Monday, December 22nd, 2008
I have fond memories growing up of a little reed basket with a fabulous tiny wooden nativity scene inside. My mom would let me set it up and play with it — which I spent many hours doing every Christmastime. Seeing as that she still likes it she wouldn’t give it to me, so I had to set about to find my own.
Unfortunately it happens to be one of those handy items with absolutely no identifying markings. And you can imagine the number of items coming up when you do an ebay search for ’small wooden nativity set.’ Anyway, all this is to say that after spending a good two Christmas seasons searching endlessly (or obsessively) for it, I finally snagged one for us.
Maybe it is a bit homely — or folksy? But I’m in love. It’s just as fantastic as I remember. This postpartum scene is crammed with visitors. There’s even a plump lady carrying something that looks edible–I like to think of her as the innkeeper’s wife bringing a meal.
Friday, December 19th, 2008
Bottles of homemade vanilla — little gifts for friends. The bottles were difficult to get hold of. I ended up trekking with my three kids down to the bowels of Renfrew hall on campus to a strange place called the “Chem store” which until I made vanilla I didn’t even know existed. I was a language major, okay?
A new Christmas decoration of which I am inordinately fond. A cast iron elf holding a taper candle, courtesy (well, I paid) of CB2.
And since it’s heading down towards 4 degrees, and outside it looks like this:
I was cheered to see this photo in our stash:
Happy apple memories of summer.
Merry less-than-one-week-until-Christmas. I hope your to-do lists are more crossed off than mine!
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008
I finally got my act together and sewed the Christmas dress. The pictures are not that great, but since it’s ten degrees outside I decided it would be awfully cruel to drag her outside for a photo shoot.
Alice in Christmas wonderland:
It’s dark red corduroy with a floral corduroy trim. It’s velvety soft and cozy.
She’ll get plenty of use out of it with her school Christmas program and then her piano recital both this week. Let’s just hope it isn’t irreparably stained before Christmas eve!
We made chocolate gingerbread cookies yesterday (the recipe used unsweetened baking chocolate — they turned out super tasty).
The kids decorated them with zoo sprinkles. Is it just me or do kids view decorating cookies as just a token addition of more sugar? My son especially seems to just jam them all on as quickly as possible in order to get to the eating part.
All done:
And in it goes:
Alice recently decided she wanted to be a ‘grocery store lady’ when she grows up. That is, until I explained that they didn’t actually get to keep all the money people paid for groceries. Now she wants to be a ‘pet store lady.’
Monday, December 8th, 2008
The Christmas program is next Thursday, giving me little over a week to sew up a dress and matching coat (or do we have to wear uniforms, anybody know?).
I’ve cut out the dress, but instead of getting busy making yards of gathers I’m going to show things I like.
These dishes by Lenox.
This mouse house (I bought it for Alice’s birthday, I hope she’s not too old).
This town (I’ve got the bug right now and I miss it — maybe it was the mixed seafood pasta we had yesterday….):
In other news, I have a new nephew as of 2 this afternoon. Welcome little Grauke!
Friday, December 5th, 2008
I bought some fleece at the JoAnn’s black friday sale (what a nightmare shopping there on that day, ugh!) and made some of the no-sew fleece blankets for the kids.
These things really are too easy to be legal. I got a yard and a quarter of each piece, my handy husband pulled out his laser level so I could cut everything straight. I cut the slits, tied the pieces, and finished both blankets in part of an evening.
The kids love them. Clive’s has ‘hopickers’ and stripes. Alice’s is polka dots and clouds. They are so cozy and soft that now I want one. Here are the kids, reading a perennial favorite at our house, Cat is Sleepy.
They’re also great ‘jammie ride’ blankets.
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
A minute woodland world has been on my to-do/wishlist for a while. I had some little glass domes, but I needed moss.
Well, this weekend we headed out to the woods to find a Christmas tree (my father-in-law found a fantastic spot with a mother load of great trees, I think we have our best woods tree yet) and there was moss everywhere. I gathered up a small box of about four different varieties.
My next problem was finding some small items to live in the moss. After searching at the craft store and online in vain, I noticed some sculpey at a trip to JoAnn’s. It also happened to be on a super sale, so I decided to give it a go.
I ended up with two, one with small cottages and the other with a fairy and woodland animals.
Here’s a lid-less view of the houses in the furry moss:
And the fairy:
Alice wanted to know if/when a real fairy would be coming to live in the fairy terrarium.
Hopefully soon.
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008
Mrs. Weasley’s got nothing on Charles van Over, as far as I’m concerned. I mean, that lady may have been able to wiggle a wand around to do her dishes, but with Charles’s magic even ordinary people like me can turn out absolutely stunning bread without so much as one minute of kneading.
