Little changes that make a world of difference...

I have a love/hate relationship with bedskirt. I love that they had the fact that you only have a super cheap bed frame. I love that you can store boxes and junk under the bed and no one can see it. And I love the tailored look that it adds to the bedroom. I hate that I can't see if there are crickets under the bed. Seriously. There could be bugs under there! And Rylie constantly loses her ball under the bed and I have to lift up that bed skirt and reach my hand into the dark abyss. *shudder* ANYWAYS! Despite the fact that it could be harboring ferocious insects, I still wanted a bedskirt for our bed. But apparently the cheapest you can find is $30. Say wha-?! I contemplated making one from a flat sheet but didn't want to devote the time. Imagine my glee when we were shopping at Bed, Bath, and Beyond (and using some of our gift cards!) and we found bedskirts on clearance for only $15. Unfortunately, they only had twin size and king size in white. No problem - I can sew! According to Wikipedia, a queen and a king size mattress are the same length but a king is wider by 16 inches. The bedskirt already had a pleat in the center of it so I decided to just add two more pleats! I measured half-way on each side and then made a box pleat taking up 8 inches on each side. I just stitched it flat. I didn't bother taking up the flat fabric that would go between the mattresses - it isn't seen anyways! I got the bedskirt in place (quite a feat alone) and then just used straight pins to secure the bedskirt to the box spring. No more sliding bedskirts. And the pleats look totally natural! YAY!

The other thing I needed to finish off the bed was decorative pillows over our sleeping pillows. Shams had come with our duvet cover that we bought at Ikea but because we bought a king-size duvet for extra width, the pillow shams were king-size - which apparently just means about 8 inches too long. I fiddled with some ideas about how to "make it work" and wanted buttons to sorta pinch the shape smaller. Well, I did one pillow and it looks stupid. You could barely see the buttons and the pillow still looked stupid. So I threw the shams in a corner and didn't look at them for a few weeks. When I finally got up the courage to try them again, I was armed with my good friend: grosgrain ribbon. And of course, it totally worked. I stitched the cream ribbon about 4 inches in on each side. One end of the sham is still open to take it off and wash but I handstitched it in a few places to make sure the pillow didn't slide out. Then I added my white buttons back on the sham and BAM! It totally worked. I'm LOVING our finished bed! Who knew such little changes could make me so happy?

Apple Muffins!

It's been over a month since I've written on this poor little blog. Halloween season was crazy - in a good way! Sold a ton of costumes on Etsy. Now I've moved into Dickens' costumes for Christmas aaaaaaaannnnndddd... lavender filled decorative pillows! I've got such cute fabrics - chevrons, damasks, stripes, solids - can't wait to take pictures and put them on Etsy. I'll post a link as soon as I've got some up!

 Anyways, I've found the yummiest Apple Muffin Recipe and I just had to share! And they use a TON of apples so I feel like they are slightly healthy. ;-)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups sugar (recipe called for 2 cups but 1.5 is PLENTY sweet!)
2 eggs
1 cup oil (I did half applesauce/half oil in my most recent batch - still good but only oil was the yummiest)
1 T vanilla
3 cups flour
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
3 cups peeled, cored, diced apples
brown sugar for topping

Instructions: Preheat oven to 350 and line muffin pan with paper liners.
Cream together sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla. Sift flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture and mix until just combined. Batter will be very thick. Add diced apples. Fill paper liners almost to the top (batter doesn't rise much). Sprinkle with brown sugar.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-24 minutes. Makes 18 muffins.

They are SO yummy! I admit that I ate more than one when they came out of the oven. I love the chunks of apple and the brown sugar topping provides the perfect crunch!

I'm going to try to be better about blogging! Promise!