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Friday Favorites.

26 Apr

Yesterday was [finally!] a nice day outside.  Sunshine.  Little wind.  All I could think about was iced coffee and hammocks.  Regardless that the temperature hasn’t yet passed 60 degrees, my coarsely ground coffee beans were mixed with water in giant pitchers on my counter last night, and I have pretty solid plans to take a nap in my hammock on Sunday afternoon.  Iced coffee and hammocks.  Definitely two of my favorite things.  Also –

A vintage Nancy Drew party!  Now granted, it was planned for an elementary crowd.  If I planned a vintage Nancy Drew party for my 30th, would you come?

How fun do these look — Springtime Italian Rainbow Cookie with Lemon Curd.  I’m going on a retreat next weekend and I’m tempted to try these to take a share.  We’ll see if early next week holds the time needed to bake them.  They do look a little involved …

DIY Bird Feeders.  I might have to find some time to make these to hang from the trees for my bird friends.

I want to make at least five of these.  Terrariums are the coolest.  I would put a gnome in mine.

Martha does it again.  Travel keepsake boxes to hold airline tickets, photos, and all sorts of things from trips.

And, lastely, a motto for a new week.

Friday favorites?

12 Apr

Not in the traditional sense this week.  My Friday  was spent in two of my favorite places, neither being this computer compiling links and lists of favorite things.  Two places –

1. My sewing room.  Suddenly, in the last week, there has been a project on the design wall that grew and grew and I couldn’t stop working on it.  The quilt is now on my dining room table, ready to be sandwiched with batting by millions of safety pins.  It was going to be a quilt I give away but that jury is out; I’m kinda in love with it.  Especially the back.  [Not shown.  Cliffhanger!]

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2.  The elementary school.  You know last week when I complained about not being a needed volunteer in first grade anymore?  About an hour after I published that post, I received a phone call.  Could I please come in?  There was a big project and they needed my help.  Of course!  I went to the elementary school and traced about twenty first graders on a very large roll of paper.  I traced and then they cut themselves out.  [It takes longer than you think to trace a kid or twenty!]  Today I had to go back to finish up the last fifteen kids or so.

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That was my Friday, about to be rounded out by old episodes of The Office, red wine, and a skype date with some of my favorite people who live in Montana.  How was your Friday?

Coffee with ladies and egg crafts.

26 Mar

After a busy Sunday morning of palm waving, hosanna singing, and personal care kit assembling, I went to the local care center to lead a worship service.  I gave them palms and then had coffee with a couple of ladies.  They fought and interrupted each other often.  [In the middle of one woman telling me about her great-granddaughter the other woman asked her loudly, “Are you going to get cremated?”]  It made me very uncomfortable.

Sunday night we [you know – we] gathered in our usual place at our usual time.  I was even early enough to read a story to a cute little almost-one year old before he went to bed.  We [you know – we] ate supper and then dove into egg crafts.  We had traditional dying on one end of the table [after we figured out what colors the pesky little tablets were] and filling hollow eggs with candy at the other.  It was egg-citing, egg-cellent, and an all around egg-ceptional time.

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Napkin cards: a tutorial.

10 Mar

[Napkin cards: a tutorial.]  I’m well aware I missed a Friday of favorites.  I’ll be back with double the fun next Friday.  For now, forgive me if I teach you how to make cards out of napkins with supplies you already have at your house?

Judy is a friend of Marilyn’s, the administrative assistant, and she’ll pop by at every major [and minor] holiday with treats and cards for us.  Judy makes her cards out of  napkins.  NAPKINS.  For a year now, I’ve been wondering how in the world she does it and where I could get the special supplies.

Judy brought me a napkin card kit and lovely directions last Thursday.  Turns out I don’t need to rush off to the store to buy anything special.  And if you’re anything like me, sometimes napkins are too pretty to actually wipe your mug with; here’s your solution to making paper napkins multi-functional and awesome.

