Sew It - Tooth Monster Pocket Pillow

My youngest is 5 and a half now, so the tooth fairy will be visiting him soon. My Aunt used to make and sell tooth fairy pillows when I was young and I loved the idea. 

I've looked around at different ideas and patterns and found that most seem to be aimed at girls, or are giant teeth which don't really appeal to me. 

My pillow is a hybrid of a few different designs I've seen, combined with what materials I had to hand today (I rarely plan ahead!) and what wouldn't need a pattern.

For my tooth monster pocket pillow, I cut 2 squares of green felt which were about 10.5cm. I cut 2 strips of green felt the same width to the height I wanted the pocket to be; roughly 5cm.

Then, from white felt I cut 4 triangles for the teeth and 2 circles for the eyes.

I stitched two triangles together using a simple running stitch around the edges, and repeated this to make the two teeth. Stitching two pieces together makes them stronger and hopefully will prevent them from coming apart and losing their shape over time. 

Once both were stitched, I pinned them to one long side of one piece of the pocket.

Then, I pinned the second piece of the pocket on top.

Using white cotton, I blanket stitched along the top edge, joining the two pieces together and securing the teeth in place. When I reached each tooth, I switched to a tight back stitch, and then went back to whip stitch the edges. Again, using two pieces of felt stitched together for the pocket gives it a more solid structure that should stand up will to little hands rummaging inside. 

Next, I pinned the white felt eyes in place on one of the large squares and whip-stitched them securely in place. I cut small circles of blue felt and stitched them onto the white eyes.

I cut a 20cm length of ribbon, and secured it to the back of the same square of felt as a hanging loop.

Now for the final assembly. I put the two large pieces of felt together, with the eyes on top, then the pocket piece lined up on top of these. I pinned them together, and blanket stitched around the edges. When there was around an inch left to be stitched, I filled the pillow with toy stuffing.

Once it was filled I finished the blanket stitching. 

There he is, ready for Charlie to pop a tooth in. Then he can hang him on his door handle, or his bed post, for the tooth fairy to collect. 

Sew It - Pattern-less Oven Mitts Tutorial

My oven mitts have been on their last legs for a while now, so I decided I wanted to make my own new ones instead of buying some. Mostly because I had some gorgeous elephant fabric from Pink Scissors Fabric.

I'm sure I've got a pattern for mitts like these on my Pinterest wall somewhere, but I was feeling lazy and it seemed like a simple thing to do without a pattern. It was!

I used my original mitts as my guide, lay them on my fabric and used a ruler to draw the straight lines, adding a generous seam allowance. I followed the curve of the mitts and my guide was done. 

From that piece, I cut an identical piece of fabric, a piece of Insul-Bright heat proof lining, a piece of lightweight interlining, and a piece of 2oz batting. These layers would make up the long length of the mitts.

I then used the guide piece again to create the end pocket pieces, working out how deep I wanted them to be (and as my partner has pretty big man hands, I want them to be large). I need 2 fabric pieces and a 2oz batting piece for each end. 

These are the end pocket pieces.

Assembling each pocket piece one at a time, with right sides facing out I sandwiched the batting between the two fabric pieces, and pinned round the edges, before adding a strip of bias binding to the straight edge. 

With the long main piece, I assembled these in the following order - fabric : insulated lining : interfacing : batting : fabric - like this - 

I then whizzed round the edges of all 3 pieces in navy cotton thread on the sewing machine, and then added stripes of stitching approximately 2" apart to secure the layers in place on all 3 layers. 

I switched to white cotton and secured the binding on the pocket pieces, and then trimmed all the edges to 2-3mm from the stitch line.

Next, I pinned the binding open to the side of the main piece with the insulated lining at the top. This will be the part that comes into contact with hot dishes, so the pocket pieces go on the other side. 

Once this was stitched, I turned it over, laid the pocket pieces in place, and pinned the binding over the top edge. 

This proved very fiddly. Bias binding is a skill I am still learning, which is evident if you look closely! 

I stitched it in place, but I didn't do a great job. I decided to go round the inside of the binding with a zigzag stitch to secure the joins. 

All finished, and aside from not being perfect, they turned out very cute!

Sew It - Cupcake Appliqué Toddler T-Shirt

This weeks a special little lady turns 2, my cousin's daughter Lorena. They live too far away for me to see much of them, but I want to sent something special in the post. 

My cousin appreciates unique, hand made clothing. She often buys dresses for Lorena from independent sellers online, and of course she looks gorgeous modelling them. I loved how the last appliqué tshirt turned out so I decided to do another one.

