tastes

I made Colcannon for St Patrick's Day on Thursday. Colcannon is a traditional Irish meal which is basically mashed potatoes mixed with cabbage (or kale). It was quite good.

When I was a kid my mother used to make Corned Beef and Cabbage most years for St. Patrick's Day. She would always love to put scoops of horseradish sauce on her plate to eat with her cabbage and meat. It seemed so gross to me - as gross as the cabbage.

I got the idea to make Colcannon from this blog (picture courtesy of said blog) but really just used the recipe as inspiration - in the end I just kind of made it up as I went along. I boiled about 5 medium potatoes while I steamed half of a sliced cabbage. After it was done I added some milk, butter, green onions and then also some sharp white cheddar (from Ireland, of course) along with salt and pepper.

It makes a great easy comfort meal. It was especially good once I added the horseradish. That totally made it for me. I found myself making the same kind of satisfied sounds my mother used to as I reached in for more horseradish sauce.

It's weird how your tastes grow up and change. When I was younger her favorite foods were things like spinach, cabbage, horseradish sauce, pickled things, Tabasco, brussel sprouts - all things that totally grossed me out, but that I love now. I even tried some cole slaw the other day and liked it for the first time in my life!

What things do you like now that you didn't used to? I wonder if it'something I've been avoiding. I'm in the mood to try some new things....but I really don't think I will ever like black licorice, I don't care what you all say.

printables for christmas

Maybe this Christmas you are funds poor but rich in ideas and a color printer. Then luck is on your side! Lots of neat designers out there design free items that you can print out yourself. It's the perfect inexpensive (and last minute) gift.

Here are a few to get you started:

This Owl Lover 2011 Calender is making the rounds and seems to pretty popular, and why wouldn't it be? It's a calender, it's owls - and best yet you get to choose which owl art you want with each month. I really like that part. You can choose from 30 images!

There's a nice selection of some neat little boxes you can make for your homemade food gifts or whatever else you may need to box up.

Maybe you might want to print up some of your family recipes to share with a friend. Here's a neat way to create them for a pretty presentation. Recipe Card Maker.

I love these adorable bookplates you could print out for someone. Bookplates from Orange You Lucky.

Got some neat old bottles or boxes? These labels would make a really neat presentation. Vintage Flowery Labels, and Vintage Luggage Labels.

Hope these give you some ideas. I'll try and be back with more before Christmas.

sweet magazine

I spent a good amount of time this weekend weeding out some magazines. It was hard. I love magazines. Especially lifestyle ones. You know the ones that have articles on better ways to eat and decorate and live. Reading them makes me feel like I am already doing these things they are recommending. I am already living better just because I am flipping the pages. Oh, and I get inspired to do so much: travel, clean, cook, craft - but later, right now I am looking at this beautiful magazine. And beauty is another thing that I love about a good magazine. The beauty of the objects, the layout, the design, even good advertising thrills me. Reading a beautiful magazine is truly edifying for me.

And there is a new magazine out now that is the ultimate. Sweet Paul is a food and prop stylist and crafter. He has a very successful blog that I have been reading for some time. This month he launched the first issue of his online magazine, Sweet Paul.

This magazine is beautiful, totally. It is filled with recipes and craft ideas that look wonderful and are also not overwhelming. I felt like I could do the crafts and recipes in his magazine pretty easily and I really liked that. The only thing I didn't like about Sweet Paul was that I couldn't hold it in my hand. But, after seeing a portion of how many magazines I can't get rid of this weekend, I think that might be for the best. I printed out some pages today and they looked great.

Take a look at Sweet Paul. I think you will really love it. I am excited for the next issue.

	look inside
Spring 2010

make your own planner cover

Just a little pop in here to point you in the direction of this really neat project from Just Something I Made blog. It was from last week, so I am a bit late. Maybe you saw it?

She took a vintage book and a day planner and a pretty decorated file folder and made this. So nice!

Detailed directions here.

beautiful free backgrounds

Here are some gorgeous backgrounds for you from Totally Severe. I found these via one of my favorite blogs, How About Orange.

