bloom report

We toasted the weekend with cinnamon rolls.  It was that kind of weekend- one so good that it must be celebrated with a rare treat. 

So here's the bloom report: most daffodils are up.  We are still waiting on the ones with the multiple tiny flowers.  Every day I become less and less convinced that they are coming, but I saw their picture on the bulb packaging, so I want to believe.  We'll see. 

Geraniums are on the front porch and looking fine.  They're even starting to bloom a bit.  I think that after a winter of sitting directly under a specially formulated grow light, the real sun will come as a bit of a disappointment. 

When I catch a glimpse of the pear trees in bloom out of the window, I instantly feel like I'm living in a magical garden.  I just love those trees.  I'm not sure that I will ever live in a house without pear trees, now that I know the magic. 

It's the hyacinths' freshman year and so far, so good.  I like the extra color they provide and also that they grow close to the ground.  They are a good companion for the leggy daffodils.  Steve's favorite hyacinths are the white ones.  Mine are the pink. 

The yard looks great after our weekend of hard work.  The weather was everything I could have hoped for and I even got to spend some quality time in the hammock with my library book. 

I've got an ambitious to-do list for the week that includes several fun sewing projects.  I'll be sure to share pictures along the way!

days go by

After seven loads of laundry and some heavy vacuuming and mopping, it's almost like they were never here.  

Steve and I ate dinner at the kitchen counter last night.  The dining room table would have just seemed too empty.   

There's nothing like a full table. 


After they left, I threw myself into full-on project mode (in between loads of laundry) and finished something that I'd been trying to work on for weeks now. 

After searching for a suitable wall calendar for the year, I came to the conclusion that there are no suitable wall calendars for sale anymore.  Unless you love dogs or Justin Bieber.  Then you should be set. 

But alas, I don't even like dogs and up until a few months ago I thought his last name was Beaver.  So you can see why neither of those were good options for me, personally. 

As luck would have it, shortly after I reached this sad calendar conclusion, I came across an amazing idea for making your own.  Design Mom, who is one of my favorite bloggers, made a calendar for her family and offered a full how-to on her blog. 

It's one of those concepts that is so basic, you wonder why you never thought of it before.  You cut a sponge into whatever size square you would like (mine is about 2").  Then you use watercolors and just stamp out the days.  Once it's dry, write in the month and the numbers and you're done! 

One of my goals for the project was to spend less than $3 on supplies (the dog calendar was $3).  I found an 8 pack of 14" x 22" white poster board at Walmart for $2.76.  I cut each sheet in half, so each month is 14" x 11".  Design Mom had these cool water colors in tubes, but I just used my good old Crayola tray.  I actually started out using regular paint and thinning it with water, but the colors weren't as sheer as I wanted them to be.  I found that painting the watercolor onto the sponge with a paintbrush worked quite well. 

Now I'm working on how to hang them.  If I had a super large bulletin board, I would hang them all up at once with my fabric covered push pins.  I like to be able to see more than one month at a time.  Last night, Steve and I propped March through May up on the coffee table and planned out our spring.  It was pretty awesome. 


Speaking of spring, it's here and I'm pumped.  We're planning on a full weekend of playing in the yard and enjoying the lovely weather.  I'll meet you back here on Monday and show you what's blooming!

what happens in Charlotte, stays in Charlotte

One of the highlights of the week, for me, has been watching the guys play a card game that is similar to War, but involves deciding which superhero could win in a fight.  There were some serious debates, but everyone could agree that the blind guy and the girl would lose to everyone.  What I want to know is how you even get to be a superhero at all if you're blind.  Come on. 

They stumble around with glasses and messy hair for half an hour while they eat cereal and gear up for the day.  Then they are off to the first course and I clean up the kitchen and prep for lunch.

They do make their own sandwiches. 

In between all the Frisbee golf and eating and basketball games, there is a lot of this.  I find it strange, but then I've never been a boy.

