Cookie Salad

Have you made Kebob Salad yet?  Wasn't it yummy?  Now you know that I only give you my best recipies so here's the next.  I had this recipe last night and it knocked me upside the head it was so good.  I've thought of almost nothing else since, so under the guise of playing games we invited people over tonight so I could have an excuse to share this with you.

That's right, Cookie Salad.  It's a salad, it's good for you right?

I'll be the first to admit that this isn't the most beautiful dish but taste far outweighs looks in this one, trust me.  And let's be honest, there's not much in it that's good for you but just go with it, be in the moment and enjoy.


Here we go...

The recipe calls for a tub of Cool Whip but I'm not super fond of it so I replaced it with real cream.  If you're going to substitute like me then here's where you whip your cream.  I sweetened it too, Cool Whip is sweet so I added a little sugar and vanilla.

While your cream is whipping open a package of chocolate drizzled shortbread cookies.  I'm sure you've seen them, they're easy to find and apparently you can get them at the dollar store (I got mine at Safeway).  Empty your package into a ziplock bag (or if you used the last one on something else today a bread bag works too).  Give them a good smash with a rolling pin but not too much, you want some good cookie chunks.

I had a brilliant idea... you know how when you crush stuff with chocolate lots of it gets stuck to the bag?  I decided to throw my cookies in the freezer first to harden the chocolate.  Sadly I didn't have this brilliant idea until it was time to smash so give it a try if you make these, it might work.

While your cream is still whipping (or while it sits in the bowl if it's done already), mix your buttermilk and pudding and whisk real good so there aren't any lumps.

To your pudding mix add everything else.  I tossed in my cream, then my cookies (heh, heh, I tossed my cookies) and then some berries.  Give it a good mix and you're done.

I used blackberries and raspberries but you could use whatever you want.  I didn't use a ton of them either about half of each package.  After I'd tossed them in I wished I'd cut up my blackberries a bit since they're so big but it was too late so even though the recipe said to fold in the whipped cream which usually means be gentle, I did more of a chopping action with my spatula trying to smash the blackberries a bit.  There's no messing this up.

Let it all mingle together in the fridge for a bit and you end up with something far yummier than I had anticipated.  In fact when I first dished myself I took quite a small bowl, I expected mushy cookies but I was very wrong.  Take a large bowl, you won't regret it.  It's also delicious a day later, and for breakfast.

Cookie Salad
2 cups buttermilk
1 package vanilla pudding
1 large tub Cool Whip (or 1 cup whipping cream, sweetened and whipped stiff)
1 package chocolate drizzled shortbread cookies, smashed into bits
1 cup (ish) Fruit of your choice

Whisk buttermilk and pudding mix.  Fold in Cool Whip, cookies and berries.  Refrigerate and serve.

Car Seat Re-cover

I'm so excited this post is being featured on Polly Want a Crafter, it's exciting to be among such talent.  Since I finished this car seat re-cover I attempted a second with even greater results, you can check it out here.

It's time for Catie to be in a forward facing car seat so I picked up the one that Mom had saved for me from my nephew.  It was functional, it does what it should it was just so ugly, and well used (dirty).  I gave it a major face lift and it's like I have a brand new car seat.

This is the project I made the bias tape for, the sad part is now that it's finished I think a solid black would have looked even better.  I'm certainly not changing it though.

Here's what I started with.

It has these flaps that fold over the armrests and they were attached with the most useless elastics.  The fabric ALWAYS sat like this, in stead of the above.  I figured now was the time to make improvements.

I took the thing apart, cut out new pieces and put it back together.  I made the armrests longer and then sewed velco to the underside on the end.  Using sticky back  velco I attached the other side underneath the plastic so the fabric is held nice and snug, like so.

Now the fabric is pulled nice and tight.

I also made seat belt covers because they rub on Catie neck, she got an ugly red mark on her neck one day.  I used Make It And Love It's tutorial for the covers.  Basically you make up two little pot holders and add velcro.

See?  Potholders.

You can tell that I did my corners different for the two, one of them look all nice and rounded and the other is pointy.  I prefer the rounded corners but they just took so darn long and once you fold it you can't even see them so I got lazy on the second one.  I also made some black bias tape but since I needed so little I just cut two strips off the bias and sewed them together.

Here's one more before and after

**Disclaimer, I know some people don't support messing around with car seats.  I get it, you have valid points but I'm confident in the safety of my car seat.  Let's leave it at that. **

Thanks so much for featuring me!

What Catie Wore Wednesday #2

I said I wouldn't do this again and I hadn't planned on it but I also hadn't planned on how popular the post would be so we're going to do one more week and take it from there, perhaps I'll continue.

Since I obviously have no more summer clothes to share it would have been a waste to take pictures of what I wore all week so instead this week is all Catie.  She's more fun to look at anyway.

Thursday

Old Navy Jeans (again, she all of a sudden grew out of her pants)
Joe t-shirt from Superstore.
I don't think we went anywhere today where she needed shoes.


