Detective Party-food

I’ve got to warn you that I have lots of photos to share with you, all relating back to the detective party..so I hope you will stick with me :) The party is tomorrow so today has been very busy! I made a bomb cake, which is a little lumpy haha. It was my first time working with fondant and it sure is tricky to get it ultra smooth. The birthday boy is happy with it, so that is all that matters. The candle was just warmed and curved to make the fuse.

Since the cake is smallish (made using the wilton ball shaped pans) I made cupcakes too. I made bombs for some of the cupcakes using the leftover fondant and same candles (this time cut to fit). Some of the cupcakes got mini detective novels…and you can make some too!

You can print this file for the covers, and this file for the insides. For the inside text you will want to print the page on both sides of your paper. Don’t worry that it doesn’t line up exactly, it won’t really matter. I glued the covers to colored paper and then used two sheets of the insides stapled to the inside of the “book”. Then I glued toothpicks to the back of each mini book so they can be used on top of the cupcakes.

I’ll probably have another post later on either games or decorations, and then I will be back Monday with everything else. Once I have posted all the how-to’s and photos I will make one post with links to each separate post incase you ever want reference for a detective party of your own.

postcards have arrived!

The postcards for my show have finally arrived. For some strange reason the delivery was rescheduled (although they did not need to be signed for and were left on my porch) The box was pretty beat up so that might have had something to do with it, but who knows. :) If you are in the Chicago area and would like me to send you a postcard please email me at mypapercrane(AT)earthlink.net
I am also sending a postcard out with every order (regardless of location) and I should be able to mail them anywhere after I see how many stamps I use up, but I will post when I am ready to send them to any location…for now just Chicago area please :)

shop update!

The shop has been updated. It is a very “fruity” “fabric-y” sort of update :)

Spoonflower Tattoo Contest

I submitted this for Spoonflower’s Tattoo fabric design contest. You can vote for your favorite fabric by following the link You don’t have to sign in or fill out any forms either! blog.spoonflower.com/2010/03/design-contest-vote-for-your…

fabrics

I am planning a small shop update for Friday. Just some more fabrics, a couple new plush, and more old favorite plush. Here are some of the new fabrics I got in the mail from Spoonflower. Don’t worry about the decapitated looking Pinocchio in the first photo, it was the end of the design.

you are the bomb

With the spy party quickly approaching, it was time to get some party favors made. I decided to go with surprise balls again (like we did for my older son’s birthday party) but this time I made them look like little bombs. Bombs make me think of Spy vs. Spy, Inspector Gadget etc. so I think they fit well.

Inside the balls we’ve got some disguises like funny glasses, faux mustaches, goofy candy teeth, some fortune teller fish (since they are flat and work really well in the balls), water grenade balloons, and candy. I made these just like the other surprised balls, but left the crepe paper in tact (I did not cut it in half) Once I had a pretty bomb shaped ball I inserted a little pipe cleaner wick, and then used circle shaped stickers to hold the last bit of crepe paper in place. On these stickers I wrote TNT just incase there was any confusion ;)

I’ll have some more Spy party info later this week, I’ve got to get the decorations figured out, but I’ve got some ideas! Oh and the black crepe paper really dyes your hands, so beware :)

Spring Fever

The weather has been beautiful, seeds are being sold all over, Easter things everywhere you look. I love it!
I got the egg holder above a couple months ago, and it has been in the attic waiting. I can never resist those little chickies, and look at all the colors! My collections of deer, lambs, and one rabbit are now all over.

out looking for signs of Spring…

Yesterday was a good day for poking frozen lakes with sticks, eating lunch outside, and doing a little hiking. Yesterday was not a good day for letter boxing because there was still just too much snow all over, also not good for a lot of hiking because the trails were covered in snow and it made it very slippery. I was kind of surprised by the amount of snow there still was out there. I thought with the warmer days we have been having that even the woods would be pretty clear, but not yet. I was equally as surprised with the frozen lake, come on Spring! I am jealous of all of you with trees in bloom :)

