Homemade Crockpot Apple Butter, Homemade Vanilla, and a No Sew Tutu

This weekend was pretty busy but somehow I managed to get some apple butter made, started some homemade vanilla which I plan to give out for Christmas, and made a tutu for my niece's birthday!




Homemade Crockpot Apple Butter
12 apples (I used gala)
1/2 cup water
 1/2 cup brown sugar
 2 tsp cinnamon
 1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp allspice

 Start by peeling and chopping the apples. Put them in the crockpot toss them with the remaining ingredients and cook on low for 12 hours. I let mine cook overnight, and the house smells like apple heaven! When they are cooked down, turn the crockpot to high and leave the lid halfway off. This lets the apple butter thicken up. Let it cook like that for 3 hours.

 Some people like to put theirs in a blender and make it smooth, I took my potato masher and mashed it up. I like some chunks in there. I then canned it, it made 2 1/2, 1/2 pints. This is a great Christmas present!

Homemade Vanilla

 I am not sure I have ever had homemade vanilla, it has always been imitation so I can't wait to give some of this out and bake with it!

 1 750 ml bottle of vodka
 12 vanilla beans

 I put my vodka in an empty tea jar. Then I sliced 12 vanilla beans down the middle and added them to the vodka. I won't know the results for another week but the longer it sits, the better. It should be perfect by Christmas!

No sew Tutu

 I came across this picture

My sister has a thing for anything watermelon, even her baby shower was watermelon themed. So when I saw this picture I knew my niece needed this outfit for her 1st birthday party! A friend of mine is making the onesie, and I bought the headband and decided to learn how to make the tutu. It wasn't hard and thankfully this blog post helped a lot. It isn't perfect by any means but I like it and I proved to myself I can do anything if I have a tutorial haha

I used a book because I don't have any cool sewing dummies, the book was the perfect measurement all around. I tied on the tulle all the way around.

I added on some cloth strips to give it some more color.

I then tied some ribbon on, and hot glued some onto the waist.

I can't wait to see it on her!!!