I used one for my twitter account. I have now finally graduated from the twitter templates. You could also use them for your blog. Just make sure you have the tile repeat option on if you are uploading the image.

I really liked some of the desktopwallpapers, too, but I need more blank space than those. I find it hard to find what I'm looking for when the wallpaper is too busy. Yeah, I am one of those people who shortcuts everything.

Okay, just a pop in let you in on that great website. Now it is back to the Olympics and Men's Figure Skating. I am really enjoying the Olympics this year. What's your favorite Winter Olympic sport to watch?

valentines day is around the corner

I really like Valentines Day. I think one of the reasons I like it so much is because the focus is on cards more than gifts and handmade is encouraged.

So, now it is a week away and it is time to get started on your project/card if you haven't already. Here are some ideas to inspire you.



I'll begin with the Valentine Match Boxes I made last year. You can always make your own version. The exact size is in the original post or you can use the free download from that post.

Printables are great, especially for people who put things off.


Valentines Labels Free Printable (above) from Mer Mag
Valentines Card Printables from Valentina Design
Valentine Printable Freebie from The Black Apple
Valentines Card Printables from Three Wheels Design



Printable Valentine Wheel (above) from Martha Stewart



If you wanna put a little extra time in there are 2 awesome looking paper cut Squirrel Valentines (above) on the Little Acorn blog. The tutorials are listed on the side.

If decorating the house is something you wanna do, a Valentine banner is a fun idea. I made one last year. You can find lots of ideas on Etsy for banners.

Another fun idea would be to place Valentines all over the house, in drawers and cars. If you want some sweet vintage valentine images for that, you can find some here and on a vintage Valentines Flickr page or on this page here.

There are also some interesting Valentines projects on this Flickr group. And of course, there is always Martha.

Okay, now I need to get to my Valentines project. Have fun!

farm chicks

Isn't this a great idea for storing your cake decorations? I have one of these old toy refrigerators (although not in nearly as nice condition) in my craft room and it works nice as a place to hold magnets and other stray items, but I love the idea of using it for cupcake supplies. I know one of you crafty friends with a cute vintagey kitchen could totally do this up good.

This image was my favorite from The Farm Chicks book I just finished reading.

I only recently discovered The Farm Chicks. I'm always so behind on these things. The Farm Chicks started out as two friends who love salvaged old things, pretty things, making things from scratch and rural life. They built a business based on this, having antique shows at various places near Spokane, Washington and that business merged into magazine articles and then a book.

I really liked hearing the stories of the two friends and their history of baking, crafting and making things pretty. I like the balance in their combination of new and old. The book also has some neat craft and decorating ideas. There were a number of recipes that I liked, even though being a vegetarian did take many of them out of the running.

The Farm Chicks may be singular now (the other chick decided to pursue new interests), but it seems to still be going strong. Keep your eye on Serena's blog to get a better idea of whats in store.

contribute to a mix tape tribute

King Bingaman-Burt is a busy Portland artist who draws things. She draws the stuff she buys on a regular basis, putting out a monthly zine called What Did you Buy Today. A book is due out soon based on these zines. She also has her illustrations published regularly and is shown in galleries.

Right now she wants to draw your treasured mix tapes. Take a pic and send it to her or upload it to her flickr page. I have a few I want to submit. More info here.

collecting

This post from Cecily Ink blog makes me feel like I need to collect more and have more of my collections of stuff out and about. Which if you know me, you know how untrue that is. Still such neat stuff and so artfully arranged. It makes me long for a empty studio room to fill. More pictures here.

lemon tea

You all know how much I love a tea party. Here is a beautiful tea that was put together by Merrilee of Mer Mag blog. It was all done in yellow and black. She named it a Moody Mod Summer Tea. I love the color scheme and the invites.

These pictures make me wish I could not work and fill my cabinets with plates and table settings in many different colors and have different themed tea parties for all my friends every week.

So pretty.

be your own person and do your own thing

I love this old ad that CathyofCalifornia posted on her blog. This is the kind of thing I would have totally gotten into if I had seen it as a kid. I loved the introspective sensitive natural girl thing and was looking for any reason that it was okay to be one......actually I still am.

