Tag: Fancy

A Ladies’ Tea
Party Posts

A Ladies’ Tea

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The Husband doesn’t go on trips by himself often, so when he does, I try to do something fun and girly. This weekend, I had a few friends over to make our own tea blends.

We had green and black teas as a base and I went crazy on the mix ins, so we had a ton of things to try. I have a lot left over, so I think my tea drinker friends will be getting some homemade tea blends in Christmas boxes.

Oddly, I found a lot of the fancy mixers at Marshalls. I had gone in on a whim and came out with dried hibiscus flowers, dried apricots, cacao nibs, and organic unsweetened shredded coconut.

I also found more dog treats than Fancy could ever eat, but was restrained and only came out with two bags. I have a problem wanting to spoil her to make her forget about her life as a rescue dog. I tend to open all of her treats at once. Drives the Husband nuts, but I just can’t resist her little face. Can you really blame me?

Anyway, back to tea… I had the privilege to use a teapot and tea cups that were from my Grandma Shirley, my Dad’s mom. The teapot plays music when you lift it up to pour and it charmed my friends. I have fantastic memories of having tea parties with my Grandma and feeling so grown up.

My lovely friend, Kim sent me the cute tea mat, it has a pink teapot on it as well and matches perfectly with my teapot and my tablecloth.

It looks quite intimidating to piece, but we may have to try to figure it out. I also used adorable napkins that I got from my brother and sister-in-law for Christmas. They have tea mugs and cups on them. I have been saving them for just the right occasion!

I have never made my own teas before. I intended on drying some herbs from my containers, but they weren’t quite what I needed them to be yet, so I think the Christmas blends will have them instead.

I used a few different recipes for the basis for the blends, but really, we just picked our own things to try and then put them in an infuser. I have quite a collection of silly tea infusers and had to narrow it down to the ones that would fit in the tea cups. I also had bag filters, as one of the black tea blends was a little small.

This is the “deep T diver” infuser. He is one of my favorites.

Not pictured are the “T-tanic” ship, the T-rex, the Tardis from Dr. Who, and the rubber ducky.

Here are two of the sites I used for tea blend ideas. I looked at a bunch more, which are saved to the blog’s Pinterest page under Not So 50’s Housewife.

Make Your Own Looseleaf Tea – all natural!

http://snip.ly/uq4tr?utm_content=buffer8de02&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer#http://adelightfulhome.com/diy-tea-recipes/

I tried some new food recipes too.

We had cucumber sandwiches, deviled eggs- made by Crystal, lemon bars, strawberries and cream, baba gannouj with carrots, and rosemary shortbread cookies. We also had an orange and fennel salad.

The full mix in list was dried strawberries, apricots, and apples, cacao nibs, coconut, and hibiscus flowers. Spices/herbs were lavender, cloves, allspice, orange peel, cinnamon sticks, and star anise. My house smelled amazing!

Here are the recipes I used.

1- Sunshine Bars from Retro Beach Bash by Linda Everett. 

These were very good. Perfectly gooey and delicious. I will keep these in mind when I want something lemony.

2- Rosemary Shortbread Cookies from Celtic Teas With Friends by Elizabeth Knight. Section: November/Housewarming Tea

Although delicate in terms of handling, these were in no way delicate in flavor. The rosemary is a surprising touch, but one that worked out very well. I want to try them with a little bit of lemon too. My rosemary is growing really well, so it’s fun to go out and snip a few sprigs of it when I need it.

3- Orange and Fennel Picnic Jars from The Vintage Tea Party Year by Angel Adoree. Section: Picnic Tea Party

I liked it. I don’t know if the Husband would, so I may not make it again. It’s nice and refreshing though.

I am trying to make myself realize that smaller parties are fun too and that I don’t have to go crazy with the food. It may take a while, but I think I’ll get there eventually. This party was lovely and I’m glad I was able to have it.

Now, sadly, it’s off to the real world for me, but I am going to try to have a cup of tea at the office and remember to relax. I hope your week goes smoothly!

