Getting Saucy

Every year I try to get better at putting food by for the winter. 

We preserve what is in season for when it’s not, and let me tell you, pulling a jar of peaches out in the middle of winter is heavenly. This process is trail an error and each year I learn more. 

We are not big tomato sauce eaters, so that I buy sparingly by the jar from the store. Applesauce on the other hand is a hot ticket item. We all love it and Robert can punish a quart in one sitting.  This year I canned 11 pints and froze 4 quarts. Not nearly enough, but it will do and now I know next year that I should put up more. 

I have a love, hate relationship with canning. I love those gleaming jars on the shelf but hate my glass top stove. So this year the canning was done on the side burner of the propane grill we parked in the front yard for the day. 

I am sure that got my neighbors to speculating. And now that I have the heat source worked out for future endeavors I need to invest in a taller pot, hence the canned pints and frozen quarts. Give me a shout out if you come across one in your thrifting adventures. I know here in Maryland, home of the crab and accompanying giant crap pot there must be one out there for a steal. 

See, every year really is a learning experience.  I hope you are all getting saucy this fall too. 

Plastic Free Toilet Paper

I always thought I was uber crunchy. 

Compared to most folks I know I take it to another level. I only wash my hair once a week and make my own soap for goodness sakes. 

Then my mom got me this book, which lead me to this blog, and I was floored. I had nothing on these ladies. Both the blog and the book really had an impact on me and opened my eyes to how much waste there really is out there, and both offered some great solutions for doing your own little part to reduce it. 

Hint...recycling isn't the answer. 

I now bring my own jars to the grocery store for olives and bulk items and am always on the lookout for minimal and plastic free packaging. 

The wide mouth quart mason jar with plastic cap weighs exactly a pound,
making it super easy for sales clerks to  take off the tare weight. 

The other day we headed to Sams for toilet paper (sometimes frugality wins) and imagine my surprise when I found this. 

Plastic free toilet paper made from 80% recycled material. GOOOOOO Sams. I was impressed, so impressed I felt the need to blog about it. 

What can you do to reduce your impact on the earth? I challenge you to read the book, peruse the blog and take away a few good tips. 

Dumpster Diving

I am a shameless dumpster diver. They just call my name to take a peek inside and see what kinds of treasures lurk within. 

Future Dumpster Diver

Because you know, it really chaps my ass when people throw things away they could easily recycle back into their community. Especially when there are so many great resources like Freecycle, Craigslist, and online Facebook community yard sale pages. Or you could just leave the goods on your porch with a free sign. 

So when my community HOA put out the yearly dumpster for bulk pickup I did a couple of hooray fist pumps. This year I pulled out 3 perfect terra cotta pots and a set of plain pine Ikea bed slats.

 

Robert and Lenora got to work building me a new planter for my back porch container garden with the bed slats. Just look at that team work. Arent they lovely. I can't wait to fill that planter with some good eats next summer. 

The Green Johanna

I would like to introduce the newest member of our family....The Green Johanna.

Isn't she swell. I had been on the hunt for the perfect urban composter and I think I finally found it. Since our entire back yard is deck, she is currently living 4 doors down at my moms, but still close enough that I just walk over once or twice a week to drop off my scraps. She is a hot composter, rodent proof and can eat anything, meat and dairy included.

So far I love her, but since this is my first attempt at composting, I am still working on striking the right balance of greens and browns. I think we are low on browns so I have been stalking my neighbors tree, waiting for those leaves to fall. 

I will admit, it is a little nastier than I anticipated but its working and I was even excited to see some black soldier flies living in it. Apparently they are food garbage eating machines. 

Now if only I had some chickens to eat those fly grubs.......Wonder if my mom would let me keep a few of those in her yard also? 

Strawberry Season

I almost missed the strawberry picking season this year. A short two weeks and its gone. 

As luck would have it we came home from vacation and I was able to squeeze in a few hours of hard core picking on Memorial Day Monday with my neighbor. Robert was the lucky sitter of 4 kids while we did some serious squatting between the rows. My glutes still hurt.

Mount Airy You Pick is 5 minutes from my house and a wonderful family run operation. I was disappointed to hear that next year would probably be the last as they are ready to retire and have no one to take over. It just makes me sad and further fuels my dream of a little plot of land with a garden, some chicks and a safe place for Lenora to run wild in the wild.

