penny carnival

Stick-bound book tutorial

I've got food on the brain (when do I not?).

Our garden is on the verge of exploding. So far, we've been able to eat what it grows but I think within the next week it'll start outpacing us and J's co-workers will mysteriously find zucchini and patty-pan squash sitting on their desks in the morning.

Enter this recipe for ratatouille from The Leftoverist (A.K.A. Sarah, a friend of mine from high school who I've mentioned here before). I've got it roasting in the oven right now. The smell of the basil is killing me (in a good way)--not to mention the smell of tomatoes that's lingering on my fingers. 

I plan to eat it this way tomorrow.

I'm convinced that Sarah needs to write a cookbook. Her photos alone are stunning, not to mention the artwork her sister Naomi has done for the blog.

Now, if I were to write a cookbook, it would be this big:

In other words, itty bitty. 

This little booklet is one of the make-and-take crafts I'll be teaching at the county fair I mentioned last week. I'm running a booth as part of my gig for the local newspaper as a blogger for its "Down to Earth" Web site.

Everything will be made from secondhand materials, so I've been hitting every thrift store and garage sale in town over the last few weeks collecting supplies. Even the hole puncher we'll be using to make these books was a 99-cent find from The Classy Rack (don't you love it when thrift shops get clever with their names?). 

I figure this little booklet, which is bound with a twig and some twine (or yarn or strong string--whatever you have handy), could be used for grocery-shopping or to-do lists. If I were really great at entertaining house guests, I would print out the recipes of the food I made for them while they were staying with me, bind the recipes together this way and then give the book to my friends as a departure gift. As it is, my last house guests were lucky to get clean sheets and take-out pizza.

If you can find a use for this little booklet, please enjoy this tutorial:

1. Choose a front and back cover for your booklet. The paper should be cardstock-like, so consider using cereal boxes, softback book covers, old calendar pages, etc. In the pictures here, I used the front and back cover of a small coloring book from 1967.

2. Choose some filler paper. I like to mix blank pages with pages from old books, dictionaries or graphing paper.

3. Find a twig, pencil, chopstick or other short stick and a piece of strong string or twine that's about 15 inches long. (The length of your string will depend on how tall the book is that you're making.) 

4. You will also need a hole puncher, scissors and either a clothespin or paper clip.

5. Arrange the papers in your hand like a book, sandwiching the lightweight paper inside the heavier cardstock. Tap the stack on the table so that the edges of the left side are even and hold everything together with your paper clip or clothespin. 

6. If the papers aren't already all the same size and shape, trim around everything so all the pages (including the front and back cover) are the same size.

7. Punch two holes on the left side of the stack, a few inches apart.

8. Lay the stick on the right side of the holes. 

9. Poke one end of the string through the top hole of the book, pulling it through so that about half the length of the string is sticking out the front of the book. Wrap the string around the stick once or twice, then poke the string back through the hole toward the back of the book. Pull so the loop around the stick is snug.

10. Repeat that step with the bottom hole.

11. Pull tightly and tie the ends of the string together in a double knot on the back side of the book. 

12. Trim the ends of the string. Or don't. Whatever.

You're done!

The stick binding isn't practical for, say, a journal or anything else you'd be opening often and writing in at length. But it's kind of a cute, earthy way to present something special, like maybe a wedding program (grrr ... there I go again re-doing my wedding seven years later). 

While I have your attention, I just have to put a plug in for some amazing Spokane talent. Last night, J and I attended a fundraiser for a food co-op that's opening soon here. For an extremely reasonable price, we were treated to some top-notch entertainment, including book readings by 2006 National Book Award finalist Jess Walter and columnist Cheryl-Anne Millsap, both of whom are fantastic people as well as talented writers.

And then pianists Brad Greene and Kaylee Cole took our breath away. You can hear some of Brad's music on his site and Kaylee's here. I know we're all busy people, but if you get a sec give them a listen. 

Hope all is well, my bloggy friends.

 

To grandmother's house we go

We’re wrapping up a simple weekend that included a couple of fun outings: a housewarming party for friends and a polo match. Spokane has one of the oldest polo clubs in the U.S. It’s great fun to pack a picnic and go watch a match, but hardly anyone around here does. Maybe I’ll start a new trend.

Anyone else have the book "10 Apples Up on Top"?

Mostly, though, we’ve been packing for our two-week trip to Bellingham, Wash.--my hometown—to see family.

I took a more-is-more approach to packing this time, sort of throwing everything but the garden hose into the suitcase. I’m sure I’ll regret it in a few days.

Bo caught on and decided to remove every single pair of shoes I own from the closet and attempt to cram them into my already-stuff suitcase. Thankfully, I’m not a shoe whore, but there were still some ridiculously inappropriate ones on display tonight (can someone please slap me for buying a pair of platform shoes covered in sequins?).

