Summer Fun

I have some fun stuff to share, all which are not original ideas, but still so fun. But first here are the birds looking cute. This is Poppy, Daisy (?), and Rosie. We can't tell the Barred Rocks apart at this point so it could be Violet, but no matter.
Last month I was browsing around in the Azure Standard website and found a sprouting screen. Ooo, that sounds like fun, I thought. So I bought one and some sprouting seeds and voila! Sprouts in just a few days. So easy! I followed the instructions on the screen package - you basically soak the seeds for a few hours, drain, rinse and store inverted to continue drainage. Then you rinse and drain a couple times a day, store in a cool, unsunny place. It took 3 days to fill this jar. And Maia likes them - bonus!
I don't remember where I saw the scrabble piece pendants first, but I've been gathering supplies for this little project for a while now. I had a 40th birthday party to go to last weekend and thought these would be the perfect gift. I followed the instructions in this tutorial by makeandtakes.com. I found my scrabble pieces on ebay. My designs are made with some papers I had, except for the little bird, which I drew. I used a product called Ice Resin which seems pretty easy to work with (I've never used Diamond Glaze so I can't really compare).
I gave three pendants and a ball chain necklace to the birthday girl. This one is my favorite, on a leather necklace. Sofia and Maia each chose a favorite too.
This necklace tree idea comes from a couple places. My mom has a necklace tree made from twisted metal wire that I've admired and a friend of mine uses tree branches in her home to display various pretty things. I have some beautiful jewelry boxes but somehow I always forget to wear necklaces. Maybe I'll remember now that they're staring me in the face!
Chris had trimmed some branches from our pepper tree to use for the coop and there were some leftover branches - my jewelry tree was born! Its base is a glass cream bottle with glass marbles to hold the branch and weigh it down.

We're halfway into the second week of summer and having fun so far. Swimming lessons, library trips, lunch with Chris, harassing... er, playing with the chickens, eating snap peas straight off the bush... But work has reared its head and I may be traveling to Oregon for a few days. So, we may be scrambling to arrange child care but at least it's some work. How does the saying go - beggars can't be choosers?

Homemade

I have a little obsession. Making stuff. It's partly a "green" thing. You know, less packaging and transportation. Part health reasons, like fewer added ingredients, more organic ingredients. Part economics - it costs less to make things (at least it should!!). And partly it's the little rebel in me that likes to say, ha! I don't have to buy your stinkin' overpriced green-natural-organic product at the store, I can make it myself. I do believe strongly that we should be willing to pay for good quality healthy organic green products, but sometimes it's hard when you compare bargain basement made-in-a-far-off-country Target prices to those at Whole Foods. I'm no trail blazer though, all my projects have been researched on the good ol' internet.

So I've been working on yogurt. My first attempt was only partly successful. I learned that my oven doesn't stay warm very long and can't be set to under 170 degrees. Chris thinks it's a food safety concern, as in, mind-your-own-business-you-lawsuit-fearing-oven-makers-who-think-I'm-going-to-poison-my-family-with-food-heated-to-less-than-170-degrees (in my humble opinion). But I digress. The temperature fluctuations were probably to wide and the yogurt separated. It tasted fine though and I was able to use it for frozen smoothie drinks.

The basic process I've learned is to heat milk to 180 degrees, let it cool, add the starter (I used a package starter), and place in canning jars. Once in the jars, the key is to keep it at about 110 degrees for 4-6 hours. This time I used a large pot to place the glass jars in and then immersed them in hot water (110 degrees). I started it at about 6 pm when we were also cooking dinner and had the oven on. The pot stayed on the stove while we were cooking and then once the oven cooled down I put it in the oven. I checked on it a few times, changing the water once and turning on the oven for a couple minutes once. At 11:30 pm, we were going to bed and I heated the oven slightly and then turned it off and left it for the night. The water was still about 110 degrees at that point. In the morning, I put the jars in the refrigerator and let them chill for a couple hours.

