Altered match box accessory box for 18 inch dolls

Altered Match box art is a very popular thing these days, and many of them made are traded on craft trading sites like Swap-bot. They always have a theme and it was suggested to me by a wonderful friend I have made in my Adventures in American Girl swap group that we should have an accessory altered match box swap, so here is the one I have come up with, it is two single small match boxes taped end to end and covered with American Girl Paper, you can use anything to cover yours from paper to oven baked polymer clay, for the "knobs" I have used simple brads from the dollar store, I actually bought a package of matches from the Dollar store that came with 8 boxes, so now I have lots matches should we ever need them. You can down load templates from Google to make your own out of card stock which I have done with great success but for this one I went with store bought. Then I filled it with accessories I have made, bracelets, earrings (the stick on kind) two necklaces and some silly bands. I am going to keep this one I made for myself and make a new one for who ever gets to be my partner but I did this one for show.  I thought I would share it with you, easy to make in under 10 minutes and a ton of fun to fill, you can stack them on top of each other and make a dresser of them if you want, also you can use the bigger 250 count match boxes to create much larger storage drawers, you are only limited by your imagination. Enjoy!

18 inch doll shoes shelf

Well it is Saturday here and raining, so I just spent a very productive craft hour of creating a Shoe Shelf for 18 inch dolls, like American Girl Doll's, Mapelea Dolls, Our Generation or the 18 inch Spring Fields Dolls you can find at Michael's the craft store.
I found this idea on www.Doll Diaries.com (one of my favorite doll websites, who got the idea from www.makingfriends.com another great website I have used in the past, I made the one from the directions on the making friends.com web site but found that the shelf was not actually deep enough for the shoes so here are my directions on the one I made.)

You will need one empty cereal box
1 pair of scissors
A ruler
A pen
tape
one 8.5 inch x 11inch  scrap cardboard for structure (you will cut it down to fit the back of your doll shoe shelf)
and I love to use Peel and Stick shelf paper which I bought at the dollar store for $1.25

First Measure 3 3.5 inch wide sections start at the bottom of the box using your ruler and make a cutting line by drawing a straight line at 3.5 inches all the way around the box, repeat three times and cut out your three shelves. Use the still closed "bottom of the box" piece you have cut as the base and using scotch tape tape the two remaining shelves to the the top creating three separate shelves now trace the shape on your scrap cardboard and cut out. If you are using the peel and stick shelf paper cover the cardboard you have just cut out and attach it to the shelf (making sure all three shelves are visible when it is attached) with scotch tape. Then begin covering the insides of the shelves top bottom and inside, once the three shelves are covered cover the sides or the entire shelf , back, top and bottom. Then place your doll shoes inside. This entire craft took me one hour to complete because I had not done this before but I know when I make my next one it will go much faster! take a look at my photos from this and all my projects . If you do not have peel and stick shelf paper you can use wrapping paper with tape or glue and get the same effect!
I would love to have your feed back on this and all my posts!
Enjoy!

Super Easy Chocolate Souffles

 What a nice afternoon treat these are the easiest Chocolate Souffles I have ever made!

http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/chocolate-souffles-for-two-121420.aspx?cm_mmc=eml-_-rbecaen-_-20110126-_-1123

 Chocolate Soufflés for Two

I just made these from the Kraft website and they are divine! I totally recommend making them so easy and so yummy a great afternoon treat or special dessert!  See my photo at the right below is the one from the website.

prep time

15 min

total time

47 min

makes

2 servings, 2/3 cup (150 mL) each

photo by:

kraft

recipe by: kraft

What You Need

1 egg, separated

2 Tbsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. butter

1 Tbsp. flour

1/4 cup milk

1 square Baker's Semi-Sweet Chocolate, finely chopped

Make It

HEAT oven to 325ºF.
BEAT egg white and sugar in small bowl with mixer on high speed 1 to 2 min. or until stiff peaks form; set aside.
MELT butter in small saucepan on medium heat. Stir in flour until well blended. Add milk; cook and stir 30 sec. or until thickened. Remove from heat. Add chocolate; stir until melted. Add egg yolk to mixture; mix well. Gently stir in egg white just until blended.
POUR into 2 (150-mL) ramekins; place on baking sheet,
BAKE 30 to 32 min. or until soufflés are puffed and centres are set. Serve immediately.

Handsewn 18 inch doll skirt and hair band

Wow it has now been a month of blogging and I am thrilled that there are more then 500 views of my blog, I am truly humbled.
This post is for those readers who may not have a sewing machine or are looking for an easy, rainy day, cost effective craft. This skirt will fit an 18 inch doll like the American Girl doll

To make this hand sewn doll skirt you will need:

2 pieces of felt (3 for $1.25 at my dollar store)
1 package or 1/2 inch or 1/4 inch elastic (2 in a pack $1.25 at my dollar store)
1 needle
thread
pair of scissors
1 piece of paper
1 ruler
2 safety pins
a pencil

First take your paper and measure 6.5 inches up the paper, make a mark.From that mark measure 3.5 inches and draw a line this is the top of the skirt. At the bottom of your paper measure 4.5 inches and draw a line this is the bottom of the skirt. Next using your ruler connect the top and bottom with a diagonal line this line should measure 6.5 inches. Cut out this shape from your paper . Fold over one of your felt pieces and place the straight edge of your pattern on the fold, trace on to the felt and cut out. Do this to the second piece so you have two pieces of the skirt. Next take your ruler and the elastic and measure out 10 inches of elastic. Cut the elastic and put a safety pin on either end of the cut elastic, place aside and thread the needle. Lay the skirt pieces on top of each other and sew up one side using a basting stitch. When you get to the top tie it off and fold the top over about one inch to create a casing for the elastic. Sew the casing closed using the same basting stitch. Once the casing is closed, use the safety pin elastic and snake it through. Once through to the other side match the safety pins together so that a bit of elastic is sticking out each side and stitch the elastic together so that it will not come apart. match sides together and using the basting stitch close the other side, then turn right side out and you have a skirt.

