Inspirations from all of my obsessions. Mommyhood, crafting, sewing, and capturing it all via photography.

September 7, 2009

Happy 65th Ev!–Vintage Inspired–Backyard Birthday BBQ!

We recently celebrated my MIL’s 65th Birthday! Stu and I had such a blast planning and throwing this party and it turned out to be a wonderful and heartfelt day with family and friends.

We really wanted this party to be a full DIY event and Ev insisted that we keep it simple, so we did. I found my initial inspiration at the local Salvation Army and it snowballed from there. I found all sorts of more goodies during my thrift shop run and was able to pull most of my resources from around our homes. A trip to Michael’s and the flower shop and it all came together beautifully!

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This was the inspirational piece that brought it all together. Ev told me she loved this color blue and she loved pink flowers. How perfect are the 2 together? All the arrangements were simply done with fresh cuts from my local flower shop.

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These cute little birthday tags were made with my Big Kick Cutting Machine. I mounted the printed photo on the back of some pretty cardstock. It came out perfect, nice and thick, good quality! Isn’t she a doll?

We hung various pictures of Ev with all of her family and friends around the trees. It added such a great flare and personalized touch for Ev to enjoy at the party. She loved it.

A handmade birthday banner for the guest, using my new cricut machine. What fun that was! I can’t wait to make more!

The best part of her day was celebrating with all 4 of her grandgirls!

These little pies were so much fun to make and super yummy!

Best wishes Ev for many more birthdays to come!

I usually use wedding resources as my main resource and inspirational guide. You can pretty much take any of those ideas and minimize them for smaller affairs. Here are some of my favorite sites:

Style Me Pretty

Hostess Blog

The Knot

Thanks to Stu for being the best party planning assistant! Ev…You’re Fired! 😉

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August 26, 2009

Adventures in Gardening–Enjoying the Summer's Harvest!

My adventure in gardening is still going strong! We have been enjoying the garden immensely and love planning our meals around our harvests. I have even enjoyed learning from all my mistakes, there are many.

A few things I plan on doing next year to improve the garden:

1. Expanding the garden–I have the perfect space to add 3 raised 4 x 4 beds. More beds=more veggies!

2. Add a timed drip system. With 2 little ones I think this will keep the maintenance lower and keep me happy and the garden happy too (for those days that I forget).

3. Keep all veggies in the square foot and not on the deck. The deck would just get too hot for the pots and also having 2 separate zones to water proved to be challenging with my time constraints. I will still keep all my herbs on the deck but keep all veggies in garden area.

4. Space out my tomatoes. I overcrowded them.

5. Plant the cucumbers in their own space. They had a choke hold on all the other veggies. I will also try them out on the trellis next year.

6. Start all of my own seedlings. I already started stocking up on next year’s seeds. This year I waited too late and had to transplant most of the garden.

7. Stake and trellis all plants immediately. I waited too long this year.

8. Build the trellis higher. Obviously 5 ft was not tall enough for my big tomato plants and corn stalks.

9. Experiment with new veggies: potatoes, squash, green/string beans, rhubarb…..and whatever else I can get my hands on!

Any other garden advice for the novice?

Overall this was an amazing experience and I look forward to keeping it up for years to come!

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August 23, 2009

Weekend Bliss

I haven’t posted much in a while, sometimes the priority of blogging falls well below the dozens of other things that are on my daily to do list. But there is much to share over the next few weeks. I will start out with how wonderful our weekend was. I cherish these weekends. The kind where everything just seems to go right. That was this weekend. Loved it.

The girls did art with their dad in the studio while I enjoyed some quiet cooking time. They both are really enjoying the space now.

Sa Sa enjoyed the meal. I will be sure to share the recipe soon.

Breakfast anyone? Ummm Yumm, even if they are a bit overdone.

We took a fun walk. I love how green it is here.

We ate again! We eat a lot don’t we? This time at our favorite Mexican restaurant. It’s the closest thing to good Cali Mexican food that they have here. It reminds me of home and the girls love it. The atmosphere and the food.

Also on the weekend bliss train…fabric stores, seasonal cleaning, and a trip to the town pool. Somehow we left the camera at home and missed some great shots of the girls enjoying the pool. Luckily we took the video camera. Maybe later I will add some footage to this post.

How was your weekend?

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August 3, 2009

My First Canning Experience!

I grew up in a house where homemade jam was the norm. My mom, Aud, would make the best strawberry, honey, and pomegranate jams and jellies. The pomegranate was my favorite!!! I really never thought much about it, I sort of took it for granted. She even made some here for my sis’s shower. After a recent trip to the farmer’s market I picked up some pints of fresh strawberries and some long and luscious stalks of rhubarb. But what to make with it? After much googling I decided to turn into jam.

Luckily I had great resources to call for advice and after a quick trip to the hardware store, I was in business! I loved every bit of this experience and look forward to doing more jams, jellies, sauces, tomatoes, etc. You name it, I am going to try it. There is something very rewarding about this whole process and really embraced this domesticity that is running through my veins!! But the best part of it is that homemade jam is just so much tastier than store bought. Check it out!

Freshly cut rhubarb!

The strawberries in the pot are heating up!

In the meantime, I sterilized all the jars in lid in the sani cycle of the dishwasher.

Getting the canning pot ready to boil!

Giving the lids an extra dose of sterilizing!

Funneling the jam into the jar!

10 minute of processing in the boiling water!

The end result–tasty strawberry-rhubarb jam!

These make great gifts or party favors! Check out the recipe I used here!

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