Rainbow Cake

My oldest daughter turned 7 last weekend.  Seven!  How did this happen?  How did she get to be seven years old already?  In the past few years I've started asking her what kind of cake she wants for each birthday.  I have fun attempting her requests.  Well lately she has been really into rainbows.  She is quite the artist & she draws rainbows all day.  This year she said she wanted a rainbow cake.  She also said she wanted it to have clouds, grass & a unicorn on it.  

Hmmmmm...  

Here's what I came up with & it turned out really cute:

I decided to just frost it in a light blue color to represent the sky.  Then I used the grass tip (ok, I can't remember what it's called exactly, but it's that frosting tip that has all of the little holes in it so it looks like grass when the frosting comes out) to make some bright green grass around the bottom of the cake. Then I just used my round tips to make the rainbow stripes & the clouds.

To give her the unicorn she wanted I just put a small My Little Pony unicorn on the top of the cake.  And 7 bright pink candles, of course:

Make a wish Kaylee-girl:

For the inside I did this:

If a rainbow cake is what she wanted, then that is definitely what she got!  If you are on Pinterest, then you have seen this idea for a rainbow layer cake I am sure.  I decided to try it out for this cake & it was super cute!  And easy!  Vanilla cake batter, divide into 6 equal parts, tint each part with a different rainbow color, bake, level, layer-done!

And it was so yummy too, we hardly had any left after her celebration:

Happy birthday to my beautiful girl!

(7!)

Random Craft

Did you notice the new header on my blog?  Yes, after having my little blog for 6 years I have decided to change its name.  So long to "One Crazy Stampin' Mama" & hello to "Random Craft."  Why the name change?  Well, I've been thinking about it for a couple of years now actually.  I no longer sell Stampin' Up! products, my crafting has become so much more than stamping & I hardly ever really stamp anymore so I decided to change it up.  I like the name "Random Craft" because that's what I feel I do.  I make random crafts.  I like to craft in general & so you will see a lot of random things on my blog.  Hopefully no one else is already using this title for a blog, I tried looking & it didn't seem like it.  Anyway, I'm trying it out.

So...on to my random crafts of late.

A few weeks ago I decided to make a cushion for the bench in our entryway:

We have had this bench FOREVER.  And it has taken lots of abuse from my children.  There are sticker remnants on the top, crayon marks, pencil marks, etc.  I wanted to make a cushion to cover up all of the markings & to add some color into our family room.  And I didn't want to sew a cushion cover.  So, thanks to some ideas on Pinterest, I made this really fast & easy cushion.  I bought the fabric at JoAnn's & then I bought some thick foam there too.  (Use your coupons for JoAnn's!)  Then I had my hubby get a piece of plywood for me one day when he was at Home Depot.  They cut it to the exact size we needed for the top of the bench.  I used the plywood as a guide to trim the foam to the same size just using a serrated knife.  Then I just laid the fabric out upside down, laid the foam on top of that, laid the plywood onto that & then started stapling the fabric down with my handy staple gun.  Of course, I went slowly, making sure the fabric was pulled tight & that the corners were folded nicely.  Took me maybe 10 minutes & it was on my bench!

I love it:

Now just as soon as little Quinn (14 month) stops eating shoes we can move our tan show bins back into those cubbies in the bench & it will be much more functional again.

We also spruced up the girls' bathroom a little bit:

Gosh.  Sorry my photos are so dark.  Anyway, thanks again Pinterest for these great ideas!  My hubby hung a wood strip along the entire wall of our bathroom where the old towel bar was.  Then we added 5 simple hooks.  Now we can hang 5 towels up instead of just 2.  It is so great!  Especially when we have visitors staying at our house, everyone has a place to hang their towel to dry.  And I love the shower curtain too!  It nicely covers up our outdated tub/shower combo until we can afford to re-do it.  Thank you Home Goods!  

I also printed out these bathroom printables that I found on Pinterest & stuck them in cheap white frames:

They look cute!  And I love the pops of color they bring into our very tan bathroom.  Just search "bathroom printables" on Pinterest & they pop right up.  I'm still trying to decide what color I want to paint that bathroom...

Also a few weeks ago I managed to find some time on a rainy day to make a few more coloring purses.  I made one for my daughter & then 2 others for her cousins.  They all turned out really cute:

These things are so handy & get a lot of use from my girls.

Here's the crayon side:

And then a simple ruffle on the other side:

I made these ones slightly larger than I usually do so that they can hold a full-size coloring book.  

I have to say it was so nice to have my sewing machine out again.  I just love sewing.  It is so fun creating things from just some simple supplies like fabric & thread.  And it is a great stress-reliever!  Well, as long as the kids are asleep!  