Things I Could Have Been Doing Instead of Paperwork
Crafty

Things I Could Have Been Doing Instead of Paperwork

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Paperwork… Terrible, easily forgotten paperwork. Cause of Fancy’s dismay and tendonitis. I got very behind on paperwork at one of my offices and it was not good. It ate up all my Fancy play time and all my crafting time.

Fancy started pushing the computer off of my lap after a certain amount of time, or trying to sit on top of it. The picture is from one of those nights. I did finish the paperwork and will definitely not let it get that bad again.

I did manage to get some new tea wallets done. I swear I will make other things too. These were the final part of the Hawthorne and Vine order. I also need to make some college themed ones, but they are not there yet.

Here’s picture of the new tea wallets. The Husband picked out the candy corn.

The insides are a mix of black and orange fabrics. And the second row. This one has ones from the last post, but also a picture of the darling pumpkin button I found in my stash. How perfect is that for a Halloween tea wallet?

I also finished the first part of the second office picture. It needs the words still, but I left those at work today by accident. I have some time tomorrow to try to finish it.

The red fabric for the Rainbow Snowball Quilt got washed as well. I have plans for this long weekend when I can use the table to tie it. Then it can be delivered!

Now for the things from my ever-growing project list that I wanted to be doing instead of paperwork…

These sets of bellydance hip wraps.

Finishing these bags…

The top one is one of the 6 pocket bags. The bottom is a market tote that I may have sewn the handles wrong. It’s been in the UFO tote for long enough that I think I need to get another set of directions. There are many more projects waiting as well, but these would be a good start.

I am looking at recipes for tea blends for a ladies’ only tea making party on Sunday the 3rd. I have a few friends coming and need to dry some herbs and get some tea.

Now that my paperwork is done, I can get back to sewing and hopefully have a few more things done before my next review.

Fancy will hopefully stop giving me the look of betrayal soon for neglecting her while finishing notes. It’s quite sad, I’m sure you will agree. I’ve had to give her extra cuddles to make up for it.

Uncategorized

Recipe Roundup

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I think I am in another food rut. Nothing sounds good and I don’t have the energy to cook anything new. Then, when I actually do cook something new, I think of all sorts of ways to change it or make it better. Plus, when we do eat out, or I eat a quick frozen dinner, I get sad and just want to make it better. It’s becoming a problem, although maybe a good problem to have, I guess.

I’m wondering if this cookbook challenge is pushing me in another direction, a new and slightly scary one. Maybe it’s time for me to start thinking about making up my own recipes… Real recipes, not just thrown together ones.

As I’m writing this, we are watching Masterchef, and the Husband is pointing out that the next audition cycle is “coming to a city near you!” (Chicago on September 9 is the next one.) He’s threatening to apply for me and bring me Mystery Boxes to get me ready for auditions… I may have created a monster…

While I’m not quite ready for Masterchef yet, I could maybe handle trying to create a few of my own recipes.

I did make spaghetti and bagel pizzas this week that were my own recipes. These will not win me Masterchef, but did make for tasty dinners.

1- Spaghetti, recipe by me.

The spaghetti had tons of fresh basil in it, so had a little bit of a different flavor. I had run out of garlic, so it just had garlic powder. It cooked in the crockpot for about 10 hours. The Husband’s coworkers are in awe of my cook time for spaghetti sauce, apparently. It is a long time, but if it cooks for under 4 hours, it isn’t as good. It still doesn’t taste as good as my Dad’s recipe either.

Yes, the pasta is mixed shapes. I thought I had more spaghetti and it turned out I had double the fettuccini, not spaghetti.

2- Fettuccini Alfredo with mushrooms from the Pasta book. This was not a new recipe, but I did add mushrooms. (We didn’t have these back to back, there were a few days in between.) I spaced on pictures, we were too hungry.

3- Bagel Pizzas, recipe by me.

