Fun party favors.

I made these cute fabric headbands for my friends granddaughters birthday party favors.

 

What a great way to use up your scraps.

 

 

Crumb Cake Experiment.

The other day I made homemade Blueberry Muffins with a Cinnamon crumb topping. They were such a huge hit, they got gobbled up before I could share a picture.

The cake part of the muffin was so moist I thought to myself, this is a great base that I could add any thing to it.

My husbands said to me, this crumb topping reminds me of the crumb cake I used to get in up state New York.

 

So of course I figured why not try and make a Crumb Cake Muffin.

I used the base recipe and added a great product I recently discovered at my favorite cake decorating supply house, ABC Cake Decorating here in Phoenix.
It's called Butter Vanilla. The ladies at this store call me the purest because I read every label and always tell them I don't want a bunch of chemicals and fake flavors. They assured me this was pure vanilla and butter extract and they also told me  that they can't keep it in stock.  They said people are adding it to all kinds of recipes  including pancake and waffle recipes.

 

 

Once I had the batter made I filled my pretty cupcake wrappers a 1/4 of the way full.

 

I just love these, I get them at Micheal's in the $1 bins, the only trouble is they are not lined so they don't stay so pretty once you bake in them.

 

Then I added a layer of the Cinnamon Crumb topping.

 





The I used the remainder of the batter to cover the crumb topping and then covered that  batter with the remaining crumb topping.

Into a 400 degree oven for 22 minutes.

 

I found the original recipe on AllRecipes.com

 

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 egg

1/3 cup milk

Add all the dry ingredients into mixer and mix together. Next use a liquid measuring cup  and add 1/3 oil, one egg and fill remainder of the cup with milk.

Add to dry ingredients and blend. Next not in the original recipe I added 1 1/2 teaspoon of the butter vanilla extract, however, you can just add vanilla.

Here are the ingredients for the crumb topping.

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup flour

1/4 cubed chilled butter

2 teaspoons Cinnamon.

 

I doubled it for the crumb muffins.

I pretty sure  my husband is going to love these.

 Note there is only 11 in this picture, the 12th one found a happy home in my belly!

 

 





Darn, I hate when he is right!

So last night when my husband came home, I couldn't wait to show him the finished blocks of my Scrappy Trip Around the World.

 

 

He stood there for the longest time and didn't say anything.

Of course, I loved it and was waiting for a positive response. When I asked him if he liked it, he said yes, but he didn't know where to rest his eyes on the quilt.

As I stood there and looked at it I had to admit, I saw his point of view.

So this morning I laid several different color borders along side my blocks.

When I put a solid brown around the sides it calmed the quilt and gave my eyes a resting place. Darn! I hate when he is right! But I also love it too!

 

 

I have the back all piece and ready to load onto my Long Arm.



Love a rainy day!

I just love a rainy day, it's the perfect excuse to spend the day in the sewing room.

I have anxiously be waiting to put my Scrappy Trip Around the World together.

I laid all my blocks down on the floor and just kept turning them until I found the one I liked the best.

 

I found that if I looked through my camera I could see the blks better.

First I liked this one.

Then I decided to change one block and than another until I came upon this one.

This is the one! I really don't like the double red in the corner and I thought about taking the blk apart and changing it, but then I got a grip of my OCD and decided to leave it alone.

I have really enjoyed making this Scrappy Trip and have pulled out all my Jelly Rolls out to make more!



What a pillow case day!

Yesterday was our Pillow Case for Cancer Patients sew day.

I can't even begin to tell you the love and support shown by so many.

We made over 90 pillow cases.

 

When I first thought of making  pillow cases for Cancer Patients I knew if I asked all of my quilting friends they would help. Kinda like if you build it they would come, and boy did they!
 I also went to several local quilt shops in my area and asked if they would like to host an event.
 Without hesitation Scrapbooks Etc jumped on board.  They offered to host an open sew event and even offered to be a drop of location for those who couldn't attend the sew day  but wanted to help make pillow cases.

Julie and Marti at ETC, went above and beyond to make this event successful and fun. They donated over 50 pillow case kits and also donated this beautiful quilt to one lucky participant.
http://scrapbooks-etc.com/


 

 

Vicki was the lucky winner of this beautiful quilt Marti donated.

 

Thanks to all that came out and help.

 

 

I would also like to thank everyone who donated a door prize.

 

Audrey Good and Cheri Maniz of http://www.cherigoodquiltdesign.com/cherigoodquiltdesign_home.html

Not only did these ladies come out and help but they also donated their pillow case pattern to everyone who participated.

And if that wasn't enough they asked their quilt group to make pillow case for us as well.

Thanks Audrey and Cheri.

 

 

 

Maytee Green owner of True Essence Salon for the generous Aveda gift basket and gift card.

http://www.trueessencesalon.com/

 

Trudy Maples for a $25 Pampered Chef Gift Card

http://www.pamperedchef.biz/TrudyMaples

 

Pam McMahon donated six of her Piece by Piece patterns

http://www.piecebypiecequiltdesigns.com/

 

Ribbons and Lace donated a $15 gift card

http://www.ribbonsnlace.com/

 

Monica Croom donated a $50 gift card for her Awesome Artisan Quilting Long Arm Quilting.

http://www.awesomequilts.com/

 

April Horvath for a generous gift basket of Avon products.

 

Me and My Sister Barb Groves for giving everyone a Mini Charm Pack of their new line

Thanks to the amazing friend and family who donated money for fabric purchase.

 

I hope this is just the beginning and that their will be many more sewing day dedicated to making pillow cases for cancer patients.

 

 

Best Chocolate Cake Ever!

