Oversized Cloth Checkerboard

My family likes to eat at Cracker Barrel and when it's nice outside we usually play a game of checkers out on their front porch after dinner with those big oversized checkerboards. Well I got inspired one day that something like that would be a great gift for my dad and father-in-law for Christmas.  They both like to play games and I thought something like this would be great to play with their grandkids as they are just getting old enough to understand the rules of the game to play.  Of course I'm one for a challenge to "make" it myself instead of buying it, so I came up with a design and created customized cloth checkerboards for them.  I love how they turned out because they were big and soft, it was less likely to get banged up and checkers to be stepped on if they got thrown all over the place.

For my father-in-law I made an Iowa State themed board with navy and red felt checkers.  Now I was pretty limited on the amount of Iowa State fabric I had so the red squares are kind of random with the logos on them, but if I had plenty of fabric I would have lined up the IA State and Cy in the middle of the squares.  It was my first attempt at "quilting" and found that it is very tricky making 64 perfectly square pieces and sewing them to be all the right sizes to line up together.  When I was done attaching all the pieces together I ironed out all the seems and ironed on some light weight interfacing to the back.  Then I added a square backing piece and made some quilt binding to finish off the edges.  I wanted to order oversized checkers but couldn't get them in time for Christmas so I cut out double pieces of felt and used Tacky glue to attach them together.  This made them nice and thick plus the glue hardening helped add some rigidity to the pieces. 

My dad is a big hunter and lives in a log cabin so it was only appropriate to make his board camo and blaze orange.  The second time around I got a little better at things and got my technique down a little better.

They were a big hit and the kids LOVED playing with their grandpas!

I Can Count Banner

This is one of my new favorite sewing creations of mine.  A wonderful lady who bought a quiet book from me last year made a special request for me to come up with an "I Can Count" banner for her son for Christmas this past year.  She said he really liked trucks, busses and trains so I thought of making a transportation themed banner.  The banner is 20" x  24" in size and can be hung up with a wooden dowel.  The base part of the banner is made up of two thicknesses of heavy felt with a thin ribbon separating each numbered section.

I designed each of the little pieces so that they would fit in the designated spaces.  I wanted a lot of detail to really make this piece a lot of fun.   Once I got the patterns made and cut out all the little pieces of felt I sewed small pieces of velcro on the backside of each piece with the opposite side of the velcro in its corresponding spot on the banner.  I made the grabby side of velcro to be on the banner so that the pieces wouldn't mess up the rest of the banner if it got stuck out of place.  I attached the top detail pieces on the Velcro-ed pieces with tacky glue to give each piece a bit more rigidity when it dried.

Here are each of the pieces up close:

At the top I attached loops for a wooden dowel to be used to help hang it on the wall.

To hold all the pieces when they are not on the banner I created a little pouch that can be hung from the underside of the banner with velcro.  My customer's son really like Thomas the Tank so I made the pouch of that material.


When the pouch is not in use, there are pieces of velcro on the back of the banner that it can attach to.  Also the pouch is set up to be able to close so that the pieces can be kept nice and safe inside when it is not attached to the banner.

If you are interested in my creating a banner like this for your little one, please feel free to contact me via email at corrina_dea@yahoo.com.  This banner sold for $75 because of it's very detailed pieces, but I can definitely make more simple pieces for a little less expensive piece.  I would love to customize a banner for your little one to include their favorite things so please let me know if you are interested.

New Large Quiet Books Ready for Sale

Just finished up the final details on 6 more quiet books.  All of these are my larger sized books (9 1/2 x 10"), but I've only made two books that are 16 pages and then four books that are each 8 pages long.

If you are interested in ordering any of these books, check out my Things I Like 2 Make shop on Etsy.com.

Pink/Brown Modern Dot Cover - 16 Page Book

Shark Cover - 16 Page Book

Green/Orange Striped Cover - 8 Paged Book

Pink Striped - 8 Paged Book

The other 8 page books that I have for sale feature the same pages as the two above, but sport these two fabulous covers.

If you are interested in a custom designed book for your little someone special please let me know as I am taking orders for 2013.  With baby coming soon, I'm taking time off before the holidays to snuggle up with my new little one and two adorable older kiddos.  Email me at corrina_dea@yahoo.com.

New Quiet Books For Sale Today!!!

Here they are!!!!  I finally finished my first batch of quiet books and they are so cute.  These are smaller versions of books I've made in the past.  They measure 7"x8" and have 8 fun shrunk down pages from some of my original designs.

Here is an example of one of the new books.  They all have the same pages but half of them are girly themed and the other half are a little more boyish.

The classic teddy bear in bed.

These cute little flowers button on and off their stems and I modified my little tennis shoe so little ones can practice lacing and tying.

I love the new fabric I found for the beads riding up and down on this little carousel.  Also made a 6-square flap page to uncover some fun prints and pictures.

Found a new way to make my little balloon bouquet so I can use some more vibrant fabrics instead of just using felt.  And added in my new classic weaving page.