Kind of in a bit of a rush today with so much on my “to do” list….but tomorrow I will have some very Spring-like photos for you. It might still be icy outside, but we have the pastels everywhere indoors!

little

Today I am taking a break from hand sewing and heading outside with the kids. It is time for the first picnic of the season, and there might even be a little letterboxing as well. I can’t thank you all enough for all the kind comments on my terrariums. I’ll have lots more photos to show once the show opens, and can’t wait to share it all with you.

working in miniature…

Sorry I have been a bit of a bad blogger, I’ve slipped away from daily blogging a bit. It is just March is so busy, and the weather is finally warming up a bit. All things combined makes for not much time at the computer.

I wanted to share with you something I have been working on for my Chicago show. This is really just a small peek, because there are some not pictured…but I really wanted to share. It has been such a joy hand sewing and working so small. There is just nothing like it.

Upcoming Show

Seedlings, Sprouts, & Spores
Renegade Handmade (Spotlight Series)
1924 W Division st. Chicago IL
opening reception Sat. April 3rd from 6-8pm

Please come out and see my solo show at the Renegade Shop. As part of Renegade’s Spotlight Series I will have all new work in plush, paper, and more, and I will be coming to Chicago for the opening.

doll face

Just some doll heads for you today. I think the fabric faces all look pretty lovely all together. The second one sure has a lot of eyebrows going on, and I threw in a head on a stick for good measure. :)

Why oh why is it March 3rd already?? This means a mere 11 days till Bean’s party (no one has rsvp’ed yet!) a mere 31 days till my show in Chicago (and I need to get those airline tickets booked), and a mere 32 days till Easter (lets not even mention Easter, and I LOVE Easter!) March, you are going to be a busy one!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Do you like green eggs? (and ham) In honor of Dr. Seuss’s birthday my youngest son’s school is having a big day of reading. They were allowed to bring in slippers, blankets for sitting on the floor, Dr. Seuss books, and snacks to share with the class.

We decided to make some green egg cookies, although we had trouble finding something for the “yolk” we opted for green colored candy chocolate eggs. I know they are a bit small for yolks and egg shaped, but hey it is Dr. Seuss- so green eggs can be whimsical! :) We just made sugar cookies dough..then we took one of our many cookie cutters (a dinosaur shaped one that had gotten bent) and bent it into a eggy shape. Since the cookies expand slightly I didn’t need to worry about the egg shaped being perfect. Then we used white frosting to make them look more like eggs and added one green chocolate egg to each center for the yolk.

I decided to not worry about the ham part (maybe some one else will bring ham haha) but you could very well make ham cookies too.

Chicago!

I’ve only been to Chicago once, so I would love any advice on anything I should see or do. Tom has family there so we will be seeing them too, but should have a day or two free.

I hope Chicago area folks will come out to the show and say hi! I am planning to make some very special free goodies to give away as well :) :) More soon!

Please do feel free to post about the show, I would really appreciate it actually! I will have postcards soon, and more photos of some of the plush I have made.

kitchen changes…

My spice rack used to hold toys, but I moved them and switched it to spices, so much more convenient then taking the boxes of spices out of the high cabinet every time I cooked, who would have guessed that a spice rack might work well for spices ;)

We also recently hung hooks under our cabinets for some of our favorite mugs, it has been really handy as well.

paper paper paper

beautiful together

It is so grey and dull outside today that I thought a shot of color might be nice. First up is a pair of bunnies I bought at a local thrift shop before Valentine’s Day. I figured I’d save them till it was closer to Easter…but actually I think they work great for either holiday. They were .35 each and are made from old dishwashing liquid bottles. 4 bottles total, one for each body and then one for each set of ears. Their fur is also made from cotton balls…so good! The kids both say they are scary, I think they are awesome!

Next up some beautiful book covers. These lovelies were presents for Valentine’s Day, two editions of Alice that are new to me…and some new Jasper Fforde. I had to take their photos outside (again because it is so very dark)

Shop Update

Shop update with all fabric related goods…pouches and fabric bundles….

