Easy Shoe Refashion

Now that it’s the summer, I have time once again to do fun crafty things! Between 5 classes, a job, dance classes, my sorority, and attempting to have a social life, I didn’t have much time to pursue hobbies. All my hard work was worth it though, as I pulled through with an increased GPA. However, as soon as senior week was over, I opened up my box of crafts and looked through my Pinterest to get some inspiration. I want to keep busy this summer!

I’d started wearing some old Chucks from high school that were, at some point, a very light pink, but by this point were closer to grey. After getting a few comments about how grungy they looked, I threw them in the washing machine. When they came out, they were much better, but the tongues were still blackened from the dirt caking in the creases. I remembered seeing a picture of some Converse with different colored tongues, so I thought that would be a fun and easy refashion. I found this nice bright fabric scrap in my fabric box, left over from making letters for my little when she got initiated. I thought it was perfect. It’s a different color, but has hints of pink.

Just a little ironing

After scouring the web to find a tutorial, I only found ones that involved completely taking the shoe apart. I did not want to get involved in a big sewing project, not yet at least. I need to warm up a little. Instead,I ironed out the fabric and the sneakers and traced the outline of the tongue on the back of the fabric. This was a little difficult because the tongue is sewn under the side flaps, so it was only an approximate outline. I’m hoping nobody will be spending time staring at the imperfections in my old sneakers.

I pinned the fabric to the shoe so tracing would be easier

Tracing!

I cut out the outline and, using some spray adhesive, stuck the new tongue covers onto the old grungy tongues! Easy as pie! No, it’s not the most perfect refashion, but it put some life back into my old sneakers, and I love to tell people that I updated them myself. I even tried a new lacing style so that the tongue shows through more.

 

After! (Too bad I never got a before picture)

Maybe next I’ll get some new laces. Even after I washed them, they are still stained. More to come soon!

Recipe: French Toast Stackers

Hi everyone. It’s been really nice out lately (except today, when it was grey and rainy), so I spent my weekend outside. It was great! I don’t have any interesting stories from my past week though, so I thought I’d share the recipe for the French Toast Stackers.

One morning my boyfriend and I went to Manory’s, one of the best breakfast places in Troy, NY. I complained that I couldn’t decide whether to order eggs or French toast. It’s always a conundrum for me. My date pointed out the French Toast Stacker on the Specials menu, and it has been one of my favorite meals ever since. I wanted to share it with my family and friends who don’t live in Troy, so I figured out how to make it for them. It’s very simple, as it is basically a breakfast sandwich on French toast.

The French toast recipe I use is based on one I found on All Recipes. Here’s the link: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/fluffy-french-toast/detail.aspx. After using that recipe a couple of times, I updated it by adding more eggs. Combine that with the basic bacon, scrambled eggs, and a slice of cheese, and you’re set.

This recipe requires you to be cooking three things at once. The first time I made it, I was a little overwhelmed, but the second time, I had it down. It really helps to have everything out and ready before you start. It’s also great to have a helper, just to keep an eye on things and make sure they don’t burn. Otherwise, I would make sure everyone stays out of your way in the kitchen. Also, if you’re in NY’s Capital District, I would stop by Manory’s in Troy to get the real deal!

French Toast Stacker with pan potatoes on the side.

French Toast Stackers

This recipe is for one stacker. That way you can scale for any number of people!

Ingredients:

3 eggs (divided)

2 teaspoons of flour

3 tablespoons of milk (divided)

A pinch of salt

1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon (To taste. I always add more, because I love cinnamon.)

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon sugar (brown or white)

2 thick slices of bread

1 or 2 slices of bacon (optional)

1 slice of  smoked Gouda cheese (Feel free to replace with whichever type you prefer.)

Butter or coconut oil to grease the egg and toast pans

Pure maple syrup (none of that fake stuff!)

(Almost) everything you’ll need!

1. Start by mixing the flour and 2 tablespoons of the milk together in a large mixing bowl. If you have one with a flat bottom, I would use that. Otherwise you will have to transfer the mixture into a flat bottomed pan before you dip the bread into it.

2. Whisk in the salt, one of the eggs, the cinnamon, vanilla, and sugar.

3. Meanwhile, in a pan, place a slice or two of bacon. Cook until crispy, turning over once.

4. Beat the remaining two eggs with the last tablespoon of milk in a small bowl.

Eggs and French toast dip

5. Heat a second pan over medium high heat. Put a pat of butter or oil on it. I normally have to re-oil the pan after every slice of bread.

6. Soak both sides of the slice of bread in the egg and flour mixture. Place on the heated pan and cook until golden brown on each side.

