Hello! What do people usually think of when they plan for a Valentine's Day dinner? Making reservations for a night out? Or preparing a special meal at home - something along the lines of steak or shrimp?
How about heart-shaped pizza? I first did this back in our married student housing days at Michigan State in the mid-1980's. A local pizzeria was advertising pizzas thus shaped; I took one look at the ad and said "I can do that at home!" And did so.
(Note: over the years I've seen other pizzerias do the same thing for Valentine's Day; this year I saw Papa Murphy's TV commercials for heart-shaped pizzas).
Almost 30 years and seven residences later, it's obviously a firmly-established tradition. But last night there was something new: our daughter had never been fond of pizza, but more recently has learned to like it enough to eat it on occasion. I asked her if she wanted her own heart-shaped pizza and she said sure.
Here's her pizza:
Toppings: roasted red bell peppers, black olives and mushrooms
My husband's pizza:
Toppings: mushrooms and roasted red bell peppers
And mine:
Broccoli and red bell peppers. Normally I would have used pepperoni or ham instead of broccoli, but Lent has begun and so we don't eat meat on Fridays. Therefore, I made a pizza that would give me planned leftovers for today's lunch.
As you can see, the pizzas aren't exactly perfectly heart-shaped, but close enough. It's not that easy to shape pizza dough into hearts, and the hearts got distorted a bit as they rose further while baking.
I used to use some heart-shaped cake tins that I'd bought at a rummage sale. They were the perfect size, but led to soggy bottom crusts, and who wants that in a pizza? I use baking stones now. The parchment paper on the bottom of my husband's pizza and mine helped in transferring them from the pastry cloth (where the dough was rolled out and shaped) to a large baking stone. I used the pizza disk (the implement with holes in it) to place our daughter's pizza on a round baking stone.
As you can see, they all baked up nicely - and tasted as good as they looked!
Hello! The return trip from an errand yesterday took me right past a thrift store, so of course I stopped in. Pickings looked slim until I glanced at a display shelf near the checkout counter, where I saw this:
This handmade doll was crafted in the primitive style: her muslin body has painted "shoes", painted hands and forearms, and painted head, neck, hair and face. The body is simply constructed, but the painted hair and face took patience and a steady hand. I'm not a great painter, so I gladly paid the $3.00 to take her home.
She is 17" tall, and I have a doll dress pattern that should work just fine for properly clothing her.
Near this doll was a basket that held several small handmade dolls, each priced at 50c. I selected this one:
She also has a muslin body, with a face that appears to have been drawn on with marker. The front of her dress looks as if it had been cut from a vintage quilt, with the back of the dress cut from a piece of another fabric. I don't care for the lace trim on the bottom, but that is easily removed.
She's 10" tall, with a stuffed body about half that length. She's already found a place to hang out - the wall of our powder room.
Since this doll and her mates were all made the same way, I wondered if they'd been left over from a craft show. If so, I am sorry they didn't sell for their creator, although I benefited from the lack of sales.
(Note: I should add that in the doll section of the same thrift store were dolls similar to the primitive-style doll in the first photo. These were all dressed, but I didn't care for the dresses they had on. I think it'll be more fun to make a dress with fabric I like better.)
And so yet again, a thrift store surprised me with the unexpected: two styles of handmade dolls made it worth the stop!
Hello! On Tuesdays the weekly edition of American Profile magazine comes with our local paper, and I enjoy reading it. There's at least one item of interest every week, whether it be new recipes, features on various facets of American history, articles about businesses that have stayed in the same families for several generations, and more.
Often there are stories about ordinary folks doing good. Case in point is the article in today's American Profile entitled "Teaching Kindness". The article discusses the Kindness Club at an elementary school in Minnesota, whose members make and distribute greeting cards to those in need. Since the club's beginning in 1995, kids have made more than 47,000 cards - this, from a total of only 316 total students in that time! That is a phenomenal number of cards from such a small group. (the town itself - Evansville, MN - has only 612 residents, according to the article).
Not only have the cards' recipients been grateful for the love and support shown by Kindness Club members, but the kids themselves have benefited. The school teacher who started the club and still runs it reported that former students will stop by to suggest someone who could use a greeting card, and a young woman in her 20's who had been a member of the original club now volunteers for the United Way. The club, she said, "...created an awareness of opportunities to give".
