Hello! I'd recently picked up a craft booklet loaded with fun projects. Some of them were a bit country-cute for me, but I always look at such designs with the idea that I can change them to suit my tastes.
For instance, one project in the booklet featured a counted cross stitched sunflower design made into a heart-shaped necklace. Now, I have nothing against sunflowers, but I associate them with late summer.
In honor of my town's favorite flower, I'd also recently purchased a booklet of counted cross stitch designs, some of which are tulips. (it, like the booklet with the sunflower design, was a thrift store find). Lo and behold, the stitch height and width for one of the tulip designs is identical to that of the sunflower - perfect!
The tulip necklace was very quick to make: simple cross stitching, then all I had to do was cut out the stitched fabric in a heart shape, sew it to coordinating backing fabric, lightly stuff the heart, and add a cord and blanket stitching.
The directions called for six strands of embroidery floss to be made into a length of single crochet; that was to be the cord. My crocheting skills are rusty, so instead I braided three strands of green crochet cotton and attached that to the heart. I used a single thread of the same crochet cotton to do the blanket stitching.
Here's how my tulip necklace turned out:
And here's a close-up:
Like I'd said, simple stitching, but I think this necklace will be cute to wear when the local tulip festival makes its annual appearance in about six weeks.
By then, I hope to be dealing with real flowers (and vegetables) in our yard - so I thought it was good to have this necklace done well before then!
Hello! Spring is in the air, with snow melting and patches of our yard visible for the first time in many weeks. So how about showing off some more green - as in a couple of St. Patrick's Day crafts I made recently?
Above, a small cross-stitched shamrock. The funny thing about this is how I found its chart, as that was very random. Several days before St. Patrick's Day, I pulled out an unopened package of Charles Craft brand fiddler's cloth for cross stitching to use in a different project. When I opened up the package, out came a paper from the company, proclaiming that today was my lucky day since I had chosen their fine product. Seriously, that's basically what it said.
(Actually, I'd purchased their fiddler's cloth because it was an excellent price at a thrift store, but let's not tell the Charles Craft folks that little detail, shall we?)
To further emphasize the consumer's luck in buying their brand, Charles Craft included the chart for a "Lucky Shamrock". I don't know what exactly makes it lucky, but I thought the timing of finding this chart so close to St. Patrick's Day was pretty cool, so I stitched it up.
Once completed, all I did was glue a bit of batting to a piece of matboard, then I glued the stitched fiddler's cloth over that. Glued a piece of green felt on the back of the matboard and lastly, glued a piece of variegated green yarn around the edges. I think it turned out pretty well.
The second craft project, a small collage, was a bit more complex:
Materials used:
- mat board piece
- vintage time card
- card stock scraps
- shamrock definition cut from 1940's children's dictionary
- vintage button
- off-white art paper scrap
- shamrock cut from paint sample
Well, not fantastic - collages can be kind of hit and miss sometimes, and I don't think that's just me. I've seen other collages shown off online and on occasion think to myself - eh, that's nothing special, I wouldn't show that off if that had been my collage. Now here I am doing the same thing!
True, neither of the two projects I've shown off in this post may look like much. But sitting underneath my tabletop feather tree, they fit right in with my modest St. Patrick's Day's decorations, as seen here.
It's been fun doing crafts that represent the "wearing of the green", but now it's time to switch to the pastels of Easter and springtime. Never fear, I've already done so, and will soon show off a craft to prove it!
Hello! As far as I know, I don't have a drop of Irish blood in me, but that didn't stop me from crafting for the upcoming St. Patrick's Day holiday. With the very cold and snowy February we just had, it's been a pleasure to use springlike greens in my projects.
Green happens to be my dad's favorite color as well, so I decided to take advantage of this by making him a St. Patrick's Day card:
Materials used:
- white card stock
- card stock scrap
- shamrock shapes cut from paint chip sample (leaves) and card stock scrap (stems)
- shamrock shape stamped in green ink onto scrap of vintage time card (time card chosen because of its green stripes)
- "Happy Saint Patrick's Day!" lettered in black ink
Close up of the larger shamrock shape:
This card was easy to do, although I found that cutting out small pieces of paint chips was a bit of a pain.
