Homemade

A friend was so nice to share her homemade butter with us--regular butter AND honey cinnamon butter. We've been waiting to have any until we had homemade bread to go with it. Mmmmm.

Tweet

Totus Tuus

I heard this song on the way to mass last Sunday. I thought it was so pretty and peaceful. After mass I looked up the song on the radio station's play list and found it was written by Henryk Górecki. It is entitled Totus Tuus, Totally Yours. Today I learned that the composer of this song died last week and so, in honor of him I share it here.

Tweet

Sweet and Spiceeeeeeeeeee

Mexican hot chocolate is a favorite around here especially when the weather turns cold. We like to buy Abuelita hot chocolate and make it with milk. Although, I tried making it with vanilla soy milk recently and it was even better!

This post was written for you, Grace since I know you like hot chocolate and also since you're my one woman audience on this blog.  AND, if you like spicy, try this. . .

Boil 2 cups of water with a chile pepper that has been cut in half and the stem cut off too. Let it boil until it reduces to about 1 cup. Add some of this water to your finished hot chocolate to give it a spice kick. I think you'll really like it!

Yum!

Tweet

1/8

Colorado grass fed beef. 

1/8 of a beef is just enough to fill the freezer of our extra fridge--and still leave a little bit of space for C's beer mugs. Now I have to stock up on good recipes.

Tweet

100 tulips

The tulips for next spring's garden. Hopefully these will fill in the gaps I noticed this past spring.

Tweet

Gourds

These are gourds from my parents garden. I don't know exactly what I will do with them but these jellyfish gourds are good inspiration. Ah, mi lindo Mexico, always so artistic.

Tweet

color combos

color combos
Originally uploaded by creativaclaudia

Just the beginning of lots of color combinations I hope to have by the end of the month. All for this fun event, Holiday Handmade Craft Fair. You should go!

Tweet

New Skill

Tonight I learned how to do foundation piecing from the wonderful quilt teacher at Fancy Tiger. It was a class for the FT crew and I enjoyed being a student and not a teacher.

(These pieces above will be used to match this quilt I made last year.)

I wasn't a great student, though, and I made plenty of mistakes. The good kind of mistakes, the learning kind. These are my finished pieces and will be used for making some pillows; just in time for Pillow Week Challenge. Unfortunately, I don't have time to finish any pillows this week. Boo!

(This purple piece will be used to make a just-for-fun pillow. 

I think it would look super matched with a solid gray.)

Tweet

At the Car Wash

We went through the new car wash at the gas station just because it has those cool mop-like brushes, old-school style.


I had to open the window and touch the brushes (afterwards, of course) and they felt like a rubbery foam. I wonder what they were made of before?

And, how could I not include this YT video here. It always makes me laugh out loud. This one is funny too.

Tweet

gold

Our neighbor's cottonwood tree. I think she said it's over 50 years old and I can't even guess how tall it is, just super tall! It's always this beautiful and stunning in the fall; especially on a sunny day.

Tweet

blue

Some new fabric from Fancy Tiger. The blue with trees is for a garment for me and the blue with elephants, well, I don't know who or what it's for but I bought it before it was sold out. I'm thinking about making a tunic with the tree fabric; the tunic with 3/4 length sleeves. Stay tuned.

Tweet

Strange Fruit

Our vegetable garden was quite neglected this past summer and still, we managed to harvest some good fruit. Here are some photos of the most interesting fruit--some were meant to grow this way, others were not.

A tomato with a horn (Julia Child variety):


A conjoined tomato (Homer Fike's Yellow Oxheart variety. This tomato probably weighed about 3-5 lbs!):


A striped tomato (don't know the variety but it is a Roma tomato):


Round cucumbers (Double Yield variety--not supposed to grow round but short and chubby; these didn't grow much after they reached this size):


Purple carrots (this variety is called Dragon Carrot. The inside is bright orange and just a beautiful combination of colors!):


And just for fun, the carrot tops:

Tweet

a hat

I can't seem to learn that staying up late is not very smart, especially when you have a baby that doesn't sleep through the night. But, while late nights may not be very smart, they are productive and fun! Look at what I made for JP last night, late last night:

a hat

An upcycled hat made from old t-shirts! Sadie, a fellow sewing instructor, shared the tutorial for this hat with me and I knew it was one I had to make! It's simple to construct and fun to embellish because you can make it as funky as you want and it will look great on a little boy.

The hat I made is certainly wearable but a little rough around the edges, literally. The edging looks a little sloppy but I think it adds character. It is made from very thin t-shirt fabric so I'll try using thicker fabric next time. That should make it easier to sew and also give the ear flaps a little more structure--with this hat they are too light and flimsy, in my opinion. And, because I wanted to finish the hat before going to bed, I kept the embellishments simple; I added a fancy stitch on the burgundy tee fabric and a tassle using the hem from the green tee fabric. JP loved it!

Tweet

Handmade: 3 out of 4

Handmade Halloween costumes are fun and I'm glad that I can use my sewing skills to make costumes for my kids. The kids usually have an idea of the costume they want to wear but sometimes I have to guide them into a different choice simply so that I can make a costume that is quick and easy to construct.
 
In September I came across this cute cupcake costume and Julia was sold. One down, three to sew. Maria wanted to be a vampire but after going through the costume ideas on Martha Stewart's website she agreed a spider princess would be just as good. Two down, two to sew. Then JP found a dinosaur costume at a children's clothes sale and so we went with that. Phew! Three down, one to sew. A friend shared this cute onesie and I knew immediately that Miles would be a "gnomie". Four costumes figured out. Yay! This would be a fun Halloween costume year but not as fun as the year I made Word Girl and Captain Huggy Face costumes.


A note on construction:
•The cupcake was pretty simple to make especially because it is made out of felt. The instructions from the link above were vague but when I was unsure of what to do I had to remind myself that it was just a costume.  Making the "cup" was time-consuming and I ended up using a hot glue gun because it was difficult to fit so much fabric into the sewing machine.

•The spider princess instructions suggest using crepe paper but if I'm going to sew a costume I'm going to use fabric! If you look closely, you'll see we found some cool spider web fabric. I altered the skirt construction by making it a bubble skirt to resemble the body of a spider. I sewed a doily into the neckline to resemble a spider web. The spider web cape was made of yarn but that did not hold up well so, in my spare time, Ha!, I will make a white cape with a black spider web over it to replace the yarn web.

•The gnome costume was super fast and easy to make. It cost $4.75--$4 jacket from Target and 3 sheets of felt at 25¢ each. The cone hat was made using two felt sheets sewn together and the beard was cut out of one sheet. I sewed elastic to the top end of the beard to stretch it over Miles' head. A good costume for a baby and in a couple of months he can be a Christmas elf.

Tweet

a worm

He found a worm and wanted to make a home for it. He chose a plastic trick-or-treat jack-o-lantern but I didn't like that idea and asked him to find a home in the yard.



He chose the compost bin and dug a BIG hole for his worm.

He really loved his worm.


And that is the story of a boy who just a few weeks ago wouldn't touch a worm until his mom, who had never intentionally picked up a worm before that day, showed him it wasn't so bad. 

Tweet