The Adventures of Gracie and her Pre K Classes Stuffed Dog Benji

Gracie came home from school this week with the her classes stuffed dog, named Benji. 

Each of the kids in her PreK class get to take him home for the weekend and take pictures of the things they do him.  Then they put their pictures of their adventures with Benji into the  

Benji's Adventure Book, and return Benji and his journey book back to school on Monday.

So the journey began with Benji and Gracie spending the weekend with nana and papa at the ranch.   After breakfast, the morning started with Gracie helping groom her horse Raider.  

Gracie and Benji sitting on her horse Raider.     

Gracie takes riding lessons, and one day she will be able to ride him on her own.  This is her

big guy/big fella, as she calls him.  He is a Quarter Horse.

Then in the afternoon, Gracie and Benji made dog biscuits for her dog Ace.  

 Benji just flipped over the making dog biscuits and the smell they were creating in the kitchen.  

He thought it was a great idea to make them for Ace!   

Ace was so excited over the dog biscuits that that he was smelling, that papa had to help Gracie give him his first treat.   He just couldn't control the puppy in him!

                                                              1 3/4 cups flour

                                                        1/4 cup bacon grease                    

                                                   (heated slightly so it's liquid)          

                                                        1/4 cup peanut butter                                       

                                                    1/2 cup beef bullion water

                                                     2-3 pieces of cook bacon

                                                     (crumbled, small pieces) 

                                                                      1 egg

Mix ingredients together by adding flour and bacon bits to a large bowl, then in a small bowl beat the egg, add the peanut butter, bacon grease and the warm beef bullion water, this will cause the peanut butter to loosen up.  Then add this mixture to the flour, stir until all mixed... knead the dough into 

a ball, then place in a large ziplock bag.  Cool in the fridge for half an hour or so and roll out onto a floured surface... and then cut the dough into shapes:

As you can see we used dog bones and dog paws.

    

Bake in an oven at 375 for 20-25 minutes.  

Remove when the edges of the treats are crispy and golden.  

Allow the treats to cool, feed to your dogs, & stay hungry!

Note:  

I took 2 cups of water, put in a sauce pan and added 2 beef bullion cubes and then, 

boiled it down to a 1/2 cup of beef bullion water.

Diaper Babies and Diaper Owls

A dear friend and I decided to make some diaper babies for another dear friends baby shower recently.  It was a lot of fun making these diaper babies. 

 You can probably guess which one I made if you have followed my blogs...... 

why of course my favorite color..... PURPLE !

Then a couple more friends decided to make some diaper owls for the baby shower..... they did such a great job making the diaper owls.  

They put a face on both side of the owls..... Now all the instructions out there on the internet are for one side faced owls. 

These are the internet sites that we used for our inspiration and instruction....

Instructions or Tutorial for Diaper Owls

 

Instructions or Tutorial for Sleeping Diaper Babies
make sure you type in this code... V=PeJZ6wwVBOY

Making a Jar of Memories ~ Sugar Cookies Recipe

A Jar full of Memories!

When I started this blog.... it was a couple years back.... I had been thinking about making memories with my grand daughter when she got a little older. 

 What a better way to do this than with cookie cutters. Cookie cutters are so versatile... they can be used for cookies and biscuits of course! Cookie cutters can also be used to cut sandwiches into neat shapes as well as other foods.  Some that come to mind is carrots, cucumbers, watermelon, lunch meat, cheeses and such.  You can use them for many craft projects and also use them with play dough. 

 

Here are a few sets of Martha Stewart Cookie Cutters.   I really like this scalloped hibiscus flower, these are no longer available...  I'm so sad!   If anyone has these cookie cutters and are not using them anymore and would like to sell... Please contact me!

We are making memories, even now.  

My grand daughter,  she loves to bake and especially to make cookies.  We will be making dog biscuits real soon for her new puppy.

Elsa and Anna Quilt for Gracie

Well as promised.... here is the Elsa and Anna Quilt for Gracie's room here at Nana and Papa's house.   She is so happy to have her quilt finally finished and on her bed.   