Heather’s Birthday Trip #2

-another from the Pretzel Bakery
-I always feel like..Somebody’s watching me ;)
-Fulton Steamboat Inn
-my loot, one of my favorite Christmas songs with a song I have never heard on the reverse side, a cute little pose doll that is a little beat up but only $1, amazing gnome cookie cutter-cannot wait to try it out.
-some Easter cards and a Easter planter that is holding my little pot of daffodils just perfectly!
Not pictured is that we also found a “second run” type movie theater that was playing the Twilight New Moon movie, such indulgent fun. I had such a good time with Heather, the only downside of the whole trip is that it seemed to fly by so quickly :(

Heather’s Birthday Trip #1

-Maple’s Donuts
-Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery tour we also got to see the “pincher” machine in action, pretty cool!
-Thrift shopping, antiques, flea markets-oh my!
-Stoudtburg Village
I’ve got one more post with more photos coming soon :)

Fabrics!

Some new (and two old favorite) fabrics arrived in the mail yesterday. I am going to make myself a tea towel with the gold/orange apples :) I have a bunch of zippered pouches and fabric bundles which I will be adding to the shop on Monday. I have a little trip this weekend, and a rescheduled Valentine’s party for this afternoon…but Monday for sure!

Which is why I am a spy.

My little boy has a birthday coming up next month. So hard to let it sink in that he will be seven years old! He is big on mysteries, spies, and detective stories, as you might recall. That was some of his everyday wear (when the weather was warmer) and he was Sherlock Holmes for Halloween. So we decided to do a sleuth-spy-detective party and I thought I would post about the invitations for now.

I had the worst trouble finding “top secret” like rubber stamps. I didn’t want to spend a bunch of money buying rubberstamps that we would only use once, so I just used a stamp we already owned that says official record instead. You could also possibly print out stickers that say “top secret” “confidential” etc. The first photo above is the invitation and envelope. The envelope are simple 6×9 inch manilla envelopes. I use these for orders anyway, so I didn’t need to buy any. Instead of a normal card I wanted to make mini file folders. I used large filed folders that I cut down to size cost for those was $1.49 total. I left the normal fold they come with and just made the files 5×8 leaving room on the edge to create the tab. I think the tabs make it really look like a file. I just free cut the tabs, but you could draw a template first and use that for cutting guidelines. I needed to make 25 invites total so I didn’t want to spend a lot of time cutting tabs, so free hand it was.


Next we have the inside of each “folder”. I did have to buy the paper clips which were $1.99 for 100 and I only used 50. Inside the envelope are black and white photos on my son dressed in his detective gear. I simply took a photo I had on my computer and in photoshop made it black and white, cropped and saved it so that two of the photos side by side measured 4×6. Then I had these printed out, and then cut them in half before attaching with a paper clip.

On one half of the file folder is the actually invitation letter. These has all the important party details lined out but I wrote it as if I am putting out a call for a special mission. You may notice an area in red this is the rsvp details. Since we are inviting 25 people I really need everyone coming to rsvp, so I tried to make that very clear. You could always use a highlighter to highlight the parts that you think are very important as well. I just printed these off my home printer 2 per page.




Now the extra little manilla envelope! These I would recommend buying in small quantities unless you think you’ll have a use for them. A box of 100 of these is like $11 at Staples, and really I had no idea what I would do with 75 leftover little envelopes. You can search ebay for smaller lots, they are sometimes called coin envelopes. Inside each small envelope is one of these mini papers, and a magnifying glass to read it. I went with the magnifying glasses that are more expensive because they needed to actually work, and I had a free shipping code so it wasn’t so bad. I know the photo shows it as blurry but they really do work! These mini papers do not have any important info regarding the party because I worried about people loosing it, or not wanting to take the time to even read the thing. You can download your own sheet of these small papers here. They talk about secret codes, how they are used, have instructions for putting together a cipher wheel, and a secret code at the bottom. The secret code turns out to say “We hope to see you at the party”. The cipher wheels can be found here unassembled. This will print out six per sheet. I am having my sheets printed on cardstock through Staples in black and white. Each envelope will get one cipher and brad so they can put it together themselves. If you wanted the invitations to be even more affordable you could print the secret code sheets at a readable font and leave out the magnifying glasses entirely.



