The Easiest Fudge Ever, and No-Sew Tutu tips

Want an impressive, crowd-pleasing treat for the holidays in under 10 minutes? This is it... Great for holiday baking tins, after dinner with coffee, to take to or serve at parties, and so many variations!

Super Easy Microwave Fudge

• 3 cups chocolate chips (any variety - dark or milk chocolate, peanut butter, mint chocolate, white chocolate, go crazy!)
• 1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 cup of add-ins (mini marshmallows, chopped nuts, candied cherries, dried cranberries, white chocolate chips if using dark or vice versa, crushed candy cane, chopped candy bar, Skor bits, coconut flakes, anything goes!)
• 1 tsp vanilla
  

Combine chips, milk and butter in a microwaveable bowl. Heat 3-5 minutes on 50% power, stirring every minute until chips are melted. Stir in vanilla and add-in ingredient (save some for sprinkling on top if you like!).
Line an 8x8" pan with foil and grease foil (if you forget, don't panic - it's just a little harder to peel off the foil later).
Pour the chocolate mix into the pan and refrigerate until set.

I used chocolate chips and chopped pecans - yum!

Makes 64 1" squares of deliciousness. They look great on a tray with cookies, or in a tin in those little paper candy cups. Some of the options that sound yummy to me:

• white chocolate macadamia nut
• white chocolate cranberry
• milk chocolate Skor
• milk chocolate with peanuts and raisins
  
• dark chocolate cherry
• peanut butter with white chocolate chips
• any chocolate with rice krispies
• mint chocolate chip with marshmallows
• adding a little cinnamon or even hot pepper flakes would make an interesting change

You can divide it into smaller pans and make different batches, too (half chocolate-nut, half chocolate-cherry). So versatile! I love it.

In other news, I did end up making tutus for my nieces, and bought my tricky-to-buy-for eight year old nephew a children's cook book, which he actually seemed pretty excited about (we had the big family Christmas on the weekend).

Here is one of the no-sew tutus I made, generally following instructions I found online. It took about 6 yards of tulle, cut along the bolt fold and cut into 6" strips, per tutu. I used pink elastic at the waist, about 20" long with an inch overlap, sewn (the girls are 3 and 4 years old), and added a ribbon at the waist as well, so that they can tighten it for now and it still has room to flex later. The trick I discovered for tying the tulle is to lay the closed blades of a pair of scissors along the elastic & ribbon combo and tie the tulle around the whole thing. The blades of the scissors easily slide over to the next spot to tie, and it prevents the knot from being too tight around the elastic (if it's too tight, it won't stretch or will stay stretched out).

I will say that this took a lot longer than I had expected - it was not a quick project. I think it would be faster to make a sewn tutu! A little basting and elastic, voila. I guess I will know for next time, if I ever tackle a tutu again. For now, I am so over tulle!

Winner - Tropical Traditions Organic Oats!

We have a winner for the 5lb bag of Organic Whole Grain Thick Rolled Oats! These will be great for that holiday baking or just for everyday use! Visit Tropical Traditions for these and more great natural products.

Random.org picked:which is...Congratulations!

In other news, I made these recently for the baby with some scrap fabric, ribbon, and flowers from an old lei that I had hanging around. (I knew it would come in handy for something!) :)Taggy blocks! Super easy (I just made them up)... 6 squares of fabric for each, each block is 1/2" smaller than the last. Bits of ribbon in the seams, flowers sewn on before sewing the squares together, stuffed with polyfil. One thing to watch with ribbon - make sure that tags are wider than long, so little fingers don't get tangled.

Before and after!

I'm giving myself two gold stars. I've never done a slipcover before, and here I am making beautiful things happen for the nursery glider. Remember I was wondering which fabric to choose? We ended up picking the fourth one and I am thrilled with it.

My mum (an expert sewer and pattern-maker) gave me some great advice: make a cover first out of an old sheet and use that for the pattern. SO helpful. I wasn't worried about screwing up with the rather spendy fabric, and could sew, unstitch, draw with marker on, and re-sew to my heart's content. There were five cushions to recover, so four unique patterns (the arm cushions are, thank goodness, the same). That took a day.

The REAL cover took about 5 hours - that's me taking it slow. It is not perfect (and don't say "Why not?" like my husband did!). I think I did a pretty good job for my first slipcover ever, working with no pattern! I tried to line up the pattern and also make the most of the fabric.

