A Closer Look at Ottoman

Jell-O Molds

My mom, Boo and I were at a yard sale today (my parents are visiting for Boo's birthday, so posts will be spotty for the next week, week-and-a-half) and there were two baskets filled with over 100 cookie cutters and Jell-O (ish) molds. I almost offered the gal some money for all of it, but decided that I simply didn't have the space to hoard all of them. So, I got a little over 30. We're about to leave to go get some Jell-o to use them and Boo hasn't ever had it before, so it should be fun! I'll share some pictures of the cutters and molds soon, but they reminded me of this recent contest:

I just love the vintage-inspired look to the poster. Here's a link to the website so you can see the results.

Happy Fourth! Well, I guess this post was appropriate!

Three Thrift Trips

Jenny and I did a big-ish thrifting adventure a couple weeks ago or so and I've done a couple really quick ones with Boo in the last several days (quick because Boo really learns by touching things and it makes me a bit nervous when he wants to check out fragile items...he really has a tough time just looking, can you blame him?).

On my trip with Jenny, I mainly found items for other people, but I did find a couple scarves that I thought I might wear:

This one doesn't have a tag, but it's so beautiful! I love to wear these colors. Here's another part of the scarf:

This next scarf it just cute (it's vintage...I can tell by the tag):

On my first trip with Boo, I found a couple embroidery hoops and three tea cups in the pattern that both my grandmother and Jeff's mom had; I've been resisting when I see this pattern, but I can't help it, I'm going to try to slowly collect them up for a full set:

Then, on our last trip, I found another hoop, some rogue tea cups for a future project, some plaques for another future project and some thread that I'm guessing is used to crochet doilies:

I thought the string/thread would work great for garlands. I had so much fun making the one for the birthday gift, that I'm surely going to make something for the house.

All for now!

Happy Tuesday!

Thrifting with Jenny Highlights

As promised, here are the highlights of my thrifting adventure with Jenny...

At our first stop, I found a "Jello mold"...at least that's what I call it:

I completely scored at our second/last stop and found some great supplies for my "for your Wall" pieces!

Vintage embroidery hoops:

The paint that's on one of the oval ones comes off easily, I made sure to check. Notice the metal one? Yay!

And, French cashmere (100%) embroidery floss:

You can bet these are going to be part of a limited edition of "Lichen for your Wall!" I'm just going to work out the details.

I also found some paper sewing patterns to use as an eco-friendly tissue paper for my packaging (I first got the idea from my package I received from Thrush and then as a recommendation from Chakra Pennywhistle). I made sure to pick out particularly ugly patterns (so the good ones could still be used as patterns). Then, I saw this:

It's a pattern for a jacket, but I may have to paper a wall with it or something...it's incredible!

Lastly, and mostly, I found something that made my heart race:

A vintage school desk in pink and blue. It still needs a good cleaning (notice the craziness of our home in the background?), but it's wonderful!

It will be perfect next to me while I sit and sew/needle felt/embroider and will quickly stash my project.

All for now and a bit of a break from orange...but one more to come!

Happy Tuesday!

Our Trip (Part 4 of 4...I think)

I was just as obsessed with citrus on our trip as Otto was with palm trees. The grapefruit and orange trees were blooming and whenever I went to my sister's house, I drove through the groves with the windows open to let in the sweet scent. Really, there's nothing like blooming citrus. I kept telling my sister and brother-in-law that they should plant at least one avocado tree (they have a sloped backyard), an orange tree, lemon tree and a lime...and why doesn't everyone have these in their yards?

Anyway, thankfully, my grandparents have a lemon tree and a few orange trees and they even had ripe fruit on them as well as blooms:

So, I decided to make some candied citrus peel, using another Martha recipe:

 

The recipe is a lot of work for a small amount of citrus peel, so I added more peel than what it called for. I think it was two oranges and four lemons (I didn't use all the citrus in the picture).

 

This is a great candy to top ice cream for a great gluten-free, nut-free, soy-free dessert! (I have a lot of people close to me with allergies/intolerances.)

While I was making the candied citrus peel, my mom walked by and said "hey, those two together look like an "O." So, after they were all done, I couldn't help myself and made the whole alphabet.

Our Trip (Part 3 of 4...I think)

I tried to get some cooking out of my system while using my parents' fully-functioning kitchen. I also went to my grandparents' house to learn how my grandmother makes her famous dumplings; they are a French-Canadian variety with cinnamon and cloves as the seasoning:

Here they are rolled out and with the filling (pork) added. I ended up rolling the dough thinner on a lot of these after the picture was taken and making two instead of one. I actually needed to make them even thinner than that; I'm impressed how my grandmother can roll the dough paper-thin and put even more filling in them than I did (according to my father, the expert) and keep them together! I guess she has many more years of practice...I'd better hop to it!

