Love Birds

This last weekend we attended a wedding and gave the bride and groom these two handmade love birds as a part of our gift.  The colors for the wedding were purple and black.  

While making these I learned that sewing something small and curvy proves to be more challenging than sewing straight and rectangular.  After scrapping my first attempts, I rallied my troops and went for it again. 

I have wanted to make these birds ever since I saw this bird mobile pattern.  I hope to make a bird mobile for the nursery some time in the future.  Especially since now my 1 year old loves seeing birds.  She gets so excited about birds that she does a baby-sign for birds whenever she wants to go outside.

Jaunuary 2011

Happy New Year!

Sewing, Sewing, Sewing!

These past couple months I've been in full swing with sewing, and I love it.

I made initial ornaments out of felt.  Super easy and fun.  The felt I used had glitter already in it, which added a subtle shimmer.   I used this tutorial:  ornament tutorial

Apron for my sister in law.

This apron was my first time using a pattern.  I bought it from Etsy here.  Despite making mistake after mistake (my fault, not the patterns fault) I still loved almost every minute of it.  The only minute I didn't like of sewing was when I accidentally sewed the whole thing into a jumbled mess.  Luke came inside from playing basketball and found me crying under the covers.  Hero that he is, he sat down in front of a football game with a seam ripper and 10 minutes later had my apron fixed!

As a present to my cousin I sewed a tote bag.  I used this tutorial.  I had fun using the bag to wrap the rest of the gift, which was a book.  I pinned the back around the book and tucked in the handles so that it had more of a gift kind of look.

Reading

A sign of a good book may be when you give it away before you finish reading it  so that someone else can enjoy it as much as you are!  This happened to a friend of mine with the biography "God's Smuggler" by Brother Andrew.  My friend then tried to borrow the book from me, so that she could finish reading it, but I had lent my copy away.  The next person she called had also lent his copy away!  Needless to say, I recommend this book about a Christian man worked with God to smuggle Bible's into communist countries.  Actually, it  has been some years since I have read it, does anyone have a copy I could borrow?

Cooking

Fruit Crisp

The recipe for this month is from my favorite food website, 101 Cookbooks.  In this recipe she uses plums and peaches.  I like making it with peaches and blueberries (two fruits I often have frozen in my freezer).  Luke describes the topping to be like an oatmeal cookie.  This is a nice dessert without be too sweet, a quality I am trying to teach my sweet tooth to appreciate. (picture to be uploaded Monday)

Fruit:
1 pound peaches
1 pound blueberries
1/4 cup natural cane sugar (or brown sugar)
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoons arrowroot (or cornstarch)


Crisp:
3/4 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup white whole wheat flour (all-purpose flour)
1/2 cup natural cane sugar (or brown sugar)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
big pinch of salt
1/3 cup butter, melted
1/3 cup yogurt
Special equipment: 8x8 square baking dish or equivalent

1. Preheat the oven to 400F degrees.

2. Cut the peaches bite-sized, 1-inch pieces.  Place the chopped fruit in a medium-sized bowl.

3. In a separate small bowl whisk together the 1/4 cup sugar and the arrowroot. Sprinkle over the fruit and stir. Transfer the fruit to an 8-inch square baking dish.

4.  To make the topping combine the oats, flour, sugar, and cinnamon together in a medium bowl. Stir in the butter, and then the yogurt and mix until everything comes together in a dough-like texture. Sprinkle the crumble evenly over the fruit mixture.

5.  Place the baking dish in the oven, middle rack, and bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until the topping is golden. Sprinkle a bit more sugar on top as it comes out of the oven.

Is this how baby's play in Alaska?

August 2010

 Happy August!

We've been smiling,

and cooing around here!

Garden
The flowers have really burst forth in our front yard!

The white zinnia's really helped to fill in some bare spots in the border.

I'm sparing you the pictures of our backyard. Who wants to look at bare dirt spots and dried up plants?  My goal is next year to be showing you pictures of a back yard with lush plants and pretty flowers.

