The Creative Family

Just a quick post to tell you that you should head on over to Simple Mom for your chance to win a copy of The Creative Family, by Amanda Soule (of the wonderful blog Soule Mamma). But hurry, the giveaway only goes through Friday, August 1st!

I Wish I'd Made This

A few weeks ago, two friends and I spent a glorious Saturday together going antiquing. We went to a yard sale, a thrift store, and about four antique stores. I came away with some wonderful treasures, one of which I want to share today. I found this at one of the antique stores, and just fell in love with it:

This picture is taken in our upstairs hall. I painted it red, and though I love the color, I'm not happy with it there. I've been planning to use the red in a different room, and to repaint the hall. But when I set this piece there, I was almost tempted to leave it that way, just cause it looks so good!

Isn't it stunning?

One Local Summer #5

These are all starting to look the same - you know, grilled meat...salad...

Again, the meat is from a store in our neighborhood, and the lettuce is from the CSA.

(And my apologies to any vegetarians reading - I realize my OLS posts must not be the most appetizing!)

Creativity! At Last!

Do you ever start to feel less fulfilled when you haven't had the chance to do something creative? Sometimes the feeling sneaks up on me, and often I don't realize quite how much I've missed making things until I do it again. And then I wonder how I could have let so much time go by...

Recently I decided I NEEDED to make something. Without much time on my hands I wanted to do something I could finish at one go, and that I already had the supplies for. When I read about these sticky notes books over at greetingarts, I knew that it was the perfect project.

This was my first attempt. It's not perfect - I used quite crude tools for scoring, and because of that the measurements weren't quite right. It is supposed to be the size of one pack of post-it notes, but instead I used two to fill up the space. Also, I cut out the circles for the closure by hand, so they're a little wonky around the edges.

A few weeks and a trip to Archiver's later, and I had a score-er (which I have been wanting forEVER for my cardmaking) and a circle punch. Hooray! Attempt #2 for part of a birthday present for my friend went a little more smoothly.

And my friend, who is also a musician, got a cupcake cake in the shape of a guitar from me, as well. Nothing like Amy's beautiful creations, but hey - I did my best. :)

One Local Summer #4

Phewf! Life, slow down so I can catch up! My prolonged absence here is mainly due to the long work hours I've been putting in - six days a week (with the occasional seven-day work week) all day long and some evenings. But I have a lot I want to share with you, so I'll start with a belated OLS meal.

I went to the Farmer's Market to pick up food for our OLS meal, and I came home with, among other things, this gorgeous bouquet and some locally made bread:

I also got more potatoes and green beans, and I picked up some steak from a store near us whose beef is all local. The steak and potatoes went onto the grill:

And the meal looked like this:

It was delicious, yet again!

At the Farmer's Market, I also got some strawberries:

Which I cut up and added some sugar to, to help bring out the juice:

The strawberry salad makes a refreshing summer-time dessert.

In other news, some special birthdays have happened since I last posted. My dad had his on July 2nd, and one of my best friends had hers on July 4th - a lot of people celebrated her birthday :).

I also had a thrifting/antiquing day with some friends, and then another craft day just today. Plenty of things that I want to share with you from both those days, so watch this space!

On a food-related note:

I have mentioned that my husband is a musician, and he was part of something that is really cool that I just wanted to let you know about. One of his band's songs was included on a compilation CD. The CD is presented by "Feed Them With Music," and the purchase of one CD 'delivers 10 hot meals to the starving globally.' There are 10 songs on the CD, so that's a meal a song! If you want more info, please visit: www.FeedThemWithMusic.com/Roadtrip