Carrot Pineapple Cake

My dad turned 70 on Monday and I hosted a birthday party for him. I attempted to make it a surprise party but when I realized that I needed to get some addresses from him I had to tell him. When I told him he said," The surprise will be if anyone shows up!" Lots of family and friends showed up and we had a really good time. My dad has three favorite desserts - Carrot Cake, Apple Pie and Ice Cream.  I have made my dad carrot pineapple cake every year for his birthday for as long as I can remember. When his mother turned 50 he made her the same cake and served it on a milk glass cake stand that he bought as her gift and that I now have and serve the cake to him on it every year.

Carrot Pineapple Cake

Ingredients for Cake:

2 cups Flour

2 cups Sugar

2 tsp. Baking Powder

1 1/2 tsp. Baking Soda

2 tsp. Cinnamon

1 10oz crushed pineapple, drained

2 cups Grated Carrots (the grocery stores sells grated carrots!)

1 tsp. Salt

1 1/2 cups oil

4 eggs

1/2 cup Walnuts, chopped

Ingredients for Frosting:

1 8oz package of Cream Cheese, softened

1/2 cups Butter, softened

4 cups Powdered Sugar

2 tsp. Vanilla

Milk (if needed)

1 cup Walnuts, chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Mix dry ingredients together. Mix in oil and eggs. Fold in the carrots, pineapple and nuts.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes in 2 greased and floured 9" round cake pans. Cool for 10 minutes then remove from pans and let cool completely on a cooling rack lined with parchment or wax paper. I do this so that it is easy to pick up and move to my cake stand to decorate.

Frosting:

Mix the softened Cream Cheese and Butter together. Add Powdered Sugar one cup at a time. Add Vanilla. If the frosting is a little thick you can add  1 tsp of milk at a time to get the right consistency.

Use a small amount of the frosting to use as a filling. Frost the outside of the cake with remaining Frosting. Add the chopped walnuts to the outside of the cake.

If you ask my dad how he is doing with out fail he will always say, "Not bad for an old guy!" I hope you enjoy the Carrot Pineapple cake as much as my dad and I do!

 

Logo Polo Upcycled to Decorative T-Shirt

In Arizona April, May, September and October are wedding months. So the past month and a half I had wedding flowers to design every weekend on top of Easter, Secretaries Day and Mothers Day. Normally I work around 25 to 30 hours. Two week in a row I worked 60 hours each week. So no time to post and no time to create anything new. I actually designed this shirt back in March and I am finally at a point that I can post about it! (And hope that I remember how I did it)

So I have several polo shirts with logos on them that have been hanging in the back of my closet since I stopped working for the company. I knew I could upcycle them some how! So for this transformation I used 2 shirts. Start off by cutting the collar off of one of the shirts.

Next you will add this wonderful product called Steam-A-Seam 2. You will apply all the way around the edge of the collar of the shirt.

Next take off the backing of the Steam-A-Seam 2 and fold it over. Now you will use your iron to steam the seam. This will activate the adhesive and leave you with a nice finished edge. The Steam-a-Seam 2 helped the collar no not pucker when sewing and I didn't have to pin it down. Just for kicks I decided to sew a seam for a more finished look. 

Here is the finished look.

Now you will use the second shirt. First cut off the bottom edge. Next cut a 4 inch section out of the middle of the shirt. You will now have a tube/circle. Take the tube/circle and cut once to make a long strip.

Sew a Gathering stitch down the center of the strip leaving long threads at each end for gathering. 

Fold the strip in half with the stitch in the center. Using the bottom thread pull to gather the strip to make a ruffle. 

Pin the ruffle on the outside of the logo in a circle. Sew the ruffle to the shirt. Before you close the circle start to turn the ruffle 1/4 inch inside of the circle. At this point you will keep turning and sewing and turning and sewing till you get to the center of the flower. when you get to the center of the flower make a few back stitches to hold it in place. 

Here is the finished flower. Once I tried the shirt on I felt the flower was a little off centered. So I added another flower. 

After washing the shirt the flowers scrunched up a little bit and I could now see the edges of the logo. So I then stitched down the outer edge of the flower to hide the logo. I now look at shirts with logos at the thrift store a little differently and wonder what can I do to hide that logo. I hope you enjoy transforming one of your polo shirts into a t-shirt or covering up a logo just as much as I have!