When marshmallows die and go to heaven...

I have recently discovered the greatest (and maybe easiest) project Ever!! Homemade marshmallows! I had no idea this was possible. Actually, I had always assumed that marshmallows were chemical filled pillows; granted yummy pillows, but still filled with chemicals. I found a recipe on Pinterest and decided to try it out. Here's the link to the recipe.

It calls for "light corn syrup"which I couldn't find, until a little googling taught me that it means light in colour, not light as in sugar content. I could only find golden corn syrup, so that I what I used. I flavored mine with vanilla. I attempted to make ghosts, but, they didn't look great. I made some that I cut into squares, which turned out great. I have been using them in my hot chocolate all week...

I also tried making some in silicone ice cube molds. I have little heart molds from ikea that I used. I greased them well and put a generous layer of powdered sugar/corn starch mixture on them. I filled a ziplock bag with the marshmallow fluff, cut the corner and filled the mold almost full. When I first tried taking them out I was concerned, they were a bit stuck, however,when I flipped the mold inside out, I realized they stayed intact, even if I needed to pull them a bit.

I then got creative and decided to coat them in chocolate. I just melted chocolate chips and added a bit of crisco to make it runnier and smoother. I attempted to just dip them, but they got messy and didn't look uniform. After a bit of pondering, I cleaned the silicone molds, dried them well and put some chocolate in the bottom of each on. Just about a 1/4 full. I then took the marshmallows and pressed them back into the molds, into the chocolate. This worked great. I tired putting them in the fridge, but the chocolate cracked when I tried to pop them out again. So, I put them in the freezer for 20 min or so. Then they popped out great.

I took mini cupcake liners and dipped them in a tiny bit of food color, mixed with water. Let them dry. And this is what I ended up with...

I think that they could make a great Christmas present for friends. I am going to keep trying and see what different combinations I can find and better ways for the chocolate. In the meantime, I encourage everyone to take an hour (including prep and clean up) to try making your own marshmallows. They're way better than Any store bought ones and are sure to impress everyone!!

 

Homemade Cheese

So, we did it! Mom and I took the plunge and made mozzarella cheese!! It was super easy using the instructions here. The citric acid was easy to find, you can find it at most wine stores. The hard one to find was the rennet, but, it can be ordered on the Internet for cheap. The entire time we were doing it we were sure it must be wrong, nothing seemed to be exactly as the picture.

Here is our version of how it went down...

The final product... Drumroll please....

It turned out exactly as it should!

And throw it on some pizza and you get?

...a masterpiece... This is what my mom made for dinner... I will use mine tonight!!!

Adding it up, it's pretty cheap... You barely use anything other than the milk, so it was probably less than $5 for all the cheese!!

Little Dude's Room

I have been wanting to blog about my little dude's bedroom for quite a while. He is now 2 and a half, so no longer a nursery, but a big boy room. This was a big project and was a lot of work. We had just bought our house and there was still a lot to do. In this room, we had to pull the carpets and baseboards, the room was basically gutted. We were on a very tight budget for this job, after recently purchasing a home and expecting our first child as a young family.

Hubby started by replacing the carpet and baseboards. He went discs end of the roll place and got some carpet a bit cheaper, which hubby installed himself. He also managed to replace the baseboards himself. Then we needed to paint. This was one of the largest project in the room. I had this idea to do big squares and was inspired by colors on all the baby stuff I had gotten!

After we had colors picked out we wanted to do bedding and curtains. With the help of my mom we came up with some great ideas. We went to Ikea and bought a long beige curtain. We also purchased baby duvet, so we just needed to make a cover. When I was looking around at different bedding sets, they were all super cute, but, they were so expensive and included lots of things,such as bumper pads, that I wasn't going to use. Anyways, we also went to the fabric store and bought some fabrics. We brought along our paint chips and choose fabrics with the same sorts of colors. We weren't that concerned about what the patterns were, because the colors would tie it all together.

My mom took the long curtain from Ikea and cut it to a good length for the window, then with the rest She made the front of the duvet. For both, she cut bits of the colorful fabrics and sewed them in strips. We had also purchased a softer fabric, which we used for the back of the duvet. We used some big bright buttons to fasten it closed on the bottom. With the scraps she made some little pillows for the glider chair.

