Happy Halloween!
November 1, 2009 at 1:34 am | In Crafty, Family, Sewing, holiday | 3 Comments
This was the most fun Halloween we’ve had in years! At 4 this was the year that Clark not only embraced his costume, but also was thrilled by the trick or treating (last year we did about 5 houses and that was it, though he did love his costume) At 2, having an older sibling, Tabby was also excited by it. She also has a monstrous sweet tooth and was nutty about the candy. And of course, since it’s a Saturday and Paul was actually off of work, the whole day was a fun holiday.
We all painted masks:
Ate loads of cookies that we baked and decorated yesterday:
At nursery school Clark has been gearing up for Halloween big time. Crafts and songs and stories, all culminating in the Halloween parade and party on Thursday.
Bat made with hands:
Mummy:
We don’t decorate too much around the house, except for a string of spider lights.
And of course we’ve had some pumpkins and gourds about for a while now:
And now, the main event: trick or treating.
In our little village Halloween is a huge event. We’ve only lived here 6 years, but my friend who’s grown up here assures me it’s always been a big deal and in recent years has really exploded. It’s somewhat inexplicable, but it’s absolutely delightful and we’re happy to be a part of it. In the village center of 3 streets hundreds of people wander the streets trick or treating. Grown-up dress up just as much as kids (I’m thinking that next year we might; my favorite grown up costumes this year were Paul Stanley and Luke Skywalker with Yoda attached to his back ) and many of the houses have lavish decorations. One of my favorites is this tree with a headless horseman. What’s so awesome about it is that this house was sold 2 years ago and the new owners continued to create this decoration:
This picture is a bit blurry, but I include it so you can see that the tree itself looks like a horse:
Spoooooky:
Here we are ready to walk down to town (note: it was a bit rainy now and then, a very damp walking around.) Clark requested a pink and purple Tyrannosaurus Rex costume and Tabby was a cow (Clark’s costume from 2 years ago, but I made a new hat with more authentic ears) I sewed the main part based on last year’s giraffe costume and Paul masterfully made the headpiece. He really loved wearing it and roaring.
On the way we stopped in at Walter’s (the feed and seed) and he had a wonderful “treat” for us: his pig, Cheyenne, had her babies! They are 3 weeks old and were possibly some of the cutest baby animals I’ve ever seen. They were like puppies. None of my pictures came out very well, so a word picture instead: they are all black, have floppy triangular ears, little round behinds, and little tails with just a slight curl at the end. Their mother is humongous. Seriously large.
On to the houses and the candies. Clark was not at all hesitant about marching right up to the doors all by himself and nicely saying “trick or treat”, “thank you”, “Happy Halloween!”. Tabby couldn’t bring herself to say anything, but was quite happy to help herself to the candy.
Lots of fun, lots of nice town spirit, lots of really good candy.
Happy Halloween!
It’s Her Party and She’ll Cry if She Wants To*
October 19, 2009 at 1:10 am | In Cookery, Crafty, Entertaining, Family, Recipes | 1 Comment
Yesterday we had a birthday party for Tabitha’s 2nd birthday (which is actually still 2 days away.) Last year we had a small brunch, but this year decided to have a few more people, even though we knew that with the iffy weather it was likely everyone would be indoors. They were, but that was fine. In fact, I’d have to say the whole party was a nice big fun raucous success. And cozy, too, because we had a nice fire going. Raucous because there were ten 3-4 year olds running around, not to mention four 1 1/2-2 year olds.
Here was the menu:
Hors d’ouvres: Hummus, Pita and pretzels, Carrot Dip, and pigs in blankets. What is carrot dip, you ask? Only the most delicious dip ever. An old friend of mine used to make this and I swear we could just gobble up a bowl and a bag of pretzels while eating a movie. The recipe is simply 2 carrots in the food processor, then add an 8 oz bar of cream cheese, whiz it around until nice fluffy, add in a dash of garlic powder, a good tablespoon of lemon juice, and 1/2 tsp (or more) of minced dried onion. You can add milk to think it out, but I had some extremely juicy carrots so didn’t add any. It’s a beautiful pale pinky orange color and it is very yummy.
