Garden Planning for 2011

I have been musing over my garden for the 2011 summer season. I had been considering moving it from one side of my yard to another, and now I'm not sure I should for several reasons. I won't go into that now... because I am even more interested in deciding what I should plant this year!

I know I don't need four cucumber plants. That was just WAY too many. Even giving them away I made jars and jars of pickles and there are too many for us to eat...

I also know that we loved the peppers,

even though we had TWELVE pepper plants!
Six were Sweet Banana Peppers and six were Bell Peppers.
We made the most delicious salsa with our tomatoes and peppers,
and we are still enjoying it today! We bought a few extra hotties from the farmer's market to add the HOT STUFF to the salsa, because ours was too mild.
But it ended up sooooo good.

And fresh peppers roasted in the oven... mmmm.

I am off to sketch out this year's garden.

Last year we joined Triscuit's Home Farming plan. I'm doing the same thing this year. It was a fun way to be a part of a gardening community, since I live out in the burbs and not everyone gardens.
Yes, I said Triscruit. The crispy wafer! :-) Boy that word looks like I spelled it wrong.
Anyway, I'm off to sketch out my garden!!

I hope you get the chance to be creative today!

...from Lori at Kitchenfunk

Wine Bottle Decorations

One of the things I was busy with this week was creating wire decorations for some non-alcoholic cider bottles to be used as door prizes for a youth group dinner.

The kids are raising money for a missions trip,
and my daughter and I volunteered to make these.

It didn't take that long and it was fun to work together to make them.

The beads on this one were from an old necklace we actually took apart.

You might recognize this flower (above) from this tutorial...

This is one wire shape we did NOT make. We bought it for $1 at the grocery store and thought it looked cute just the way it is. This was a fun, simple project that didn't really cost much, because the non-alcoholic cider bottles were $2.00 each at Costco.

I hope you get the chance to be creative today!

What I ate Wednesday - three days late!

I was so busy this week I didn't get to write a post on What I ate Wednesday and link up to Peas and Crayons, but I DID remember to take some pictures of my food! On Wednesday last week I had a delicious dinner. I made one homemade pizza crust, but decided I was too tired to do another (I don't have a mixer, I do it by hand) so I pulled out some English Muffins and make them into pizzas. Yum!

I made a salad, too, and it hit the spot. I don't normally like bacon but I decided I needed something crunchy on the salad, and it was a nice addition. Along with the hot peppers. This week was positive for me because I didn't eat after dinner for the entire 7 days. Snacking? Well, that's another story... But I'm working on it!




I hope you get the chance to be creative today!

Scrap Swap with SewSara

Fabric from designer with last name Burch (my MIL gave me this!)

I've been away from blogging for a few days. I've been exhausted and busy! In fact, last Friday I slept from 5pm until 6:30am on Saturday morning, and I pretty much did the same thing last night.

Can you see my favorite funky fabric in the photo above??

However, one of the activities I've been working on is preparing scraps for a fabric scrap swap I signed up for. We have partners with people across the country whom we haven't met, and we share fabric scraps. It reminds me of having a pen pal when I was ten, except its only one exchange.

I love these circles...

I bought the wrong size envelopes and I was stuffing them, until I realized I needed to fill a smaller envelope. So I pulled out what I had already ironed and packed, and I restuffed the new envelope. I haven't ever done this before, but it has been fun!

This (above) is a different view of the scrap at the top of the page

A few of the fabrics I packed into my scrap bundle

I can't wait to see what fabrics I'll find in my package! Its like Christmas...

I hope you get the chance to be creative today!

3 Rules to Live by for Crafters

Ikeafans.com

With the addition of my new permanent full-time job (yay, Thank God), my family's schedule, and my desire to craft, I have been thrust into a point in life where I've had to make note:

In the past when I thought I didn't have time to CLEAN MY HOUSE... I was wrong.

NOW I really don't have time!!

This has brought to my attention the need to reconfigure some things around my house...

FIRST: WHATEVER crafting you are doing - even if you have many craft interests - ALL supplies should be kept in the same room. In the same area. Because whatever you are doing, if the supplies are in different parts of the house and you find you are guilty of starting more than one project at a time (ADMIT IT, you ARE!!), then you will have messy craft supplies strewn about the house...


SECOND: If at all possible, keep those craft supplies close to the FAMILY room, so when someone is on the computer, another person is watching tv, and another person is reading, you can craft and BE WITH YOUR FAMILY!!

Ikeafans.com

THIRD: Even if it means tossing supplies into multiple boxes (without neatly putting them away) you really should put your supplies away (in some form of "away") when you are done for the night (or day). This is because you KNOW you will start another project (refer to FIRST RULE) and suddenly without you realizing it, three days will have passed and there will be NO AVAILABLE space on your craft table, your coffee table, and the couch...

And if you think I made these rules up
because of personal experience,
you are exactly right!!

I hope you get the chance to be creative today!

Rice Cooker Dessert Success!

For some reason, fruits seem to cook best in my little rice cooker. The other fruit recipe I've made was with apples. Though I must admit that I have found out that if I add extra water to my rice recipe, then that comes out great as well.

This sweet dessert recipe is simple, and old. I made this years ago on the stove top, and I pulled it out again because I wanted to see how it would work in the rice cooker.

Poached Pears, Vanilla Ice Cream, and Chocolate Sauce

2 pears, peeled and cut into quarters. I use the hardest pears I can find. I like them tart.
2 1/2 cups of water
3/4 cup of white sugar

Cinnamon to taste!

Place all ingredients in the Rice Cooker and turn it on. Allow the rice cooker to work its magic...

While it is working, melt some chocolate chips in the microwave (or you could use pre-made syrup).


When it is done, the peaches should be soft but not mushy (NOT falling apart), and the water should be syrupy. Delicious!

Place a small scoop of ice cream into a bowl, place some of the peaches beside the ice cream, scooping the syrup into the bowl as well, and then drizzle the entire thing with chocolate!

I had forgotten how amazing this was! Again, I'm still not sold on my rice cooker, because frankly it didn't do anything for me that my stovetop doesn't do... but it was fun to give it a try.

You can tell I'm not one to give up on something, can't you? lol

I hope you get the chance to be creative today!

Give-Away Winner!

Well, this might not have been
a big give-away but it has been fun!

Because I had people post on the "Give-Away" post and
also on the "Infinity Scarf" post (I linked to it),
I counted the posts 1 - 14 by date and time stamp.

I can't wait to make the custom Infinity Scarf for the winner!

And I'm so excited to tell you that the winner is...

Amy,

who posted:

Thank you all so much for playing.
I hadn't realized that the person who runs the Give-Away gets so much fun out of it! I plan to do more in the future. Meanwhile, I'm sewing some basket liners and cutting quilt squares.
Check back soon!

And Amy, please email me your mailing address
and your color preference for your scarf!!!

I hope you get the chance to be creative today!


The photo montage of scarves at the top of this page is from Photobucket
and is from the album karinacifuentes