Friday

Old Navy Jeans
Old Navy Flip Flops
T-shirt from Superstore

And then I realized it really wasn't warm enough to wear this so she changed into the cute sweater vest
White Onsie - Carter's
Argyle Sweater Vest - H&M
Jeans - Old Navy
Shoes - Jelly Shoes from Anabanana

Saturday

Embroidered Shirt - Gap
Jeans - Gap
Shoes - Pink Crocks, I realize they don't match all that well but her shoe selection is also limited.

Sunday

Red Ruffled T-shirt -Baby Gap
Navy Blue Curderouy Skirt - Baby Gap
White Flowered Flip Flops - Payless

Monday

White T-shirt - H&M
Shorts - Children's Place
Yellow Flip Flops - Old Navy

I did the same thing this day, dressed her and then she went on a walk with Grandma in the morning but it wasn't warm enough for shorts so she changed.

Zip-up Hoodie - Roots, you can't tell in the picture but it has cute flowers on it
Jeans - Old Navy
White Jelly shoes again

Tuesday

Long sleeve layered T- Walmart
Brown Pants - Old Navy
Pink Crocks

Wednesday
Anyone else having a hard time uploading photos today?  I had a cute picture of Catie in pajamas since it's too early for her to be dressed in real clothes but it won't upload.  Perhaps we'll leave it for next week.

Continuous Bias Tape

This is a project that made me very nervous.  I'm about to re-cover a car seat and I thought it would look so cute with a patterned bias tape but that required me to make my own.

I've used bias tape on a bunch of projects and I really love the look and how easy it makes finishing your edges, it was finally time to make my own.  In the past projects generally require a second go, at least certain parts but I only had one chance to make this work.  I followed careful directions that I'm about to give you.  There are tons of tutorials out there that you could follow but it's my blog so I'm giving you my own.

I started with half a meter of fabric layed out on my counter. 

 Take one corner and fold it down, like so

Then I carefully pressed the fold so when I unfolded it I had an easy line to follow.  I then cut along the pressed fold line.  Taking my triangle I moved it to the end of my fabric making a parallelogram.  Putting right sides together I pinned and sewed down my new line and pressed my seam open so it looked like this.  Make sense?  You can barely see my seam on the left hand side.

I then flipped my fabric over so the right side was facing down.  On my two straight edges (not the angled ones) I drew a line with pencil 1/4 of an inch from the edge.  Don't skip this, it's important.

This next part is where I got a little creative.  Let's talk a bit about supplies.  Most people I've seen do this tutorial have one of those handy self healing green mats, a rotary cutter and a nice long, clear ruler.  I have none of those things.   I was now going to have to measure lines all across my fabric making them equal width and it was going to require me to do a ton of measuring and then drawing straight lines, no good when what I used for the above step was a picture frame as my straight edge.

I did a little thinking and came up with this...

This is cardboard, cut the the width I wanted my finished bias tape and taped together to make a nice long, straight line.  It worked perfectly!  I lined my cardboard up with the edge of my angled fabric and drew a line in pencil all the way down. 

Then I moved the cardboard over using my pencil mark as my new straight edge and drew a new line.  I did that all the way across my fabric so I had a bunch of diagonal pencil marks.  The last row probably won't be wide enough so just cut off that extra.

Okay, that was the easy part, here's where things start to get tricky.

You now have the two straight edges where you drew your 1/4 inch mark and a bunch of diagonal lines that cross the first line, right?  On one of those lines, doesn't matter which, start with the first diagonal line in your seam allowance write a number 0.  Then on the next line a number 1 and then a 2 and so on until all the lines are numbered.  On the second straight edge that you haven't numbered yet start with a 1 and then a 2 and so forth.  I drew a handy little picture for you to look at.

Your numbers would be in the seam allowance or if you're better than me you may not even need to write them.  Now take your fabric and you're going to put right sides together lining your 1, up with your 1.  Ignore the 0!  Super important!  Then line your 2 up with your 2.  You want to make sure once you sew on your seam allowance line that your diagonal lines all match up.  It was here that I discovered that I had tended to stretch my fabric a bit while drawing my lines so one side was wider than 2 inches.  once pinned together my lines weren't matching up well at all so I had to go back and re-draw some of my lines, definitely worth the effort. 
This step makes for a crazy tube of fabric but just go with it.

Once you're all pinned go ahead and sew on that first seam allowance line you drew.  Here's what you end up with.  See the little point sticking out on it's own?  That's because of the 0 you skipped.  This is where you start cutting.

Now I got to the scary cutting part where there was no going back.  I trusted I'd done it right and started cutting on my pencil line following it all the way around.

I had been mildly concerned that I wouldn't have enough bias tape, I needed about 4 meters... this little pile of bias tape that came from 1/2 meter of fabric (oh yeah, minus 5 1/2 inches that I cut off for something else) made 11 meters of bias tape.  That's right, 11 meters.

