Sewing Crafts

I have no picture to show with this, as I didn’t take time to ask permission – but this is a “must see.”!! In the new, current issue of CQ Magazine Online, (which I enjoy, as I get great ideas for surface embellishment on needlepoint here, as well as just wonderful eye candy in the art crazy quilt genre), there is a fabulous article on the History of Beads.

This is from a museum in a suburb of Phoenix- very very interesting. Just go to the link for the magazine, click on “current issue” -and then scroll down to just below the big beautiful picture, and you’ll see the link.

While you’re visiting the CQ’s, do look at Allison Aller’s article on “Composite Flowers.” It’s fascinating – almost makes me want to take up crazy quilting, which I just might do some day instead of adapting it to needlepoint. There is a lot of freedom here, that I think I might enjoy – with Allison’s tutelage, of course.

First popsicles that don’t melt and now ice cream. These little cookies were a special request from a friend for her two-year old’s {fun and yummy} ice cream sundae birthday party. I have a little ice cream cone cutter like this one HERE that was perfect to match the theme. The best part about ice cream cookies is you can decorate in any colors and flavors you like.

how to make ice cream cone cookies

you will need:*
dough
frosting
ice cream cone cutter
disposable frosting bags
couplers
tips (sizes “2″s and “4″s)
rubber bands
frosting colors
sprinkles

*Find the bags, couplers, tips and sprinkles in the baking aisle of the craft store. I use Americolor soft gel pastes for coloring, Chocolate Brown, Bright White, Electric Pink, and Electric Green. For tips on finding supplies, click HERE. For tips on food coloring, click HERE. For tips on finding cutters, click HERE.

step one: bake your cookies
Cut out ice cream cone cookies, bake and let cool.

step two: prepare your frosting
Prepare different colors of frosting and fill frosting bags fitted with couplers and size “4″ tips. Tie closed with rubber bands.

step three: decorate your cookies
Because these were small cookies and had lots of detail, I piped everything with the frosting bags except the cones, which I flooded. For the ice cream, simply pipe an outline of the ice cream, let set about 15 minutes, and fill with the same color by piping back and forth. You can also pipe a cherry in the center (use a “2″ tip for the stem and a “4″ tip for the red circle), pipe chocolate syrup on top, or sprinkle with sprinkles right after you pipe the filling (so they stick).
For the cones: Pipe a “V” shape using dark brown. Thin some of the light brown frosting (not all of it! you’ll need more later) with water until the consistency of thick glue. Fill an empty frosting bag and snip the corner about 1/8 inch. Loosely pipe to cover the cone, letting frosting flood to edges and encourage with a toothpick as needed. Let set a couple hours. Use the same color light brown frosting (but thicker, not thinned) in a frosting bag fitted with a coupler and size “2″ decorating tip and pipe criss cross lines on top.
Some flavor options:

I’m back Did you even know I had left? Hard to tell this time of year I suppose. My blogging is not always as consistent once school lets out. I can’t believe there is just over a month left.

Anyway…there will be some house updates coming soon. I just wanted to give a quick howdy and show you where we have been…Frankfort Michigan aka “Up North”.

We went up with hubby’s sis & her family plus his parents. The set up is perfect. We each have our own room next to each other with an area out front to sit & play games after the kids go down. Well, 3 of the 4 anyway. Next year it will probably only be the 2 youngest that actually go to bed at a “bedtime”. They grow so fast. The cousins had a blast together.
We went canoeing – as we do every time – and shopping in Traverse City – although never enough for me – and this year we tried a couple new places.

We went on the alpine slide rides at Crystal Mountain. Well, we did not include me. We were not sure if the little guy would care for it, so we spent as little $$$ as needed just in case. He loved it. It is basically a small luge run on a wheeled sled with a brake/accelerator stick for control. Oh, and you take the chair lift up to get to the top of the ride. Next year – we all go

The Art Walk (Michigan Legacy Art Park) – also at Crystal Mountain – was so very cool. A nature trail on the side of the mountain dotted with works of art from various artists. Very zen, very peaceful, very nature. Also very hilly. It could be a heck of a workout. And bonus – my bro-in-law knew a couple of the artists. I don’t have any pics yet that we took, but here are some of my faves….pics are from their site:

Early on you see this piece by David Barr…Diversity…that broken column represents the impact of human action on our world…

The best “tv” ever by Byung Chan Cha:

The Hemingway haunts by Patricia Innis:

Five Needles by Michael McGillis:

And the kids’ fave…the Stockade Labyrinth by David Barr…you can walk through it – very cool:

And for some really cool aerial pics of Frankfort from Photography Plus click here.

This evening bag is an old one – at least 7 or 8 years old. I was in my “jeweled bug” phase, and was determined to put this one onto black.

Next is a composite scan of the evolution of the stitch I used on the background. The pink heart was the first, as I was making backgrounds to use when working on learning to make silk ribbon embroidery flowers. Plain color was boring, so I marked off a grid on this one that left 4 stitches square in between. Leaving the intersections of the horizontal and verticals bare, I then put a darker pink (doesn’t show up well on this scan, but I couldn’t find the actual stitched piece) single tent stitch in the blank – but made one on top of that going to opposite direction (an X) to make a little bump.

It uses three stitches square inside the lines, and Scotch stitch used to fill them in. Then one day I was looking at the canvas with the dots placed on it, and “saw” something else. The arrow points to the lines I drew to illustrate the placement of the long stitches made with Ribbon Floss – and the dot left in the middle for later inserting a bead there as well as in the intersections of the Ribbon Floss.

I wish I could give FooDoodlers to everyone. I loved reading all of your clever comments! But your great response has inspired me to host more giveaways, so I’ll try and come up with more good things to give you soon. Thank you all for visiting and participating!! And thanks to random.org for choosing…. the winner is:

And don’t worry, I took care of a couple repeaters (accidental, I’m sure) and only counted those within the time frame (hence why the random counter is from 1 to 278 though there are 279 comments). And a few of you asked me questions in your comments. I didn’t want to answer within the comments because I was afraid my entries would mess up the fairness of the random draw. (I know, I’m a total nerd.) Here are some answers, and if I somehow overlooked your original question, feel free to leave it again.

gingerhse said she had trouble with markers on chocolate or candy coating. The grease from those foods do make the surface less hospitable, so if you are going to try and write on them, let them dry well (overnight) and keep them at room temperature.

Libby asked about the trees in the photo. Those are from my daughter’s Thomas the Train set!

lisa k asked if there were opaque white markers. Nope. You didn’t miss them. They don’t exist. Similar to regular markers, it’s just not possible. In fact, you can’t even really layer the other colors on top of each other without the bottom color showing through (except black). If you make a mistake, you’ll just have to eat the cookie and start over!

lauralee asked if the giveaways are real. Yes. The giveaway is real. Perhaps you mean does everyone get the prize? I so wish I had unlimited resources, but alas, I’ve enough to give just one lucky winner.

Emma asked if my book was available in the UK. The book is a few years old, so not as readily available, but should be available at amazon.co.uk. But if you go there, please read the much more balanced reviews of my book on amazon.com instead, or my rave in the Washington Post. There’s one very sour review on by a very sour source on the UK site. Harrumph.