spoolsisters

Hosted a baby shower for a friend this weekend and came up with a fun quilt project in lieu of a guest book. The piecing is quite simple – made half square triangles with an antique white Kona cotton and a fun flower print on green. She is having a girl, but isn’t a pink fan, so I love this colorful print I picked up on Bainbridge Island. I haven’t decided how I will put it together, although I am leaning toward something like this one or maybe some pinwheels? Aren’t they lovely!

I made some instructions using extra fabric I cut into blocks. Even got to use some of the decorative stitches on my sewing machine. I am also going to add her name, but I didn’t have time to embroider it to the blocks, so I just used a color pencil to simulate it.

I’ll be making a few small packages to mail out to her family that couldn’t come to the shower, so I’ll have to make a simple instruction sheet and include this important direction.

If you are interested in doing a similar project – send me an email and I will be happy to send you what I come up with for the instructions. I have a few baby quilts to finish before this one is done, but I’ll post some pictures at that point. Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

This is a popular design among cakes orders. I think this is the third time I’ve done something like this:

I love doing first birthday cakes! I get to make a cake that I know adults will love and I get to make a sweet little cake for the birthday boy or girl as well! It’s a way to be creative in baking and decorating that I enjoy.

Madilynne’s cake was an applesauce cake (no sugar) that is decorated simply just for her. I have used this recipe plenty of times! It’s super simple and can be made as muffins if you have any leftover batter. My son particularly enjoys the muffins and I don’t mind giving him one as I know what is in it! I’d be happy to share the recipe if you want to try it!

Here is the adult cake boxed up and ready to go:

This photo is also the new photo on the home page of my website: coastalcakery.com!

For my first article with Sandbox Press, I wrote about this great activity to do with your kid! This is the original post:

This may be a small spoiler for family, but I had to post about these cards I made for St. Patrick’s Day! Ethan is pretty good with doing crafts with me – as long as it takes less than 15 seconds of his time. I had to force him to stay a little longer but the end result made it worth it!

I started with each blank card and put the shamrocks wherever they landed! I later added detail with a green thin sharpie and used a glue gun to attach the green ribbon. I had enough left over ribbon to line the flaps of 2 of the envelopes.  You can see the little fingerprints detail that made each of the 3- or 4-leaf clovers:

I think you can do this project with any age kid – as long as you can hold them down for a few minutes! I was able to get 9 cards made with Ethan. I wish I could have done a few more but I think at least the family will enjoy them! Happy Shamrock Day!

Doing some virtual spring cleaning and came across this photo of a quilt I made back in 2003 for my older sister’s birthday. All the fabrics were used to make a baby quilt and I used the rest to make this one (the benefits of over estimating the fabric needed).  I don’t seem to have any photos of the baby quilt – need to do some more digging and maybe one will turn up (think I may have still occasionally used film back in those days). I’ll try and share more of these quilt photos – it is fun to see how my style has evolved over the years, although I love this rail fence pattern, and I’m sure I will make another again someday.

Happy Sunday!

Have you ever made a pie from scratch? I mean the whole thing! Crust and filling? It’s not as hard (or as easy) as you may think! I’ve been called “The Cake Lady” (and didn’t enjoy it) but I think I may have found a new calling in pies as well!

One of my old college roommates came down for a visit and during naptime, we decided to go for it. Let’s make a pie!  We used the Joy of Cooking’s deluxe butter crust recipe (because it called for the least amount of Crisco and I like to keep that to a minimum) and Apple Pie recipe. We made the crust, chopped the apples, added some delicious spices and threw it in the oven! Here is Kristin adding the finishing touches: cinnamon sugar on top!

Once baked, it had to cool for 3-4 hours. That is not fun. I prefer to eat my creations moments after they exit the oven and by the time it was cool, I wasn’t hungry anymore! So we had some for breakfast!  Here is the finished pie:

Look at that delicious goodness inside!!!

Let me know if you’ve ever tried to make a pie from scratch! If you haven’t – go try and let me know how it goes!