My mom and I went on the search for buttons this weekend and we found some seriously awesome ones. We took apart some dresses and sweaters, but the best haul was a woman we found on Craigslist who was getting rid of her button collection.
Check these ones out!
We’ve had some beautiful days this summer. It totally makes up for last year where it rained nearly every day (although the mushrooms were excellent last year). I thought I’d show off some of my flowers.
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| These ones grew from seeds that were left behind last year |
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| These were teeny tea roses that grow on the side of the house |
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| These roses grow on their own all around our property |
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| These violas are my fave! |
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| Not sure what these are, but they grow on their own each year |
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| Wild columbine growing out front |
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| Kelly transplanting |
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| That’s me! |
Our wedding anniversary is coming up so I forced Stephen to bust out last year’s gift from me to him: our deep fryer. I mean, who actually uses a deep fryer? It is somewhat a waste of space, but we have a lot of cabinets. Even though it was only the third time we’ve used it and the oil reeked of falafel, we ended up with some tasty fries:
I’m in the search for buttons. I’ve always been a collector — a collector of stickers, patches, My Little Ponies, stamps, stationery, coins, buttons, pint glasses, Fiestaware, and basically anything shiny I find on the ground. It’s hard to keep my collecting habits to a minimum so now I keep them more focused. I no longer collect any old notecard, but only ones I’d actually send to someone. Instead of buying every single piece of Fiestaware I see, I only get ones with minimal scratches and in colors I actually like.
I’d put my button collecting on hold until I started knitting my braided headband. Now I need three 1-inch buttons for each headband. I have a hard time finding good buttons unless I want to spend a bundle of money, by which I mean $1 or more each. I looked at Etsy yesterday and although there were oodles of gorgeous buttons at a reasonable price, they also tacked on shipping charges.
Here comes my brilliant and somewhat wasteful idea…buy thrift store clothes just to collect their buttons.
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| Puketastic! |
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| Oooh, powder blue suit jacket. No thanks. |
But seriously, who would ever wear these garments? That’s why for $3 I purchased these hideous pieces of clothing, clipped off the buttons and tossed them.
Yeah!
My family has secrets. And I don’t mean the deep, dark kind. We have mushroom secrets and berry secrets. Our best kept one is our patch of wild strawberries. My husband and I came across this anonymous patch a few summers ago and we’ve gone back every year to pick the small, pale, sun-sweetened fruit.
My friend Ashley spent all last week raving about her incredible maple cayenne popcorn. She gave me the recipe she used from December’s Cooking Light Magazine. I’m not one for carmel corn, but holy moly was Ashley right. It’s sweet, salty and just the right amount of spicy. This popcorn deserves some kind of professional Nom Nom Award. First prize!
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon cooking oil
1/4 cup unpopped popcorn
1/4 cup cashews
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder
Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add the popcorn, cover and shake till kernels are popped. Stir in the cashews. Meanwhile, add the sugar, syrup, butter, salt and cayenne to a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Cook for one minute, stirring frequently. Pour syrup over popcorn and cashews and stir. Spread out on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and let cool at least 3 minutes. I stirred the mixture around on the cookie sheet to combine everything better.
Chow down!
I am currently lying on my couch completely full and satisfied. I have finally learned how to grill a steak! Tonight I grilled steak and made salt-encrusted baked potatoes (fully loaded with homegrown chives) and I even was able to serve a small salad with greens from our very own garden! Here’s what I made and how I made it:
Ingredients:
2 thick steaks (I got the pre-peppered kind from the store)
2 baking potatoes
Baby salad greens
white of one egg
kosher salt
pepper
olive oil
1/4 lemon
2 strips of bacon
pickled jalapeños
shredded cheddar cheese
chives or green onions
sour cream
butter
Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Poke your potatoes all over with a fork. Coat them with egg white and cover them all over with kosher salt. Place in a baking pan and bake for one hour. Meanwhile, chop up your bacon and fry over medium-low heat until crispy. Drain on a paper towel.
When there is 20 minutes left on the potatoes, heat up your grill so it’s around 600 degrees, or super hot. When there is 10 minutes left on the potatoes, put the meat on the grill. Grill four minutes on each side, then remove from grill and cover with foil.
When the potatoes are done cut a slit down the middle and puff them up using potholders. Add the butter, cheese, jalapeños, bacon bits, sour cream and top with chives.
Drizzle your greens with olive oil and then squeeze a wedge of lemon over them. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Serve with a glass of Mariette Old Vine Red and then go into a meat coma.
My husband and I rent a house on about a half acre-sized bit of land. It gets lots of sunlight in the summer and this year we finally got it together and built some garden boxes. We used the knowledge from www.squarefootgardening.org and in May built three square foot gardens. I couldn’t afford vermiculite, so I used a mixture of top soil, peat moss and horse compost.
I planted beets, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, chives, basil, radicchio, radish, lettuce, mesclun, cilantro, kale and Swiss chard. Not everything was successful, but the things that are growing are starting to be edible. I made a small salad this evening.
Here are some photos of my first garden:
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| My biggest cauliflower |
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| Little lettuces |
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| Radishes have grown the best so far |
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| My tiny salad! |
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| Broccoli just starting |
Whenever I sew I always feel obligated to keep all of my fabric scraps, no matter how useless they seem to be. When it came to setting up my crafts booth last weekend, I knew I wanted some cool decorations and that’s when those fabric scraps came in handy.
I thought of it in the middle of the night last week — some long ago paper crafts project I might have seen in an old library book as a kid. You cut strips of paper like a continuous “S” and then stretch it out.
First thing in the morning, I did a test on a strip of fabric. What I came up with was a delightful way to decorate any event.
And here’s how I made it:
Ingredients:
Several scraps of fabric, about 4 inches wide.
Sewing machine
Fabric scissors
Directions:
Your scraps do not have to be perfect. They could be different widths if you like, but I found 4 inches is a good width. All you do is sew your scraps end to end. It’s OK if right sides aren’t always facing because you’ll be able to see both sides of the fabric from all angles. When you’ve sewn as many scraps as you feel is adequate (a little goes a long way), start cutting the strips like so:
You do not need to draw the lines. I just did that so you could see what I was cutting. Pull the fabric apart and see what you’ve created!
If it’s not long enough, add more scraps. Then hang up your garland, or store it on a paper towel roll.
After three days and 25 hours of customer service I’ve decided this booth was a great idea. I had the time of my life. I put in 63 feather hair extensions and sold 17 headbands, 10 purses, 5 hats, 20 magnets, 3 necklaces, 3 pairs of earrings, 4 leather bracelets, 4 jars of jam, and about a dozen matchbooks. My mom hung out with me all three days and helped be my cashier.
Next year I’ll be much more prepared and actually have knitted stuff to sell.
Here are some photos of the booth. What I loved is people were drawn to the booth just because of the decorations. Even if they didn’t buy anything, people enjoyed being in our tent.
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| Purses were displayed using a tree branch |
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| The tent was adorned with pom poms and scrap garlands |
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| A thrift store sheet covered the main display table. Appetizer dish displayed the matches |
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| Tiny doll furniture from the thrift store really came in handy! |
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| The view of our booth from across the way. Boothmate Alex is setting up her wares |
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| Cranberry marmalade |
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| Kelly’s monsters chilling in an old suitcase. A few found loving homes |
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| Macrame leather bracelets were a big hit. |
Alaska Knit Nat 