Love Z Toys

I have my first toy ready to go out into the world and be loved. You may remember this face from an earlier post...

Well it's back! This time its the real deal. I've managed to tame the frays and double stitch the weak spots to create what I truly believe is a safe toy for even an infant to play with. The eyes are Safety eyes, so you cant pull them out unless you cut the fabric out with them. I was really pleased with how this came out, and so much love went into it that its almost hard to say goodbye. But, fortunately, it should soon have a temporary home at The Littlest Bird in West Asheville, where someone will find it and take it home. I am going to make a couple more using different colors and patterns, and as always, one side is awake and ready to play, while the other is peacefully asleep.

Thinking of getting on etsy as well, see you there!

Happy Food Day!

What a Thanksgiving it has been! We decided to stay home this year, just the 3 of us, and celebrate Thanksgiving for the first time as a new little family. It would have been nice to go visit family, but the temptation to hang out and get things done around the house was just too great. This was my first year cooking the meal by myself as well, and with a lot of help from allrecipes.com, it was a great success. Here is the menu I put together and some pictures of the process and finished product. Hope your Thanksgiving was just as yummy!

Our Menu:

For 2 people with leftovers 

Baked Cornish Hens with rice stuffing

Roasted vegetables and pistachio topping

Cranberry sauce

Regular bread stuffing

Spinach cranberry salad with poppy seed dressing

Mashed potatoes with vegan nutritional yeast gravy

*I have altered all of these recipes, originals can be found at allrecipes.com. 

Stuffed Cornish Hen

4 tbs chopped celery

2 tbs sliced mushrooms

2.5 tsp butter

6 oz fast cooking long grain brown rice (I didnt have fast cooking, so I just boiled the rice separately and then added it as if it were uncooked.)

5 oz canned chicken broth or better than bouillon

2 tbs water

1/4 cup sliced water chestnuts, chopped

4 tbs dried cranberries

3 tbs chopped green onion

2.5 tsp soy sauce

2 cornish game hens

In greased saucepan, cook celery and mushrooms in the butter till tender. Stir in the rice, cook 1 minute longer. Stir in whatever seasoning you like (garlic powder, chicken seasoning, etc), add broth and water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 5-6 minutes or until the rice is tender.

Stir in the water chestnuts, cranberries, onions, and soy sauce. Stuff it into the 2 hens. Place in a roasting pan on top of the vegetables (see recipe below for vegetable info). Generously sprinkle spices over the hens (I used a mix of pepper, salt, garlic and oregano). Cut 2 doubled-over squares of cheesecloth and soak them in white wine or dry sherry. Ring them out slightly and then lay them over the tops of both hens. Stick a little chunk of butter on the top of each hen over the cheesecloth.

Bake 375 degrees for 50-60 minutes until juice runs clear and meat thermometer reads 165 degrees. Half way through baking you might want to baste some of the juice from the pan over the cheesecloth to keep it wet.

Pictures: Before and after cooking...

 

 Roasted vegetables with pistachio topping

There are a lot of different vegetables you could use for the bottom of the pan. Here is what I did...
1 small pack of brussel sprouts, stem removed and cut in half
5 med. carrots, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, cut in half
2 garlic cloves, minced
3-4 leeks, cut to 1 inch rolls
3 celery stalks, chopped
throw in any leftover mushrooms from the hen recipe
1/4 cup chopped or crushed pistachio nuts
salt and pepper to taste
10 oz vegetable or chicken broth

Mix all ingredients except the pistachios and broth in a bowl. Pour mixture into the bottom of the roasting pan, spread evenly. Add broth to the pan so that it comes half way up the veggies, but not any higher. Put cornish hens on top of the vegetables and cook according to the above recipes instructions. After cooked, put the veggies in a separate serving bowl and top with the crushed pistachios.

Day-before Mashed potatoes

5 potatoes, cubed
6 oz cream cheese
1 cup sour cream
2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 tbs butter

Bring pot of salted water to a boil, drop in potatoes and cook until tender, about 15 minutes. Transfer potatoes to a large bowl and mash till smooth. Mix in cream cheese, sour cream, onion powder, salt, pepper and butter. Serve immediately or refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight. If refrigerating, take out when you are ready to serve them, lightly grease a medium baking dish and spread potato mixture into it. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

Nutritional Yeast gravy THE BEST!

