Not just for tutus

Tulle is really an excellent fabric to stick on the walls via diy wall decals.  I finished my advent calendar the other day and have planned on pinning it up on the bottom side of the bar that wraps around our kitchen.  Being an apartment, of course that bar is hum drum white and not exactly the backdrop I wanted for the calendar. 

I had read this post a while back but didn’t give it a try until yesterday.  It’s super super simple to attach the fabric to the walls and because it’s just cornstarch paste, there is zero percent chance of it damaging the hum drum white.  Again, I totally love the tulle.  It offers a subtle amount of color that will perfectly go with the calendar.  It’s hard to get a really good idea of how great this works because A) I’m not a great photographer and B) we really need a new camera before baby comes–hopefully you can fill in the gaps with your imagination.  I’ll post a pic of the calendar tomorrow.

Working hard

I’m making an advent calendar complete with verses I took from the Isaiah, Micah, Psalms, and 3 of the 4 Gospels.  With all the pins flying around my workroom right now, I decided it was high time for another pincushion–one I could wear because pincushions are never precisely where you need them to be.  Hopefully this will save me some time.  I saw this idea for putting the pincushion in a wee baking tin somewhere, and I thought that was great for a wristcushion because the pins will hit the tin before they hit your wrist. 

Experimentation

Today, I’m giving home fries a go.  I found a great recipe here, and given that I’ve always loved home fries and still I cannot make my beloved tortilla espagnola (I’m never cooking with teflon again and have not found a comparable substitute that is devoid of scary things), I decided this morning it was time for some pan fried potatoes to come out of my kitchen even if they’re not eveloped in eggy goodness.

I made some turkey sausage from Dec 2008 Gourmet that came in the mail earlier this week.  Nathan thinks it would be better with pork.  I’m inclined to agree with him, though it’s quite tasty too.  I took out the milk because I never have put milk in my meatballs–I just use fewer breadcrumbs and a little bit of olive oil.

Add a wee pot of white tea and some ajvar on the side and we have a happy breakfast.

Sweet Song

This week at school (and the previous 3) have been WACKY!!!  I had a program on Tuesday night for all of my kids–that’s 1st through 6th grade–with each grade presenting something plus Kindergarten.  Everything went really well, but I can’t say that I’m not happy to do be done with that.  The kids have been awesome through all of it which can be evidenced in how they sang their little hearts out.

I say all of this because I took a break from having choir rehearsals this month until today to prepare for this program.  I’m glad to be back having choir.  I was so glad, I baked a truckload of chocolate chip cookies for all of them.  I started doing this for my choir a couple of years ago to (ahem) “encourage” people to join choir, but I’ve kept doing it because it’s such a neat community building time.  After everyone had had seconds, there were still about a dozen cookies left, so we looked through their new music and I asked questions mostly relating to them having to physically read the octavo (ex: how many measures of rest are there before part 1 comes in?).  It was like Jeopardy! with cookies.  One of my 6th graders offered to give up a second cookie that he might win if he could give it to his 4th grade brother and sister.  I had no idea a little bit of baking would foster such amazing good will. 

Off they go.

We packed all 20 of our boxes for Operation Christmas Child yesterday as a group function for our small group at church.  One of my dear friends from my women’s group came with her boyfriend.  We had a wonderful time packing boxes and thinking about where they would go and who would get them.  I made a chocolate pie per my Grandma’s recipe (with my and my Mom’s additions) and a pumpkin spice cake per this recipe  which was a nice way to end a furious lot of packing and wrapping.

Here are some of the boxes before the candy storm struck:

Here’s one of the pencil rolls I made for the older kids at the inspiration of Pink Chalk Studio

Mine ended up not being to roll like, but it does fold over and close via button and elastic and it has a jiffy pocket for holding a pencil sharpener (a feature I WISH I had in my beloved box of Prismacolors that I purchased in 7th grade).  I will definitely make myself one to take pencils with me when I’m traveling to sketch in my wee notebook that I hope nobody but me ever looks in, much like my food travel journal.

Jar of Joy

Perhaps one of my favorite things about going to college with my parents in another state was having little care packages sent to me periodically.  My Mom would always pack funny little post-its with faces on them along with good food, and my aunt would send bizarre things from international grocery stores–this being hands down my absolute favorite:

 

It’s this eggplant/red pepper spread from the Baltic world called ajvar.  I’ve tried making my own, but I’ve decided I like the consistency of the jarred stuff better.  I cannot tell you how many sad meals of dorm food were made happier with a generous helping of this lovely condiment.  You’ll think about using ketchup once you’ve had it.  After college, I found it once or twice, but all my sources had run out and I haven’t seen a jar in maybe 3 or 4 years.  So to me it’s funny that during the week that we’re doing boxes for Operation Christmas Child, I should very randomly find a similar jar of something that I used to receive in a little box of goodies that gave me hope and joy.  What’s your jar of joy?

Pencil Bags

I whipped up these yesterday for Operation Christmas Child boxes.  I figured they could be multi-purposefully useful for older kids.  My finger is a little sore from sewing all the linings in by hand, but since I interfaced them with canvas and I hate thimbles, it’s my own fault.  Somehow, I’ll survive. 

I’m going to make some more pencil rolls a la Pink Chalk Studio too.  I know she has the pattern in Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts, but I figured I could figure it out without too much fuss.  The first one turned out really well (I’m proud of myself for figuring it out).  I’ll post a pic tomorrow or Tuesday–school has been wacky recently.