The Husband laughed at me when I was talking about making these because apparently they started simple and then sounded extra fancy when I had finished what was going to be on them. They really aren’t fancy at all. I made homemade pizza sauce with dried oregano, parsley, basil, and garlic and onion powders. I toasted the bagel before adding the sauce and it made it much nicer. I added a slice of mozzarella cheese, mushrooms and ham, and then another slice of cheese on top. They were baked for about 10 minutes at 350.

4- Herb Chicken Meal from Freezer Meals by Julianna Sweeney. 

It looks terrible, but was actually pretty flavorful. We used boneless, skinless leg quarters and baked it for about 50 minutes, as it was still slightly frozen. Salad and garlic bread completed the meal. I will make this again, it was good.

Oh gosh… Now the Husband has my Masterchef plan of attack all worked out, from knife skill drills, to dinner parties where other people can eat the fish that neither of us like, to what we’ll do after I win.

If he starts telling all of you to send me weird food items, don’t listen! 🙂

For now, I think I’ll stick to trying some new ways to prepare foods and maybe try a few things out on my own. I still need to meal plan for the week too. My back is currently acting up very badly, so resting with an ice pack and recipes seems like just the thing to do.

Fancy is being bratty and demanding pets and rope tugs, which the Husband has provided. This has been my view during the week when she decides I’m done on the computer for the night.

It is National Dog Day though, so I suppose we can spoil her a bit. 🙂 Who can resist puppy snuggles, after all?

Weekend, Where Are You?
Canning and Preserving · Crafty

Weekend, Where Are You?

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I think someone has made time go even faster than normal. I don’t know where any of my time went. I had plans to can all Sunday, but ended up needing more than I thought and had way less time. We did go on a lovely home improvement date to get mosquito killer in the afternoon and picked up a whole box of tomatoes to can/freeze. I made spicy BBQ sauce for the freezer. The rest of the tomatoes will be turned into salsa and dried herbed tomatoes. The farm market we went to had a huge box of them for $8. I will go back to get some this next weekend if I can have the time to  can more things.

I made two new recipe last week. It was the Husband’s birthday on Friday, so I left him Hamburger stroganoff made from this recipe. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/240773/quick-and-easy-hamburger-stroganoff/

Hamburger stroganoff is one of my worst nightmares. The texture and the look… Blerg. I didn’t even ask him how it was when I got home because I was trying to avoid thinking about it. Don’t worry, he knows how I feel. No pictures, as I didn’t eat it.

I also made up a bean enchilada recipe when the Husband was doing theater things. I used canned enchilada sauce. I sautéed onions, a can of black beans, yellow and orange peppers, and garlic. Spices were cumin, garlic and onion powder, salt, pepper, and chili powder. Mexican cheese blend. They were very good. I do have a picture of them.

Fancy decided to make 7:30 AM a good time to wake up on Saturday, so I ended up making my work art. One is completely done and the second one is waiting on getting the words put on it.

I also made more tea wallets. One of these days, I am going to be sick of making them, but maybe after Christmas I can take a break. These ones are Halloween and fall themed for Hawthorne and Vine and for vending at Ooky Spooky in October.

The first set just needs threads cut and buttons.

The second set needs top stitching  and the other finishes.

There are a lot of repeats in this set, but I wanted to do three of each for Hawthorne and Vine, Ooky, and my own Etsy. I have a set that needs orange thread that will be sewn up as well.

Tonight I need to sort tomatoes and probably try to dry some of them. I have this weird block about canning being the only “right” way to preserve items. I decided to freeze the BBQ sauce last night because it was very late and I didn’t want to mess with the canner. I may have to get up very early tomorrow to get some of them taken care of as well.

This is a really short post! I guess I was busier than I thought.  I have two late nights this week and am hoping to get some new recipes up and running. The tea wallets will get finished as well. I have a bunch of work stuff to catch up on though, so my crafting time may be sacrificed for that.

Wish me luck and motivation!

 

Monthly Review
Monthly Review

Monthly Review

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I have made 75 tea wallets this month. I went a little crazy. What’s also crazy is the fact that my scrap boxes look very similar to when I started. I need to get my already started quilts done so I can start making some more.

