Soft Blocks

Here is one of my projects I made last christmas for my daughter and never posted, so since Christmas Season is just around the corner (if you are making all your gifts, christmas is just around the corner) here is an idea for a young child.

I 1/8 of a yard (4 in) of 4 in foam. 4in foam is like $50/yard which at first turned me off, but when you only buy 1/8 of a yard and use a 40% off coupon it only cost about $5 and I was able to get 6 4in cubes. It doesn't take much fabric to cover them so to save a little money I raided my mother-in-law's fabric scraps for some brightly colored textured fabric. I tried to get lots of different textures so the blocks could be used as a learning tool for my then 9 month old. To cut down on the sewing I cut a 4.25 in by 12.5in piece of fabric and 2-4.25in pieces of the same fabric then I sewed the pieces together in a cube shape leaving on seam undone stuffed my 4 in cube inside and hand sewed up the final seam.

How to dress up a cupcake

Sometimes I like to dress up a boring cupcake made from a boxed cake mix (check out the Cake Doctor for ideas) but sometimes I don't have time and I just wip up the cake mix and dump it into the cupcake tin. Well since I like to wow people with the stuff I make just a little I can't just throw some frosting on top and go where's the fun in that. So here is an easy way to dress up your cupcakes without spending to much time. If you don't have a cake decorating kit, but like to decorate you can get a basic kit from walmart for $10 (that is the it that I have). My favorite cake decrating tip is the star tip. I just covered the cupcake with stars added some sprinkles and people think you spent a lot of time and that you are supermom.
This are some cupcakes I made for a 4th of July BBQ. I tinted the frosting blue and added a little bit of red sprinkles and I got instant firecracker cupcakes.

THe fancy frosting job doesn't really make the cupcake taste better, but people seem to think they are the best cupcakes ever.

Formula Can Makeover

I like a good makeover. In fact I am watching what not to wear as I am writing this. Those of you that have babies may also have a lot of those empty formula cans laying around. When my daughter swithched over to just formula I was going through a can every few days. I felt bad throwing them out because they are really good cans and I thought they would be good for holding random things. But who wants the boring blue similac logo staring you in the face so I decided they needed a little makeover.
So I used a little decopauge and some scrapbooking paper and dressed it up. Here I made it a birthday can to fill it with candy or little toys for a cute little birthday gift.
At christmas time I decorated it with christmas paper filled it with christmas candy and used them for neighbor gifts (don't have a picture sorry, but you can use your imagination).
The posibilities are endless. They can be gifts or you can decorate them to match your childs room and use them for nic nacs. Now to go work on a makeover for those diaper boxes.