7 Layer Studio

Booville WrapUp

Halloween night was wet and rainy, but it didn't stop my two oldest from doing the much-anticipated Trick-or-Treat thing.  Eliza really wanted to be a vampire, so I made her that cape.  I ended up buying a costume pattern, and just added the bat "peaks" at the bottom of the pattern before cutting it out.  Hyrum had his heart set on being a ghost, so I made a bigger version of the one I made for them a couple of years ago.  I was trying to convince them all to be cute monsters (imagine the creative potential of that!) but they wanted nothing to do with the idea.

Don't they look scary?  Eliza's expression cracks me up - she looks JUST like a picture of me when I dressed like a punk rocker when I was about 12.   What do you think, Mendenhall clan - is she her mother's daughter or what?  She had already lost track of her vampire teeth by this point, but no matter.  I was glad not hear her go berserk anymore every time saliva dripped down her chin because of the fake teeth!

I don't have any pics of Hazel that night, as she had hit her fussy stage of the evening and was not in any mood to hold still for pictures.  I had taken some cute shots of her (she was Bat Baby) a few days prior to Halloween at a Trunk-or-Treat party, but I was using my little point-and-shoot camera that night and I can't find the cord that connects it to the computer.  Yet another example of my disorganization at work!  Okay, going through 2 moves in less than 9 months didn't help...but how long can I keep pulling the "Just Moved" card?  :-)

I almost forgot to post pics of the outside of our house!

It's pretty much the same as last year, except it's a different house (obviously) and the banners you see here used to be fabric chair covers that I created for the two chairs on our front porch in Hawaii.

 

 

I cut off the back and the side ties of the covers and looped the top of the fabric over so they could be hung as banners.

The wind whipped them around quite a bit, and half the time they were flipped over so the back of the banner was facing out.  Next year I may try to weigh down the bottom corners with something so they don't flip over so much when the wind blows.

These tall buckets were a garage sale find several years ago.  I painted them orange and decorated them all goofy. 

The kids have been having a GREAT time with all the autumn leaves!  None of them have had much experience with the gloriously crunchy stuff because we were in Hawaii for over 5 years, so this has been quite a treat for them.  Hazel, especially, loves to rake them (or, more accurately, UNrake them out of their piles).

   

Yes, she's still in her PJs.  One of the perks of being a stay-at-home kid when big brother and sister are off at school!

The other day we helped raked up a huge pile of leaves in the neighbor's driveway and some of the neighborhood kids came over to join in the fun.  They had such a blast flopping into the leaf pile, throwing the leaves up into the sky, and burying eachother under piles and piles of leaves.  It brought back some fun, nostalgic memories of my own childhood - we used to do the same thing in our backyard.  I didn't have my camera with me, I wish I could have captured that moment on "film" but the most important thing are the memories created for the kids.  I hope they're old enough to retain such simple moments of pure joy!

Quite awhile ago Hyrum lost his 2 bottom teeth (I tried in vain to get a picture of him with his missing teeth in view - or rather, the lack thereof) but he started feeling self-conscious and gave up trying to pose for me.  Poor kid...the trials of having a Mommy Blogger.  Anyway, I managed to get a pic of him smiling with his Tooth Fairy pillow that I made for him.  He was very excited to have a star-shaped version, because his big sister's pillow is a boring square with frills around the edges.  Now Eliza is jealous.  The sibling rivalry continues! 

 

Feasting On Bones, Spiders, and Worms...Oh, My!

 
We had an invasion of spiders in our house yesterday.  They crawled all over the goodies I made for a little party I hosted for some friends and their kids.

At first I was grossed out, but then I thought they might taste pretty yummy (nice texture with those hairy legs, and hey - we could all use more protein, right?) with the chocolate "blood" cake (raspberry jam was used on top of the white icing in between the layers, and they were encouraged to ooze off the edges of the cake) .  I also let the spiders stay because they help to hide the boo-boo's I made on the chocolate web...I used chocolate icing that I microwaved for a bit, but it got too hot and oozy so I couldn't control it very well.  Hence the oozy web.

We dined on grubby worms (hotdogs sliced lengthwise and boiled) with blood sauce,

 
crunched on salty bones (breadstick dough-in-a-can brushed with olive oil, then sprinkled with garlic salt, Italian herbs, and parmesan cheese),

and devoured headstones.  These three things were repeats fromlast year's big bash, and I think I got the ideas for them from Family Fun magazine, but I'm not sure.  My memory is not always the most reliable thing in the world. 

We quenched our thirst with Blood Punch (a very spunky and tasty concoction of frozen lemonade concentrate, cherry Koolaid - with 1/2 cup sugar - and Ginger Ale.  Floating eyeballs and gummy worms optional, but that's what made the kids so excited about the stuff - they all wanted a gummy worm, but since they all sink to the bottom it became a fishing venture at the punch bowl.  In case you want to try the punch yourself, here's the exact recipe:  1 can lemonade, 2 cans water, 1 pkg cherry koolaid, 1/2 c sugar, 3/4 of a 2-liter bottle of Ginger Ale, and lots of ice.  It's really tasty!!

I have a fancy punchbowl, but it didn't really fit the theme so I used an inverted cake plate lid on top of a glass bowl filled with treats and spiders (don't ask me how they got into that candy - they were everywhere, I'm tellin' ya)

I made white chocolate spiderwebs just like the article in this October's Country Living magazine explains how to do, but then I started making other things with the white chocolate because I got bored with making spiderwebs.

Eeek!  There's a spider crawling toward me!

 

Boo!  There's one on you too!

The crazy black cat was enjoying his perch atop a candlestick.  It was a great place to keep away from the spiders, because the sides of the pillar were too slick for the spiders to crawl up.  Hence the grin.

Here are the kids on a gummy worm fishing expedition.

I hope you have a great Halloween weekend!  Now I need to go finish the kids' costumes and gear up for party #2 (this time for the neighborhood kids) in a couple of days!  I know, I'm crazy. 

This afternoon we'll carve our pumpkins, the kids are really looking forward to that.  We'll see if Eliza and Hyrum are brave enough to touch the slimy insides of the pumpkins this year...it's such a tactile delight.

Runner Up Late

What Halloween table is complete without a runner?  My dining room table looked a little too bleak with that black tablecloth, and I had all that ribbon practically begging to get used, so I stayed up the other night making this.

As with most things I do, it took a lot longer than I thought it would.  "Oh, I'll just whip this up in an hour before I go to bed," thought I. 

Hah!  Due to a lot of technical difficulties and a painful lack of fusible, double-sided interfacing tape, I was up till after 2 am before I finished it.  And I was determined to finish it before I went to bed, because, well, that's just how I am.  :-)

I usually try not to sew or do any big projects during the day because of the kids.  Night time is when I can unwind and do fun stuff like sewing or other projects.  I know I shouldn't stay up so late very often (I know, dear Mom, it's not good for me!), but sometimes it's too tempting to work late into the night when all is quiet and there are zero distractions.

It started out innocently and easily enough.  I had all the ribbon just where I wanted it, pinned in place on both ends, but after trying to sew the first ribbon on straight while the runner and ribbons flopped and pulled every which way, I realized I needed to switch tactics.  

