Hi everyone!

For my cousin's 20th birthday, her sister and I spent several hours making her a Mad Hatter bag. We found a fabric piece from the Disney movie at a Walmart on our last forrage to the States, and it pretty much screamed Tanya (she's been obsessed with the tea party scene and the mad hatter from Alice in Wonderland for forever now, so it seemed like a good theme to go with). I should mention now that we are not specifically adept at sewing... so we had to search craftster for an easy tutorial for a bag that my cousin would actually use. She's usually pretty picky about her purses and theres specific qualifications (pocket size, strap length, ect) that are required. Thankfully, I ended up finding a really well made tute by Lady Bag!! You can find it, along with her tutes for piping and magnetic snaps here: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=178582.0






These are the only pictures I took before we gave it to her (did I mention that we left this until the weekend before her birthday... yeah) I'm sorry if the quality isn't good!



the front pocket


the main pocket (not opened fully, I could fit 2 large bags of cookies, another smaller bag and some Alice figurines in there, as well as a card... so its pretty hefty 



the button that doesn't actually do anything! \o/


In all, there are 8 layers of fabric. The lining is a red thin cotton, the main part of the bag is actually black denim, and the chevrons are a stripey fabric that I found at my local value village a couple of years ago. The main pocket and the front pocket have an iron-on interfacing, as well as a sew-in interlining for added durability. Also, the pocket and main pockets of the bag both have those super fancy magnetic snaps. We decided to opt out the hoops for the strap, as well as the edging around the main pocket of the bag.

As I mentioned before, we're both pretty novice when it comes to sewing and interlining(we prefer glue guns and safety pins  ), so we're both super proud that it came out the way it did. I hope you guys like it! It's not perfect, but we figure that it's a mad hatter bag and it deserves to be a little wacky and imperfect 

Every year my entire extended family gathers for Easter, and last year was the first time in 17 years I had missed it. Needless to say, I felt horrible about having to work, which resulted in creating these as compensation... (I think my family got the better deal out of this )

(also - ignore the time stamp on the pictures, the camera was having issues  )


Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting


Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting


It ended up being pretty easy. There are both chocolate and vanilla bunny cupcakes with pull-n-peel (licorice) ears, and smartie eyes and noses.



To make their cheeks (noses? mouths?) I just spooned some buttercream icing into a ziplock baggie and cut a hole in one of the edges for a makeshift icing bag.


I've seen pictures around before in various baking magazines, so I thought I would try them out. It definately helped ease the guilt! AND they were really fun/delicious to make haha

Happy Easter guys!