I got the idea for making shamrocks from paint chips from this site.
Hers look more elegant, but I think mine turned out okay - and the part of the chip I used was a green whose name actually is "Shamrock". Can't get more appropriate than that for a St. Patrick's Day card!
Hello! I've rarely used my hand-held electric mixer since my husband got me a Kitchen Aid stand mixer for a birthday present several years ago. Still, I've kept it because there's times when having a second mixer is handy - namely for those recipes that call for egg whites and egg yolks to be beaten separately.
One such recipe happens to be an important one - a cake my husband requests every year for his birthday. I'd whip the egg whites to stiff peaks with the power of the Kitchen Aid stand mixer, then beat the egg yolks until they were thickened with my hand-held mixer in a different bowl.
All was fine until the hand-held mixer began to sputter. It still works but seems to have lost the highest speed or whatever. It took longer to beat the egg yolks to the proper consistency, but I was reluctant to do anything to improve the situation, such as buying a new hand-held mixer or buying another bowl for the stand mixer. After all, I didn't really bake many things that called for egg separating (a laziness about the extra work involved, I admit!).
Then last summer I happened upon a nearby garage sale, and lo and behold, a very nice lady was selling a Kitchen Aid stand mixer bowl for one dollar. I snapped it up, knowing that she could have asked more for it. Thrift stores would have likely charged at least five dollars for it, if not more.
I now use it more than the bowl that had come with my stand mixer, for my "new" bowl has a handle and that makes it easier to move and carry around. The other bowl doesn't have a handle.
Here's the bowl in action earlier today:
(that's masa dough for tamales in the bowl; the Kitchen Aid stand mixer did a nice job on it!)
Oh, and remember when I said the garage sale lady could have asked more for this bowl? If ordered from Kitchen Aid's website, it would have cost $49.99 (shipping costs not included).
Granted, my bowl isn't brand new, but it's in fine shape. I know I could find a like-new bowl online, but I'm sure the asking price would be considerably more than a measly dollar - and shipping fees would likely be charged as well.
Is it any wonder that I was delighted with my bang-for-a-buck mixing bowl? Now I can delight my husband for years to come with his favorite cake on his birthdays - and who knows, maybe I'll now seek out more recipes that call for separating the egg whites from the yolks first.
Hello! Because of its roots in agricultural sciences, Michigan State University is sometimes derisively called "cow college" or "Moo U" - particularly by people from a certain in-state rival school. To those who jeer in such manner about my alma mater, I say, "So what?" I mean, we all have to eat, right - no matter where you went to school or whose sports teams you follow. Therefore, the ag research done at "cow colleges" benefits everyone.
Well, one benefit of colleges with ag research programs is the retail operations based on that research and the students' hands-on training. Currently MSU runs a very popular dairy store, has a food truck featuring products grown or raised on campus farms, and offers compost and seasonal produce for sale at the MSU Surplus Store. I know there's a student-run seasonal farm market too, but haven't gone there yet.
And then there's the Meat Lab store. I don't know how long it's been in operation, but I just learned about it last fall in one of the regular e-newsletters we get from the school. It sounded worth checking out, so that we did while picking up our daughter at MSU for Christmas break (yes, she followed in her parents' footsteps - and no, we did not pressure her to go there).
The Meat Lab store is really just a small room in a wing of the same building that houses the Dairy Store. There's one small counter with the cash register (credit cards accepted) and a small counter that runs the length of one wall. On that counter, and on the wall above it, are various signs and a white board listing what's currently available. Prices seemed to be competitive to grocery store meats, if not a little cheaper in many cases.
It was a little overwhelming, so I just asked for a pork roast. Virtually everything is sold frozen, so a student employee went to a walk-in freezer to fetch our order.
When I cooked up the pork roast at home, it really did look nice and fresh - the color was better than similar grocery store offerings and the quality was good. And it was good knowing that not only did we know where the pork had come from, but we were supporting research efforts and the students' hard work as well.
