Tres Apronos

I love cupcakes.
Making them, eating them, drawing them, looking at other people's drawings of them...and especially sewing with them! Well, sewing with fabric that has cupcakes on it I mean...

I have about three different cupcake fabrics in my stash right now, waiting for the right project. Today it was this one's turn:



So cute, huh? And it just wanted to be aprons for my girls and I.

WANTED to.


So I looked at some pics of cute retro aprons and then drew out some ideas. I had a yummy chocolate brown for accents, and lined the back with a nice medium weight muslin.
Each apron had:
1 body cut from cupcake fabric
1 body cut from muslin
2 waist ties in c/c fabric
2 waist ties in brown fabric
2 neck ties in c/c fabric
2 neck ties n brown fabric
1 pocket on the girls', 2 pockets on mine
brown ruffles


I cut initials out of the brown, attached them in the center of the pockets using adhesive interfacing, then did a zig-zag stitch around the edge in a contrasting pink:
Fun with initials!



The girls' had brown ruffles around the top and the pocket. Here's everything attached, ready to sew the muslin on the back:

I sewed all the way around the edge, right sides together, making sure to tuck all the straps and ruffles in, leaving a hole to flip it back out. Once flipped right side out, I pressed it and then top stitched with the pink around all the edges.
I left mine a little simpler, no ruffles but still a scalloped bottom.
Two of the finished aprons:

And when I was all done, I realized I had enough left to whip up a fourth little apron for Baby Bear!
I made a large rectangle by seaming two pieces together in the center. Then I cut a long brown piece for a waistband and ironed each long side in about 1/2", and then ironed the whole thing in half (kind of like a huge piece of bias tape). I used my gathering foot again to attach the cupcake fabric in roughly the center of the brown waistband:

Then folded over the brown to encase the raw seam and topstitched the whole thing end to end with pink thread. Hemmed the other three edges and added her intial, and it was ready to go!
It was put to immediate use!

The only problem is, when outside looks like this:

And you have shiny new aprons to wear:

You end up with lots of this:

Freezer Paper Shirt - 1, googiemomma - 0

I give up.
In the lesson on just how many "100" of something is, I hereby consider myself schooled. Learned. Beaten.
Oh, sure, I started out all "Oooh, this is gonna look soooo cute, I can totally do this!!!"

But let me say it again--

100 is ALOT OF STINKIN' FLOWERS!!!!

I started out well--here's the shirt with its first iron on stencil flowers:


And after thinning the fabric paint, and putting two coats on all these flowers--front and back and both sleeves--I was pretty excited. The thinned blue paint mixed with the pink of the shirt to create a lovely washed purple look. I was diggin' it.

Then, I counted. All my hard work had net me exactly 47 flowers, and two butterflies. Not EVEN halfway there.

That's about when I threw in the towel. And went all old school on that shirt.

And to be perfectly honest, I don't totally hate it.

(Please please oh please don't tell all the cool craft bloggers. Gosh, I'd be SOOO embarassed if they knew I used (gasp!) puffy fabric paint! Straight from the bottle! Egads! The horror!)

It gives it a sort of three-dimensional look that--I think--came out sort of cute.


(The blue was not quite dry in this pic, it got MUCH darker when it dried.)

Or at least thats what I'm telling myself.

Whatever! The important thing is, we've got 98 flowers, 2 butterflies, bunches of sparkles and glitter, and one very happy Kindergartener!

Its just a little tough to count your own shirt!

All in all, I definitely like the stenciled effect, and will absolutely be doing more of it. Just, maybe...something a little simpler next time!

Intrinsic Study on Proportionate Danger of Snowstorms vs. Diets, googiemomma et al...or...Peanut Butter Whopper Pie

I'd like you to meet my friend. Her name is Lola.

Isn't she lovely in her shiny red splendor? Her smooth lines. Her burnished chrome accents. The light coating--not of dust--but of flour, of cocoa, of promises.

But be careful...she's a minx. Sure, she can lure you in with her avowals of health food--of a better tomorrow. And yes, she's always there for me when its time to make the weekly bread, or mash lentils so they become unrecognizable to children's eyes. 
But then...
Oh, then she whispers to me...
"whipped heavy cream" she says...
"peanut butter" she murmurs...
"chocolate" she sighs...

(what? your mixer doesn't talk in fancy font?)

And this, my friends, is what happens:

And this:

And this:

Which, in turn, leads to this:

Necessitating this:

And the end result? This:

(I'll spare you the gory details of the actual end results in photo form. Suffice it to say its along these lines, without, you know...the baby)

But regrets? ahhhhh...no, thank you very much.


Here's how the action went down:
Start with these:

Make the cake mix according to box directions, but crush about 1/2 the box of Whoppers and add it to the cake mix before baking in two 9" pans.

For the frosting, I used this recipe, but found it was a bit too sweet and not as fluffy as what I wanted. So take one cup of heavy whipping cream and one tsp of vanilla, and beat it into whipped cream. Slowly add the peanut butter frosting back in, a little at a time, beating just enough to incorporate it into the whipped cream. This will smooth, fluff and de-sweeten (is that a word?) the peanut butter frosting just enough.

When the cakes are cool (or before they're totally cool, if you're impatient like me) frost the bottom layer, stack them, and frost the top and sides. I sprinkled the top with cocoa powder, again because I was looking for something not overwhelmingly sweet, and top with remaining Whoppers. And then--enjoy. Go forth, my friends, and be naughty.

It was, in the words of googiedaddy, definitely a two slicer.