Under a Blue Moon

Easy project

I upgraded from my previous method of storing embroidery floss (cramming it all in a gallon ziplock bag with the rest of my embroidery paraphernalia). I bought a little two tiered bento box looking container that holds everything nicely and it has a little handle.

I also made these floss bobbins after seeing the ones Heather Bailey made. How did she get her floss so nice and straight? I found the finials at JoAnns (I seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time there, considering I keep saying I don’t like it), $1 for six. While I was there I bought some of their $.50 acrylic paints and some little sponge brushes.

Then I popped on over to Orchard Supply and bought a 1/4" diameter, 48" long dowel for about $.60. I cut the dowel into four inch lengths and ever so slightly sanded down the ends (like I was sharpening a pencil) so I could wedge the ends into the little hole in each finial (little dab of carpenter’s glue in the hole doesn’t hurt either). Then I painted them.

All in all a very satisfying project.

Well that was productive…

I went a little crazy in the trim aisle at JoAnns. Normally not my favorite place for notions or fabric but I was really just going to pick up some muslin and batting – I actually have a few projects in mind with these (instead of my normal modus operandi of just amassing).

In fact…..

I finished something! Woohoo! Let me introduce to you my brand new, hot off the sewing machine tea cozy:

It was a little nerve wracking to cut into the embroidered piece. It’s actually cuter in person, if I do say so myself. I used eyelet for the side panels and the back. I used a free tea cozy pattern from RustyBobbin.com.

In an absolute moment of serendipity when I was creating the paper pattern I was trying to find the dimensions of the ugly yellow Hall teapot for which the cozy was being made (that’s the problem with spending time in two places – whatever you need is generally in the other place). So I searched on-line for ‘teapot with metal cozy’ and found someone that was selling just the metal cozy part to the same yellow teapot – only the metal cozy was silver! Like I wanted in the first place.

I still can’t get over it. So I bought it and made this cozy to fit another teapot I have. How’s that for ironic?

I also did some baking for a certain nephew’s birthday – he wanted Snickerdoodles instead of a birthday cake. Snickerdoodles are Rick’s favorite cookies too so I had to make a double batch.

That pink mixer makes me happy every time I look at it.

All in all a very productive day. Oh – there’s one other thing I made today –

A huge mess.

Back online

Whew. We lost our Internet connection yesterday and I’ve been in serious withdrawal. I spent the last hour with a lovely gentlemen who pinpointed the issue and we are back in business.

Someone may have a bit of an Internet addiction….

I received one of my Etsy orders – I ordered two pairs of earrings from a lovely seller in England. The beads are made from vintage glass beads. I just love the colors. Is that not the most delicious green?

And I have to admit it’s a bit of a thrill to get a package with Royal Mail stamped on it.

About the picture logo – a month or so ago Pat from Back Porch Musings recommended a few free photo editing software programs. I downloaded PhotoFiltre and it’s easy as pie to add the logo. Just open your picture in the editor – click on the T icon (T for text I suppose…) and you can add what ever you want, choose the font, size and color. It places it smack in the middle of the picture but you can move it where ever you like.

Oooh shiny things

I’ve been on a bit of an Etsy bender lately. It all started because of the elephant bracelet. I didn’t read the very bold print that said to wait for revised receipt before paying because Etsy was being screwy with the shipping charges. But I like to pay my bills promptly so I placed my order and immediately paid for it using PayPal. Well the actual price was lower than initially calculated so the seller refunded my money and I repaid the correct amount.

Only the way PayPal works is instead of putting a refund back where it got the money (in this case a checking account) it instead leaves it as funds in your PayPal account.

So I figured I should do some more shopping to use up the funds. It almost felt like free money – I suppose there is probably a way to get the money back but Etsy is way more fun.

I have a bit of a thing for sparkle – if the shoes above didn’t tip you off. They are like little tiaras for my feet. So the shopping I’ve been doing has been mostly of the sparkly kind. I’ve ordered two pairs of earrings, some jade-ite looking elephant charms and some flying swallow charms. I’m going to add them to my "I have no idea what I’m going to do with them" pile.

Which reminds me I still need to work on my to do list for my sidebar. It’s a sad state of affairs when you have to add ‘create to do list’ to your to do list.

I’m not really wild about this but I’ve started adding a logo to my pictures. I discovered that someone had taken some images from here and posted them on their own blog – I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are just new to blogging and don’t understand the etiquette of not using other’s images without getting permission first.

This is my passive-aggressive way of asking that person to remove the pictures – I’m so not a confrontational person.

Pirate’s Pasta

I seem to be on a food related posting kick these days.

On Sunday we were in the mood for a light dinner and I wanted to actually use some of the food already in my larder so I consulted with my good friend Giada.

Really – we practically know each other:

Since I had most of the ingredients on hand I made Spaghetti alla Pirata with a few modifications. I don’t have her cookbook Everyday Pasta in front of me so I’ll just give you my version. And my version is maddeningly vague with amounts since I just sort of eyeballed it.

Toss raw, cleaned prawns with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, 1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Let marinate for at least 20 minutes.

Start the water for angel hair pasta – start it so that it is ready before you start cooking the shrimp. The shrimp will only take a few minutes to cook.

Chop a clove of garlic (more or less to taste), a shallot, fresh basil. Cut a basketful of cherry tomatoes in half (erm – I mean cut each tomato in half – a baskets worth). Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large saute pan. Add shallot and garlic – making sure the garlic doesn’t brown too much (makes it bitter) – add the shrimp. When the shrimp is nice and pink add the basil and halved tomatoes and the juice of one lemon – stir together for just a minute and then pour over the cooked pasta.

Add some shaved Parmesan to it.

Delish. I served it with dilled green beans. These beans are the best and it is the easiest thing in the world to make. You can precook the beans any time and then throw them together at the last minutes so it’s great if you are entertaining.

I like my bean whole so I just snip off the business end and leave them as is. Drop them in salted, boiling water and cook for four minutes. Immediately rinse with cold water. Just before serving heat up two tablespoons of butter in a saute pan. I used Pampered Chef dill seasoning but you could make your own (dill, dried onion, garlic) (Pampered Chef is just about the only one of those home parties that I will go to – mainly because of this seasoning) – anyway add about a tsp or so of the seasoning and toss in the cooked green beans – heat through and salt & pepper to taste.

This dinner was so good and so easy I’m making it again tonight.

Summer evenings

I hope all of my state side friends had a lovely Memorial Day. It was a bit chilly to eat outside yesterday so we brought our BBQ indoors (not literally but you know what I mean).

We kicked off the Summer with a typical BBQ – hot dogs, hamburgers, corn on the cob and macaroni salad. I made fresh lemonade and we spiked it with shots of Limoncello (very tasty, try it).

The trick to really good lemonade is to make it with simple syrup instead of just plain sugar. It also helps to have a fabulously prolific lemon tree in your backyard.

Perfect Lemonade

1 cup water
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 cups lemon juice (about eight lemons worth)
8 cups water

Bring one cup water and the sugar to a boil. Stir until the sugar is disolved. Mix with the lemon juice and water and serve over ice.

I adore this time of year – eating outside, checked tablecloths, warm Summer nights.

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