I also find things like this tower of snacks and prizes, all over the house.  They bought prizes for the winner of each course.  Prizes like a SpongeBob game and "Shark vs Octopus".  If you haven't seen it yet, apparently neither the shark nor the octopus actually win.  Disappointing.

They're leaving tomorrow and I'm almost a little sad.  As messy and hungry as they are, they are also very funny.  And it's a rare treat to have so much time to hang out with my little brother, who is one of my favorite guys in the world. 

Nine years ago, I was right where he is now- going on my last spring break trip with friends and looking ahead to lots of unknown.  Looking back, I'm so glad that we took those trips and made those memories then, while we could.  And when he's working an office job and has bills to pay and spring break trips are a thing of the distant past, I hope that he'll be able to remember this one fondly and say, "We'll always have Nationals." 

spring break 2011

On Sunday night, I baked two apple pies.  I also made a large potato casserole and a big pot of green beans while Steve grilled eight pounds of chicken.

Yesterday?  Well, between laundry and several appointments, I whipped up six feet of garlic bread, two lasagnas and a pan of brownies. 

This can only mean one thing. 


The boys are back in town.

That's right, it's spring break week and we are hosting my brother and four of his friends.  They are in the midst of a serious Frisbee golf tournament and can be seen around town wearing headbands, filthy sneakers, and t-shirts that say "Nationals".  And sometimes a wrestling singlet. 

I took pictures of the house before they arrived, just so I could remember what it used to look like.

I took pictures of the house after they had been here one night so that I could have them handy for the next time they ask to come visit. 

I'm a little bit kidding.

But not totally.

Please note in the picture above that one of them seems to have packed in a large plastic milk crate.

This afternoon I am making 18 beef enchiladas. 

One summer, I was a cook at Young Life camp for a month.  We had other staff that did the serving and cleaning up.  All I had to do was cook for 400 campers.  Looking back, it seems like kind of a posh job. 

I will say this though: they eat everything I put in front of them, no questions asked, and they always say thank you.  Which is more than I can say for the campers. 

Tomorrow I'll share a bit more of what we've been up to around here.  Spoiler alert: it will probably be boys wrestling and more food.  You can bet your bottom dollar that there's been no time for sewing. 

how to organize your recipes in style

On my list of goals for 2011 (I don't really do resolutions, but I like to have goals), two of the items were somewhat interrelated.  One goal was to get rid of the stacks of old magazines in our hall closet.  The other was to organize all of my recipes, a lot of which come from magazines. 

Once I completed the magazine task (I believe I was able to knock that one out while "watching" the Superbowl), I started on the recipes.  I divided them into piles, and then divided the piles into smaller piles.  Once I had them organized by type, I stapled them back to back and punched holes in each sheet. 

I used card stock to make dividers for each of the three binders I was planning to use.  The binders are labeled "meals", "sides", and "sweets", and each binder has five or six sections. 

Since I was using old leftover college binders and I planned to leave them out on the kitchen counter, I decided to make fabric covers for each one. 

I made a pocket for both the inside front and inside back so that I can slip in recipes that haven't been hole-punched yet, or are too small.  The binders originally had those plastic pockets, so I made my pockets the exact same size. 

I embroidered the labels onto the front of each binder and I think it makes them look cute and old fashioned, like maybe they belonged to someone's grandma. 

While making the covers, I was reminded of the old school days of book covers.  Remember how you had to cover your text books and some kids had fancy book covers with unicorns or teen idols on them?  My book covers were always made out of Food Lion bags.  And look at me now- I guess I showed them. 

So, my new recipe binders are now lined up on the counter between the toaster and the knife block, looking snazzy.  I wonder if I'll find myself cooking more, just because it's so easy to find the recipes...

I am toying with the idea of putting some binder covers in my shop, but not sure if anyone else would be interested.  What do you think?  Would you ever have a need for customized binder covers?  Does anyone even use binders anymore? 
This weekend is looking SUPER busy with wedding directing, teaching Sunday school, and a whole passel of house guests showing up on Sunday afternoon.  I think that this is the kind of weekend that you need a weekend to recover from.  Hope yours is a bit more relaxing!