So the total cost for the invites was as follows
files $1.49, paper clips .50, photos $3.00, ciphers printed $1.80, brads $1.00, and magnifying glasses $17–so roughly $24.79 or slightly less then $1.00 per invitation. Which I think is super reasonable :) I’ll have some more posts about the birthday party as we get closer and narrow down games, foods, etc.

Happy Fat Tuesday!

I was feeling rushed and lazy and figured I would just pick up a King Cake at the local grocery store. My youngest son was so excited that it was Fat Tuesday and that meant the promise of a cake stuffed with a plastic tiny baby. But the grocery shop did not have one single king cake, so in the end I had to make one. I made cinnamon roll type dough and cooked it in a bundt pan in small balls mixed with cinnamon and sugar (almost like monkey bread) It stuck a little so it is not beautiful. But after cooking I did indeed stuff one naked plastic baby into the cake for one lucky person to find!

My oldest son has a friend over for dinner tonight, so I need to be extra careful in reminding no one to choke on naked baby ;)

The king cake of the New Orleans Mardi Gras tradition comes in a number of styles. The most simple, said to be the most traditional, is a ring of twisted bread similar to that used in brioche topped with icing or sugar, usually colored purple, green, and gold (the traditional Carnival colors) with food coloring. There are many variants, some with a filling, the most common being cream cheese and praline. Cajun king cakes are traditionally,deep fat fried as a doughnut would be. They are topped with sugar granules in the official Carnival colors of purple, green and gold. The purple represents the passion of Christ, the green represents hope and the gold the rewards of leading a Christian life.
It has become customary in the New Orleans culture that whoever finds the trinket must provide the next king cake.

Valentine’s Day 2010

Valentine’s Day was lots of good fun. Thomas had to work and my older son was having a sleepover with his cousin, so my little Valentine and I had a very nice day out. We went to some of our favorite thrift shops, had a lunch date, and then came home and made heart shaped brownies.

Then in the evening Thomas and I exchanged gifts, had coffee and a vegan flourless chocolate torte I made, and then watched The Time Travelers Wife :) The movie made me cry a lot because it would make me think back to the book and how much I loved it…but some of the changes annoyed me. I still liked the movie, but the book was 100 times better (and really isn’t this always the case?)

Oh and the heart tomatoes up there were made using instructions from here.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! These are all previous years Valentine photos, but still festive! Coffee and chocolates for breakfast? only on Valentine’s Day. I have some plans with my Valentines and I will be back tomorrow to share. I hope everyone has a lovely day.

patterns

All made from cut paper (except some of the faces which were drawn on) Can you guess what plush I am planning on recreating? I’ll give you a hint… My new version will be a little bit simpler, but I am excited to make a few. It was actually one of my own personal favorites. :)

update!

updated the shop this afternoon with some old favorites!

baking, shoveling, and crochet

We got a lot more snow yesterday. It started snowing before noon and continued on all day long. We went out and shoveled in the afternoon even though the snow was still coming down, and I am thankful we did that because it made shoveling today super fast.

Baked a pumpkin pie and started some crochet last night. I saw that Adrian (Hello Yarn) posted that they will be doing a potholder swap again this year, and I decided I would get some practice in first. I don’t have any cotton yarn on hand (and couldn’t run out because of the snow) so I figured I would make a couple wool potholders for myself first and then I can pick my favorite to recreate for the swap.