In fact, when all’s said and done it takes about 5 minutes of actual work, if that. And only 45 seconds of mixing. I’m not lying when I say it’s stunning. Let me add show-stopping, unbelievable, better-than-your-artisan-bakery kind of bread. This bread rules.
Here’s the book. Buy it, however you can manage (it’s out of print and isn’t cheap, but I found mine on ebay for about $25). It will literally change your life. And I’m sure mine has paid for itself many times over in the amount I’ve saved not buying decent bakery bread.
The premise is fairly simple: use a good sized food processor and mix your bread (with the metal blade, not the plastic dough blade) for 45 seconds. It involves weighing your flour and taking temperatures, but it’s really very simple once you’ve done it the first time. The result is so impressive I’d be glad to spend 4 times as much time doing it, but in reality the whole process is remarkably quick. The bread then sits on your counter for a while and is eventually baked on a baking stone in a hot oven.
I posted this picture before, but there’s a loaf of simply luscious challah. It tastes even better than it looks. I’m not exaggerating, people aren’t even going to believe you made this bread yourself.
There are quite a few bread recipes in the book including a basic bread (yum), pizza dough (wow), and many others I haven’t tried yet.
So, pull out your food processor (If you don’t have one, buy one. Honestly, it’s worth it. I bought mine just for making bread out of this book and I’ve never regretted it for a second.) and give it a whirl.
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008
me: What do you want for Christmas?
Clive: I already told you.
me: Tell me again, I don’t remember.
Clive: A car.
me: What kind of car?
Clive: A toy car.
me: What else?
Clive: Um, that’s all. (Long pause.) And a stocking with little tiny presents.
Saturday, November 15th, 2008
To avoid being around a computer on election day I voted early and then took my little brood to Joseph, Oregon to visit a friend. We had a nice time (not counting the impossibly windy and drop-off ridden grade).
On a side note, the neighboring town of Enterprise is home to a pizza place owned and run by the one and only Rambo. Apparently he’s quite friendly and would probably give you his autograph.
We’re back now and have a bit to show you all.
First, my youngest son has decided that food is rather good, after all.
Alice and I had a fun trip to the fabric store where she picked two flannels for me to sew some jammies. Here’s one of two — the cherry nightie:
We’re also getting closer to finishing our bedroom. Most of you know we’ve been endlessly remodeling our house. In its first life it was a carriage house. Sometime in the 50’s (we think) it became a duplex. When we bought it we lived downstairs and rented out the upstairs apartment. About a year and a half ago our renters moved out and we began the conversion process to make it a single family home again.
Part of that process involved turning the upstairs kitchen into a master bedroom. Though we haven’t even touched the old bathroom, for which we have grand plans, here are some photos of the nearing-completion bedroom (they’re not great, the lighting’s pretty bad these days).
Here’s my nasty 70’s dresser that we painted white and gussied up with new hardware. I love this style for rooms with lower ceilings (like our second story) since they seem to make the room seem less cramped. They’re a dime a dozen on craigslist and it’s really incredible what a coat of paint can do.
The wall art is an bronzey colored iron forest.
The set of brown ceramic birds were a yardsale find this summer.
And our bed, the ubiquitous Malm from Ikea — what’s not to love? Again, we picked the platform style and this bed in particular because of the lower ceilings in our upstairs. Losing the boxspring really gives the illusion that the room is taller than it really is. The ceilings aren’t really that low, but the bed and dresser help it seem very spacious.
The duvet cover was a random find this past summer (and it was just in one of Design*Sponge’s sneak peek’s!) and the art is a cut of Joel Dewberry’s almond sparrow fabric stretched over a painter’s canvas.
Pay no attention to the blue paint in the master bath to the left, it will go after the walls, floor, ceiling, and all fixtures have been ripped out . . .
For the flooring we laid vertical, natural bamboo. It really brightens the room and gives it that calm feel we were going for. The shaggy wool flokati rug takes the edge off on chilly mornings.
Overall we wanted a theme that went with the room. The large window and the door which leads to a small balcony are buried in a canopy of lush green leaves all spring and summer (no pictures since all there are now are brown branches). It’s like sleeping in a treehouse — hence the trees and birds inside.
Hopefully late next month we’ll start demo on the bathroom!
Friday, November 7th, 2008
Cynthia Treen’s delightful, beautiful, and practical book Last Minute Fabric Gifts has had a frequent place of honor in my posts. If after all I’ve said and made you still haven’t picked up a copy, the time is now. Christmas is coming, go stick it on your list.
Anyway, I just discovered that this talented lady started a blog, Sartorial Stitch. She has gorgeous photos of her creative and lovely projects and even instructions on how to make a barnacle scarf (I’m definitely on board with this project, sheer beachy genius!). So, head on over, enjoy her elegant woodsy styles, and check out her fake fishbowl jello.