Since I either didn't have or couldn't find my fusible tape, I took double-sided interfacing and painstakingly cut it to the appropriate widths and carefully put it beneath each ribbon in a few places.  Then, after fusing the ribbon, I tried the sewing approach again and it worked much better.  But I quickly realized that sewing down both edges of every ribbon was more than a little time-consuming!  I finished it off with a border cut to 3" wide.  First I sewed the strips on, then turned under the raw outside edges of the border twice for a finished edge, and finally flopped into bed for a few hours of z's before waking up to get Eliza off to school.  (confession:  after she left for school, I snuck back into bed until my other kiddos woke up, which was heavenly bliss...I love sinking back into bed for more shut-eye.  Doesn't happen often, but it's a welcome luxury!)

So last night, after the kiddos were all tucked in, this black-and-white fabric that has been stored away for about a year kept calling my name, and the leftover ribbon was whining about being left behind.

This time I got smart and used the fusible interfacing strips (still haven't made it to the store for the ready-made tape) over the entire length of ribbon so I didn't have to stitch the ribbon on.

Since these pillows won't be taking much of a beating due to their short display time every year, I'm not really worried about not stitching the ribbon on.  I always stitch the ribbon I use on garments, however, because of how frequently clothes get washed.

I used pillows I already had but weren't being used at the moment, and made a flap in the back of the pillow case so the pillow forms can be removed easily and the cases stored with the Halloween things.

Seems I can't do much with ribbon without making one of my ribbon bows (see Ribbon Bow tutorial in my sidebar). 

This one is providing a bit of bling for the checkered pillow.  I have it safety-pinned on from the inside of the pillow case so I can remove it if/when the case gets washed.

Ahh, my first pie of the season.  It's apple, of course (made from scratch, including the crust, yumyum), and I added some toasted pecans which made it extra scrumptious.  I'm still getting acquainted with my new oven, it's gas with a convection fan so I'm having some moments of frustration with it (see burned edge, despite my efforts to shield the crust with foil).  Electric ovens are definitely better, but I really wanted a gas range and couldn't afford one of those hybrid ovens with gas for the range and electric for the oven - so the gas range won out!  I'll just need to fiddle with the oven and rotate things.  Anyway, the pie was delicious, although a bit overdone (boohoo for overcooked, mushy apples).  At least it hadn't turned to applesauce pie yet, which I have done before!

This one's for Grandma, who sent Hazel this adorable little PJ set complete with a tutu.  She wears it night and day, she loves it so much.  Thanks Grandma!

My sister sent Hazel the most adorable rainbow glasses and compact mirror case, among other things, which Hazel squealed in delight about.  She wore those clear lens glasses everywhere (much better for seeing indoors than the sunglasses she wore a few weeks ago) for days, until her little 2-year-old hands pried the frame apart one time too many and the side pieces broke off.  :-( 

Guess we'll have to go to Claire's and get another pair!  I haven't been to a mall in absolutely ages, and the thought doesn't excite me...give me Home Depot, Lowe's, or HomeGoods anyday!  Can't buy nonprescription rainbow glasses at Lowes, though, so I it looks like it's time to figure out where the nearest Claire's is...

 

  
 
 
 
 
  

Halloween Ornament Tutorial

  
  
Introducing a how-to for making quick little ornaments for your Halloween tree! (AKA dead branches spray-painted black)

These cute numbers would also look great bunched together in a wreath for your front door (I'll have to make some more and make a wreath to show you) or as gift tags. 

They would also be super for Christmas, with different colors, of course!

 
These ornaments are double-sided, which works out well for hanging on branches - you could also hang them, mobile-style, from a chandelier or other suitable light fixture.

To make them, you'll need ribbon, scrapbook paper, double-sided tape, needle/thread, and circle die-cutters in 2 different sizes. 

In this example I used 3 strips of ribbon about 6 inches long.

Using the same technique I described in my tutorial for the Ribbon Bow (see sidebar to the right), loop the 3 ribbon strips and sew in place with a few stitches of thread.  When all three loops are secure, tie off and snip thread.

Using double-sided tape, on one side of the bow attach a large paper circle.  Attach the small circle either with a tiny piece of tape or a dot of glue.

Flip the ornament over.  Attach another piece of double-sided tape to the other side, and place an 8-inch strip of skinny ribbon onto the tape as shown.  Put another piece of double-sided tape on top and

place the other 2 circles in the center to cover the skinny ribbon ends.  That's it!  In about 5 minutes or less, you have a darling little decoration.

If you have ribbon that is the same on both sides (as opposed to a design printed on one side like the example above), an alternative way of making them is to use short strips (these are 3 inches long) of ribbon, notch them as shown, and

 
 

stitch them together in a similar fashion as the first example.  With ribbon that is notched (instead of having the raw edges hidden), I like to treat the cut edges with a liquid stop-fray product to prevent the edges from fraying.

Two great looks, one simple method!

Happy ornament making...and watch out - they're addictive!

This tutorial was approved and paid for by Mr. Owl, whose tree is now bedecked with cheery spots, stripes, and circles.

 

Indoor Pumpkin Patch and Other Such Orangeness

Let the pumpkinheads unite - it's time for Halloween!

I just love decorating for All Hallow's Eve.  Not the disgusting, bloody, gory kind of decorating that seems to be taking over the stores these days...just the fun, quirky, orange/black/white look that doesn't terrorize my little ones.  I seriously can't take my kids down the Halloween isle in some stores because it's too offensive...yet another example of the effects of a culture desensitized to violence due to overexposure to it via the entertainment industry.  But anyway, I digress...

There are bats in my dining room (eek!)...

owls practically perched on dead tree branches (I have a little tutorial in the works for some fun ornaments for this tree, so stay tuned)...

 
pumkins squatting on my table...

and ghosts, black kitties, and spiders overtaking my front entry (ack)!

About a month ago I kept finding the cutest Halloween things at Ross and HomeGoods, and so I succumbed and bought some things.  I was going to hand-paint a bunch of Halloween-themed plates this year, but since we're in the middle of a house remodel and these things are so dang adorable (and inexpensive), I played consumer instead.  I feel a little guilty for not doing a bunch of handmade stuff this year, but my life has been upside-down with all the moving we've done in the past 9 months...and I promise I'll post some great ideas for handmade ornaments soon!  I have some fun sewing projects lined up too, hopefully I'll get those done this week.

 
This is in my kitchen, I think it's hilarious.  My favorite $3 decoration ever.

I really like this cheery trio of plates above my dad's oak tree sculpture (he made it for us as a wedding gift).  Soon the tree will be bedecked with little ghosties!

These sweet little plates make me smile.  They have a nostalgic, vintage feel that is quite charming.

I finally finished framing these black-and-white monotypes that I made over a year ago...yeah!  I made the frames from brick molding, which is available at Home Depot or equivalent.  Before I cut the mitered pieces, Steve and I ran the sticks through the table saw to create a "lip" for holding the glass and mats.  I'll try to remember to do a little tut for making frames sometime, it's hard to explain without photos. 

I found a self-service framing facility on a nearby Army base, which was very exciting - I was able to cut the glass for a bunch of picture frames with their very handy glass cutting tool, instead of using a little hand cutter here at home.  Hazel was with me for that trip, so I wasn't able to stick around long enough to use their mat cutters.  I ended up doing that at home after the kiddos were all tucked in bed.

It's great to see my monotypes all framed up and on the wall - they were getting lonely being all boxed up for so long. 

   

  

 
 
 

Polly Pumpkinhead and Gary Gourd are grinning with the widest of wishes for a Happy Halloween!

ps. Until I get all of this year's Halloween things posted, I invite you to check out last year's posts, starting with the Goulish Grub I made for a neighborhood Monster Bash.  Lots of ideas for costumes, decorations, and food lurk in my October 2008 archives, so beware...