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Gather your supplies.  You will need the napkins of your choosing [mine are clearance Hanukkah napkins from last year], saran wrap [Judy emphasizes that the cheap, off-brand stuff works best!], card stock, and an iron.  That’s it.

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Begin by peeling the layers of your napkin apart.  Napkins come two- and three-ply.  We just need the one layer with the pretty stuff.  Peel the other layers away but keep them on hand – they’ll help protect your iron later on.

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To the ironing board we go.  Make sure your surface is protected and make a sandwich – napkin, saran wrap, cardstock.  [Above are the bottom two layers of my sandwich – napkin wrong side up and smoothed saran wrap.  The cardstock goes on top!] The saran wrap – when melted by the iron – will be the adhesive that holds the napkin [the outside of your card] to the cardstock [the inside of your card].  Cover the cardstock and any bits of saran wrap that are peeking out with the extra napkins layers.  Make sure your iron makes no direct contact with the saran wrap!  That would be one sticky mess.

Iron away using medium heat and no steam.  Iron, iron, iron.  Whistle while you iron.  Sing a song.  Just don’t scorch your cardstock and take care around the corners and edges to make sure they stick together.

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Check to see if everything is adhered where it needs to be adhered.  Trim the excess napkin/saran wrap/cardstock away.  Fold in half.  Welcome to the world, a card made from napkins.  Write a note on the inside or add some stamps/stickers to the outside.  Just remember – it’s for greeting now.  Not eating.

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I made a couple napkin cards and then, as I stood in my craft room surrounded by fabric, wondered why I couldn’t make a fabric card.  Hmm.  Turns out saran wrap will not adhere to fabric but heat&bond you have in the cabinet will.  I made a couple fabric cards and added a sewn boarder.  It’s a little something – something different.  Next, I think I may experiment making them into books.  Oh, the possibilities of paper and fabric together!

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Big city, yeah, yeah.

9 Feb

[Big city, yeah, yeah.]  I went to the Cities on Thursday night.  Pastor Joel from Montana [the pastor whom Paige and I had just seen a week earlier] was in town for a continuing education event.  It was almost as if we didn’t actually live a 16 train ride away, seeing each other twice in the course of a matter of weeks.  The continuing education event at the seminary was over and Joel was getting on the train that night.  We made dinner plans and I made plans to arrive in the Cities a bit early to explore a few of my favorite places.

IMG_2019Favorite place #1: Paper Source.  I drool over the catalogs when they arrive in the mail. It’s where I buy bookmaking supplies and my Christmas cards.  They have an entire wall of cards and envelopes in every size arranged by color.  #dreamy

 

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Favorite place #2: Right across the street in Uptown is the Kitchen Window.  A kitchen store.  #drool.  I went in for a pastry blender and walked out with that and the creme-of-the-crop candy coating discs that I use for cakepops.  I usually pick up the Wilton’s brand from craft stores but when Merken’s brand is available, it makes huge difference.

IMG_2021Favorite place #3: I met up with Joel and Paige at the seminary and we were off to Punch Pizza where the pizzas are cooked at 800 degrees for 90 seconds and the best salad on the face of the earth exists.  Hands down.

I do love the Cities and seeing my friends there.  I love St.Anthony Park [featured photo] and creme brulee at Wilde Roast.  I kinda miss it all – the paper, the proximity to high quality cakepops supplies, the pizza, and especially the friends.

Hello from MT!

27 Jan

[Hello from MT!] Above photo credit due to Rev. Paige who tried diligently today to get the perfect panoramic photo of big sky country.

Paige and I made it to the grand state of Montana yesterday afternoon. We were greeted by twin girls and their parents. Once we retrieved our luggage from a wagon [literally – a wagon pulled by an ATV] we were off and thankful to no longer be on a train.

While we can credit the train with safely getting us to our destination of Havre, MT, train travel is not nearly as glorious as I dreamed it would be. Our first clue should have been the AMTRAK station in St.Paul, where there are signs hung on the walls with duck tape. The next sixteen hours would be tolerable, but would not rank high on the scale of enjoyable.

