Tutorials

Embellish your Kid’s Socks

April 2, 2013 by Sharon Garofalow Leave a Comment

Sometimes it is fun to make your kids smile by sewing smiles in to their socks.

Your kids probably already have white socks in their drawer. And any good crafter has embroidery thread and a needle perfectly labeled and stored with their other craft supplies.

Use a simple stitch to create a shape, face or word. Due to the stretchiness of the fabric, just make sure not to pull the thread too tight or you will have a really hard time getting the shape you want. Check out my meaty, man hands! This is why I fail in comparison to other DIY bloggers. I have no interest in making sure my nails are perfectly painted before I take photos of a post. Although I did take pause when I burned the hell out of my thumb with hot glue recently. That was the first time I have had a wound weep. Have you ever had that? It’s super gross.

This post is incomplete. I had planned of having my oldest son wear these with his cute little high tops. But sometimes your kids can not be bribed. It doesn’t happen often. I know the way to my kid’s hearts is through candy and Legos. But alas, he could not be bought. But just think of how cute these would look on an actual child’s foot.

Filed Under: Craft Ideas, Family Life, Kid's Fashion, Tutorials Tagged With: craft, diy, Kids Fashion, sewing, tutorial

Cool Bleach T-Shirt for Kids

March 26, 2013 by Sharon Garofalow Leave a Comment

After I threw my son’s space party, and made shirts for all the kids, I have loved buying inexpensive blank t-shirts and doing fun things with them. For this shirt, you just need a little bleach.

Start with a blank dark colored T-shirt. Sometimes you can find packs of Hanes dark colored t-shirts at Target in the underwear section but they are pretty hard to find. I love Wal-Mart for their kid’s blank T-shirts and sweatshirts.

Grab a spray bottle with bleach in it. That is my attempt at drawing a skull and crossbones. In my head I am super artistically skilled. But there is a disconnect between my brain and my hands. Obviously.

You should probably use some sort of a drop cloth. My landlord had just told us that he was moving back in the night before I took these photos. So I didn’t really feel the need to be extra careful. I’m sure you understand. And we are really experiencing my amazing photo taking and editing skills in this post today. They are all over the place.

Spray it as much or as little as you want. In my opinion, less looks better. I did not show what I did to the back of the shirt for this reason. It is not as cute as the front. Too much can be, well, too much.

Let the bleach sit until it changes color a bit. The longer it sits, the whiter it becomes (I’m pretty sure…) While you are waiting you will start contemplating squirting bleach on every black thing you own. Like your Toms. I didn’t do it. But I’m pretty sure it is going to happen in the very near future.

When you like the color, throw it in the wash by itself to get all the bleach out. I don’t use bleach. Like, ever. I’m afraid of it. So I’m not sure if this is proper treatment of bleached items or washing machines. Feel free to rinse the shirt out first if you don’t want to just toss it in the machine.

But the real question is, are you sick of seeing my kids in posts yet?

Filed Under: Craft Ideas, Family Life, Fashion, Kid's Fashion, Oh you fancy huh, Tutorials Tagged With: black, boys t-shirt, cool kids clothes, diy, Kids Fashion, tie-dye, tutorial

Cherry Pineapple Dump Cake Recipe

March 20, 2013 by Sharon Garofalow Leave a Comment

Yeah. You read that right. This is called a dump cake. Here is a delicious Cherry Pineapple Dump Cake recipe. You literally just dump things in a baking dish and pop it in the oven. And it is insanely good. It is one of those things that you serve or even describe to someone and they are like, “yeah, none of that sounds amazing.” But I know my desserts. And this one is SO GOOD. Full disclosure, I ate this whole batch in two days. Pretty much by myself. It’s pretty great warm and, in my opinion, even better cold. And although it is technically a dessert, it also works well for breakfast, lunch and snacks…

It only take a few ingredients to make a cherry pineapple dump cake. You could use margarine instead of the butter but it is NOT as good. Like, not even close. But it can be done if you are dealing with food allergies or you are crazy and think margarine is better than butter (but it is just not. Agree to disagree). I choose to use salted butter because I love salty and sweet together. And I don’t add salt to anything else I eat (aside from normal seasoning in the pan like real chefs) except for avocados and cherry tomatoes. So I figure my sodium levels can take it.