Stars and Stripes Forever

 

Since we're going to be at a family reunion for Steve's family over 4th of July weekend (we leave tomorrow morning, and I still haven't packed yet!) we won't be here to host a big Independence Day sheebang.  I wanted to post SOMETHING for the 4th of July, though, so I plopped one of Eliza's new hair bows (see tutorial for it in my sidebar) onto my festive assortment of plates for a quick red-white-and-blue affair.

 

 

Hyrum came inside from playing in our wading pool and flopped down for a spontaneous photo or two.

 

That pose looks totally staged, but I promise it isn't!  His staged poses are much more canned, I assure you. 

 

I grabbed some appropriately patterned things from around the house to have something patriotically colored to photograph...not quite the typical stars and stripes, but hey - it works!

I don't know how much posting I'll be able to do while we're on the road for the next few weeks...so if I don't come up with anything new for awhile - hang tight, I'll have lots and lots to share with you when I return!

Now I really, really must go finish the mountain of laundry (the bane of my existence) I've been doing for the past two days so I can pack for our triple-state adventure.

 

 

 I hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th of July, and may we never forget the people who have sacrificed so much to ensure that we are free to pursue our American Dreams.  May we always remember that freedom has a price, and may we understand that with freedom comes the responsibility to use it in a way that will not destroy that right for future generations.  God bless the USA!

Easter Wrap Up + Giveaway

 

We had a belated Easter party yesterday in our backyard.  I was going to do something fun for the kids and their friends last week, but with Hyrum, then Hazel, then finally Eliza getting pink eye, it put a damper on our plans to do so.  On Monday I just did a really low-key, spur-of-the-moment event with cupcakes to decorate and an egg hunt.  This is Hyrum's creation...can you see the frosting at all?  It's somewhere underneath all those sprinkles.  He was, as you can tell, tickled pink about having free reign of the sprinkle supply.

Ah, such sweet indulgence...and Hyrum was relishing every morsel of it.

 

This was Hazel's interaction with sprinkles just before the party began...fascinating, isn't it, to see what happens when one dumps out an entire container of sprinkles on the floor?  It looks like she's thinking, "Now how in the world did those get down there?  Hhmmmm...where should I start eating first?"

I had turned away just for a second to look for a funnel to pour the large container (the contents of which you now see on our floor) of sprinkles into separate smaller containers with shaker lids on them.  That's all the time it took for Hazel to reach up (not even counter height is safe with her anymore!) and test the effects of gravity on an open container of sprinkles.

 

After both of us stared in awe at the mess (remember this is just before the party started) Hazel immediately embarked on a feeding frenzy while I got the broom and the vaccuum cleaner.  I'm glad I had my camera right there to document it.  I must admit it's pretty funny...and I'm just glad it wasn't something liquid and sugary spilling all over my pretty kitchen rug!  In the end, there was no harm done and we still had plenty of sprinkles to go around (I always keep a hefty stash of sprinkles in my house, the kids love to use them).

Eliza loves to smear food on her face to create the mustache/beard effect.  Charming, isn't it?  I'm sure it makes the cupcake taste better.

 

Here's a beardless version of Eliza...I can't believe how grown-up she's getting.  I still think of her as a toddler sometimes.

 

Through the years I've started on countless (admittedly half-baked) projects with the intent of generating a little income while being a stay-at-home-mom, only to be stymied by the marketing aspect of the deal.  Here is one such project I started a few years ago, but never went anywhere with it.

Back when I was doing a fair amount of scrapbooking, I decided I'd paint these holiday-related images with watercolor on nice, thick watercolor paper, cut them out like these are, and sell them as cute little original images on ebay for people searching for hand-made accessories for their pages. 

I thought that, as long as I kept the images fairly simple, it shouldn't take me that long to make them so I could turn a little bit of a profit on the side when my kids were in school/napping.

Well, it didn't take long for me to realize that if I broke down the number of hours it took me to paint these, cut them out, photograph them, list them on ebay or etsy, and pay the commission, I'd be making somewhere in the realm of $1 or $2 an hour for my efforts = NOT worth it!

 

So then I thought, well, maybe I can just color photocopy them on heavy-duty paper and sell collections of them for just a few dollars apiece, and then the buyer could just cut them out her/himself.  No go, because the copies looked lousy.

THEN I thought that I could just find a company that does licensing work and have them do all the un-fun marketing/producing stuff, and I could retain a percentage of the sales.

 

That, obviously, didn't pan out either.  The quality isn't really good enough to reproduce (remember, I was trying to do simple, quick little images to sell the originals of?) so these little watercolor ditties have been sitting in a box for quite some time now. 

I'm not exceptionally proud of them, but it would be nice to do something with them instead of putting them in a box until the unknown day I find the time to start doing scrapbooking again.

 

 

So here's what I'm going to do: 

I'm going to host a little giveaway of all the little ditties you see pictured below so that one of YOU can start making use of them!

 

I may end up giving away more of these later, but for now I think I'll start with these.  It's a smorgasbord collection, with a little bit o'everything!

Sooo, if you're interested in winning these to do a little springtime scrapbooking with, then please just leave a comment at the end of this post.  I'll have one of my kiddos randomly draw a name in one week, say, next Tuesday April 21st.  Until then, happy blogging!

Easter Pretties

 

"I think the Easter Bunny went that way, Mom!"

We had a very nice, fairly low-key Easter this year.  No company over, just going to church and then a yummy meal of salmon and asparagus, and a semi-successful photo session of the kids in their new Easter clothes.

As you can tell, although it was sunny, the wind was chilly and the poor kids tried valiantly to pose nicely but it was obviously very cold outside!

I tried distracting them with those fun fake flowers, which worked for a little bit but not long enough!

By the way, I want to apologize for the fuzzy, untouched photos.  I've been using my husband's laptop to blog on for the past 4 months, because our (very) old desktop is maxed out and we haven't been able to get a new computer quite yet.  The photo software on this laptop is extremely basic, and for a reason seemingly beyond my control, when I plug in the photos to my blog, they immediately get "dumbed down" and all grainy.  I can't figure out what's going on, because the version from the camera is crisp and gorgeous.  I wish I knew enough about these things to do something about it, but hopefully I'll be able to start using a real photo editing program soon.  It's frustrating to take decent shots only to have the translation make them look crummy.

 

Anyway, here's a close-up of the doo-da on Eliza's front.  I took a bit (I think about 10 inches) of extra lace, the same kind I used at the bottom of the dress, and gathered it together into a circle, slipstitching the ends together for a seamless look.  Then I just made a simple bow, sewed it all together and then stitched it to the dress by hand.  It's one of my favorite parts of this dress.

Here's a view of the back.  I made this dress using a pattern for the top part (it was for a pull-over top) and I just added the skirt part to it.  The top part is obviously too big - I hadn't used the pattern before and guessed wrong on the size to use.  You know how sometimes it's hard to tell what size to cut out because every pattern maker is different and the sizes seem to vary wildly?  I don't actually use patterns that often for my girl's clothes, so I'm still learning what works.  I think I'll be able to fix it by gathering the top parts of the sleeves more - it just gapes open too much at the neckline.

Sweet Eliza was a dearie during this photo shoot, and tried very hard to pose nicely even though she was very chilly.  She's getting to be quite a good little model, don't you think?  Not that I aspire, in any shape or form, for her to be a model in real life...it's just nice that at least one of my children can be fairly consistent in her expressions and will hold still for more than 1 second straight!

