only the best fudge ever!!

oh my, this has to be the best chocolate & peanut butter fudge ever! And I made it. I've never made fudge before and i really must pat myself on the back because this stuff is the BOMB. Jenny B makes the best chocolate fudge and I will forever be grateful to her and her fudge when I was in the hospital after having Ava. She brought me a big tub full and I think I ate it all. But this is the best peanut butter and chocolate fudge! Here's the recipe and I didn't alter it one bit! Even bought parkay like she suggested.

Yes, this is more projects from the Fa La La La Felt book! I think these two are what sold me on the book. They are perfectly weird and a little creepy and super cute! But I don't like mine as much as the ones in the book. My heads are shaped a little funny. I've already altered the pattern to be a little more round for the next time I try to make these. I did an awful job at sewing the hats on. I should probably redo that...

 This is what Frank does when I sew at my desk. He usually sits behind the sewing machine but I was hand sewing so he had more room. He would sit on a bed of tacks just to be near me.

I went ahead and bought the red coat pattern from the person I originally got the inspiration from. Look at the difference in size! Which do you like better? I'm not sure myself. Jon likes the bigger one. The small one should definitely have smaller buttons.

Momma coat and daughter coat.

Did you know that I'm not a fan of the blanket stitch? I think I was supposed to do that around the coat but I just really don't like that stitch to look at and I don't like to do that stitch. I should rephrase that. I don't like the stitch USUALLY. But sometimes it's ok.

             

1st snow. This is what I woke to. It wasn't much but it snowed!!!!

And below is Ava from this morning. Still in her night-night diaper but promptly out of her shirt! First thing she did was take it off.

I'm still reading the Sword of Truth series (I'm on #9 I think) and listening to Outlander for the 100th million time. Happy Thanksgiving! We went to Ikea and then ate some roast beef with mashed potatoes but no rolls becasue I needed to save room for the pound of fudge I'm about to eat:)

Two owls, a fish and one polka dot

More wool felt ornaments from the Fa La La La Felt Book.

I don't even know why I'm making so many ornaments. It's probably becasue they are so easy, they are cute and quick. Instant (sort of instant) gratification.

I really wanted to do the hood over the owl eyes (they show it on the pattern) but I could not for the life of me figure out how. It's not a pattern piece but rather instructions saying "cut two half circles and put them over the eyes". I did that and it didn't work!  I might have had the eyes spaced to far apart....

Maybe when Katelyn and Laura get their books they can figure it out and email me:)

*aren't those eyes awesome?? They are old buttons and I think those are the only ones I have like it.

The fish is also from the book. I had such a hard time with his "scales". There are not really any instructions on that either. It just says to embellish as you want or something like that. I had to look up how to do that stitch (1st trying to find out what that stitch is even called becasue it doens't say it in the pattern). I have to say though that I bought this book when it was hot off the press as an e-book so they may have changed some things after hearing customers complain:) 

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I found an excellent way to get fabric polka dots on the wall!!! Steam-a-seam!!!!

Look at this idea!!! oh man this is cute! And it would be sooo easy!

You don't have to sew to make fabric decals you know....And if you have access to a die cut machine (that was for my sister and Jenny B who are teachers)...

Here's a close up of the circle. the edges are barely frayed and the only reason mine has some pulled threads is becasue when I cut it I didn't cut all the way through in that area when cutting my circle.  I used steam-a-seam, then using a large circle template, cut out a circle. I then peeled off the paper backing, put the circle on the wall and ironed directly on the wall. So far it's not fallen off and doesn't feel or look like it's going to fall off. I've had it up there for 5 days now. I just took it off and it left only a tiny residue in one spot and I was able to scrap that off with my nails. So I think this is how I'll do it!

 

Did you notice the watermark on my photos?? I stumbled upon this tutorial and found it easy to do even though it's for Photoshop Elements and I have Photoshop CS5 and the buttons are different! It made me search and now I know my program a little better.