These are waiting on the last threads to be cut. It’s my least favorite part. Some of them will also need buttons.

I got tired of having nothing to report on for my craft goals this month, so worked pretty hard to get them done. I still need this darn Rainbow quilt to be done, but may be able to get the fabric washed tomorrow.

Crafting and Sewing Update

So my completed craft goals for the month were to figure out a wallet and a coin purse, organize the basement, and fix something from the mending or finish a UFO project. Some of the tea wallets were actually in my UFO bag and I fixed a skirt where the elastic had snapped.

I found a stash of wallets that I made when I was first sewing for Etsy, but had decided they weren’t as professional as I would like, so haven’t sold them. I pulled a black one made from a shrunken sweater with a daisy print fabric and daisy embroideries on the front. It’s not too big and looks cute.

I also made a zippered coin purse from some scraps from a shirt. It gave me an excuse to use a tiny 4 inch zipper.

It’s lined with the same material. I have so many zippers right now and really need to make some zippered bags for my Twinflower Etsy store. I have a bunch of weird colors though, so hopefully I can find enough fabrics that match. It would be terrible if I had to buy new fabrics after all! Well, the Husband would think so at least.

This is the skirt that I fixed. The elastic popped while on a work trip a few years ago and it got stuck in the mending pile. I finally pulled it out, picked a few stitches and re-threaded the elastic.

Such a simple fix and I just never did it. Now I can wear the skirt again and it will be even more appropriate since I work with kids.

My office art and clipboards were two things that I only got partially done. I lost my Modge Podge in one of the moves and will need some more before I can collage the clipboards.

The office art is drawn out, but I haven’t quite decided if I like it. One of the songs I had picked out, “Heavy,” is by Linkin Park. With Chester Bennington’s recent suicide (the lead singer), I’m debating the wisdom of having the song in my office. The song itself talks about not holding on to things you can’t change and recognizing that you need to leave some things behind. It’s a beautiful song and sparked a few discussions in my teen group, I’m just not sure if I should have it up right now. I can see both sides. On one hand, the song itself can be inspiring, but it now is connected with someone who died by suicide. Maybe I will still make it and put it up in a few months. This piece will have a stick figure trying to support a globe on it’s back with the words in the globe. It will either be oil pastels or collage pieces with cool colors.

My second song, “Brave,” by Sara Barellis, is one that I have wanted in my counseling office since before I had an office. It talks about saying what needs to be said and being brave. For a little while every time I had to do something big, the song would be playing on the radio. 🙂 This one will have a stick figure shouting the chorus. It will be warm colors.

Garden Update

Most of the garden is growing well. I’m still waging a war on squirrels and they are still winning. Here are some garden pictures.

These are the “mammoth” jalapeños. They still aren’t what I would call mammoth…

Green Peppers

Roma Tomatoes

Cooking Update

I used 12 new cookbooks and 25 new recipes. We had one family recipe and 4 or 5 recipes/methods by me. That’s a lot of food. How did we eat so much food?

Hits for the month were the Gold Beach Burgers, the Korean BBQ ribs, the Greek Grilled Chicken, and the Shrimp Scampi. Most of the ice cream recipes were also hits.

Misses were the Slow Cooker Soy Citrus Chicken, the Garlicky Baked Chicken Thighs/Drumsticks, and the carrot puree.

We had at least two new recipes per week and I made lots of new ice creams. I made two last night actually! This week’s recipes will be posted later.

Goals for next month: 

Sewing wise, I am relaxing my goals a little. I’m picking general categories this month. Sometimes I don’t want to work on the things I’ve picked. The only firm projects are the Rainbow Snowball Quilt and my office art.

Categories:

Clothing item, Etsy stock, and UFO/mending pile.

Continue to organize basement.

Get new storage for small pieces of fabric.

Garden Goals: 

Dry herbs for a tea making party in September.

Food Goals: 

Continue to make 2-3 recipes for week.

Try new ice cream recipes.

