Doggie Sleep Sack

Oscar Party has meant tons of trips to the local Jo-Ann’s. I’m cool with this because there is a brand new Jo-Ann’s right next to my house, OP just gave me an excuse to explore it.

It’s amazing how many things can jump into your cart when you are looking for things on your shopping list. One of those items was some beautiful new Waverly fabric – Panama Wave in Adobe. The colors are perfect for my house and I have been in the market for some fabric to create some new poufy dog beds. And it was on SALE. And I had a COUPON. There’s really no reason not to get it

But time was short and I was really supposed to be working on all things Oscar Party so I decided to make a sleep sack/dog cave/sleeping bag rather than a dog bed. Doesn’t my baby look adorable in it?!

I took some very exact measurements by draping a tape measure over my dogs while they were sleeping on their current collection of blankets. They were not amused at me disturbing their slumber. I came up with a size of 20″x24″for my finished dimensions. For reference, my dachshunds are 12 – 14 pounds each.

I paired the panama wave with a brown soft and cuddly fabric that is a giant pain-in-the-butt to work with but oh so comfy to sleep in. Because that brown fabric is such a pain-in-the-butt, I went with half inch seams to hopefully cover any sins.

I cut two exterior pieces from the panama wave and two interior pieces from the brown fabric, all 21″x25″. I wanted my sleep sack to have a flap style opening to hopefully make it easier for the girls to sneak in there. I decided the flap opening should be 4 inches. I then pinned the right side of the exterior fabric to the right side of the interior fabric on the narrow end and pinned down the sides 4.5″. Stitch, using a half inch seam, from pin to pin. Clip corners and turn right side out. Repeat on the second set of exterior and interior panels.

Then, take the two pieces and pin them right sides together. Yes, it will be difficult to deal with the flap area that you have already sewn.  Do your best to tuck in the completed corners.

Sew around the piece leaving a 4 inch opening for turning in the center bottom of the interior fabric. Clip corners and turn. Hand stitch closed the opening in the interior fabric. You may also need to add a few corrective stitches where the piece transitions to the flap opening.

To complete the sleep sack, edge stitch around the opening. Insert snuggly dog. Enjoy.–Martta

Green and Blue Star Cake

Happy Birthday Marilyn! Thanks for coming into town and giving me an excuse to make this adorable cake for your birthday!  

The bottom is two six inch round layers and the top is two four inch round layers. For decoration, I whipped up seven different icing colors: Leaf Green, Kelly Green, Royal Blue, Cinderella Blue, Sky Blue and White. 

I decorated the cake with a number 16 and 21 star tips.  

It’s a pretty easy cake, the toughest part is trying to get a random pattern! But totally adorable in the end. Happy Birthday Marilyn!

–Martta

Martha’s Chocolate-Champagne Truffles in Sparkling Sugar

I saw Martha Stewart’s recipe for chocolate-champagne truffles in sparkling sugar as I was looking about for new Oscar Party ideas and I thought they would be a perfect addition to the party – who doesn’t like truffles especially when they have champagne?!  Sounded like it would be a hit for the dessert table.

When I took a glance at the reviews, I saw that there was trouble in paradise.  Many folks complained that the truffles were soft and didn’t set properly.  The recipe does call for a substantial amount of liquid.  But I decided to dive right in anyway and give it a whirl.

Now, I did make modifications.  I didn’t really believe that yield of three dozen so I doubled the chocolate and the cream.  Taking into account the problems that other folks had with the softness of the truffles, I stuck to the recipe on the champagne and cognac.  That’s twice as much chocolate power to fight off all that extra liquid.

But it still wasn’t enough. 

These truffles were soft and I needed to freeze them just to get them to set properly.  They were in the fridge until the last minute on party night.  I had covered them in gold sanding sugar, thank goodness because otherwise they would have been too sticky and soft to work with!

But the most telling sign is at the end of the night, I had plenty of these truffles left over and none of the other truffles I made from the Pioneer Woman’s recipe.  So my advice is to stick to Ree’s recipe!

–Martta