Can you hear that little clenched-teeth growl? It almost looks like a smile, but don’t be deceived.
Emily Bear is cranky. So don’t even think about eating her porridge. Or oatmeal. And, my goodness, get this itchy business off of her Right Now and take that camera out of her face.
Or you’ll have to face Meltdown Bear.
And that’s just sad.
This is Little Red on Halloween last year. She just turned 1 and had no clue what was happening. :)
But she jumped right in there anyway!
Or, at least the lion is. Just kidding. This is for Emily. I’m contemplating the design of a bear-suit to accompany this. I’m just not overly enthused about that part. But it would make it better. To a 2 year old, anyway.
Jacob is likely to be a pea-pod because that’s what we’ve got. Unless the costume-crafting bug strikes again. In which case, I’m not really sure what he’ll be.
EDIT: I thought you might be interested to see something that inspired this little helmet of a hat: Tekkonkinkreet… a Japanese film we watched the other night. Have I ever told you that I like this sort of thing? :) Anyway, the bear hat adorned by the character White pretty much solidified my plan to make a bear costume.
Oh, and this little amigurumi pattern is pretty cute too. Just a bit more inspiration for you!
I have this problem: I cannot bear to eat an apple by itself knowing all the wonderful things that could be done with it. But when it came right down to it (as in, my apples were going to rot if I didn’t act fast), I couldn’t choose a recipe for my last 4 apples. So I improvised!
I call it “Saucy Apple Topping” because it was meant to be a topping for ice cream, but came out a bit like glorified applesauce. But no matter.
Ingredients:
Preheat oven to 325. Place chopped apples and water in buttered baking dish. Mix remaining ingredients thoroughly and place on top of apples. Bake for 45 minutes (I covered it with foil for the first 10 or 15 minutes). Serve with vanilla ice cream. Or caramel ice cream. Or just caramel!
The true test was serving it to friends at a 3 year old’s birthday party last night. When they (the adults, that is) went nuts over it, I decided I should probably share! :)
Enjoy!
My self-proclaimed “Kitchen Week” may be over, but I won’t let that stop me from sharing more Kitchen Lovelies with you. Unless, of course, you beg me to stop. ;)
Here are a few links for your enjoyment:
Do you have any links to share? Please do!
I may even be back to share more of my kitchen projects this week, since I have a few stragglers. Of course, I have a Halloween costume and a quilt block to get done first, so we’ll see…
Happy Monday!
This is a little crocheted granny-square-ish bowl I made to corral all the plastic container lids. They drive me nuts. But, alas, they are necessary. So now they have their own special place, and they are still easy to grab in a hurry.
I’m thinking about embellishing this with a little flower. I think it needs some bubblegum pink. :)
Also, I’ll probably use fabric stiffener on it to help it maintain its shape. I’ve never done this before, so does anyone have any experience with it? Anything I should know?
On the cooking front (you know, what the kitchen is actually intended for… one might suspect that all I do in there is decorate), yesterday I was aching to make something apple-y, and I came across this Apple Crumble Cake recipe. I added cinnamon and replaced some of the white sugar with brown sugar. I also used a mix of whole wheat and all-purpose flour. Unfortunately, we baked it a little too long (about 50 minutes), and the cake part was not very moist. But it was still delicious served with vanilla ice cream. And it was even better a few hours later when all the syrupy goodness had settled a bit. Mmmmm.
Nothing like a little spray paint to bring cohesion to the disparate.
I also organized my spice shelf.
And the dishes.
1. Japanese embroidery kitchen, 2. kitchen nook, 3. crisscross applesauce finished, 4. my kitchen sink, 5. kitchen utensils, 6. Our new house - the kitchen, 7. Jazze Chicago retro red kitchen display, 8. Page 10, 9. Lace trimmed tea towels
Since it’s a dreary day in Tulsa, I daren’t take any photos today. Also, I didn’t finish my daily-kitchen-craft. So instead, here’s some lovely inspiration for your kitchen, like adding crocheted trim to your towels or fairy-like shelf lighting. I’m especially loving that organizational board from a Japanese craft book. At least, I think that’s what it is. The little crocheted pocket is a fabulous idea that I just might have to use…
There are so many details in some of these pictures–I encourage you to check out the links.
Enjoy!
Last night I whipped this together to keep all our serving pieces organized and tidy. We rarely use them (the big, fancy-looking silver ones), and that means they’re just in the way of the things we need.
I didn’t follow any tutorials on this, although there are countless patterns for crayon, pencil, silverware, etc. roll-ups available online and in books. Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts has a nice one, in fact. But I just made this one up according to the measurements of my largest serving piece. I only divided it into 4 compartments (though I may add more).
The appliqué was the easiest and fastest part (and my favorite). I used something like Wonder-Under between the layers and then just stitched inside the design with my sewing machine. I like that it isn’t precise. The fabric is from vintage hankies I found a couple years ago in an antique store.
Any new projects in your kitchen? I’d love to hear about them!
I’m freshening up the kitchen this week. Would you care to join me? Each day I’ll be sharing a new kitchen project to spiffy things up. Today: new curtains. It’s more of a valance, except it’s not at the top of the window. So does that make it a cafe curtain? I have no idea. But I like it. :)
I was inspired by this bit of chicken scratch, but mine turned out totally different on the larger-scale gingham. I also added my own design above the pattern. I’m thinking about adding one more detail…
If you have any kitchen-y projects you’d like to share or any inspiration, please do! I’d like to post an inspiration round-up sometime this week.
Happy Monday!