Speaking of gardens, I'm going to miss our little patch while I'm gone. The sungold tomatoes are just starting to ripen and they are delish. Bo likes them enough to just suck out the juice (and then leave the flesh on the ground), sort of like a vampire. 

Check out the scarecrow she made a few weeks ago (the garden has grown considerably since then):

I managed to sew an Emmeline apron for my sister, who’s letting us crash at her house for one of the two weeks we’ll be there (my parents’ house will be occupied by our Rhode Island relatives, making my headline here somewhat deceptive; we got a smokin’ deal on a nice hotel for the other week).

I think this is the fourth Emmeline I’ve made now, and every time I do there’s always such a strong response to it, as in “I will pay you whatever you want to make me one of those!!!” Kudos to Meg over at Sew Liberated for designing such a successful pattern.

Because of that, I’m thinking of taking part in her cottage license program, which allows you to pay for the right to sell the items you make from her patterns. The cost is $75/year, which seems reasonable to me, and you have to be approved by Meg (understandably, she wants to make sure you know how to sew). What do you guys think? Is it worth pursuing and applying for? I'm always trying to reinvent the wheel, but maybe I should just do this since it's already such a hit with people.

Other thoughts …

Can someone please tell me how I can run 30-40 miles a week and not lose a single pound? I’m trying to burn off these last 10 baby pounds, but apparently my body is on strike. I know you’re not supposed to get on the scale every day, but I swear to you I stepped on yesterday morning, ran seven miles and ate healthfully all day (minus one smallish cupcake), got on the scale today and had gained two pounds. Seriously. 7 miles. Gained 2 pounds. And no, I'm not pregnant. 

I had hoped this was going to be the summer I didn’t have to wear a skirted swimsuit but it’s mid-July and I’m losing hope. Grrr …

A few things I’m loving right now …

-This house tour.

-Amy Butler organic bedding now available here. (Scratch one more project off my sewing to-do list, I guess.)

-The before-and-after gallery on Design Sponge. If I only had 1,392,022 hours to kill:

-Daydreaming of building a modern playhouse for the girls in the backyard. This one is awesome, but it’d pretty much be nicer than our actual house.

This one is adorable, in a different way.

I’m thinking we’ll start collecting supplies from the secondhand building-supply store, come up with a plan over the winter, and attempt carpentry next summer. Stay tuned.

 

Since we’ll be out of town, I’ll probably have a craft hiatus for a couple of weeks (God help me). You never know, though. My sister and I grew up in the same house. She must have a glue gun stashed away somewhere. If nothing else, I’ll have to share photos of her always-incredible cooking. 

Emmeline apron with a twist

My apologies for my chronic absenteeism lately. In between the regular rigamarole, we've been spending every extra minute in the yard--getting the garden ready, raking up the leaves we were too lazy to pick up last fall, you know the routine.

The garden is ready for our over abundance of seeds and starts now, but Mother Nature isn't. We've been dipping below freezing a bit this week so I'm holding off until this weekend's expected heat wave. We're expanding our growing space a little this year and adding a few new crops, like raspberries and corn. Growing corn breaks my gardening rule No. 1: only grow things that cost way too much at the store. But I'm hoping it will look pretty cool. You know, all "if you build it, they will come."

Speaking of saving money, I've recently become one of those crazy ladies who clips coupons. Is anyone else part of that sisterhood? Fred Meyer had to pay me $0.81 yesterday to buy a package of lasagna noodles.

I did manage to sew an impromptu Emmeline apron this week for one of Bo's teachers, who is leaving the school to take a new job. 

Sometimes I worry that I feel my girls' pain too deeply, as if it were my own. I'm concerned about what this will mean when they're teenagers and they come home sobbing about some boy who's gone and broken their hearts. Ugh. I can remember that ache like it was yesterday, and now that I'm a mom I think of how my poor parents must have felt.

But Bo is still only 3, so her biggest heartbreak right now is me only letting her have two marshmallows instead of three today.

Except for the pending departure of Miss Kathleen, or so I thought.

I love this woman. She's like our very own ray of sunshine every morning when she greets the kids (doesn't hurt that her hair is a flamingly beautiful shade of red). 

Miss Kathleen is taking a job in which she will help homeless women and their children transition to permanent housing. OK, OK. I will hand her over for that extremely worthy cause. But still, I think I will miss her as much as Bo will.

When I explained the situation to Bo, I expected her to lose it. We'd just seen a homeless man earlier in the day, though, so the thought of not having a place to sleep or enough to eat was fresh in her mind. So instead of crying over the loss of her teacher, she literally jumped out from under her bed covers, and then jumped on her bed cheering, "Yea! She's going to help the man!"

So much for wallowing in self pity. I could learn a thing or two from this kid.

I wanted to make Miss Kathleen a goodbye gift, and an apron seemed appropriate.