This gravy is amazing, and its vegan!
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup chopped onion
5 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup all purpose flour
4 tsp nutritional yeast
4 tbs soy sauce
2 cups vegetable (or chicken) broth
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

Heat oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Saute onion and garlic till soft. Stir in flour, yeast, soy sauce, until formed in a smooth paste. Gradually whisk in broth. Season with spices. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring constantly for 8-10 minutes till thick. Serve over mashed potatoes.

Cranberry Spinach Salad

My husband has sworn he will never eat another salad except this one.
1.5 tsp oil or butter
1/4 cup slivered almonds
1/2 pound spinach, rinsed and torn to bite size pieces
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1.5 tsp poppy seeds
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp minced onion
1/8 tsp paprika
2 tbs white wine vinegar
2 tbs cider vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil

In a saucepan, cook the almonds in the butter until lightly toasted. In large bowl, combine spinash, almonds, and cranberries. In a jar with a screw top or tightly sealing tupperware, whisk together poppy seeds, sugar, onion, paprika, white wine vinegar, cider, and oil. Shake well, toss with salad. Serve right away.

Put it all on a plate with some cranberry sauce and regular stuffing...

Sweet Potato Bread Recipe

Whenever we have leftover vegetables in the fridge I try to make bread with them. It seems like the easiest way to use up something that would otherwise just go bad and have to be thrown away. My favorite time of the year is when all of the world is overtaken with zucchini from the garden, and there is so much that people are just giving it away for free. I usually have my own cluster of vines of the stuff, and like to experiment with hiding it in different foods. Zucchini bread, muffins, cookies, cake. The same goes with sweet potatoes, which is what we had a ton of last week. I don't know why I bought so much, but the leftovers were taking over my kitchen, so I baked up some bread using a recipe from one of my favorite cooking websites, www.allrecipes.com.

Here she is (sorry for the boring picture. I would have thrown a flower in there for some color, but that was just too much work at the time):

I usually like bread with a crispy shell and really moist on the inside, however, every inch of this bread was soft and really good. I cut the sugar in half since, really who needs 1.5 cups of sugar in a loaf of bread? Its not like I was going to be eating it for dessert. It was still really sweet, almost cake-like. I think we ate the whole thing in one night. Even baby Z had a piece and was yelling for more. Heres the recipe or click here for the original link.


Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 cup cooked and mashed sweet potatoes
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Directions

1. Combine sugar and oil; beat well. Add eggs and beat. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir flour mixture into egg mixture alternately with water. Stir in sweet potatoes and chopped nuts.
2. Pour batter into greased 9x5 inch loaf pan (or 2 small loaf pans). Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about one hour.

Holiday Snails

Snails are pretty cool. If you are a little boy, you might like them because they are slimy and have a nice "ick" factor about them. If you are a little girl, you might like them because they are slow and cute. I mean, they have retractable eyeballs for goodness sake! What could be more interesting than that? So for round 3 of toy making, I have tried my hand at the almighty snail.

This was going to be a fun addition to baby Z's homemade toy collection, but she went straight for the giant button on the side and would have spent all day trying to rip it off if I hadn't intervened to save poor Snail's life.

Making Snail was pretty easy (though time consuming) once I had the general design in mind. I used the blank side of some leftover paper to draw out the design to make a pattern. For Snail, there were 3 distinct planes (Bottom, Sides, and Shell), for a total of 5 cloth cutouts. I should have taken pictures of the process, but I was too busy being confused about how to sew it all together, so maybe next time. And there will be a next time! Snail took forever to sew, partly because I did it in the wrong order and ended up having to hand sew a good portion of her. Now I know better, so I should be whipping out a whole herd of Snails in the future...minus the button of course.