14 Days of Love

You've probably seen these ideas all over online too just like me, but this year I decided to do it for my husband.  The 14 days of love!  A little countdown to Valentine's Day.  I actually used the free printable labels from Six Sister's Stuff so this is a super easy project.  They have some pre-made labels with sayings already written on them that you can use, but I just printed out all of the plain ones so that I could customize them to things that my hubby likes.  It was pretty fun to go to the store & pick out some of his favorite treats & snacks.  It may be a little cheesy, but who cares!  He seems to be enjoying them so far too.

So here's the one I left out for him on the first day:

"You are one Hot Tamale"

Cheesy, but true!

Love him so much!

Happy New Year!

I can still say, "Happy New Year" right?  There are still 3 hours left of January!  Well, have you missed me over these past 4 (four!) months?  A LOT has been going on around here.  The biggest thing is that we bought a house & moved at the beginning of November.  It was, of course, crazy moving with 3 kids, but I think we are feeling pretty settled in now.  We also really enjoyed spending the holidays with our family & friends.  Every year the holidays just seem to come & go even faster.  And then we began 2013 with a round of a nasty stomach bug followed 2 weeks later by all of us passing around a yucky head cold.  Ugh!  But most of us are feeling better now & hopefully we can leave the illness behind in January & enjoy a much healthier February!  Anyway, I was scrolling around my photo library trying to see if I've done anything crafty over the last few months that I could share with you.  I did find a few things.

First, look how big my babies are getting:

Whew!  They are keeping me busy, busy lately!  But I love them so much!

So earlier in 2012 I had decided that I wanted to make my girls poodle skirts for Halloween.  In August I bought the felt & poodles & I even made Kaylee's skirt.  Then we found this house, put an offer on it, opened escrow, started packing, etc.  But since I had already started making the skirts I wanted to finish them in time for Halloween.  Luckily these skirts are so easy to make!  Honestly, a circle skirt is probably the easiest & best skirt to start with if you are a beginner to sewing.  I loved how the skirts turned out!  And my girls loved twirling around in them!

Here's Kaylee:

And Aidynn:

And Quinn:

Even though we had just moved, we hosted Christmas dinner at our house this year.  I had gotten the free download for my Silhouette machine for the holiday photo props & thought it would be really fun to have out on Christmas.  They were super easy to put together (Thank you Silhouette!) & they turned out very cute!  Everyone had a blast using the photo props & taking some pictures.

Mommy kissing Santa Claus:

My oldest girlies:

I also made some sugar cookie place cards for Christmas dinner.  I love making sugar cookies.  Growing up we made them quite often & I love making them with my girls now too.  I kept it simple for the place cards & just used a scallop circle cookie cutter & then wrote everyone's names on them.  Then we put them in a little treat bag, tied them up with some twine & set them on every plate.  They turned out pretty cute:

I cannot believe that our youngest baby just turned 1!  This past year just went by way too fast!  I made her a teeny tiny cake for her first birthday party.  It turned out pretty cute for my first time hand piping on a cake.  Luckily it was a tiny cake!  I thought I had a picture of it on my phone, but I guess I don't & I didn't feel like uploading the gazillion photos from my camera right now.  But you can sort of see it there.  

This girl did not waste any time smashing up her little cake:

 I also made a big cake for everyone else to eat & I tried that scallop technique I've seen a dozen times on Pinterest.  I love how it turned out!  I love that it looks great & it was super fast & easy to frost like this.  

Pretty & pink of course:

I also made a couple of tooth fairy pillows for my hubby's partner at work.  They have a little boy & a little girl so they wanted 2 different ones.  Having 3 girls over here I actually had a hard time picking some fabric out of my stash that was boy-ish & a decent print for this small pillow.  But I really love how it turned out.  I definitely dig the teal & green together.

Here's the boy pillow:

And the girl version:

Well, hopefully we can stay healthy over here & I can actually do a little crafting soon!  

Fingers crossed!

Look what arrived on my doorstep last Friday...

 The new cookbook from the girls of Our Best Bites!  Probably my favorite cooking website of all time!  Honestly, they have such great recipes on their site.  I have tried a lot of their recipes & we've liked them all.  Plus the recipes are pretty easy & they explain everything for you which is helpful.  I pretty much go to there site whenever I'm not sure what to make for dinner or I am wanting to try something new.  I have their first cookbook too & it is definitely the most-used cookbook in my kitchen.  I scored a great pre-order deal with free shipping too through Barnes & Noble on their new cookbook & I was so excited when it showed up on Friday.  I like how this cookbook is divided into seasons with recipes for each one.  So fun!  There are so many yummy looking things in there too!  I really can't wait for the weather to cool down a little so I can try the Tortellini Sausage Soup:

And I think this Glazed Lemon Cake looks divine:

You may be wondering:  Why buy the cookbooks when they have so many recipes right online?  Well, because there are so many great recipes in the cookbooks that they don't post online!  If you are looking for some new cooking inspiration I definitely recommend you check out Our Best Bites or buy one of their cookbooks!

