Worth Waking the Little Stinker...

So, I have actually been doing a few really fun projects lately, but I will try to spread them out over the next few posts instead of combining them all into one. Where have I been lately, you might ask? Well, I am terribly embarrassed to admit  proud to say that I have been binge watching Pretty Little Liars. It has seriously consumed any spare time I have had lately. I finished the last episode that is available on Netflix, and was bored two minutes later. I was literally at a loss for what to do with my time. Well, the pictures I have been meaning to frame are now in their frames, and it is still a good 2 hours before I would normally go to sleep (yes, that is indeed how much time I spent watching the show every night, if not longer). So behold, I bring you this new post.

My husband and I got married a little over 5 years ago, and, as I am sure many of you know and can maybe relate to, we had little to no money, and had to be very careful (read frugal) with how we spent the little money we did have. When it came to buying furniture for our first apartment, we knew that getting a formal dining room set just wasn't in the budget. We headed to IKEA and literally furnished our entire apartment from that store. IKEA furniture isn't necessarily the cheapest way to go, but it was a good option for us at the time, and assembling the furniture with our friends the day we moved to New York is one of the first of many memories we made in our first home. So, while our IKEA dining room table and chairs have suited us just fine over these past 5 years, we haven't been as kind in return. There have been many drips, spills, and stains; it was time to recover the chairs.

After some searching around Pinterest, I decided that this was going to be an easy/fun project and that I was excited to get started! First thing I had to do was go to the fabric store and pick out a fabric that both my husband and I would agree on and would be a good fit for our dining room area. I headed out to JoAnn Fabrics and texted my husband pictures of 4 fabrics to choose from. I was so excited when he chose the one that was my favorite as well! (Though to be honest, I was going to choose that one regardless of what he said.) Unfortunately, the store didn't have enough of the fabric that I needed, but they were kind enough to order it in for me from another location...not gonna lie, I had a mini panick attack when there wasn't enough.

Ok, onto the good stuff...First, let me start by telling you that if you have a tendency to go on power trips, a staple gun might not be the best tool for you (insert evil laugh here). Secondly, did you know how LOUD staple guns are??? We did NOT! We started our project on the living room floor, and after the first two staples, moved the project over into the farthest corner of our bedroom in the hopes that we wouldn't wake Sam...fail (see title of post). Depending on your chairs, this project can be extremely easy. All we had to do was remove the seat portion of the chair by unscrewing the bottoms of the cushions. Then we needed to remove the old fabric. For us, that meant simply slipping off the old cover which was not stapled onto the chair, but was secured elastically (is that a word?). I believe the covers were made this way so that they could be easily removed, washed, and replaced. We didn't want to simply wash these though, we wanted to start over! Next, we laid the cushions out over the fabric so that we knew how much fabric we would need to cut for each chair. Then the cutting and stapling began. This was super fun, but also super frustrating!! Why couldn't my husband staple in the places I was asking? Or in a straight line? GGGRRRR

The hardest part about this project was figuring out the corners of the chairs. What I ended up doing was modeling after the matting that was stapled to the cushion already and tried mimicking those folds. This ended up helping a lot. Once we got into the groove of folding, tugging, yelling, huffing, puffing, and stapling, the project ended up being really simple and quick. I would say it probably took 1.5 hours total. Not too bad in my opinion.

After a quick 15 minute break to get Sam back to sleep, it was time to attach the cushions back onto the chairs. That took only a few more minutes, and then voilla! NEW CHAIRS! Most rewarding project yet!

All in all, my message to you is that revamping your chairs is really rather simple, and super fun! If you're looking for a way to spice up some old chairs, head on over to a fabric store and get excited! You'll soon have fun chairs too! Good luck, and happy stapling!!!