As for the furniture, The crib was a gift from the Inlaws, and we put an old bookshelf in the room, that my dad had made for my mom, years ago. Lastly, we looked everywhere for a dresser/change table. Everything was so expensive. I waited until babies r us had a big sale. When we went they were clearing out a lot of stuff. The one I got was more than 50% off the original price and then the guy loading it in our van took a chip out of the bottom, so we got it even cheaper. It was a great deal!

When we were traveling in the mountains shortly after little dude was born, we found these stuffed animal deer heads. If you can imagine, they were kind of cute. After much debating, we bought one (which we call ray). This however, turned into a bit of a joke, and now we also have a bear hear and a polar bear rug... Overall, I still love his room and like that it is a bit different than other babies room; there is not a "theme" per say, but, just colors that we liked.

 

Safari Birthday

My good friend asked me to help her make her son's first birthday cake. I decided it was the least I could do to celebrate the fact that they had survived their first year together as a family. I was excited to help, but nervous when she said that there would be almost 60 guests at this party! This meant it would have to be much larger than any of the cakes I had made so far.

She choose the theme "safari." After much googling, I came up with a few ideas. The original idea looked somewhat like this. 2 tiers, covered in fondant. On the inside I made a marble cake, chocolate and white cake. It ended up being pretty neat, because when it was cut it looked like zebra stripes. ( just google "zebra cake batter design" and you will see what I am taking about and how to do it). We also decided to do a little smash cake in the shape of a safari hat.

I baked the cakes, leveled and added crumb coat, with the help of my husband, the day before we decorated. Then, I let them set overnight in the fridge to make the icing nice and hard. The key is to cut the "domes" that form while baking all the way off to leave a level top on each cake. Then, put a thick layer of buttercream of the top. Take the second layer, and place it cut side down on the buttercream. It can be pressed a bit to make it completely level on top. Now you have the somewhat smoother bottom on top, which is much easier to ice than the crumbly side that was cut. A generous layer of buttercream is added on the whole cake. This is important because it helps the fondant stick.

I had pre made the fondant with the help of my mom. She has a kitchen aid mixer, so it makes the process much simpler. I made marshmallow fondant, as I mentioned in other posts, however, this time I precoloured them all in the mixer to avoid having to do it by hand again. This simply required a bit of planning to know approximately what I wanted. I did leave one chunk white, so that I had some for extra colors if I decided to make any changes to the design, which inevitably happens.

In the morning, I covered each layer with fondant to make transportation much easier. I finished the safari hat, which was just a small rounded cake, which I had baked in a small well greased metal bowl. I covered it in buttercream and beige fondant, added a few strips and voila, it was done. That was a pretty simple task. I took all the cakes to my Fellow mommy's house and with the help of a 1 year old, 2 year old, a 16 year old sister and a dog, we finished decorating the cakes. I pretty much let my friend have control over the decorations, just helped her with the technical issues, such as how to glue fondant together (with water) and how to clean off cornstarch (with vodka).

The final product ended up being really cute and was definitely a hit at the party.

I learned at least 2 lessons from this project; one, always make sure you know the scope of a project before agreeing to it... And two, I 100% understand why they charge so much for these cakes. If I were charging, I calculated that I spent about $50 on supplies and approximately 10hours planning, baking, making and decorating this cake. This one year old hit the jackpot this year with a $250 present :).

 

Summer fun

I would say that summer is officially over now. Not only is it getting cold (it's only 11c today), but, I am also back in class (my last year of university). I haven't blogged much, for 2 reasons; the first, summer was crazy, the hotel, that we call our house, was busting at the seams all summer. And 2, because I wasn't at school, I wasn't using my Laptop and blogging on the iPad is a bit of a challenge. But, now I am attempting to use a new app to see if I can more easily and efficiently blog.

So, back to the summer; other than lots of guests and mini-trips, we spent a lot of time outside in our garden. We have a lovely rainy summer, so we ended up with quite the harvest. Apples, tomatoes, peppers... It was great. However, it all seems to ripen at the wrong time.

This summer my little harvest began just as some friends from Germany showed up. That means one lucky guest got to spend days helping me can. (thanks t... Hope you still enjoyed your working vacation :) )

We spent days making apple sauce, apple pie filling, salsa, dill pickles and bread and butter pickles. I enjoyed it and now have a cupboard full of jars for the winter. And don't worry, I sent T home with some as well.

I even made my own labels for all the jars. I bought Avery labels and made a simple design using their templates. I learned that if you are looking for cute backgrounds, the best search option I found was "fabrics." this way they had a bit of texture and were generally cute and simple.