Use new recipes for Anniversary party.

Get freezer recipes made up in freezer.

It seems I may have a busy month ahead of me. I think I’ll join the puppers in a good night’s sleep.

Tea Wallet Frenzy and Organization Update
Crafty

Tea Wallet Frenzy and Organization Update

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Apparently cleaning the basement makes Fancy sleepy. She napped for most of the weekend, when she wasn’t running frantically around in the basement pretending to be a shark guard dog. She must have been getting into the spirit of Shark Week, since I’ve been subjecting her to it all week.

She likes to think all boxes are hers and hers alone. And how dare we try to pick them up, or take them away from her! We did manage to distract her with some box flaps so that we could clean the rest.

I took one picture of part of the basement before it was organized. It’s terribly embarrassing, but I thought maybe I would be more likely to keep it clean, if I posted it. Try not to judge us too much…

We were able to recycle some of the boxes and the rest are in the garage waiting to be recycled. The city finally figured out the recycling program, so once we get our can, we can really get it under control. Moving takes a lot of boxes.

The Husband put together two more shelves for my crafty things, so that was very helpful. Now even if the inside of the totes are messy, they will be at least on shelves and off the floor. Here are two after pictures:

We still have to figure put storage for the Husband’s Legos and there’s more craft and general household items to figure out, but it’s nice to be able to fully work in the basement.

I cleaned up and put away ton of fabric. I need to get a different storage option for my fat quarters. They are outgrowing the shoe boxes and all the boxes are different sizes. I’m thinking the bigger shoebox type clear boxes will be the best.

I also went crazy with tea wallets! I kept finding good pieces for them while I was putting away fabric. I did them in color batches again. This time it was reds, browns, grey, and some pinks. I specifically needed rose and fall themed ones, so tried to get those done so I can mail them out.

Here are the groups. Fair warning, there are a ton of pictures. Most of them will go to Etsy, some will go to Hawthorne and Vine, the lovely flower store where they are currently being sold.

Grey batch. Yes, those are shiny unicorns…

Pink batch. This one had a lot of the roses in it. It also has one that looked like frosting, so I used sprinkle fabric s the inside.

Red, brown, yellow. With beer! And rockets!

More brown with fall leaves, tea, and revolvers.

Sometimes once I start sewing them, I can’t seem to stop. I suppose there are many worse things to be addicted to than sewing, but it does make getting anything else done a problem. I’ve put the rest away for now, but do need a few more rose themed ones for my flower store package.

I was experimenting with new Etsy pictures this week. My pictures on the website definitely need an update, so I was playing with backgrounds and props.

I sent the birch tree picture to my husband and he said  “Are you being weird in the front yard?” The answer, is of course, yes, because that’s where the tree is…

I figure the neighbors might be ready for our true selves to come out anyway. It’s been a year and there’s four flamingos in the front yard. So I need opinions on which picture looks the best. I don’t mind being weird in the birch tree and think it looks the best after editing, but want a second opinion. Which one highlights the bag the best? Birch Tree or Trellis? (My pics upload fuzzy on the blog. I haven’t been able to figure out why yet.)

I have a picture of our garden harvest too. It’s not being as prolific as we would have hoped, but we are getting a few things. The pepper had a bad spot on part of it, but was good on the other side.

So that was my week and weekend. Busy and very productive. Now that the basement is a bit more organized, I have more room to get things started down there and be able to work with the bigger projects. We have to get the Husband another Lego table too, so he can have more room to build more pieces. He’s filled the one he has with Lego city pieces.

We just have to keep working on the bits that need to be finished and we’ll be all set. It’s definitely encouraging to see our progress. I know we can keep it up too, if we just do a little bit at a time. Wish us luck!

A Happy Family Time!
Crafty · Simple Sundays

A Happy Family Time!

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We’re back! I have a few posts to catch up on. I had my recipe information with me, but was having way too much fun and it slipped my mind. I’ll do the recipe review tomorrow and talk about our vacation today.