Valentines

I was pretty sure this year would be the year that B wanted store bought Valentines. His classmates have been bringing in their Valentines all week long to be sorted and saved for the party. He totally surprised me when he said “we should make my Valentine’s tonight” So I got our doilies, paper, buttons, eyeballs, markers, and he set to work. Using coffee filters was his idea. :)

They turned out really cute, and we packaged them in cd envelopes decorated with polka dots. The cd envelope idea came from here. I would have loved to do that with cookies but the teacher had said no food or candy with Valentines….so we went with the paper variety instead.

I like cute.

Just some little cute things from around the house for you today. That record at the top was a thrift shop freebie. It was during the 1/2 off sale where anything marked .05 was free.

Next up Humpty Dumpty magazines. I have a nice stack of these which I take out from time to time. My next tattoo is actually coming from one of these books :)

Next is a library book we picked up last night. It is from The Indoor Noisy Book by Margaret Wise Brown. We actually own another of her noisy books. They are just such beautiful books, I could sit and look through them all day long. This time at the end of winter makes me so antsy for Spring, and all the used book sales that seem to come with Spring cleaning. I saw a sign last night about accepting book donations for one of the sales–made my heart all a flutter!

Last but not least is a thrifted little box I got a few weeks ago. I haven’t been thrift shopping since. It is filled with little handmade eggs and was only $1, but the box is so cute. It is very Easter like–so I’ll save the rest of it till we are closer to Easter ;)

We are supposed to get more snow today, starting this afternoon. They are saying up to 18 more inches! It is hard to imagine the piles of snow being even bigger then they are now!

foodies

Today is all about getting back into the swing of things. Kids are back at school, Thomas is going back to work. No more cooking big lunches together after sledding, no more cups of cocoa with our feet on the heaters….for now anyhow, winter is not over yet. They are calling for another (smaller) snowstorm on Tuesday, so we will have to see what happens.

There was a lot of cooking during this extended weekend (Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) and I actually took some photos. One evening we made faux chicken, pineapple, spinach, and onions over rice. I made this butternut squash sauce but I omitted the cheese and half n half. I used soy milk and some nutritional yeast instead. It was served over whole wheat pasta with fire roasted eggplant, zucchini, onions, and peppers.

We made up a batch of cinnamon rolls on the last day. We used half whole wheat flour and half all purpose, and left out the wheat gluten because we didn’t have any on hand.

Not pictured are the two loaves of cibatta bread that were made, southwestern corn chowder (so good!) I use veggie broth and soy milk…and recommend adding a can of green chiles. They are not spicy in the least but add a really good flavor.

Now it is time for me to get up into the studio, turn the heat on up there and get some work done. :)

Snow Day (day 2)

We did so much shoveling yesterday, and had to shovel more this morning. It is times like these that we wish we had a much shorter driveway. Then we walked to the local park with the kids. The park is sort of down in a valley like area so it has great sledding hills all around that just slide you down into the park area.

We sledded until we just couldn’t make the walk up the hill any more and headed home. Then I made hot chocolate and this maple pumpkin bread (left out the walnuts and used more maple instead of some of the sugar) and we played Uno. After dinner we watched Groundhog’s Day thanks to the Netflix that plays through the Xbox. Which was nice since we didn’t get any mail because of the storm :)

Thomas has a snow day again today, which is so very nice. We will finish getting the cars cleared off, probably do some more sledding and see what else we can do to keep cabin fever at bay.

snow day

And this was just a trip into the backyard! The snow is still coming down!

Betelgeuse Betelgeuse Betelgeuse

The kids had a planned half day today (because of the winter storm which is now pounding down on us) So I spent the free part of my afternoon packing orders (not a super exciting post right?) But I did want to share something we did earlier this week.

On Tuesday night I took the kids and a friend of theirs to the planetarium in Hagerstown MD. It’s only about a ten minute drive, and even if your local you may not have known that Hagerstown has a planetarium! It is hidden inside the Board of Ed building and on the smaller side (seats 70) but it was such good fun!