Anyways, here is a little picture summary of the canning project. I will update the blog soon with some other exciting projects I have completed recently!

The Friendship Tree Guestbook

As I have mentioned, I co-hosted a shower for my friend this past weekend. I really wanted to have some sort of gift from the guests. After a bit of internet surfing, I found this cute idea for a fingerprint tree guestbook. I thought it would be a great keepsake for K to hang on her wall to see all the time.

Tools used for this project:

Canvas

Acrylic Paint (Brown, white, Pink)

Permanent Ink

Chalk Ink

Letter Stamps

Rub on Stickers

Paint brush

Pencil

Good White Eraser

It is best to paint the entire back ground of the canvas. I did not, but wish I had. This gives the canvas a more finished look and enables you to go back over pencil marks to cover them up. You can simply use white for this, but any colour will work. The beneifit of using acrylic paints is that once they dry you can paint a light colour over a darker one.

I started with a template I found on google. I searched "tree template" and simply copy and pasted one into a word document. I changed the size to match the canvas I had. I printed and cut it out. I traced around it with a pencil. It looked rough but that is fine.

After I was happy with the outline I painted the tree brown. It took me two coats to give it a dark brown colour. I used the littlest brush and just went slow. Sometimes it is easier to follow to paint brush rather than the pencil lines. This will give you smoother edges and you can erase the pencil later. After the brown had dried I used pink to paint the heart. I practiced quite a few times on another sheet so that I was able to make the heart the perfect size to fit the letters in.

After all the painting was done I used rub on stickers for the birds. They can usually be found at any dollar store. They are much more versatille than stamps or stickers. The only negative is that you need to be careful to only rub the sticker you want. Otherwise you may get the edge of the next one and it can be difficult to remove. Rub-ons are great because they can be used on almost any surface. 

Lastly I used letter stamps to stamp the words I wanted. It is important to measure out your space and plan where you want the letters to go, otherwise you may end up running out of space. I used the permanent ink I had from another project for the words. It dries quickly, so there was less chance of it smearing. On either side of the tree I stamped "Kelsey" and "07 July 12," the bride's name and date of the shower. Underneath I stamped "Showering you with wishes today and forever." I happened to have the words "wishes" and "Forever" with my rub-ons, so I used them instead of stamps. It just gave the picture a bit more dimension.

I made a little instruction sheet and placed it all near the door at the shower. The guests used their fingerprints to make leaves on the trees. For this part I used chalk ink. It takes longer to dry but cleans easier and made a much prettier print. I encouraged the guests to practice on an extra sheet first before doing it directly on the canvas.

Finally, each guest signed their name over their print. It may also be a good idea to spray the whole canvas with acrylic sealer to preserve the colours and protect the canvas.

It ended up working well and was a great keepsake for the bride-to-be.

Stamped Napkins

For the Bridal Shower I co-hosted recently, I really wanted to add some personal touches and what better way than with personalized napkins? I wasn't prepared to pay a fortune for someone else to print them, so I researched ways to do them myself and settled on stamping them.

I purchased a large pack of light pink napkins from Ikea and dark purple stamping ink from Michaels. I bought permanent ink because it's fast drying. While at Michaels, I found a "Bridal Shower" stamp in the clearance bin for a couple of dollars. After that I decided to search for a big "K" stamp. I looked everywhere but couldn't find one the right size.

So, I decided to make a potato stamp. I remembered doing this as a kid and thought it would work well. I cut the potato in half, and then cut out my letter. You could draw on your design or even use a cookie cutter to get a perfect design. Mine was simple so I freehanded it. Just remember, if you are doing letters, you need to cut them out backwards.

I took one napkin and used it for practice. Once I knew how much ink and how much pressure I needed, I stamped each napkin. I used to permanent ink so I was able to pile them on top of each other right away. This easy (and cheap!) project took me less than an hour in total. Great addition to your next party.

Princess K's Castle

Yesterday was my good friend's bridal shower. She asked me to be a bridesmaid, so of course I was all over planning to shower. She choose the theme of "Princess;" So, beware, these next few posts include copious amounts of pink and sparkle.

The big centerpeice for this project was the cake pops. I showed how I make cake pops in another post here. This time I followed the exact same process. I wanted everything uniform in white and pink, so I dipped them all in white chocolate or vanilla frosting dip. I decorated them all with pink sugar or pink candy melts. I generally buy all my decorations at Bulk Barn. This way I can buy small amounts of everything, instead of having to purchase big bags. (I hate having left overs.)