Between the 2 of us we picked 36 lbs. Nothing tastes as good as a fresh vine ripe sun warmed strawberry. You just can’t beat it.

I froze most to use through the year and made a bowl of homemade whipped cream for topping the rest.

What a perfect day, great company and strawberries. 

Soap Love

I am still sewing. I promise. It's just everything I make recently is a Christmas gift and I can't share my projects until I share the gift.

So I will share this with you instead.

(Lavender soap with dried lavender buds) 

A couple of years ago I took a class with Tracy Adams at the John Campbell Folk School on soap making. If you ever get a chance to go to the Folk School take it. It is a truly wonderful place to learn all sorts of traditional skills.

(Citrus soap with bergamot, sweet orange oil and calendula flowers) 

Since then, a couple of times a year I get to work making soap. It is pretty much the only soap my family uses and I give a bunch of it out at the holidays. I skip all the dyes, colorants and fragrance oils which can irritate your skin and use only essential oils and natural ingredients. 

This year a couple of my gal friends and I got to work mixing up some amazing bars of soap.

(Creamy mousse soap with patchouli and balsam peru essential oils) 

It really isn't that hard once you learn the basic process and it's tons of fun dreaming up new flavors.

There are great resources online, just google, and wonderful books like the one below to get you started. 

(Pink salt soap and The Soapmaker's Companion) 

The Holy Grail: Day 7

I saved the best find for my final day of a week of thrifting reveals. Last weekend I had an hour before my brother showed up for dinner, and since he is always late I figured I had close to 2 hours. I was bored so off to the Goodwill Lenora and I went. Its really dangerous around these parts since they just opened one a few miles from my house. In the beginning the pickings were slim but not anymore. On this trip my eyes caught the below beauties. This is one of my favorite Pyrex colors and patterns. Behold...a pristine set of pink gooseberry casserole dishes. No lids but I picked up a stray small Pyrex lid a few weeks ago just in case, so now I only have 2 more to find.

Day 7: Pink Gooseberry Pyrex Casserole Dishes

Price: 10$ (a little steep in my opinion for Goodwill, but there was no way these babies were getting away)

Ladylike Linens: Day 6

Vintage linens hold a soft spot in my heart, for they are beautiful, old, glorified textiles. I love their patterns, colors and quirkiness not found in your everyday Bed Bath and Beyond.

Until now I have not been too lucky in the towel department at my local thrift store. Then the other day it was as if the heavens parted and I hit the mother load. Pink and green fluffy towels galore, plus a sheet and some pillowcases. I am in love.

I always look for these with the idea that I will turn them into these sweet vintage towel cosmetic bags I found on flickr. Great Christmas gift ideas. Maybe for this years 100% handmade Christmas, that is if I ever get around to it.

Or I could turn them into really neat retro baby bibs like the Liberty Bibs on The Purl Bee.
But then I am overcome by their beauty and the thought of cutting them sends shivers down my spine. So for now I will stack them neatly in my closet. I really want the set of pink towels to be Lenora's. There are the perfect little lady like size for her tiny toes.

Ahhhh, lovely sheets. What shall I make with you?

Farm Boy Fetch Me That Pitcher: Day 5

I love a good drink. Not of the booze variety. You know, the whole pregnant, nursing baby, mom thing gets in the way of my boozing these days. But I do love a nice tall glass of iced tea. You know whats better than a nice tall glass of iced tea....a pretty pitcher to serve it in. A pretty Pyrex pitcher at that. I found the pair of these playing nicely together on the shelf at my local Goodwill.

Not a week later I found their little sister at another local Goodwill. Imagine that. Can you believe they all had the original tops. What a find. Go me.

Day 5: 3 Pyrex Lemon Pitchers

Price: $3 each for the 2 large sizes and $5 for the small one

I sometimes wonder where they come up with their pricing methodology at Goodwill.

Bottoms Up: Day 3

In case you have not already noticed I am a sucker for dishes, mainly Pyrex and Fiesta. Now and then something else will just beg me to take it home. Such is the case with these glasses. There were five of them on the shelf and I grabbed every one. They are in perfect condition and really pretty shades of yellow, peach and green. Not quite sure where in the cupboards I will fit them but I am sure we can make room.

