St. Patrick's Day T-shirt Applique

We have to wear green today, right? How is it that my little guy has every color shirt except green? Fortunately, I saved one of his favorites from last year. It was a green GAP long-sleeve with a connect-the-dots dinosaur. I kept it as a possible future addition to a possible future quilt made from his favorite clothes (like the one I made my little girl). I'm not sure I'll ever make that quilt, especially since he already has a beautiful one that his Grandma made him and he loves! So, this morning while my kids ate their green eggs and green milk, I cut out the dinosaur and sewed it on his solid black t-shirt. Cute!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

St. Patrick's Day - old shirt to little dress

So, I'm at a really good place with work now and decided to take the day off yesterday. I didn't do a thing on the yearbook. Instead, I spent the afternoon trying to make a little girl's dress for my little girl.  The key word here is disaster. I used two of my old shirts and an already refashioned dress that she had outgrown. I had a vision and tried to use a combination of three tutorials to create my vision. Fail. Attempted to fix it. Total Fail. Threw it in the scrap pile.  

old green shirt

But since it was my self determined day off work, I had to be satisfied with some sort of creation. I took a break, made dinner, ate, put the kids to bed and then began again. This time I didn't use any sort of guide, but just followed my instincts with a new vision. I found an old green shirt (for St. Patrick's Day of course) and a pink one (special request from my little girl). I spent a glorious evening making this dress that I absolutely love! No fails, only success on this one...and my little girl loves it, too!

          She did her own styling :-)

 ...leggings & flower hair clip from nanny, socks from grandma and a necklace from cousin Henry! 

The front of the original shirt became the back of the dress.

The bottom of the original shirt became the neckline of the dress.

It's always important that the dress be good for dancing like a princess.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Reduce Reuse Recycle Refashion

My life has been completely taken over by work. March is always my busiest time of the year with my big deadline at the end of the month. The entire yearbook must be done and edited and ready to turn over to the publishing company. Stress...it creeps into my dreams. I spend hours on Adobe InDesign every day and then dream about it every night. Therefore, I have no time to do the things I truly enjoy.

                                                                        Source: themotherhuddle.com via Jessica on Pinterest

                                                                             Source: re-nest.com via Jessica on Pinterest

While I was working last night, I watched a film called No Impact Man, brought home to me by my husband who teaches and lives environmental science. It's about a family in New York who lives with no impact on the environment for a year. This includes a vegetarian diet of local food, no electricity, no material consumption, just to name a few of the many changes they made in their life. I didn't think twice about the environment (or even once to be honest) until I met my husband and now things like compost and recycling are a natural part of my daily life. I even spent some time on a permaculture farm, although I couldn't work much because I was newly pregnant at the time.

                                                                          Source: Uploaded by user via Jessica on Pinterest

Anyway, after watching this film, I've been contemplating all day what more I can do. I know I can do more. Can I go without electricity? I don't think so. But I can reduce, reuse, recycle in other ways. I'm still brainstorming some ideas and have to have some serious thought before I commit to any of them. In the meantime, I enjoyed taking a break from work and browsing Pinterest for some cute, clever, and creative ways to reuse, recycle, and refashion! 

make a Zipper Pouch from a coffee bag

make a Hot Plate & Coasters from wine corks

make Vegetable Bags from t-shirts

make a Pencil Holder from a cheese grater

make Boy Shorts from a man's shirt

make a Dress from a pillowcase

Friday Foto - Midnight Star (10 of 52)

Even in the dark of night, daffodils glow brilliantly.

First Feature!

I was made to feel so special today when I was reading through the blogs I follow (instead of doing what I'm supposed to be doing - work - oops!) and saw that my Crochet Best Bunny was featured on The Scrap Shoppe. Wow! Thank you, Michelle! They are having a monthly challenge in which I'm participating. It's been a great help in getting me motivated, especially in these two months - February and March - that are my busiest months every year with work deadlines creeping up on me. It's nice to have the stress relief of creating things and the challenge to make sure I don't slack off!

Celeriac Pithivier ...what??

A beautiful assortment of fruits and vegetables from the weekly box delivered to us from Riverford Organic Veg.

This one came in December. My favourites were the Brussels sprouts and kaki (persimmon)! The kaki immediately brought back memories of the year we spent in Japan. But I wasn't sure what to do with the Brussels sprouts until I found this recipe. Yum! If you aren't sure about Brussels sprouts, you have got to try it. Now we come to the mystery vegetable...

What is this thing? 

I knew it was a root vegetable, but had never seen anything like it. It reminded me of a brain. Weird. We asked all our neighbours and they had no idea. In the end, my husband ended up calling Riverford and described it to them. Their answer: celeriac ...What? Kind of sounds like celery, but was nothing like it. Next I had to figure out how to cook the thing. I searched for recipes everywhere I could think of and most sounded pretty bland and boring. I guess celeriac isn't as exciting in flavor as it is in looks. In the end, I found this recipe for a cheesy celeriac, potato and bacon pithivier. Another new word to add to my vocabulary: pithivier ...What? Oh, a fancy name for a puff pastry pie. 

It sounded okay and tasted much better than I expected (even without the bacon for those of us who don't eat mammals). I love cheese, so enjoyed that it was so cheesy...and also loved the rosemary flavor (fresh from our garden). So, now whenever we get celeriac in our veg box, I know exactly what to do with it...and if you ever get celeriac in yours, you can also make a celeriac pithivier!

Crochet Best Bunny...

...but definitely not my best bunny. I started to make this amigurumi bunny for my little guy's Easter present last year. Yes, last year. Just ask my mom (and check out her blog...she loves comments!). I've been talking about finishing it for almost a year now. Thanks to Craft Your Stash monthly challenge, I made a goal to finally get it done. I rushed because I had to finish it tonight...the last few minutes of the challenge. I had all the parts (or so I thought) and quickly attached them all.

It is not my best crocheting, maybe even my worst. The feet look too small...I attached the arm at the wrong angle so it's constantly waving "hello"...the ears pretty much just stick straight out...the eyes are crooked...and it's missing an arm! I think I lost it my flights somewhere between California and London. Poor little guy with only one arm. 

Do you like my setting for the pictures? I thought I'd create a story of how he lost his arm when he was exploring the train tracks, but I won't because it might be too gruesome (can you tell I was just watching CSI?). My one-armed bunny is from a Lion Brand pattern called Best Bunny. Isn't that funny. Funny Bunny is more like it! Maybe he'll learn to fly like Dumbo. The one thing I like about him is that he looks happy...and I hope he'll make my son happy, too!

Friday Foto - Crystal Light (09 of 52)

The sun was shining such a beautiful rainbow of light through our crystal cross ornament.