Non-Toxic Holiday Shopping Suggestions

I thought I would get into the business of making a Christmas Shopping Guide. Why's that you ask?How much lead do you think your child eats each day? If you have ever gotten a toy, shoes, or childrens clothing from Target, Walmart, TJ Maxx, Sears...and probably every other store that sells kids stuff from China, then I bet you have some lead-tainted items just waiting to be sucked on. (See article here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34001830/ns/health-kids_and_parenting/)

I cant stand it anymore, so this morning I weeded through all of baby Z's toys and put all suspect items (aka anything from China or with chipped paint on it) into an "evil" pile to give away. The pile amounted to about 80% of the stuff we owned. So now, our Christmas list (and Z's birthday list) consists of all non-toxic toys and shoes, mostly American-made, but some European thrown in for balance. What does an American-made baby shoe look like? Well here is a short list for those of you who are ready to toss some of those lead-lined sandals. And if you don't care about lead, then come pick up this bag of free toys!

American made non-toxic shoes

Isabooties

Soft Star Shoe

Kidbean 

Nowali

*Made in Sweden, but equally fabulous and non-toxic

American-made  toys

Etsy!

My all time favorite. Why buy toys from some mega corporation outsourcing jobs to China where they fill kids toys with toxic plastic and lead paint, and pay their workers basically nothing...(phew that was a mouth full)...when INSTEAD you can buy toys from regular people, hand-making items for an honest wage. Etsy even lets you search by seller location, so you can still buy local!

Custom Wood bath boats

Did you ever say to yourself, "I wish I had a wooden toy boat with my name on it when I was a kid!" Well, your time is done, but at least your kid can have one.

More Wood toys

This company sells wooden toys with a more traditional look. Look at the adorable bath boats!

Real wooden blocks

These blocks are the complete opposite of the China-made chipped paint version that my child has been playing with for the last 4 months. They are beautiful!

Dado Cubes

These cubes are really amazing, and have won a bunch of awards.

Camden Rose

This company has everything from wooden cars to knitted play food, all handmade.

Green Toys

This company makes toys out of recycled plastic milk jugs.

Haba Toys - German made but worth looking at!

Happy Shopping!

Raw Greens (and taco) Salad

I cant quite remember where I found this recipe. I imagine it happened one day while I was wondering what to do with the raw Kale and Collard greens that were beginning to rot in my refrigerator. Too lazy to reach under the cabinet for a pot to cook them in, I threw them into a bowl and fed them "as-is" to my bewildered husband.
Now that I think of it, I remember googling "Raw Greens" one day, but I do imagine being lazy had something to do with not wanting it cooked. This is my personal spin on the recipe.

1/2 of a bunch of Collard Greens
1/2 of a bunch of curly kale
1/3 of a bunch of lacinato kale (optional)
1/2 medium red onion, chopped
1/4 to 1/2 cup of dried cranberries (I like my salad super sweet so I do 1/2 a cup)
Newmans Own - Low Fat Sesame Ginger Salad dressing, about 1/3 cup 
Olive oil - enough to lightly coat the greens, about 1/4 cup
garlic granules (optional)
ginger powder (optional)


Thoroughly wash all greens and remove them from their stem. Chop to bite-size pieces and put in a big bowl. Add enough olive oil to very lightly coat the greens. Massage the greens with your hands for about 20 seconds, the goal being to manually break down the fibers to give it a more 'cooked' texture. Add all other ingredients, sprinkle lightly with garlic and/or ginger powder (optional) and refrigerate for 20 minutes before serving. Keeps well in the fridge for about a day or two before starting to look goofy (olive oil + cold = looks goofy).

In other news about laziness, taco salad is an excellent dish to eat while sitting on the couch. I was not allowed to eat on the couch when I was growing up, so now I enjoy doing it as much as possible. I also don't believe I have ever ordered taco salad at a restaurant, so I don't entirely know what its supposed to taste like or include, but I do know it has sour cream. And I love sour cream. Here is my take on what I think might go into taco salad...

1/2 cup rice
1/2 cup cooked beans (pinto, black, kidney, etc) or uncooked lentils (or both)
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves minced garlic
1 summer squash, chopped
1 bell pepper, any color, chopped
around 2 cups of vegetable broth
1 ripe tomato 
shredded lettuce
tortilla chips (annoy your family and buy the whole-grain healthy chips)
sour cream
cheddar or mozzarella cheese


Throw the rice, beans, lentils, onion, garlic, squash, pepper, and broth into a crockpot. Cook on low for a couple hours (lets say 7 hours!) or on high for...I don't know how about 4 hours. I feel like my stuff is always done cooking way before the recipe says it should be. 
Once thats done, throw some chips on a plate, top it with the blob that is now simmering in your crockpot, and garnish it with whatever you like (tomato, cheese, lettuce, sour cream). Eat it on the couch. 

