Tuesday's wedding antics

First off, Monday night right before bed, I got a HUGE splinter in the bottom of my foot :(  My husband called it a "stick" :(  It REALLY hurt.  He had to do a minor surgery to get it out.

 That bad boy HURT!

Any hoots, so Tuesday I was limping on both feet.  You probably don't know this but I have stress fractures in my other foot that just WONT heal :p

SO, Tuesday was the day I was supposed to go and get my dress, but I just couldn't do it.  Snow, limping, ice, HYSTERICAL tears every 6-9 minutes.  I was pretty much having a major breakdown by noon.  Finally through bouts of tears and sobs, I texted my bff Marianne to see if she was up for shopping.  As it turned out she was at the mall with her hubby for lunch :)  I popped in the car and met her for a shopping adventure.  The sales associate was great and Marianne was at her shopping finest!  My only requirement was that I not look like a hoochie mama or a grandma ;)  We succeeded :)

I bought a beautiful black lace dress,

(I wish I were as tiny as the model is ;)

new Spanx, a new bra, a new slip and pretty new black patent leather heals :)

  ...I should probably stick with my surgical boot and or flats, but I just cant bear it.  I am going to break the rules ...and pay for it later.

I am pretty tired! ..but OH SO happy that the shopping is finished!!!

I still have to speak to a church group tonight and that's all... I think!  Good thing I've got some new Spanx to wear ;D

Again, THANK YOU, Marianne!  You saved my day :) ....the cake bites 7 diet Pepsi helped a ton too ;)

All I have left to do is get black pants for my 11 year old :) ...and deliver cake mixes to my dear friends who are baking cupcakes for me :)

Wedding Cakes Galore!

Monday I baked:
3- 12" carrot cakes
2- 6" carrot cakes
2- 9" carrot cakes
and 1- 8" left over batter carrot cake :) ...to eat Monday night for dessert :)

I also made 4 and a half batches of cream cheese frosting :)  The half batch was for the 8" round for us to eat Monday :)

Here is My Mom's AWESOME Carrot Cake recipe:
2 C sugar
2 C flour
4 eggs
1/2 C oil
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
2 t cinnamon
3 C shredded carrots ( I have found that this is about 1# of fresh carrots.  I don't bother peeling them.  I just scrub them and cut the ends off and run them through the grater on my food processor.)
1-2 ripe bananas, mashed
1- 20 oz can crushed pineapple, WELL DRAINED
1 C raisins
1 c walnuts or pecan pieces
Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes, or until a tooth pick comes out clean.  I line the bottom of my pan with foil, wax paper or parchment to keep the cake from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
Note- This recipe makes:
2- 9" rounds or,
1- 12" round or,
2- 6" rounds and an 8" round or
1- half sheet cake/jelly roll pan

Cream Cheese Frosting
2- 8 oz cream cheese
1 c butter (really, use butter :)
2 pounds of powdered sugar
2-3 T vanilla
Beat the butter first, then add the cream cheese.  Next add half of the powdered sugar and vanilla.  Beat well.  Then slowly add the rest of the powdered sugar.  Scrape bowl a few times.  Beat on high for a while :)  YUMM!!!

Also accomplished Monday:
Arranged to have the baling wire deliverd for hanging the lights all over the ceiling for the reception
Finalized the music for the reception
Ordered 8x10 of the happy couple for the guest book table
Arranged for the grooms cake to be made :)
AND I made dinner!!! PARTY!!!!
(ok, don't get excited about dinner being made.  My neighbor dropped off a loaf of homemade bread that we are going to eat with some yummy homemade creamy tomato basil soup)

I Know What I Am Going To-Do Today

Wedding preparations are the buzz word over here :)  Crazy party time!

LAST WEEK'S LIST OF DESPERATION!!!

#1 Place wedding announcement in the newspaper DONE!

#2 Make wedding cake's and freeze them. (I'm making my mom's FAMOUS carrot cake and maybe some kind of super cool x-box grooms cake) This is going to be happening today :) NO MATTER WHAT! ;)

#3 Go to Gygi's in SLC and get all of the party and cake supplies. DONE!  Blogged HERE

#4 Buy a dress for me and pants for one of my sons I am going to be doing this Tuesday :)  NO MATTER WHAT!

#5 Color my hair (yes, some grey is peeking through ;) ...probably more so than usual ;)  DONE!

#6  Finalize photographer... more like find one :/ DONE!  My niece is a professional photographer, Lisa Webb Photography, and will be taking the pictures.  Her website is HERE.  She is AMAZING!!  We are so lucky to have her :)

#7  Finalize wedding reception helpers, music, decorations, etc.  This one will be on going until the bitter end ;)

#8  Finish my scrappyquiltalong fmq as my relaxation and salvation from the stress of it all :) DONE! Blogged HERE

***Bonus Wedding Finished***

Forty-Seven POUNDS of Frosting!!!  Blogged HERE.