When I think of Lorena, I think of cupcakes, so that's the first thing I thought to appliqué on to the shirt. I did some Pinterest searching, and came up with this design -

Now, I can't be doing with all the faff of printing out templates and cutting and pinning. I got my bag of felt, chose the colours, and started to draw! 

Starting with beige felt for the cupcake base and a wash out fabric pen, I used a ruler to draw the top and after marking the edge points of the bottom, draw the sides. I then curved the corners, and drew the base of the cake. Time to cut!

Next, the first icing, for me in purple. I lay my cake base on top to make sure I drew it wide enough to sit nicely on top, and marked the top edges of my cake. I drew the base first, then a tall curved top. Time to cut again!

For the top icing, in white, I lay the purple icing on top and traced the top curve down to where the bottom frills start to fan out. Then I took the purple fel away, and drew the bottom frills. Last cut!

When you stack them, they should look like this -

Now for the lettering. Again, I like to do this free hand, but you can use a stencil if you prefer. It's hand made, and unique, and I like that to show. I like chunky letters with curved edges. I used the ruler to make sure they all stayed the same height as I drew them. 

All cut out, but getting the middle out of the A was fun! I fold the letter in half so I can snip a small gap in the section you're trying to cut out, then slide the scissors in to cut round it. That's simple in a letter like O, but tricky in an A! 

Time for placement! I'm using a Fruit of the Loom tshirt in age 2-3 from Amazon, they aren't overly expensive but wash really well. I've pinned the cake base first -

I whip stitch the border of this in a brown cotton, then draw 3 lines in my washout pen and do a very close running stitch up these to add detail. Next, I pin the purple icing, and whip stitch the border in a lilac cotton. 

I know that the white icing is going to be stitched in pretty much the same place along the top border, so it may seem like I'm creating extra work for myself. This shirt needs to be toddler proof, so the extra layer of stitching seems worth it to me. 

I had popped down to one of my local fabric shops in the morning to get some cotton thread, and while I was there I spotted this cute strawberry button which I thought would be perfect to finish off the cupcake. Some of my felt is from there too, as I'm often popping in. They're online at Calico Laine.

I pinned on the lettering, and whip stitched the borders using purple cotton. 

Once it was all done, a quick wash and a good iron and it was complete. Ready to post to the birthday girl.

Happy birthday Lorena! 

Bake It - A Mammoth Bake Day

Last weekend was my niece's first birthday party, and it was my job to make the cake. 

Last week, her parents got engaged, so I figured seen as how I was baking anyway, I could do a surprise engagement cake. 

Then I remembered that I needed to bake some cupcakes for my youngest son Charlie, and Chris's mum Marie, to take along to the party so that they could join in. Dairy, soya and egg free for Charlie, gluten free for Marie. 

I only had one full day to bake, as we had house guests last week, and a couple of hours the next morning before we left for the party. 

3 full on bakes in 1 day? Jakers. That's crazy talk. So the planned day of taking lots of blog photos went out of the window! 

Instead, I spent a few hours playing with fondant, which kinda looked something like this...

And I made a Red Velvet Heart Shaped Piñata Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting...

Little secret, it wasn't supposed to be a piñata cake. I always check my bakes with the skewer test, but some how something went wrong with this one and the centre wasn't cooked. So I cut a heart shaped hole in the middle, filled it with sweets, popped a fondant disc on top of the hole and crumb coated it as normal. Everyone loved it!

I also made Edie's birthday cake. It was a triple layer chocolate ombré cake inside, plain, milk and dark chocolate, sandwiched with chocolate buttercream and salted caramel buttercream. It was coated with white chocolate buttercream and fondant decorations.

Finally, I made vegan gluten free chocolate cupcakes, with peppermint frosting, and fondant monkey decorations. 

I forgot to photograph those, but they were very cute and Charlie says they were yummy.

Doing 3 big bakes in 1 day was incredibly stressful, but seeing everyone enjoy eating them makes it worthwhile.

Bake It - Reese's Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cake Tutorial

I love this cake. It's good to look at, and it's yummy to eat. 

Last year, one of my boyfriend (Chris)'s work colleagues asked if I would make him a birthday cake. He wanted something chocolatey, with Reese's involved. I did some googling, and found an image similar to this cake. I can't claim credit for the design, it was somebody else's brainchild! I've tried to find who to give credit but the internet. 

So I made this guy his cake, and Chris and my eldest son Alex stared at it with open jaws moaning that they wouldn't get to try any. Alex announced that this was the cake he wanted for his next birthday. 

Guess who's birthday it is tomorrow?

My first baby will be 14! 

I started by making two 6" plain chocolate mud cakes. Once these were cooled I made a small batch of peanut butter frosting to sandwich them together.