They do different shows it looks like every 30 days or so, always on Tuesday evenings. My favorite part was the tour of the night sky they gave first. So nice to come in from a snowy star-less night (it snowed that night too) to a dark sky filled with stars.

Now we are slowly being buried in snow again, Tom is on his way home early and here is hoping we are all snowed in tomorrow (we got out sleds!)

more Valentine’s goodies

More goodies for the treat bags. I made these wooden heart pins using everything I had on hand except the wooden hearts. Those I found in bags of 4 for $1.00. I painted each with two coats of cheap acrylic, then glued eyes, pom pom noses, and pin backs on the back. I used a red marker to make the smiles.

Next up are Valentine magnets, not sure yet if I will include these because I worry about kids thinking they can eat them. I might save these for our older friends instead. Just coat the candy with clear spray several times, all over. Then hot glue magnets to the back.

I packaged up the rainbow crayons (so they kids would know they were not for eating) and then made little blank books to go with them. I used some Valentine bags for the outside paper. It only used up 3 bags or so…they are the cutest bags I have seen! Also found at HobbyLobby. The Hobby Lobby store just opened here a couple months ago, so it is still exciting for me!

valentine goodies

With the school Valentine’s party quickly approaching I needed to sit down and figure out what I was going to make for the goodie bags. We also need to think about actual Valentines….but I wanted to get the bags out of the way.

Today I picked up a bag of these little glittery wooden hearts at Hobby Lobby (they were $1.99 and 40% off) and simply glued them to mini clothespins which I already owned. I plan to use these clips to clip the tops of the candy bags.

Next the little guy and I set out to make rainbow crayons. This involves using old broken crayons, mini cupcake tins, and some liners. We put ours in the oven for about 10 mins at 350F, probably way too long because they turned out quite muddy. We are going to try shorter times with the next batch. These will be wrapped up for the goodie bags too! I’ll have more ideas on packing soon.

I have some other projects for the bags too but the sun went down before they were finished, so I’ll photograph those soon!

working working

A totally fun post tomorrow, I swear it! These days are just flying by too quickly.

sew busy!

Sorry the blog has been a bit neglected lately with content. I promise some Valentine how-to posts very soon, and a freebie for ya! Meanwhile I’ve been sewing sewing sewing, and have even more to finish. :)

teapots

I made myself a teapot trivet a few days ago when my Spoonflower fabric arrived. I can’t sell the fabric yet because it has a small flaw which is my fault (a small white line on the edge of he repeat) It will be really easy to fix but then I’ll have to reorder more before I can sell it.

So I am using up the teapots fabric myself, its very easy to avoid the white line when using it for small projects like bags, trivets etc. :)

mister burger head

It has been a busy Friday of running errands (weird things too like buying a new kitchen trash can) Baking bread for dinner at Sean + Amanda’s tonight, and trying to find a local CSA because Spring will be here before you know it! I think I finally found a farm that is close enough and organic, just waiting to hear back from them.

It is freezing here today and thoughts of Spring are very welcome indeed. Oh and so the post is not all words, mister burger up there is for your viewing enjoyment. Once I get a few more made (and hopefully hotdogs again too) I will get them all up in the shop.

teapots

Trying out the teapots in a print. I like the large size of it but I am going to try and have it printed somewhere else…too many errors and back and forth to get this one ;)

And playing with candy sprinkles yarn from Studio Loo. I wanted to see how it looked crocheted, now I am going to frog it and try knit. Still not sure what I am going to make from it, but the yarn is beautiful!

Upcoming Show

DKE Toys and AdFunture present the Custom Yoka Show
Premiere gallery exhibition February 18-23, 2010
Opening Reception Thursday, February 18, 7:00 – 10:30pm
Black Maria Gallery, Los Angeles CA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: AdFunture provided their 3” blank Yoka panda bear vinyl figures and DKE Toys co-founders Dov Kelemer and Sarah Jo Marks found over 200 artists to participate in the Custom Yoka Show. Featuring work from 20 countries the show turns the quirky little panda into everything from a dirty thug to a sweet snail in this tremendous exhibition. Pieces range from $25 to $800 and will be available for purchase through Black Maria Gallery.