Hazel, on the other hand, makes a break for it at every opportunity she gets!  Isn't that look of sheer joy on her face fun to see?  She's escaping to the back yard where the swingset is.

I love this shot of Eliza and Hyrum.  So sweet and innocent.

 

Hazel loves to look at airplanes up in the sky.  She notices them even when they're a tiny speck way up in the air.  Kids can be delightfully observant.  The other day I was taking Hazel into a store, and I was letting her walk until we got to the front entrance.  The side of the building was made of rough cement blocks, and she just stopped dead in her tracks when she got close to them.  Hazel did her "Ohhhh!" expression and walked up to the rough wall with hands outstretched, and she then proceeded to study and "pet" the side of the wall for a good 5 minutes.  It was hilarious.  There was a lady in her vehicle that was just about to leave the parking lot when Hazel started her wall study, and the lady got such a kick out of watching Hazel that she stayed in her parking spot just to watch what my curious little kiddo would do next.  It's so delightful to see little kids find so much wonder in the things we consider completely ordinary.

Here's Hazel again, frozen to the spot until the airplane made its way clear across the sky and out of sight.  Maybe she inherited some of her daddy's pilot genes...

Then she was off to go explore another part of the yard.

I forgot to mention that the green and blue fabric is some that I've had on hand for a few years now - it's one of Amy Butler's early lines called Charm.  I have always loved this fabric - there is so much incredible detail in it when you can look at it closely - it fascinates me.  I originally bought it to make a fun skirt for myself, but that never happened and so it's good to see it made into something darling for my girls.  Hooray for Amy Butler!

 

Here's our crazy crew first thing on Sunday morning...notice Hazel already has a big chunk of chocolate in her hand.  She made a beeline for that foil-wrapped bunny and had that thing unwrapped and in her mouth before I could get the lens cap off and the exposure worked out.  That kid LOVES candy!

Here she is stuffing it into her mouth as quickly as she can, because she thinks that we'll probably be taking it away from her soon.  I actually let her eat away until I could finish taking some pictures - it was the only way to get her to hold still on that couch until picture time was over!

"What, you mean I get to eat the WHOLE THING?!"

 

And finally, we have Hyrum demonstrating his amazing face-making skills as the girls look on with rapt attention.  Watch out, Hyrum, or your face will be stuck like that forever!!  (How many times have we all heard that in our lives, right?  As if any kid actually believes it....)

I have more to post, but it will have to wait until tomorrow - it's getting very very late again.  Hope you all had a wonderful Easter Sunday and that you were able to reflect on the real meaning behind this blessed holiday, beyond the bunnies and the candy-filled eggs.

Oh - I keep on forgetting to thank all of you wonderful ladies out there for your incredibly kind comments and/or great advice about my breakfast table/chairs!  I love hearing what you have to say, and thanks so much for taking the time to comment!  It makes my day.  About the red chairs...I think I'll just sit on them for awhile (ha-ha, pun intended) until I have time to paint them black with some of the red peeking through.  They're fun as red chairs, but I think that they'll be better in black - especially considering that I'm planning on making roman blinds for the windows behind the table in the same red and white Amsterdam print that I used on the black accent chairs in my front room.  Many thanks for all your help with that, sometimes it's good just to have a sounding board. 

And Sarah, if you name your little Easter vignette "Ode to Shelley", I'll dedicate my efforts to get back into shape (so far just a plan in my head, unfortunately) "Ode to Sarah".  You are such an inspiration to me, what with having 5 children and still looking as trim as you did in college.  You have more fitness dedication in your pinky than I seem to have in my whole being these past few years.  So can you just periodically email me to nag me into taking the time to exercise?  I need a big, huge push out that front door these days.  I no longer have super freezing weather as my excuse - and I'd better hurry before the muggy, sluggish days of summer appear!  But right now I just need to get to bed.  G'night, all!

Seeing Green

 

On St. Patrick's Day, we had a fun, green-filled time of it!  I gathered some random green things in my house for the centerpiece on the table, and took some darling green and white fabric I had on hand to use as a decorative accent atop the dark green tablecloth.

 

Not your typical springtime centerpiece, but this was not a typical springtime day!

There was no pinching going on at our house....

 

 

Here's Hyrum showing us his pot-o-gold bounty that he found at preschool earlier that day.  As you can see, his teacher loves to go all out for St. Patrick's Day too!  She gave him the hat and the necktie, and all the kids got their faces painted at school. 

 

I think Hyrum was most excited about the fact that the gold coins were actually chocolate inside!  Being the sweet boy that he is, he was very careful to save a couple of gold coins to share with his sister when she got home from school.  He's very thoughtful that way, and is usually very happy to share with Eliza.

He said the funniest thing during his personal prayer at bedtime the other night.  He likes to say really long prayers, so when he ran out of things to say he wanted me to prompt him with other topics.  I suggested, "Bless me to be nice to my sisters," and there was a loooooong pause, followed by this surprising reply: "Wait a minute - I don't have 2 sisters!"  I asked him who he thought Hazel was, and he said, "She's not my sister!  She's a baby!  Sisters have to be older than me!"

 

Hyrum was giggling the whole way through his green mac and cheese at lunchtime.  He thought it was among the funniest things ever.

 

Here was Eliza's reaction to that evening's ALL GREEN dinner.  After the initial shock, however, she enthusiastically dug right in and ate some of everything.

 

Even the green chicken (sautee'd with garlic, butter, rosemary, and lemon juice - and green food coloring, of course).

   

We had some friends over to dinner that night, and I was so busy chatting that I wasn't paying attention to the consistency of the mashed potatoes (can you say wallpaper sludge?).  They definitely passed the fork test (as in sticking a fork in to see if it stands up straight).  Ah, well.  What else can you expect from somewhat who can't figure out how to multitask?

I can't drive and talk on the phone, and I most definitely canNOT cook and talk at the same time.  Fortunately our guests were good sports. 

Here's a sneak peek at another green thing in our house right now...I bought this old seafoam green bedroom set on Craigslist and am in the process of painting it for Hazel's room.  I know I'm going to horrify those of you who adore the furniture in all its seafoamy glory, but sorry...I'm not going for the 80's green look.  I'm actually almost done with the painting part of it, I just have to wait for the knobs I ordered to arrive.  Can't wait to show you the finished result!

Eggstravaganza!!!

 

Sorry for the cheezy post title - I couldn't seem to help myself!  Oh, how I adore Easter (because of the glorious celebration that it is) and all the lovely rebirth-themed, springtime traditional decorations that come with the season.  I've always enjoyed decorating Easter eggs and making bunnies and having egg hunts and all that, and now I'll share a few little decorating tidbits and ideas with you!

 

For this arrangement, I used a white cake plate, placed a small white, inverted bowl in the center, and put this darling little lambkins plate on top of the bowl.

 

I adore this little plate set, which I excitedly snatched up at a little thrift shop (I never saw so many little vintage Buddha statues in my life!) in Japan when we were visiting Steve's parents in Hokkaido last year.  I love these plates, I have a couple hanging up on my wall above the kitchen sink, and now these are gracing my dining room table centerpiece.  I'm in love with the increasingly popular blue-and-white color theme (it's so clean and fresh), so I decided to keep it classically simple for this arrangement.