***Bonus Quilting Distraction****

#xplusalong quilt blocks :)  Blogged HERE

THIS WEEKS LIST OF LAST MINUTE WEDDING PREPARATIONS

Dress for me for the wedding

Pants for my sons

Bake wedding cakes

Make cream cheese frosting for the wedding cakes

Do a BUNCH of other things on my list!

(Maybe work a bit here and there on my xplusalong quilt)

You can see our family Pinterest Board for Anna's Wedding HERE.

WIP's -in some form of progress... (all bumped to February)

A quilt for my sister Alyson's friend (The May $29 quilt)

The April $29 girl quilt

Challenge quilt for next year's quilt show

"Letters to my Daughter" block of the month

MaryAnne's jean quilt

Annette's pillow

Back Burner Purgatory... lol!!! ;) (I've got the fabric for these, but no chop chop yet) {also bumped to February}

Mandy's quilt

2 Twin Size applique quilts for my nieces

The June $29 quilt

My green and white bed quilt

July $29 Quilt

Civil War Layer Cake quilt

So, what are you up to this week?  PLEASE share with me :)

Will be linking up with Amanda Jean over at Crazy Mom Quilts :)

Xplusalong has begun..

Yet again, I have been sucked into an impromptu quilt along on Instagram ;D  It's kinda not hard to suck me into making a quilt... I am using the quilting as a distraction from the wedding chores to be done :)  It chills me out and makes me feel like the world is still a normal place ;)

I've had the Happy Tones layer cake from Michael Miller for a few months now.  It has been screaming to make it into something :)  I used a little of it to make this tote for a friend's daughter for Christmas.  Bogged HERE.

I thought it would work well with this fun pattern. 

I modified the pattern from the one the ladies are using on IG so that I could use a 5" square for the corner blocks instead of the 5.5" block that everyone is using on IG.

These are the cutting measurements I am using:

4- 5" blocks for the print making the "X" (4 different coordinating prints)

8- 2.5" white squares for the corner triangles of the "x"

1- 7.5" x 2.5" solid for the "+"

2- 3" x  2.5" solid for the "+"

4- 2.5" x 2.5" print for the ends of the "+" sign (all four squares are the same print)

I am making this quilt for one mf my daughters bff who is expecting her first child next month.  We are throwing her a shower on the 9th of February.  The shower was supposed to be today, but with our super fun, SUPER FAST wedding, we bumped it to next month ;)

I have 6 more blocks to go ;)

Happy Weekend!

ps- I am not sure I will get to work on this tomorrow :(  I really have to make the wedding cake and 16#'s of cream cheese frosting for it :)  I also HAVE to go shopping for a dress for me to wear :(  I REALLY hate shopping, I mean I REALLY HATE IT!  Couldn't I just wrap myself in a quilt?)

FORTY-SEVEN Pounds of Frosting!!!

Yes, you read that correctly.  Yesterday I made FORTY-SEVEN pounds of butter cream frosting.    All this to frost 600 cupcakes for my daughters wedding!

(OH MY GOSH!!! I AM GOING TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK AND DIE!!!)

The frosting is varying shades of blue, green and white.

Take a look at my day :)

So here is how I stored them for next weeks frosting festival of terror :/

First you put out a large sheet of plastic wrap and plop a big glob of frosting in the middle :)

Then you fold up the plastic wrap over the top.

Cut the wrap from the roll and fold one side over.

Then the next side.  Now there are three sides that are totally enclosed and the top is open.

The first batch I did was a double batch... WAY TOO MUCH!!

Here is why I wrap my frosting like this.  I use pastry bags and I HATE the messiness of refilling the bag.

My hubby saw this method on TV and it has been a lifesaver!

All you do is insert the frosting packet, open side down, into the clean pastry bag.

The opening allows the frosting to leave out the end with minimal mess in the bag :)

Here is a shot of the empty frosting pouch in the pastry bag.

See, all nice a flat :)

Here is a shot of the inside of my pastry bag with just a little bit of blue in the bottom.

The pastry bag is all ready for another frosting packet :)

Here are my cupcakes.  The blue is good, but my frosting was a bit dry, well, WAY dry, so I ended up remixing the rest of the batch to get it nice and moist and pretty :)

I am freezing the frosting in their packets until next Friday.

I made 32 packets of frosting.  12 blue, 10 lime green and 10 shimmery white.

Scrappytripalong is FINISHED!!! :D

Oh baby, stick a fork in it, IT'S DONE!!  ....all 96" x 108" of it....SEVENTY-TWO 12" blocks, ALL 2,592 TWO inch squares!!!

 The Saturday after Christmas, an impromptu quilt along blew up all over Instagram.  I watched for two days, and then I just couldn't stand it anymore :)  You can read more about my scrappy-trip HERE.