Peanut Butter Frosting

50g Trex

100g Peanut Butter

200g Icing Sugar

Approx 2 tbsp milk (as needed)

I spread a small circle of frosting on to my cake board to hold the cake in place like this - 

The first layer of cake goes on, and a good thick layer of peanut butter frosting gets spread across the top of it. Don't get too close to the edges, as we're using a different buttercream for the sides. You can use a spatula, palette knife or the back of a spoon for this, it doesn't need to look pretty. 

Pop the second cake layer on top, taking care to line it up properly so that you don't have a wonky cake. 

Now it's time to make the chocolate buttercream. You can use either milk or plain chocolate for this, depending on your taste. I've used milk as I used plain chocolate in the mud cake. 

Milk Chocolate Buttercream

125g Butter

250g Icing Sugar

100g Milk Chocolate (melted)

1-2tbsp Milk (as needed)

Now you need to coat the cake. Use a palette knife, and try to keep the sides smooth to help with the drizzle later on. I like to start with the sides, fill in around the sandwich gap first to make sure none of the peanut butter frosting gets spread out on to the rest of the cake. Then I cover the top, and neaten all the edges. 

This is where good tools really help. Chris bought me a Wilton cake turntable last year and oh my I do love it! I can hold the blade of the palette knife against the side of the cake and then turn the cake turntable to get a nice smooth finish. It's brilliant when you're piping too, no more having to stop every few seconds to lift and turn a heavy cake.

Now you'll need to put the rest of your buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a 1M large open star nozzle. 

Prep your Reese's cups too. For this size cake, I used 5 cups. 1 whole, and 4 cut in half. 

Start by putting the whole Reese's cup in the centre of the cake, then pipe a high top swirl on top of it.

Next, we need to pipe high top swirls round the outside of the cake, leaving a small gap between each one. I start by doing the 4 compass points. 

To pipe a high top swirl, pipe a small swirl in the centre of where you want your high top swirl to be.

Then, pipe a continuous swirl starting with a circle round this one, working up and inwards on top of your initial small swirl.

After completing high top swirls at the 4 compass points, pipe another 4 halfway in between each of these like this -

Put a half Reese's cup between each swirl around the outside of the cake.

Using the same nozzle, pipe a ring of small peaks around the base of the cake. This both disguises any messy bits at the bottom of the cake and catches the drizzle. Mmm the drizzle. 

Drizzle time! Get the bottle of Hershey's Chocolate Syrup, and try not to pour it in your mouth.

The aim is to squeeze a blob in every gap between Reeses's and buttercream swirl on the top of the cake, so that it drizzles down the side. I also drizzled mine at the centre point of the buttercream swirl for extra drizzly goodness.

Almost done! Crack open a pack of Reese's Pieces and sprinkle them on top around the centre swirl. 

Now you can give it a spritz of shimmer spray, or leave it as it is. 

Enjoy! 

Bake it - Chocolate Mud Cake Recipe

I've mentioned already that I have a favourite recipe for chocolate mud cake. It's one I've adapted from a recipe posted on Nigella's forum. 

Here, I'm going to talk you through my version of the recipe.

The cake itself is a dense, moist chocolatey sponge which lasts well, holds up well for stacking, and has (so far) never gone wrong for me. It's my go-to recipe when I need to make a chocolate cake, and it does well for a chocolate ombré cake as you can use any type of chocolate in it without needing to change the recipe. 

Ingredients

9oz butter (chopped)

5oz chocolate (broken into squares)

11oz caster sugar

1 cup milk

8oz plain flour

3oz self raising flour

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs 

The amounts here make a single layer 20cm round cake. Use an app like cakeulator to work out quantities for the tin, and if you want a sandwiched cake, double (or treble) the quantities.

1) Combine the butter, chocolate, sugar and milk in a saucepan, 

and stir over a low heat until all the chocolate and butter is melted. 

2) Pop this mix into your mixing bowl, and leave it for about 20 minutes to cool. This is when I put my oven on to heat up to 170C gas mark 4, and grease and line my cake tins. 

Personally, I only line the base of my tins. With good non stick tins, I don't find it necessary to line the sides. I spray all round with a spray oil like Frylight, and pop in some baking parchment. 

3) Once cooled, sieve in the flours, mix, then mix in the essence and eggs. Try not to over mix, it doesn't need to be perfectly smooth. 

4) Bake in the centre of the oven until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out completely clean. For me this is about an hour. I tend to start with 45 minutes and then check every 10 minutes after that. 

5) Stand the cake pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes, then remove the sides of the pans. After another 10 minutes, flip the cakes over and remove the pan bases and baking parchment. Allow to cool completely before decorating.

Enjoy!