 

I had such a fantastic time decorating these eggs the other night, when all the kiddos were sleeping soundly and I had a couple of hours of blissful uninterrupted peace.  My kids are extremely rambunctious and LOUD, bless their little hearts (and high-decibal voices), so when they're all in bed it's my rejuvenation time.

 

So I should probably be telling you how I achieved some of these egg designs, eh?  Unfortunately I didn't think to take pics of the steps along the way, so I'll just have to describe those to you.

1) First, if you want to keep these eggs for more than a few weeks, you'll need to blow the insides out.  Take a push pin and make little holes on either ends of the egg.  I usually make the initial tiny hole, then 2 other holes nearby the first one and start chipping away at the egg shell in between all 3 holes until there is one larger hole.  It doesn't have to be any larger than 1/8" in diameter.  Take a long needle and pierce the yolk, then shake the egg a little bit so it breaks the yolk up.

2) Using a baby nose-sucking syringe thingy (how's that for technical terms?  I think it's really called an aspirator, not sure though) AKA BoogerSnatcher, place the tip of the BoogerSnatcher over one of the holes and squeeze GENTLY (too much pressure will burst the egg open, as it did to 8!! of my 24 eggs.  What's up with chickens and their thin-shelled eggs these days?!) to expel the egg innards.  You may want to place the tip of the BS at a slight angle so as not to force too much air inside the egg at once.  Or make a bigger hole at the bottom of your egg, which I probably should have done after the first few busted eggs.  HINT:  DO NOT LEAVE THE BS OVER THE HOLE AS YOU RELEASE PRESSURE ON THE BULB OF THE UNIT.  Such an action will result in egg guts being sucked inside the bulb of the BS, creating an environment for bacterial growth that makes me cringe to think about (or smell in a day or two!).

You could also use your mouth and a good set of lungs to expel the egg guts if you don't happen to own a BS, but if you're doing more than a few eggs at a time I would have to warn you that extreme headache/dizziness symptoms might complicate things (been there, done that...my mom and I used to do all our eggs using the mouth/lungs method, and I sure dreaded it!  The price one pays for art, I suppose...unless, of course, you are in possession of the highly practical and versatile BoogerSnatcher).

3) When all egg innards are expelled from the shell, rinse off and place the egg upright so any excess moisture can drain.  Let eggs dry completely.

 

If you want to have the image of a plant on your egg, here's how (and by the way, this technique is not my idea; it's widely available in most crafty magazines around Easter time pretty much every year.  I'm sure there's a tut for it on Martha Stewart.):

1) Using a little brush (I used my kid's watercolor paint set brush), brush some egg white onto the back of the leaf and carefully place it on the egg, pressing gently until the leaf sticks to the egg.  Try not to smear any excess egg white around, as it could repel some of the dye later on.

2) I used fresh cilantro leaves and wilted green onion stems (the fresh, fleshy stems wouldn't work because they were too stiff to stick to the egg) that I slit open lengthwise and wrapped around the egg because it was cold and rainy and dark outside and I didn't want to go on an outdoor plant scavenger hunt at 10:00 at night.

The white band you see around this egg was achieved with a green onion stem.

The herringbone pattern was not; I'll explain how I did that in a minute.

3) Take an old pair of old hose or stockings and cut into 4 to 6 inch tubes.  Carefully place your plant-ed egg into the middle of the tube and draw up both raw ends of the tube.  Secure the ends with string, rubber bands, twisty ties, etc.

4) Prepare your egg dye per instructions on the box, OR you can make your own by mixing 2 Tbls vinegar, several drops of liquid food coloring, and 1/2 cup water into little cups.

5) Place your egg into dye, wait until desired color appears, remove from hose, carefully peel off plant, gently blot, and you're done!

For the HERRINGBONE TEXTURE, instead of nylon hose I took a pair of herringbone-textured trouser socks and cut into tubes.  I turned them inside-out so the textured side faced inward, then placed the egg inside and wrapped as described above.  I really had to dunk these eggs well because this particular fabric was rather water-repellant and didn't allow much dye to reach the egg, so that's something to watch for if you try this.  After soaking the egg for several minutes, I lifted it out and let it rest on the cardboard egg carton for AT LEAST half an hour while it was still in its sock cocoon.  This will ensure that the sock texture has a chance to do its thing uninterrupted.  Then just unwrap and blot dry as usual.

Other textures were achieved using little round garage sale stickers, the donut shaped circles were stickers to reinforce paper holes for use in binders, and this egg

 

was wrapped in printer-label stickers cut in half lengthwise and gently molded to fit the shape of the egg.  I love the areas where the dye seeped in underneath the stickers - it creates such a lovely and interesting texture.

If you do use stickers, I would advise that you remove them a minute or two after the egg comes out of the dye.  They're much easier to remove when they're still saturated with fluid.  You don't want to handle the egg too much immediately after the dye bath because you might mess it up, but don't wait too long (I speak from experience) or you'll be scraping sticker glue off for longer than it took to prepare the egg!

 

This egg is one of several I did many years ago.  I had wrapped large rubber bands all over the place before dunking it into the dye.

Here are more eggs from years ago...

 

So, when my kids awoke to all the eggciting (sorry, I promise I'll stop with the puns) new inventory on Saturday morning, of course they wanted to join in on the fun.  Hyrum has been asking me for weeks now when he got to decorate eggs, he loves doing it so much.  Last year he was up to his wrists in dye (no kidding - I'll have to dig out that picture of Hyrum proudly displaying his muddy egg with equally muddy hands - it's priceless) so this year I was very impressed that he was able to do it without any fist baths.

Here is Mr. Facemaker preparing one of his masterpieces for a dunk.

It takes a lot of concentration, you know, to get those stickers "just so" on that egg!

 


  

Here's Eliza, in the smock that Grandma made for her when Eliza was about 2 years old.  It's getting a little snug there, honey!  I used to have to roll up the sleeves, and now they're at her elbows.

The kids had a great time decorating their own eggs.  Eliza dedicated this one to Hyrum and Hazel.

 Sweet little Hazel wanted to join in the fun too.  She kept climbing on top of the table and almost tipped the cups full of dye over more than once.  Just look at that mischevious grin!

 

Here she is before she pulled out her little "tree", as we call it.  Hazel can't stand to have anything in her hair, but her hair is always in her eyes and it's got to drive her nuts.  I know it drives ME crazy to see her hair in her eyes all the time!  I don't want to cut her hair because it grows forward from the back of her head, so if I started cutting bangs she'd end up with a mullet.  Not the look I'm going for. 

So, until it grows out a little more we'll have to suffice with the tree vs. no tree look. 

 

....And now, for the pastel explosion of Easter Bunny stuff!

 

Over the years I've collected a lot of little Easter decorations that I usually display throughout the house.  With Hazel being the age that she is and considering her innate desire to climb on, pull off, rip up, and unwrap everything in her grasp, this year I put all the pretties on one side table.  I then used that foamy double sided sticky tape on the corners and edges of the tabletop to hold the tablecloth in place.  I kept having these visions of Hazel walking up to the cloth and yanking on it, thus sending all the sparkly doo-dahs crashing to the floor in a million little pieces, so this will hopefully prevent that scenario.

So far, Hazel hasn't shown a whole lot of interest in the Easter things (knock on wood) so we might escape with little or no damage this year!