I also made "bridal party" cake pops. I used the bride and groom cake pop tutorial that I found here. I made 3 tuxedo ones, to represent the groom and groomsmen. I made the bride like it says, but then did the same in pink to represent the bridesmaids. The groom was easy to make. But I still need a lot of practice piping, so I found the girl ones to be much more difficult.

After all of the cake pops were made I need to make a display. I used floral foam to build a castle. Three placed next to eachother made the base, which I simply wrapped in wrapping paper. I then cut 4 squares, wrapped them in wrapping paper and placed them on top on all 4 corners. At the dollar store I found a foam castle-making kit for children. I bought a few packs of those. And used them to decorate the castle.

I placed the foam castle on a cake board (99cents at bulk barn). I used a skewer to poke the hole for the cake pops.

Here is the final product...

It was a hit at the party. The only issue was that noone wanted to eat them because they were apparently "too pretty!"

Artist Wanna-be

It has been quite a while since I last posted. Summer is here and we have started getting lots of visitors. But, right now we have a bit of down time so I am able to post my latest craft.

Right before we welcomed our first guests of the summer we (almost) finished our basement reno. We just have flooring left to do...but that is going to take a bit more saving. We have a brand new bathroom, which looks beautiful, however it is still a bit sterile . I wanted to add something to the walls to spruce up the space and add some colour. So, I decided to "paint" a picture. Lets clear this up right away; I am not an artist. I can't draw a picture to save my life and even find tracing difficult.

For me, inspiration always comes at strange times. I was giving my son a bath and playing with his bath markers. We were letting the paint drip down the sides of the tub and it looked pretty neat. I thought it would look great as a painting. I hadn't been brave enough to attempt yet, but I had another project on the go for a wedding shower I am hosting for a friend (I'll blog about this in the next week) and had most of the supplies sitting around. I needed a large canvas, acrylic paints (dark blue and white), paint brushes and acrylic sealer spray(found right next to the acrylic paints).

I simply started at the very top and painted about 2 inches with the dark blue with a thick brush. I then added a drop of blue with a few drops of white paint directly onto the canvas. I mixed it drectly on the canvas and painted another inch or so. I overlaped the colours so that they blended a bit. I then added a line with just white. I blended with the colour above just like before. I dripped my brush in water and blended the edges even more.

Once I was happy with the main background, I took the brush and dripped water through the paint from the top. I started with small amounts and held the canvas at a 45degree angle so I could control the flow of water. It was really fun. After letting it dry overnight I sprayed it with acrylic sealer spray  according to the directions on the bottle so that it would be protected in the washroom.

It reminds me of rain through the clouds.

Not bad for a non-artist, eh?

Summer Centerpeices

For my little Dude's birthday I wanted to make some centerpeices for the tables outside. My initial thought was simple vases with spring flowers. But, I thought maybe something a bit more kid friendly was in order. Little Dude had gotten a tiny pinwheel from my inlaws (who live overseas) in their last care package and he loves it. They look simple enough to make, so I googled a few ideas. It turns out, it is pretty much as easy as I had thought.

I have a ton of scrapbooking paper with pretty designs that I have had for years, so I decided that this would be a perfect use for it. Other than that I used chopsticks (save the wooden ones you get when you order chinese food) and a thumb tack. I used the directions here.... Well, actually, it was the day before Little Dude's party, so Hubby put them together for me!

One they were together, I took the jars that I had made (check them out here), filled them with a bit of sand from the sandbox and stuck the pinwheels in. Any jar would work though, or even a bucket from the sandbox or a glass.

They were a cute addition to the party, and everyone had fun playing with them afterwards.

Label Spring

Recently, I decided to take a stab at gardening. I had tried last year and failed miserably. I attribute it partly to my cat and the other part to the mosquitoes that prevented me from doing doing anything outside. Last years attempt was somewhat lacking, I never really put a lot of effort into it. However, since then our backyard had been redone and I had the perfect place for a garden. The whole yard looks so nice and I didn't want little plastic markers in my garden ruining it. I searched the Internet for ideas for garden markers. I found a great site here with lots of ideas. I really liked the spoons, but don't have any antique spoons.

So, Hubby helped me work out a new idea. At work he cut me little brass tags. We got a little metal stamping set for about $15 at Princess Auto. You just hold it in place and hammer it. I practiced a bit first, but it was really simple.