The student employee mentioned their email list, so I signed up for that. I knew we wouldn't drive to East Lansing every week, especially when bad winter weather set in, but I thought it'd be interesting to see what they offered.
Saw Canadian bacon on the email list one week. That sounded good, and the employee had commented that the regular bacon is always a hot seller when they offer it. Another week, sides and 1/2 sides of beef were available. I liked the attached pdf, a list showing the cuts and poundage obtained from those sides. I'm sure that's typical when selling sides of beef, but I noticed several different handwriting styles on the list - a sign, I assumed, that different students had worked on the processing of the meat. Talk about a group project - quite a project indeed!
A couple of weeks ago it was announced that fresh chickens would be available, courtesy of the Avian Science Club's efforts. Whatever fresh chickens were left after a short selling period would be frozen and then sold that way.
Yesterday another MSU break began - the spring one this time - so back we went to the campus to pick up our daughter. But before we did so we stopped back at the Meat Lab store. This time I was better prepared since I had gotten their latest email just the evening before. I purchased one of those whole chickens, plus a package of beef soup bones and a package of Italian sausages. There was really a lot more I could have purchased however - many more beef and pork cuts, plus lamb too.
Here's what the package of Italian sausages looked like:
And here's a close-up of the label:
That's a very straight-forward ingredients list - just the meat and various seasonings.
I cooked up the sausages to have on hand for lunches and had one today for that meal. The flavor was mild and the texture was very good. I wouldn't hesitate to buy them again.
The only downside to the Meat Lab store, I think, is the limited hours of operation - as in no weekend or evening hours. I believe the exception to that is MSU football Saturdays; the store is open then to sell brats to tailgaters (or so I seem to recall reading when I first learned of the store).
If you'd like to learn more about the Meat Lab store, go HERE.
Hello! Although it can be tedious at times, I do enjoy cooking and baking. So I freely admit that I never visit a thrift store without checking out the cookbooks.
There are often a few dozen on display at any given time, but I'm fussy about them since I have a good-sized collection at home already. It's not hard to pass up outdated microwave cookbooks and I don't go for complicated, gourmet-style recipes either. I also reject those cookbooks that look like they were cheaply and sloppily produced - I often wonder how such things got published.
I've been fortunately lately, though, in finding some nice cookbooks at thrift stores, and here's what I've purchased:
From the top:
1. Hot Chocolate by Fred Thompson. I knew I had to get this when, while flipping through its pages, I saw a recipe called "Nun's Revenge" (an Italian-style hot chocolate). My grade school teachers were nuns, and I'm half Italian, so that was good enough for me. My only regret is that I didn't have this cookbook at the beginning of February; might have helped get me through those record-cold days we had then. Still, I've made "Nun's Revenge" twice now - and even though I've used low-fat milk instead of the specified half and half, it's still very good!
2. Morning Food - Cafe Beaujolais by Margaret S. Fox and John Bear. Under Fox's name on the bright yellow cover is the notation: "Owner-Chef of Cafe Beaujolais, a small Mendocino restaurant with a national reputation". And that little blurb is true since I'd heard of this place even though I've never been to Mendocino, CA. The recipes are broad-ranging in spite of the book's title - there's more than just muffins and omelettes here. A quick glance showed that Fox writes amusingly about her experiences in running the restaurant, so it'll be a good read.
3. A Love Affair With Southern Cooking by Jean Anderson. My personal experience with traditional Southern food has been limited to an old-style tea room in Atlanta. Nevertheless, I enjoy reading about that cuisine, perhaps because of the traditional nature of many of the recipes. Anderson has a fun story to go along with practically every recipe, so I enjoyed skimming through this lengthy tome, and many recipes caught my eye. Thus far I've made "Hot 'N's", an excellent biscuit recipe, to go along with soups. (Like the "Nun's Revenge" hot chocolate, a piping-hot biscuit will go far in dispelling the harshness of snow and extreme cold!)I have my eye on the pecan pie recipe as well. Maybe I'll make it in honor of Pi Day (3/14).
4. Great Cakes by Carole Walter. Okay, so I need another baking book like I need another hole in the head. Still, I'd once checked another baking book from Walter out of the library and had liked it - she is a cooking teacher and so has meticulous directions and insider tips.