 

My two older kids, on the other hand, got so excited when they saw these things on the table - they love to go over and look at all the decorations.  When I was growing up my mom had made an elaborate Easter scene, with felt-covered bunnies, hand-blown eggs covered carefully in dainty green and yellow polka dot fabric and trimmed with white ric rac, a little white tree to hang the eggs from, etc.  I was fascinated with that as a child, and I loved to stand there gazing at all the little details. 

 

I must admit, however, that most of the things on this table are store-bought.  With the exception of the 3 hand-painted plates, these are all things I have found at places like Tuesday Morning, HomeGoods, Ross, etc.  I suppose I could make a ceramic bunny of my own, for example, but why spend the time doing that when I can buy one for such a reasonable price at the store? :-)

 

Now, please don't get me wrong - I love making things by hand and usually prefer to go the handmade route; however, there are only so many hours in the day and it becomes a matter of prioritizing my time and energy to those projects which are most exciting and/or urgent for me, in the few hours each day that I have to work on such things.  I think I painted this plate 2 Easters ago...the colors are off and the focus is poor (oops) but I think you can get the basic idea.

I think this little trio of bunnies is so sweet, don't you?  The mama bunny got broken during the move, so they're a little sad about that (as am I) but I know they'll pull through.

 

 

I love this carved egg.  It reminds me of Jim Shore's little Christmas statuettes, with the quilted influence and carved appearance.

 

  

To make an Easter tree, simply go outside and clip a few branches from a deciduous tree that have relatively strong, upward-pointing branches.  Make sure they look good with the size of vase/flower pot/jar, etc, trim them as necessary to get the height you want and make sure the proportions are attractive. 

Twist a large rubber band around the bottoms of the braches to secure them together.

Spray paint them white, don't worry about the paint dripping if you get the nozzle too close because you don't have a large surface to worry about a drip showing up on.  Be sure to paint from all sides, plus from the bottom facing up and from the top facing down.  It'll take a lot of paint to get every little branch covered, I think I used a can and a half for this project.

I also tried spraying adhesive onto the white branches and sprinkling with clear glitter, which I wouldn't recommend because it doesn't show up that much and I wasted a whole container of glitter.  It all stuck to the spray adhesive which had collected on my scrap piece of cardboard that I had placed beneath the tree branches.

 

You have a few choices for how to get the branches to stay put in your container.  I placed a piece of green floral foam in the bottom of mine, then added some rocks for weight so my giant tree wouldn't get top heavy, then when it was still wobbly I added some crumpled newspaper to keep the trunk stable inside the container. 

You could also use Plaster of Paris and pour it into your container, stick the branches in and wait for it to harden.  Then you could cover the top with some Easter grass to hide the P of P.  If I were going that route, I would use a flowerpot and line it with plastic wrap before pouring in the P of P.  This way, you can slip the hardened base out of the pot and, if necessary for storage reasons, discard the branch stuck in the P of P and save the pot for next year. 

 

I adore egg cups, aren't they cute? 

 

Those glittery, sparkly eggs make me smile too.

 

My kids keep touching the sparkly bead eggs and asking if they're glass.  I'm sure they're not, but they sure look like it!

 

They just glow in the sunlight.

Happy Easter in advance, I have more Eastery things to post later on, but first I need to concentrate on St. Patrick's Day tomorrow!  We're going to have an ALL GREEN meal tomorrow, but shhh! don't tell the kids!  It's going to be a surprise.  Can't wait to see their expressions when they see the green mashed potatoes, green-dyed chicken, and all the green fruits and veggies.  Fun, fun!  I haven't figured out dessert yet, though...and since Eliza dislikes jello I may have to do green-colored lemon bars or a white cake mix with green food coloring (or pistachio pudding mix) in it.

Have a great day, and don't get pinched tomorrow!

Easter Peek

 

Hello, dear friends, it's REALLY late at night, but I couldn't resist sharing a few photos with you of what I've been up to these past few days...I just finished cropping all my pics from the last little while and wanted to give you a sneak peak of what's in store here soon. 

 

I'll be posting a tutorial on how to make these lovely little eggs, from blowing out the raw eggs to dyeing them.  These are SO fun to do - watch out, because they're addictive!

 

Also on its way is an explanation of how you can make your own white-branched Easter tree if, like here in DC, the weather in your area has not warmed sufficiently to bring the trees into their budded glory yet.  I couldn't wait for the blossoms to emerge...I wanted an Easter display early this year so the kids and I could enjoy it for a longer period of time.  Soooo, lots of fun things on their way!  But for now, it's good night (or, more accurately, good morning)!

Window Wear, etc.

  I can't tell you how much I'm itching to make window treatments for the house we are living in now...but since there are plenty of other things I need to do first, I thought I'd post some of the window treatments I made for our house in Hawaii (the one that's been vacant since December...talk about a pain in the pocketbook!) plus some pics of the treatments I made for my neighbor right before we moved.  Sorry for the lousy quality of photos, I just went through our empty house really fast and took some snapshots as a final means of remembering the rooms...

 

This was Eliza's room, and it was my favorite room in that house because of the vine I painted all across the top of the room.  I'm in love with that color of blue, too - it's called Lively Tune by Behr, and I actually have it half strength (just ask the paint technician to put half the amount of prescribed pigment for that color formula).  I painted the vine with a brush, and used a ton of q-tips to make the circle flowers (each q-tip gets all fuzzy after a few flowers because you dip it into paint, then gently rub it in circles on the wall).  The little valance on her small window isn't fully functional, I just have it rolled up with a wrapping paper tube inside the roll and tied the ribbons to hold it in place.

 

This was Hyrum's room, with the funky wave painting wrapping his room.  Here's a detail of his drapes, which I made with inexpensive 60" wide lengths of blue cotton and lined with dark blue sheets so not much light showed through.  I made tab tops that were sewn in behind the panels, which creates an easy pleated look without the work involved in making real pleats.  When I make my drapes for our current house I'll show you how.

 

Here's a detail of the bottom, which I made by adding a pieced strip of quilting weight fabrics about 5 inches from the bottom.  Don't look too closely - you'll see that I hadn't finished hemming these drapes yet!  They're just pinned.  I'm so bad that way - I'll get 90% done with a project, then I'm off to something else instead of doing the tedious finish work.  I honestly can't remember if I hemmed these before packing them away...I went around the whole house and hemmed all the drapes that I left in place for the future renters, but whether or not I did these is a blur. 

 

Here are some more valances in our old house, and again I used the wrapping paper tubes to create the nice roll without having to use a bunch of extra fabric.  Cut the tube so that it is about 2 or 3 inches in from each edge so you don't see it peeking out when you look into the roll from the side.

 

This curved window presented a special problem, because I didn't want a big ol' straight curtain rod hung across the top of it, thus destroying the top curve of the window.  I wanted to acknowledge the curve with the line of the drapes, so the solution was to attach finials to the wall (those are bamboo finials from IKEA, originally blond, which I stained a dark brown with wood stain) and hang the drapes with pretty cord from each finial.  I hung the finials by screwing a dowel (by drilling a hole into the center cross section of it, then sending a long screw through the hole and into the drywall) that was slightly smaller than the interior diameter of the finial into the wall, and sliding the finial onto the dowel and tightening the little fix screw that was part of the finial, thus holding it securely to the dowel. 

The drapes were cut at a curve at the top edge to echo the curve of the window; if I hadn't done that, the lines of the drapes would not have fallen straight down but would have been all bunchy in places.  I sewed a 3/4" red ribbon to each inside edge of the drapes, and as I do with all my drapes, I don't hem them until after they are installed to be sure that the length is just right.  I use that fusible hemming tape, so I just set up my ironing board right in front of the drape I'm working on and do it while the drape is already hanging in place.