Here are half of the dumplings made, with the other half of the dough ready to be rolled out.

Here's Boo's dumpling; he wanted to get in on the cooking (I love that he loves to cook) and my grandmother gave him some scrap dough and some filling and they basically played with it like play dough (my grandmother acts like such a kid...love that). This one actually ended up in the garbage because it landed on the floor. I'm pretty bummed that I didn't get any images of finished dumplings; I guess I'll have to make some more soon!

I also finally got to making marshmallows on the trip. I used this recipe, but part of it must be missing (so unexpected from Martha) because it doesn't state what kind of a pan to line the parchment paper with or how to keep the marshmallow from sticking to the parchment paper (yeah...it stuck to it and it was like skinning an animal, not that I've done that before, to get it off), but they turned out lovely with an interesting texture:

My parents' mantle was perfect to photograph these...it was decorated with cute Easter stuff.

After all the build up to make these, they were a bit too sweet in hot cocoa. However, they were great by themselves. I often cut sugar in half in cookie recipes and such, but it's sort of difficult to cut out the sugar on something that's almost entirely sugar...so maybe a dunk in dark chocolate would be nice!

Oh yes, and you may have noticed that they aren't tinted like the ones in the recipe; I also altered the recipe a little and substituted 1/4 cup of the corn syrup with honey. The marshmallows had the delicious scent of honey and vanilla.

Happy Tuesday!

Our Trip (Part 2 of 4...I think)

The night before Easter, Boo and I (along with my parents and my youngest sister) went to my sister's house to dye eggs and decorate sugar cookies. I decided to give up my Type A tendencies and let Boo just have fun doing whatever he wanted with the eggs.

Here's the "before" egg-dying station (for only two kids!):

Boo started dying very delicately:

Then he decided to get his hands dirty:

And it's a good impromptu lesson on color mixing.

With all his eggs dunked numerous times and all the colors mixed up...they actually didn't all look the same:

Boo was pretty excited about the turquoise he'd made.

The cookies were a bit rushed and the kids were going crazy to have us ice them so that they could put sprinkles on them, so they were a bit wonky. What the heck...they tasted the same (which we decided was way to sweet for all of the adults, we were more interested in the dough):

The sprinkles got a bit crazy at the end with basically dumping the remainder on:

A little Easter, a little Mardi Gras...what the heck, a collision of the pre and post Lent celebrations!

Our Trip (Part 1 of 4...I think)

Boo and I are back and safe. I was going to do a mini-series on Jeff's hamburger/motorcycle road trip, but he ended up going a different route because of snow on the way down, and on the way back, had the flu. I think he only made it to one of the hamburger stops; we ate at In-N-Out enough to make up for it while we were in town with our family.

Anyway, I ended up taking the majority of the pictures at Disneyland (well, Jeff did) and the last week we were there. We went to Disneyland on a very crowded day:

We lucked out on wait times for rides, however and only waited up to 30 minutes for a ride. We hit all that we wanted to except for one (Boo was about an inch too short) and Boo did really great! He's usually slow to warm up to new things, but we hyped it up for months ahead of time. Here's what we did that day...it worked out really well:

1. Rocket ride in Tomorrow Land (that was a 30 minute line...Jeff and Boo went on that)
2. lunch (we got there later in the day because we knew that Boo and his cousin who is 2 1/2 wouldn't last from open to close anyway)
3. Tiki Room (Boo wasn't too sure about the thunderstorm and wanted to leave, but I told him it was almost over and he was totally fine)
4. Jungle Cruise
5. Pirates of the Caribbean (we decided to go on this ride and the previous two attractions during the hottest part of the day - perfect)
6. Haunted Mansion (the ride stopped for a couple of minutes and I was afraid that Boo would freak out, but he just asked lots of questions)
7. Steam train
8. dinner
9. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride (we walked by the ride because we were on the way to Toon Town for my niece and we decided to split up because the line for Mr. Toad's Wild Ride is usually long and it was super short...Jeff, Boo and I had a lot of fun on this one)
10. Carousel

Really, that was it! Not too much, but it ended up being a whole day's worth because we took it easy and focused on the kids. Jeff and I used to go to Disneyland all the time when we lived nearby and did much more I'm sure, but this was just right with two little ones. Oh yeah, and I love these two plants and had to take a picture of them together at Mr. Toad's Wild Ride:

 

Nasturtium and Dichondra (my mother says that her lawn was all Dichondra when she lived in Orange as a girl - wow).