Show features: Anthony Ausgang, Jophen Stein, Heidi Kenney, Steven Daily, Snaggs, Arbito, Chris Ryniak, kaNO, Itokin Park, Dan Goodsell, olive47, Dacosta!, Chino and literally hundreds more

The Custom Yoka Show is meant to coincide with the release of Yoka Series One, a blind boxed collectible figurine that is now available. http://www.adfuntureworkshop.com/feature_show.php?ft_id=42

The Custom Yoka Show premiered at Designer Con in Pasadena, California on November 21, 2009. More tour dates, following the Black Maria Gallery exhibition to be announced soon.

Black Maria Gallery: Dedicated to non-mainstream art, Black Maria focuses on works that reverberate with the shock of the new – not in a gratuitous sense, but in a way that initiates wonderment and self-reflection. The people behind Black Maria Gallery believe that thought-provoking art, whether it’s termed pop surrealism, avant garde, underground or subversive, has a hugely important place in civic and social discourse, especially in these times. Black Maria strives to become an organic bridge between both stateside and international artists and the public, by presenting art that’s approachable and affordable in equal measure. Black Maria strives to reach out to local artists and to help make gallery-going a revelatory and rewarding experience. www.blackmariagallery.com

DKE Toys: Dov Kelemer & Sarah Jo Marks are Co-Curators of The Custom Yoka Show and Co-Founders of DKE Toys, one of the largest designer vinyl and art-toy distributors in the world, exclusively representing over 100 companies, artists, and designers. The Custom Yoka Show is their third show together after The Vader Project and STUFFED: a plush food show. www.dketoys.com

adFunture: In August of 2002, adFunture Workshop released its first designer vinyl figure in Hong Kong and began its irreplaceable role within the international designer figure movement. In addition they are known for their fine designer apparel. www.adfuntureworkshop.com

Hungry Leprechaun

I loved this book cover, we just returned it to the library yesterday so I snapped a photo first. I have a thing for those printed hardcovers with just two to three colors. So good, I always find myself picking those out when we go to the library. My youngest and I spilt the books that will be read to him. He picks half and I pick half, then we read one from each pile (so 2 books) every night.

My lunch yesterday was leftovers, and made me realize that I eat spinach probably every single day. I always put it on sandwiches in place of lettuce, I do this with the kid’s sandwiches too. I chop it up for every soup, it is good in smoothies, ya know Pop-eye loved it. ;)

So lunch was Trader Joe’s faux beef strips, Israeli couscous, roasted tomatoes with sea salt and thyme (which was from Everyday Foods), roasted cauliflower, and barely warmed spinach.

I also made more bread on Sunday. I used this recipe quite a few times, always with really good results. It is great and chewy, makes such a nice sandwich bread. Which is actually what I plan on making for lunch today :)

Thanks for all the feedback on the yarn/knitting plush! I really appreciate all the comments. I’m going to try and few things and will post some photos when they are done. For now I’ve got to crank the heat a bit (it was 60 yesterday and today its been snowing for a couple of hours) and get to work packing up orders.

crafty plush

I’ve finally got the thread plush up in the shop. I have some other crafty related plush in the works, not sure how I feel about the knitting yarn and needles up there. Obviously the needles had to be on the chunky side so I could fit faces on them, but I feel like the yarn ball needs to be larger. I set it aside because I just didn’t like the finished plush…and then when Tom saw it laying on my desk he commented that he really liked it. So I thought I’d share a photo and get your opinions.

Textiles

I did a little household sewing this weekend. The re-moveable pillow covers I wanted to make with the other Moomin fabric, and a bed for the cat. At first she didn’t want to seem to use it, but we have caught her sleeping on it several times now!

The cat bed fabric is something I got at Joanne’s not too long ago, too cute to not get a cut of.