The arm cushions were the hardest part - the top side is gathered to allow for the curve, and the original cushions have snaps that I was trying to make work by creating holes (with facing) on the slipcovers. That's 16 faced holes, lots of tedious sewing. The snaps are super hard to do up to begin with, and once the cover was on, I couldn't get them done up at all. Then I realized that I'd done the post holes a fraction too small, and because there's a bit of extra fabric there, the snaps won't do up. So rather than fight with it any more, I simply stitched ribbons to the original cushions which come out the holes in the slipcover I made and tie together to hold the arm cushions on. Not ideal but hey, it works!

I even have a little fabric left over, perfect for new throw pillows downstairs and a trim for the laundry basket liner in the nursery!

Here it is.... the grand reveal....

Before

After

Hey, check me out - this was featured over at Pink and Polka Dot!

Exciting stuff & fabric.

A quick little note to share some of the exciting things coming up soon right here.

• I get to be part of the Shoppers Drug Mart v.i.b. blog tour with Mom Central! More to come very soon on this.
  
• You may have seen my earlier post about You! Lingerie. I'm stoked!
• Tropical Traditions is sponsoring another great giveaway here as well. I'll have to get my baking on to review this product. Can't wait - you know I love baking!
• YourCheapSunglasses.com has sent me a very cool pair of shades to review. They've also given a coupon code for my readers - check the left sidebar for that. It's for 25% off which is amazing considering their sunglasses are around $15 a pop and look just like designer styles. I'm thinking Christmas presents!
  

Also, we finally decided on the fabric for the glider. We ended up choosing the last of the four I posted here. Why? It came down to price in the end (isn't that the way life goes?). Once I plotted out how much I would need, and got some quotes from the other sources, I realized that it would be the cheapest option, and because it's a double width upholstery fabric, I only need 2 yards. Even after I'd tried the math with only doing the fronts of the cushions and doing the backs in a coordinating (cheaper) plain fabric, the other options were still more expensive. We both loved the Etsy fabric, but at $64 a yard for 58" width, it was just too pricey.

I still like the design we're getting and am hoping I don't mess up in sewing the slipcovers! :) I'm going patternless. I'm actually pretty comfortable with freestyling it, but I'll be kicking myself if I mess it up.

Speaking of, baby has been kicking me like it's Dance Party all day (and night) long. Love it. We've got her names all picked out and I can't wait to meet her. Just three months or so left! I am loving being pregnant. It's not always the most comfortable, but feeling those kicks is one of the best things ever. It was a hard road for us to get here, that's for sure. I'm lucky to have what I think must be an easy pregnancy this time around, so far. Fingers crossed that the luck continues.

My husband found a beautiful solid wood bookcase on Craigslist that we picked up for the nursery. Now the nursery furniture is complete (well, we still need a crib mattress). Hooray!

The Glider Fabric Dilemma

This is the glider we bought secondhand for the nursery ($25! I'm still stoked about that deal!).

I'm not sure how well it shows, but the fabric on the cushions is ugly, stained and worn. Not only that, but it's made of some plasticized material that squeaks against the wood when you sit in it. It desperately needs a slipcover. And the glider fabric is going to play the lead role in helping me figure out what the nursery's going to look like.

I have a vision in my head of a mainly white or ivory fabric, with a pattern (botanical? geometric?) that includes both red and turquoise. And maybe yellow.

You know what it's like when you try to shop with something already in mind? It's impossible. So I'm having a lot of trouble finding the right fabric. I took a look at Fabricland and the selection was depressing. I've been trying to shop online, but it's so overwhelming. A zillion fabric stores online and it's hard to sort out the ones with the kind of fabric I like from the novelty or bland. So far I've found a couple that I like:

And I love this, though it's utterly impractical (embroidered Dupioni silk) and outrageously expensive (but it's so pretty!):I am somewhat inspired by the fabric Sarah Richardson used on her nursery chair:- although it's $27.99 a yard (eeks!). At least the yards are double width.

What do you think? One of the first two, or the pricier fourth (the third is just out of the question)? Of course, my husband has veto power - he's got to live with it, too!

Any fabric mavens out there? Send me to your favourite online fabric stores!