She can use this side when she's feeling more serious ...

Or this side when she's missing the kids at school ...

And just so she won't forget Bo, I added a pocket Bo helped make to the playful side. I asked Bo to draw a picture of Miss Kathleen and then I traced and embroidered what she came up with, like we've done before.

Here's Joe Cool herself, taking it all in:

Does anyone else think she kind of looks like the little boy in the movie "Love Actually"? Don't tell her I said that.

Seeds, kiddie art, fabric hoarding and a purse

I'm fried.

I can't even come up with a clever title for this post (see above). The last two weeks have been a blur--slammed with work deadlines, a fun-but-all-too-fast trip to Portland (Oregon), and these two adorable children who keep calling me Mommy and insist that I feed, clothe and clean them.

In the meantime, I'm longing to sew. And send stuff off that I've already sewn (JennaZ--your book sling is done and lovely, I'm just having a dickens of a time finding a mailing tube that's long enough for it. It's my No. 1 priority for tomorrow. Er, today. It's tomorrow already.).

One thing I have managed to find time for is buying fabric. What is my deal? I should probably not write another post encouraging underconsumption until I rein in this habit. Our trip to Portland last week included an important stop: Ikea. Without sales tax. Weeeee! Plus, fabric was on sale. (Justification alert. Justification alert.)

Then, when I got back home, I stopped at the Quilting Bee in Spokane Valley because they're having a sale. I bought some adorable circus fabric that I'm going to use with this pattern--Feliz party dress from Studio Tantrum. So girly and fun.

Somewhere along the way I did manage to sew this purse, roughly following this pattern from Favorite Things.

I fully intended to follow it exactly, but--I have to be honest here--I couldn't understand half of what they were telling me in the directions. Has anyone else used Favorite Things before? I'm not trying to badmouth them--I'm sure it's more my problem than theirs--but at one point I felt like turning the instructions upside down to see if that helped. The purse turned out fine, but making it hurt my head.

Then we've been doing a little bit of this:

And a little bit of that:

And following these fantastic directions for making masterpieces out of children's art:

You basically trace a silhouette onto a child's painting, cut it out, then paste it on a white background. Simple. Brilliant. Beautiful. 

I first saw the idea on Ohdeedoh and there was some conversation there about how damaging it would be to a child's self-esteem to repurpose their art. Hmmm ... I just told the girls from the beginning that this was what we were going to do. Bo helped me trace and paste. Viola! She loved the finished product and so do I.

So much more to say, but my battery is low and it's, um, 1:32 a.m. Nighty nigh

Wee love to garden

Some of you might remember the "Wee garden" we gave Bo for her birthday last year. If you think your little one might want a miniature garden of his/her own, like this one from Wee Garden,

then you might want to check out this post I just wrote for my other blog. It has links to some miniature-garden companies, blog discussions, photos and articles.

Babies and birthdays

Birthdays and babies have caught up with me in the last week or so. I'm about a month behind on gifts for two babies that were born to friends in September, my niece's sixth birthday was yesterday and all she got so far was a phone call, and then there's the planning for Magpie's first birthday (which will be celebrated next Sunday) that has hardly begun. 

I made a dent in my to-do list over the last couple of days with these bibs for the babies.

I followed the amazingly talented Amy Karol's instructions in her "Bend the Rules Sewing" book, which I highly recommend. The first time I picked it up I wasn't blown away by the projects, but upon closer inspection I am pretty much in love with everything she has in there. I don't know why I didn't click with it right away, but I'm already scheming to do more, including making the elf hats as favors for Magpie's woodland-themed birthday party (which I mentioned is a week away, right?).

The bibs still need snaps, but they're otherwise done. They're cotton on the front and flannel on the back and I love how they turned out. Thanks, Amy Karol. You're a magician.

I'm also still toying with the whole Etsy shop thing. I ended putting the rainbow dress I made recently up for sale--my first product! Bo rejected it because every time I suggested she wear her "rainbow dress" she thought I meant the hoochie-mama dress she wore on her birthday this year (which has mysteriously vanished ... hmmmm ... bad mom). 

I'm working on dress #2 for the shop. You can see my progress here:

It's made from a super-soft, somewhat thick grey flannel (I'd call it "mouse grey" if I worked for J. Crew) and a sweet little orange and silver polka dot cotton fabric. The opolka dot fabric was a find in the remnant section. It inspired the dress. I should have lined the inside with it, though, so I might make a different version before I list it. I also will use white thread on the trim (see below) instead of grey next time. I thought it would look cool but, well, it doesn't.

And I need some buttons for the top--should I go with grey or orange?

My plan for the shop definitely includes clothes for babies and kids, but I'm working on developing a more "signature" item that will be the main offering. Stay tuned ...