We went up north to see my parents over the weekend and got to bring Fancy to the big lake. She loved it! We had to keep her on a long leash, as she doesn’t always listen to us when we call her. She got to spend time with her secret dog friend, Moose, too. They pretend to ignore each other, but we think that deep down they like each other. When Fancy saw Moose’s Mom, but not Moose, she got very confused and kept looking out the door. There were tails wagging on both sides too, so we know they like each other.

Fancy went right in the lake and discovered that there were rocks in there that she could pick up and bring to shore. She didn’t want to chew on them, but she was particular about where she dropped them. She had trouble with depth perception too and it was funny to watch. She would dig at the rock she wanted until she could pull it up to the shore without putting her whole head in the water. She would also chase rocks when we skipped them.

The Husband got a great video of her jumping off the big rock. It wasn’t a far jump, but she kept going back to it after to do it again. Once I can figure out how to make it play on the blog, I will post it.

There were also chipmunks for her to chase. She was extremely interested in them, which is weird, because she won’t chase the stupid squirrel in our yard when we want her too. This tiny little chipmunk eats my Mom’s strawberries in front of her and chortles while he does it, so she was in favor of it getting scared off.

She loved the whole trip, I think. She slept almost the entire way home and wouldn’t get out of the car when we got home. She was determined to go on another car trip. I had to bribe her out with chicken. She’s currently curled in her new favorite chair recovering.

The Husband and I had fun too. My Mom is an excellent cook, so we ate so well! Breakfast one of the days was pannukaku (Finnish pancake,) with Thimbleberry jam, bacon, eggs with cheese, and cranberry scones. Mmmmmm…. Pannukaku is amazing and I have the recipe in one of my family cookbooks to post.

Dinner was steak, mashed potatoes, grilled veggies, corn on the cob, and salad. The zucchini was from our garden. We brought some fresh herbs too.  Mom made an amazing vinegarette with Meyer Lemon infused olive oil and late harvest Riesling vinegar. I have a Sicilian lemon vinegar and a blood orange olive oil that I am going to add together to see if it is as good.

Fancy very much wanted to join us for dinner. She decided she would rather eat the steak, not her own dinner. It had coffee chipotle rub on it though, so she wasn’t able to eat it.

We went to the gravel pit one of the days to shoot .22s and shotguns. It ended up being a short trip, as it started raining on us. The Husband is a much better shot than I am, even though I have been shooting since I was little. Not that I’m bitter about it or anything…;)

Here are some of our targets. We made them roll up the hill. We got both of these for Dad for Christmas for a couple of years, but hadn’t had a chance to shoot them ourselves. For the shotguns, we used empty coffee cans.

We also went to a lot of rummage sales with my Mom. I may have gone overboard with the books…

According to the Husband at least. I firmly believe you can never have too many books. I’m not aversive to giving away them away when I’m done with them though. I mostly buy my four favorite authors when I see them. They are expensive new! They are all historical fiction, or semi-trashy romance. 🙂 Stephanie Lauren’s, Julia Quinn, Lisa Kleypas, and Eloisa James are the ones I typically keep after I’m done. The others I will read and give away.

The Husband got a few books for himself too and got a fantastic deal on two older drills. We went to a downsizing contractor’s rummage sale and ended up walking out with two of the, for $20. One of them has a tendency to stop working, but it doesn’t do it all the time, so the guy threw it in when we bought the other one. They came with two batteries each and a bunch of drill bits! Now we can stop borrowing my father in law’s drill all the time and maybe get some projects done here. The top book is another quilt book. It had some new patterns that I hadn’t seen. I know, I know… I just couldn’t resist.

There were also cookbooks that looked like they would be very fun. The Husband is in favor of more cookbooks, as it gets him more delicious meals. The “Fried and True,” was one I had previously looked at buying, as it’s all fried chicken and sides. It should be fun.

The Peking Table Top cooking has all sorts of info and recipes for grilling, hot pots, and a “Mandarin Pancake Party.” We’re excited to try the recipes and tips. Soufflés and cast iron recipes will be fun to try too.

