50 Free Holiday Cards from Shutterfly!

It's hard to believe the time is already here! Maybe this year I'll actually have them in the mail by mid-December??? A girl can dream =) Christmas cards are always a source of such excitement to me. I loved (and still do) the anticipation of ripping open every card that made its way to us every year. It's such a form of history.... a way to track friends and family over the years. A way to stay connected in our busy lives.

I love the options Shutterfly has available. I am having the most difficult time making a decision as to which design to choose! I have one picture, but now feel like I need one or two more to expand my choices! To make it easy for holiday shopping, there are so many other great products to choose from....

· Christmas cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-cards

· Christmas photo cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards

· wall calendar to http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars/wall-calendars

· photo mugs to http://www.shutterfly.com/photo-gifts/photo-mugs

· birthday cards to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/birthday-cards-stationery

· holiday invitations to http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-invitations

· Choose your favorite product from our Cards & Stationery page

I am in love with this one...

http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards/snow-kiss-blue-christmas-5x7-photo-card-5x7-photo?sortType=1&storeNode=93480

Look into getting your own 50 FREE cards here!

heaven!

Charlie is asleep, Adam is at work (poor guy) and I am looking through 3 books that I just received.... books that have been in my amazon cart for 2 months just waiting for me to finally click the purchase button. Now I just have to quit my job so I'll have time to make all of the new projects that I have added to my mental list........ Oh ya, and lots of funding for supplies... I don't see this happening...

does this ever happen to you??

LOVED this pattern on ravelry.... http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-sweatshop-of-loves-slouchy-beret-pattern

not loving it on my head =( (i'll spare you a picture)

It isn't fair to my fabulous Lobster Pot yarn to leave it in a form I'm not in love with, so one of these nights, as I'm watching a movie, it will be carefully unwound in preparation for its next life (reincarnation will likely be in hat form again, as that is what I have my heart set on)

knitted doll hats

Sure, I guess I'll post again here and there, as my other blog is getting more crafty, not that that is a bad thing. We'll see how it all plays out. Here are 2 hats I whipped up for Charlie's friends Brigid and Molly. I now realize I need to make him some as he gotten great enjoyment from putting them on and off (and on and off and on and off...) his baby. Thanks to his baby for modeling =)

long time, no post

i am missing this blog. shall i keep it up again???? hmmmmm

play dough

2 cups flour
1 cup salt
2 tablespoons alum
1 cup water
2 tablespoons oil
liquid food coloring

Pour dry ingredients into large pan. Stir together to mix. Stir oil and food coloring into the water. Pour liquid into the dry ingredients while mixing, squeezing and kneading the playdough. If too sticky, add more flour. Keeps best in the fridge.

new hat

All of a sudden it is definitely fall - very glad I finished Charlie's hat last weekend. It is from a free ravelry pattern "Baby Tri-Peak Hat." I had never done a tripeak hat - very fun and easy!

showing Papa his new hat

individual meatloaf "muffins"

I stole 2 ideas here - Carrie's yummy recipe (hope you don't mind my cutting and pasting the recipe!), and Rachael Ray's muffin pan for meatloaf idea. It worked great - faster cooking time (25 minutes), and easy to toss leftovers in the freezer for another dinner. I also used half beef half lamb as my store was out of ground turkey.

Turkey and Apricot Meatloaf

posted by admin on sep 05 2009 | poultry

• This might be the best, most moist meatloaf ever. Delicious!! I freeze and pull out for an easy dinner. From Gourmet.com.
• 1 cup coarse fresh bread crumbs (from 2 slices white sandwich bread)
• 1/3 cup whole milk
• 2 medium celery ribs, finely chopped
• 1 medium carrot, finely chopped
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon ancho chile powder
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 lb ground dark-meat turkey
• 1/2 cup dried California apricots, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 3 tablespoons apricot preserves, divided
• 1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce, divided
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 teaspoons water

• Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle.
• Soak bread crumbs in milk in a large bowl.
• Meanwhile, cook celery, carrot, onion, and garlic with chile powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt in oil in a large heavy skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 10 minutes. Add to bread-crumb mixture with turkey, dried apricots, parsley, 1 tablespoon preserves, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, eggs, 1 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper and mix with your hands until just combined. Form into a 9- by 5-inch oval loaf (mixture will spread slightly) in a 13- by 9-inch shallow baking dish.
• Stir together water, remaining 2 tablespoons preserves, and remaining 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce and brush over surface of meatloaf. Bake until an instant-read thermometer inserted into center registers 165°F, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

tamale pie

Wow - the ultimate comfort food (if you are a lover of grits and cornbread such as I am - I know, a Mainer who loves grits. Who was I in a former life, anyway?)

