Busy Girls

We've been busy girls sewing, planting and baking. The owl stitchery is now a sling bag for Nature Girl. She loves it and proudly announced today that she will never leave home without it. We'll see how long that lasts but for today she brought it with her. She's pictured here on a bench outside our local library modeling her sling bag and her owl sticker. I'm very pleased with how it turned out. It's just what I pictured for the owl stitchery.

Planting:
We planted seeds yesterday using the newspaper pots from Dave's Garden. I say "we" but really Nature Girl helped plant the first eight pots then went off to ride her bike, which she informed me is good for the earth. I finished planting while she rode her bike around the driveway pretending she was visiting her friends and cousins. It was very entertaining! She looked at my bike that has been hanging in the garage since before she was born and told me I should start riding my bike too. Nice thought but not likely no matter how good it is for the planet.

Sewing:
I haven't posted any pictures on the Sparkle Power Sew Along Flickr Group, but I have been sewing. I made these green capri pajama pants using thrifted knit fabric and a pair of my favorite pajamas as a pattern. They're super comfy. Not bad for 50 cents worth of thrifted fabric! Sorry the picture is pretty poor but I hope you get the idea.

I whipped up this simple skirt yesterday from another thrifted fabric I bought a few weeks ago. It's not fancy but I like it. We went to see Horton Hears a Who today and I wore my new skirt. I even have a piece of the fabric left to make something for Nature Girl. I have a few other projects I've been working on that aren't finished and many more that are on my to do list. That list never gets shorter because I'm always finding something new I want to make. Check out Kerri Made for her chicken scratch gingham and her crafty tool belt tutorial.


Baking:
I'll leave you with one more picture for tonight. The batter doesn't look appetizing, but this Pecan Toffee Biscotti is delicious. I'll take a few more pictures of the finished product and post the recipe tomorrow or the next day. Trust me this biscotti is so yummy it's worth checking back for the recipe. I'm enjoying a piece right now!

Revised Snack Bag Tutorial

I decided to make a few more snack pouches and matching napkins this morning. I pulled up my reusable snack pouch tutorial to refresh my memory. I started to cut out the fabric and thought this doesn't seem right. Well it wasn't. The measurements would make a nice sandwich size pouch not the snack pouch I wanted. I had figured out measurements for both sizes back when I made the pouch. I must have confused the measurements when I wrote out the tutorial. Anyway If you downloaded the reusable snack pouch tutorial and want the snack size please download the revised tutorial. Sorry for the goof! Happy Earth Day!
Edited:
Snack size pouch measurement = 7.5 inches by 11 inches.
Sandwich size pouch measurement = 7.5 inches by 19 inches.

The construction is the same for either a snack pouch or a sandwich bag. So the tutorial instructions would be exactly the same for either. The difference in measurements will just change the final size. So really this is a two for one tutorial by changing the largest measurement you can have either a snack pouch or sandwich bag.
The 7.5 x 19 inch size for sandwich bags should accommodate bigger pieces of bread. If you're a Wonder Bread sandwich eater you may want to cut that down to 7.5 X 15.

The Last Piece

This weekend my in-laws came for a visit. Having visitors means I get to cook my favorite dishes. Coffee Cake Crumble is one of my favorite things to serve for breakfast. It's delicious! So delicious in fact, that this is the last piece. Not to fear. . . I'm sharing the recipe so you can enjoy it too! Be warned it disappears quickly.

Coffee Cake Crumble

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon


Crumble Topping:
1/3 cup flour
½ cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) grease a 9x13 inch pan.
In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and soda. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream the butter and 1 cup of sugar. Add eggs, sour cream and vanilla. Mix well.
Add the flour mixture and combine. Batter will be thick so stir it by hand.
Spread the cake batter in prepared 9x13 inch pan.
Combine 1/4 cup sugar and ½ teaspoon of cinnamon. Sprinkle the cinnamon/sugar mixture on top of the batter.
Prepare the crumble topping by mixing the flour, brown sugar, butter and cinnamon together. Sprinkle the crumble mixture on top.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

Yard Work

We had a gorgeous weekend filled with sunshine and yard work. Spending hours raking the yard really wasn't bad, since we had extra helpers. Now the yard has been raked and fertilized so we should see green grass soon. Nature Girl happily played around the yard as the grown ups raked away. She discovered a perfectly round rock, three dandelions, a blue jay feather, wild violets in bloom and a small grasshopper named "Grassy."
We took a break from yard work and painted the round rock with red spray paint. Yes I even let her help with the spray paint. Once it dried Nature Girl added black dots to create a ladybug. We put the rocks in her garden. She was thrilled to see her lambs ear plants from last year are already growing and she has three purple hyacinths that are preparing to bloom.


We still haven't started our marigold seeds but once they're ready we plan to add those to her garden too. Marigolds are hardy and should do fine is a 4 year olds garden. Really we need hardy plants to make up for my lack of gardening ability. I'd like to extend her garden all the way around the tree this year so we better get planting. I saw a neat video where you can use old newspapers for planting seedlings instead of buying peat pots. You can check out the simple how to video from Dave's Garden. It's a great way to recycle and garden at the same time. Perfect for Earth Day!

I Won!

I received a comment yesterday from Barb at So How Was Your Day? She sewed up a bunch of goodies and had a give way. I won and I'm very excited! I've entered but have never won any bloggy give aways before. So thank you Barb!!! She gave me a little hit saying it had pink animals on it. Barb is a flamingo lover so I'm guessing it has flamingos on it. Nature Girl is also a lover of flamingos and her favorite colors are orange and pink. Needless to say I have a feeling I might be losing my new prize to Nature Girl. We can always share it.
So now it's your turn for a chance to win. Tracy at Itching 2 B Stitching is having a contest to name her new dress form. Leave a comment suggesting a name from now till April 25th to enter. You could win a crafty apron. I know I could use one, I'm always walking around with pins and needles stuck into my shirt or pant leg and I can never find my scissors when I'm crafting. So go enter, I did.

Sling Bag Tutorial

I created a tutorial for my sling bag. I hope you'll enjoy creating one for yourself. If you make one please post pictures in the Flickr group Sling bag from Life With Nature Girl. I look forward to seeing what you create. If you have any questions e-mail me. Happy sewing!

Click to download a pdf of the Sling Bag Tutorial

Spring, Beautiful Spring!

Nature Girl has been asking to go to the park all winter. Well now that spring has finally arrived her wish came true. The park opened this week. The last two days the weather has been beautiful so we packed a lunch and trekked off to the park. Everyone else had the same idea so there were hoards of kids and a good time was had by all.
I got to field test my new summer sling bag. It works pretty well. I need to downsize my wallet a bit since the current one is bulging. I wish it was bulging with wads of money but in reality it's filled with old receipts, and store discount/reward cards. Honestly, it's stuffed so full I can't close it. So I plan to clean that out today. The weatherman is calling for another beautiful day. We have a friend coming for a play date today and will be spending lots of time outside again. Yeah for spring!
I'm working on a tutorial for the sling bag and hope to have it up later today. Special thanks goes out to Susan at chickenfoot. She has been a great help checking and editing my pouch, napkin and sling bag tutorials. So check out her blog then check back here later for the sling bag tutorial.
Happy spring everyone!