Pincerely yours,

Rachel

Let them eat cake(s)

So, apparently moving and becoming a temporary stay at home Mom means no spare time whatsoever. Between unpacking and trying to entertain a 9 month old...free time is at a minimum. Well, now that the little guy is taking a nap (please don't let that be a jinx), I have decided to FINALLY sit down and tell you about 2 cakes I made recently a while back for my nephew and niece's birthday parties. No, these are not actually pins on my pinterest, but they did come out very cute, and so I wanted to share them with you!

The first cake I made was for my nephew, Matthew. His birthday party was on Super Bowl Sunday, so naturally it was decided that his party would be football themed. After googling football cakes and looking through the plethora (big word!) of choices, I decided on this fun looking cake. There were no instructions with this picture, so I had to come up with how to put this cake together on my own, and if you ask me, I did a pretty good job.

Here is a picture of how my version on the cake came out:

My football is not nearly as good as the original, but as a (very) beginner cake decorator, I was quite pleased with this cake, as were the guests at the party. In fact, one of the guests asked their mom if she could make the cake for them for their upcoming party. Can you say trending??

Now how did this came come together you ask? It was actually very easy. The cake base itself is just two sheet cakes stacked together with a layer of frosting in between. The next step was making the end zones. This required edible sugar sheets as well as edible markers. After tracing the Lions logo onto the paper, running to the store for another pack of edible markers because it ran out half way, and filling in the letters, the end zones were complete! Yard lines were extremely easy...simply make straight lines across using white frosting. I cut the corner off of a small ziploc bag and used that to pipe on the lines.  The edging around the cake is supposed to look like grass, and that was done using the Wilton tip #233. This tip is also commonly used for making monster fur (i.e. Cookie Monster). I would have to say that the hardest part about this cake was the football. My husband and I had some good laughs over the various shapes I came up with, and eventually settled on the "football" on the cake above. I say settled, because it really could have and should have been a lot better. Hopefully next time! The football itself is made out of brownies that I mushed together and formed into shape. All in all a pretty simple cake that I was very happy to make for my nephew's party.

For any of you that know my niece, you know that she LOVES Hello Kitty. I for one will never understand why people love this creepy, big-headed anime cat, but to each their own! My niece, Lailie, had been planning her cake with me for a few weeks before her party. The last discussion we had about her cake left me with the following instructions: 1. It had to be blue 2. It had to be Hello Kitty. Easy enough. I didn't use the internet for this cake. I guess you could say I "designed" it all by myself! I really just made her a simple cake with Hello Kitty's face on it. She absolutely loved it, and the look on her face made me feel so special and I was more than happy to have done it for her!

Here is a picture of Lailie's cake:

This was also a very simple cake to put together. Once again this was 2 sheet cakes stacked together with frosting in between. Blue frosting covered the entire exterior of the cake, and then I added purple piping around the edges to add a bit of a feminine touch. The Hello Kitty face was the most challenging part of the cake. This would not have been possible without the help of my husband. THANK YOU!!!! I needed to print a picture of Hello Kitty, but the picture had to be a mirror image....NOT EASY! After about 45 minutes of interruped Bar Exam studying, my husband was finally able to print the picture for me. I then traced the picture onto parchment paper. I then piped frosting over the traced picture until the whole picture was filled in. When you do this method, make sure you do the most detailed parts first, and then work your way to the bigger sections. Meaning, do the outline and smaller details like the nose and eyes first, then work your way into filling bigger spaces, like the entire face last. I then put the paper into the freezer so that the face could harden and I would then be able to transfer it onto the cake. Keep in mind that at this point you will be looking at the back part of the face, which will be pressed onto the cake. After a while in the freezer, I flipped the image onto the cake and peeled away the parchment paper while holding my breath. It came out so cute!! Another cake that I am very proud of, but hope to improve my technique the next time I try this method. And just look at how happy she is!!

Pure joy!

Happy (very) belated Birthday Lailie and Matthew! I love you so much and can't wait to make you birthday cakes until it becomes embarrassing for you (and then I'll keep doing it anyway)!

