Fabric plans

Just a teaser.

Tea dyed some cotton last night for this project that my daughter picked out. :)

Roast Veggies recipe

Fasting (no meat or meat products) for the lenten season brings out my cooking creativity.  Needing a dish for potluck I dug through the refrigerator and tossed together a beautiful looking dish of roast veggies. I just used what I had available and you can too.  So here is what I did.

Heat up your oven to 450 degrees F. You don't want to have to wait for it to heat up later when you're done chopping.  Get out a baking dish and use appropriate number of vegetables to fill your dish. (The amount in the parenthesis is for a large casserole dish)

I started with potatoes, carrots and onions. Can't go wrong with that combo. Add in some crushed garlic, lots of crushed garlic (or less if you're not a big fan of garlic). Garlic & onions add a lot of flavor. Purple (red?) onions are even better if you have them. (3-4 potatoes & carrots, 1 full onion, 6 cloves garlic)

Next I went looking for color.  I added in a red bell pepper chopped up. Tossed in some sliced mushrooms and quartered brussels sprouts.  So now I've got red, orange, white, green, purple.  Oh yeah, yellow squash and we've got rainbow roast veggies!! (1 pepper, 1/2 cup mushrooms, 6 brussels, 2 yellow squash)

Throw all your veggies in a baking dish as you are chopping. Fill it up and make it a feast for your eyes.

Hungry yet?

Toss everything with a few tablespoons of your favorite oil and salt and pepper as you like. I love Real Salt, it has a great flavor and lots of extra minerals too.  A little dash of pepper (or more if you like it spicy) adds a bit more flavor.

Cover your pan with foil and bake in the hot oven for about 30 minutes.  The onion and garlic smells  will be wafting through your house causing your mouth to water even more. I know it's hard to wait when it smells that good, but make sure your potatoes & carrots are tender (should break apart with a fork easily) before you take it out.

It's done, it's done.  Don't burn your mouth!! Enjoy!

Banana bread

I recently found a cool new recipe site called My Recipe Magic. The site owners have set it up so that when you post a recipe on, you get a percentage of the advertising proceeds. I think this is a really cool idea and could use a little extra cash, so I'm going to be posting a few recipes as I make them at home.

So this is my first recipe to post there. I found a pretty decent recipe for banana bread years ago called Ovaltine black bottom banana bread. It was intended as a cake style, with chocolate bottom. I really liked the taste of it though and have been using it and altering it through the years as our diet has changed.


I've added in some whole wheat flour, made it egg and dairy free and lowered the sugar amount. It's still a delicious, moist bread that gets devoured as soon as it's cooled. When I take it to potluck, I never have leftovers to take home. That makes me sad, so I have to make 2 loaves at a time now.
Here's a link to the recipe on My Recipe Magic.

Try it, you'll like it!

Baby Showers

We have lots of baby and wedding showers coming up soon, and me with no money to spend. I like to give handmade gifts anyways! I just have to be a bit more creative in using supplies I already have or find a nice upcycling project.  

I have plenty of yarn, especially cotton and I love baby shoes. There are so many amazing free patterns on the internet.  These are the ones I liked.
Some really cute loafers (with video tutorial) from Crochet Hooks You for the boys and some adorable slippers for the girls from Moira Crochets.

I have been working on thinning out my fabric stash, but still have enough for some baby footwear. They use such small pieces. I also think denim for baby shoes is super cute & and great way to re-use worn out jeans.  Again, some nice free patterns. I love the pinstripes on these little man shoes from Schwin & Schwin or these nice basic baby shoes from Stardust Shoes to personalize with fabric or embellishments.

For friends I know are going the cloth diaper route, and if I have appropriate fabrics, I can do some diaper covers or inserts.  But, that'll have to be another post. I don't have pictures ready.

For weddings I like to do nice napkins.  I am striving for a greener lifestyle and cloth napkins help to cut back on paper use and they're nice for fancy dinners too.  There are lots of ways to finish the edges on napkins, I like the mitered corners shown nicely by Skip to my Lou, they look extra fancy.


PS. Need to get someone to teach me how to do picture links!!

Tent Hair

What do you do in early spring when you have a hot, sunny day but the trees haven't filled in enough to provide shade yet??  Put up your tent, of course!

 This, of course, was last week when we had several warm, sunny days in a row. Not this week with blizzards east & north of us, cold, rainy and windy weather. But, it was fun and we enjoyed getting out to get some gardening started.

 The kids enjoyed it so much. They even brought out some blankets & pillows and "took naps." 

 Long, fine hair and tents made some impressive static hair. Madeline did not want me to take her picture, but even with her head hiding, you can still see how much her hair was clinging to the sides of the tent.

Sidewalk Chalk

We took advantage of the slightly warmer weather and dry days to get out the sidewalk chalk. The kids all enjoyed being out in the sunshine. Sophia enjoyed doodling, Timothy just watched. I think he tasted the chalk and decided it was better to carry around and throw than to eat!

Madeline & Jeremy have been on a checkers kick lately and wanted to bring the board game out with them, but I talked them into creating an outdoors board.

We scoured the yard for orange and grey rocks and found enough for playing pieces.

They each drew their own board in chalk and enjoyed a few games of chalky checkers!

Jeremy also decided the picnic table needed decorating. I think it turned out beautifully!










 

He's quite the artiste, very focused while he works.

Getting back in the groove!

Wow! Didn't realize it has been almost a year since my last post. I have not stopped crafting, just having difficulty finding time to blog. It's been a rough year with my husband cutting back on work and applying for disability. It's kinda thrown my routine (what little there was) out of whack. I've done little bits of this and that. I've done a little custom sewing and pattern making and made a few Christmas presents.

A friend of my husband is getting married and asked me to crochet a beaded headband for her based on a picture she found online. The pineapple stitch above is what I did and then attached it to ivory colored ribbon. It turned out beautifully and I wish I'd gotten a good photo of the finished product. I'll have to wait for the wedding and get the bride to send me a photo.

I hadn't worked with sequins before but combining lace and beading was so much fun, I have found my true love! I have come up with two other patterns that I love also, just playing around with bead placement and color combinations. These will be made into headbands with a bit of elastic, but I could make shorter versions to be bracelets.

Next up is spring round of weddings and baby showers!! Gotta figure out what to make.