Felt Heart Garland

I saw this cute picture to make your own Valentine garland. Plus it was super easy. Just take a full sheet of felt, fold in half and sew down the side. 

 Cut right into the fold, cutting the entire piece up the side.

Take the 2 cut pieces and pull them to the outside of the sew part of the felt. When you line up the two parts again it should form the heart shape. Then sew along that edge. 

Once that's been sewn, just take a pair of scissors and cut separate little hearts. You can cut the hearts as thick or thin as you want. 

Once all your cute hearts are cut, all you need to do is shape them a bit and then you can use them for whatever or continue and make them into a Valentines garland. 

All you need is thread and a needle to string your hearts. I didn't add anything between my hearts, but you can add pom poms for alittle something extra. 

Sweet Buns - Copy Cat Texas Roadhouse Buns

2 cups milk – Scalded and cooled to lukewarm (I used 2%)

½ cup warm water

4 tsp Instant Dry Yeast  - (I had individual packets, so I had to use about 1 ½ packs)

1 tsp sugar

½ sugar

About 7-8 cups bread flour

2 whole eggs

½ cup Honey – (This is totally optional, if you want a sweeter bun add this, but they both turn out tasting good)

3 Tbl butter – melted

2 tsp salt

1.        To begin you’ll want to start scalding 2 cups of milk and then let cool to lukewarm (I popped mine in the fridge for faster cooling).

2.       While the milk is cooling, take a small bowl and add ½ cup warm water. Then add 4 tsp yeast and 1 tsp sugar. Let stand for about 5 minutes or until dissolved. It’ll look foamy at the top. Like the picture below. 

3.      While you’re waiting for the yeast to dissolve and the milk to cool, you can take out a large bowl to mix all the dough in. Also take out 2 eggs, honey, sugar, bread flour, butter, and salt.

4.       Once your yeast and milk are ready, you can add the yeast, milk, ½ cup sugar, and enough flour to make a medium batter that is light and foamy (like a cake box mix batter - I added flour one ½ cup at a time until I got it to the right texture. It’s always easier to add flour in small amounts instead of pouring in huge amounts of flour you can’t take back). Beat the ingredients thoroughly.

5.       Now that you have a light batter you can add 2 eggs, ½ cup honey, 3 Tbl melted butter, and 2 tsp salt. Beat well. Now add more flour until you get a soft dough. Once you have completed the dough, sprinkle a small amount of flour onto a flat surface to start kneading. Add more flour as needed if the dough gets sticky. Knead until the dough is smooth. Take another large bowl and grease the inside so when the dough rises it won’t stick to the sides (I just used PAM cooking spray).  Place the dough in the bowl and then take out and flip over, so that the dough gets a covering of the grease. Cover bowl with Cling Wrap, and let sit for about 1 ½ to 2 hrs when dough has doubled in size.

6.       Set the oven for 350 degrees. After the dough has doubled you can remove it from the bowl and put it out on a floured surface. I then separated the dough into 4 equal pieces to rest. Net take a baking sheet, spray with PAM. Taking one of the pieces of dough, I tore off small pieces and rolled them into small balls, placing them on the greased cooking sheet.  I let them double again in size, which took about a half hour. The two pictures below are the buns rolled out on a sheet, and then the one after is after they've doubled in size. 

7. When doubled, buns can be placed  in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes, depending on how large the rolls were made. Once they’re out of the oven, immediately rub butter on top (I used a basting brush, worked the best). Adding the butter to the top definitely makes them look better, softens them up, and gives them a little added flavor.

 

To start...

Ok so this is my very first post and blog for that matter. But I actually wanted to start one to have something to connect all my recreations from pinterest with for those who repin. So to start off this new deal, I will post my first creation (of many since I'm on Christmas break, I got time to kill or crafts to .. craft? Along with food to make!) Anyways..on pinterest I saw a really neat idea to make reusable paper towels, because I'm definitely one of those people who grabs a paper towel to dry off my hands when I could have just used a towel. So while I'll still probably use cheapo paper towels for the "big" messes or cleaning the apartment, I just couldn't resist making these cute towels. Plus I had to try something on my new sewing machine :)

This is how it turned out. I actually used flannel for the outside and then regular cotton fabric on the other. I've seen others that used birdseye, which is fabric like what they make reusable diapers or diaper cloths out of. I also purchased a snap puncher thing (ya..I don't know what it's called) but it's a handle tool that is used to apply metal snaps. Otherwise you could buy snaps that you could sew in. Or even easier you could use velcro. That would be the cheaper and easier route, since putting in these snaps took skills that I still have not mastered. All in all, it took me about a day or two to complete (since I needed more snaps) and looks pretty cute if I do say so myself! :) 

Here's a few extra pictures of the towels. And how I attached them to a cardboard roll with elastic and snaps. 

 The Picture above is what I attach my towels to. I just used elastic and put snaps on them so that each towel could attach to and  be continually attached to each other and then rolled up together.