Random things to share

Here are some random things I wanted to share.



A chocolate fountain in action.




My shiny vintage canisters. Flour, sugar, coffee, and tea. (the coffee holds hot chocolate) I used Bar Keeper's friend on them to get them all nice and shiny. Love it!




Silos. Because every time I see one it makes me happy.





My dad's bluebird house and a bluebird sitting on top. I distorted the photo a bit and I like it.





My spinning card holder. I got this from the clean house yard sale, it was white. I spray painted it black and I like it. This way I can just grab what I need without having to sift through my cards. Each section is dedicated to a type of card..blank, thanks, birthday, congratulations, etc.




A while back I organized our linen closet. I just hated how bunched up sheets and stuff would get and it seemed like we had a gazillion towels and stuff. So, I consolidated. Donated and gave away a few things, but really just organized it all. And made room for more stuff.



You can see the top shelf has our queen size air bed rolled up nicely, with a brown down comforter and a spare pillow up there with it. The second shelf is dedicated to white hand towels/wash cloths, and other hand towels/wash cloths I couldn't part with. The third shelf has pillow cases, flat sheets, and fitted sheets. The fourth has a bin with extra items, like extra shampoo/soap, then in the middle is a first aid kit, and the other bin has travel sized items and things for guests to use. The 5th shelf has bathmats, a small rug, and some table cloths. And the very bottom section has a bed spread, another comforter, and a pack of new sheets I couldn't get rid of but may find someone to give them to (they are jersey pink full size).

It could be more organized but it is way better than it was before, thankfully. And it made me realize it's probably time to invest in a couple packs of just regular sheets. I am not sure why we have such mismatchy sheets..


Guacamole is fun to make. I made some from scratch a while back and just wanted to share this photo.





And here's a photo of some tissue poms I made for Paiges' graduation party..it just started raining when this photo was taken so they didn't last long but they were pretty neat if I do say so myself.

Downtown Roanoke, VA

Last weekend we were in Roanoke, VA for my husband's cousin's graduation from high school, and a family reunion. While there we scoped out the downtown area and visited the Roanoke City Market. The farmers' market in Roanoke is one of the oldest ones in the state of VA (it started in the 1880's), so it was neat to be there on a Saturday afternoon and see everything in action.



The sidewalks were all lined up with different tables from different farms or tables people set up with their own garden stuff or gift items. So, walking down the sidewalk there were shops on one side and the tables on the other..it was neat! I loved the set up like that, it was much better than just having an empty parking lot with tables set up. This was cool because you could go inside shops as you were "shopping" at the market.

We picked up some bing cherries which were really really good. And we took a bunch of photos.





There were all sorts of shops and restaurants that looked cool that we may need to check out in the future. Like Thelma's Chicken & Waffles. We did peek inside Ladles & Linens which was a really cool specialty kitchen shoppe.




There were so many colorful heaps of fruit and veggies & other things all over.














And we also drove around the Warehouse district to get some cool shots. I think warehouse districts are my favorite in every city.

DIY Kid's Toy

I worked on a little DIY project yesterday I had been thinking about for a while.

Daniel brought home some Voss water a while back and I knew exactly what to do with the empty bottles.




I saw the project on pinterest before but every time in the past I have seen Voss water bottles I have thought about doing this project. This one on pinterest finally made me go for it.

The Voss water Daniel brought home was in smaller bottles, which was just perfect for me. I took 2 bottles and once they were empty I let them dry out and removed the labels from the bottles.

During my last few trips to and from my parents' house, I had collected some little trinkets. I also found some tiny things to fit inside the bottles around my home, too. I collected a penny, a button, a mini pig, and some other little trinkets.



Last night I assembled the bottles. I filled 15 trinkets in each bottle (making sure each item was different in each bottle). Then, I filled it mostly with rice and put the cap back on and shook it up. The point of this is to look for the items, kind of like a game of I Spy. (There are actual toys like this I have seen in the stores called 'I Spy', but they are filled with small beads instead of rice.)

So, I made one for my nephew Joseph and one for my nephew Adam. Some of the trinkets actually belonged to them, which is funny, but that makes it even more fun. They will recognize some of the items in the bottle.

For the game, you can look for each individual item, or you can look for certain characteristics, like colors or types of items. It's really just a fun little identification/discovery game. And would be great for long car rides or if a kid is just plain old bored.

I plan on giving these to my nephews when we go camping in a couple of weeks. It's a surprise and I think they are really going to like them.




Here is the list of what's in Joseph's container:

scorpion
dice
heart
cow
pig
paper clip
penny
rock
button
safety pin
bird
lego
shark tooth
wheel
marble



And this is what's inside Adam's container:

cow
pig
macaroni wheel
bird
penny
paper clip
button
heart
star
safety pin
lego
rock
shark tooth
marble
scorpion




I am going to wrap these up and include a tag with the contents. I will probably glue/modge podge the contents tag to the cap since it is big enough. I may even put their name on the top of each one so there is no fighting over which one belongs to each of them. Also, the caps are super glued so they can't open them and spill rice everywhere.

