Under Construction

Art for the house

I typed "house" into the search criteria at Etsy and came up with a whole bunch of cool prints (and a few originals) in my price range. Amazing the interpretations of a house.

Thought you might like to see a few of my favorites (all images from Etsy)

"Coming Home" by SeaSprayBlue (sold)

We have very few walls (and a boatload of windows) in our home. The one main wall with room for hanging stuff is getting pretty stale now that we've been here nearly 3 years (!) with the same photos up.

"The House Next Door" linocut by LeanneGraeff ($20)

I was thinking that I'd like to start collecting a few prints to (re) fill that big wall.

"Peculiar Neighbors" by atwhim ($15 large, $7 small) (LOVE this one)

I'm thinking that having a theme to my little print collection might make it more fun.  So (obviously) I'm thinking "house" or "home"

"Home Sweet Home Print" by JennSki ($25)

"Where the Heart Is" by AliciaBock ($35)

"Ain't She a Beaut'?" by ToxicGuineaPigs ($12 but they are currently on vacation)

So which of these are you liking?  Is this a dumb idea? It seems like a fun way to blow $100 worth of PayPal funds (not that I currently have $100 of PayPal funds).

"Brownstone Neighborhood" by SweetBabu ($23)

If none of those are of interest. You can always have a custom portrait done of your (favorite) home.

"Custom portraits" by Artitecture $($25)

I think that's enough for tonight. Biscuit had her school open house followed by tantrum of the century (turns out she really IS two!) so I'm pooped but the laundry pile is quite likely to take over the house. I best stop bloggin' and start foldin'.

Is it the weekend yet?

Clay (redux)

The snail plate is out of the kiln.  The green isn't at all what I expected (or wanted) but I love the little snail.

It's really tiny. And sort of looks like an ashtray.

Speaking of ashtrays, I was looking at the back flap of the "Goodnight Moon"' dustcover and noticed that in his headshot, illustrator (Clement Hurd) appears to have a cigarette in his hand. That SO wouldn't happen these days. Take a look at your copy and let me know what you think. Pen or cigarette?
[update: (2 seconds later) it's a cigarette. and it looks like I'm not the first person to notice this. check out this first thing that comes up in a google search. geez!]

Thanks for all your nice comments on the stationery Mother's Day gifts. I am working on a way to get sets on my etsy site but I need to use a different printer. I discovered my inkjet ink is very susceptible to smudging while you write on the sheets that have a colored background. I'll keep you posted if I list them on the site. In the meantime, I'll make a few sets of imperfect-but still quite nice-notecards for folks I owe gifts.

Mother's Day gifts and cuteness

This scene nearly killed me with the cuteness. After a picnic lunch in the shade Biscuit took her nap outside. Of course all the bears were present.

Our tree is dropping hundreds of beautiful flowers so she woke up covered in blossoms. Weather that allows for an outdoor nap and some gardening made for a lovely Mother's Day.

And here's a quick shot of my mom's present. Photo of yours truly and Biscuit and a set of personalized notecards.

These are the six card designs. All are flats with rounded corners and are about 5x7 inches. Such a fun project!

It's a mop, it's a worm, it's ASPARAGUS CROWNS

We're heading out of town for an overnight trip to see grandma and grandpa but I didn't want to leave you in suspense on the asparagus. Weird, eh?

Honestly, if they weren't labeled, I would have had no idea which was asparagus and which rhubarb. This is the rhubarb crown (still in it's package--it looks like a turd or a worm)

Happy Mother's Day!

Worse for the wear

This is my new fig tree. What? You couldn't tell? For some reason I thought for $14.95 my fig tree would arrive larger than a broken in half pencil. I thought it would also be alive (or closer to alive). Before I diss my source on the internets I'm going to try to revive my tree and, if he doesn't revive, I'll test their customer service.  Then I'll report back.

Remind me tomorrow to show you what asparagus crowns via mail look like. You'll be shocked and amazed!

Despite these mailorder setbacks, Garden 2008 is off to a promising start.

Lampshade beautification effort

 Before:

After:

The talented and generous Missy Ballance of Mohair Circus gave me a basket full of "cutter quilt" scraps (several months ago). Even though they were already cut, I had the HARDEST time cutting them again and spent ages trying to decide on the "perfect" project. (these quilt scraps are HAND pieces and HAND quilted with the most meticulous little stitches you can imagine)

Last weekend I took the plunge and cut into several of the smallest and most worn out pieces to make over a cheap-o lamp that has been sitting, unplugged in our bedroom for MONTHS while I used an ugly, plastic clip lamp for bedtime reading.

I must say, I am pleased with the results, rustic, unfinished edges and all. Biscuit immediately declared it "pretty" so we'll call it a success.

On the off chance you have an ugly lampshade and a cutter quilt (or other fabric) here's a quick'n'dirty tutorial (if you can even call it that). Let's call it "a few tips to make your own."

Make a pattern piece out of fabric by using a pen to trace the ridges of one section of the lampshade. You can pin through the lampshade to hold things in place.

Cut out your pattern and use it to cut out the relevant number of pieces of quilt--add about a quarter inch when you cut out the pieces, it's easier to trim than to make your fabric larger later! I also found that the sections of el cheapo lampshade were not entirely even.

Also note, my lamp is six-sided (I think this technique might be hard with a square shade but very easy with a circle if you have enough fabric).

Almost time to start sewing! Pin your quilt piece in place lining up one side along the center ridge of the boning that attaches the adjoining lamp panels.  Like this: (see how the edge of the quilt falls in the center of the boning?)