Here's where I made a very sad discovery.  I had made my tape 2 inches wide thinking it would be nice and wide and look nice but it was now that I discovered that 2 inches is much too wide to use my bias tape maker.  It does all the folding for you so you only have to press once.  Instead I had to stand and fold 11 meteres of fabric, pressing 4 different times.  So sad but it worked.  So there's my biggest tip, make sure your tape isn't too fat to fit through your bias tape maker.

Here's my finished roll of tape, waiting for the rest of the carseat project to move forward.

Good luck with your bias tape project, I hope your as successful as I was.

Tall Chairs

The gift has been given so I can now show you all the chairs I re-finished.  I'm so excited about how they turned out!

I went to Value Village for a cheap sheet I could use as a painting drop cloth, that was it.  I wandered over to the furniture (of course) and came upon two tall bar chairs.  They were $10 each and in great shape, I happened to have a sister-in-law with a new house, a bar in the kitchen and a birthday coming up.  It was too perfect so I grabbed them both and barely squeezed them into my car.

So pretty hey?

Now for the details.
They started out like this, they look fine as is but nothing special.

And then I got to work sanding.  I can freely admit that I got a little carried away and they didn't need to be sanded quite this well.  Isn't that a lovely sheet they're sitting on?  That's the item I went to pick up in the first place.

Once sanded I wiped them down really well with first a dry cloth and then a damp one.  I then primed them with a paint brush and primed again.  Many times I wished I was using a spray primer but they're just too expensive.  Sadly, these days I have far more time than money.

I sanded with really fine sand paper here to get rid of any imperfections and then I spray painted them a matte black.  I used 3 cans of spray paint, it always seems to take more than you expect.

Classy hey?  I could have put on a clear coat and called them finished but I had stencil plans.

I found a picture I liked online and used PowerPoint to stretch it to the size I wanted.  Then I printed it off.  You can see the picture is all pixelized because I blew it up much bigger than the original.  I knew the pixels wouldn't matter though.

I picked up a really cheap folder at the Dollar Store making sure it was see through.  I taped my design to the underside of the folder

And then using an exacto knife I carefully cut out all the black parts (except the one circle, I didn't want it).  I lengthened the stem just a bit as well.

I then used spray adhesive, following the directions for a temporary bond.  I stuck my stencil to the chair (not quite fast enough as you'll see later down).  The green painters tape is protecting the side of the chair so I didn't get paint on it.

You can see my stencil supplies here

Cheap Dollar Store white acrylic paint, a plastic "bowl" (it's really part of a plastic package that one of Catie's toys came in), newspaper to blot excess paint and a make up sponge.  I made a special trip to two different stores looking for a real stencil brush but then realized spending $10 was ridiculous when I have a ton of make-up sponges hanging around.  It worked like a charm.

If you've never stenciled before here's my real quick guide... pour some paint in your container and dip your sponge in gently so you just cover the entire surface.  Then take your sponge and blot off just about all of your paint, too much causes seepage under your stencil.  Then using gentle up and down movements press your paint onto the stencil.  I did two coats and then took off the stencil when the paint was still wet.  Because of the width of my stencil and the flimsyness of it this was absolutely a two person job.  My husband was awesome at helping me put on and take off the stenil, I would have had a really hard time doing it on my own.

I actually had quite a bit of paint seep underneath the stencil, I suspect my plastic folder wasn't super effective, either that or I used too much paint.  Rather than sand off the design, repainting it black and starting again I used Q-tips to carefully go around the entire stencil cleaning up my mess.  If you look real close you can tell my lines aren't very crisp but otherwise it just looks amazing.  I also found that my stencil pulled off my black paint in a few very small places.  I had painted them earlier that morning so I'm sure they hadn't had time to properly harden.  I grabbed a plastic, disposable cup and my spray paint can and went out side where I sprayed just enough paint into my cup to make a little puddle.  Then I quickly came back inside, dipped a Q-tip in the puddle and covered up the exposed primer where the black had pulled off.  Once it dried you couldn't even see where the spots where.

So then I washed the stencil (3 Times!  That adhesive is strong), flipped it over and did the other chair the same way (my second chair seeped even worse).  Having a second stencil would have helped because the little parts really didn't stick great the second time but that would have meant I had to cut out another one.  I'm wondering if a thinner, less stiff plastic would have helped too.

To finish them up I took both chairs outside and covered them in two coats of spray Varathane, 3 in the really heavyily used areas.

I'm so pleased with the look and Renee loved them!

Thanks so much for featuring my chairs!

 

Family Photos

We picked up these photos a week ago but I'd forgotten to post some of them so I thought I'd share my favorites.

Good looking family hey?

These beautiful pictures were taken by the super talented Karen, if you live in the Calgary area you should have her take photos of you. Visit her website here.

Finished!

I just completed a project I'm so excited about!  It turned out even better than I thought it would!

I'm so excited to share it but sadly it's a gift for a friend so I can't post about it until Monday.   Make sure you come back to see the big reveal though.

I also figured out what do do with the rivets for this project so that update is coming too.