Friday, February 27, 2009

The Potters Produce



Chloe's school has a kiln now, very exciting indeed. The first project was a pinch pot, the one above is hers. She presented it to me with a flower in it. How sweet and beautiful, especially the smile she had on her face when she handed it to me. The one that says " I am so proud I made this!" Chloe was sick the day of her next project so her Art Teacher gave us some clay to take home to complete it. Hanging plaques, which will be hung around the school on art night in May, even Blake made one, next week they will glaze them.




I was very happy to bring home my first set of respectable mugs this week from my class. I can't tell you how much I loved making these. I think the best part about bringing home new pieces is that I leave them on the table for Chloe and Blake to find in the morning, they get so excited, and want to use them right away. They are my biggest fans ! What a gift that is. There will be more mugs to come, I am on a roll !


Saturday, February 14, 2009

Happy Valentines Day


We celebrated yesterday, with a party in Chloe's second grade classroom. There were so many sweets and treats it almost felt like Halloween, except there was the lovely colors of red, & pink all around. The theme was to have red food. So there were strawberry's, in different versions of dipped chocolates, white, dark, even strawberry's atop mascarpone cheese in a little tart, yummy. We also had red grapes, red peppers, red apples and strawberry yogurt. What a spread it was !



Our contribution to the spread were some very delicious chocolate butter cookies with melted white chocolate and red sprinkles on top. I got the recipe in the Holiday Baking edition of Cooks Illustrated. I found the recipe printed online in another blog here. One note, I didn't have expresso powder, so I just used instant coffee, and it worked great.



Chloe made some sweet little handmade Valentines. We kept it pretty simple, she cut out hearts from red cardstock, and put a wise saying on it, one I am sure you all know well, we sing that tune around here often.



Hope your day is filled with Sweet Love !!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

The Radishes are Ready !!


There is nothing like 3 days of California Rain to finish off the Radish patch & make the greens grow in our winter garden bed! Let me tell you, they are pretty tasty and really fun for the kids to pull out of the dirt.



We have been picking just enough each day to eat. Time to plant more seeds...

Friday, February 6, 2009

Happy Nappy Time



Blake and Eddie, snoozing after a busy morning of crashing cars and trucks into each other, while staying home from pre-school with a yucky cold. How cute are they?



Photo's taken with the I-phone, as you can see, the click on the camera made them stir...

Sunday, February 1, 2009

New Pillows



I finally got around to making some new pillows for our very boring dark blue hand me down couch. I am so into green these days, particularly a chartreuse type green, mixed with orange. When I found the fabric I used on sale at Repro Depot, I was in love, especially with its modish vibe, I only wish I would have ordered more.

This was the first time I made a pillow with an invisible zipper. The installing of a zipper into a garment in general is always very scary to me, since I rarely do it. So, when it came to this one, I found a video tutorial online that helped me through it. Its a good one, but I found myself telling the lady to speed it up a bit, while being thankful at the same time that she was being extremely detailed in her description. I think after doing a few of these, I feel less intimidated now. Oh, how I do love the Internet, and all the sewers out there that take the time to put together tutorials, & blog posts, all in the name of sharing their skills so someone like me can find the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that comes with learning and successfully completing a new technique.

Plus, now that my pillow covers have zippers, I can take them off and throw them in the washer when one of them gets soiled, and we know that will happen very soon !