DIY: Fun with Tiny Animals

Remember those tiny plastic animals you used to play with as a kid? They would come in those skinny tubes- all sorts of farm animals, or exotic...even dinosaurs! I absolutely loved those little guys. They provided endless hours of entertainment in my childhood.

Well it turns out you can still have fun with them as an adult! Pinterest has been blowing up with fun DIY projects using these little toys, and it caught my eye. I splurged and bought a GIANT tube of farm animals at Target. Yesterday, after spending 2 days in because of the snow, I decided to get a little creative and do some DIY with these animals. I ended up making myself a ring dish (Mikie, sadly, broke our bathroom ring dish last week, so I needed a replacement) and I dressed up a couple of picture frames. I'm really excited with the outcome...it's got me hooked to tiny animal crafts!

For the ring dish I started with a plain candle dish from Ikea. I painted it a nice pale shade of blue, and set it aside to dry. Next I painted my animal of choice (I used a duck!) and set it aside to dry. Once everything was dry I used a tiny amount of Gorilla Glue to attach the duck. Technically you are supposed to hold down the item for about 30 minutes, but since it was new paint I didn't want to risk smudging it. I let it sit for a couple of hours and it dried just fine!

The finished product came out perfect!!

Next I took two plain picture frames from Ikea- put a couple of wedding photos in them (awwwww). I painted a few animals a neat shade of blue, and attached them the same way. They came out really cute!!

(sorry for the terrible photo...I meant to snap a better one!)

These two crafts were SUPER easy, but there's a few more things I want to make with these tiny animals. Stay posted and happy DIYing!! 

xoxo  Kate 

Meet the Team...Kate!

Well, I figured it was about time I formally introduced myself. As I mentioned in my Muffin Recipe post, I love to bake! I also love photography, crafts, writing, all things design and art...the list goes on. Sadly, I never seem to have enough time for all of these things...but hopefully this blog changes that! 

This is my incredible other half, my husband Mikie. He's always making me laugh, inspiring me, supporting me, encouraging me. He's my everything! (and this is our epic hero/heroine shot, taken by the lovely Jess!) We've been married ALMOST a year (time flies!!). I'm in my early/mid twenties, and have been writing/crafting/baking/doing some sort of art for as long as I can remember. 

My husband and I currently live on a farm, but we are looking to start our own little home. We have a pet lizard. She's an albino leopard spotted gecko, named Skwisgaar (because I thought she was a boy for 2 years). We really want to get a baby hedgehog, and if we do- you better believe you're going to be spammed by endless photos. 

It's always been my dream to do what I love, and maybe make a little bit of money to survive from it. I hope this is the start of that, but in the very least it will be me having a ton of fun with some of the best ladies I know. That's something, isn't it?? 

I think I said everything else in my other post, so I will stop myself from boring you with more silly details about my life. Thank you, whoever you are, for reading our posts and helping us to make our little dreams come true! 

*don't forget to check out our instagram! @sewsweetshop

DIY Paper Flowers

Another snow day in the northeast has kept me home bound again. So I figure what better to do than to craft!

If you've spent anytime on pinterest, which I suspect you have, you've seen these wonderful paper flowers.

Well, a few years ago I was asked to decorate for a wedding, the bride was in love with the idea of paper flowers.

So there I was tasked with making bouquets, boutiners, corsages, center pieces the whole nine yards. I didn't know the first thing about making paper flowers, and I've always been terrible at origami, but after reading a lot of different blogs, and a lot of trial and error, a whole wedding was decorated and beautiful!

Well my friends, if you're ever asked to decorate a wedding, or you just want to make yourself some pretty flowers that wont wilt and die on you here is a quick little how to for you!

Theses roses are by far the easiest to make.

Depending on the size you want, start by cutting out a round piece of paper, and then cutting a spiral from the outside in.

Starting rolling inward.

When it has been rolled all the way in, depending on how you want the flower to look, tight little bud or a larger bloom, you can release the spiral a bit.

Glue the bottom of the flower, and hold it all together tightly.

