Today's love (and most days, for that matter) is giveaways! I mean, who doesn't love to win things? Especially craft things!

Well, if you haven't already heard, Moda Bake Shop has been whipping up a new book! It's called "Fresh Fabric Treats" by Stash Books! The recipes are sworn to be tempting and delicious and to celebrate the book, they are doing a 'progressive dinner'! How fun. A progressive fabric dinner. :) And the best part-- TONS of giveaways!

Join in for a Progressive Dinner this week with 15 of your favorite Bake Shop Chefs who are all featured in the new book. You won't want to miss it... each stop will be full of fun and prizes!

Each author will be giving away a copy of the new book and a fabulous Moda pre-cut! Yipee!

For a chance to win a fat quarter bundle, fat eighth bundle, jelly roll, layer cake, and a charm pack (a $200 value!), be sure to comment on every author's Progressive Dinner post starting TODAY, January 20th. Good luck to you!

January 19

Stash Books

Moda Bake Shop

January 20

Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts

Roslyn Mirrington of Bloom

Vanessa Christenson of V and Co.

January 21

John Adams of Quilt Dad

Monica Solorio-Snow of The Happy Zombie

January 22

Kimberly Walus of Bitty Bits and Pieces

Melissa Mortenson of The Polkadot Chair

January 23

Natalia Bonner of Piece N Quilt

Vickie Eapen of Spun Sugar Quilts

January 24

Rachel Griffith of P.S. I Quilt

Lissa Alexander of Moda Lissa

January 25

Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts

Sweetwater

January 26

Angela Yosten

Jenny Garland

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

If you haven't heard of Talkin' Tuesdays, you are missing out. I found out about them this week and joined in my first one on, well, Tuesday. Basically, it's a 2 hour (ish) twitter chat with a large network of sew-happy people that starts at 7pm MST. Cara from CaraQuilts hosts it each week and tweets questions that get the conversation moving. It's a great place to get in touch with some other quilt lovers AND, yes, AND, Cara has sponsors each week that do giveaways. How neat is that?!?

I will tell you first hand how neat it is because last night I WON! Yup, little ol' me won a layer cake of this beautiful stuff!


I'm so excited that this fabric gets to come live with me. At least until I turn it into something even more fun than a pile of fabric (which is hard come by)! Thanks Cara for letting us all in on the fun.

So again, to join in the chat, get a twitter account and just add #talknt to all your tweets so others can view your comments! Let me know if you have questions and be sure to link up to the Talkin' Tuesdays blog!

Okay, I didn't take enough pictures through this process, but I had to share this yummy recipe! I'm sure many of you have seen Bakerella's cake pops. Now obviously, I don't profess to have abilities in any league of Bakerella's, but I do love desserts! These Cake Bites are super easy to make and even easier to eat!

Ingredients:

• One completed cake, any kind- I have made Devil's Food, White, and I am hoping to try red velvet soon!
• One tub of cream cheese frosting (I have also used peanut butter with a little powdered sugar for sweetness)
• Dipping Chocolate
  

{bake your cake}

{crumble to pieces and mix it with frosting}
{form balls and chill}

{dip in chocolate and devour!}

Now, obviously if you are an over-achiever, you are welcome to make a cake from scratch and make your own frosting. I am not a dessert snob so this way works great for me! :) I did drizzle some with mint chocolate (not pictured) though and would highly recommend it for the mint lover!

#2


This week's finish is a great project because it's so versatile. You can seriously put these on shirts, bags, headbands, and even magnets! AND they are easy-peasy. Introducing: The Twisted Fabric Flower! You can find some different techniques on the fabric flower tutorial here, here, and here.

Basically you need:

• a hot glue gun (and glue!)
• a piece of felt for the back- or any other material
• strips of fabric- I used my leftover scraps from my car seat canopy

Now, there are a bunch of ways to make these flowers, but I chose to tie a knot at the end of my fabric and glue it down to the felt. Then I twisted the fabric and glued it periodically to the felt to keep it secure. When the flower was the size I wanted, I just rolled the rest to the back and covered the felt piece.

{I made each of them a little different. This one got leaves!}

{this one became a magnet- notice the sweet picture of my little girl!}

{and this one turned into a clip}

Seriously SO easy. Now get crafting! And let me know how your flowers turn out!

This week I am in love with Photoshop actions. Through creating my bloggy stuff, I have been finding my way around Photoshop and into the actions.
Basically I went from this:

to this:

in a matter of minutes! It was so quick and I love this picture of my little wiggler so much I made it our family blog header. Thank you Photoshop!

This recipe is one I found on the Kraft website last year and Brian has been requesting it ever since. It's not super hard and we had tons of leftovers. The recipe says it yields 8 cups, but that doesn't seem like that much to me, and I'm sure there were tons of leftovers for the hubs to take for lunches. Anyway, the kraft recipes have usually proved worth trying and this one was definitely a big hit for our family!

Cheesy Chicken & Salsa Skillet

2 cups penne pasta, uncooked

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces

1-1/4 cups Salsa

1 cup frozen corn, thawed

1 large green pepper, cut into short thin strips

1 cup Mexican Style 2% Milk Finely Shredded Four Cheese

• Cook pasta as directed on package.
• Heat large nonstick skillet sprayed with cooking spray on medium-high heat. Add chicken; cook and stir 2 min.
• Stir in salsa, corn and peppers. Bring to boil.
• Simmer on medium-low heat 10 min. or until chicken is done, stirring occasionally
• Drain pasta. Add to chicken mixture; mix lightly.
• Top with cheese. Remove from heat; cover. Let stand 1 min. or until cheese is melted.

Makes 8 Cups

#1


Call me crazy, but part of this craft blog is completing one project for every week of the year! Fifty2Finishes is a post I will hopefully do each week showing a project I finished that week. Note: it will be finished that week, but not necessarily started. I assume some of my quilting projects will take longer than a week to finish.

My first finish for the year is this car seat canopy for my sister-in-law. She had a sweet baby girl four days after Avery was born. This has been sitting on top of my fabric stash for a few weeks waiting patiently until Christmas was over to be done.


I used Riley Blake's Sweet Divinity by The Quilted Fish and I am jealous of how it turned out! I think I'm going to have to make myself another one of these covers with some bright fabric! Maybe with some of this gorgeous fabric I've been dreaming of getting my hands on?

Doesn't it just make your mouth water?

Too bad I've put myself on a guilt trip about buying more fabric before I start using some of what I'm calling a stash. Maybe next month...