Sleepy dolls

Today was attempt #2 at making baby toys. I had some leftover scraps of fabric from my Christmas stocking project so I threw together a little plushy to try out one of my designs.

She is a 'Sleepy Doll'. One side has the open black eyes you see above, while the other side has a sleepy face, shown below.

The women at the fabric store told me that fleece doesn't fray, but they are big liars (no offense). Felt would be a better option for these, but I cant find any really soft felt with nice patterns around town. I originally wanted to do a more elaborate face, but after attaching the Safety eyes I just couldn't add more. She is so cute the way she is! I gave her to baby Z to do the initial test run, and after a minute of poking at the eyeballs and touching the feet, she tossed my beloved little plushy right over her shoulder and went back to playing with a piece of snotty tissue paper. Oh well. Maybe some other kid will appreciate my homemade toys.

Asheville Studio Stroll

Today was the 15th annual Studio Stroll around the River Arts District here in Asheville. I have never been, so Tommy packed up the baby and we hit the road to see some local artists and their studios. This photo was taken in one of the studios. I was about to get the artists card when baby Z peed all over everything and had to have an emergency re-diapering. Who did this painting? I have no idea because I was busy using the sun to air dry my child.

It was an amazing day with perfect weather and plenty of good things to see for free! Unfortunately, we weren't able to go to all of the studios because the heat was getting to us and after all that walking I was done with looking at other peoples artwork. I could say a lot about what we saw, but instead, I am going to highlight the 4 artists who talked to me and offered me their card.

Jeri Bella

www.jeribella.etsy.com

After walking way off the beaten path of the main Studio Stroll area, we came to Jeri Bella's studio. Wow, what a nice person! That kind of sums up the whole encounter. Somehow Tommy knew her (not a surprise since he knows everyone in Asheville). We didn't get to see much of her work, but there were other displays with handmade jewelry, and a case with a large stamp collection for sale. Her business card says she specializes in "Pendants, Magic sticks, Necklaces, Sculpture, and Bracelets".

Next up was Mitch Rumfelt

www.wanderlostfilm.com

Yet another really nice person. Mitch is making a movie right her in Asheville called "Wanderlost". In fact, he told me that much of the shooting was done in the studio we were standing in and within a mile of the River Arts District. You can't really get any more 'local' than that. We watched his movie trailer which is due out sometime in early 2010. I was so impressed that I actually wrote my email address on his mailing list to be notified when it is released.

Right next to Mitch's studio is Rob Hunt

www.forevertattooasheville.com

Rob seemed to be in the middle of a painting when we walked into his studio. He has a tattoo parlor somewhere in downtown Asheville, but is also a visual artist. His studio was mostly paintings with a wildlife theme of sorts. Now that I think of it, I wish I had asked him what they were about because there was something else going on with the paintings that I couldn't understand just by looking at them. Check out his website, it has some amazing photos of his tattoo work.

And last, but not least...

Alex Stevens

www.alexstevens.com/

Sorry, no photo from Alex, but I can tell you that his custom wood pieces were beautiful! I love this kind of stuff. I was kind of disappointed with his website because it doesn't have any of the really neat things I saw in the studio. The items were mostly functional pieces like bracelets, furniture, household items. He works in Black Mountain but was showing his stuff at the Studio Stroll today.

So what did I learn today? 

Even though I have been out of the "art loop" for a couple of years now, things pretty much look exactly the same as when I left. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but at least I don't feel very far behind. I do have to say, I am still amazed by some of the prices I see on things. A small somewhat ordinary looking painting for $7,000...

Maybe I am out of the loop.

Happy Birthday Banner

Baby Z has a first birthday coming up in only a couple weeks! It's hard to believe, especially since I keep telling people that "I just had a baby". When will I realize that was more than 11 months ago?