I think this club is such a wonderful thing! The kids are learning kindness and compassion - and who knows, since the cards are handmade, maybe they're also learning that there are alternatives to store-bought things. I don't know how many elementary schools (or other settings where children gather) have similar programs, but in my opinion, every child would benefit by belonging to a Kindness Club. Actually, we adults could use something like this too!
If you don't read American Profile, you can read the article on the Kindness Club HERE.
Hello!
One thing I enjoy doing is combining humble, inexpensively-purchased items to create attractively-wrapped gifts, such as what I had done earlier today:
I wrapped a small gift in a square of red tissue paper (purchased at an estate sale), then added a "ribbon" of vintage cotton crochet thread (thrift store find). Lastly, I tucked in a heart shape made of serendipity paper (in this case, a page from an old prayer book, altered with acrylic paint, rubber-stamped designs and bits of a vintage matchbook. The prayer book was another thrift store find and the matchbook from a garage sale run by an antiques dealer).
True, serendipity paper can take a bit of time of make, but I've discovered that it goes pretty quickly when small pieces of paper are used as bases instead of the much bigger road atlas pages I'd been taught. And a little serendipity paper goes a long way, I've found. I like to make several small sheets at a time; then I have them on hand for adding interest to a project.
Or in this case, a small gift package. All told, this was very inexpensive gift wrapping, but I think it turned out nicely.
Valentine's Day crafting continues. For the past several years, I've made a stack of greeting cards as part of the nationwide Valentines For Vets program. The cards have gone to a regional VA hospital to be distributed to patients there.
I always enjoy doing this, so I recently gathered up some craft supplies and got busy:
Above, you see a portion of the decorative elements that will go on the card fronts.
A close-up:
I altered a vintage trading card with paints and rubber stamping, then glued a stamped heart made from art paper to the trading card piece. I may add further embellishment after gluing the whole piece onto the card front.
Still haven't made any Valentine's Day cards for friends and family, but I made a substitute card for a friend I saw earlier today:
The above "ensemble" was created with stencils from the Klutz Press kit Paper Fashions Fancy, which I'd gotten at a thrift store. The kit was minus the fancy papers and trims, but the stencils were intact, so I happily paid the 50c price. (brand new, complete, it would retail for $21.95!)
The various shapes, cut from art paper scraps, were glued onto a matboard piece from the creative reuse store Learning From Scratch.
Not a bad substitute for a greeting card, I think!
Hello! I'm behind on my Valentine's Day crafting, due in part to some home repair projects that took nearly a month to complete. But when I saw the following at the thrift store last week, I knew it'd be good for Valentine's Day projects:
This is 21" square, so I suppose it's a scarf. The label states that it is 100% cotton and was made in Japan. The flower design of the border does seem Japanese, I think.
Not sure of its age, but I'd guess 1960's or 1970's. I paid a quarter for it.
The cotton is thin and soft, so I wasn't sure how well it would sew up, but I had no trouble making this:
This stuffed heart is about 4" high and 4" wide. It is simply trimmed with a piece of vintage rickrack, a piece of stamped twill tape and a vintage button.
I gave it to a friend I saw earlier today for, as I admitted, I may not get around to making her a Valentine's Day card this year. This handmade heart could take its place.
She was happy with her heart, and I was happy to make it for her!
Hello! We'd just returned from an out-of-town trip earlier today when my husband noticed that he'd forgotten his scarf somewhere. He'd be needing another scarf ASAP; did we run out to a store to buy one? No, I headed to my polar fleece stash to make another version of the scarf he'd left behind.
In a couple of minutes, my husband had a new scarf - and this included the time it took to go down to the basement and hunt around in the container that holds polar fleece pieces. Yes, it was that easy, thanks to these instructions:
Super Easy To Make Scarf
Purchase 1/4 yard polar fleece. Cut off both selvedges. Put scarf around neck and cut to the length you like. If desired, cut fringe on both ends - polar fleece does not ravel.
(Note: instructions are courtesy of Field's Fabrics in Holland, MI, though I don't know if this project originated with them. Field's has a rack of patterns/instructions free for the taking).
See what I mean by easy?