With my new sewing machine I can make fun little numbers and letters so I included a fun little clock to help practice telling time.

My new smaller sized quiet books are now available on my Etsy shop - Things I Like 2 Make.  Come check them out!!!

What's For Dinner?

It's only taken me 9 months but I've finally been able to get a little control of my life in at least one area and start doing my meal planning again.  I figured with baby coming in a mere 9 weeks, I better start getting organized again.

This week we are starting to transition from summer BBQ to fall homey foods:

• Beer can chicken, roast potatoes, baked beans
• BBQ pork sandwiches, potato salad, green beans, carrots with dill dip
• Chicken kiev, rice pilaf, glazed carrots (trying new recipes)
• Brown sugar glazed salmon, baked sweet potatoes, broccoli 
• Beef stroganoff, garden peas
• Homemade pizza
• Pork chops with fried apples, spinach balls

Auntie Julie's Baked Beans

This recipe comes from my dear Auntie Julie up in Northern Wisconsin.  It's a fun recipe to add a special twist on a baked bean dish.  I love making this for potlucks and for BBQ's because you mix all the ingredients together and chuck it all in a crockpot or if you want to get it done quicker you can bake it in the oven.

Ingredients:
















2 cans (1 lb each) pork and beans (I prefer Bush's because it's a little thicker base to start with)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp dry mustard (I use regular yellow mustard and it works fine)
1 tsp dry ground ginger
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 cup molasses
6 slices bacon - chopped
1 large onion
1 lb ground beef, turkey or pork, browned
1 clove garlic, (opt)
2 stalks celery, chopped (opt)

Method:

Fry bacon and hamburger together.

Mix together all remaining ingredients together in oven-safe baking dish or in your crockpot.

Drain bacon and hamburger and mix in with beans.  Bake uncovered in oven at 325 F for 2 1/2 hours or in a crockpot on High for same time or Low for 4+ hours.

Freezing Sweet Corn

One tradition that my family has had for generations is cutting, cooking and freezing fresh sweet corn to enjoy throughout the whole year.  This method and recipe come from my Great Grandma Mathel and I remember as a very young girl sitting out on the picnic table surrounded by 4 huge bushel baskets of sweet corn and helping husk, clean, and cutting sweet corn.  Then my sister and I would carry the husks down to the feed the hogs we had.  It was so fun and every year I do this I recollect wonderful memories with my Great Grandma and my mom.

What's so great about this recipe is that you are already adding in your butter, salt and sweetness to the corn so all you have to do is thaw out the bag, or if you are like my mom just throw the frozen bag in the microwave to eat it all up and then dump it in a bowl ready to eat.  And with this method of using fresh sweetcorn when it's in season, you really can enjoy that "fresh" sweetcorn taste anytime of the year.  

We are starting to sweet corn show up in our grocery stores and before long many of us will see it being sold by the bushel in the back of pickup trucks from local farmers (which is the best way to do it).  I just happened to by this batch of corn in the grocery store at $3 for 10 ears and I got 6 bags of corn (2 full cups in each) from 20 ears.  That is about $1 a bag.  In the grocery store it can cost $0.60 for a can of corn that only has about 1 2/3 cups in it so it's a wash in price, but canned corn doesn't taste at all like this.   Plus by freezing your own you can control the amount of salt, sugar and butter that goes in it.

Method:

Husk and clean fresh ears of sweet corn.  Make sure you get rid of all the little silks and rinse off the ears.  

Next I take and ear of corn and a medium sized knife and start cutting up the ear, cutting as deep as you can to get the kernels but not to get too far in the cob.  Then I scrap my knife back down where I just cut for any other little bits and juice.  This method creates more of a creamier final corn product.  If you don't want that then don't scrap it afterwards, just cut the kernels.















About 2 dozen good sized ears can make about 14 1/2 cups of raw cut corn.

Ingredients for Grandma Mathel's Cooked Corn:















4 quarts of raw corn
3 cups water
4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

Mix all the ingredients together in a large pot and cook over medium high heat.

Boil for 3 minutes.

Then pour the corn in a container to go in the fridge to cool.  I just used a 9x13 inch baking pan.  If you can put it in a bowl that is sitting in a large bowl of ice filled water and stir it until it cools down a bit before putting in the refrigerator that would work good too.  Cool the corn completely.

Next scoop the corn in to freezer bags in quantities that you would like to have for a meal.  My family will go through about 2 cups of corn in a sitting so that's how much I put in a 1 quart freezer safe baggie.

You then need to make sure sure you remove the air in the bags and seal them well.  If you have a food saver machine that works the best.  But if you don't I seal up my bags almost all the way and then I leave a little slot to suck out the remaining air and quick seal it up.  I know this is kind of silly but I saw it on Sesame Street one time when I was really young and it worked for them. 

Finally I date my bags and label the quantities with a permanent marker and then put the bags in the freezer.

Again you can adjust the amount of corn, salt, and sugar to your needs, but this my most favorite way to eat corn other than straight off the cob!!!!