Too Cute!

Too cute! That's what I said when I saw some fabric cupcakes similar to these that my sister Bonnie made. I knew I wanted to try a few myself. So I borrowed her pattern and began searching my scraps and project remnants. If you are a do-it-yourself kind of person it is amazing how much one accumulates over the years. Fiber fill...check. Sand...check. Notions, fabric, thread...triple check. Fusible interfacing...oh no...I am a little short. This means a trip to the local craft and cloth center. If you have never been a fabric junkie, you won't understand. I have been clean and sober for many years, due in part to the fact that I have been working and my children have grown up. But now I have time on my hands, and junkies should never frequent the source of their addiction. I managed to make it through the first visit with only a few additional pieces of material to round out my color scheme in the first set of cupcakes. Did she seriously say first set?

Well let me explain. My friend Verna just retired. She was my neighbor for many years and we would often sew for our children in those early years and share our ideas and projects. She had seen my blog about the dresses and decided to make some for her granddaughters. So she invited me to go to the store with her to help her pick out some fabric. Now if the cupcakes are cute as a decoration, why not something seasonal like Christmas cupcakes, or 4th of July. I entered the store and those July 4th fabrics were front and center. I started flashing like Chuck. (Chuck is a Monday night series where this computer geek kid/CIA agent has implanted in his brain information such that when he gets into a dangerous situation his mind sees or flashes before his eyes all the defense moves necessary to attack the situation.) Unlike Chuck, my mind was flashing decorating ideas and fabric combinations for my 4th of July cupcakes.

To top these cupcakes I wanted flags and pinwheels instead of the flowers and ladybugs as on my previous spring decorations. Here is where I ran into a snag, because although I could find the flags and pinwheels, they were on toothpicks and too thick to go into the fabric. Enter problem solver Terry. The children call him MacGyver, and for good reason. I have seen him fix a sea doo by making the broken part out of a tuna fish can and a bean can using some tin snips and screws. I have seen him fix a tractor with a plastic Pepsi bottle. So he is the logical person to ask in this situation. He looked at me point blank and asked "Didn't you ever make blow darts as a kid?" Add juvenile delinquent to his resume. I am certain that I saw the same jungle movies as he did as a kid but somehow missed out on the making of blow darts. It is a good thing he grew up in the late 40's and 50's. Back then little boys had boyscout pocket knives and played Cowboys and Indians. They probably had some mercury in their pocket because it was so cool to roll the ball in the palm of your hand, then put it on the ground and smash it with a hammer, watch it break up into tiny balls all over the place and then collect it again into one ball. It was a time when people would shrug and say, "Boys will be boys!" In today's climate, where a 5 year old is suspended from school for bring a plastic butter knife to show and tell, Terry would probably be on death row for making blow darts. Anyhow, you make blow darts by cutting off a match head and cutting of the head of a straight pin and then pushing the straight pin into the match. Then cut a slit in the other end of the match with a pocket knife and put small pieces of paper to simulate feathers. Put the dart into a straw and blow. For my project however, we cut the head of the match off and inserted one end of the match in the flag or pinwheel and the other end of the match held the beheaded straight pin. This allowed the flag/pinwheel to slide easily into the cupcake. Wow, this really is "Life in the Slow Lane".