Christmas Treats!

Okay so Christmas at our house means sweets. Pies, cookies and candies... So he's a quick tutorial on how to make yummy chocolate/caramel pretzles...

Supplies:
2 bags of Caramel Kisses
1 bag of Pretzles
Tin Foil
Cookie Sheet
Baggies

Okay sit down in front of your favorite show because this part takes awhile. You now get to unwrap all of those precious little treats... this takes longer then you expect. I only ended up eating 2... good for me!

 

Marvel at your wonderful pile of treats!

 Set them on tin foil covered cookie sheets, I highly recommend grabbing a pretzel to get your spacing right because there's no going back on this one...

Alright lets pop them in the oven at 200 degrees for 2 mins. Basically you just want them to get shiny which happens really fast.

Now lightly lay a pretzel on each little kiss. If you press them down you will feel a little "pop" and caramel will ooze out, not the end of the world but a much messier treat.

After you get all the pretzels on pop them into the freezer for a little while till they harden up then bag and share! (or eat some then bag the rest)

Baby Dedication outfit

Okay so my before and after photos are lacking in their consistency but oh well...
BEFORE!

Okay so part of the problem is in the before photo I rolled up his sleeves, I know STUPID oh well, there's clearly no going back. Basically they were 3 inches too long and his "shoulders" were way down his arm...
AFTER!

The pants got hemmed too (4") but that's not as impressive.... my boy is big and tall... for a 6 month old But all in all he looked pretty fantastic in his little tailored outfit... such a little man!

Blogging

So my plan to blog and sew my way through this deployment is only getting half done. I have sewn and sewn and crafted and hot glue gunned like you wouldn't believe but my finished projects are starting to stack up and yet... no posted pictures. I know what you're thinking. Come on girl! It doesn't take that long to post pictures, and you'd be right. So I will dive into the blogging world with renewed intensity and hopefully share a little of how life on the home front is going in this home.

Since the Onesie post projects have amassed both completed and in progress. Okay so lets plow our way through... This little fella I actually made while pregnant and just hadn't ever gotten around to stuffing. The plan was to shred a couple of my husband's dirty shirts and stuff him with that but we never managed to pull that off (Jake wearing shirts he didn't mind me shredding is a rare occurrence) anyway since I wont be near any more of Jacob's dirty shirts for awhile I decided to just use stuffing and move on...

 

 Moving ON! Also the magnificent Candace came over and assisted me in what ended up being a rather large undertaking that of turning my two bed apartment into a winter wonderland fit for a 6 month old. But after an evening of cutting and folding we have achieved greatness...

Okay so there are more projects complete and even more in progress but I'm going to save those for a separate post... till later!

Progress in Projects!

Well I am happy to announce that my quilt is all but done I just have to do the border and the back and then send it off to be quilted (my machine wont handle it and I want it machined) So this is a little bit of a teaser but once it's done I promise that pictures will follow.

But in other news in order to finally get clothes that actually fit my 23 pound 6 month old I have also successfully mastered the XL onesie. I'm probably going to keep tweaking it to get the best fit but not bad if I say so myself considering I've never made clothes before...

Anyway I last night (Tuesday) has officially transitioned from Project Runway night with my sister to Sewing night. She wants me to teach her how to sew which considering I'm not that good will help push me to learn more things. Anyway last night we made another onesie (not a beginner project admittedly) which is already dirty so no picture this time. But next week I think we'll tackle curtains for the little bit's room so we'll have more forgiving fabric and straight lines.

A few of Austin's famous bats have welcomed Halloween in to the Schreyer home!

Halloween is in the Air!

Muh hahahahaha... okay so I'm frankly not into any of the scary stuff associated with Halloween but jack-o-lanterns and little kiddo's dressed up with cute costumes? You bet. How cute is this boy of mine? That being said I'm not looking forward to carrying this extremely heavy pumpkin down to the dumpster. And now that I'm in the spirit of things Dana at http://www.dana-made-it.com/ has inspired me to put a few more decorations around the apt! 

Still Obsessed

Okay so my list of projects in amassing...