Ok, now that one edge is trimmed and the piece is pinned in place, start sewing.  I used hand quilting thread (a little thicker than all purpose but, whatever). Tie a knot in your thread and start inside the shade. Stitch as close to the edge of the boning as possible. You want to take long (almost 1 inch) stitches on the inside and very, very short stitches on the outside. Here's a view of the inside of the stitched shade. See the long stitches?:

Once I had one side of the first piece in place I stitched the two adjoining pieces at the same time making sure they were butting right up against one another and trimming as needed for fit.

Be sure the stitch the top and bottom edges as well and, that's it! If you were feeling all fancy like, you could stitch on some bias tape or hem tape to cover the raw edges but I thought the raw edges were part of the charm (and I'm lazy).

Here's to warm lampshades! Oh, one last note, the thick, quilt fabric does block most of the light from going through the shade so this is not a great option if you want the lamp to illuminate a whole room. In my case I wanted the light mostly going downward (so Mr. H can sleep while I read) so this was a perfect solution.

Hooray for cutter quilts and instant gratification projects!

For the birds

Mr. H and Biscuit whipped up these two birdhouses in about an hour after I lamented that that Mrs. Robin had abandoned her task after her nest materials blew out of the crook of the tree one too many times.  The "nest platform" on the left is for the robin.  See? Hopefully she's a literate robin.

Biscuit decorated the roof with chalk after we decided the paint job she did on the nuthatch home didn't exactly enhance the rustic beauty of the birdhouse.

With help from daddy, Biscuit glued and nailed the birdhouse pieces together

It took her a minute to warm up but she got really into the hammering. (BTW, do you like how this post is going in reverse chronological order?)

A few days ago, having had the idea of building a birdhouse in my head for a while but not yet having seen the plight of the robin, I was flipping through a book I bought to cut up for a project (appears I should be trying to sell it online--I have volume N through O--home of "nature projects") where I happened upon a page of detailed info on bird house construction and the appropriate house size, hole size, hole height and house height for various species.  Then, today, I found this site (via google) that lists common backyard birds in my county so we settled on nuthatch and robin. The two species that are common in my county year around that were also listed in the book.

Having a woodworker for a husband is very handy at times like these. He cut the pieces (beveled and everything) out of redwood scrap from our garden planter boxes. I was thinking this would be a fun thing to sell online as a kit--you could order for whatever bird (that is in the Audobon book).  I'll have to think on that one...

Anyway, hope your weekend was spectacular! I had such a busy time I'll have posts all week.
 

Menagerie

Biscuit has been absolutely hilarious lately.  Really, really charming. And SO opinionated. I pretty much go with the flow when it comes to wardrobe and other non-essential, non-health and safety issues.  And at bedtime I throw up my hands.

You need MORE animals? Sure. AND a ballet skirt? Okay. You want to WEAR your monkey backpack to bed? Whatever.

Which is exactly why I found her sound asleep like this last night. I covered her up and went to bed. In the morning she woke me up with an armload of animals and brought the menagerie to my bed.

So, separate topic. Remind me to blog about how CUTE she is about the garden we planted. The row of beans she planted is a row of 'babies' and she is very, adorably concerned about their growth and well being.

And this little guy is growing well (the zucchini, not the spider). He gets daily visits.

Service for nine

The tea set is coming along. Somehow I ended up with nine mugs and, then, randomly ended up with nine plate circles.  But then I turned one plate into a bowl so I guess it's service for eight with one extra mug for breakage.  These plates look like nothing more than first grade, clay project ashtrays (remember when it was okay for a kid to make a clay ashtray at school?) but I still like them.

I stamped a few of the plates with cool wood stamps I bought in India. I'm curious how the stamped images will look glazed.

And here's a question for you. I think tea sets need saucers but this set has mugs rather than tea cups. Should I make saucers? What about bowls?  I do still plan to make a tea pot and maybe some sort of small platter...

And here's an answer for you. Someone asked how big the mugs are--they're approximately the size of a shot glass. The plates are about 5 inches in diameter.

And for those of you who might of noticed, I TOTALLY fell off the wagon on my kitchen gadget posting theme in April but check out these cookie racks. They are excellent--I hope the clay washes off okay.

My gosh this week seems to be lasting forever....here's to Friday coming soon!

Food rainbow

I just finished watching the movie Gone Baby Gone. Don't watch it. Too depressing. It's put a damper on the last few hours of an otherwise fantastic weekend.

So, how about some happy thoughts? I took lots of food photos over the last few days and when I looked back, I noticed we ate a lot of colors.

Sushi (well, Melissa's version of sushi, very bland, very veggie, very colorful)

Black beans (not all that colorful except that they turned the wooden spoon purple). Inspired, of course, by Angry Chicken, I made my own black beans: most of a bag of dried beans, one chopped onion, a few smashed garlic cloves and about 8 cups of water. On high in the crockpot for 5 hours and the burritos were delish.

Picnic with cherries and Rhubarb Applesauce. I think this may be my best applesauce adventure yet.  One bag of apple "seconds," one small bunch of rhubarb, a few tablespooons sugar, many hours over low heat.

White (orange?) carrot cake cupcakes--Biscuit liked frosting (and eating frosting)

And, finally, very green soup.  Recipe from Orangette. Mr. H liked it (surprisingly--he's not a garlic fan)

Thanks for all the nice comments on the correspondence birthday gift yesterday :)  Really, comments totally make my day, even when I get behind and don't respond personally to each one. Sorry, I am dumb.

Happy Monday!