7. While the bread is cooking, heat a small, lightly oiled pan over medium heat.

8. Pour egg mixture into pan, and stir with a spatula often enough to keep the eggs from sticking to the pan.

Scramblin’ Eggs

9. TIP: If the toast is done before the other parts, cover it so it stays warm.

10. Assemble the stacker by putting the scrambled eggs on one of the pieces of toast. Place the slice of cheese on top of the eggs, and the bacon on top of the cheese. Top it off with the second slice of toast. Finish by slicing the stacker and drizzling maple syrup generously on top.

11. Enjoy!

Yum!

Smoothies!

I love smoothies! They are such a tasty and convenient way to eat fruit. Minimal slicing — the blender does most of the work — and endless tasty combinations! I drank many smoothies over the summer, enjoying them on my porch with our sweet black cat. I thought I’d share some of the pictures and recipes, to get you started on smoothie making. It also reminds us all of those warm summer days as the temperature around here continues to plummet.

1: Strawberry Banana

Strawberry Banana

This is a simple recipe.

1 Peeled Banana

5 Frozen Strawberries

1/2 Cup Coconut Milk (Milk, water, or other liquid will work as well!)

Place ingredients into the blender, breaking the banana into a couple pieces. I start the blender on “ice breaker” setting, so that the strawberries get broken up a bit. Then I switch to “blend” until the smoothie looks, well, smooth! I love using frozen fruit for smoothies because it makes the beverage cool and thick. Ice will do the trick as well, but it also waters down the flavor.

The strawberry banana smoothie was cool, sweet, and refreshing. It wasn’t quite enough for a meal replacement, but it makes a good snack, or even a beverage to go alongside a small meal.

 2: Double Berry Banana

Double Berry Banana

Again, a rather simple recipe. I like to use bananas in my smoothies because they provide a good creamy base for the other fruits, and have a rather mild taste, allowing the other flavors to shine.

1 Banana

2 Frozen Strawberries

1/2 Cup  Frozen Blueberries

1/2 Cup Coconut Milk

This recipe turned out sweet, refreshing and delicious.

One thing to be careful of when making smoothies is making them too thick. Since I love fruit, and I’m not a big milk drinker, I always forget to put enough milk in and end up with something closer to sorbet instead! A good trick is to put the fruit in the blender first, and then cover the fruit completely with the liquid. After you’ve blended it, you can test the thickness, and adjust to your liking.

Enjoy!

Best Blueberry Pie

Best Blueberry Pie, before baking

When I started dating my boyfriend, he mentioned that on a trip to Alaska he had the best pie he’d ever eaten – blueberry pie. I filed that in my memory, and as his birthday approached, I planned to surprise him with a pie. I’m terrible at surprises, so he knew about my plan at least a month ahead of time. While the surprise was ruined, the plan was not, and the pie turned out deliciously. I switched it up a little bit and made blueberry crumble pie (because I love love love crumbles), and I think it turned out fantastic!

I found the recipe on Pinterest (of course!), from a website called Sugar & Spice by Celeste.

The only difference in my pie was that I used frozen blueberries. Even though blueberries are in season, I’m  not  quite employed enough to afford that many fresh blueberries. It still turned out delicious!

He approved of its scent! 😛

To make this substitution:

Thaw the berries outside of the freezer before you bake the pie. I simply took the berries out of the freezer a couple hours before I started the dough. By the time the dough was ready for the berries, they were still cold, but not frozen. Since the frozen berries can get very juicy as they thaw, add two tablespoons of quick cooking tapioca and mix it in with the berry filling. This was a tip from my boyfriend’s mother.  Don’t worry when it doesn’t immediately; it will thicken as the pie bakes. I made the mistake of thinking it should thicken as I mixed the tapioca in. I added two more tablespoons tapioca, and the filling turned out a bit too firm for my taste. (If you like firmer pies, keep this in mind!

Birthday pie in a pie basket!

The pie made the whole house smell delicious! The cinnamon and butter in the crumble were perfect! The birthday pie was a success, and I can’t wait to have an excuse to bake (and eat) another one!

Birthday Pie & Me 🙂

 

 

Beginner’s Sewing Tutorial: Pillow Cover!

My mother recently passed down my grandmother’s sewing machine. It’s a Kenmore from the 70s, but it does the job (at least for me). I’ve been really excited about learning how to use it, but I have no patience sewing things that don’t turn into usable objects. My best friend’s birthday recently passed, and I wanted to make sure I got her something awesome because she gave me a wonderful celebration on my birthday. I made her this really cool and super easy to sew pillow!