For the hair band cut 4 inches of elastic, then cut 6 inches in length and double the width out of the left over felt. Place the elastic on one end of the felt and fold the felt around it sewing it too the elastic, then repeat on the other end. Once attached at both ends stitch the remaining felt closed. You can cut a shape such as a heart out of a different piece of felt and attach it to the hair band with a simple stitch or you can add a button as I did.
I hope this makes sense, message me with any questions and happy skirt making!

Mouth watering Cheese Scones

I am asked at least once a week for my cheese scone recipe, if you make it you will soon know why. These are easy and fun, best part they are delicious. The secret to impressing your friends lies in how you form your scones, want them to think you are a gourmet baker, simply cut them in triangles and brush them with a bit of milk, or simply spoon them on to the cookie sheet and bake them that way.
Here is the recipe, now the secret ingredient is lard but YOU CAN USE MARGARINE OR BUTTER, but I tell you if you use the LARD you will notice a difference.

Karen's Cheese scones
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees

1 cup of white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (if you do not have you can just use more white flour)
1/4 cup of sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup of Lard (or margarine or butter)
1 cup of grated cheese
1 egg
2/3 cup of milk

* if making the triangle scones brush the tops with a little bit more milk before baking.
Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, cut the lard into small chunks and add to the flour mixture and combine, add cheese and egg and milk. When mixture forms a sticky ball choose if you are going to spoon on to a cookie sheet as "drop Scones" or if you are going to cut triangles. If doing the triangles flatten the ball and slice as you would pizza and place on a cookie sheet brush tops of the triangles and bake.I bake mine until they are golden brown about 15 minutes but you may need to adjust the time with your own ovens, I like mine a bit over done.
I hope you enjoy them, I can smell mine now coming out of the oven in the next minute or two.
Let me know if you have any questions.

Twilight Brownies, Cake Toppers and Brownie Recipe

Today is my friend Paige's birthday, so for her birthday I made these Twilight themed cup cake toppers and instead of cup cakes I made her these brownies. With Cupcakes all the rage I found this great craft idea on Swap-bot.I have made many different types of toppers, character and holiday but for my friend Paige, I went to Google Images and typed Twilight Edward and picked the image I wanted, then I cut and pasted it to a word document and formatted it to the size I needed. Then copied the photo on the document 12 times and printed the document. Cut out the photos and glued them to black card stock. I then attached a toothpick with tape to the back of the card stock and covered it with another piece of card stock. Instant cup cake topper.  You can use any paper punches colors and images to make so many great toppers, so easy and fun.

For the Brownies here is the recipe I used, Once baked and cooled slightly I used a small heart shaped cookie cutter to cut the brownie shapes out arranged them on a plate placed the toppers in them (get it steak through the heart!) and added a strawberry garnish with a sparkler candle.

Twilight Brownies
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
In to a medium sized pot over medium heat add 1 cup of butter, 3/4 cup of chocolate chips ( I used milk Chocolate) melt together stir with a spatula. Add 2 cups of granulated sugar and stir.Remove from heat, Add 3 eggs one at a time to the pot and then add 1 cup of flour. Once combined pour batter in a greased 9X13 pan. Place in the oven and bake for 25 minutes.

I did not ice mine but you can ice yours if you want.

Dear Aunty Karen...

Well earlier this week my niece Trinity, (now home in Montreal) asked me to make her the dress she saw in the new American Girl doll catalog she just got in the mail, the Zebra one.  Now I have to tell you this dress is adorable in the magazine and I would order it from them but I live in Canada and the shipping is more then I could afford and the closest store to me is a 24 hour straight drive from Canada to California, so I made my own version, for under $4.00. I thought I would share with you how and what I made.

I made a dress, hairband, bag/purse,shoes, bracelet all in under 90 minutes.

First I went to walmart and bought a fabric palette cotton, which was zebra print $2.00 I also bought some purple ribbon$1.00. I took one of the dresses my dolls currently have and traced it to create a pattern, cut out my pieces. You could also use any existing doll dress pattern you have. Then I sewed the dress and finished it with the purple ribbon and purple button I had on hand.
Next I made the head band using 4 inches of 1/2 inch elastic (which I had on hand or I can buy at the dollar store 4 for $1.25) and 6 inches of left over zebra pattern material, I also added a bow and a purple button I had on hand which matched the one on the dress. I then made a simple bag for the doll with left over ribbon and material, and moved on to the shoes. To make the shoes see my post about how to make doll shoes.I then made a bracelet using some dollar store beads I had in purple and elastic thread, see how to make doll bracelet post on how to make that.

I am now going to mail the outfit to my niece and hope she loves it as much as the one in the catalog!  I am posting the photo of both the dress American Girl Doll sells and the one I made. As always any questions or comments are appreciated!