Day 3: Vintage drinking glasses.

Price: .50 cents each

It is a Sickness: Day 1

The thrifting gods have been very kind to me lately. When my husband is out of town I tend to frequent the thrift stores more often than usual, and since he has been gone for about 6 weeks, lets just say I have been way more often than I should. But when you are on a roll like I have been its just so dang hard to stop.

For the next 7 days I am going to share with you a week of my recent thrifting finds. Hold on to your seats, this is going to be good.

Day 1: 1960 Promotional Pyrex Fruit Cinderella Bowl

Price: $6

I damn near squealed in the store when I saw this baby.
Then when I got home and googled to find the pattern, I found this baby. Do you see it? Makes me love the bowl even more. I thought about gifting it, but not any more. She is all mine.

Something Nice To Rest My Bum On

My MIL gave us a beautiful farm house style kitchen table when she moved but it didn't come with any chairs. I knew I wanted something a little different and decided on picking up random chairs in my thrift store travels to create a kind of eclectic look. Fast forward weeks later and we were still sitting on cheap folding chairs. On a whim I dragged my husband to this antique store and this antique store hoping to find at least one chair for the table, all the while he complained we must make it back home before the Nebraska game started.

At our first stop I came across this little gem and loaded her up in the pickup. The color was perfect but I was not a fan of the Rachel Ashwell shabby chic cushion. I knew I could do better.
So I used this quilt as you go tutorial to stitch up a new cushion. All the fabric and batting was from my scrap bin so I didn't spend a dime more than what the chair cost me. A little tip, if you are marking the center of your batting for your first piece of fabric do not use a pencil. It will bleed through the fabric and you will have to spend hours searching the internet for ways to remove it. Thankfully a soak in rubbing alcohol and a spin in the wash did the trick.
I love how it turned out. The butterfly is from a vintage pillowcase, as well as some of the other pieces. Its nice to know my bum will have a very fashionable place to rest.
I have another chair I found for the table I plan to do the same for. Its a big king style chair for the hubby and he has requested all black, white and grey fabrics. Ill share when I am finished. I just love how you can marry quilting with home decorating.

Presto Pesto

I made pesto this weekend. A ton of it. Well maybe not a ton, but 7 half pint jars of it, and considering how many basil leaves that took I am calling it a ton. Just look at all that lovely green goodness. I planted 4 basil plants this year and had no idea just how much they would grow. Since I am trying to make a more concerted effort to know where my food comes from and eat less processed I decided to make pesto and freeze it for use all winter. I already have another huge batch which I froze in ice cube trays then popped out into a freezer bag. This batch went into wide mouth canning jars. I am trying really hard to reduce my dependence on plastic baggies. I feel horrible every time I throw one of those little buggers in the trash or recycling bin. Hopefully it will turn out well and the jars will not crack. They are freezer safe, so says Ball, and I did not fill them all the way to the top, so we shall see.

I could eat buckets of this stuff, on pizza or just plain ole whole wheat pasta. Maybe next year I will try my hand at real canning. I would love to can some big juicy Maryland summer tomatoes to use year round. Each step I take to eat better and reduce what we throw away just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Sew Not a Sewing Project

Sew I have been working on a project of the non sewing kind. In an effort to reclaim some of my living room from the massive piles of baby stuff accumulation I came up with this. I picked this little dresser up on Craigslist for a little more than a song. At first I thought I would just clean her up and use her as is but when I got it home she turned out looking a little more orangy than I would have liked, and the top needed refinishing anyway. She also needed a little TLC, so Robert performed some minor surgery on her undercarriage to get her in good working order.


A few coats of paint and some new knobs later and here is she, in all her glory in my living room. I admit at first I was kinda skeptical about a purple dresser in the living room but it works. She sits in a corner that just collected dust tumbleweeds anyway and is small enough to look like she belongs. Plus I can change the baby right on top without bending over and all the crap is hidden in the drawers.

She also matches this super awesome rug I just picked up on Overstock. Its a psychedelic explosion in my living room and it hides all the dog hair. Is it strange I just called a dresser a she this whole post? Happy home improvements to you all.