http://www.mothering.com/recipes/tamale-pie

busy night

10 jars of bread and butter pickles and some lavender rose cleanser. Weird combo, but 2 great creations! Too tired to post recipes. Used Organic Body Care book again (great book!) and recipe from my canning class back in July.

maple oatmeal scones

I had a scone at the farmer's market and it was yummy, so I had to make some of my own, with my little helper, of course. Here's the recipe I used...

Whole Grain Maple Oatmeal Scones

Ingredients 1 1/3 cup oat flour (such as Arrowhead Mills brand; if you can’t find that substitute King Arthur white whole wheat flour) 1 1/3 cup old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick-cooking) 1 tbsp baking powder 3/4 tsp baking soda 1 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 cup brown sugar 8 tbsp (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces 1/3 cup milk 1/3 cup yogurt (preferably Greek or whole-milk) 2 tbsp pure maple syrup

*Note: you can substitute 2/3 buttermilk for the milk + yogurt if you’d rather.

For brushing and sprinkling on top of the scones: 1 tbsp milk 1 tbsp maple syrup 2 tbsp oats

Directions Preheat the oven to 400.

Whisk together the oat flour, baking powder, baking soda, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl, then transfer that mixture to the bowl of a food processor. Add the oats and pulse in short bursts (1 sec each) about 15 times. Drop in the pieces of cold butter and pulse again in short bursts until coarse meal forms, about another 15 pulses.

Transfer this mixture back into the large bowl. In a separate bowl or liquid measuring cup, whisk together the milk, yogurt and maple syrup. Pour the liquid into the flour/oat/butter mixture, and stir gently with a fork until it’s moistened and starts to come together. Using your hand, gather the dough into a ball right in the bowl and knead it a few times against the side of the bowl to bring the dough together.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat it into a 3/4-inch thick circle. Using a sharp knife, cut like a pie into 8 wedges. Place the wedges on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone baking mat.

Whisk together 1 tbsp milk and 1 tbsp maple syrup in a little bowl. Brush the tops of the scones with this mixture, then sprinkle the remaining 2 tbsp oats across the tops of the scones.

Bake for 15-17 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. Cool on a rack.

Makes 8.

new cardigan

I finally got the vintage buttons on Charlie's sweater, so am finally "legal" to post! The pattern doesn't go as large as I needed it to, so I had to up-size this on my own. It came out great, but just barely fits.... Looks like I may be trying my hand at blocking today...

here's the pattern...

http://stockinette.wordpress.com/patterns/baby-sophisticate/

yarn is Manos del Uruguay from my stash

I was warned...

My friend, Carrie, warned me about this. Warned me that I'd have a very tough time keeping up this blog. It is so very true. Summer brings outdoor activities, traveling and longer day light hours. That coupled with trying to savor every moment until I go back to "out of the home" work (which in some ways I think will be easier than my 168 hour/week at-home job, except that I'll still have the same kid snuggling, laundry, cleaning and meals to juggle once I get home, plus I will need to get the kiddo off to daycare with clean clothes, enough diapers to make it through the day and a lunch that looks organized and healthy lest the daycare providers realize I'm a procrastinator and not always organized. ugh!) Long excuse short, I've not had as much craft time, nor creative time. I'm already mourning that this is not likely to improve anytime soon. Such is life.... I'm excited and sad for this next step. Adam and I fear Charlie will come home with all kinds of new tricks he's learned from his daycare cohorts, and will realize he has been shielded from all of the cool things in life at his ripe old age of 17 months. I think we worry too much. (Do we??!?) My biggest fear is that I will blink and he will be all grown-up. I know it is going to happen. If I blog somewhat often, maybe that will have a way of slowing down time??? Please say it will... =)

swimmer's ear prevention

After swimming, squirt a mixture of 1/2 rubbing alcohol and 1/2 distilled white vinegar into little (or big) ears. This restores natural pH balance and the alcohol dries up any water in the ear canal. I put my mixture in an empty travel sized contact solution bottle, and removed the label and wrote in huge red letters on the bottle what it was. Can you imagine if I mistakenly put that on my contacts? OMG.