 

These valances were sewn to the top of white drapes from IKEA.  After they were up I decided to add the red bias tape, but I was too lazy to take them down to sew the bias tape on, so I just used some fabric glue (the smelly, flammable, clear kind that dries super quickly...sorry I can't remember the name of it.  The packers wouldn't pack it so I don't have it anymore). 

 

So here we are at my neighbor Sharon's house, where we outfitted her entire breakfast nook with the same type of valances that I have in my kitchen.  Sharon's house was originally filled with everything the same tone of tan...the walls, the floors, the blinds, the cabinets (they just bought the house from the original owners) so she really wanted to bring in some color.  This tropical print really enlivens the space dramatically, and how appropriate of a pattern to have in a house in Hawaii, eh?

Below is her kitchen sink window, she emailed me this photo so hopefully I cut and pasted it correctly....  I'm such a non-techno-genius it's scary.  You can't really see, but the olive green fabric is actually a woven basketweave print that is very fitting when paired with the tropical print.  Originally we just put the 2 bands of off-white fabric to hold the roll up, so I suggested she take some wide red ribbon and put it over the top.  Sharon ended up using some remnant fabric from the breakfast nook valances and added skinny strips over the top of the neutral bands of fabric, which I like even better!  Great idea, Ms. Sharon.

 

 

This is Sharon's front room (no, she doesn't have a Christmas tree up in March...I took these photos in December!) and I don't have a "before" shot but just imagine a room with absolutely no color and that's what it looked like.  They had a tan rug and the existing tan furniture, but no drapes.  We found that great rug on clearance at Lowe's, which immediately added a ton of impact, and I made the dupioni silk drapes from fabric I bought from Fabric.com (back when they had $9/yard silk in colors other than tan and brown).  I like to make drapes that go nearly to the ceiling, even if the windows are much shorter.  It adds a ton of drama and height to a room.  I helped her organize and arrange her furniture and the accessories too.

 

Here's a closer shot of the silk drapes...these pictures do not do them justice.  I love dupioni silk - it's so shimmery and rich, but since it has the natural slubs woven into the fabric it provides visual interest and can be dressed up or down very successfully.  In real life these drapes have a tremendous amount of "WOW" factor.

 

Here is Sharon's dining room.  The espresso brown shelves used to be...you guessed it...blond finish, and the bottom part of the walls was a seafoamy green.  Sharon's husband (the ultimate "HoneyDo guy", I might add) painted the bottom portion of the walls the same color I had in my house (it's a very subtle green/khaki/olive color) and we attacked her inexpensive imitation wood shelves with many, many cans of espresso spray paint.  They look much more sophisticated now, and grouping them together in the middle of the wall grounds the room with a substantial focal point. 

 

We went out and bought some new accessories to go with her existing ones, and I helped her arrange everything into little "vignettes" on the shelves.

 

Okay, abrupt change of subject, I know...but as I continue to unpack I found some cute little (1.5" across) Valentine heart ornaments that I made several years ago and forgot about.  V Day is long over, but I thought you might like to see these for ideas for next year!

These are made of Sculpey/Femo clay, and I originally had them hanging with some other heartsy things from a little Valentine tree (I'll do an Easter Egg tree soon and show you how).

 

Happy belated Heart Day, everyone!

 

Hearty Hearts

 

I hope everyone had a happy heart day!  I didn't have time to do my usual she-bang because I'm STILL trying to get things unpacked and organized, but I managed to pull my heart wreath out of its little storage bag and put it on the front door in time for the big day. 

 

This was something I made several years ago, with little wooden hearts that I painted and taped wires to the back of so I could wrap the wires around the wreath.  The ribbon has wire in it so it's very easy to "fluff" it back into position after pulling it out of storage.

 

The wreath is just a simple, inexpensive grape vine thing purchased at a craft store, and I hot-glued some fake grape leaves to the wreath before adding the ribbon and hearts.

  This type of thing would be very easy to do with easter eggs too.  I keep meaning to make an easter egg wreath...I love some of the higher-end ones available commercially, but there's no way I'm paying the kind of money one of those requires.  Hopefully this year I'll have time to make my own...

 

Every Valentine's Day morning I do a special breakfast for the family - it's a tradition that I grew up with and I've always loved it.  My parents would go all out, making tons of waffles, whipped cream (the real kind) and serving it with frozen strawberries harvested in the summertime.  Mom would always make the most elaborate valentines, they were truly works of art and she must have spent hours making them for us all (there are 5 of us kids). 

My kids will have to settle for heart-shaped buttermilk pancakes (at least I make them from scratch, even if they aren't waffles!) and relatively simple valentines made with doilies and some scrapbooking stickers.  Hopefully next year I'll be back in full swing, but in the meantime my kids are young enough they didn't seem to notice anything was lacking.  Hooray for that!

 

Hazel took great delight in picking off the 3-D stickers I put on her valentine...

 

...and here's a hot-chocolate-mustached Hyrum digging into his breakfast - he was so proud of himself that he was able to cut his pancake by himself with a butter knife!

 

Eliza was looking a little groggy, but she still had a smile for the camera.  She informed me that I had spelled LOVE wrong on her valentine, but I told her it was an acceptable "term of endearment" version (the real reason:  the kids had already swiped my E's and O's from the sticker sheets!)

It's getting late, I've been trying to go to bed earlier than I sometimes have in the past (hey, midnight is better than 2 am, right?).  Just to give you a little sneak peek on what's on my short list of things to do after I finish unpacking...

 

I have a "mere" ten or so (!!) furniture refinishing projects on the docket that I'm really excited about...Craigslist here in DC is a beautiful (or annoying, if you're talking to a certain male member of our household who is tired of hefting big, heavy bargain furniture into our house!) thing.  Who, I ask, can resist a gorgeous solid wood armoire for $100?  But that, dear bloggers, is a story for another day...

Snow in Hawaii + Yam Recipe

 

Okay, okay, I lied about the snow in Hawaii...but the kids were pretending that this popcorn was snow!  We got our Christmas tree today, which, by the way, is the most gorgeous noble fir I have ever seen.  Usually they're a little on the sparse side, but this one is so incredibly full that I get giddy just looking at it.  I'm not kidding.  It looks like a fake tree it's so perfect. 

But fake trees don't have the intoxicantingly pungent evergreen fragrance that now graces the air in our house.  I walk around taking deep breaths like I'm huffing or something.  :-)  Don't make fun of me - I grew up in Oregon, land of evergreen trees and the capital of Christmas tree farms (our tree this year is from, you guessed it...Oregon).  Every whiff of that sharp, sweet scent of noble fir brings a million memories rushing back of my childhood days....

But I digress.  Since our things are being packed up mid-month, I'm not decorating our tree with our usual array of handmade ornaments and fancy store-bought ones.  I keep having to force myself not to decorate for Christmas, but it's really, really hard not to.  Especially now that I actually have a blog to post pretty pictures of all the decorations I've made through the years!  I have a few photos of previous years, I think I'll have to sneak those in.

 

We are going to decorate our tree this year with edible or paper ornaments and decorations, so I thought I'd get the kids to help me make some popcorn strings like my family did every year when I was little.  As you can see by the pics, my kids are still a little too young.  Hazel made a concerted effort to make sure that every piece of popcorn was thrown/spilled onto the floor (note empty bowl at her side), and Eliza played vacuum cleaner instead of threading popcorn (see first photo above).  Hyrum did his best for the first foot or two of his string, then he thought it was very funny to crush the popcorn already on his string until it fell off. 