March Mantle (not to be confused with March Madness)

You may remember my post about the challenges of creating a mantle display in January.  This year I found March almost equally challenging, due to a super-late Easter*.  It is way too soon to get out the bunnies and eggs, my friends. 

So, to come up with a mantle display that speaks to the current season, I have been brainstorming ideas about March.  Green, growing things, a few flowers, open and airy.  March, in a nutshell. 

Once I have a general theme in my head, I go around the house looking for things in the color scheme that I want.  I try to find items of varying heights and textures, to make it interesting. 

Just like last time, I'll give a quick rundown of what is up there and where it came from:

Four green books (which were picked for their color, but actually all happen to be great reads as well- A Common Life by Jan Karon; Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver; A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle; Food Rules by Michael Pollan)

Three small white pots with white flowers (out of a terrarium that came from Target years ago)

Tall metal flower candle holder (Walmart, also many years ago.  This was a gift from my little brother when he was probably 11ish.  We saw it together and I mentioned how much I liked it and he remembered to go back and get it for me for Christmas.  What a sweet kid :) )

Large canvas (Michaels) covered in green damask fabric (Fabric World, now out of business)

Green and gold painted ceramic flower pot (a hand painted gift) filled with dried hydrangea blooms (from our yard)

Several clear tea light holders (Pier One)

I love how different it looks in here now, with just a few quick changes.  The green on the mantle matches all the green I see outside and all of a sudden it looks like spring. 

I think that the urns fit in quite nicely.  I can't wait for the hydrangeas to start blooming again because I have used up every single dried bloom in the house and find myself wanting more.  They're like a lovely free vase filler. 

I'm almost done with my latest project and will be posting pictures of it tomorrow.  See you then!

*Have you ever wondered how to figure out which Sunday is Easter?  Easter Sunday is always the first Sunday following the Paschal full moon.  The Paschal full moon is the full moon that comes after the spring equinox, which is around March 21st.  Therefore, Easter call fall anywhere between March 22 and April 25, making this Easter (April 24) almost the latest possible. 

back to school

Happy March!  You know how I love the first of the month and March is certainly no exception, especially when there are things already blooming.  One of my favorite things about the first of the month is that it is a fresh start, so it is perfectly appropriate that today I went back to school. 

Now I know that "back to school" conjures up images of me, wearing a backpack, holding my lunchbox, and heading out for a day of new friends and teachers, but it was not that type of back to school.  I didn't have to dig out my backpack, but I did eat lunch out of my lunchbox.  But not because of the class.  It's kind of hard to explain what goes on around here during the day...

So.  I am taking an online class for independent business owners and it started today and I am super excited.  It's called Indie Business 3.0 and it's taught by some amazing crafty business owner-y type ladies and I can't wait to find out how they got where they are today. 

My first assignment was to make a fancy binder to keep my class notes in.  Any class that requires me to cut and glue colored paper for two hours gets an A+ from me. 

I am glad that I took the plunge and signed up for the course and I really think that it will be a step in the right direction for Plumfield Shop.  And it's exciting to think that I'll be working with people who are passionate about the things that I am passionate about and live all over the world!  I love the idea of international friends!

So what else have I been up to?  Springing up the house, for one.  Steve's mom gave us these lovely urns in January and today they got filled up with dried hydrangea blossoms.  The mantle is next and I will be sharing pictures of that next week sometime. 

This weekend I scored this amazing basket for the amazing price of $20!  I have been carrying it from room to room trying to decide where it should live first.  It makes me want to go to the farmers market and fill it with fresh flowers and veggies.  OR to pack up some chicken salad and grapes and cookies and take a picnic with Steve.  And I'm sure if it were colder out, I'd be dreaming of filling it with warm blankets and slippers and setting it right by the sofa.  I can already tell we're going to be great friends.

I'll leave you with a peek at my latest project.  It involves these three fabrics, some hand embroidery, and a whole lot of recipes.  Ponder that for a day or two and I will be back here to share the finished product!