.

I started to make this beast on New Year's Eve and I finally finished it yesterday :)

This quilt is for MY bed :)

The fabric I used for this ALL came from my stash.  Most of it is old scraps from projects years ago.

I decided to make sure that there was a black row in the middle of each block.  It made me feel more comfortable with all of the wild scrappiness ;D

For the back and the binding I did have to buy new fabric.  I hit the clearance rack at Gracie Lou's.  These are three fabrics that I have been eyeing for a while now.  They have the PERFECT amount of funkiness for this scrappy monster!

For the binding, I found this black and white text print from the GREASE fabric line ...also on the clearance wall ;)

Now I just need to come up with Euro pillow shams to match.... hmmm, what ever shall I do?

Scrappy is Quilted & Getting Bound

For the quilting on this baby, I tried my hand at an orange peel fmq using Oh Fransson's tutorial HERE. 

It was pretty easy, especially with the 2" squares as a built in guide.

With all of the wedding plans going on around here, AND all of the illness, I could only get in a little quilting here and there.

This afternoon, I finally felt well enough to get the quilting all finished :)

For the binding, I am using this WILD Grease (you know the musical) text fabric that was on the clearance rack at Gracie Lou's.

It's even is printed on the bias!

I'll work on the hand sewing here and there.  There is just SO much to do!!!

xo

Onto binding ;)

FMQ Finished :)

Scrappytripalong's quilting is finished :) WHOOP WHOOP!!! ...now for the binding ;)

FMQ in Progress

A little orange peel fmq in between laundry loads ;)

Wedding reception booty!

 Shopping in SLC Monday went very well :) The car is full of lime napkins, cake mixes and cups! We are nearly ready ;)

I Know What I Am Going To-Do Today

WOW!!!  Last week was rough :/  Every single one of us had the stomach flu :p  We weren't able to get as much done as I would have liked, but thanks to many wonderful friends, it was a very profitable week ;)

Hey, are you ready for a cool random fact?  Yesterday was my one year anniversary of this blog :)  

It is hard to believe that it has only been one year.  No one looked at my first post that first day.  Now I have  had over 131,000 page views and 179 followers... not to mention the 58 finished quilts and over 70 finished sewing projects.  It is pretty cool ;)

Hopefully this year will be just as exciting :) ... probably not as prolific ;)

So, lets take a look at last week's list of To-Do's ;)

LAST WEEK'S LIST

Go hunting for napkins, cupcake holders, and all things wedding :) Due to illness, this has been moved to tomorrow :)

Start painting mason jars antique blue like THIS  Scrapped because the paint was some how ruined during shipment :/ ...so we have a new plan for the jars :)  Thank heavens for flexibility :)

Make Bridesmaids bouquets like THIS DONE!!! :)  Blogged HERE.

Finish Anna's Wedding Quilt for her shower this Saturday. DOnE!  Blogged HERE.

Buy an new outfit for me and Anna for the Shower on Saturday. Too sick.  Went with spanx and an old, but cute, outfit ;)

***Bonus Stuff***

I was able to baste and start a little FMQ on my scrappytripalong. Blogged HERE.

We also had our first quilt committee meeting for the Peteeneet Quilt Show.  I get to be the chairman this year :)  What an AMAZING group of ladies!!!

THIS WEEK'S LIST OF DESPERATION!!!

#1 Place wedding announcement in the newspaper

#2 Make wedding cake's and freeze them. (I'm making my mom's FAMOUS carrot cake and maybe some kind of super cook x-box grooms cake)

#3 Go to Gygi's in SLC and get all of the party and cake supplies.

#4 Buy a dress for me and pants for one of my sons

#5 Color my hair (yes, some grey is peeking through ;) ...probably more so than usual ;)

#6  Finalize photographer... more like find one :/

#7  Finalize wedding reception helpers, music, decorations, etc.

#8  Finish my scrappyquiltalong fmq as my relaxation and salvation from the stress of it all :)

You can see our family Pinterest Board for Anna's Wedding HERE.

WIP's -in some form of progress... (all bumped to February)

A quilt for my sister Alyson's friend (The May $29 quilt)

The April $29 girl quilt

Challenge quilt for next year's quilt show

"Letters to my Daughter" block of the month

MaryAnne's jean quilt

Annette's pillow

Back Burner Purgatory... lol!!! ;) (I've got the fabric for these, but no chop chop yet) {also bumped to February}

Mandy's quilt

2 Twin Size applique quilts for my nieces

The June $29 quilt

My green and white bed quilt

July $29 Quilt

Civil War Layer Cake quilt

So, what are you up to this week?  PLEASE share with me :)

Will be linking up with Amanda Jean over at Crazy Mom Quilts :)

A Little Orange Peel FMQ