Main food: a ham. Everyone loves a ham. And I had little rolls so you could make little sandwiches. Then I also had macaroni and cheese, sweet spinach salad, oriental salad, deviled eggs, and a green salad. No one touched the plain boring green salad, but they gobbled up the other two. The spinach salad was great-a recipe from Taste of Home and it had an orange poppy seed dressing. The oriental salad was that salad with the broken up ramen noodles in it, shredded cabbage and carrots, and the sweet tangy dressing. (I used a recipe from Cooking Light, but this is a pretty common recipe you could probably find anywhere.) I thought it all went nicely together.
The cake: First, in addition to the cake I made brownies and lemon bars. I tried a new lemon bar recipe-this one had cottage cheese in the filling. They were fantastic. So, on to the cake. This was a decorating thing I saw in a magazine and saved for quite a while. Unfortunately the pictures are not great (we have many wonderful photos of our family, but never great pics from our parties. I guess we are too busy hostessing and I finished the cake so late in the day I didn’t properly photograph it.) Basically it is frosted white and then there is pretzel fencing and little frosted animal crackers grazing on the top (on green coconut grass.) (Also, apparently the lens was slightly smudged. Really this was a cute cake, much cuter than the picture makes it out to be!!!)
Hilariously, it had not occurred to me that the animal crackers would be a huge draw. As soon as the cake came out five little boys started shouting “I WANT ONE OF THOSE!” and reaching out to the flaming cake. Good thing we had extras. The birthday girl enjoyed her cake very much, especially getting to taste frosting and the custard filling at many stages along the way before we actually cut into it.
As for party favors, I made caramel apples and tied them up with red ribbon. They came out beautifully but I will admit that when I went to eat one today it was a huge mess and the caramel was too gooey and I suspect that no one enjoyed theirs at home either. (But hopefully everyone will be too polite to say so. 
My favorite part thing was the “Happy Birthday” display pictured at the top. This was in this month’s Parents magazine as a Thanksgiving decoration (spelling out “Give Thanks”.) I gathered sticks, painted them, and then drew and cut out the circles and letters and hot glued them to the sticks. The vases are filled with split peas. I am so taken with this decoration and indeed going to use it for Thanksgiving and spell out a different message.
*In fact, she did not cry at all, but had a very good time. She celebrated her party day by not taking a nap and instead climbing out of her crib for the first time (and somehow lifting her doll’s stroller up into her crib.) Very pleased with herself about that. Here she is all worn out after the party and opening her presents:
A Lot of Catching Up, A Lot of Pictures
July 20, 2009 at 2:01 am | In Chickens, Crafty, Family, Gardening, Sewing | 4 CommentsI’ve been back for a few days now and very eager to post about our garden, our chickens, sewing, etc, but the need for sleep has consistently won out. So, this will be a long and photo filled post. Speaking of photos, I was able to add photos to my last post, so check it out so you don’t miss seeing Mr. Toad (who is not to be confused with Big Green Froggie.)
So, I’m back. And in a mere six days the garden exploded even more. Apparently we harvest two zucchini, a large cucumber, and a cherry tomato. Which probably doesn’t sound like a lot, but it means things are producing!
I didn’t realize we planted butternut squash (my favorite squash), so this was a wonderful surprise hiding under all those gigantic squash leaves and blossoms:
Another surprise–we forgot we planted tomatilloes, but look what we found!
The green beans are abundant and delicious. Clark is even loving them. The corn was astonishing. It may have literally grown a foot in that time and also all of a sudden there are actual ears of corn on it. I can’t wait until they are nice and big and ready to eat.
I was glad I took pictures on Friday afternoon because Friday evening we had an incredible storm. I actually wonder if it might have been a microburst? It left a fair amount of damage in a pretty localized area. In our yard we had a tree down and half of our corn knocked over (but not uprooted or cracked, so we were able to straighten it.) We also lost power from about 9pm to 2am. A drive through town showed that lots of rather large trees had been downed here and there.
