Happy Groundhog Day!

Photo courtesy of National Geographic.

Share the Muffins!

Yummy - muffins, fresh from the oven. Big O looks like he's wondering if I'll share.

I know, it's bad, I let him on the counter. I let him on the table, too. But (despite the fact that it seems he wants a muffin) he doesn't actually like people food so that makes it ok, right?

Share the Love

Head on over to 'Not Quite June Cleaver' for a very generous Valentine's giveaway!

Craft Day Part One

Hello! Sorry for the long absence. I began teaching kindergarten at the end of August, and the job sort of took over my life. It's been incredibly fun, but also incredibly time consuming. I found that there were some things that I just didn't have time for anymore (such as blogging!). Now that I've been teaching for awhile, it's getting easier to do, and I'm finding I need to put less time into my prep and therefore I have a little more time for myself. I appreciate those of you who checked in with comments and emails during my absence. It was nice to know I was missed! I will have a lot of catching up to do with all of you, and that probably won't all happen this weekend, but I thought I'd take advantage of the Thanksgiving break to put another post out there. (And Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate it!).

This is very belated, but this summer just before I started my job I did a major craft day with a friend of mine. I finished a bunch of projects that I wanted to share with all of you. It was really fun and satisfying to work on things that I could finish in one go. I love knitting and scrapbooking, but they are not typically one-day projects. Here are some of the things that I did, with links to directions for the projects. I have even more projects that I completed that day, if you can believe it (I'm telling you, it was productive!). I will try to post those this weekend, but if not, then expect me back over winter break at the latest! :)

I love these paintings. I found the directions on Martha Stewart, and they were so much fun to do. She has two templates on her website (one being the bird above) but since I did this one I have just searched on google images for silhouettes, and found others that I could do. I am planning on making several similar paintings for Christmas gifts. Basically, you staple fabric to a canvas frame. Then you use Mod Podge to make it hard. Once that dries, you copy your template on the fabric with a fabric pencil. Then you can paint either inside or outside your template lines. Or you can choose to do both and have a set, as I did above. Check it out: Painted Fabric Silhouettes.

I also made wine glass charms. These were really fun to do, and I will definitely be making more of them. They don't take long, and would make great hostess gifts or something like that. I bought the beads, charms, and loops at Michael's. They can be found in the jewelry-making section. I looked at several websites for the ideas for this, but didn't really follow any one set of directions.

If you visit Not Martha, there are some ideas for wine charms, plus lots of links to other places.

I found directions for these 'crayon nibbles' on another blog, and thought they would be really fun to try. They are also very easy, and take no time at all. They would be cool gifts for kids. I think they would look great packaged up in clear cellophane bags with a cute ribbon, and would look good tied to a bigger package or present. Also a fun project to make with kids.

You can find directions at Crafty Daisies.

It feels really good to be back! I may spend some time this weekend catching up on some blog reading, because I have missed seeing what all of you are up to. And stay tuned for part 2 of my craft day!

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

One Local Summer #3

I wanted to join a CSA this summer, but by the time I looked into it all the ones that were close to me were at capacity. I will need to wait until next summer for that, I guess. But luckily for me, one of the families that I nanny for joins a CSA every summer and each week they send veggies home with me. Yum!

This week, they gave me some lettuce greens and some turnips. I can't really remember ever having eaten turnips, and I was not sure if they were something I would like. I had read the newsletter from their CSA, which said that you could cook the turnips if you wanted to, but that they recommended eating them raw. So I tried a raw one and...it was delicious! It was a challenge to try to save the rest for dinner. :)

And dinner was: Minnesota wild rice with parsley from our garden, and a salad made with the lettuce and turnips from the CSA. The salad dressing was not local, I'm afraid. But it was homemade, and for the next batch that I make up I think I could get a number of the ingredients locally. I'll have to try that.