Really, I mean it.

Yesterday was my Anniversary and today is Valentines Day, I know, why the heck did I get married the day before Valentines. It's was the Anniversary of our first date. Hey when your in love you don't think these things through.

Back to the Best Chocolate Cake ever!

Since these two big days are side by side, I always make something heart shape. This year I decided on a cake.

Got this idea in my head that I wanted to make a cake like my favorite ice cream.  Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia, Yum right.

So I set out to find a really good Chocolate cake recipe.

I found a recipe on Addapinch.com

 

 

After adding all the ingredients the batter smelled like heaven.

Heart shaped pans of course. Just a little side note. See how full I filled these cake pans.... Well this cake really puffs up. After about 10 minutes in the oven my house smelled like chocolate heaven, 5 minutes later it smelled like burnt chocolate. The cake had risen over the edges and onto the bottom of my oven.

 

As you can see, one cake came out of the pan perfect, the other not so much. I will explain more about that later.

I went to my favorite cake supply house here in Phoenix, ABC Cake Decorating and Supply. Bakers heaven! I talk to one of the many helpful ladies and explain I always have issues with cake coming free from the pan. She highly recommend Cake Release by Wilton.  It really does work, however, you have to a bit more generous with it than I did on my first pan. (Lesson learned)

The other great ingredient in the above picture is Silver Cloud Natural Flavoring. I of course bought Cherry to make my Cherry Garica Cake.

For the middle layer of my cake I chopped Cherries and added them to the Cherry flavor frosting.

Next I decorated my cake, remember Anniversary/Valentines Day Cake.

My husband had bought me roses, so I thought it would be fun to match the color of the frosting with the roses.

My cake was a success and my husband love the chocolate/ cherry combo. He did say it was the best chocolate cake ever.

Here is the recipe, nice and easy.

Pre-heat oven to 350.

2cups all purpose flour

2cups sugar

3/4 cup cocoa

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon espresso powder

1 cup milk

1/2 cup Vegetable oil

2 eggs

 2 teaspoons Vanilla

1 cup boiling water.

Add flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt and espresso to a large mixing bowl, Mix until combined.

Add milk, veg.oil, eggs, and vanilla. Just mix until combined.

Carefully add one cup boiling water to cake batter and beat on high for about 1 minute.

This cake batter is running compared to most and I was worried at first but trust me, it will be so moist!

Pour into a greased pans and bake for 30 to 35 minutes.

I will be using this recipe again and again. Enjoy.

 



So much fun!

I been having so much fun making a Scrappy Trip Around the World.

I had been seeing Scrappy blocks on Pintrest and loved the way the looked, but thought to myself, okay you have to many projects going, you don't want to start one with lots of pieces. But then I clicked on one of them and followed a link to www.quiltville.blogspot.com   Bonnnie has a great step by step tutorial on a fast and easy way to make a Scrappy Trip.

 

Next thing I knew I was hooked.

What I like about this quilt is that there is no right or wrong way to assemble these blocks.

I am making a wall quilt so I only have 12 blocks to arrange. I will just put them down on the floor and just keep turning them until I find my favorite design.

 

I feel an addiction coming on, I have now pulled all my Jelly Rolls to see which one I would like to turn into another Scrappy Trip.

 



Need blog help!

Okay, my fellow quilting and blogging sisters, I have a question.

I want to shorten my blog address name but I am afraid if I do that people won't be able to find it.

So here is my question, if I shorten www.sewbellapurses.blogspot.com to say something like, www.sewbellaluv.blogspot.com would it be like starting a whole new blog or will you still go to my original site?

 

Trying to keep busy.

I have really been in a funk since Monday when my friend Diane passed away.

I have been trying to keep myself busy and have found the most peace in my sewing room.

Today I made three Valentine's Wreaths.

I saw this cute wreath at Scrapbooks Etc. and couldn't resist making one for myself. Had so much fun doing it I made one for my son Jon and his girlfriend Caitlin and one for my friend Sherry.

 

 

Dresden Fun

So some how I always miss the blog hops. I never seem to catch the beginning and find out when they over.

I have really enjoyed seeing all the Dresden Plates on all the different blogs and Pintrest.  What fun and creative designs.

Even though I missed the blog hop I remembered how fun it was making Dresdens, so I decided to get my templete out and have some fun.

 

I made my daughter a new quilt last year and never got around to making decorative pillows to match the quilt. So when I saw the Dresden's I got a few ideas.

The first pillow I used the Cricut to cut out her name, next time I will go to the scrapbook store and use the die cuts. Not fun on the Cricut.

 

I used half plates for the corners. The second pillow has one large Dresden in the center of the pillow.

 

 

Here they are together.

 Here is a picture of the quilt.



 

 

 





Rest in Peace

Today my friend lost her battle with Cancer.

Diane was my quilting buddy, we both loved fabric and couldn't get enough of it. We called ourselves fabric hoarders. We often joked that if we ever became homeless we would live in our cars, but our cars would be beautiful because they would be filled with our beautiful fabrics.

I learned a very important lesson from my friend Diane, see she was the bread winner in her family. Her husband has had several serious illness which left him on disability. So Diane worked many long hours to be able to take care of her family. She was a planner, she would buy lots of material and patterns and books for that one day when she would retire and have time to sew. She always talked about what she wanted to do once she quit working. She wanted to sew, and learn how to use her embroidery machine and go away on quilting weekends.

All those projects, all that fabric will never be put to use by Diane.

 All those projects we planned on doing together I will do, no more putting it off. I will us all my fabric that I have hoarded, and I will begin today.

I will miss you Diane, you loved life and you always had a smile.