I’m a total beginner at using the machine, I’ve only used it 2 or 3 times before, so this project was perfect for me. It’s all straight lines. Even if you choose a different letter or symbol to put on the front, it’s still minimal sewing.

Total Time: 3-4 Hours – Day Project

What you will need:

• Two different fabrics, one for the pillow, and one for the design. The size of the fabric depends on the size of the pillow you choose. I think I picked up a half a yard of the pillow fabric (pink), and a third for the Z (zebra), but I had a lot of leftover fabric.
• A pillow insert. Mine is 12″ x 16″. I got it at Wal-Mart (along with the fabrics) for about 12 dollars.
• Scissors
• An iron
• An ironing board
• A stencil of your letter/design
• Heat’n’Bond iron on adhesive. If you are planning to sew on your letter, make sure you use the purple package, which is marked “Sewable” NOT the red package, which is marked “No-Sew”. While it may seem more convenient now to use the no-sew Heat’n’Bond, I have found that it doesn’t last very long.
• A sewing machine.
• Thread in similar colors to your fabrics.

Pre-Sewing Prep

Before you sew the pillow together, you need to prepare the fabrics. Technically you are supposed to wash the fabrics before you use them, so if you have the patience for that make sure you don’t use any fabric softener. It may affect how well the adhesive works.

Next, iron the fabric flat. You’re going to use creases to help you sew the pillow correctly, so any extraneous creases can seriously confuse you and ultimately may affect if your pillow comes out correctly.

Once your fabrics are all clean and flat, set them aside, and roll out the iron on adhesive. You are going to need enough to cover the whole letter that you will be putting on your pillow. The easiest way to do this is to simply place your stencil on the adhesive and cut a rectangle out around it.

Snip, snip!

Iron the rectangle rough side down onto the back of your accent fabric.

Trim the fabric around the adhesive, and trace the Z onto it, backwards. Cut it out, and turn it over. The letter should be facing the correct direction, and the front of the fabric should be showing.

Next, lay your pillow fabric out. A simple way to measure how big the fabric should be is to add two inches to the width. In my case, this would be 16″ + 2″ = 18″. This will make a very snug pillow. I physically measured mine with the pillow, and it turned out a little looser. For the length, you will want double the height of the pillow, plus about 5 or 6 inches for the overlap. For my pillow, this is 12″ x 2 = 24″.  24″ + 6″ = 30″. The overlap  is the opening in which you will fit the pillow into the cover.

Whichever method you use to measure your fabric, I recommend you pin the edges around the pillow to double check your sizing. Once you have done this, turn the fabric face up, and iron each of the folded edges so they are creased. I recommend also ironing the creases of where the fabric will fold around your pillow. This way you will know where the front and back of the pillow will be, and it will be easier to place your accent letter.

Whoops! I did it upside down. It’s much easier to sew the pillow if you iron the fabric with the back  facing out.

When all your edges have been ironed into creases, you can trim them. Leave about an inch of fabric on the “wrong” edge of the crease.

Turn the pillow fabric right side up. Iron the center flat again, to prepare it for the letter. Unpeel the adhesive on the back of your accent letter and place it in the center of the front panel of your pillow fabric. Following the directions on the wrapper, iron the letter to the pillow fabric.

Woo! You’re done preparing the fabrics. Now you get to sew your pillow together!

Sewing

The sewing part is actually pretty quick. First you sew the letter to the pillow fabric. I used a black thread with a medium zig-zag stitch. Check in your sewing machine’s manual about how to set up the different stitches. Make sure you use the correct presser foot and needle plate for the wider stitch. If you don’t, the needle will bang into them! (I know this because I forgot to change the plate at first!)

The sewing should be super simple. Just go around the edge of the letter, doubling back at the beginning and end to make sure the thread is secure. Trim the threads and marvel at how easy that was!

You’re going to use straight sewing for the rest of the pillow, so change your presser foot and needle plate accordingly.

Sew a quarter inch hem along the edges of what will be the overlap (the edges at the ends of the 30″ long way). I used my presser foot as a guide for the quarter inch. Line the crease up with the edge of the foot and sew a straight line.

Last sewing step! Fold your pillow fabric inside out:

and sew straight lines along the both of the creases. Make sure that you sew through both layers, and in the middle where the overlap is, all three layers.

Turn your pillowcase right side out, and admire your work. You’re almost done!

Notice that the corners are curved, not pointy like corners should be. Simply use a pin to pull the corners out: stick the pin into the corner and hook the fabric, pulling the corner out to a point.

  

Now stuff your pillow into its case via the over lap. That’s it! Simple, wasn’t it?

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial! It’s my first so please leave comments on anyway I can improve!