Hello! Sometime in 2010 I found this at the local Goodwill store:
I think I paid a dollar for it. This book had been published in 1962, although from what I read on eBay, a facsimile edition was released much more recently. There are many copies of the 1962 edition currently on eBay,
so this is not a particularly rare or valuable book.
Nevertheless, it was great fun to use throughout the year! The format is the same for each month: a short passage relating the history of the month's name, followed by some tips the folks behind Betty Crocker deemed applicable for the month. Two varieties of produce are featured each month, and recipes highlighting each month's picks are interspersed throughout the month. Cute illustrations brighten up the pages too.
Lastly, there's blank daily sections for writing short entries. I used these to make note of new recipes I'd tried, what went into the crockpot that day, what I ordered at the restaurant we discovered while on vacation, and so on.
This past fall, I found another copy of this book (again, the 1962 edition) at a used book sale, so once again I am enjoying it. I read anew that I ought to focus on oranges and broccoli this month, that I can make a orange pomander, and that "The beginning of the year is a good time to renew the closeness between parents and children...I have a dear friend who encourages the cold-weather custom of assembling her entire family for a pre-bedtime snack consisting of hot drinks (cocoa or mint tea) and coffee cake".
Sounds delightful, doesn't it? Also delightful was this illustration which led off the beginning of January:
Just as I did in 2011, I will enjoy using this book all year long!
Hello! And a Happy New Year to one and all! We spent New Year's Eve quietly at home, munching on my homemade sushi as we waited for the ball to drop at Times Square.
Earlier in the evening, I finished up a project I had started shortly before Christmas Day. At that time, I'd just completed the last gift wrapping and was inspired to do a little decluttering in my studio. I had pulled out a storage container of green art papers to use for making a gift tag, so I decided to go through this container to get rid of papers I didn't want anymore.
While doing so I came across a fistful of dark olive green card stock pieces, each measuring 3 3/4" long and 1 1/4" wide. There were close to 100 of these, all neatly cut with rounded corners. Not sure where they'd come from, but I suspect the creative reuse store Learning From Scratch in Grand Rapids. At first, I considered putting them in the pile of papers to go to Goodwill, but then came up with a use for them - hence, the title of this post, a "job jar" for 2013.
Using a combination of alphabet stamps, number stamps and my own lettering, I wrote out a series of tasks on these pieces. Didn't really start out with a lot of organization, but the tasks seemed to settle into four categories: Creativity ("practice drawing", "try a new recipe", etc), Physical/Mental/Spiritual ("try a new workout", "read an uplifting book", etc), Help Others ("make something for a friend", "write someone", etc) and Household Helps ("do a repair", "work on filing 20 minutes", etc).
For variety, some tasks are open-ended: for example, "do a repair" could mean mending a article of clothing, or it could mean getting out the wood glue to work on a loose chair leg.
Some tasks are more specific: "make a Halloween craft", for instance. Yes, I may pull this randomly, say in July, but that will just make doing such a craft more interesting than if I were to pull this on a day in October!
Out of the nearly 100 card stock pieces, I currently have 17 still blank, so I wrote out all the tasks on a separate piece of paper. That way, when I come up with 17 remaining tasks, I have a record of which ones I'd already thought of.
Here's what my "job jar" looks like:
As you can see, it's not actually a jar; it's a pottery vase, made by a friend several years ago. It measures about 3" tall and has a opening about 3 1/2" wide. My card stock pieces fit perfectly inside.
And here's the first "job" I pulled:
Thus, I got out the nature journal I'd purchased several years ago. To my chagrin, I noticed that the last time I'd written in it was 5-5-06! (to my credit, though, I hasten to add that I'd once kept a nature journal for an entire year).
This is one reason why I decided to do a "job jar" - not only will I write in my nature journal on the day I pull its tag as a task, but I might then be spurred on to write in it more often - or, at least more often than almost 6 1/2 years!
But the opposite holds true as well - if I pull a specific task like cleaning the refrigerator, and happen to pull that same task a couple of days later, then obviously I don't need to do that chore all over again. So I would just draw another tag.
And of course, some tasks will likely be tackled before I randomly draw its tag, like the one for catching up on that pesky filing, but I figure this system will overall nudge me into doing chores I tend to procrastinate about.
I think this will be fun to do, and if I follow through on the various tasks, I'll accomplish a lot this year as well!
Hello! As I'd mentioned in my previous post, a recent plumbing issue morphed into the replacing of bathroom flooring. Thus, a-shopping we will go...
In a money-saving effort, we headed over to the local Habitat For Humanity ReStore first. There was one large roll of vinyl flooring in stock, but it wasn't in a pattern we liked. The guy at the counter informed us that they don't get much vinyl flooring in.
However, what caught my eye when we walked in the door was a white artificial Christmas tree; not sure of the height - either 5' or 6' tall. I'd seen some nicely-decorated white Christmas trees in the December shelter magazines, so had fancied one for myself. This ReStore tree was priced a low $5.00 - but alas, it was marked "SOLD" as well.
My husband had thought that a place like ReStore sold items more along the lines of architectural salvage, but that's not exactly the case. And some of the items, like the Christmas tree, aren't strictly related to building or remodeling - for instance, we saw used books and movie videos for sale.
Some used furniture was available as well; I noted the 1960's era kitchen chair among the selection.
Of course, ReStore does mostly cater to restoring/remodeling projects - tiles, lumber, paint, numerous light fixtures, toilets, appliances and more were available. We only did a quick walk-through, as we still needed to purchase bathroom flooring, but I'll be back soon to look things over more thoroughly!
In case you wish to know more about the local ReStore, you can find more information HERE. If you haven't been there before, it's worth checking out!