Bible
A verse that I have enjoyed this month is Isaiah 50:10

"Who is among you that fears the LORD,
         That obeys the voice of His servant,
         That walks in darkness and has no light?
         Let him trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God."

 When I am in a situation that I feel like I don't have a light, I need to continue to rely on God and trust in His name (and He has so many wonderful names, Creator, Almighty, Father...)

Mocha Cheesecake

This month's recipe is one that I grew up enjoying on special occasions.   It actually isn't a cheesecake.  Instead is like a really rich ice cream cake.  Usually the recipes I post are healthy.  This is the opposite direction, but oh so good!  You won't be sorry you try this recipe.  Even if you mess it up and use real coffee grounds instead of instant coffee, like I did one time, you will still love it.

Frozen Mocha Cheesecake
1 1/4 c. chocolate wafer cookie crumbs (or graham cracker crumbs)
1/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. margarine or butter (melted)
1- 8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
1- 14 oz. can Sweetened Condensed Milk
2/3 c. chocolate flavored syrup
2 T. instant coffee
1 t. hot water
1 c. (1/2 pint) whipping cream, whipped

In small bowl, combine crumbs, sugar and margarine.  In buttered 9-inch spring form pan or 13x9-inch baking dish, pat crumbs firmly on bottom and up sides of pan.  Chill.  In large mixer bowl, beat cheese until fluffy; add sweetened condensed milk and chocolate syrup.  In small bowl, dissolve coffee in water, add to mixture.  Mix well. Fold in whipped cream.  Pour into prepared pan.  Cover.  Freeze 6 hours or until firm.
Printable Copy of Recipe

Crafts
Here are some party decorations I made for a baby shower.

Isn't Luke's grandma's sewing machine awesome!

 Ruffle crepe paper by layering two pieces and then sewing down the middle.  More information here.

 Cut triangles out of scrapbook paper, glue to a string, and then you have a fun triangle banner.

The Chick has Hatched! June 2010

Welcome to Our Family!

We are so thankful for our little girl!  One of my favorite parts of the whole weekend was soon after she was born,  Luke, with tears in his eyes thanked God for new member of our family.  It was such a tender moment.  I have spent the last 3 days looking at her in awe and amazement, so of course to me pictures can't capture how wonderful she is! 

The rest of the Blog was composed earlier this month while waiting for our little girl to arrive.

Garden

 Wow!  The growing season in TN is amazing!  This mid-western girl still cannot believe it!  We have harvested 1 jalapeno, with 2 on the way.  Our red bell pepper has 2 medium peppers.  The Roma tomatoes and the grape tomatoes have more green tomatoes then I could take the time to count!  and the flowers are going strong.  Here are my cone flowers and butterfly weed.  I started the butterfly weed from seed last year.  This year it reseeded itself and is doing amazing.  Our home came with some interesting day lilies that I had never seen before, like this one with the striped center.

Day Lilies

 

Jalapeno

 

Sewing

I took my first stab at sewing since middle school home economics (were I remember more about discussions of whether our teacher was wearing a wig than I do about sewing).  So I started with these flannel rectangles.  They are cloth reusable diaper wipes.  I am going to be using cloth diapers with our baby and so I thought I might try out cloth diaper wipes (though I am not as committed to them as I am to the cloth diapers.)  What a great first sewing project; I just sewed rectangles, and if I messed up it didn't matter because it was just going to be used on a baby's bottom!  I tried all three designs described here.

 

The next project took things up quite a few notches.  But I had Holly (Luke's mom) teaching me as we went, and so I learned a lot.   For the valance for the nursery I was originally going to make it out of the Juicy Jungle fabric by Alexander Henry.  Then I realized it might look a little busy for a valance.  So I got the idea to make a valance and applique some of the animals from the fabric onto it.  Pretty ambitious for a second project!  I was really thankful that Holly was willing to take on this adventure with me.  We used a gabardine fabric in cream for the main part of the valance.  It has a wonderful hang to it.  For the applique I used an iron on bonding agent called Heat n Bond, and then I did a small zigzag stitch around the edges of the fabric to prevent raveling.    