Best of all, this project was free! It was fun searching for the little trinkets, but everyone always has little things like that hanging around. The rice we already had, and the water bottles would have just been thrown away after we drank the water anyway, so it was a great thing to make. I hope they like it!

Homemade Cheesecake

During the strawberry class I took last month at Miller's farms, Jo Miller taught us how to make cheesecake. Yesterday, my friend David and I went to the Greek Festival here in Richmond (we went together last year too), and after it was over we came back to my place to try our skills at making this cheesecake.


We started out with the graham cracker crust. Mixed the crumbs with butter and sugar and patted them all around a buttered up spring form pan:



Here is the crust in the pan:




Separating the eggs:



Mix sugar, vanilla, and egg yolks:




Mix the above with cream cheese:



And then mix all of that with heavy cream:




Beat the egg whites:



Until they are fluffy:



Fold the egg white fluff into the cheesecake filling mixture:



Pour mixture into pan:



Baked it at 325 degrees, and for an hour. As soon as I put our cheesecake in the oven, I threw a couple handfuls of ice cubes in the bottom of the oven for the steam trick. This helps prevent the cake from collapsing or cracking so much when it's done.

After the hour of baking, turn off the oven and keep the cake in for a half an hour.

Here is our finished cheesecake straight from the oven:




And here it is on a crystal platter for serving:



Success!

Actually, we made a mistake or two.

You can see in the finished photos that the cake is browned on top. That's because the egg white fluff wasn't folded in completely, I guess. At least, that's my conclusion. Whatever the case, we put the cheesecake in the fridge over night and today when I sliced it, it was just as firm as cheesecakes are supposed to be. So, it was still a success.

We did fail at making strawberry sauce for it, but I am glad we didn't pour it all over the cake...we'll have to try making that again some other time.



And, in honor of the Greek Festival yesterday, here is a shot of the flag of Greece:

Tissue Paper Pomander

A friend of mine asked me if I knew how to make tissue paper pomanders. Over the weekend I gathered up some tissue paper I had and gave it a try.

I found some really good tutorials online, like this one here on Martha Stewart's website. The instructions are very easy to follow. The first couple tries of mine were with random colored tissue paper and they didn't come out all that great, so there are no photos of those. Then, on Saturday I picked up a couple packs of red tissue paper from Target for 99cents and made this one:



It took a little while to grow on me and I had to fluff it out several times to get the look I was going for. It's there now, I believe. I like it!


These would be excellent for party decoration or decor in a kids' room. And they are so cheap to make (it only took 8 sheets of tissue paper to make this one, and I bet you can make various sizes if you cut the tissue paper.) I love how easy and simple it was to make. It really can make a huge difference in party decoration.



I already had floral wire and scissors on hand. I used the scissors to round the ends of the tissue before I unfolded it. I like that this one pops and is bright and red.

The Sunshine Makers

When I was a kid, we had a vhs tape with some different old timey cartoons on it. For some reason, I watched it a lot and my favorite cartoon from the video was The Sunshine Makers (by Van Beuren animation studio).



It has been years since I have seen it. The tape was probably thrown out or something in the early 90's. All I know is I watched The Sunshine Makers so many times and I still remember the music and songs from it to this day.

A few years ago I googled the storyline but could not come across anything on the internet about it. Today for some reason I googled the storyline again and I came across a thread on metafilter discussing it. Some of the people there provided links, like this one here on Amazon.

The Amazon listing is for a dvd, but it must be similar to the vhs tape we had. Some of the other old cartoons on there I vaguely remember.

The Sunshine Makers is public domain now. I found out today that it is from 1935. It's about little happy guys who battle with little sad guys. In the end, everyone is happy.

It's creepy watching it now. While the cartoon is only about 7 minutes long, it's weird watching it and thinking of all the themes and other things going on. Here is a link to it on youtube, and here is a link to it on archive.org.

My cheery little cherry tomato plant

I have a cheery little cherry tomato plant! I am so happy about it. I got it over a month ago and planted it in a big pot and it has been getting a ton of sunshine on our back steps. Before I got it, my dad told me everything to do to ensure it would flourish. I got it a little early and took a chance (because I was really excited about planting/growing one), but it was still a little early and there were still a few threats of frost..risky!




Here is my cherry tomato plant on May 7th (3 weeks ago tomorrow). There were already tiny little yellow blossoms on it then.




and here it is just over a week ago:




See this cute little cherry tomato peeking out??





Look at my plant now (this was this morning):




And check out these guys!



and these!




I can't wait until they turn red!