And there you have it!

This next one takes a little but more work. I generally make these between 4-6 petals large.

Here are the steps.

Fold the paper into a triangle.

Remove the excess paper, you are left with a small square folded into a triangle.

Fold each corner into the top.

Now take each corner and fold them open.

Take the tops and fold them down.

And then fold them in on themselves

Fold the paper in half end to end.

Glue them together. A hot glue gun works much better, however today I was working with regular white glue so I used these clips to keep them together while they dried.

After these are dried glue them to each other until you have a full flower.

The end result can be beautiful!

With a little bit of creativity you can make these into bouquets, boutiners, corsages, anything you need!

I hope these DIY's were helpful! 

Happy crafting everyone!!!

Meet the team... Hannah

Hidey ho, Hannah here, time to properly introduce myself.

What can I say about myself that would be worth reading? Not a whole lot but here are the basics.

(Two very excited new englanders as you can see)

I'm a mid Twenties chick living in the MA-RI-CT Tri-state chunk of New England currently residing in the town with the longest named lake in the world. I have a wonderful husband of 4 years and two fluff ball kitties and some of the bestest friends in the whole wide world.

(Aforementioned fluffies The Chin and Phillip J Fry just known as Fry. They love each other I swear)

I would say thanks to my late grandmother, I developed a very eclectic taste. Growing up going to every yard sale, flea market, and yes even the dump, finding all kinds of things to bring home, redo and make pretty for our own use. This carried into my adult life very easily, I'm always looking at things thinking how I can make them better, spruce them up, bring new life to something once thought dead.

My gram also baked with me almost every day. There is nothing I love more than baking something delicious and watching others enjoy it. There is something about it even sweeter than the treat itself.

My father is able to build, fix, refinish anything, and thanks to him I've picked up a little of that on the way. Where I am lacking he picks up the slack and helps turn my dreams into reality.

Not to be forgotten is my wonderful loving supportive husband. It's true when they say girls marry men like their fathers, because that's 100% what I did. I can't begin to tell you how many times he's come home to some project of mine and he jumps right in to perfect it.

So call me a Jill of all trades if you will, bake, refinish furniture, craft, build whatever my little heart desires (always with a little help from my hubs), have a unhealthy obsession with Doctor Who, read way to many books, and what better way to support all of these habits than to share them with the world!

Recently I was asked, "if money wasn't an issue what would you want to do for work?" My first answer of course was to not work and be surrounded by kittens all day, but my second real answer was to be able to own a shop where I could bake and sell consignment and any and all manner of trinkets and whatnot that struck my fancy. Well that my friends is what we are hoping to accomplish with Sew Sweet.

I have faith in these very smart ladies I surround myself with and myself that if we can dream it we can do it!

Meet the Team...Jessica!

Hey!

Let me introduce myself.

My name is Jessica, I am in my twenties and share my life with a wonderful man.

Ben is my husband, my rock, my supporter and my best friend.

He's always there to support whatever craziness I conjure up.

To jump into the depths of my life, growing up was great. I had a set of awesome parents.

My dad is a carpenter and my mim is very good with a paintbrush and/or pencil. It's because of them that I learned to see the beauty of the imagination. From a young age I was playing with nails and gluing stuff together. Some things didn't always come out as a planned, (like my cardboard dog house) BUT! With years of practice I have found my creative drive. 

[Enter family photo here]

That's little baby me!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The part I play in this posse is the photography buff, class clown, complete nerd. Like most girls I enjoy getting in to that creative zone, inventing and creating whatever my heart pleases. I enjoy sweets, reading a good mystery book, playing with glue and cardstock and UNICORNS! So, why not open up a shop filled with things I love? Though I know unicorns are hard to catch, nevertheless, Sew Sweet is a mixture of everything we all enjoy! 

I'm looking forward to getting this idea up and flying! I'm very confident this great group of gals can make it happen! 

Here's to baking, creating, reading and kittens!! 

Be sure to follow us on Instagram

@SewSweetShop

Thanks!

