Tackle It on Tuesday: Homemade Pizza Sauce

This past week I tackled - Homemade Pizza Sauce

One thing my family loves to eat is pizza, especially homemade pizza! We keep our pizza pretty basic: homemade pizza dough, homemade pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, little bit of cheddar cheese, and Parmesan cheese.

On the day that I have made up a batch of sauce, of course we will have pizza that night for dinner.

Homemade pizza and pizza sauce

I bet you are wondering how I freeze up the rest of that pizza sauce. So glad you asked! I take individual snack size bags and put in about 1/4-1/2 cup of sauce. I just kind of eyeball it, no magic here. Then all of those individual bags, I place them in one big freezer bag.

Homemade pizza sauce, ready for the  freezer

Then that one big freezer bag hangs out in my freezer with all of that wonderful pizza sauce, ready for the next time we have homemade pizza. One nice thing about storing the pizza sauce in those individual snack size bags? Makes thawing quick and easy. 

Yes, we do like to get pizza from our favorite pizza place in town. But having the ingredients on hand for homemade pizza makes it do-able to have a homemade dinner in about an hour. 

To tackle this week - Letters from Scrap Fabric

One project I have pinned is to make Letters from Scrap Fabric. Since I have quite a bit of scrap fabric, I thought this would be a good way for me to use up some of my scrap fabric and make a fun project to sell to earn money for my next Compassion trip.

Letters from Fabric Scraps project

Think this is something you would like to purchase? Be sure to like my Facebook page, Gifts from Our Little Corner, where I am selling homemade items to earn money for my Compassion travels. Then check back next week to see how I tackled this project!

What project are you working on this week?

Fabric Marble Maze Tutorial

If you follow me on Pinterest, you may have seen me pin a marble maze on my gift ideas board. I meant to take a peek at that pin before I put these together, but I decided to give it a shot on my own and see what I could come up with.

We have a lot of little ones at our church and every now and then, some little person likes to sit with us during church. I have been trying to come up with ideas to keep in my church bag to keep these little people occupied if they start to get a little fidgety.

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First off, I cut out 8 inch squares of 4 pieces of material, a print for the top, a piece for the back and 2 squares of flannel for the middle. I decided to make these with 4 layers of material, this way the marble has a chance of staying within the fabric a little longer.

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Then, put the four layers of fabric together, prints will be right sides together, with a square of flannel against the wrong side of each print.

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I like to pin things together, the pieces don't seem to shift as much while you are sewing them together.

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A quarter inch seam all the way around should do the trick, just make sure to leave an opening.

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Clip the corners, this helps the corners to lay down a little bit nicer. Then turn the square right side out.

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After pressing the seams, make sure you put a marble inside your square between the layers of flannel.

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Then sew all the way around the square about a 1/4 inch from the edge.

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Now here is the fun part! Creating the maze! With a standard size marble (we found a bag at our local Dollar Store), you will want to allow about 1 to 1 1/4 inch pathway for the marble. Using a pencil and a ruler, lightly draw your maze on the top print side of your fabric.

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After you have drawn your maze, sew on your pencil markings. You may have to move the marble around a little bit while sewing.

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Slip stitch the opening and you now have a fabric marble maze! You can make these any size you wish, and because the material is all cotton, you can just throw them in the laundry if they get dirty.

What have you been crafting lately?

Baby Wash Cloth Tutorial

Last week, I shared with you how to make a flannel baby blanket. If you made the blanket, you know there will be some extra flannel material. I have been using the extra flannel material to make baby washcloths!

The steps are very similar to making a blanket, just a little smaller this time.

Find a coordinating terry cloth material to go with your flannel print. You will not find a lot of choices for terry cloth at the fabric store, so just pick something that will match most of the flannel you have on hand.

I use my quilting tools to cut out 6 inch squares from the flannel print and terry cloth.

With right sides of one flannel print and one terry cloth square pinned together, I take my scissors and slightly round each of the corners.

Time to move to the sewing machine! I use about a 1/4 inch seam on these, but remember to leave an opening to turn these right side out!

Clip each of the corners like you did for the blanket.

Pull in the right side out through the opening you left.

Give each wash cloth a press with the iron.

Back to the sewing maching to zig-zag stitch around.

Time for some thread and a needle to stitch closed that opening.

Ta da! In less than one hour and for less than $5, you can have a really nice homemade baby gift!