Here's a couple more pictures from the trip that I think are interesting...

We had a freak rainstorm and my father feeds birds in his backyard, so they all needed to find a place out of the rain. These California Quail found a little spot in my parents' retaining wall to shelter themselves.

 

This plant with it's striking yellow flower is in my sister's backyard! I don't know what it is, but it definitely makes a statement!

Okay, more later...oh, and all the made-to-order hair accessories are back in the shop!

BROOKLYNrehab

I made it safe and sound with Boo to my parents' house. I've been super busy with visiting Jeff's family, my grandparents, and tomorrow I'm going to see my friend since kindergarten, Katie. I've got to get some pictures to share, but right now I'm trying to just have fun after the ramp-up to getting here. Boo has had a lot of fun with his cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Boo's in love with palm trees and there has also been plenty of new and interesting animals to check out like stink bugs and loads of lizards!

On another note, I love when one of my favorite Etsy sellers or "Etsy friends" is the featured seller on Etsy; or better yet, both, which was the case this weekend with BROOKLYNrehab. I was so excited to see Alyssa as the featured seller and her interview was great! Here's a sample of the BROOKLYNrehab shop:

I've been loving this Ceramic Mushroom for awhile; what could be a better friend to moss and lichen?

 

The photography in the shop really highlights the pieces and this darling Porcelain Branch really makes me want it in my home. The little silhouette is the perfect companion to this piece.

 

If you read Alyssa's interview, she mentions that she doesn't consider herself an artist (I can totally relate, I prefer to consider myself a printmaker, sculptor and the like), but this, to me, is conceptual art. These NYC Souvenirs are brilliant! Check out the cataloging system...perfection!

I usually provide links to the items I highlight, but the pieces in the BROOKLYNrehab shop are selling so fast, just check out what's available now!

Okay, I'd better be off to sleep! I hope you had a great weekend too!

My church's rummage sale...

starts tomorrow, but I got in early and scored some great stuff! But first, don't forget about the giveaway! Here's what I found:

I'm not sure what this was originally for; it has a rubber stopper on the bottom. I think it would make a great terrarium on it's side if I can find something to keep it in that position.

I love this plate. After I picked this up, Jenny said that I'm attracted to "grandma stuff." I think I like the contrast between modern and fussy, girly stuff. The subject here is too much; it almost belongs in the boudoir.

Check out the detail!

I couldn't help myself...this is just too sweet!

I think that I'm going to have to host girly tea parties in the future! This particular teacup and saucer feels very holiday to me.

Jenny found a basket full of these letters (probably between 100 and 200 of them). They're plaster and each have two tacks in them for putting on a board or somesuch. I love these...probably my favorite of everything I got yesterday! I love the raw plaster too...they would be perfect for a bulletin board (maybe even white-on-white).

I also got a mini food processor and a well-loved little wheel barrow for Boo. I can't wait for garages sales to "spring" up! Yeah, I know.

Happy Thursday!

A "real" banner and some more tea talk.

I've been meaning to make a custom banner since I started this blog, but I hadn't come up with an idea for one that I liked enough until now. I really wanted something that had the name of the blog, but was photographed or scanned rather than created via graphic design (not that I can do that anyway) because I wanted to do it myself and I just wanted it to look a certain way. If you recall, I used this roller stamp for my hang tags too. Oh, and if you don't know by now, I love graph paper! I wish that recycled content, graph paper sketch books existed (with nice thick paper). Anyhow, I'll post the banner here also in case I do something different later:

What do you think?

On another note, I'm currently drinking some wonderful tea. The other night, Jeff ran into Albertson's for a couple of things and thought that he'd get me some tea and while browsing the tea isle, he saw this:

He had noticed the note from Oona that had PG Tips and Glengettie written on it and remembered how excited I was to find new wonderful tea! What a sweetie!

Oh, and Boo and I had fun at Jenny's yesterday; I was bummed I didn't bring my camera...Jenny has violets blooming in her lawn! Yay for lawns that aren't one species!

Addition...okay, I changed the pale green background to a warm yellow to warm things up...I thought it would look nice with the red dashed border and the blue of the graph paper...I'll sit with it for awhile and see what I think...hmmm.

Well, that wasn't really "me," so let's try white!