Tablecloth to Treat Bags

Remember my predicament when it came to quality goodies for filling treat bags, but without spending a lot of money. Well it is almost that time again with Valentine’s Day approaching. I have been thinking about my son’s class party, and decided to get a jump start.

I picked up a heart tablecloth at Target recently. It was $4.99, oh so cute…but it was the plastic-lined type and I didn’t think I would ever use it on my table. I decided I could make it into something, and so I turned it into re-usable treat bags for the class party.

1. First I folded the table cloth in half and cut along that center line.
2. Then I folded each of these new pieces in half and cut along those folds. I then had 4 large pieces of table cloth.
3. I folded each section of table cloth in half lengthwise, and then cut out long skinny bags so the fold would form the bottom of each bag. I was able to cut about 6-7 bags from each section of fabric. Since I only needed 20 bags I still have leftover table cloth that I am going to save for another project.



4. The bags will be long and skinny and have one finished edge, and one cut edge (along the top opening area) I stacked mine and sewed them all in an assembly line. It went pretty fast.



5. Since one of the top edges are finished and one was not I tucked the unfinished edge under before sewing the sides up. Just to keep it neat.



6. Once all the bags were sewn I turned them right side out and cut about 2 inch lengths of sticky back Velcro. Before applying the Velcro fold down the top of each bag onto itself. Sort of like a lunch sack. Use the folds to see where the Velcro should be attached.



And voila you are done! Now I need to start thinking about what will go inside the bags. I’ll post more when I have that down. So total with Velcro and table cloth was about $6.50 or about .32 cents per bag. Not bad considering cute lunch paper bags are usually about .30 cents each, and these can be re-used.

food stuff

It seems to be a great difficulty for me to blog about food in the winter. It is always too dark for photos when we eat dinner, breakfast isn’t usually terribly exciting (usually its fruit, maybe toast), and lunch is always a quick stop between working and I don’t really think about it (I did with the soup picture up there, that was a leftover lunch mid-day…lots of sunlight)

However since I finally have a couple of photos to share…

First is breakfast this morning. We dug out the crock pot last night and set up some steel cut oats to cook overnight, such a good way to wake up. Sometimes I like cinnamon + brown sugar, but this morning was maple syrup and bananas.

Next is soup from last week some time. I have been really getting into the Everyday Food magazines and even bought a group of old issues on ebay. The soup is the chipotle sweet potato soup. The only thing I changed was using roasted red peppers in place of the chipotle peppers in adobe because I couldn’t find them locally. I really liked the soup, and even my youngest son said “it wasn’t bad” which is a huge soup compliment from him.

I made the trek to Trader Joes today, our nearest shop is an hour away :( I love Trader Joes, not only do they have great prices, selection, but they always have the best packaging. I am such a sucker for a good tart plain frozen yogurt..so this one came home with me. Then, since we were in the area we made a stop at Caliyogurt for the plain flavor topped with bananas, so good.

a new addition…

Today Tom and I went on a mini adventure to Lucketts VA. We visited Old Lucketts Store in the hopes of getting a mirror we saw there on our last trip. Sadly it was sold, but lucky for us we didn’t go home empty handed. We saw this beautiful cabinet as we were leaving and just knew it had to come home with us.

It is a funny chartreuse like color, sort of hard to tell in the photos. It is going to be wonderful for all my cookbooks, jars of flours, etc. So excited to have found it!

Oh and just a note we did not buy the huge letters, but I did think they were pretty fabulous and had to take a photo :)

windmills and little dutch girls

I’m not sure if I will ever get this printed into fabric. I liked the idea, but I’m just not a huge fan of the finished patterns. Just a quick update today because I am off with Thomas for some adventures while the kids are at school.

Moomins (super sized)

I got this fun Moomins fabric from Tillukka on Etsy. I actually bought another Moomin fabric from her (I think I am saving it for pillows) and only bought this one because I was buying the other. Turns out I really love this one :)
I stretched it on some stretcher bars and it makes such a lovely wall hanging!