Kacey's Dresses, Update!

I must tell you that I feel like a little kid waiting on Christmas! I am so excited to announce that we are 1 week away from the launch date of my first dress. I have one design coming out Feb. 1, 2013 with Shabby Apple. (My other 4 designs will launch in March.) I have seen the photo shoot pictures and the dresses, I am in love! And I can't wait to share them with you! Just one more week and you can see part of what has kept me busy for the past year. Mark your calendar for Feb. 1 to check out the Shabby Apple website at shabbyapple.com to peek at my dress.

G-Rated Valentine's Day!

My daughter says "This is so romantical mommy!"

I love Valentine's Day! Not because I need a special day to show the One I Love, that I love Him. Because I do try to show Handy Husband that I love him, no matter what day the calendar says it is. But, Valentine's Day is just fun! You get to go overboard and spoil the one you love. Well today's post is about a Valentine's Day that my family shared two years ago. I was 8 months pregnant and money was a little tight so we decided to keep our Valentine's activities "in-house". I'm so glad we did! I wouldn't recommend doing this every year, but it was a fun night. We got to share this special day with our kids and they loved it! My girls and I planned a special candle light dinner for the family. We decorated the table with Valentine's Day decorations. The kids really felt like they were included in a holiday that they normally are not. The food we made was all red and hearts inspired and ate by candlelight. We did toasts with red Kool-Aid in fancy wine glasses. We made our own heart confetti. And Fancy Jello for dessert. If you have small children I would recommend doing this at least once!

Our table setting.

G-Rated Jello!

The toast!

Of course we had to have a balloon!

The family Valentine's Day Dinner

This was part of my gift to Handy Husband. I made a special book for him that I put memories and stories from our relationship from dating to current. (Just in case I get dementia when I get old and he has to read it to me so I remember! I love "The Notebook!!") This gift was inspired by that movie.

Creme Brulee Squares in a Pyrex!

The other day I had the opportunity to acquire some fresh, raw cream from a friend of mine who has a milk cow. Let me tell you...."That was the best Creme Brulee I have ever eaten!" All I can say is, it's a good thing I'm back to Zumba daily again, because as much of this deliciousness as I have eaten, would pack on the pounds! I wish I could have my own cow, but that just isn't going to work right now. So I will get it from my friend! I had much more cream than normal, so I did a double batch. (Not a good idea, because then I want to eat a double batch!)  I had only enough Ramekins to make one batch at a time and I needed to get it done all at once. Well I tried something new, and it worked out, so I'm sharing! I used the excess in a Pyrex 9x13 Pan and put that 9x13 into a bigger cake pan and then filled around it with water. And it cooked just as good! So if anyone wants to make Creme Brulee and don't own Ramekins...this works! I like the presentation in the Ramekins better, but if you don't have any or if you want to serve a crowd this method might just be for you!

This is the larger cake pan I used for the water bath. I put the 9x13 pan inside this pan, then filled around it with water. (Be careful not to get water into your Creme Brulee!)

I cut squares with a knife then they slide out nicely with a thin, flat metal spatula.

Laundry Room Ruffled Curtain Door! (Otherwise known as concealer)

(The next generation of designers.)

There are very few things in my life that I dread. One that I do have a hard time keeping up with is my laundry. "For the love of Pete!" How many times do children need to change their clothes in one day?! And they are never clean when they are done, they can't be worn again (in most cases) and small children cannot do their own laundry. So what is to be done? Well I say do your best and when all else fails conceal!! We use concealer on our faces to cover zits and dark circles, why not the laundry? LOL! I had to do something! Today's post was prompted by someone whom I love dearly inquiring about what was going on in my laundry room?, Was my washer broken? Why was there such a pile of laundry in there. Well for starters I must give you a little background. My laundry room is about the size of a closet. It has a shoot that collects laundry that we throw down from under the sink cabinet in the upstairs bathroom. But this small space leaves very little room for sorting. And I got one of those sorting racks from Walmart one day thinking it would solve the problem, but it sort of made it worse because it takes up more space and you can't shut the door. So I had my handy hubby take the door off, because it kept getting in the way. Problem solved right? Well..yes...until a completely innocent someone is standing in the kitchen and then unknowingly turns to their left and WHOA ! They get a full on look at what is going on in that laundry room...and sometimes it's scary!! So to remedy this situation, I do load, after load, after load, and then when that still isn't enough. I made the Laundry Room Fabric Curtain Door! (Otherwise known as concealer!!) You may remember a few blog posts ago I made some new curtains for my kitchen windows out of cream colored burlap. So I just continued this theme by making a curtain that covers the laundry room door when I want it to, then can be removed if I want it open. I hung it using a shower curtain rod, it's completely removable (no holes or screws required) if I ever want the real door back, and was simple, pretty quick and cheap! Here are some pic's of the problem area.


The Before: Notice the pile of dirty clothes on the floor. (I'm embarrassed to say that on the day that said purely innocent loved one witnessed said horrifying sight....the pile was much worse!) So now ya know, if the drape is up the laundry is down, LOL!!