Hello! Above, you see a small collection of gifted and thrifted Santas; they are displayed in close proximity to my Santa tree, seen HERE.
They, and I, hope that you had a very Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year as well!
Our holiday season was nice. There were the busy days and nights leading up to Christmas with decorating, the crafting and wrapping of gifts, and cookie tins and stockings to be filled. A few packages were mailed out as well.
Traveled to the other side of the state to my hometown for Christmas Day, but then decided to return the same evening due to an approaching snowstorm the next day. Am glad we made that decision, as there ended up being numerous accidents and subsequent backups on the route we take to get back home.
Upon our return we began addressing what we thought would be a simple plumbing repair for a leaky pipe. Not so fast - it turned out that the leaky pipe was due to the first floor toilet sitting on rotting plywood. So all of the sudden we're talking about needing someone to do carpentry work and flooring.
Thus far it's ending up for the best. It's a slow time of year for home repairs (probably because many people have Christmas bills to pay off), so we were able to get workmen to come out, give estimates and then begin work right away! And since we had some older, nagging home repair issues that needed attention as well, I had the carpenter take care of some of these repairs.
The flooring guy will take care of some of the other repairs. Turns out there's a good reason why our flooring looks bad no matter how much I mop it - he estimated that some of it is close to 30 years old, and in the second floor bathroom it's over 30 years old. Seeing how the floorings are beginning to wear through in spots, I believe him on the age.
The leaky toilet is even older - the plumber says it had been made in 1959. It looks retro, all right - pale pink. Probably makes sense to go with a new toilet and its lower water usage.
And so it goes - never a dull moment with an old house!
Hello! As we get close to Christmas 2012, it's time to show off some of the thrifted Christmas items I've purchased over the past couple of months. Vintage pickings have been slim at the local thrift stores, but fortunately a church rummage sale last month helped pick up the slack. So, let's begin the show and tell:
Fabric gingerbread person garland, $1.00 at church rummage sale. This is nearly 6' long from end to end!
Close-up of some of the fabrics used:
I love this green print with small flowers all over.
Fittingly, the gingerbread person garland resides for the season in my kitchen.
From the sale rummage sale, a couple of fabric angels. Not crazy about the green hair, but again, I liked the older fabrics used.
Vintage glass bead garland in unopened package, 25c at a thrift store. I was very happy to find this, especially at that price!
Large burlap bag; measures 17"w x 14"h, so it would hold a generous amount. 75c at a thrift store. I'm a sucker for felt and sequin crafts.
Recently the thrift stores have marked down their Christmas wares to 1/2 off, so I took advantage of the sale to buy this:
Above, 1959 Holt Howard candy dish, on sale for $2.00. I liked the soft blues and pinks; not the most common color scheme one sees at Christmas, but the colors happen to match our dining room decor nicely.
I actually had purchased a few more Christmas items besides these, these are just what I'm showing off today. As I'd said, there wasn't much vintage to be had in the thrift stores this holiday season, but I was happy to find what I did.
Hello! Spied this a few weeks ago at the local Salvation Army thrift store:
It was $2.99,and although I loved the graphics on the box, I was pleased to see that this set was complete; ravioli tin, small wooden rolling pin and recipe sheet were inside. Yes, I thought myself up to the challenge of making ravioli, and did just that last week.
I used the ravioli dough recipe included on the recipe sheet; it was easy to work with. For filling, I used a spinach-ricotta recipe I found on the Internet (the recipe sheet had recipes for a spinach-less ricotta cheese filling and a meat filling).
Of course, it took awhile to roll out each sheet of pasta dough, a task complicated a bit by the recipe giving no mention of how much dough to use to make each sheet. But I quickly figured it out and then was able to weigh out the same amount of dough on my kitchen scale each time I was ready to make another round of ravioli.
Here's my batch of ravioli, ready to be cooked:
If you're thinking the recipe made a lot of ravioli, you would be right - although the dough recipe gave 72 ravioli as the yield, I got 84.
Close up:
Don't they look nice? The darker color of the ravioli dough is due to the white wheat flour that I used. That's one reason why I bought the ravioli set; I try to avoid pastas made with white flour when I can.
These cooked up nicely, too - only needed about eight minutes, and only one or two ravioli fell apart while cooking. That's a testament to how well the ravioli tin was designed - by going over the filled pasta sheets with the rolling pin, they were cut and sealed at the same time.
Even though the tin and rolling pin worked in tandem, this wasn't exactly a quick dinner to prepare. However, the recipe ended up making enough ravioli for two meals, plus an additional 12 ounces of noodles were made from leftover dough. Three meals from one cooking session isn't too bad! And the cooked ravioli, served with tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese, were delicious.
Note: I don't know how old this set is. My set's recipe sheet listed the address of the Ohio importer of this Italian-made set, and the address included a five-digit zip code. This dates the set as no older than 1963, even if the box design makes it look even older. Nevertheless, a fun find that resulted in something fun to make and eat!
Hello! I have a friend who has lived in the Seattle area for many years now, but her heart is in her native state of Oregon. So what better card to craft for her birthday than the following?
Supplies used:
- white card stock
- yellow card stock scrap
- yellow plaid card stock scrap
- "Oregon" game card piece from vintage State Capitals game
- German scrap piece (girl figure)
- "Mary" cut from vintage alphabet flashcard set
- "happy" and "birthday" cut from various sources
- hand-dyed (by me) pale yellow string
The recipient loved her card and framed it to keep out on display - I can't think of a better compliment than that! And I didn't think it was my best effort - as I told her, my brain starts to fizzle a little with all the baking and crafting that I do this time of year.
I do enjoy creating a homemade Christmas though! (and homemade birthdays!)
