Happy Birthday!

My Daughter is 7. Hard to believe that that tiny baby I brought home just the other day is 7 and loosing her teeth and bossing everyone around and surprising me with her amazing insight. What a blessing she is to me.

She decided the cake was just not quite right so she added the dots and border. If you like Strawberries you need to try the icing. Very sweet, but wonderful. Mine was a bit runny, but I know what I did wrong.

Recipe for Strawberry icing

1 pint fresh strawberries

1 TBS granulated sugar

bag/box powdered sugar

1/4 cup soft butter

wash and slice fresh strawberries, then squish them up until they are really juicy. sprinkle them with about a TBS of granulated sugar to really get a syrup. let them sit for a bit, then drain some of the fluid into a bowl (reserve this, you may need it later). Put the squished strawberries into a mixer bowl add soft butter and powdered sugar and mix away until it is the consistency you desire. Mine was really runny because I didn't drain it at all. I did pop the iced cake into the refrigerator and it set up very nicely. Great pink color too.

This makes a ton of icing, you will have some left over. I am making chocolate cupcakes later today and I will use the rest of the icing then....I can't wait!

I decided to have a little craft for the girls to do at the party (to work off a bit of the sugar) so we made wish pillows from my crazy bag of scraps. The girls did fabulous. I loved seeing the different combos they came up with. There are some very creative little girls up there.

Finally here is a peek at the latest Hero Quilt I am working on. This is for the son of the first widow I ever sewed for. I kept the scraps from his uniforms and am using the newest uniform she sent as well. I wanted the stars to look like they were twinkling. I asked my Flickr friend Krom_mama for some advice and she pointed me towards this tutorial on wonky stars. I made a couple changes....but it was very helpful.

I am trying to organize myself so I can be most productive. Monday, Wednesday and Fridays will be bag sewing days. Tuesdays and Thursdays will be quilt days and the weekend will be my own. That is my plan for now....we will see how I can stick to it.

OK, cheers ladies!