Projects

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm hoping to get snow all weekend. I have a long stack of papers to get through....no, not grading or reading or cutting or pasting.....project ideas. Ideas out of cloth and ribbon and stuffing and googly eyes and color and zippers.

Along with projects of drizzle and almond and flours and pans and boxes and tissues.

And of course projects with paints and stamps and music and bobbles and writing things.

Maybe I should pray to be snowed in....

Oh dear.

Oh dear.

I just can't seem to help myself. I already have phone books bulging and things peeking out of stacked papers and piles.

But every time I walk, I see another beautiful one. Pink. Yellow. Burgendy. Brown. And I just can't help but lean down and scoop it up. Already this week I've had two passerby's stop, watch, and then smile as they see me walking home with twigs and pokes and color sticking everywhere out of my frozen fingers. My prizes. My joy. I beam as I walk home.

But now what to do with them?! I have to find some fall projects to use these with! I found a couple neat pictures of leafy wreaths, and some framed verse art, and some garlands.

But guess what is happening right now?

Yup. Snow.

All of a sudden, I'm ready to cut out snowflakes and sit down with hot chocolate and sewing projects! ha ha

Oh dear.

Food notes

Hmmm, here are some musings. In my quest for simpler meal preparation (I tend to over book my meal prep, so if I have some simple steps, that's good), I have checked out a large stack of "Make it ahead" type cookbooks. (AND, I read them all of course). I also have been browsing ideas online, of freezer meals and food tips and of course some yummy-looking-recipes-that-are-way-too-time-comsuming just for fun! :)

But back to my concise point, here are two things I've liked so far:
1) Freezing garlic. Remember all those 99cent bags of produce I keep looking for? Well, last week I found one full of growing garlic. So, instead of letting it go to waste in my fridge, I used my (handy-dandy) food processor and minced it all up. Then, I spooned it into my ice cube trays to freeze it in Tbl portions, ready to just pop out and use! (Needless to say, don't be asking for ice cubes at my house for a while!)

2) Mini muffins. This was a fun one. I made mini corn-meal muffins, bite size portions really, ready to just unthaw and serve with warm honey with a meal or as a snack. I'm not sure why, but I think the bite-size thing is a whole lot of fun, verses regular size muffins. Go figure?! But it works for me!

Here is an interesting give-a-way

I'm not usually that interested in give-a-ways....just seems like the chances are pretty low. But this one looked too interesting to pass up. And since my recent experiments with apple chips, I thought it would be worth a shot.

Give-a-way from Keeper of the home:

9 tray dehydrator

Check it out here, and comment there if you'd like to take your chances too! :)

Another fall project

Fall apples are in season (well, practically out of season now), and it was wonderful! This year, a couple friends has extra apples, so we got some. :) I decided to try something new, and make Apple Chips out of them.

Tada! A success! I think they are a quite delicious snack! Here is how I made them:

1. Borrow my mom's dehydrator
2. Wash, quarter and core about 7 apples
3. Use my handy-dandy food proceessor to zip through slicing them. (took about 3-5 minutes! ha!)
4. Lay them on the dehydrator racks and sprinkle cinnamon-sugar mixture over top
5. Dehydrate about 4 hours or overnight (depending on how many apple slices I fit in)
6. Store in an airtight bag and EAT!

I highly recommend this to any one who likes apples! :)

Amazing colors

In the 3 block walk between my house and work, I have seen an amazing selection of colors! All these pictures were taken on the same day! (I just wish it was sunnier, so they would turn out better) I think God has a pretty good eye for color :) Check it out....

Above we have lime green and yellow.

Or perhaps you prefer brown and key lime?

More color to your liking? Here we have orange and mustard.

Or orange and red.

We could go for more of a peach combination...

Or spotted.

A springlike effect perhaps?

Maybe it's time to look at something other than orange......pink hues more your tone?

Or maybe autum and burgendy?

Or even some of that bright color mixed in with maroon?

Maybe you prefer earthy tones...

Camoflauge.

A splash of yellow...

Or red, if you so desire.

Cool colors of wintergreen more soothing?

Or maybe a rich red and brown combination?

Maybe red was too much, we can just soften that same look here.

Perhaps solid colors are more to your liking.

Or solid, but brighter?

It just amazed me at the combinations I found this year. I don't know if it's because of the strange summer and fall weather we had, that we get bi and tri colored foliage, but I love it! hope you do too!

Food Blogs

Thanks to TipNut, I found a new list of food blogs and kitchen tips to drool over! Here are some of my new favorites below:

1. 45 timeless kitchen tips
2. Amanda's Cooking
3. Once a month cooking tips

Amazing apartment re-do

I saw this blog post with pictures of someone's re-modeling project recently. I thought it was inspiring....and it's amazing what a little paint and some new tile and counter-tops can do! Check it out!

70's apartment therapy

Fall Project #2

Here is another project that needed to be done.....making cards! But, because of the fall weather, these turned out very seasonal too! (I was just in that color mood)

I have more that I should do, but right now I have a pile of other things begging for attention. (Including a pile of soon-to-be-over-ripe apples!)

Garden Produce

I was unfaithful to my garden this year.....though I had started it with high hopes! (I neglected watering it) But, it was still fun to see what did grow! See all those tomatoes riping on my windowsil?! Those are from our backyard! :)

Other things I harvested this year:

• 3 green beans
• 10 pea pods
• 5 leaves of basil
• lots of spring onion tops
• lots of parsley
• lots of pink & purple mum flowers
• 2 blooming morning glories

It was great, but I'm not so sure about next year!

Our Visitor

Monday was a lovely day. A sweet morning, a special invitation to a soup lunch, Dad & Mom dropping off our "guest" for the week (Pucha!), a fun trip to the grochery store, phone calls with singing, and a long quiet evening at home.

Pucha hid under our bed for the first couple hours, but when M. came home, she was "brave" enough to come say hello, and then wouldn't stop following him everywhere! ha ha

It's been a fun adventure to have a cat at home this week. :)

Fall Project #1

Here is a fall project I recently completed:

I had a great time going for a fall walk on my lunch break a couple weeks ago, and picking up pretty leaves. I pressed them in a phone book, and also soaked some in glycerin water to preserve them better.

I had this old picture frame, and some leftover scrapbook paper to work with, and I really liked this verse. So, voilia! A seasonal picture for my piano top.

Fun Fall Things

This weekend was full but fun.
We had our first church Open House.....alot of effort was put in by a lot of people, and we had a great time (but not the turn out we hoped for). It was kind of like a mini-Winter Retreat. :)

Now today I am excitedly looking forward to a special guest, who will stay with us for a week. And I guess I'm also looking forward to a free cookie.....and grochery shopping....and a night at home. :)

I can't find my camera cord at the moment, but I hope to post pictures soon.

Have a lovely fall day!
Emily

Towel Fun

Check out this link for how to make a bath towel into an ELEPHANT!

Wouldn't that be a fun thing to make for your guests? :) I think so.

New experiments with bananas

When I had got those bananas for cheap, I decided to try making them into banana chips. It really was a great idea, but I used a bad recipe (made one up) and the bananas never dried, just got chewy :)

Ah well....I hope to try again some day.

Another thing I used the bananas for was for the chocolate chip muffins. THOSE turned out great. And I might have to make another batch. :)

New Apron

A couple week's ago I finally got around to sewing an apron that I've been wanting to do! I believe I like it....and now I have the bug to sew some more! I searched online for some pictures of aprons, and found quite a few I like. Now, to just find the time....