To honor my special little person with something that I can whip out every birthday for the next 18 years of her life, I sewed a birthday banner. At the Asheville library I found a fabulous book by Alicia Paulson, called 'Stitched in Time' (click here for info on the book). I have had a hard time finding good "idea" books for projects, but this is my all time favorite at the moment. I loved every project in the book! I am also working on our Christmas stockings using this book (that'll be another post). The best part was trying to pick out totally different fabric patterns while still making it look cohesive. I could spend hours in a fabric store if I didn't have a small child complaining in my ear. Here it is:

And a closeup

Dinner of the day: Pizza

There is nothing greater than pizza night. Usually I spend a good hour or more cooking dinner. I try to make everything from scratch, right down to the bread, and in one case, homemade butter. What a pain, but so worth it. However, pizza night is the night that I splurge and tend to buy things pre-jarred and pre-shredded. It's like a vacation, except more delicious.
So tonight, the "dinner of the day" is fishy pizza! I have mixed feelings about fish. On one hand, I cant stand what we have done to destroy our oceans, and on the other hand, fish is yummy. So if you want to compromise I'd say stay away from overfished varieties, those with high levels of mercury, and fish caught using environmentally destructive practices. Tuna...how I miss you.
Here's how I did it:

Gather your ingredients. For this pizza they are:

- 2 to 6 oz of shredded mozzarella (depends on how much cheese you like)

- Fresh Wild Alaskan Salmon, or canned pink salmon, or anchovies!

- 2 oz of button mushrooms or crimini, sliced

- Ripe tomato sliced thin

- salt and pepper to taste

- tomato sauce, from a jar or use recipe below

- pizza dough. My favorite is to buy a refrigerated ball of dough that they make right at the health food store. You must let it get to room temperature before you try to work with it. Its quicker than making it yourself, but tastes much better than buying packaged crusts. To increase level of fun, please make an effort to twirl it in the air at least once.  Click here to see how pizza twirling is done!

Is this the Worlds greatest pizza twirler?

Tomato sauce recipe:

Mix together- 1 can of tomato puree (or fresh Roma tomatoes, diced and cooked down), 3+ tbs dried oregano and basil, salt and pepper to taste, 2 cloves minced garlic or 2 tsp garlic powder, 3 tsp onion powder or 1/2 fresh onion diced.

Lightly flour your clean kitchen counter. Work your dough out onto it and flip it a few times in the air or use your hands or a rolling pin to work it into a circle. Grease a baking sheet or pizza pan and gently transfer your dough to it, working the edges into a thick or thin crust depending on your preferences.

Using a spoon, add your tomato sauce to the middle of the pizza and work it around until its even.

Add the tomato slices, then flake the salmon and spread it evenly over the pizza. Add the mushroom slices. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and whatever other spices you like. Then add the cheese.  Bake in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for a little under 20 minutes. If you are like me and are afraid of the extra mozzarella and sauce going bad in your fridge, find whatever other roasting vegetables you have lying around (we had asparagus), throw them into a glass baking dish with some olive oil, the tomato sauce, and cheese, and cook them with the pizza. Here's what you get!

              

I am mediocre at Origami

There is something truly amazing about an individual that can take a square piece of paper and turn it into a 3-D animal or flower, or whatever it may be. I was at the library the other day with baby Z and suddenly had the urge to be that person. I had visions of Origami-ing (not a word) animals to turn into a mobile for Z's bedroom. I imagined a still life of colorful origami flowers, or a puppet show of origami people. How amazing would that be?!

Well I checked that how-to Origami book out and its not easy! You cant just whip together a perfectly formed chicken and flock of baby chicks in one night! It takes practice, and hand cramps...and math skills. poop. I am not giving up though. I managed to make 2 cranes, a dog, and a grasshopper. Take a look!

These were listed as the "easiest" projects for beginners. Of course there are harder projects for people that are called "Serious folders". Really? Serious folder? How do you get that title? Its amazing, and I want it! I thought I would google "serious folder" and see what type of creation you have to be capable of to be part of this category of Origami-loving people. Here are some photos of things that are wonderful and so very, very beyond me at this point.

found on this blog

found here

And here is a link to an entire set of Origami Star-Wars figures and ships! Very cool.
Star Wars Origami

Wanna try it yourself? Check out http://www.origami-club.com/en/ to view diagrams for all types of easy and difficult folds. You don't even need special paper.