Can you imagine a kid responding to an ad like this today...well, some might, but it would never get made.

Meanwhile, because I like to be my own person and do my own thing, I caved into societal pressure and joined Facebook. Add Ponyboy Press to your Facebook freinds.

I mean if you want. No pressure.

the plant plant

I have been keeping up with the collage work at Scrapatorium for a short while now and I just love everything she does. Her collage is witty and has that kind of flow that is often missing in collage.

This image is one of my favorites and not just because it is beautiful and perfectly done, but also because when I see it I hear Jerri Blank from Strangers with Candy say "I wanna work at the artificial plant plant"

If you are a Strangers with Candy fanatic like I am, you are totally smiling right now. If not, I apologize.

I love this piece. See more of her work, here.

note to self:

remember to plant more bulbs next fall.

This amazing tulip brought to you by Jane Brocket's garden. I love this one, especially!

shadow project by Color Me Katie

Do you follow the blog Color Me Katie? It is one of my new favorite blogs. Katie is an artist and photographer living in Brooklyn and she does some of the best projects. Stuff that looks simple, but really isn't as simple as it seems and all of it never fails to put a smile on your face.

Her most recent project is making shadows for people from paper and then taking photos as people pass by them at the right time, so that they are lined up to be their shadows.

Perfection. I wish I lived in Brooklyn so I could run into these around town. More here.

vintage sewing cards - free downloads

I know these have made a bit of the blog rounds, but I wanted to point them out to you in case you missed it. doe-c-doe made some adjustments to vintage button and trim packages and then made them free for you to download and use on your packages.

Such a great idea and so cute, especially for a sewing theme present!

so close

I am excited that the local strawberry harvest is right around the corner. I am expecting to want to eat strawberries all the time for a while. Oregon berries are pretty great.

Seeing this post about Strawberry and Vanilla Charlottes on the beautiful food blog Tartlett only made me less patient. Take a gander. Recipe here.

I love it when desserts have names like Charlotte and Madeline and Fool.

rich lovely eggs

I haven't dyed Easter eggs for years. This post from Stephanie Barnes makes me want to do it. Look at these beautiful eggs that she and her family makes with all natural dyes. They use things like beets and purple cabbage. The result is such deep rich colors. I love them. Read more about it here.

birds nest cake

I just had to show you all the beautiful cake that Jenn and Jenny made. You may know these cake wizards from their many adorable ventures like Chet and Dot, Plants and Animals and Robot Candy.
This cake is like something you would see in Martha Stewart. God, I would never have the patience for that. I so appreciate people who do things so well. So very sweet.

You can see more on the blog.

felted love letter and musings about magazines

It might be a little late to get something like this together for Valentines Day, but I had to share it with you all. The project is from LucyKate Crafts and there is a full tutorial here. I just love this and am very excited to try it sometime. A letter + felt + sewing = the perfect combination!

I saw this because I went on to the Craft Magazine site today. They just announced that they are ceasing production on Craft Magazine. I am not a huge fan of craft magazines, only because I have so many projects already on my to-do list that a magazine full of them only overloads my brain. Also, I am not a follow the instructions kind of person. However, I am sad to see it go and sad about the many many magazines that have called it quits in the last year.

It makes me sad. Magazines are one of those simple inexpensive pleasures in life. I have always loved a good magazine. As a teenager I dreamed of being an editor of Seventeen or something like that. As a twenty-something I dreamed of starting a magazine about life for renters like the short-lived Seventies magazine Apartment Living Magazine (I still think this is a good idea - tips on dealing with landlords, small spaces, simple repairs, etc).

By making zines I got a little closer to being a magazine editor and by creating graphics and content for the web site at my day job I am also doing work similar to what I dreamed of.....but still...nothing is as satisfying as a glossy colorful gorgeous magazine.

Here is hoping that that some will survive. It will be interesting to see what comes out of it. Maybe more expensive magazines with little advertising and certainly more available on websites......I think I may go subscribe to some magazines right now. I hope I pick the ones that won't quit next week!

inspiration

Well, looks like some great minds were thinking alike recently because Creature Comforts designed this free template for you to create a valentines tea bag wrapper and tag. Very nice!