We bought a big long wooden baseboard for about $12, and I (yes all by myself, with a saw and everything) cut it like this...

I cut along all of the red lines. This way I had a point to stick into the ground and there was very little waste. I tried to get them all the same length. I was relatively successful, however, you wouldn't notice when you push them into the ground anyways.

I sanded the rough edges off, and stained them. I think they would look great painted, or left natural looking as well. Hubby sprayed all the stakes and copper tags with a protective spray, to keep them nicer outside. They definately aren't perfectly coated, but this will allow them to slowly weather. I want them eventually to look a bit antiquey (If thats a word...). He then took some cooper wire and wrapped it around a few times, and hung the tag on it. You can find the wire at any home improvement store.


They look so cute in the garden.

They were easy to do, but a bit time consuming.

On a side note - my garden is doing great. I already harvested my first bit of Rhubarb

I'll keep everyone updated on the progress of my garden!

Happy Gardening Everyone!

Pièce de Résistance - The Cake

This year, I had big plans! I wanted to make cake pops. I spent hours googling pictures and getting ideas for different kinds of cake pops. However, my one concern was that they would be too sweet for everyone- the traditional way including rolling icing and cake crumbles together. My mom had seen this cake pop maker and bought it for me one day. This way they would be fluffier and lighter.

I assembled the troops Saturday, the day before the party. I recruited everyone who was home at my parents, my mom, sister and Grandma and Grandpa who were visiting from Ontario. We started by mixing 3 seperate batters that are found in the recipe book included: chocolate, vanilla and lemon. Vanilla and lemon made really thick batters, so I poured them in a freezer ziploc bag (it needs to be the heavy duty ones or it will break on you) and cut the corner. This allowed me to pipe them into the machine quickly and with much less mess. The chocolate one was much runnier, so I put it in a measuring cup; This made it easy to pour into the machine. The trick I found with all batters was to pour as much in as possible without it spilling over and don't open the machine for atleast a minute. One baked I placed the cake pops in the tray provided with the machine to keep them round, but ran out of room quickly. I found that putting them in egg cartons was almost as effective at keeping them round. Then we let them cool for a few minutes.

If you don't have a cake pop machine, then you could always use these directions here. This shows the traditional way to make them, and you don't need any special tools.

After they were cool, we needed to put the sticks in. I used the lollipop sticks that came with the cake pop maker (you can always find some more at Michaels) and long wooden skewers, because we needed some on longer sticks (and we had those lying around). We dipped the sticks in chocolate and stuck them in the cake ball. Then they went into the freezer for about 15minutes. This makes them easier to work with and ensures that they do not fall off the sticks.

Then it was time to dip them in icing. I used the recipes here from the book that came with the cake pop maker. We did chocolate icing and vanilla glaze. Both were extremely easy to work with. The only challenge was finding the best consistency. Too warm and it dripped too much, too cool and it wasn't smooth.

Right after dipping they were decorated with sprinkles, nuts, toasted coconut, toffee bits...pretty much
whatever we had. I bought some cool sprinkles at Bulk Barn, but not nearly enough. It worked to roll the pops in the toppings, but sprinkling some on the tops also looked neat. I left a few with just plain chocolate, and later I melted blue candy melts (from Bulk Barn) and piped on designs with a piping bag, using the smallest tip I had.

We needed space to have the cake pops dry. They had to stand straight us so they didn't have an indent on the top. Using egg cartons, we poked holes in the top and filled the bottom with rice (to ensure that they didn't tip over). They then went in the fridge for a few minutes to make sure they were good and set.

The next challenge was transport. I had made them at my parents house because they have much more space. But, the party was at my house. My Step-Dad came up with the great idea of placing styrofoam on the bottom of a giant cooler and poking the cake pops in. This kept them upright and cool. It worked perfectly and they all survived the 20km trip home.

Once home I made the display. I had already bought a flower pot and floral foam (can find both at the Dollar Store). I filled the bottom of the pot with the floral foam and then started sticking the cake pops in. I was going for a "flower arrangement." Basically put the longer ones in the middle and used shorter ones as I went around.

Here is how it turned out.... Like?!

I also made a cake just for Little Dude. I baked a small cake directly in a flower pot. Once it was done baking I crumbled the cake a bit to look like dirt. I then added a few gummy worms coming out. Cake Pop in the middle, candles and viola! I wanted him to be able to blow out the candles, which he couldn't do on the big arrangement. Here is his little cake!