We got on the train at midnight and found sleep hard to achieve. The seats were hard. Our foot rests didn’t work properly. I tried a round of trying to sleep on the floor and while I was able to sleep, I feel like my back paid for it in pain. Once the sun came up, things became a bit more glamorous. We ate breakfast in the dining car and hung out in the observation car. Paige was smart and had loaded a few things to watch on her iPad; we watched those. We met fun people, including Rhonda, a train employee from Chicago, who gave wonderful announcements over the loud speaker about sinks clogging in the restrooms.

Glorious or not, we are happy to be in MT. So far our time with Joel, Melissa, Hannah, and Harper has included supper at a diner and grocery shopping; a walking tour of Big Sandy and enjoying the sunshine; watching television and Pitch Perfect; and holding, feeding, and loving two little two-month olds. The next three days may be more of the same with some church, scones, and the Bachelor thrown in, which all sounds very well and good to me.

North Dakota – the least boring side.
Observation car.
My train project: trying my hand at embroidery. #newcraftyskill
Paige [the baby whisperer] reads to baby Harper.

a thankful november: babies.

17 Nov
It seems I’m surrounded by babies.  All my friends have babies or are having babies.  [I don’t.  But this isn’t meant to be a lament … moving on.]  And I’m thankful for them.

I like babies.  I always have.  The joke in high school was that I was going to have, like, eight babies.  [I haven’t.  But this isn’t meant to be a lament … moving on.]  I love holding them and dressing them and playing with them, she says as if they are dolls.  I know they’re not dolls.  

Babies are on the brain because yesterday I packed a box with two quilts inside to send to Montana.  I am thankful for babies because they give me a quilting purpose.  I am thankful for babies because these particular two baby girls fulfill a mommy and daddy dream for two of my favorite people.  I am so thankful that this pair of baby girls were born early this morning, healthy and beautiful!  I can’t wait to meet them.

slipcovered.

30 Aug
There is likely little guesswork involved to realize that I’m poor.  Student loans helped get me through school but they are no fun to pay back on a beginning pastor’s salary.  That being said – I take all the free furniture I can get.
Like this ottoman from my mom’s house.  She asked me if I wanted it over the phone and I think I said, nah.  It was kind of ugly.  But then I remembered I was poor and live in a huge house with only enough furniture to make 1/3 of it livable.  Okay.  Sure.  I’ll make a slipcover for it.
I bought the fabric ages ago and had it draped over the ottoman for months.  The task of actually sewing a slipcover scared me.  I don’t sew three-dimensional things like that.  I sew quilts.  They’re flat. A slipcover?  I didn’t quite know how to tackle it.
I knew I wanted something simple and something that would only take a night to complete.  Thank you, design*sponge, for this tutorial.  Slipcover done in a matter of a couple hours and it looks so much better than the maroon furry-ness of before.  It does the job and I think does it well.  

new hobby.

27 Aug
I stumbled across this blog tonight – Lindsay Letters.  
First, her name is Lindsay.  [duh.  awesome.]
Second, she loves pretty writing and paper and addressing envelopes.  [me too!]
Third, that’s her job.  People pay her to address envelopes.  [this lindsay jealous.]
ohmygoodness.  I love her.  I want to be her.  [her husband is a gorgeous red head too.  of course.]
Many, many years ago, I had a calligraphy book and pen.  I’ve always loved writing and letters and penmanship and I remember trying to learn the art of calligraphy.  I also remember giving up.
Watch me try again.  I’m so inspired by her writing this may just become a winter hobby for me, learning calligraphy with nibs and inks and pretty papers.  
Then I can address your Christmas cards.

Friday night.

27 Jul
A high school classmate of mine posted a photo on facebook earlier today.  It was a photo of a beer next to cleaning supplies.  The caption?  An ice cold Corona with lime + cleaning supplies = single girl Friday night.

Here’s my version:
Red wine + new fabric + cakepops = single girl Friday night.

What’s your Friday night equation?


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