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Emily stayed home yesterday after throwing up on the bus Wednesday. Ava had a temperature of 102 on Wednesday and yesterday was soooooo horribly cranky. We put the girls in strollers and went for a long walk with them super bundled up. Ava fell asleep and when we got home we woke her up. She was so CRAZY and unreasonable. She wanted her shoes, socks, fleece lined overalls, puffy coat, mittens and beanie left on (inside the house) and when her beanie would start to slide off she would scream. When her shoes fell off she screamed. It was a nightmare:) you couldn't pick her up or touch her. She literally laid face down on the living room floor screaming for I don't know how long. This is so typical of her. If she's in a pissy mood don't touch anything! Don't move anything! I moved her doll house from one side of the living room to the other while she was having this fit and she screamed to put it back (that was pretty funny)! Yesterday was a rough one:) But I did make chocolate chip muffins for us and the bus driver. I put peanut butter chips and piped peanut butter frosting into the middle of them but not for the bus driver. She's german and germans for the most part don't like peanut butter.

ein Weihnachtsbaum ist gut, but 6 are better!

More lovelies from the Fa la la la Felt book. I used wool felt from achildsdream. Oh wait, I didn't, I used the felt I got from a German store ..I went with Corinnea and have no idea where it was. A Childs Dream doesn't have some of the colors. I'm going to try some felt from heather Baily's site. it's wool and bamboo. It sounds nice but I've been fooled before! I used stuffing for most of the tree and then added plastic pellets in the bottom. The tallest is 7" tall and about 4.5 around.



 A "mug rug" from Kelly. isn't it CUUUTE?? I guess these are the big thing right now in blogland. I had  never heard of them until Kelly gave me this then I started noticing them on blogs. genius! Although I can tell you exactly how they came about. Someone was drinking coffee in her sewing room and spilled or left a ring of coffee on a pattern. She looked around and saw a mini quilt and thought " duh!! Finally a use for that tiny quilt!". or something like that.... it's genius either way.

 You know someone likes you when they cut into their much coveted stack (and I really mean yards and yards) of Celebrate Spring by Sandy Gervais for Moda. Heidi made this 1/2 yard bundle for me. She LOVES this line. In fact she bought out Sandy Gervais herself from her blog. I made this quilt, and this quilt and this mini out of the fabric a long time ago. Thank you Heidi:)

*I wish I had a pictures of the quilts Heidi and Mary A. have made using this line...that's a hint to send pictures so I can post them:)

The other night I made some chicken that required me to cook it in a skillet and then put the whole skillet in the oven to cook further. I took the skillet out with an oven mitt but then grabbed it a couple of seconds later without the oven mitt. I burned my hand VERY bad. It was excruciating and my hand was throbbing. I immediately got online and searched for some way to make it better. I found a site that said to wrap it in aluminum foil. WTF? So I did it. Like people said on the site, your burn (in this case my palm and fingers) will get really hot and hurt worse but then it will stop. It didn't stop hurting while I wore my foil mitt but did stop after I took it off, about 15 minutes of wearing it. And since then I've had NO pain, no blisters no nothing but some dry skin where the worst of the burns was. Either my burn was never really that bad or the foil thing actually worked. Anyone ever heard of this???

For Baby Mimi

Front and back of a wool felt ornament for Baby Mimi. I want to send it soon so her mommy (Jocelyn aka Girlfriend in a Coma) can put it on their tree but I didn't want to post about it after Christmas. So surprise Jocelyn! And Merry Christmas:) I need to make some for my girls now.

I know I could have made this way cuter by detailing the animals (you know I could have) but I had the white animal silhouettes left over from another project. I'm working my way through the Fa La La La Felt book and will post those projects soon. 

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I just finished listening to the coolest audio book! It's called

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.

It was really fascinating and funny. I didn't want it to end. I highly recomend it.