The Bean Game

This month's game is one that I've enjoyed for many years, it's called Bohnanza.   I'm trying out a game ranking on a strategy-social continuum.  1 to 5. 1 being a very concentrated strategy game where you want no distractions and 5 being a laid back social game.  Bohnanza would get a 3 on this scale.  It is a nice combination of some strategy but fun social time also.  It involves planting beans in fields and harvesting them.  But you only have two fields.  So deciding when to plant, when to harvest and when to trade bring in the strategy.

For those of you who have played this game before with me, you might be interested in an that I really enjoy called High Bohn Plus.  It has a western theme in which you buy different buildings that let you do certain things that other players can't.  With this expansion more strategy is added, and so it would go to a 2.5 on the scale.

What do you think of my strategy-social scale?  Is it helpful?

Nursery

Here's a short video of the nursery.

May 2010 Blog

Happy May!

We've been busy decorating our nursery and getting it ready the baby.  We are doing an animal themed nursery with animal alphabet cards, hung on the wall.  Yes, we are aware that we don't have the alphabet cards in the correct order.  We don't have room for the entire alphabet on the wall, and the baby isn't quite ready to be worrying about order anyways!


Besides still working on some physical things in the baby's room we are really ready for her to come at anytime.  We tell her this everyday, but she hasn't decided to maker her journey yet. 

 My mom, Patsy, made a beautiful crib skirt out of this fabric by Alexander Henry called "Juicy Jungle".  Luke's mom, Holly, and I are working on a valance for the window.  We are appliqueing some of the animals from the fabric onto the valance.  I'm really excited about my adventures in sewing.  It has something I've been afraid to try since middle school because of the precision involved.  But I'm relearning the whole process, and I'm excited about all the craft options.  Baby's aren't too fussy about straight stitches,  so this is a good place to start!

Does it mean you all ready for a baby when you can diaper a duck blindfolded?  At a recent baby shower this was a skill I found myself capable of!

Salad Dressing Recipe
An easy but healthy meal Luke and I like to make is taco salad.  It is easy to improvise with what we have on hand, or ingredients we desire at the time.  But we never knew what dressing to use.  Some restaurants offer a creamy dressing on taco salad, but we wanted to steer clear of that direction.  We usually end up using more salsa than we need to just to make our salad "wet".  We tried this dressing the last couple times we had taco salad, and felt like it really helped balance our salads.  It is subtle and provided that "wetness" we desired.

Taco Salad Dressing
6 servings

Ingredients
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 Tablespoon honey
2 Tablespoons lime juice (1 lime)
cumin to taste

Mix ingredients and serve over taco salad.  Extra will keep in the fridge.

Click Here For Printable Recipe


A Sweet Love Story

I recently watched "The Young Victoria" and I highly recommend it.  I knew nothing of Queen Victoria's early years as Queen, and so I found the history really interesting.  At the same time it is an extremely endearing and sweet love story.  If you enjoy period pieces and simple and sweet stories, then please see it, you will enjoy it.


Board Game

Recently I have been learning how to play Alhambra, a strategy game that my friends Matt and Betsy own. (well technically Betsy gave it to her dad for Christmas but has then has been borrowing it back!)


Some nice things about this game is that it is a strategy game, but it is not very complex to learn.  Basically you are buying and building rooms. But how you get your money, what you buy and how you build, that is what the game comes down to.    Another nice feature is that you can play it as a two player game.  Luke and I are always looking for good two player games.   But we've also played with 6 people and had fun (like any strategy game with a lot of people, everyone has to be committed to the game).  Let me know what you think of it if you try it out.


I Won Something!

With my new adventures in sewing, I have been looking at sewing blogs and websites.  The website Sew Mama Sew had a give away day with people from other blogs coming together and giving away items.  And I won this fabulous camera strap from VMJess.  Check out her Etsy shop if you are interested in a cute camera strap.  She uses lots of fun fabrics.  http://www.etsy.com/shop/vmjess