As for our flowers, they look good overall. Some areas of the garden I’m definitely mentally marking for improvement next year with more perennials added. A big disappointment was in a little bed that I usually plant with annuals and let it get big and colorful. Last year I had impatients, but in prior years I did zinnias, cosmos, marigolds, morning glories. I preferred that so this year planted all that again and I have but a few zinnias and all the marigolds died. And one single morning glory is blooming (and it’s not even a Heavenly Blue.)
Another surprise waiting for me? Our chickens are now all free range. Apparently the little ones started flying out of the coop and then the ones left behind would get all mad and noisy. I suppose we could clip their wings, but they are actually doing pretty well keeping to our yard (only one crossed the road) and Pippin has not hurt them (though he follows them around.) And see how frightened they are of him?
And the big news? On Thursday two of the little hens laid their first eggs!! We collected five that day (the three older ladies + two of the littles) and on another day we got one little one, and today we got five again. It’s very clear which ones are the little hens-the eggs are small and a darker brown color. So good for them, and especially good for them that they are laying in their nesting boxes.
On the crafty front….my return from this last conference means that I now have a lot more free time. A lot. And I have promised myself all year that I would now delve further into projects for myself, specifically sewing things. I made a good start this summer with the aprons and the dresses for Tabitha, and now I intend to do more. I’ve got a bunch of baby projects lined up for one thing. Today I visited Pennington Quilt Works, which was a beautiful store with loads of gorgeous fabrics all attractively arranged. Lots of the stuff I admire online at fatquartershop.com and fabric.com was there, including Amy Butler designs and Moda stuff. So I bought a bunch more stuff and then went over to my friend’s house for a little tutorial on using the rotary cutter. Thank you, Pookie! I also ordered funky Christmas fabric from the Christmas in July sale at fabric.com.
Paul was super handy today: he went to the hardware store, came home, and built the kids a seesaw! Clark loves it, Tabby is sort of afraid of it, and I will have decent thighs in approximately one month given what a hideous workout it provides to your quads if you are an adult and solely responsible for the up down action of the seesaw.
Friday we went to Ocean Grove for a day at the beach. The water was icy, but Paul and I both went in. The highlight was finding Crabby.
Other recent pics I took and like:
And finally, today is the 7 year anniversary of my first date with Paul. I’m thinking fond thoughts of our dinner at Martino’s, our hilarious coffee at Brewed Awakening, and what a wonderful start it was to the beginning of our lives together.
Garden Poetry
May 6, 2009 at 2:09 am | In Crafty, Decoupage, Gardening | Leave a CommentLast year Paul gave me a wonderful kit for making “garden poetry”–basically a make your own brick with letters to spell out words on them. It took a whole year, but I finally used it! I can’t wait to make more of these. I envision bricks with the names of herbs on them to put in the garden as markers.
The rain continues…the hostas are hugely uncurling…the peas are climbing like gangbusters.
Yesterday I got my craft on with my cousin (inspired by cleaning out and reorganizing the craft cabinet.) We did a little decoupage and it was so enjoyable that I did a little more today. A simple little oval box to keep treasures in-I imagine a horsie loving girl would like it. Yesterday’s project was a frame that Clark had me paint pink and purple and then glue a variety of dog and fire engine pictures on. Let’s just say it’s all him and not reflective of my taste! Kate made a wonderful yellow frame with Tasha Tudor flowers bordering it and her little girl’s name stamped across the top. A yellow gingham ribbon was its hanger. I’m telling you it was so charming that you’d gladly plop down money for it in an overpriced boutique! (Alas-picture not available.)
Hey Bird, watch out for that window!
February 16, 2009 at 4:53 pm | In Crafty | 5 Comments
Last weekend we took a little trip to Vermont. While there we visited a bookstore called Brown Dog Books and I admired a book called Stencil 101, by Ed Roth of Stencil1. Surprise! Paul secretly got it and gave it to me on Saturday for Valentine’s Day. Like many craft-art things I had the following reactions: excited to do it and wondered why I hadn’t thought to do it before because it seemed so simply and obvious. I encourage you to check out the book and his site because the stencils are cool and so are the projects. Right away I was attracted to the idea of doing something on a window. Again-why had I never thought of this? You can easily put paint on glass and take it off. It doesn’t ruin your windows and it looks neat. (Yet I know I have many friends who will probably be “shocked” that I did this and would never do it in their homes. Their loss!)
