Bread Basket Revisited

Today we are traveling home from spending Christmas with family. Here is one of my favorite tutorials, posted last august that I thought you might enjoy if you have never seen it. To those of you that have seen it, you are the tried and true followers and I thank you for sticking around that long!

I hope you all had a great Christmas. There's a big announcement coming later this week, so get ready and enjoy this tutorial!

I like my buns hot. Yes, I did just say that. Yes, I am sleep deprived from being up every night with a newborn.

His Royal Highness's mom has a bread basket with a cloth liner that keeps the bread warm. Every one drools over this basket. So as a thank you gift to his aunt this year, I recreated the basket.

It is very simple to do. You will need a medium sized basket, two dishtowels, rice, muslin or other scrap fabric, and a sewing machine.

To start, measure the size of the bottom of your basket. Or if your princesses been using your measuring tape as a leash for their stuffed puppy, you can just turn the basket upside down and do a basic size assessment. Cut two pieces of muslin the same size as the bottom of your basket. Sew the pieces together but leave a small opening where you can fill it with rice. You are basically making a pillow of rice. Turn the muslin inside out first to hide the stitched edges before you fill it with rice. After you have filled it with rice, stitch the opening closed. You know have a rice pillow that should fit easily inside the basket.

Take one dishtowel and lay it out flat. Lay the rice pillow in the middle of the towel and trace around it using a fabric pen or a crayon. Take a wild guess at which one I actually had on hand. Cut the other dishtowel to the size of the rice bag plus another inch or so for the hem.

Now you're going to make a pocket for the rice bag to go into. Fold all the edges of the dishtowel squares under to make pretty edges. Sew these edges down. Then lay it in the middle of the large dishtowel and make sure all the edges from your tracing are covered. Does that make sense? I'm sleep deprived, email me if it doesn't. Now sew down three sides, leaving one open to slip the rice bag into. You can add a way to close up the pocket if you want to get all fancy.

Heat the rice bag in the microwave with a small cup of water for 2 minutes. Then slip it into the pocket on the back of the dishtowel. Lay the dishtowel into the basket, rice bag down in the bottom of the basket. Add your bread and cover it with the edges of the towel. This should help keep your buns nice and toasty.

If this is too much work, just come sit in my van. I'll turn on the seat warmers and your buns will be nice and toasty without any sewing. haha. really sleep deprived.

I am willing to make these for anyone wanting to buy one. This would be an awesome housewarming gift when filled with a small loaf of homemade bread and your own favorite recipe.

Handmade Gift Idea: Peg Dolls

My kids love Peg Dolls. Princess Newbie is constantly finding them around the house and walking around with them in her hands.

They are the perfect gift to give to little girls for Christmas or to stick in stockings. Last year I made them for my girls as stocking stuffers and this year I made these for my niece. I'm going to decorate an old wooden cigar box to look like a house for them and give it to her for Christmas. I think she'll love it.

You want to learn how to make them? They are super simple and anyone can do them.. yes anyone! even if you can paint. If you can make lines and dots, then you're good.

First you need unfinished man peg dolls from the craft store. They have women forms that are smaller and flare out at the bottom like a skirt. They are fine to use but I like these man dolls because they are chunky and much safer for little hands.

First paint all the heads a plain tan/ skin color. Then paint on the basic clothes. Don't put on any decorations yet, just paint basic bans of colors and with different necklines and the occasional scalloped hemline. We'll add the details when this dries a bit. If you let it dry then it is easier if you mess up a detail and want to paint over it again. Trust me, I know this.

These dry extremely quick so in no time you'll be ready to add the face details. It's best to do this using a wooden skewer or toothpick. Add two black dots for eyes and using a different skewer, draw a pink mouth. I dabbed a little pink on the cheeks using my pinky. I'm fancy like that.

Now using the same method of dots and lines using a skewer, add details to their clothes. It is much easier to use a skewer, no paintbrushes! If you really mess it up, just repaint the basic clothes again.  Not that I have ever had that problem!! OK.. just a few times. Like 20.



Um. I think these guys/ girls need some Rogain.

Much better.

Now for the last step... let's add a glaze to make them shine and preserve the paint.

I love this stuff. I could bathe in it, except that then I would be perfectly preserved. Wait.. can I buy this in bulk? This will make a ton of difference in the final product. The little mistakes will be much less noticeable and your peg dolls will hold up for a long time. There's a few of them that I found outside after a month or more and they looked perfect, thanks to this glaze. I found it at Hobby Lobby and I left the price tag on for you to see that it's extremely affordable. The little jar is all you need.

I found it's best if you paint the body with the glaze first, not the bottom, and then paint the head, using a knife or other sharp point to hold it still while you paint. You do not need to glaze the bottom. Pop any bubbles with a pin and check them every few minutes for drips.

Let dry for 24 hours and then you'll be ready to play.

Cute huh? What girl wouldn't like a few of these to play with?

Did you hear though?

There's a peg doll streaker on the loose. Hide your kids, hide your wives... or just hide your forgotten naked peg dolls.

Tutorial: How to Cut Burlap in a Straight Line

Crafts with Burlap are huge right now but have you ever tried to cut burlap in a straight line? Or have you ever bought burlap at the store and then got it home to find out that it is so jagged and misshaped that it is now too small for your project?

 Cutting Burlap with straight edges is easy, all you need is to know how to do it.  Start by finding the size that you need. This piece of burlap had already been cut so it did not have selvages (the woven edges) however, if yours does have it then you need to snip the selvage where you need to cut the burlap at on both sides of the fabric. Just make a simple cut that goes from the outside edge of the selvage all the way through it, stopping at the border between the selvage and burlap.

Now, at whatever length you need, find one string or thread of the burap and start to pull it out. Don't yank it because you'll break it, just pull with an even force.

 The rest of the fabric will start to buckle and gather, this is ok... just keep pulling.

Pull the string all the way out and then you'l be left with a channel that you can cut straight through to make an even cut.

Viola'. Now you have a straight line for your Burlap edges.

Most importantly, you can politely share this tip when having your burlap cut at the fabric store. It will assure that you and the peope that come behind you, always get home with the amount of burlap that you paid for.