Sewing a Tablecloth

I am hosting a Bunko Party at my apartment next week!! I decided that it would be themed “yellow”, inspired by this yellow party. Part of this theme will include yellow tablecloths that I planned to sew from fabric I bought at Ikea. (Evan gave me a sewing machine for my birthday two years ago and I’m sorry to say, that this is the first attempt to use my machine.) My mother said that she would help so we set up the machine at her house. Believe it or not, we started this project two months ago…

Attempt #1: We broke the needle by sewing glittered fabric, so my Mom had to take the machine to a service store to find out what was wrong and how to fix it.

Attempt #2: I successfully sewed two sides of the four for one tablecloth and then got tired and had to go home. It was a work night :(

Attempt #3: My wonderful mother ended up finishing them because she wanted every off her dining room table. She ended up doing part of it by hand because the machine wouldn’t re-thread, but they are finished and they look beautiful.

I’m very glad that we got an early start otherwise we would have no tablecloths for the party. I am also very happy that now that my Mom is retired she has plenty of time to “help” me with these types of projects. I will (eventually) learn to sew and hope to have a successful sewing project to share in the next year. (I have to give myself a realistic time frame.) I will definitely post more pictures after the party, but just imagine this trifle bowl filled with lemons and delicious yellow inspired food displayed and a vase of yellow daffodils. I can’t wait!!

Cake Project

Although I probably won’t make my own wedding cake, I thought it would be fun to try. My beautiful blue cake stand was sitting on my kitchen counter just wishing for a cake to hold. I am on vacation this week, so I had nothing but time to attempt this project. I don’t have any experience making layered cakes, especially not from scratch. I found a red velvet cake recipe that looked pretty straight forward and decided to just use canned cream cheese frosting. I did find simple cream cheese frosting recipe, but I didn’t want to overwhelm myself. I had to double the cake batter recipe to get all of my layers. I was also working with two different round pans, but the sizes were almost the same. (If I decide to make my own wedding cake, I will invest in matching pans.) Looking back, this project was not set up for success. I had mismatched pans, a brand new recipe and had to make several visits to the store to get more frosting, extra food coloring and new buttermilk. I am on vacation this week, so I didn’t mind the three trips to the store and it didn’t matter that it took me two days to finish the cake. The final result turned out pretty impressive if I do say so myself. We haven’t cut it yet, so I don’t know what it tastes like, but I want to savor the look of it for a few more hours.

(this is what I look like when I'm baking)

Shout Outs

I am very excited to report that my brother is getting a lot of media exposure for all of his new projects! Last Friday, I was sitting in the nail salon flipping through the August issue of In Style Magazine (with Katherine Heighl on the cover) and came across a little snippet about his lip glosses from his Victoria Secret make-up line. I wanted to tear the page out, but since I was getting a pedicure, I thought that might be inappropriate. I did, however, run down to the Victoria’s Secret shop immediately after my nails dried to pick up a few items for gifts (since I already had a set for myself). The girl working cosmetics said that they had already sold out of a few items. The display wasn’t very big and easy to miss if you weren’t looking, but with all the buzz, I'm sure people are looking for it!

Yesterday, I received my September issue of Glamour Magazine (substitute for my Domino subscription since they stopped printing, so sad). I was going through the pages, not really reading and there was his face at the bottom of the page. He was included in the “Stylish Reads” section. As I’m sure everyone knows by now, his book, Fierce Style: How to Be Your Most Fabulous Self, is coming out in October. The magazine had a little mini interview at the bottom of page 80 in case you want to check it out. But for those of you who are not running out to the store to get it…here is one of the Q&A’s:

GLAMOUR: Who inspired you to be fierce?
CS: My sister. She didn’t look like anyone else-she’d go to school dressed like Snow White with lace-up boots!

I got a shout out in GLAMOUR! I am a little embarrassed to admit that, yes, I did wear a Snow White dress with black lace up boots to school in middle school. Thank goodness I can’t find that picture as it was during my “awkward” phase. Even if that is an outfit I would like to forget, I am so proud of my little bro! If you follow him on twitter, he has posted some pics from his line that is on display at Saks. And don’t forget his shoe line is coming to Payless in a few weeks!