5. Gooseberry Patch Homestyle Family Favorites (no real author; the recipes were contributed by customers and staff of the Gooseberry Patch company). This volume is a more "upscale" version of the numerous GP cookbooks: hardcover format and color photos versus spiral binding and line drawings. But like their less-expensive cookbooks, this one has the usual GP emphasis on homey but rather fattening foods. Still a fun read, and I got a kick out of the cutesy tips scattered throughout (also a given with this company's books): "Wake up the family with a rise & shine omelet buffet! Set out a variety of cheeses, vegetables and meats. Everyone can layer their favorite ingredients in a mini pie plate and get just what they want." Gee - just like at Embassy Suites!
Or: "Get out the tiki torches and grass skirts when serving Polynesian Chicken! Play Hawaiian music, make paper flower leis and make it a family dinner to remember." Sigh - I never did any of this, so I guess I didn't make family dinners that would be remembered. But that wasn't all my fault - I didn't have that Polynesian Chicken recipe until late last week.
Yes, every day can be a celebration with Gooseberry Patch cookbooks - but I celebrated finding those other cookbooks as well! The only thing I'm not celebrating is finding a place for them on my kitchen shelves. Guess it's time to weed out a few I don't use anymore.
Hello! At the beginning of February I'd written a blog post on how it was going to be a "use-it-up month" - I'd "shop" from our freezer and pantry for our meals, and I'd make an effort to purchase only what I needed from thrift stores and other shops.
So how did I do? Mostly pretty well, although I must say that the very cold, rather snowy weather we had all month played a factor in staying out of shops most of the time. Either I was tired after snow shoveling, or had no desire to traipse around town on icy roads and in below-zero windchills.
One big success, as described in this post, was the making of a patchwork comforter for charity, using flannel I've had in my possession for a few years. I'm close to being done with this project. Okay, so some of the squares are a little off-kilter, but is it warm and colorful, as desired by the organization requesting comforters? Yes, and yes!
I had a lot of little "use-it-ups" as well, like some of the partly-used small bottles of hair conditioner brought home from hotel stays over the years. Since my hair isn't very long, I don't need a lot of conditioner, so those bottles were taking forever to empty. But then I read a tip on dollarstretcher.com for a DIY fabric softener: put a capful of hair conditioner on a damp white washcloth and toss that in the dryer along with the clothes. I tried that and it seems to work well.
Grocery bills were lower for the month because I used foodstuffs we already had on hand for our meals (other than fresh produce, milk and a few other necessities). I still have plenty of food in our basement freezer, but it's not quite as full as it was at the beginning of the month.
I even finally got around to cooking up some soybeans I'd gotten from the farmer's market a few years back. At the time of purchase I figured I'd cook them up to use in soups, chili or vegetarian meals, but just never got around to cooking them. It seemed easier to use the more familiar black, pinto, kidney and white beans.
But since this bag of soybeans has been sitting in my pantry all this time, I decided I might as well use them. Cooked them up in the slow cooker and froze them in 1-cup portions (my cooking/storage method for the other dried beans I mentioned above). I used one of these portions to make Bolinas Soyburgers from my Diet For A Small Planet cookbook. These may sound unappealing to you, but I thought they turned out quite well. But then again, I happen to like the veggie burger recipes I've tried.
Did I miss the mark on any facet of my use-it-up campaign? Yes, I did, when it came to not buying any reading material from the thrift stores. I thought it was reasonable to buy the current issue of Country Living magazine, for instance - at a quarter, that's a great buy compared to newsstand prices. But the three cookbooks I bought - well, at least I got rid of more than three books after I brought these home.
I stayed away from thrift store fabric purchases, though, and passed up a number of interesting housewares -
some vintage, some current, but all reasonably priced. But if there's one thing I've learned from shopping secondhand, it's that there's always another great buy another day.
And now that it's another month, who knows? I'll probably purchase something other than a magazine or cookbook at a thrift store, and will likely add an unnecessary item to my grocery store shopping list. But my Use-It-Up Month was a fun challenge while it lasted!