Pincerely yours,

Rachel

I'm sorry, you want me to what??

It was bound to happen. A failed "pin" attempt. I just didn't think it was going to happen this fast! I wanted so badly to make this scarf, but it was proving to be a lot more difficult than I had originally assumed. I have taught myself to do fun/challenging things in the past by using a combination of Google and YouTube (LOVE), but reading and understanding Chinese just isnt one of them. Have you ever tried to read a crochet pattern?? It is NOT English!

SCARF

Ch 32.

Row 1 (RS): Dc in 4th ch from hook (beginning ch counts as dc), *sk next 2 ch, (3 dc, ch 1, 3 dc) in next ch, sk next 2 ch, dc in next 2 ch; repeat from * across, turn—4 pattern repeats.

Row 2: Ch 3 (counts as dc here and throughout), sk first dc, dc in next dc, *sk next 2 dc, dc in next dc, ch 1, (dc, ch 1, dc) in next ch-1 sp, ch 1, dc in next dc, sk next 2 dc, dc in next 2 dc; repeat from * across, turn.

Row 3: Ch 3, sk first dc, dc in next dc, *sk next ch-1 sp, (2 dc, ch 3, 2 dc) in next ch-1 sp, sk next ch-1 sp, sk next dc, dc in next 2 dc; repeat from * across, turn.

Row 4: Ch 3, sk first dc, dc in next dc, *(3 dc, ch 1, 3 dc) in next ch-3 sp, sk next 2 dc, dc in next 2 dc; repeat from * across, turn.

Repeat Rows 2–4 until piece measures about 58"/147.5cm. Do not fasten off.

Joining Row: Fold piece, bringing first row up to meet last row, working in chains across opposite side of foundation ch and sts of last row (through both thicknesses), sl st in each st across to join piece into a ring.

Fasten off.

FINISHING Using yarn needle, weave in all ends. Block lightly, if desired.

HUH?? Ok, so I was able to decipher what most of this meant from my minimal experience in knitting and crocheting. I was then able to translate more of the pattern after googling some of the abbreviations secret codes seen above. So I decided to give it a go. Well, after ripping out the stitches and starting over twice, I decided that this was just too challenging for me right now and that I will have to come back to this scarf when I am more experienced. The pattern shown above is the actual pattern provided on the site...feel free to tackle this on your own. If you are successful, please share that with me! I would love to see your results!!

I still really wanted to make myself a new scarf. With the negative temperatures we have been having I am really glad I did!! I really like infinity scarves, and I wanted to crochet something rather than knit. What to do? I decided to google easy crochet infinity scarf patterns and I happened to come across this!  This is exactly what I wanted. BUT, looking at a video of a nice scarf isn't exactly going to teach me how to make said scarf. (For all you lazy people out there who didn't click the link, it's actually just a video of still images of the scarf being all like, "look at me, I'm a scarf!") So after some searching, I found a link to this tutorial video in the comments of the original video.

This video is actually a great starter video for people who are just getting started in their crocheting adventures. Once you can get past the instructor's eclectic nails, her directions are clear and concise and this was a very fun/easy scarf to crochet. She doesn't use any crochet jargon at all; unless you know of a crochet step referred to as "little loop," and to me, this added to the ease of the scarf.

Normally this scarf would probably take me about 3 hours total to make. But for some reason, it seemed like whenever I would sit down to work on it, Sam (my 4 month old) would decide it was time to cry for mommy. Therefore it took me the better part of 2 weeks to get this done. It was definitely worth it though; it just means I got an awesome scarf (that keeps me super warm) and I got to spend special time with Sam. Sounds pretty good to me!