• Spring Wreath (I book marked it)
• Swallow Mobile (Also booked marked, this isn't a project so much as a purchase:)
• Paint Popsicles
• Wii Minute Cards (Love this!)
• Hooded Towel
• http://www.etsy.com/shop/louandlee Love these!
• Homemade Playdough (to get the kiddo's playing longer)
• Tag Wallet
• Flowers on LED Christmas lights

 Turns out I also need to be keeping track of blogs I end up not being able to turn away from

• http://ashleyannphotography.com/blog/

well there's a lot more but I'm tired so.... night!

Blog Obsessed

Okay so after a wonderfully empty Saturday I have spent an unhealthy amount of time Blog surfing amassing so many new ideas that they are bound to all fall out of my head so I will quickly jot down the ones I think sounded like fun...

• Cleaning  your blender by rinsing it and filling it with hot water and soap and letting the blender do the work
• Tiny 1st Birthday Party
• Cup Cake Paper Poms
• Foam Core Board with Black Board Spray Paint Voice Bubble
• Make a Wet Bag
• Make my Own mock gDiapers/Liners
• Make a Clothespin Holder Dress
• Make an Oven Towel Dress
• Putting cute Contact Paper on my Clothespins
• Adorable Birthday Invitations (Helium Balloon in a box, Message in a coke bottle)
• Pendant Banners for EVERYTHING
• Fuzzy Halloween Spiders out of yarn and pipe cleaners
• Making your own pinata
• Making matching Crayon rolls for "big" sibling when you make new baby stuff
• Oh and there was some kind of... Hot air sky lantern?

Well there's probably more but at least it wont ALL get forgotten now. Clearly I need to lay off the web snacking for awhile and do some of the more time sensitive things I've got to do like update our drivers licenses and get Little a passport.

Cute Laundry

So I broke my rule today, but since it's my rule I'm going to let is slide but simply changing the rule. The rule used to be "No new projects until the previous project is finished". This is a very good rule because as you know starting projects is one of the best parts and actually finishing projects while nice isn't all that fun most of the time. That being said my current project (making a quilt for my son) is taking MONTHS. I started about 2 months before he was born and because he came early we're now 3 months into his life and it's just dragging on. Lets face it every time I get to a spot in the project where I have to iron something all production comes to a halt.

This being said I've been accumulating projects I'd love to start and going a little stir crazy in the process. So I here by officially amend my rule. The new rule is, "No new multiday projects until the previous project is finished". Excellent now here's my after little's bedtime project....

Clearly fabulous. When I finished this, my wonderful husband put down the game he was enjoying to come dote on me and my lovely project. He said "you must love me" because it is a long standing tradition that when Laundry Day arrives I gripe at him for mixing up the colors. Anyway I'm pretty excited about it, after all, if a girl has to do laundry it might as well be cute laundry!

Bring on the Green... but wait

Okay so life as a new mom has apparently turned me into a weirdo environmental hippy. It all started when I decided to "try out" cloth diapering. It was something I was interested in mostly because I'm cheap or Thrifty which sounds nicer. I would have never imagined that I would jump at the chance to tell all of my friends how they should do it (nicely of course) or how I would now be trying to come up with other things that I can use cloth for. I used to pack all my leftovers in ziplocks to eliminate almost all extra dishes, now I'm considering making my own reusable washable bags. I'm planning on switch to cloth wipes soon and cloth napkins and and and... well today I hit a road block. Today I learned about "family cloth wipes"... um... yeah. The theory is good, if cloth is better for baby then um... well... no thanks. I just can't image having people over and them discovering that there happens to be no TP for their own personal use... I guess we all have our limits, I just found mine.

Beginnings

I'd like to welcome myself to the-twirly-skirt blog by explaining the name. My life is about to enter a crazy new phase. We decided to kick it all of by visiting some dear friends of ours in Arizona. While we were there my friend and I got to chat and craft while our husbands shot things on the xbox. One of the projects my friend made was a "twirly skirt" for her 4.5 year old daughter. I spent most of my time trying to make some headway in the quilt that I still haven't finished for my 2.5 month old son. While I don't have a daughter to make a whimsical skirt for, I can't help but want to make one anyway and once I finish this darn quilt I will.

In a few weeks my husband will leave for a year on his very first deployment and my 4 month old son and I will work hard to keep a home while he's away. This will be a place for me to post my projects (which will hopefully be many) and talk about life as a new mom where I can share my opinions about overpriced baby products and how overnight everyday became laundry day.