Category: Handmade

It’s wedding season!

After a long dry spell, I’ve been to two weddings in two weeks.

I very much enjoyed a scavenger hunt in Las Vegas to find a surprise bouquet for the bride. I still can’t believe how hard it was to find flowers on the Strip on a Sunday…apparently it’s practically impossible after 2 in the afternoon. So the concierge at our hotel helped me out by taking these from the arrangement on the desk. And I just so happened to have some yarn in my room…

Darleen-flowers

And of course I needed a cute little bag. After all, what would a Vegas wedding be without a little bling? I spent two weeks knitting and felting a bunch of little purses. I gave one to the Vegas bride and here’s mine.

IMG_2103[1]

The second was my good friend’s mamma’s Hawaiian themed wedding. These were a surprise for the bride for her eight bridesmaids. We had a wonderful time going to the flower mart to pick out the flowers and then putting them together.

IMG_2175 Bridesmaids Bouquets

The daughter of the bride was also working with her sister-in-law on table decorations. After combing Pinterest for ideas she came across a Pin for using wood rounds as risers for a centerpiece but that looked really expensive. Turns out the sister of the bride has some property that has an orchard so they cut up one of their trees and the daughter of the bride had them finished at her work. The sand dollars are cookies, the sea shells are candies, and the sand is cookie crumbs. These really came together beautifully!

IMG_2184

They also needed a ring bearer’s pillow and had an extra yard of fabric from the bridesmaid’s dresses, so I whipped up one of those too. I also surprised the daughter of the bride with a little bag. After all what would your mamma’s wedding be without a little bling?

Ring Bearer Pillow Debs Bag

So much fun playing with flowers and knitting and sewing. And boy was it good to do girly stuff after that long little boy baseball season!

 

We’re almost there!

Tonight #1 son finished his final state project of the fifth grade. Of course it’s due tomorrow…

He had to write 10 Fast Fact cards about Rhode Island, his selected state. One to two sentences on one side and a drawing of said item on the other, all outlined in Sharpie, hole punched and strung together like a flip pack.

In addition to that he had to create a “Maker Project” depicting a noun from his state using any materials we had on hand. Well, Mr. No Imagination, I mean John, couldn’t think of what to do so I started listing all the materials we had on hand to make stuff with, clay, paint, etc. and he stopped me and asked if he could make something out of the super soft stuff I made my hand warmers from. And from that a genius idea was born.

Did you know the state flower of Rhode Island is the Violet? After deciding on a needle felted violet I suggested we could make a wearable and give it to the teacher. He wanted to do earrings and I said we didn’t even know if she had pierced ears. But he didn’t let it go and came home from school with the affirmative, “She has her ears pierced,” so he was standing firm. Of course, when I demonstrated the making of a very small violet using the teeny tiny cookie cutter, he said maybe it’d be better if he did the big one (unlike Joe who loves needle felting, John is very worried about his fingers getting poked). That and he could use the three needle tool instead of a single needle which is what he really wanted to do anyway. Sewed on a pin back and voila! No actually, viola!

Rhode Island Maker Project

I made the earrings and made John swear not to tell her the brooch was for her. We’ll give her all three on the last day of school.

Slippers

Had another wonderful wet felting class and pot luck with Jonatha Foli the other day. Small group of women, great food, great fun, great results. (And a bonus foot massage too!)

IMG_1779 IMG_1780 IMG_1788IMG_1781IMG_1790     IMG_1800 IMG_1802

Used a clothes dryer instead of rolling for this project, boy howdy did that make it a whole lot easier. Definitely can’t do this by myself without a shoe last though, it takes a lot of work directly on the foot. I’m now one step closer to making a pair of boots. Woo hoo!

Workshop fun

I took a glass blowing terrarium class last month.

Mikey making a terrarium

It didn’t turn out as I’d hoped it would…all six of my terrariums cracked from thermal shock, but it was fun never-the-less.
Lampworking Terrarium Blowing Glass

I did end up with a cool clear marble that I love.

my marble

Here’s hoping I have better luck in my wet felted wrist warmer class next week!

 

Happy holidays!

We had a terrific Christmas at our house. Family, friends, and great food.

One of my favorite gifts this year is the mini bowl for my blender.

image

image

Creamy peanut butter in 45 seconds. Amazing,Good things come in small packages.

Tonight we delivered the last batch of Christmas presents so I can finally post the fun I had making them.

Happy New Year!

Saturday mornings in the kitchen

Life has gotten in my way lately and I haven’t had a Saturday morning cooking session in quite a while. It was good to get back in the swing of things today.

I started off with french toast, using up the (more than) day old bread that my honey brought home from the restaurant. Since we were out of syrup I had to get busy.

Here we have chocolate, vanilla, brown sugar, and pear:

Syrups

Best part of the double batch of chocolate syrup is you have to make chocolate milk with the leftovers that won’t fit in the bottle. And maybe little Joe will use the pear on his toast/cakes/waffles, but no one else will so I had to make some yogurt to go with that.

Next we’re off to my sister’s birthday party where her hubby will impress us with pulled pork sandwiches. He’s been smoking and slow cooking the pork for days. We are all encouraging him to follow his dream of cooking school; I promise to taste test anything and everything! And then tomorrow night it’s off to my man’s brother’s house where his wife will make my cherished birthday dinner. Same thing every year–no deviation–catfish in red sauce with green beans amandine. Ahhhhhh.

What a food lovers delight this weekend is turning out to be.

It’s arrived!

September was a month for items lost in the post. First my birthday present was sent via UPS to USPS, complete with tracking number that showed that it was received by USPS back in early September. Then my August needle felt exchange package never arrived at its destination. I forgot to take a picture and it was one of my favorite pins.

So today I was surprised by my belated birthday present that was finally delivered. Since I called for a refund and reordered due to lack of delivery, I now have a LOT of silicone pop makers.

I sent Nancy a replacement for the August exchange…maybe she’ll finally get the original package?!

It’s here!

This time of year in Sonoma County is often referred to as the “Crush.” Little Joe helped me squeeze my first batch of concord grape juice. He lasted a little over a minute and said his purple hand came clean. When I showed him mine…

Grape Stained Hand

…he said I just needed to use soap, his came right off. Hmmm, maybe he didn’t crush long enough cause mine’s not coming off.

Got an entire bucket of grapes off one vine, only from the bottom vines.

photo (3)Wasn’t sweet enough to drink straight, gonna have to cut and sweeten it I think.