(recipe from Charlie's swim instructor)

brew!

The brewery is up and running, and I'm really not joking that much when I call it a brewery. Look at Adam's new system! The day pictures are of the trial run with water during the day. The night pictures are more true to form. When you have a little one, you must brew when you can, and that is after the beastie calls it a day ;-) Adam began his trial run at 2PM yesterday and finished the inaugural batch at 2:30 AM this morning. He is ironing out the bugs so I'm sure it won't be such a lengthy process in the future. Poor guy spending 12.5 straight hours dreaming of sweet beer... somehow I don't think it was that painful!

The wooden paddles were made for him by his grandpa in Louisiana. They are beautiful!

For those of you interested, this is the beer he cloned: http://blog.stonebrew.com/?p=277

More beer postings are promised, for sure. Gotta post something! I haven't been able to get out my sewing machine at all since we've moved. I am knitting though. You can use quilts without binding them, right?? =)

magic tub potion

Poor Charlie had quite the diaper rash earlier this week. It is slowly getting better, but in effort to "super-duper" heal the area we have given him chamomile baths the past 2 nights to soothe the sore skin. (I'm posting this because I just walked into the bathroom and saw random small puddles of yellow liquid in the tub and wondered which boy to blame - ah yes, the chamomile remnants! Ha! Lucky for the boys...) We have bulk chamomile for tea and for my body care recipes so we just took about a quarter cup and put it in some cheesecloth and tied it up into a big tea bag and put it in the tub. I can't say that it alone is responsible for healing the sore tush, but it is indeed getting better quickly AND he fell asleep within 10 minutes of getting out of the tub, an hour earlier than normal. Not exactly scientific, but I'll take it!

more summer dining

delicious! and every veggie we ate was from the CSA basket - basil included. phew!

dish 1:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Summer-Corn-Salad/Detail.aspx

dish 2:

new red potatoes and new green beans cleaned and cut into bite sized pieces. boil for 15 minutes or until just tender. drain and add milk, butter, salt and pepper (a childhood fave - YUM)

perfect summer meal

tomato and cucumber sandwich with fresh veggies from the farm (will taste better when from our garden) +

left over baked beans +

Corona with lime

=)

Yum

Oh, and baby is asleep

and papa is outside playing with his brewing equipment.

Don't get me wrong, I like them and all - nice to have some quiet and yummy food solo sometimes ;-)

play silks

I made Charlie some play silks a few days ago. So easy! I put each scarf that I bought on Dharma Trading Company (36") in a quart sized mason jar filled with water, about 1/8 cup of white vinegar and food coloring (as much as it took to reach the color I wanted). I then put the mason jars in a water bath about 3" deep and boiled them in the water bath for 15 minutes. Rinse until water runs clear and hang to dry. You can also dye these with Kool Aid, but I could not find any single batch packs anywhere.

drowning in CSA

I thought I was doing a pretty awesome job keeping up with our CSA basket contents each week. Welllllll...... now that we are full swing and nearing the middle of the season I am drowning. 4 heads of lettuce today after we got 2 last week??!!!?!?! I think I scared Adam today when he brought home an empty spinach salad container from the store that he bought for lunch. "What the HECK???!!!! (of course I said heck) We have lettuce filling up the entire refrigerator and you BUY a freakin' salad?!?!" He stammered out some excuse but abruptly stopped, I think realizing his error but also my produce overload insanity. Needless to say, he will now be throwing those containers away at work =)

Here is what we received today...

lettuce, 4 heads

carrots, 1 bunch

beets, 1 bunch

broccoli, 2 heads

potato, 2 lb

cilantro, 1 bunch

cucumber, 2 each

summer squash, 4 each

brassica choice, 1 bunch: collard greens, kale, or chard

1 hanging basket of annuals

more cukes

blueberries, 1 PYO pint

I am freezing everything I can , but we are quickly running out of freezer space, I have not yet received the freezer I was promised, and OH! I forgot to mention half of our freezer is full of hops! Adam brews his own beer and fresh hops seem to keep appearing and of course it is preferrable that they be frozen. On the plus side, I should have some good beer related postings in the near future....