Lastly, I needed to have something to serve extras. So, I wrapped a peice of floral foam in brown paper, tied a ribbon around it. I secured the ribon with a thumb tack I found at the Dollar Store. Then I just stuck in a few cake pops.

It was good I did because the cake pops went fast!

Overall, the party was a success and the cake pops were a hit! Everyone loved them and they are perfect for a kids birthday party. No forks, plates and clean-up later...well maybe a bit of laundry...

Hydrating and Feeding the Guests

This year I did a spring/garden theme. It was Mother's Day and a 2 year old birthday, so I needed it to fit both occassions. Spring could be a girly theme, so I made attempts to make it better for a little boy. One thing I have wanted to try out for a long time is old fashioned lemonade. I looked everywhere for a recipe I liked landed on this one - here. It's sparkling raspberry lemonade. It was festive and fresh, for the hot day we had.

I also spent the week making ice cubes (I only have one ice cube tray). I froze raspberries and lemon in ice. I used fresh lemons and frozen raspberries. My first batch of raspberry ice cubes, I just dropped raspberries in the water and froze it together. The water turned really red from the juice, as they defrosted slightly. The berries became hidden in the cube and didn't have the impact I wanted. I tried half freezing the cubes but, that also did not look perfect. For the last attempt I filled the trays half way with water, took them out, placed the berries on top and poured ice water over it to freeze it the rest of the way. The lemons I just tossed in the water and froze it all together. In the end they both turned out great!

I also wanted some snack foods, but we were having an early dinner and didn't need anything big. I decided on a veggie tray. I just cut up veggies like usual and added dip in the center. It didn't match the theme, so I added gummy worms around and veggies. It made it more fun and was perfect for a 2 year old boy's birthday party.

Everyone left full and hydrated at the end of the day!

Birthday Ballon Wreath

It's Official, my little dude is now 2! We had a little gathering yesterday with family and I thought I'd share a few of my projects.

One of my first projects I did this year is a ballon wreath. It was pretty simple. All I needed was a straw wreath, any ribbon, which I got at Micheals (just make sure to rip the coupon out of the paper, you can even pick one up at the store) floral picks and a large bag of ballons, which you can get at Walmart, or the dollar store. I used approximately 70 ballons.

I just wrapped the wire from the floral picks around the base of the ballon and then stuck it in to the wreath. Overlap the ballons, so you cover most of the wreath. It took me a couple times of moving ballons to get it to look nice.

One the ballons were all around I just took a peice of ribbon and tied it around.

I hung it on the gate so that all of our guests saw it as they arrived! It was a big hit. The best thing about it is that I can put it away and use it again next year. Only 364 days and my little dude will be 3!!

Tell everyone I'm TWO!

Little Dude is going to be 2 on Sunday! I can hardly believe it. I wanted him to have a special shirt for his birthday, but I also wanted him to be able to wear it again. Most shirts say "It's my birthday," "Birthday Boy," and that type of thing...not what I was looking for. Therefore, I decided to make him one myself.

I bought a plain white shirt from Old Navy for a few dollars (its the baby sale - 30% off everything!!) and took a scrap peice of fabric from my mom's quilting box. You could use just about anything though. An old dress shirt, skirt or some other peice of clothing that you will never wear again. Anything with a large enough space to cut out your number (or letter depending on your project). I printed off a letter in Antique Olive Compact font, approximately size 500 as a template. Lastly, you need some fusible webbing. Fusible webbing is great stuff. It is basically a plastic fiber sheet to attach two fabrics together using an iron.

I cut the peice of fabric and fusible webbing large enough to accomodate the number I had printed. Try not to let the fusible webbing hang over the sides of the fabric or you might end up melting it to your ironning board. You pull off one side of the plastic and iron it to the backside of your fabric. While it is cooling, cut out your number template. I drew my template on the fabric before I cut it, but you could also just pin it on or freehand it. Make sure you draw it on the fabric side rather than the side with the fusible webbing, otherwise you'll get a backwards number. Cut the fabric number out. Pull off the paper from the fusible webbing and place it on the t-shirt. Then simply iron it on. Let it cool and voila!

I sewed a little border on with the sewing machine, but it didn't really need it. Here is how the back looks!

The front looked a bit boring so I decided to put a little two on the front pocket. I followed the same steps. I love the way it looks and can't wait for Little Dude to wear it on his birthday. I showed him...he seemed quite indifferent about it, I'm sure he loves it deep down.