Oop. Almost forgot the pumpkins. The garden is done. Here are some shots of the last crop to be harvested:

Freshy fresh

I dream about the day when I can one day shower by myself again. Instead, I share a standard-size tub/ shower with my two daughters every day and trade in my privacy for the convenience of bathing everyone at one time.

Bo almost made me forget my troubles when she said this as I was stepping out of the shower today (yes, naked):

"Mommy, you're hot. You're sooooo hot."

If I'm being honest with myself, I know she was referring to the steam that was circulating around me. But instead I'm opting to take it as a major compliment after several months of running my arse off.

What's not hot is the forecast. They're calling for a low of 31 degrees later this week, so Bo and I scrambled to harvest as much as we could from the garden tonight. Here's the result after much rinsing and scrubbing:

The patty pan squash are going straight to preschool with her tomorrow for other families to enjoy. We still have a bunch in the fridge and I'm desperately trying to come up with new ways to prepare it. 

Here is one of my favorite autumn-ish recipes for vegetables, courtesy of the lovely Nigella Lawson. Enjoy! 

1 large sweet potato

1-2 large red potatoes

1 onion

1 yellow bell pepper

1 red bell pepper

1/2 head of garlic

1/4 cup olive oil

black pepper

125 g halloumi cheese (I use slices of fresh mozarella because what in the world is halloumi?)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cut the vegetables into 1-2 inch pieces. 

Separate the cloves of garlic.

Throw everything into a pyrex dish, toss it around with your hands. 

Cook for 45 minutes until vegetables are fork tender.

Top with the cheese and broil until brown.

Serve it right out of the pan at the table. I like to make a sandwich out of it with a whole wheat roll. 

Squash galore, zebra prints and a bird mobile tutorial

I had a story in the newspaper's food section yesterday, which can only mean one thing:

Phone calls from readers with cooking questions.

I'm sure it would drive me crazy if I had to field those calls all the time, but I actually think it's pretty cute when it happens. They see my name and number at the end of the story and figure I know something about food, even if their question is not at all related to the story topic.

Such was the case today when Walter called wanting to know whether he could shred zucchini and freeze it, so that he could later make zucchini fruit cake (which he swears is better than normal fruit cake. I didn't have the heart to tell him that wouldn't be a difficult feat).

His call reminded me that I hadn't really spent time in the garden in a few days, so tonight the girls and I walked over there with my straw harvesting basket. Word of advice for other novice gardeners like me: don't ignore your garden, even for a few days, in late August. Holy squash explosion. Several patty pans had grown larger than they should. A couple of zucchinis were on the brink of being too big. And low and behold, there was a cucumber. I let Bo pick a few carrots, even though they're still pretty small. She's been dying to since reading (and then reading again and again) the book "The Carrot Seed" by Ruth Kraus.

Here was tonight's bounty--two zucchini, some tomatoes, a bit of basil, several patty pan squashes and some pretty pitiful looking carrots:

 

Just the red ones, sweetie:

"Daddy home!!"--the two sweetest words ever.

Attack of the giant patty pan squash:

We've been in a really great groove lately here. I've been writing less, which means I can plan my days with the girls better. Behavior (Bo's and mine!) seems to improve when I'm better organized. We're not tackling anything fancy, just keeping life simple.

This was today: breakfast, boob tube, play, clean house, lunch, naps, arts and crafts galore, long walk to the playground, dinner, garden, bedtime. Perfect.

One of the artsy fartsy things we did today was Kid Craft Weekly's zebra paintings. Bo preferred water coloring them than making stripes, though (it's the dipping-the-brush-in-the-water thing).

One thing I made while Bo was painting was this bird mobile. I'd intended for her to help me, but she was more interested in painting.

Some people find inspiration for craft projects in nature. I found mine on TV today. Sad, I know. But have you ever watched the little music video with that moose on Noggin? It plays before a show starts and there are some really cute cut-out like animals in it with button eyes. 

So I dug out some scrapbook paper I'd been given eons ago (for the baby books I never created), made templates for mama and baby birds, and created this.

I made each bird with opposing paper patterns on each side, so you have to think about that as you're tracing your template and cutting them out. I'd include a template here, but my scanner is still on the fritz. Sorry. Just draw a bird.

Once all the pieces are cut, lay one half of a bird flat, wrong side facing up. Dribble some glue around the edges. Glue down whatever type of string you're using to attach it to the mobile (I used brown bias tape cut down the middle to make it thinner), then sandwich it with another bird figure on top.

Once the glue dries, trim around the edges since your two opposing bird pieces likely aren't a perfect match. Glue down button eyes on each side. Then attach your string (or bias tape) to a stick.

These birds don't have to be used for a mobile. You could just hang them in a window or from the top of a bookcase. Whatever.

Bring on those squash recipes. Seriously. There are only so many frittatas one family can eat.