directions on the product you are using. Peel the paper off and fuse the two pieces together. Note: I used Wonder Under, but I think it might have been better to use Heat and Bond because the edges on this are all unfinished and I think H&B might be a little better to prevent fraying. I have had a few loose threads I had to trim off.
 Pin the pattern on the double sided piece of fabric and cut out. I guess I didn't get a picture of the pinned part, but you will want to pin it well so that you get a very precise cut. It needs to exactly cover the top of the Kindle, not exactly like mine, which did not. I did this twice and probably could have gotten it better on the third try but... Well anyway, it worked out pretty well and I figured I'll probably want to make another one for summer and can get it perfect next time. 


Stitch all the way around the inside and outside edges of the window piece.
 Now lay your Kindle on the lining fabric and mark where you need to stitch the tabs down to hold it in tightly. You will need to make a crease on the tabs. The large tab on the outside edge gets folded under. Mark that with a pin where you will need to stitch it. Be sure that everything is centered and you leave about 1/2" all the way around. 
 This is where I discovered that the corners on the side with only one tab needed to be secured a little better to keep them from curling up, so I cut a couple of thin strips from the leftover 2 sided fabric window cutout and stitched them close to the corners of the window piece. Those will get pulled snug and stitched under.
 The large tab that is facing the center gets a piece of Velcro stitched onto the outside edge. You will need to put the Kindle in and tuck the tab under tightly and mark where to sew the other side of the Velcro. 
 I cut a 1 1/2" X 5" tab for holding the snuggy shut from the leftover cutout of the window. Topstitch all the way around the tab 1/4"  from edge, then again as close as you can get to the edge.


 Place the tab under the lining piece and stitch it down on the same stitching line as the tucked under tab. I backstitched a couple times to make sure it doesn't come loose. Stitch down all the other tabs on the lines you have marked. And stitch a piece of Velcro to the end of the tab for closing your cover.


 Stitch the other piece of Velcro to the outside cover of your snuggy. You'll have to put the Kindle in there and size it up to see where it goes. Now lay the two layers together and trim up all the edges to be sure they are straight and match up perfect. I cute a piece of paper into a pattern and rounded all the corners nicely. Pin the two layers together and topstitch all the way around 1/4" from outside edge then stitch again about 1/8" from the edge.

 Insert your Kindle and Fire it up!

You can use the Velcro strap to hold the other side of the cover out of your way when you are reading or browsing.
Now isn't this a lot nicer than walking around with a naked Kindle? I love it. If you decide to make a pretty snuggy for your Kindle I hope you will send me some pics and let me know how it turns out!



I linked up to these great parties. Go take a look!






Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Drunken Tiramisu Dessert Shooters

I had been planning to make some red hot cinnamon Jello shots for one of our holiday parties but never found the time to experiment with a recipe. Anyway, Mr. Rainbow Creek is not a big fan of Jello shots so he was pretty happy when I came up with the idea to do Drunken Tiramisu Shooters instead to take to Missy's for a Christmas night poker game.


These are just a tad more than a dessert. After assembling them I drizzled each one with a little Kahlua and Bailey's Irish Cream, so in other words this is for adult only parties.


Mr. Rainbow Creek didn't turn them down whenever the tray was passed around. He likes his sweets and flavored coffees, and the extra kick from the liqueurs added a little to the festivities.
 They were actually kind of pretty before I smashed them down with the lids to the little plastic Jello shot cups. I used my Pampered Chef Easy Accent Decorator to pipe the creamy filling in and sprinkled them with chocolate wafer cookie crumbs. If I was doing them at home I would have just refrigerated them without the lids.


Recipe for Drunken Tiramisu Dessert Shooters:


1 8oz pkg Mascarpone Cheese
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder (to be honest I used Folgers Crystals because my store didn't have instant espresso)
1 Tablespoon each Kahlua and Baileys Irish Cream


Mix above ingredients together with electric mixer, set aside.


1 cup heavy cream
2 Tablespoons powdered sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract


Beat heavy cream in electric mixer with whisk attachment until soft peaks begin to form. Add sugar and vanilla and continue beating until whipped cream consistency is reached.


Fold in the cheese mixture gently until well mixed.


I used a store bought frozen pound cake, thawed and cut into small cubes for the base. Place cake cubes in bowl and sprinkle with a little of the Kahlua and Bailey's. Fill each cup about halfway with cake cubes, pipe a little of the cream mixture on top. Pour a 1/2 and 1/2  mixture of the liqueurs into a measuring cup and drizzle over the top of each filled shot cup. Sprinkle with chocolate cookie crumbs or shaved chocolate for garnish. Chill before serving.


Enjoy!
 
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