Knock Your Socks Off Sandwich.

Yesterday, the kids and I went on a bike riding play date at a local school and we packed a picnic lunch. Turkey and mermaids (mayonnaise) for Lulu, PB&J for Darsie, and PB for Berty (eaten before we had even left the house and a handful of crust handed to me).

We have a fridge full of tomatoes at the moment, most from a garden in Oregon but a couple of handfuls from our own garden, and I love a good BLT. But we’re out of the L(ettuce). So, instead, I piled two pieces of Texas toast that I toasted with butter in a pan on the stove high with mayonnaise, thick-sliced tomatoes, pepper bacon, brown turkey breast, and cheddar cheese.

I made one for dinner, too. It was that good. Especially when paired with hawaiian bbq chips and a big platter of fresh bell peppers and cucumbers with a ranch dip. Heaven.

I know the photo is horrid, but the sandwich is delicious. Try it.

Yesterday, the kids and I went on a bike riding play date at a local school and we packed a picnic lunch. Turkey and mermaids (mayonnaise) for Lulu, PB&J for Darsie, and PB for Berty (eaten before we had even left the house and a handful of crust handed to me).

We have a fridge full of tomatoes at the moment, most from a garden in Oregon but a couple of handfuls from our own garden, and I love a good BLT. But we’re out of the L(ettuce). So, instead, I piled two pieces of Texas toast that I toasted with butter in a pan on the stove high with mayonnaise, thick-sliced tomatoes, pepper bacon, brown turkey breast, and cheddar cheese.

I made one for dinner, too. It was that good. Especially when paired with hawaiian bbq chips and a big platter of fresh bell peppers and cucumbers with a ranch dip. Heaven.

I know the photo is horrid, but the sandwich is delicious. Try it.

In fact, I’m thinking about having another for a late breakfast. Good thing both the texas toast and the bacon are almost gone.

8 is Great! And a Tutorial on Reverse Applique.

So, my oldest daughter turned 8 yesterday. 8! 8 is great! And in honor of 8, I made her a new t-shirt using reverse applique that I was first introduced to reading the Alabama Chanin books.

So, directions.

Take a tshirt, ours was purchased at Walmart for less than $4. Create your design. I used Illustrator but it can be done in Word, by hand, in Photoshop, etc. etc..

Trace your design on freezer paper with the wax side down. 

Cut out the areas of the design that are going to be appliqued and iron the freezer paper onto your shirt.

 

Get your fabric paint ready. You just need a tiny bit.

 

 

Make sure you have a piece of freezer paper positioned under the design and paint around the inside of the design.

Peel off the freezer paper to reveal your painted fabric after it has dried.

Put another piece of jersey or knit fabric behind the painted area and stitch around using DMC floss. Once you have your design stitched around, take a pair of embroidery scissors and cut out the upper layer of t-shirt to reveal the knit fabric below.

Easy and cute!

A Quick Dinner Recipe: French Dip Sliders (From Leftovers!)

You know those nights when the family needs food but the motivation to cook is at an all time low? Yeah, we had one of those nights recently. I looked high and low in our fridge and remembered we had leftover pot roast (I basically follow The Pioneer Woman’s roast beef recipe with modifications) and its juices (au jus if you are fancy). We always have cheese and butter. And we almost always have a loaf of crusty bread.

And it dawned on me. French Dip Sliders. 

I popped the leftover meat and juice into a pan on the stove with no extra seasonings. And while that was heating, I made garlic bread with the bread and topped it with cheddar cheese under the broiler. Once the bread was done, I topped half of the bread pieces with the meat and then added a top. Served with a green salad and mini bowls of meat juice, it was AWESOME, although not pretty.

 

September Craziness and Cupcakes

September brings about pure craziness in the SmallGrapes’ household. Back to school, birthdays, long weekend trips, and all the craziness that accompanies the beginning of Fall. Whew.

Part of our back to school craziness was our middle kid starting kindergarten. How the time has flown. Part of the excitement of starting kindergarten is school supplies. And most exciting of all is the backpack. My girl picked out a super sweet backpack from Land’s End (highly recommend, by the way. My older daughter is going on the third year with her backpack). She really, really wanted a cupcake embroidery on it….and me being me, I couldn’t just pay the $5 for Land’s End to do it, I had to do it myself.

I started with this pencil sketch:

And then scanned it into my computer and reworked it in Adobe Illustrator. I printed it and prepared my fabric.

Here I used a simple graphite pencil, which worked great for me since the disappearing inks tend to disappear to quickly for me! 

I then embroidered the cupcake using just three colors, a bright pink, a lime green, and I can’t tell if the face is dark navy or black (so much for organization, right!). I used three strands of DMC floss.

I then traced around it using a glass from my cupboard and backed it with a piece of cream wool felt. Using the same pink as the frosting, I blanket stitched the two pieces of fabric together.

And for the final part, using the lime green floss, I stitched it to my daughter’s backpack.

She was so happy when she saw it that she hugged her backpack. It was really sweet.

And as a thank you for reading through this, I’m including the free pattern for the cupcake that I created. It has two sizes of the cupcake and includes both sizes with and without the face, although who can resist a sweet little smile? Here is the link.

Now I’m off to try to se.w a quilt in two days. Wish me luck! I’m going to need it…