I loved the bird stencil and thought it would look great in a corner of our big picture window in the kitchen (which we bird watch out of, in fact.) I’m very pleased with the results and am now ready to do some t-shirts and tote bags!
Stenciling Update: Ok, I posted this a couple hours ago and now I’ve new pictures and projects to add already. I can see how easy it is to get carried away with this. It’s so instantly gratifying. I believe everyone I know will be getting a stenciled gift this year.
The first item I did: a tree branch on a tote bag. I realized that if this was done in orange paint it would look like coral, which would be cool. I then added another one in another color.
Then a tee, for me, in two tones.
Then a tee, for Paul.
Next up is a white owl on a red t-shirt for Clark, but it is still in the dryer. I’ll have to get some little plain shirts for Tabitha and make some for her.
Glitter.
December 5, 2008 at 12:18 am | In Basic Musings, Crafty, Recipes | 3 Comments
This afternoon I went outside and gathered some pinecones so that Clark and I could decorate them with glitter. This was his first glittering experience (though I think he may have done some at school, where I suspect he was not really allowed to get as gluey and glittery as he did here.) As you might expect we have glitter everywhere and my modpodge (why wasn’t I using Elmers?!?!) will never be used for decoupage again.
He was having so much fun, though, that it was totally ok and now we have some glitterific Christmas decorations. It occurred to me that one of the pinecones I took off the tree may very well have been the wee baby pinecone I photographed back in May!
So,this afternoon I tackled a project that is always ongoing in theory, but usually happens once or twice a year, and this managing all my recipe clippings. I finally got myself to tear recipes out (of all except Everyday Food, which somehow I can’t bear to not have intact) and recycle the magazines. But then what to do with all those recipes? I do have a lovely recipe box, but I also have a big three ring binder. Into the binder the recipes go-taped onto a sheet of paper, and slipped into those plastic sheet protectors so that papers can go into three ring binders. Is this practical? I don’t know. I felt a fool while doing it. I mean, how many thousands of clippings will I have in ten years? And how many of those recipes do I even make?? A wee wee fraction, I tell you. Should I only keep the ones I love and put them in my box? Should I do something all online? Or should I say why the hell not? and just keep it up. I love my the recipes and clippings my husband kept from his mother. Looking through them is a little slice of socio-economic history. I like to imagine in fifty years one of my kids looking through and saying “oh wow, I loved this” or “ew, did you actually make ham balls in barbecue sauce?” (for the record, no, but I was so intrigued/grossed out by the name of this that I just had to keep it) I do wonder what other recipe clippers do….
Christmas Crafting
November 20, 2008 at 1:49 am | In Christmas, Crafty | 2 CommentsAs predicted, I did go ahead and make art clip strings (I just don’t know what to call these.) for Christmas cards. I made a few so I am giving some away and keeping one for us. I can’t wait to see how festive they look hanging over a doorway with Christmas cards hanging from them.
Getting my craft on + Something for Tabitha
November 18, 2008 at 4:10 am | In Christmas, Crafty, Sewing | 3 Comments
Exciting news-I finally ordered a copy of Ottobre so that I might try my hand at actually sewing a garment. I am sure my attempts will look nowhere near as beautiful as Astrid’s, but I’m ready to try. Imagine if you will, though, how utterly incomprehensible and overwhelming this looks:
It’s like some insane subway map. Apparently I need to trace the pattern pieces I will need off of this.
I’m feeling the Christmas spirit a bit early this year and eager to get started making things. This was the sight of my dining room table tonight:
I’ve been working on these wall clips (like the ones I made for Clark and Tabitha’s rooms) to hang Christmas cards from. I figure I’ll give a couple to friends and keep one or two for myself. Then I finally put Tabitha’s name on her chair (only a whole year after her arrival.) Finally, Paul and I spent the evening making the cleverest party invitations ever. Unfortunately, they are not going to look so great after they go through the mail. The invites are for a cookie party so we made fortune cookies out of papers that I’d stamped with Christmas stamps and silver ink. The party details I printed on a strip of paper to look like the fortune. I looked up online how to fold them and voila! Look how great they look here:
They will hopefully be able to expand once they are pulled from the envelope.