Freshly Baked: Curious Traveler Apple Muffins

First off, I should introduce myself.

My name is Kate, and I am part of this crazy awesome team of crazy awesome and talented girls that simply want to make money doing fun things they love. In a nutshell.

Mostly I bake. I do some other things too, like the website stuff, but my first love is baking. Hannah & I have been trying to get our baking business off the ground for a while (mostly we've been planning it and dreaming of it), and I hope that this finally sticks.

Mostly I like to bake "healthier" things, alternatives to the typical heart attack inducing, fattening, delicious baked goods that your grandma makes. Don't get me wrong, those are pretty tasty. I've just always strived for the healthier. That way you can eat loads of sweets every day and not feel quite so bad about it. I've also developed stomach issues in the past year, so eating less fat and dairy is necessary.

Baking healthy has not always been easy. In fact, it's never easy. You never really know how things are going to turn out. I've made some pretty horrible things. I've thrown away plenty of batter, and had countless kitchen floor meltdowns. In the end it's all worth it, when you learn and you start to use the right substitutes. The very best part is when you bake something for the butter/egg/cream consuming person...and they actually like it, love it even! That makes it all worth it.

Today is snowed, again. I currently work as an Office Administrator at a private daycare center, which means: another snow day. Three weeks in a row now, we've had a snow day. I welcome them with open arms- an opportunity to clean the house, catch up on reading, and bake (and have time to clean the dishes, too!). Today I decided to make cupcakes...only to discover as they were cooling that I don't have any powdered sugar or any other ingredients to make frosting. (insert kitchen meltdown here) That's the great thing about cupcakes...they can very quickly become muffins!!

I based my muffins off of this recipe on Pinterest. Like all recipes I ever follow, I changed it to make it my own. Usually this happens in an effort to turn the recipe healthy...or because I don't have all the right ingredients. Heehee... Either way they came out pretty good. Not very sweet, but with a lovely apple-cinnamon flavor that is perfect heated up with a bit of earth balance or honey. Happy baking! I hope this recipe keeps you warm if you are also stuck in the snow!

Curious Traveler Apple Muffins

What's Inside: 

1/2 cup of earth balance, softened 

1/2 cup of vanilla greek yogurt 

1 1/3 cup of coconut sugar

2 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

Egg replacer for 3 eggs (I use Bob's Red Mill)

2 Apples- peeled and shredded

1 cup Curious Traveler Apple Ale

2 tsp. cinnamon 

1/2 tsp. nutmeg 

2 tsp. vanilla 

What I Did: 

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

2. In your kitchen aid, beat the earth balance, yogurt and sugar until creamy. Add the egg replacer until well combined. 

3. Add in the dry ingredients. You might have to mix the last bit by hand- the batter gets rather thick and dry. Add the vanilla, turn the kitchen aid back on, and slowly add in the ale. The batter will get nice and creamy. Fold in the shredded apples. 

4. Using an ice cream scoop (totally the perfect size!), fill up your cupcake liners with the batter. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the muffins are firm and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 

5. From here it's up to you if they stay muffins or turn into cupcakes, but either way store in an airtight container for a few days. 

Enjoy! 

Meet the team... Heather!

Well hey there! Figured I should take the time to introduce myself. I'm the one in the middle of the picture. The super pale one in the red dress.
I wanted to let you know a little about me! Where to start? Well, obviously I'm one of the five that are trying to formulate a plan to get Sew Sweet off the ground. Why? Because what do girls love more than snacks and fashion? Though this isn't by any means my brainchild, (I'll give that credit to Hannah and Kate!) I've always been interested in running my own business. What better way to run a business than in conjunction with four of the most capable ladies I know? Though we have yet to make our business plan official, I'll likely be on the paperwork end of things, where I work best. It's gonna be fun to see all of my best girls doing the thing that puts them in the zone every day. If you want to see it in action, follow our instagram @SewSweetShop, and keep up with us here! So wish us luck, and hopefully we'll be off the ground and into the air in no time!