She watched every step of the sewing process and sometimes tried to help sew the seams and help in any way she could..... now that was an experience to remember!  What memories we will share.... I know there will be many more upcoming sewing projects and memories. 

Disney's Frozen Coronation Fabric

Finding coordinating fabrics to match is always my favorite part of the process.  I wanted to use some batik fabric, since I could probably find 2 or maybe 3 colors in one fabric.  If I'm lucky I might find a fabric that has all the colors.  

Did I say... that I really enjoy this part of the process!

I use these coordinating fabrics below to go with the coronation fabric above for the quilt and pillowcases.

                         

I started by making the coordinating pillowcases, I knew that if I finished the pillowcases first that Gracie would feel like we accomplished our task, without her getting to impatient because I hadn't finished the quilt yet.  Then when we do finish the quilt, she will just be so ecstatic! 

Now for the pillowcases, I decided not to have a raw edge seam, that would unravel over time and then eventuallly seperate as the seam blows out over washing and usage.  

So, I made French Seam Pillowcases.  Look how nice the seam looks!

Below are some pictures of the process.  Choosing the coordinating fabrics for the quilt and pillowcases, and the finshed pillowcases.... Makes for a happy little girl, she is ready to give her Dora bedroom set to a little friend who doesn't have a bedroom set. 

A few pictures below of the finished pillowcases, finished top of the quilt, and the back fabric for the quilt. Then, of course a happy little girl who is enjoying the process of the quilt coming together.

Now all that we need to do is sandwich the batting between the finished top fabric and the back/bottom fabric and then machine quit.

Well after watching a machine quilting youtube video, I realized that I was suppose to allow 4-6 inches extra inches of fabric for the backing and the batting of the quilt.   Ooops.... I barely had enough fabric as it was :( 

What to do... What to do!

When I ordered both of the fabrics online, both companies had less fabric than what was posted on their sites, after they remeasured to see exactly what they had and I recalculated.... I barely had what I needed to do this quilt project.  I took a big gamble and decided to move forwarded with the fabrics that I had choose, knowing that the two fabrics went together so wonderfully.  

We all know that color coordination is key in anything that you do!

I had very little scrap material, but I managed to find enough to add to all 4 edges of the bottom side/back piece of the fabric.  When I'm finished machine quilting this will be cut off of the quilt.

Oh.... let me share the reason the back fabric for the quilt needs to be wider.  Ii is to make sure that you get a firm tight back for your quilt without messing up your fabric because of the clamps that you will be attachiing to the backing fabric so you can machine quilt your quilt.

I know that I'm talking in past tenths, but wanted to show this process.

I'm was so excited about taking this machine quilting class..... I'm waiting for a response from the store to let me know when I can schedule my one on one machine quilting class, to learn how to use their longarm quilting machine, so I will be able to machine quilt my own quilts.

I live here in Riverside, California and there is a quilt shop here called Quilters Cocoon.  They will teach you to machine quilt on their Longarm quilting machine.  Then you can either buy your very own quilting machine from them or you can rent their longarm and machine quilt your project right there in the shop.   The quilting machine that they have in the store is the HandiQuilt Avante Longarm Quilting Machine...... It is very similar to the Babylock Crown Jewel Longarm Quilting Machine that I found on Craigslist here in my area.... that comes with the Babylock Pearl quilting frame.

Definitions:

Longarmmer is one who quilts using a longarm quilting machine.

Longarm quilting is the process by which a longarm sewing machine is used to sew together a quilt top, quilt batting and quilt backing into a finished quilt.

Here is my final decisions that I needed to make...... thread color and the quilting design. 

So Excited....... My date is August 12, 2015 for my longarm quilting class... Now, it has came and gone.    

Here are some pictures from that day.

                    

                 

                       

Voila... The finshed quilt !

I do know a little one that will be so happy when she comes to Nana's and see that her quilt is finished.  She will want to turn this quilt into a fort right in the middle of the family room, she has already hinted about!  Good luck trying to keep it on the bed!

       

Now onto my next quilt project,

I already have some ideas... Of course  I'll post when finished!