There was also a plate, with what we think is my name flower, the Linnea flower on it. It’s a tiny bit different, but similar enough that at 25 cents, we bought it.

I can never resist craft items at a sale. Zippers for 10 cents each? Yes please! Considering they are over $3.00 new, I snap them up. I do need to make some more zippered bags though, to use them up. There was also quilt fabric that was all washed and pressed. I only got a little bit of it though and it’s all smaller pieces. I talked the church ladies running the sale down in price because it was a bit expensive at first. They were quite amazed and happy that I sew and quilt.

For the record, in case my decluttering friends are reading, I have a large box of giveaway items waiting to be taken to the store, so I am ending up giving away more than we brought home. 🙂

It was a long car ride both ways. We had a car scare on the way there. Apparently if the Husband’s car gets over filled, it shuts down until the gas evaporates. We spent about an hour and a half in a dealership with Fancy while they figured that out. Then on the way back, it was pouring rain pretty much the entire time.

We are home now though and sort of looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. Here’s hoping the next few days are gentle to us, as we ease back into the normal routine.

Stay tuned for last week’s Recipe Roundup tomorrow!

Canning and Gardening and Crafts, Oh My!
Canning and Preserving · Crafty · Gardening

Canning and Gardening and Crafts, Oh My!

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We had a lovely weekend. We had friends over on Sunday for crafting and video games and it was lots of fun. They helped us cook and we used the grill two days in a row!

Fancy was in heaven with two other people to pet her, plus we got her the treat she likes the best from the dog bakery. She’s currently recovering with multiple naps.

My craft this weekend was canning. I made five jars of pickles. There were originally 6, but one popped in the pot. I have always been afraid of it, but it’s probably good it happened with pickles. The mess that exploding jam would cause makes me cringe just thinking about it.

I found out when I went to check the  pot and there was a floating jar. That’s not a good thing to see when canning. The bottom just popped right out with a pretty clean cut. All the pickles stayed right in the jar too, so it wasn’t too bad to clean up. There wasn’t  good way to take a picture of it while it was still hot, but the picture up top is the circle of glass from the bottom.

Here are the intact pickles:

My friend had the brilliant idea to cut the cucumbers into chips after I found out I didn’t have enough wide- mouthed jars. Sometimes my prep skills could be a little better, but I thought I had more and was trying to avoid having to smuggle more jars past the Husband. Apparently I still haven’t canned enough for him. 🙂

I have a few more pickled veggies to add to my list, but not during this week. We are way too busy! I need to outdo my Mom’s pickle trays though, now that it’s become a thing.

My craft ladies discussed the differences between pickle and relish trays for about 45 minutes after they heard the story. My Mom was so proud when I told her. 🙂 This year for our parties, we’ll have homemade pickles!

On the crafty front, I cut a bunch of tea wallets over the last few days. I pulled from the red, brown, and purple scraps this time. I got in a groove and found myself with a huge pile of tea wallets needing to be made.

I worked on the purple ones first this time.

Here are the insides. The blue one at the top right has planets on the back and on the inside!

The garden is growing pretty well. We have three zucchini on the plant and a whole bunch of tomatoes coming in. The green pepper plant has two peppers on it. I couldn’t get a good picture of the “massive” jalapeños. There are three of them starting, but they are so far not living up to their name.

I did have a problem with blossom end rot on three of my big tomatoes. We’ve had a few days with a lot of rain and I probably need to add some more special fertilizer. I had the same problem with them last year and the internet said it was probably due to inconsistent watering. I was really terrible about watering enough last year.

The lettuce will be a wash this year. It’s completely covered in spiders and is starting to go brown. It’s quite sad. I have successfully grown baby lettuces before, so I think in the future I’ll stick to that.

I brought home my personal clipboards from work to collage, as I wanted to make sure I could tell them apart from the work ones. I’m going to just do the backs, so that there is still a smooth surface to write on. It will also let me go through some of my art supplies, as I need to have a bit more of it in the office right now.

Have a good night!