               And the After: Pretty good concealer if you ask me, I think I even got the color right!
                   Now just a few sprays of Febreeze (Burlap smells funny!) and we're good to go.

The next task will be to organize and hang up my collection of aprons (the glob of things piled on one hook in the corner!) How many aprons does one need? Oh..yeah...I sell aprons, it's my job to have lots!! Looks like I've got another job on my house organization "to-do" list. (I told you my house is not organized and decorated like I want it to be. It's a work in progress!

Valentine's Day Fabric Flower Topiary Tutorial

If you are like me and love to sew, and you like to do it often...You inevitably find yourself being overcome by scrap fabric! Ahhh!! I feel like my scrap fabric pile is starting to develop an evil laugh. And at some point it will grow arms and legs and come after me. (If you feed something long enough, that's what happens right?) Ok...I'm exaggerating just a little bit, but because I sew so much I have a lot of scrap fabric, therefore I am always trying to think of projects that will "eat up" some of those scraps! I'm sure by now you have all figured out that I love fabric flowers. (I love them almost as much as I do ruffles, and you know how I feel about ruffles=my very fav!) I love getting rid of scrap fabric and I love fabric flowers so today's DIY project combines these two things. This project was inspired by a friend of mine who made the most beautiful fabric flower bouquet for her daughter's wedding. It was unbelievably beautiful, even though it was made of fabric flowers it rivaled any real flower arrangement I have ever seen! (And it will last forever, unlike my wedding bouquet that I have tried to save for 13 years now...Let's just say it doesn't look as beautiful.) So when I saw this bouquet it inspired me to make something out of fabric flowers to display in my home. (Since I have no weddings in my near future.) Today I made a Valentine's Day themed Topiary out of Fabric Flowers. You also, probably know by now that I also love to make things without having to buy anything. So today's project was done without me buying a thing! I used only things (scraps) I already had around the house.

To get started I just made lots of fabric flowers. I made them out of all the Valentine's Day colored scrap fabrics I could find in my "evil" pile. (Pinks, reds, whites, prints, solids etc.) I made lots of different types of flowers to make it interesting and give it more dimension and depth.


Then I made a ball using some old paper packing paper, I smashed it up into a ball as shown here:






















Then I completely covered the ball of smashed paper in duct tape to give it some strength and hold the circular shape.

Then I went outside and found a stick. (It was from a branch off my Christmas Tree, I just peeled off all the small branches that went out to the side leaving only the vertical branch as shown)

I then inserted the stick into the ball of paper and secured it with duct tape so it stood straight and firm. Notice the ball of paper is now completely covered with duct tape and is ready to have the fabric flowers attached!

Then I just started attaching the fabric flowers to the duct tape ball using my hot glue gun. Completely cover the ball with the flowers. Try to place the flowers so you cannot see the duct tape ball. If you have small spaces where it shows through, I just glued a button, glitter gem or colored it red or pink with a Sharpie marker.

I also used some satin ribbon I had to wrap around the stick to make it look prettier and tied a bow at the top of the stick.

For the base of the topiary, I used a glass jar, placed the stick inside and placed many glass gem rocks to fill the jar and hold the stick/topiary in place.

1/26/13: Update, After having the topiary on the table for weeks now, I have changed the base to a bigger, pink watering can and used Plaster of Paris to secure the topiary stick inside the watering can. (My kids jump around A LOT! And it was fine until they started jumping and then it would tip over. So after using the bigger base and the Plaster of Paris, it's not moving!) So I would recommend using a bigger base container and Plaster of Paris is heavy when dried, it works perfect for a solid base.

Keep placing the flowers on until the ball is completely covered.

















This is the end result. Not bad for using scraps around the house!
Now I have a new Valentine's Day Topiary to go with the quilted table cloth I made years ago. And my scrap pile has gone down some!! (Maybe it won't eat me today, he, he!)

Kacey's Dresses: Update!

I am so excited to announce that we are about a month away from seeing my first dress! One of my dresses will be included in Shabby Apple's first Spring launch on February 1, 2013. And the other 4 dresses will come out with the second Spring line launch date set for March 31, 2013. It has been a long time coming to get these designs to reality and we are so close!! I can't wait to share my designs with you!

Valentine's Day Gift Idea: Fabric Flower Arrangement

I really can't believe that Christmas is over and it's already January. Time flies when you're having fun! We had a great Christmas and New Year at our house, we are truly blessed! Today I was debating on what to share on the blog for Valentine's Day. I have so many ideas to share and here's the one I thought I would start with: A fabric flower arrangement! The fabric flowers are hair accessories that have alligator clips attached to the backs of the flowers.(That's how they are sticking to the sucker sticks) I have made lots and lots of these over the years for people to give as gifts, so I thought I should share. You could make the flowers any color/fabrics you want. With this being a Valentine's Day theme, I went with Valentine's colors. You can also make any type of fabric flower that you like and then put them on long sucker sticks to be arranged in a vase full of your favorite candy and embellish with a bow. All girls (even little ones) love getting flowers on Valentine's Day, why not give them wearable flowers?