Are you ready for the amazing dump cake recipe? Hold on to your hats and glasses…

Pour a can of crushed pineapple in your baking dish. Spread it out so it covers most of the pan (seriously there is no wrong way to do this and you should not spend much time on it. Just dump it.) Then pour a can of cherry pie filling over the top.

Sprinkle the dry cake mix over the whole thing. Yes, the dry cake mix. Try to cover the fruit fillings as evenly as you can.

It will look like this when you are done. And even at this stage, it will smell SO yummy.

The hardest part of this recipe is melting the butter. Why can’t I get it to melt all nice and mellow? It always pops and blows up all over my microwave. Melting butter is super aggressive. But I still love it. All you do is pour it over the top of the dry cake mix. And that will smell even better than it did a minute ago.

You bake it for an hour and it gets all goldeny brown and bubbly. And smells EVEN BETTER! The edges get all crusty and the butter soaks in to the dry cake batter…yum.

To serve, spoon a heaping portion in to a bowl. It is mostly made up of fruit after all…While it doesn’t immediately look like something you would make when having guests over due to it’s somewhat sloppy demeanor, the taste is a total crowd pleaser. And your kids and male guests will get a good laugh when you call it a dump cake.

Ingredients:

1 can Crushed Pineapple (normal sized can, not a small one – do not drain)

1 can Cherry Pie Filling (Comstock brand is always a good choice. I went with an alternative last time and was disappointed)

1 box Cake Mix (Yellow or White)

1 cup butter (margarine only if you have to for allergy reasons – otherwise only use butter!)

Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish with Pam or other spray oil. Pour in the crushed pineapple and juice and spread out on the bottom of the pan. Pour the cherry pie filling on top (it will not spread out evenly). Sprinkle cake mix over the cherries. Melt butter and spoon over mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

You will not be disappointed!! Have you ever made a dump cake before?

*For the most part, I do not create recipes but share the ones I grew up with in my family. I’m certain some fantastic chef came up with this many moons ago but no sources are listed in my homemade cookbook from my mom. She didn’t anticipate blogging.

Filed Under: Family Life, Food, Food Allergies, Recipes, Things I Love, Tutorials Tagged With: cake, cherry, pineapple, Recipes

Egg Shaped Feather Craft Fail

March 18, 2013 by Sharon Garofalow 8 Comments

It started out as a good idea. I mean, an egg-shaped feather wreath sounds great for Easter, right? I made up a quick one to see if it as, indeed, cute. I showed my mom. She looked at me like I was crazy. So I blame her for the tutorial not working out. I thought it was cute enough to share with you so I decided to do the full tutorial the next day.

So I forgot how I did the first one. And the more I tried to figure it out the dumber it got. I had wire everywhere. It started scratching my table. I was bummed. On a side note, feathers are the pits. If you’ve ever bought them from the craft store you know that when you open up the bag, little tiny feather pieces float through the air. Straight up in to your nose. They litter your counter and as you go to wipe them up they just float away again.

But I kept going. Because in my head I knew it would end up cute. I had pictures of it all styled up in an Easter setting and just knew people would pin the crap out of it. But the feathers wouldn’t stay and the gold thread I used to tie the feather to the wire shape kept coming undone. What the!?!

This is the first one I made. Kinda cute, right? It’s ok, I can take it. It could be improved on.

So I failed this craft. One that I made up. I’m starting to learn that my crafts turn out a lot like my cooking. It can go very wrong, very quickly. So, if you like this idea, feel free to use it and make it even better. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go eat a jumbo sized box of Nerds. As an appetizer to dinner. Which may or may not include ice cream.

Filed Under: Craft Ideas, Holidays, Party Inspiration, Tutorials Tagged With: decor, egg shaped, feather, peach, wreath

Happy Cake Day Banner on YAMF

March 15, 2013 by Sharon Garofalow Leave a Comment

I have a really fun birthday banner up on You Are My Fave. Have you seen it? Fabric letters and napkin flowers make it fun and exciting. Go check it out!!