ALYOF-- May Finish

Hi!

I know it's the last day of the month, but I did finish a few days ago.

I'm here to report that I finished my May goal: complete and deliver the teacher gifts!

They were very excited! Gift-giving my quilts and handmade gifts is my favorite part of creating. I love the amazed looks on faces and hear their first words of reactions!

In April, I asked one of the techs to have the lead teacher and the other techs to trace their hands on paper. Then I traced the hands onto squares of Kona White to match the backgrounds, and back-stitched the hands. Then I traced my son's hand inside their hands, and stitched his handprint and each teacher's name. I used the bonus HST units from the Hugs & Kisses quilt top, with the Pieces of Hope Autism fabric, and pieced little 6 1/2" blocks. (Since my son has autism and he is in a unit class for autism.) I added sashing strips around each block, then joined the handprint squares to the blocks.

After quilting, I trimmed and bound them completely by machine. And hand-stitched my pre-printed name labels to the back of each one. After all, I was on a time crunch!

I delivered their gifts at the end if the school day on Thursday; pretty much last minute because school ended yesterday, Friday!

Fronts and backs, to show quilting and the little labels.

Oh yes, and what's a mug rug without a mug? I had a "recipe" for individual cake in a mug in the microwave. I separated the dry mix into servings in baggies, attached the mixing and cooking instructions on a tag with ribbon, and stuffed the baggies in the mugs. Then I rolled the mugs in the mug rugs and wrapped in tissue paper. S. was so excited to help me pass the gifts to his teachers, and even wanted to help rip off the paper. 

Do you like my new photo collages? 

I found a cool, new, free app for my iPhone called InstaCollage. Since I take most of my photos with my phone and blog on the phone app, it's now easy to put a watermark on my photos!

Here are three of the other four HST blocks that I've completed so far, with the bonus HSTs from the Hugs & Kisses quilt. These are just the small 2" unfinished HSTs from the tops of the hearts and x's and oh's. The large HST from the bottom of the hearts measure 4 1/2" unfinished, and I will do a bigger block with them (36 total HST).

Linking up with Sew Bittersweet Designs

http://blog.sewbittersweetdesigns.com/?p=4822

"You take the Cake!"

1 cake mix

1-4 oz box instant pudding.

Mix together cake mix and pudding mix (dry!)

Measure 1/2 cup mix into baggies and seal. Tie with ribbon if desired. Add another Baggie with toppings, like 2 tbsp chocolate chips or sprinkles.

Tag has mixing instructions:

Add mix into mug. Add 1 egg white (or 2 tbsp unsweetened applesauce if you're allergic to eggs like me), 1-2 tbsp water, and 1 tbsp vegetable oil. Mix well.

Microwave on high 2 minutes. Let stand for a few minutes. Top with chocolate chips, sprinkles, chocolate syrup or other flavored syrup.

Cake flavor ideas:

Yellow cake + French vanilla pudding

Yellow cake + coconut pudding

Chocolate + chocolate pudding

yellow + lemon pudding

spice cake + lemon pudding

Butterscotch ?

Pina colada?

Be creative!