Toy making

Somewhere along the way I got it into my head that all commercially-purchased toys are toxic and I was going to learn how to make Z her own eco-friendly toys. Mind you, there are plenty of locally made, non-toxic toys right here in Asheville, but for the prices they charge I always find myself thinking, "I could make that!" Now the time and care put into these toys does justify the prices, so don't get me wrong, I do believe that they are WORTH every penny. However...the definition of being a Stay-at-Home-Mom is that you are indefinitely unemployed. And so I begin my not so professional career as a toy maker.

For my first experiment, I tried to make a block. It ended up being more like a ball since I stuffed it instead of using a foam cube inside. My real goal with this was to try out needle felting for the first time. The basic idea of needle felting is that you get some type of wool, roving, or felt, and stab it to death with these special felting needles that make the fibers all stick together. Essentially, you can attach 2 pieces of cloth, appliques, or small wool sculptures to each other without having to sew it together. Each side of this ball has one of the letters of baby Z's name attached using needle felting. No sewing required! It was kind of neat. The letters attached pretty well, but I used a synthetic felt attached to wool instead of wool on wool, so if she picks and tugs at the letters hard enough they will probably pull off over time. This project took forever...

For my second experiment, I made a fleece octopus. For some reason Tommy has been calling her "Octopussy", which conjures up images of Octomom as well as multiple female nether regions. Hmm...
Anyways. I learned a lot from this project. For instance, multiple thin legs are a pain in the booty to sew. I ended up cheaping out and just sewed around the outside edges without trying to turn them inside out to do it. Next time I will make the extra effort and sew the whole thing properly. I added some different colored ribbons to her head to make her a "taggie". Never bothered to finish the eyes, which makes her kind of mean and creepy looking, but Z doesn't seem to mind.

Dinner of the day: Squash Soup

I will probably be posting some of our weekly dinners if I think they are interesting enough to mention. I got into cooking when I moved in with Tommy because its much more exciting cooking for someone, rather than just cooking for yourself. I love trying to wow him with food, which isn't really that hard because he will happily eat almost anything. That makes my job difficult because to truly impress him the food has to be fantastic.

Tonight's dish:

Sweet Potato Lentil Stew

4 cups chicken broth
2-3 cups chopped sweet potato or winter squash
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup lentils, any color
0.5 cup chopped celery

3/4 cup chopped onion

0.5 cup chopped carrot

2/8 tsp allspice

1/8 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1/8 tsp cloves

1/8 tsp coriander

1/8 tsp cardamom

1/8 tsp cumin

In a medium size crockpot, add all dry ingredients first. Then add wet ingredients.

Cook on low for 7+ hours or on high for 3.5+ hours or until lentils are done.

I served this with a gigantic piece of homemade spelt bread for dipping. Its a nice recipe for a cold night if you don't live in a house with radiant floor heating. How I long for radiant floor heating!!!
Anyways...I am headed for the ice cream now. Happy eating!

Ikebana arrangements

Back when I was pregnant, one of Tommy's coworkers gave us an odd little ceramic container. We really didn't know what it was until a couple days ago when my friend bought a small pack of Kenzan. Apparently there is a whole world of Japanese flower arranging which is much more an art form than what we are used to seeing in the United States. So in an effort to finally use this gift, I ventured into our backyard to find some weeds and flowers, and other natural things to make my Ikebana arrangement. Here is what I came up with...

I used 2 salvia flowers, 2 black-eyed susans, a small handful of wild strawberry vines for the base, some unidentified weed for the main foliage, and 1 clipping of a bush from our backyard which has neat red fluffy blooms.

This being a Japanese thing, I am sure there is plenty of meaning and intention behind this whole discipline, but I haven't delved into it too deeply yet. Once this arrangement dies, I will try again and see what else I can find out about Ikebana. If you want to try it for yourself, all you really need is 1 Kenzan to stick your foliage into (google it!) and any type of container.

Freezer Paper Stenciling

Tommy and I are Star Wars fanatics. I have been wanting to try Freezer paper stenciling for a while now, and what better way to start than with Yoda as my first subject? Tommy didn't have any blank t-shirts for me so I ended up having to buy one. Here's how I did it.

First, find a picture that you want (I grabbed this one off of the internet).