UPDATE: What did I choose? See the Before and After photos here! 

Pants!

I made these awesome tiny pants,

from this book:
I hadn't made anything like pants in - yikes - 23 years (oh, that makes me feel old). The last time was some funky board shorts we made in Home Ec class in Grade 8. Don't do the math. It will just hurt me. So I was worried that it would be hard - and these are more complicated than the ones I made way back then, with a booty that will fit over diapers, elastic at both waist and ankles, and contrasting fabric at the waist and ankle interiors, with ric-rac trim around the bottom, too.

It took about three hours (I know, I'm not a super sewer) and I did come across what I think is a mistake in the pattern (the ruffle at the bottom in the picture of the project looks like it's about 3", but I followed the directions exactly and my ruffle is quite a bit smaller), but it was surprisingly straightforward. I am really happy with them, even if my husband's first comment was "Clown pants!".

Baby will have to wait until she's 3-6 months old to wear them, but they will make me happy just sitting in her closet until then :) I am proud of myself!

There are loads of other projects in the book, many of them for older children, and I can't wait to make them!

More progress, sewing, and a salad you must try.

I know it doesn't look like much progress, but we did spend the entire day yesterday (until 9 pm) working on this - AFTER a 15 minute 'Awesome Abs' workout, followed by an hour-long BodyFlow (Tai Chi, Pilates and yoga) in the morning! Wow. A lot of physical labour for one day! Thank goodness we started going to the gym in March - if I didn't have two months of thrice-a-week workouts under my belt, I'd be more than just a little achy today.

With the start of the cross pieces up, you can get a sense of how the finished pergolas will look. And a sense, in this image, of what we don't want to be looking at - the ugly chain link fence, the side of our neighbours' house, and the ugly pile of plastic that's been sitting there for a year and a half already (their only daughter is about 9 months old. It'll be a while yet.)

The 'hard' work is done on the pergolas; now it's repetitive drilling and placement of the remaining beams and cross-pieces. My husband's going to work on it tonight while I'm teaching - can't wait to see how far he gets!

Oh, and there's still the shed... another project for this spring. The makings are sitting in our garage.

We are still debating the vines to go up the block retaining wall and chain link fence. I've done a lot of research into vines and haven't come to any solid conclusions. I'd love something that keeps its leaves all winter, but euonymus in the vine variety is hard to come by around here. It has to be something hardy in zone 5b and preferably something not poisonous, not thorny, not a big bee attraction, and not top-heavy (a la wisteria, silver lace vine, etc). The standard Boston Ivy and Virginia Creeper aren't ideal in my mind. Too bare in winter (though they are showy in the fall). I'm not sure what we'll end up with.

You can also see, on the right, our teeny-tiny compact Stella cherry tree! (Those two green blobs sprouting out of the middle of the lawn!) We finally planted it. It's small for now but will grow to 15-20' in width and height, and bear up to 50 lbs of cherries a year - it'll take a while to get to that point but MAN, that's going to be AWESOME! The big benefit of this variety of cherry tree, besides the compact size, is that it's self-pollinating.
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Other than that, not much is up. I've been sewing another bunny, but managed to jam my machine while working on the last bit of its dress. This is my new Husqvarna, that I got for Christmas. Argh! I'm the bane of sewing machines. Meanwhile, I've got an itch to do another baby quilt - just for fun. Got to get that machine working!

Oh, and if you're in the mood for some crafty/sewing giveaways, check out Sew, Mama, Sew for an enormous list of giveaways all over the blogosphere that are running now until the 20th. Fabric, handcrafted items, patterns, all sorts of goodies.
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BTW, on the weekend we had friends over and made Toasted Panzanella - a big hit. This is one of our absolute favourite summer recipes. It's easy, good for making ahead, great for picnics or pot lucks, unusual but doesn't have 'weird' ingredients that will make picky eaters turn their noses up. It's the kind of dish that you can't stop eating, it's just that good. Highly recommended!

Almost done!

I finished the quilt top, quilted it, and ran out of fabric for the binding. Otherwise I may have finished the quilt last night! Not quite, though. So I ran out today and picked up a sweet hearts on green print for the edges. I'll have to post a picture of the quilt when it's done - I'm quite proud of it. I'm such an amateur, and the quilt is very simple, but I think it looks great!