And, last but not least, we have finally finished Tabitha’s first birthday video. It’s 10 minutes long and features the songs “Shine” by Dolly Parton and “That’s My Daughter” by Loudon Wainwright. We’re pretty pleased with the result which shows her wonderful first yeart.
Happy Halloween!
November 2, 2008 at 1:08 am | In Crafty, Sewing, holiday | 4 CommentsThis year Clark had several suggestions for his Halloween costume-lion, zebra, birthday cake, shopping cart. On Monday I told him he had to decide for good and he chose giraffe. Thanks to my friend Heidi (who had the pattern and whose Mom gave some guidance)I decided to actually go ahead and try sewing something. This was a good first garment to sew because it’s just a costume and doesn’t need to be perfect. I’m especially pleased I learned how to make a sleeve! It was important to me to make the kids costumes and I’m thrilled with the results. They were actually a lot of fun to make, especially because Paul and I did the decorating parts together, wielding the hot glue gun to great effect. Here they are, our strawberry and giraffe!
I learned how to make a hat in doing this project, and now I want to make more!
So happy trying it on just before the Halloween parade at nursery school.
I’m very pleased with this tail, with its felted fringe tip.
Eggcup Pincushions (and scones)
September 25, 2008 at 2:47 pm | In Cookery, Crafty, Recipes, Sewing | 8 Comments
“How is that even a craft?” my husband said when I showed him how to make these eggcup pincushions. OK, so they’re super easy, but there must be some trick to it because mine are not as cute as the ones in Pretty Little Pincushions (published by Lark, who makes awesome craft and sewing books.) Happily I have a nearly endless supply of eggcups to get it right. When I saw this little project in the book I knew I had to do it. As a kid my mom had a vast collection of eggcups, displayed in little window shelves by our front door. I was excited to unpack them and see them all again this weekend (they’ve been packed away 10 years now), but alas, we could only find a small box so far.
Basically you wad up some poly fiber fill, wrap your fabric tightly around it, wield your trusty glue gun, and glue it right into the eggcup (so don’t use valuable ones.) Voila! A cute little thing to put your pins in. I’d like to do this with a remnant of a sweater or some other fuzzy fabric, because that would be extra cute. You could also add some trimmings, but I did not for these.
On to food….I made the most heavenly decadent scones the other day when my cousin and her sweet baby came to visit. I was using my trust “triple dried fruit” recipe I got ages ago from Cooking Light. I use it as my basic recipe and then add in whatever I want. I usually cut in my butter by hand but decided to make use of my new food processor and it was speedy indeed and did not compromise the texture of the finished product. So, while rooting around on my baking shelf trying to decide what to add I came across my bag of King Arthur cinammon filling. I added pecans to my dough and split it in half. Patted each into a circle, mixed up the cinammon filling (you just add water), spread it out, topped with the other circle, and lavishly spread the top with coarse sugar. What a heavenly treat!
Scones
Dry ingredients: 3 c flour, 1/3 c sugar, 1 T baking powder, 1/2 t baking soda, 1/4 salt.
Mix dry ingredients together, then cut in 6 T cold butter until it looks like coarse cornmeal. Stir in 1/3 c chopped dried apricots and 1/3 c dried cranberries.
Mix wet ingredients–3/4 c buttermilk, 2 ts grated orange rind, 1 egg, and 1 egg white.
Add wet to dry, stirring until just combined. Turn dough out onto floured surface and knead very briefly until it is smooth. Pat the dough into a rectangle and cut into 16 triangles.sprinkle the top with sugar.
Bake at 400 degrees for 12 minutes.
Now, I play with this recipe quite a bit. I might not add the orange peel if I’m not doing those dried fruits (or if I don’t have it.) I might just add raisins, or dried blueberries, or whatever I have on hand. I always used dried buttermilk (which you use by adding the powder to your dry ingredients and then using water for the liquid). And I always use big coarse sugar on top. Also, I doubt I’ve ever had 16 uniform triangles.
A great handy scone recipe, perfect now that the weather is cooler. Why not make some today and have them with a nice cup of tea?
Oh, and look how cute the two babies were together!
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