Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Vegan Baby Banana Oat Mini Muffins

Ah, what did we ever do before Pinterest? Rather, what did we ever do before the internet?!? +Elizabeth Der pinned this simple banana oat mini muffin recipe and I decided to give it a try. It was super easy and I almost always have the ingredients on hand. Since Charlotte is allergic to cow's milk and eggs, it was simple to make these vegan. 

Vegan Mini Banana Oat Muffins
- 1/2 cup quick cook oats (I did a quick blitz in the Vitamix)
- 1/4 rice milk
- 2 ripe mashed bananas
- dash of cinnamon 
- splash of vanilla
- 1/4 tsp baking powder

Directions: 
1. Preheat oven to 350°F, grease mini muffin tin (I used a coconut spray and toaster oven!)
2. Mix all the ingredients together.
3. Divide batter out between all muffin cups. 
4. Bake until muffins are set. It took about 15 min for me. 




Sunday, July 12, 2015

Quilt for Reid

 Way back (a couple years ago) I made a quilt for my niece, Annalise. Fast forward and she is now a big sister to little brother, Reid. It just seemed so perfect to make a boy version of the same quilt. I used the same pattern from Kati Cupcake Pattern Co. called Willow.  It might look a little intimidating and complicated but trust me, it isn't. It was my first attempt at making a quilt on my own after my quilting class that I took with +Jinnee Barazzuol. The cutting part was quite labor intensive but the sewing part came together relatively quickly. After piecing all the blocks together, I played them all out to decide what layout would look best. It would've been easier if I had a bit more forethought before I sewed them all because some of the prints had characters that were right side up so it bothered me if I put any of them upside down! 
With Annalise's quilt, I used a darning foot and quilted the entire thing at home on my little Singer machine. I'm not gonna lie, it was rough. Like really rough. If you can imagine rolling up the quilt so that it could fit into the little hole in your sewing machine and then needing to maneuver it around at a steady speed to get a design. One of the doctors that I work with introduced me to Sparrow Studioz and I will never quilt on a home machine again. The last 3 quilts I quilted with a long arm machine, I followed a pentagram but I decided it was time to venture out to free arm quilting. It was scary but oh so fun. I think it'll be free motion from here on out! I chose flannel for the back for the very first time and I love how soft flannel gets as it's used, washed and loved. I hope Reid gets good use out of it! 




Monday, July 6, 2015

Korean Treat

How delicious does this Korean treat look? We picked it up at the Korean market on Friday and I was so excited to try it. I was imagining this super yummy sweet black sesame paste sandwiched in between chewy sweet glutinous rice flour. What I got was a bland but slightly salty, chewy unpleasant mouthful of blah. Last time we got dessert from the Korean market, it was also not yummy and we got suckered in yet again! Arrrrrg! Darn you freshly made Korean dessert rack at the checkout!!! 

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Bandana Bibs!

Using store bought bibs has been frustrating because they all leave a gaping hole around the neck. We use these bibs from IKEA and love them. Super cheap, easy to wash and often I can reuse the bib more than once since I can use a spoon to scrape some food off the bib. The problem with them is that I can't make it small enough so I find myself using two bibs, one fabric one underneath to protect Charlotte's neck and then a plastic one on top to protect her clothes! Even then, the fabric ones don't always suck everything up because they also fit too loose. That's when Pinterest came to the rescue! Making my own bibs allows me to make them fit Charlotte's tiny neck and the bandana look makes them look uber cute. The pattern I used can be found here. Super simple. I used a cheap terry fabric with PUL lining on the back that can be found at Fabricland for the back and then some random fabrics on the front such as flannel and cotton. I did have to buy some KAM snaps and a set of snap pliers but well worth it! They turned out super cute and I'm so happy with the tutorial. Give it a go, you won't regret it. 

Friday, July 3, 2015

Suck Pads

I can't believe my maternity leave is coming to an end so quickly. I feel like I haven't been able to do all the things I wanted to do, crafting wise. I wanted to get caught up on my Project Life but I'm still about 2 years behind on that so that'll be my next big project to tackle. In the meantime, I carved out some time to do quick simple projects that are more "pressing" because they are items I could use right away. The first item in order was suck pads for my carrier. Charlotte is either rubbing her face against the sides to scratch her eczema or she's sucking on it so making these was priority. +Cynthia Chau sent me a tutorial for these suck pads that you can find here. I had leftover minky fabric from my quilt so I opted to use that for one side and plain cotton for the other. As much as I love minky, it's so brutal to sew and I hate. It. So. Much. It stretches, bunches, and is just overall really brutal to work with. I think next time I'm going to leave it uncut, sew what I need to sew on it, then trim off the excess minky. Maybe that's what one is supposed to do...? Who knows. Excuse the dark photos. I was too excited to finish them and show them off in the middle of the night. 






Creamy Asian Dressing

We've been eating a lot of salads lately so changing up the salad dressing is a must! Today we tried a creamy asian dressing and it was a nice change from our normal vinaigrettes. I didn't follow the measurements exactly and I used almond butter. Still turned out great. The recipe can be found here