The texture was great, but the flavor was um... different. I forgot to mention that I put dry milk powder in the milk heating phase. I have read that it makes thicker yogurt, but I think it also changed the flavor a bit. For the ultimate test, I served up a couple bowls, drizzled a little honey and put a couple drops of vanilla on top. Maia and Sofia loved it. So there you go.

Man, this is turning out to be a long post. I'm pleased with the yogurt making though. I can see how it there might be a bit more trial and error and how it might turn out differently each time. And that's probably ok. A couple times, I've come very close to going over to the mall and buying the darn $50 yogurt maker at Williams Sonoma (it gets very good reviews), but then the little rebel, and the little spend thrift voice their disapproval and I'm back to researching on the internet.

Next homemade project: shampoo. Yes, there have been some bad hair days going on around here, but I haven't given up yet.

It must be almost Christmas...

I've been super busy finishing up some projects, but fun busy. Here's a quilt top for Sofia's doll cradle...

The cradle was a hand-me-down from a friend, which I decoupaged. No pictures of the cradle yet, as I haven't had too many moments to snap pictures of the gifts. And here's an almost finished fairy pagoda for Maia.

I made it from a pattern found here. I started this in early 2008 but had to put it away in the closet for months before I could bear to take it out again - too much satin stitch. It is very cute though and Maia will love it, especially since Santa is bringing some little fairies.

Lastly, there's been some gift bag making to supplement what a friend gave me last year. So far, we haven't used wrapping paper - yay! I'm sure it will remind some people in my family of my Nana, who used to wrap gifts in any old bag she could find, even a trash bag, but hey, I figure it's saving me time and money and makes me feel less wasteful.

We were supposed to leave this afternoon to begin our annual tour of California, also known as visiting our extended families. But, Sofia and Maia both came down with colds and Sofia has a fever and a stomach ache, so we decided to wait until the morning to head south and then north. What would a long car ride to visit family be without the threat of vomit? Ahhh, the holidays!

Merry, merry!

Sweet Birds and Snowflakes

Aren't these sweet? They came from Creative Kismet. She gave me the white one last year for one of her giveaways, and I bought the red one this year so they could keep eachother company. I love little birds on the Christmas tree.


And for a little winter fun, we had a little snowflake making frenzy yesterday , since it was freezing outside. Most were made with cupcake papers but these were made with paper doilies.

Homemade Sparkling Water

We drink a lot of sparkling water. A lot. Especially in the summer when it's hot. I had heard of some folks making their own sparkling water so in an effort to reduce the amount of plastic we bring into the house, I asked Chris to set us up to make our own. So he ordered a CO2 cylinder and regulator, a carbonator cap, and a gas line assembly; all readily available on the internet. The whole set up cost about $160. For now we are using the plastic bottles that we saved from store-bought sparkling water, but maybe eventually we'll move to some other type to avoid the whole leached plastic chemicals issue. It fits neatly under the sink and the CO2 should last a very long time. It's been great so far. Cheers!

I Love Quiche

I made a quiche last night for dinner that was both tasty and well formed. I wish I had taken a picture before we gobbled it up but I did not, so you'll have to look at this one; it was the inspiration for me to find a new recipe. I used the "Madame Quiche's Quiche Au Fromage" recipe from epicurious.com and modified it this way.

First, I used Trader Joe's Frozen Pie Dough, thawed it, shaped it into a 10-inch pie dish, and put it in the freezer again (like the recipe says). I baked the crust, as instructed. I'm sure home-made pastry dough would be better, but this worked out pretty well.

For the filling, I used 1 1/2 cups whole milk, no cream (didn't have any), 6 eggs, 4 ounces goat cheese, salt and pepper and a little nutmeg. I mixed the filling using a non-electric hand mixer, which resulted in a nice fluffy texture. Before pouring the filling in, I lined the bottom with chopped basil. I baked it at 425 F for 30 minutes, as instructed. The one thing I will do differently next time is cover the rim of the crust with foil while baking the filling - it was a little beyond "golden brown".

