Days (late) for Christmas - Part 1: Marshmallows

I took on a bit more than I could handle this Christmas.  I was up until 1am finishing projects Christmas Eve and still wrapping presents Christmas morning!  I don't think anyone minded though :)  That also means that my plans for blogging as I worked on projects went out the window.  We just snapped pictures as we we went then washed dishes and cleaned our rooms (again, and again, and again).

This was our third(?) Christmas making marshmallows and boy was it worth it.  After last year almost breaking our Bosch (which isn't supposed to be humanly possible, by the way) and having a huge sticky mess, plus accidentally adding too much peppermint - I wasn't sure if I was ready to try again, even a year later.  

Then I ran into a slightly different recipe over at Seven Spoons.  (I had used Martha Stewarts recipe before.)  We were delighted!

We concluded that the texture was even better than the last two years, but this could also be because our mess was somehow minimized (perhaps we're finally growing up?).  Oiling the spatula is also key!

  I liked the addition of egg whites, which seemed, at least in my mind, to make them "heartier."  Plus we used honey instead of corn syrup with absolute success!

These were meant to have on hand to give as gifts but I sampled way too many.  They melt just perfectly in hot chocolate but even plain they're solid little vanilla squares.  

These are just begging to be made.  I think they'd be perfectly festive for lonely January.

What we've been up to...

Exporing Duluth, and the superior waters

I spent a week exploring Duluth, catching the very very last hints of autumn.  In fact my flight out was delayed by a snow storm.  I spent my days wandering along the surprisingly warm beach, collecting sea glass and eating swedish food.

Then we decorated... wait for it... the garage!

For Thanksgiving!

  As we've grown our centerpieces have all but disappeared.  Years ago, my sister in law led us all in collecting, gold charger plates.  We use them every Thanksgiving.  We've reused the apples for place settings a couple times now but it's so simple and beautiful.  

I'm not super keen on Thanksgiving food but I love all the left over turkey in recipes.  My sister and I made Turkey Noodle Soup from (who else) the pioneer woman's recipe.  We followed her recipe for egg noodles too.

baking

drinking excessive amounts of hot chocolate thanks to the resident photographer

decorating for Christmas

did I mention baking?

Anyone have good gift suggestions for parents?  I've been working on a few ideas but nothing yet!  

I've been knitting away on some Christmas gifts.  We're also plotting some first aid salve for gifts.  And I have a really exciting gift squirreled away for a certain someone.

p.s. I stole most of these pictures from my sister :)  

Be Ready

Be land ready

For you shall go back to the land.

Be sea ready

for you have been nine-tenths water

and the salt taste shall cling to your mouth.

Be sky ready

for air, air has been so needful to you-

you shall go back, back to the sky.

-Carl Sandburg

When we were four

And chaos interminably reigns...

This is the life.  Period.  That's all I have to say.

I have three sisters.  Together we make four, of course.

Then we have a few sisters-in-love(law).  And a couple of sisters just cuz.  (Love you Karli!)

But there's just something about just the four of us being together.  It doesn't happen very often anymore.  Elise lives in another state and is most often missing from our sister time.

Do you realize how difficult it is to find  decent picture of us all together, without someone cracking up or me ruining it by talking!  This is what we usually look like...

Ahh, that's more like it.  Here we are casting off for a good laugh!
Well, that's what I've been up to, in a nut shell.  What about the rest of you?

For more pictures check out Beth's blog here!

Playing Hide and Seek with the Sun

It's been deceivingly summerish around here until suddenly Monday, we woke up to an overcast day!  I can never seem to remember what the weather is supposed to be like around here this time of year.  Obviously, it's October, it should be cooling off.  I know that much but Idaho can be very diverse and I think I'm just used to taking it as it comes.  It's still only in the high 60's but that was enough of a push to get me fully in the mood for Autumn.  At least the sky matches the colors of the landscape now!  It was so deceiving (if not actually pleasant) to crunch the leaves downtown in shorts and sandals and sunshine.

I would love to do some canning and baking but there just isn't time!  It's a constant joke between a few of my friends that my common response to how life is, is "Good.  And busy."  Seems it's become my motto.  But the one thing that's marvelous about being busy, is (if you can) you learn to enjoy the simple things: coffee in pottery mugs, walks by the pond with the dog, the slightest change in the weather...

 and spontaneous crafting nights with sister!   

My sister sent me a link to most lovely yellow flower.  

And I immediately wanted to make one just like it.  

  I bought this hat at Forever 21 last year.  It had an ugly black pinwheel fabric flower on it.  I always meant to change it out but didn't before it warmed up.  It's quite whimsical and from some angles down right Charlie Chaplin (which I'm still not sure how I feel about) or an almost horrible 90's throwback (just don't pair it with any vests or primary colors!).  I think the flower helps :)

We have a rather spacious sewing room corner but packing four girls and dog in was quite cozy.  We were climbing over each other and constantly losing the scissors.  Perfect bonding time!

I think the hat is backwards but I like it better this way ;)

They're are lots of tutorials online for fabric flowers.  This is a flat rose.  I sort of followed both this tutorial and this one from Thread Bangers (which is actually part two, you can find the first video here).  I didn't make the flower as formal as Tanya, I left my edges rough and it's lopsided in a very pleasant way.

We also made some fluffy organza flowers (although it wasn't organza - don't you love how we follow the rules).  And attached some tiny roses to bobby pins with hot glue.  Bethany made a huge flower with some vintage fabric that turned out pretty fun.  

Thanks to the resident photographer for the photos!
P.S.  You may recognize the scarf from this post!

A Lavender Colored Autumn Sky

I crept into the sewing room and found some inspiration in a scrap of soft purple fabric and a Japanese Dress Pattern Book.  There is so much inspiration inside from all the sweet little girls, muted colors and wonderful pictures!  I love the line drawing for directions - if only it were in English!  

I seem to always run into a snare transferring the pattern from paper to fabric.  All the patterns come printed on a large sheet and it's a matter of tracing through Japanese characters and several sizes to find the pieces you need!  However, it's very worth the hassle and the directions are simple enough that, even if I don't cut things out exactly right, I can trim pieces to fit as I go.  (If anyone else has a trick to using these patterns I would love to know!)  

Here's a peak into the sewing room

It's far from perfect and I didn't iron it for the picture!  The pleat in front isn't quite right and I got impatient with the bias tape finish and improvised.  I love it for it's peasant simplicity.

 It would be darling over a white turtle neck.  I have a particular little girl in mind for this but I still have to see if it will fit!  I have no idea what size I wound up making, I just eye-balled it.

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun

To Autumn
-John Keats

Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun,

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round thatch-eaves run-

To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flower for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abrad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reaped furrow, sound asleep,

Drowsed wit the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;

And sometimes like a gleaner thoud ost keep

Steady the thy laden head across a brook,

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring?  Aye, where are they?

Think not of them, thou has thy music too-

While barred clouds bloom the softy-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue.

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud-bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now, with treble soft,

The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Happy first day of Autumn!