Lemonade Pocket

I finally got to crafting last week.  I made these lemonade pockets (70 0f them) for our monthly Relief Society activity at church.  Our theme was friendship & we decorated everything with lemons.  It turned out so cute!  I only wish I had been able to stay for the actual activity, but with the hubby at work I had to get my 3 girls home & to bed now that school is back in session.  But we did a cute "speed friendshipping" activity so that all of the ladies could get to know each other better & I hear that it was a lot of fun & everyone really enjoyed chatting.  We also had a popcorn bar set up with lots of yummy mix-ins & a lemonade bar with a few different kinds of lemonade too.  It all looked so cute I wish I had gotten a picture of it.  I made the handout for the ladies to take home which was the lemonade pocket above.  They were really easy to make, just a piece of paper that is folded & secured with brads to make a pocket.  That's where you put one of those individual serving lemonade packets.  Then I just punched a circle out of the top so that it could hang over a water bottle so they had something to mix their lemonade with.  On the front I put a quote & a cute stamped lemon.  Here's the quote we used as the center of our activity:

“We are all in this together. We need each other. Oh, how we need each other. Those of us who are old need you who are young, and hopefully, you who are young need some of us who are old...We need deep and satisfying and loyal friendships with each other. These friendships are a necessary source of sustenance. We need to renew our faith every day. We need to lock arms and help build the kingdom so that it will roll forth and fill the whole earth.”

-Marjorie Pay Hinckley

These little drink pockets are really quick & easy to make & they make a cute little gift too.  And our summer heat has just set in here in Southern California (yes, in September) & so the lemonade handout was perfect to take home & enjoy on one of these hot days!

Summer Crafting Wrap-up

Hi!  I know, again, it's been a while.  We've just had such a busy summer & it flew by way too fast.  I can't believe that school starts next Wednesday!  Here are the highlights of our summer (& the reasons why I didn't get very much crafting done):

Kaylee had her tonsils out.

Kaylee learned to ride a bike.

We went to Mammoth for a week.

Quinn got 2 teeth.

Aidynn is fully potty trained now.

Kaylee lost 2 teeth.

Aidynn turned 3.

Quinn sits up by herself.

We went to Palm Springs for a few days.

And add in there many fun play dates, lots of house guests, beach days & some swimming.

It's been great!

So although we seemed to be so busy this summer I managed to make a few things.  I was too lazy to get my camera out to take decent pictures, so I'm just using these ones off of my phone from Instagram.  

When Quinn started eating solid foods we got out the bibs that we used with the older 2 girls.  Or, rather, the ones that had lasted through both girls.  Now even though these saved bibs were in decent condition, we soon realized that the velcro no longer held.  Bummer!  So every time we'd feed Quinn she could easily pull her bib off, making a huge mess, or the bib would just fall off by itself.  I grabbed some of my fabric scraps & made some new bibs for her.  Bibs are really easy to make too.  I simply used one of my favorite bibs as a template & before I sewed them I used some iron on vinyl to laminate them & make them waterproof.  On the back of the bibs I just used some soft flannel.  Then I attached snaps because I like them so much better for bibs than velcro.

Here's the assortment of bibs:

As I mentioned above, Kaylee lost 2 teeth this summer.  Her teeth had been loose for a couple of months & so I knew I wanted to make a little tooth fairy pillow.  Of course I procrastinated making it & she lost both teeth (one day after each other) before I had made one.  So the week after she lost her teeth I finally made her a little pillow.  Now at least she can use it for all of the other teeth she'll lose.  I had splurged & bought this super cute pink chevron fabric over the summer too & had been itching to make something with it.  And I love the aqua flannel that I used to make the little pocket out of & I used it on the back of the pillow too.  I had traced the shape of a tooth on paper & then just used that as a template to cut one out of white felt to glue onto the pocket.  This was such a quick & easy project & I love how it turned out.  I was going to put a K on there for Kaylee, but then figured it's better without because all of my girls can use this same pillow.

Here it is:

I actually did a little sewing for myself too this summer.  Ok, nothing big, but I had bought this cute striped maxi skirt at the beginning of summer & then I never wore it because it was actually too long.  Way too long!  I decided to shorten it & I am so glad I did!  Now instead of this skirt just hanging in my closet not being worn, it is a great length & I wear it all of the time!  And this was just a simple hem job too.  The skirt is knit which can be tricky to sew, but if I use the walking foot for my sewing machine it makes it so fast & easy.

I should have taken a before picture too, but here it is all hemmed up:

And now I'm off to enjoy our last few days of summer!

Hopefully I can get some more crafting done once the girls are back in school!