I loved it, Chris loved it, Sofia loved it, Maia, well, she ate it. That's about all I can hope for.

Gift Napkins

I'm going to start calling these "Lexi's Eco-Napkins". I love making them for people. These are for a friend who I've know since I was twelve and she was eleven. She eloped recently so I've been working on some gifts for them. I made these using 20 different quarter flats; each one makes two small "everyday" napkins. My family uses them for all our meals and we just throw them in with the regular laundry every week.

Cotton Scarf

I took a break from my wool hooded zipper sweater to knit this scarf. I picked up this yarn at a spinner's and weaver's fair a while back. I kept looking at it and putting it down and in the end I couldn't resist - I'm in love with the colors. I didn't have a project in mind for it, but when I saw this at JC Handmade, I thought of this yarn. It's a 1x1 rib (20 stitches) knitted with size 11 needles. The yarn is 100% cotton by Araucania.

Happy Valentines

They were actually freezing cold while I took their picture. Sofia made it all worth it this morning when she opened her bag with the skirt and shirt. She ran to me and gave me a big hug and said, "Ooooh Mommy, it's so beautiful, thank you Mommy." I had originally planned to put some sort of peace/love symbology (is that a word?) on the t-shirts but then I saw this at Creative Kismet's site, and thought a Valentine Fairy would be better. More pictures here.

What about my most important Valentine? Well, he gets a yummy roast chicken dinner (the girls' favorite lately) with artichokes and chocolate pudding for dessert. I rented a movie too. Oh, yes, and my everlasting love. Smooch!

Chocolate Cake

I'm a relatively inexperienced baker, so I was thrilled that this cake turned out so yummy. Everyone loved it, except Maia, but I'll get to that in a minute. This was the Double Chocolate Layer Cake from epicurious.com. It was delicious, so chocolatey. The only changes I made were that I used 2 9-inch cake pans (plus some cupcakes) and baked the cake at 325 for an hour (started checking at 40 minutes, just to be sure).

The party was fun, very mellow. Just six kids (including my two) and one baby, just free playing, no entertainment. Like I said in my last post, Maia has been planning her birthday cake for months; chocolate with chocolate frosting, raspberries on top, cookies around the outside, and ice cream. Last night after the party she said, "I didn't really like the chocolate, just the good stuff". I said, "Oh? What's the good stuff?" to which she replied, "The cookies and the raspberries." Shrug. Goofy kid. I'm so not offended, everyone else gobbled theirs up!

Valentine Peasant Skirts

I am on several children's clothing catalog lists (why do I torture myself?) and I was coveting some really cute dresses for Sofia and Maia, but since it is (was) January and the renewal of our commitment to a leaner budget (ahem), I went searching for a pattern for a peasant skirt. I found one here. It has a cool calculator based on the wearer's actual measurements. I had to make adjustments for length because the pattern is for adults, but it was pretty simple. I learned how to do the gathering from this pattern, which I hadn't done before. I think they will love them - at this age they really like having matching things. I'm still working on some american apparel t-shirts with some kind of applique with the remnant fabric.

Needle Roll

I worked up this needle roll this weekend to organize my knitting needles. I am slowly getting my workspace more organized and this was just one piece of the puzzle. It is made with wool felt, sewed on the machine and then embroidered along the edges. The tie was a bit of an afterthought, which made it a little tricky to sew on. Overall the project was pretty simple. I'm not sure I would even embroider the edges next time.

Next post: a proper blog thank you and a little PIF promise.

Birthday Ring

Chris and I made Sofia a birthday ring for her birthday this year. There are twelve little characters made with felt, glue, acrylic paint, embroidery floss, ribbons and beads. Chris made the ring with his computer numerically controlled (CNC) router. My flickr site has more photos.