 

When Hazel decided she wanted to spread her carpet of popcorn all over our house (is she being contrary because the poor kid is still sick with a nasty virus, or is she just being a toddler?), and after Eliza tired of being a vaccuum cleaner, I got the broom out and swept up all of our "snow".  Our tree sure looks great with our 2-foot-long popcorn garland, I can assure you!

...and now for that Yam recipe I promised you (the one I make every Thanksgiving and Christmas):

6 or 7 whole yams (the kind with orange flesh)

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup white sugar, PLUS 3/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup milk (or a little more if mixture looks too thick for your taste - keep in mind that it will set up after cooking a bit due to the eggs)

4 eggs

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon, plus optional dashes of nutmeg, ground cloves, allspice, ground ginger, etc.  The usual spices in autumn food...add as desired in quantities you prefer

2 tsp vanilla

Okay; now for the directions.  Simmer (with lid on pot) whole yams, skin on and with water covering all the yams, until they are extremely soft and tender and skins are falling off.  Drain; let cool for awhile until you can handle them.  Slip skins off, then mash with electric mixer or KitchenAid.  I use the wire attachment that is intended to whip cream or merengue, as it catches a lot of the fibrous strings that are in the yams.  When those strings build up on your paddle/wire attachment, don't scrape back into the mashed yams!  Discard the stringy fibers.

Add all the above ingredients to the hot mashed yams, then put into LARGE casserole dish.  Now for the crust  (I'm a girl who likes a lot of topping, but if you don't you can reduce these amounts):

1/2 cup butter, melted

2 cups coconut

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup flour

2 cups chopped pecans

Mix all topping ingredients (using one's hands works best) in large bowl, then sprinkle onto yam mixture.  Don't press down crust ingredients too hard - it's better if it's crumbly.  Bake at 375 for 30 to 45 minutes, until golden brown.  If the crust starts getting too dark (like mine did in the photo of my previous post) place a piece of foil loosely over top of dish until the yams get heated thoroughly and the eggs have a chance to finish working their magic.

There you have it!  Dessert masquerading as a vegetable.  Perfect. 

ps This recipe produces a dish big enough for a huge crowd; you can reduce it by half and still feed at least 6 to 10 people....but then there wouldn't be any leftovers, would there?  Enjoy!

A Day of Thanksgiving

 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Ours was relatively low-key, considering that this was the first time we've ever eaten Thanksgiving dinner with no guests!  Last-minute plans seem to be the recurring theme with us lately, as the families we had invited to dinner had last-minute trips to the mainland or other things came up.  After those plans changed, and in light of our topsy-turvy schedule in preparation for moving, we had talked about just going to a restaurant to celebrate. 

 

I bought some Thanksgiving staples just in case, and it's a good thing I did; last night Hazel developed a fever and was unwell all day today.  So out with the restaurant idea, and I cooked a feast for 4 (and 1/2, including Hazel).  Needless to say, we have a lot of leftovers!  The kids were a little disappointed about not going to a restaurant, since it's such a rare thing that we go out, and so I did my best to create a restaurant atmosphere for them here at home.

 

Steve came home with these gorgeous tulips when he kindly braved the INSANE amount of last-minute shoppers thronging one of the two grocery stores that service a community of over 30,000 people (!!)  to pick up some evaporated milk for the pumpkin pies (thanks honey!)  Aren't they just beautiful?  I adore tulips and the colors are just perfect for an autumn table setting.  I used my fake pears and some darling little tealights I found at Ross the other day ( Hooray for Ross!!  My only connection to the "outside" commercial world other than Walmart and Costco) to decorate the table. 

 

For those of you who remember me saying that we have never used our dining room table, you will be happy to learn that we finally did use it...and now we'll put it up for sale.  :-)

It's a gorgeous piece, a vintage solid mahogany beauty that I bought at a moving sale and made slipcovers for the chairs, but since it doesn't have leaves and the chairs are so wide, it only seats six...and when do we ever have company with just six people, considering that there are 5 in our own family?  So we are going to find a new home for our dear table, and find something a little more versatile in Virginia.  Craigslist, here I come!  That is the most handy resale site - I love it.

 

Here's our little Thanksgiving crowd!  Eliza was being grumpy at that moment, and couldn't quite decide whether to scowl or smile, so it's sort of a hybrid expression.

Our turkey was cooked in our friend's imu pit, which is a traditional Hawaiian method of cooking whole animals such as pigs and, in this case, turkeys!  It's an amazing process:  they dig a huge pit in the ground, pile a bunch of special wood in there and load a big pile of lava rocks on top.  The fire is lit and the stones are heated to a glowing hot temperature, then eventually the meat is placed on the stones, covered in wet burlap and/or leaves from banana trees, and fresh wet chunks of banana tree trunks and leaves are placed on top to insulate and provide a steamer effect for the cooked meat.  The covered imu pit is left alone all night long, and by the next morning the turkeys are done!  The meat is so moist and tender, it just falls off the bone, and the smoking process imparts a wonderful smoky flavor.  It doesn't look too pretty, but it definitely makes up for it in flavor and texture!  Our friend hosts a big imu pit party every year so that we can all cook our turkeys this way - it's great.  Thanks, Kimo and family!

 

And of course, what Thanksgiving would be complete without pumpkin pie?  I was shockingly conservative in my pie baking this year...normally we have at least as many pies as people (oh, you should see the incredible array of pies when my family gets together!!  My mom is an excellent pie baker, and she has taught all her children the art of making pies.  When I think Thanksgiving dinner, the first thing I think of is pie.  One year we had 16 pies.  Absolute, gluttonous heaven) but I was worn out this year.  I only made 2 pies, and both were pumpkin because that big can of pumpkin pack makes 2 at a time.  My family would be shocked.  :-)  I'm still totally craving apple and coconut cream pie (the REAL cream pie, made with custard from scratch) so I may just have to have a dessert party in a day or two and invite the neighbors...

 

This, admittedly, isn't the prettiest of pictures, but I want to tell you about these delicious yams.  I'll try and post the recipe tomorrow, but suffice it to say that even people who claim to hate yams love this dish.  The yams are boiled, mashed, and mixed with spices, butter, eggs, etc.  The topping includes pecans, coconut, brown sugar, and of course more butter. Yum!  The result is divine, and it's almost like a dessert in itself.  I make this at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it is always very popular despite its questionable appearance.

 

And thus ends another Thanksgiving Day, a day to spend with family and/or friends and reflect on the bounty which we enjoy and often take for granted.  I'm so grateful for the many blessings in my life, the most important being my family and my faith in God and His eternal plan for all of us.  I'm so thankful to be a citizen of the US, with all of the freedoms, privileges, and responsibilities such citizenship entails.  I'm grateful for my health and the health of my loved ones, for Steve's good job, for my friends, and for the many incredible beauties of the earth.  I'm thankful for the talents I've been given and the opportunities I have to share them with others, for modern technology, for education and lifelong learning, and for the chance to start every day anew, with no mistakes in it (who first said that?  Annie?  Pollyanna?  I can't remember).  My list could go on and on, but I won't bore you to tears listing any more here.  I hope you had a wonderful holiday, and may the spirit of gratitude influence our lives to a greater degree every day.