Shrug

Yet again  from Pinterest, we found the idea to turn a regular t-shirt into a shrug.I think that's a funny idea for a name....turning a verb (shrug) into a name for something you wear on your shoulders...

Anyways.

The original website for the shrug is here.http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/tshirt_shrug

Angie and I first adventured to Hobby Lobby to find ribbon/rope with which to tie the shrug, and thread to match the t-shirts. Success!

Red=Angie   Blue=Calista

We borrowed these super-awesome sharp scissors from Angie's mother-in-law. We though about "losing" them, but then decided that wouldn't be the nice thing to do.

We then used said amazing scissors to cut the t-shirt according to the directions: around the collar and down the middle of the front of the t-shirt.

Then fold the t-shirt over about an inch and pin all around. The corner can be however you decide: you don't really see the corner in the end product anyways. Also, it helps to pin your pins in the same direction all the way around to make sewing easier.

Then sew! Angie brought her sewing machine over to my (Calista's) apartment, and taught me how to sew. I did sew a looooooong time ago, but it was pajama pants with slinky material, and I ended up in tears. This, thankfully, was much more productive.

Sewing along the edge.

Keep it steady

The bobbin 

The above picture was super fun for me! Bobbin=another fun word to say. The thread needs to me even, so I needed to keep the thread going up and down while pushing the petal. Finally, I was starting to get along with the sewing machine!

Threading the needle.

We did have a few issues with the thread breaking, but Angie fixed it patiently. We sewed along the inch margins for both of our t-shirts. This is called "casing" according to the site.

Next, we pulled/threaded our our ribbon/rope through the newly sewed casing. Angie was able to pull hers through pretty easily. We ended up needing a safety pin to get mine through.

Finished!

I really like the angle of this picture (good job Angie!)

This was an inexpensive (Angie already had the t-shirts) and quick job. We finished it in an afternoon. Here we are with our cool "new" shrugs!

On the website, you can post your version of the shrug. I'd love to hear if anyone tries this one!

Strawberry Fields

Welcome to our next project! Yet again inspired by food, we embarked on a mini-pie journey. We used some of Angie's frozen strawberries that she had hand-picked during a previous summer!

We found the picture on Pinterest, and the recipe came from Cooking with my Kid.



Ingredients



Here is our list of ingredients. We decided to use a bag of frozen strawberries from the store for our picture, because it was a pretty bag. We did use the hand-picked stawberries for our recipe.

 

Rolling out the dough

While the strawberries thaw, cover them in the sugar.

The original recipe calls for already-made dough, but we didn't have any. Angie used her awesome pie-making skills to make a pie crust that she had for some time. She used to make pies and sell them!

Cut the pie dour into circles slightly larger than your muffin tin. Then put them into the muffin tins, pushing out all the bubbles.

The recipe also called for apple pie spice, but again, we didn't have any. Thanks to Allrecipes for helping us out!

Then put the "filler" ingredients in the food processor....because it is easier to mix in the butter that way...

We put the sugar-coated strawberries into the mini-pie crusts, and then covered them in the filler.

45 minutes later, out came mini strawberry pies! They did need to cool completely, and easily fell apart, but they were delicious! Angie's husband suggested that nest time we mash up strawberries, but both our husbands enjoyed them!