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My daughter had a softball party with her softball team! We grilled hot dogs and I made these cute cupcakes (super easy)! I made a basic yellow cake from my Joy of Cooking cookbook, my go to cookbook. I normally make my frosting from scratch, but when feeding children, they prefer the store bought stuff anyhow. So, I bought the basic “fluffy white” frosting and a small red gel frosting. They made the cutest softballs…er…. baseballs. Softballs, as my husband likes to remind me, are yellow. *Sigh*

Ah, Baby Showers, it seems to be the topic of the year. Ice storms or contaiminated water, something is going on because it seems everyone is having a baby. To all of you who are expecting a little one, Congrats!!

In honor of this occasion, I made something beautiful for precious little ones to … well, to burp on. I fell in love with this Noah’s Ark fabric from Hancock Fabrics and was looking for an excuse to buy it (thank you Ladies!).

These are so simple. I cut two equal pieces of plain flannel fabric, 12 inches by 6 inches, give or take.

Sew right sides together with the zig-zag stitch (these will be washed several times). With plain flannel, I can’t tell what the wrong side is, any suggestions? Hint, I always sew around ALL four corners, so all corners are crisp and created equal.

Turn right side out and IRON!

Then fold in the last side, IRON, and sew with a straight stitch.

Now for the fun part, cut the fun fabric slightly wider that the burp cloth, fold under on all sides and IRON.

With a straight stitch, sew around the perimeter of the fun fabric.

Add additional stitching for decoration, if you so choose.

Feed, burp, wash, and repeat!

I have been wanting to try quilling for a long time. I went to Hobby Lobby several times with all intentions of buying the starter kit and I always went home empty handed… well, without the starter kit. Really… who leaves a craft store empty handed? But all that changed when I was surfing the web and found Yulia Brodskaya’s website. Be sure to check it out, beautiful work!! Now I have the starter kit and here is what I have learned so far.

1. The school glue is much too thick, Mod Podge works much better!

2. Mod Podge dries really fast, work as you go!

3. Gloss Mod Podge shows up on matte paper. This is a “duh”, but it is something you don’t think about when your kids are napping, the hubby is entertained, and you have 46 minutes to craft!

4. Rinse brush OFTEN. When applying Mod Podge, the glue will dry in the brush and it will be useless quickly! Also, the color from the quilling paper will transfer to the brush… to your white paper background. Nice.

This is a really fun craft! I am already in love with it! AND Quilled Creations has colored paper, metallic paper, graduating paper… need I say more? This is the beginning of many more blogs on this section!

P.S. My first creation… The Four Seasons… Coming Soon!