Yummy Apple Strudel Muffins

I made these muffins this afternoon and they are delicious! Just the right amount of sweetness without being like a cake. Perfect for cold mornings or cloudy afternoons!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 cups chopped apples (I actually shredded mine so that I wouldn't have to worry about Verity getting a big piece of apple)

Strudel Topping:

• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/3 cup oats
  
• 1 tablespoon melted butter

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 12 cup muffin pan or put in liners.
2. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
3. In a large bowl, beat together butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until smooth. Stir in apples and gradually blend in the flour mixture. Spoon the mixture into the muffin pan.
4. In a small bowl, mix brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, oats, and butter. Mix until crumbly. Sprinkle over tops of mixture in muffin pan.
5. Bake 23-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
6. Cool on a wire rack.

Quick & Cute Scarf

Some of you may have seen tutorials around the web to make freece scarves and, like me, thought "What a fun and easy idea. But .... I don't wear scarves." That's when you make your 9387th item of clothing for your little girl. So here are the changes that I made and how I made it.

Materials:

• 3 stripes of fleece (different colors make it more fun)
• sewing machine or needle & thread
• scissors or pinking shears

Instructions:
1. Cut 3 stripes of fleece into 30" x 3". {Keep in mind that I have a petite 2 year old.} Put them in whatever order you want and stack them on top of each other.
2. Sew a single seam down the middle of the strips of fleece. Make sure you reinforce the beginning and the ends of your seams.

This is what it will look like after you sew it.

3. Cut every one inch down each side of the scarf making sure that you don't go too far and snip your stitch. I used my pinking shears to make it look fancier.

I made one of these for Charissa and another for one of her closest friends. The hardest part of the whole thing was getting the pink fleece fuzzies off me.

A Fun New Baby Quilt

I made this baby blanket for a little girl that is due around Thanksgiving. All the fabrics for the quilt top are from AC Moore and then I put a fuzzy pink backing on it.



I really like the zig-zag detailing on top. It was really easy to put together; the hardest part was doing all the cutting and then ironing on the appliques with Heat 'n' Bond.

I can't wait to greet a certain little lady with this blanket!

The Cutest Broom You Ever Did See

At least that's what our friend Thomas says about it. But there is a story behind it. I don't know what the Terminix man used the last time he came, but it attracted TONS of beetles to our house, and then they would die right there on our porch. Dozens of them every night. So we had a broom on our porch all the time to get rid of the carcases. After about 3 days I was tired of staring at the ugly thing, and I decided to give it a facelift. Here's the old broom:
I spray painted the handle/stick brown ...

... and then attached these bunches of berries, flowers, and things where the straw is sewn together.

Cute huh? We don't have the bug problem anymore, but I'm leaving it out because I like it so much. After Thanksgiving I'm going to have to find a new home for it I guess.

And in case you were wondering what my kids were up to while I was doing this, here's an image:
Yup, Verity dumped a bunch of clothes out the of their hanging system. Oh well. Clothes are easy to fold and put back. :)