This style was referred to as a "snood"...funny

Now, if I've learned anything from facebook (which is basically the source of most things I learn), it's that giveaways are definitely the way to get popular. Therefore, you guessed it....I'm having my first very own giveaway!! AND, if you're super smart, you probably already figured out that this giveaway will be for an infinity scarf to call your own! Entering is pretty easy. All you have to do is sign up to be a follower of my blog, share my blogpost on your facebook page, and then send me a facebook message letting me know that you did. The drawing for the winner will happen Wednesday night, January 30th and will be announced on Facebook. Good luck everyone!!!

Pincerely yours,

Rachel 

Family Time (aka An Excuse to Bake)

Those of you who know my family probably know that when we get together it's always a good-- and loud-- time. Someone is usually the butt of the jokes (my brother Noam), and there is almost always tons of laughter. This weekend happened to be one of those fun times. My older brother Adam recently got engaged to his fiance Ilana (whom we love and adore!), and this past weekend was their engagement party at my parents house. And of course, those of you that know my mother know that she gets a bit stressed out and crazy when planning for events like this (she baked for the entire last trimester of my pregnancy) and has been baking since they got engaged Thanksgiving weekend.

I decided to let this little shindig be an opportunity for me to explore my cake decorating skills. I recently took a cake decorating class at Michael's, and wanted to put my skills to the test. Truthfully though, I think I've learned more decorating techniques from youtube, but that will be an entire post on its own.

I've seen many different rose swirl cake tutorials on youtube and decided, you know what, I can do this! It seems pretty simple. Guess what? IT WAS! I am being 100% serious and honest when I say that if I could do this, you most likely can too! This was a very simple technique to learn as well as execute.

Decorating this cake was so much fun! My friend Amanda came over to help/hang out. She also ended up taking the awesome pictures shown below. Originally we were going to try to do an ombre effect with the frosting, but after hemming and hawing for a few minutes decided to just stick to one color. (An ombre cake is definitely on my list of things to do though! I hereby promise a future ombre cake.)

Once the frosting was made and the cake was dirty iced, it was time to pipe the roses! After the first row, I was getting nervous and skeptical about how this cake was going to come out. The frosting didn't feel right and the roses seemed wilted already :( .

The second row gave the cake more promise and I began to feel a bit less nervous about how it would turn out. I was still having an issue with the frosting though, and Amanda suggested that we add more powdered sugar. GENIUS! It worked! If you looked closely, you will see that the roses on top are smoother/cleaner than the other two rows.

The Finished Product

When that very last rose was piped, the cake truly came to life, as did Amanda and I. My husband can attest to this as he was studying for his bar exam in the basement. (Probably wasn't too helpful to have two grown women squealing like giddy schoolgirls in the kitchen). Needless to say I am very proud of how this cake came out, and can't wait for the next excuse to make one!

Here are a couple action shots, courtesy of Amanda's awesome photography!

The Final Rose (no Bachelors here)

The other cake that I decided to tackle for their party was a "Petal Cake." This cake was much more time-consuming, but just as rewarding to make. Each petal is individually made one by one. After the first 30 or so, it becomes more natural and the cake really starts to flow. I was so nervous while I was making this cake. Imagine the scene. It is Saturday night and my mom is running around trying to set up the house. Some of our very good friends came over to help set up, which was very nice, but also somewhat stressful. Let's just say there was a lot of pressure and I felt like I was on display while decorating this cake. Lots of questions and oooh's and aah's. All I wanted to do was decorate!! Come on people!

In the end, the cake came out very nicely. I was not 100% satisfied with the finished product, and was being really hard on myself about some imperfections that I saw. But, after taking a step back and looking at if from a different perspective, it truly was a beautiful cake.

You'll notice my petals go in the opposite direction than the cake I was trying to imitate...shoutout to all the lefties out there!!!

The engagement party was a blast, and it was so nice to have (practically) the ENTIRE family home at the same time! (My younger brother's girlfriend wasn't able to make it, we missed you Haviva!!!!!) Here's to Adam and Ilana! May they have a long, happy, and healthy marriage! Can't wait to party June 2nd!

Pincerely yours,

Rachel