Next, play with it on your computer until its black and white with no other shades.
Then, take a piece of freezer paper, and place it shiny side down on top of the image you have printed out. Use a pen or pencil to trace out the image.
With an exacto knife, cut out the image to make your stencil.
Grab an iron and iron the stencil, shiny side down, onto whatever you want to attach it to (backpack, tshirt, purse, baby carrier, etc).
Once its attached, use your fabric paint to fill in the empty spaces of your stencil. Remove the stencil before the paint dries unless it looks like you'll need a 2nd coat.
Some fabric paint says to throw the item in the dryer to heat-set it, while others will let you use your iron to heat-set it. Either way, make sure it's adhering correctly. Here are the steps I just mentioned in picture form.

Yoda how i love thee...

Painting for Hattie

Many moons ago I began a mural for a good friend of ours who has a 2 year old little girl. It has been the most painting I have done in about a year and a half, and really made me miss doing it. The bumpy plaster wall was hard to work with, but I managed to give them something decent. Still only 90% finished. There are a few more bugs (caterpillars, worms, etc) that need to be put in, as well as finishing up the bird feeder and a bean pole that remains just an outline. The painting is of their side yard with their vegetable garden and their favorite magnolia tree. And of course, since we live in Asheville we needed some blue mountains! It has been neat seeing Hatties reaction to it. She likes to play tea party and puts the tea cup up to all of the animals mouths so they can drink. Which reminds me, I need to put a clear coat of something over it so its easily washable. Here are some pictures! I will post another picture of it when its completely finished.

 

 

Sushi is cheap

I didn't realize how inexpensive sushi could be until I made it myself. My favorite is cooked salmon, avocado, and cream cheese (the salmon and avocado are optional). Its mostly just rice unless you try to get fancy, and by the time you've boiled 2 cups of it, you've made enough sushi to feed an army. God forgive me for even admitting this, but we ended up having to throw away a whole tupperware container full of leftover sushi because there simply werent enough people to eat it all. Anyways! Here are some pictures of the final spread, and an easy recipe for doing it yourself.

Main Ingredients for all sushi rolls:

Sushi rice - 1 to 2 cups

Sushi or rice vinegar

Nori seaweed sheets

Soy sauce

Wasabi (if you like it...I hate it)

Sushi rolling mat

Rice paddle

Small bowl of water for dipping your fingers into

Some Inside ingredient Suggestions:

Avocado

Cooked seafood (Salmon, crab, shrimp, etc.)

Cream cheese

Cucumber

Carrots

Cook your rice until done (hopefully you have a rice cooker! Otherwise do it on the stove)

Put cooked rice into a non-metallic bowl. Sprinkle the vinegar over the rice lightly and turn/fold gently with a rice paddle. Dont mix or the rice will get mushy, just turn over a couple times. Add a little vinegar at a time, and only 2-3 tablespoons in total. Cover the bowl with something and move on to the next step.

Lay the seaweed smooth side down onto the rolling mat. With your damp hands or a rice paddle, start to carefully cover the seaweed with the cooled, prepared rice. Make the layer thin and leave a small strip empty at one end. Lay your inside ingredients in thin rows on top of the rice and, using the rolling mat, tighten and roll the sushi over and onto itself to make the roll. Dampen the empty strip with a little water so it will adhere and hold the roll together tightly. Remove the roll from the mat, wet your hands, and rub your hands over the entire roll so that the nori becomes soft. Using a very sharp knife, cut the roll into wheels and place on a dry plate to serve. And you're done!

To start...

My hubby has been keeping a blog for our family ever since baby Z was born. The blog keeps everyone updated on whats happening in Z's life, but over the last 11 months, like most moms, I feel that my own voice has been lost somewhere. I am just starting to find significant amounts of free time for myself again, and I have turned back towards creating things to keep my brain from totally shutting down at the end of the day. I plan on using this space to share my projects with whoever is interested. I plan on posting about photography, sewing, needle felting, gardening, cooking, baking, painting, toy making, child-rearing, and whatever other projects fall into my lap.

So to start, here is a picture I took of light pouring through a window in our living room. It was hitting a glass of water and made this interesting design on the surface below. I thought, with a little imagination and some color, it might make a cool painting one day. But thats a project for another time!