Do you like to go on walks, my pets? Don’t you find that a good walk solves most problems? Long or short, through busy city streets or in quiet natural areas, by myself or with others: walking makes me happy. Continue reading
Greetings from the Houseproud homestead’s kitchen, my pets! I was a busy little munakins this last week, most of it spent out in the world, but a few good stretches of time spent in our kitchen. And given how busy I’ve been and how busy I’m sure you’ve been, what better way to amuse you this week than by giving you some easy recipes to hack? What I’ll be showing you today follows my rule of “spend a little time now and you’ll be happier later”. I’m a great fan of applying this principle to cooking, as it keeps me well-fed and happy no matter what my schedule is like. Continue reading
These strawberries were so ripe and yummy that it’s a miracle any of ’em made it back to the Houseproud homestead. I ate almost half of the basket before I made it back to my trike.
Hello, my pets – have the last two weeks been fulsome ones for you, too? I managed to get ever so much stuff done, including prepping for a sweet and family-filled Fourth of July and at least a few visits to our local farmers market, but alas: I couldn’t make time to sit down for a chat with you lovelies. Continue reading
Heh. It might be a little wonky, but I like this little heart charm very much.
My pets, I am so very distracted today that I’ll keep this post on the short-and-sweet side. Really, I’m just popping in to show you a little project that I worked on last week: heart charms. The idea for these little charms has been percolating in my noggin for the longest time, along with a number of other projects, all carefully plotted out in project journals and on assorted scraps of paper, and very few of which ever get made. Do you keep project journals, too? If you’re a crafter or maker, you really ought to keep one. They’re wonderful tools for tracking the ideas that pop into your brain and then usually pop right back out again. Unlike a traditional journal, project journals eschew any personal details of the writer’s life, which makes them much more appropriate to show to people who aren’t your besty from high school or your therapist. I discovered project journals some years back, and the discovery rocked my crafting world. Here’s a shout-out to Mel, who introduced me to the concept, bless her socks.
This idea card will eventually be added to a project journal.
So anyway, there I was last week doing the things that I ought, while also treating myself to some minor gardening and a visit to our local farmer’s market. (More on those pleasant distractions in upcoming posts.) And between working on some rather important tasks – I am looking for full-time work, after all – I decided to take a wack at making a little heart-shaped charm for my keys. Honestly, the only reason I hadn’t made a charm like this before is that I am RATHER intimidated by machine sewing projects, especially anything with curves. Sewing curves is a tricky thing for amateurs, but I have committed to becoming the boss of my sewing and therefore persevered. I certainly learned a number of valuable lessons making the first heart charm, which led to a more polished second attempt. Equally importantly, I made both of the charms in a matter of hours.
Here is a photo montage of the steps that went into making the first charm. Click on the individual pictures to see captions with brief notes. Detailed instructions shan’t be forthcoming – you don’t need ’em, duckies. Just have a go and see what happens!
As I mentioned, I was so pleased with the way the first charm came out that I made a second one in half the time. This time I used bias tape from Britex Fabric, also reinforced with cotton twill tape. Next time I’ll use an aromatic that has better staying power: the scent of camomile flowers fades away rather quickly.
And on that note, I bid you a pleasant week, my pets. I simply must scurry: I have a SVdP donation run to make, some interview questions to formulate, and an Excel spreadsheet to whip into shape. Tune in next week to take a trip to the farmer’s market, and to learn how I preserve garlic and make pickled onions. It’ll be such fun! – Fondly, yr little munakins
Still life with the last jars of hot sauce and canned tomatoes, along with jars of assorted other preserved goodness.
My pets, is it summer where you are yet? It is in our neck of the woods, and about a month ago our local Farmers’ Market started its slow climb into full veggie glut. As the stone fruit rolls in and the offerings of summer squash explodes, I’ve been watching carefully for my true summer bellwethers: hot peppers and dry-farmed tomatoes. Even in my busiest years, I’ve always managed to put up at least a few jars apiece of those two treasures. And in all the years that I’ve preserved food, there’s always been a gap between finishing the last jar of anything and the beginning of that thing’s growing season. I am very zen about finishing the last jars of most Houseproud home preserves, but I kinda loose my mind when I finish the last of the hot sauce. This is completely understandable, cuz that stuff is amazing. Continue reading
It ought to be accepted universally that thinking about what to make takes up two-thirds of the time actually worked on any project. It certainly is that way for me. After impulsively promising to show you how I make charm pillows last week, I realized that I hadn’t the foggiest notion of what to use as my exemplar this week. So I went about my business that week thinking about this, that and the other, as one does. Continue reading
Really, my pets – it’s been far too long. And it’s not that I haven’t missed visiting with you here, really it’s not. Rather, I fell in love with a job about four years ago and have ignored you shamelessly since. Please accept my mea culpas, won’t you? Do let’s pretend that we’ve had all the time in the world to catch up; have done so already; and are therefor-and-thusly ready to talk about a charming little project I wanted to share with you … Continue reading
Hello, my pets! You and yours are well, I hope? All’s well here at the Houseproud homestead, I’m pleased to report. We had Michael-Michael-Michael and Edna Louise over for happy evening of cocktails last Friday (M-M-M brought those lovely hydrangeas for us). Have I mentioned before that the Mister is a darn fine mixer of drinks? He is that, indeed! Said cocktail gathering signaled the end of the Mister’s birthday celebrations, so the Happy Birthday bunting is down, the heart-embroidered tea towel calendar is awaiting hand laundry day, and the assorted birthday cards on display will be attended to later this week. Thankfully, the homestead looks much tidier than it actually is, which is a blessing as I spent almost all of my free time last week ironing vintage fabric scraps instead of doing some much needed dusting.
“Oh,” you say. “Ironing tiny scraps of fabric into the wee hours of the night is your idea of fun, is it?”, you ask. And in response I say: oh heck yes! Continue reading
Whenever I’m Treasure Hunting for Redux or browsing at places like Oakland Museum of California’s White Elephant Sale, I keep a keen eye out for interesting vintage kitchen towels, aka tea towels. They’ve become rare beasts in the last few years – I’m not the only one on the hunt! With the least bit of encouragement from you, my pets, I would be happy to show you a few of my better finds, but the truth is that I don’t usually keep the vintage tea towels that I find. Instead, I use them to “wrap” presents, and off they go to live in new homes (I’ve noticed that using new pretty tea towels to wrap presents is a bit of a trend for customers at Alameda Natural Grocery’s Pantry). Do you hunt for vintage towels, too? Like me, do you sometimes find calendar tea towels? Do you ever get really lucky and find a calendar tea towel from a year that means a lot to you? Continue reading
One of the things that you might notice in many of the pictures taken in the Houseproud homestead kitchen is the small glass jar of baking soda that lives on our kitchen counter. That’s the jar in the picture above – see it on the far right, above the tofu slabs? It’s the glass jar with the cork lid. In order to prevent unfortunate misunderstandings, I cut out the original box’s logo – Arm & Hammer – and taped it to the jar. (The little stoneware jar to the left of the baking soda jar holds course-ground salt, another staple.) The content of our little jar of baking soda sees some serious action at the homestead, and it’s often pressed into service to clean our cast iron cookware. How do you clean your cast iron? Perhaps you’d be interested in learning our method? Continue reading
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