Animal Dishes

I think once you have 3 of anything, you can call it a collection.  This is the start of my animal dish collection, I guess.


This little piggy dish I found at the same estate sale as the pretty plates, and it was half off!  I love the little features and that little tail ^^  I keep it on top of my dresser and put all my hair bands in it.  I have to justify my random thrift purchases :)


I really debated about getting this rabbit...thing (at aforementioned estate sale).  I think the little rabbits are just so cute, but I couldn't figure out what exactly I should do with it (I assumed it was a candle holder or something).  I must have picked it up and put it down at least 5 times while I was walking around that sale.  Fortunately, I had this little white ceramic bowl that I got for free from someone getting rid of things at work.  I didn't even think of these two going together until I brought it home, and the base of the bowl fit into the candle slot.  Perfect as a little catch-all.


This was a different estate sale purchase, but I almost didn't buy it.  I missed it in the first once-over and was just going to pick out my sewing patterns and leave, but I happened to see it when I went back to look at some cooking utensils.  It's just a kitschy little hen on basket jar, but it's really sweet and simple.  It's got a really nice heft to it, and I am using it to hold my pins instead of keeping them in a canning jar lid (which I have knocked over onto the floor before!).

Anyone else have a fun/quirky/unique collection?

Boliche (Stuffed Beef Roast)

We get pretty adventurous trying to make new recipes in order to find new favorites. This makes a really delicious roast (plenty of leftovers!) but it takes too much time to prepare on a regular week night. 


The well-loved cookbook.  You can tell by the mysterious food stain on the edges of the page.  This is American Home Cooking and it has some pretty Americana classic-type recipes as well as more modern recipes.  What's Americana? Think: a whole section devoted to game and venison as well as the classic meats.


Boliche (or bo-LEESH as we are saying it) is a beef round roast stuffed with a mixture of sauteed pork chorizo, bell peppers, and onion.  It's simmered for a few hours in a tomato sauce and stock and served with artichoke hearts.


My first time making popovers! They're kind of amazing to watch rise in the oven.  Obviously, I have a little to learn about making them because some of them didn't rise in the middle, still tastes amazing though.


And the finished meal: marjoram popovers, boliche, and some caramelized garden carrots to round out the plate.  I don't know if it's because we grew the carrots ourselves, but cooked over medium heat in butter, they come out really sweet and really really tasty.

Coffee Cup Cuffs

I did a bunch of variations on the re-useable cotton coffee cup sleeve because STITCH was trying to sell these for a while at our local coffee shop.  I still have these 8 at home to try and sell next year, perhaps.  I'm not much of a coffee drinker myself, but I would definitely carry one of these around for my occasional hot chocolate or hot tea :)



It was actually really fun making up all of these because it's like making a bunch of tiny swatches that are useful!  I have this beautiful book of crochet motifs that I picked up at my local used book store, and I tried out a few different patterns from there.  I even tested my technical skill with some Tunisian crochet and some crossover/front post stitches.

Garden photos, Part 1

We lose our garden today :( Technically, it was only kind of ours, but it gets turned over to a new person tomorrow.  It's part of a group of plots held by the management of the apartment complex, and the plot can be kept as long as the person still lives at the complex.  But our contact is moving out.  We have since tried to transplant some of our vegetables into pots, but it was fun while it lasted :)








I never knew how pretty rosemary is when it blooms.

Running Mate Key Minder

I am very minimalist when I run.  Nothing in my pockets and my ipod, when I have it, is usually clipped onto my shorts so nothing is really bouncing around (or can bounce right out of my pocket). 


I used to have one of these that I think I picked up at a 5K as a freebie from Reebok, but I lost it and can't seem to find a replacement or anything similar.






The supplies:
-A scrap (<0 .125=".125" cloth="cloth" duck="duck" nylon="nylon" of="of" something="something" sport="sport" sturdy="sturdy" yds="yds">
-Velcro aka Hook and Loop closure in generic brand
-Twill tape/grosgrain ribbon/bias tape

I made a pattern! Please excuse the roughness of it as I am neither an artist nor a seamstress.  Everything I know about sewing is pretty much based off of my middle school home economics experience.

Download from Flickr and print! I believe it's the Large 1024 size that gives the right pattern size as long as you don't fit/scale it to the page when you print. Cut on the outside of the thick black line (pattern piece on the left).

1) Cut out 2 pieces from your fabric.  You will only work with one of the pieces until step 5.

2) Make a self fabric tube, about 1.5 times the length of the middle portion of the pattern piece.  Fold a strip of fabric in half and sewing up one edge and turning inside out, placing the seam in the middle of one side, then hem the short edges of the tube by folding over twice.  Sew a rectangle of Velcro onto one end of the tube as long as the top piece of the pattern plus an extra 1/2-1 inch.  Stitch on in box shape as shown.

3) Sew on the other side of the Velcro on the top edge and bottom edge as shown.

4) Sew on the other end of your fabric tube (opposite end of the Velcro end) to the box indicated at the bottom fold.  Wrong side of tube (side with seam) should be facing right side of piece.

5) Now, sew together 2 pieces of pattern wrong sides together.

6) Take your twill tape and bind very bottom edge (thick edge in drawing) to enclose raw edges.

7) Fold up at bottom fold and add binding to all edges.

Hopefully those instructions are fairly clear!  Please post a picture if you make one :)

To use:

Unlatch Velcro and feed self fabric tube through laces of shoe.  Velcro to top flap, insert keys/money and latch Velcro to bottom flap.  Go run :)

Thrifty Plate Score!

Can I just brag about these amazing plates that N and I found at an estate sale?  Ok, so they don't match everything (like the perennial favorites, the everyday whites), but what are a couple of non-fancy college kids to do?  Besides, who are we really trying to impress here?

We had a crazy experience getting these plates.  We were on our way back from Target and Home Depot, when I saw a neon poster tacked up to a telephone pole "ESTATE SALE 12 BLOCKS".  Quite possibly the least descriptive sign ever.  No arrows, no address.  Fortunately, there were more signs as we kept going back towards home, which culminated in us crossing over 3 lanes so we could make a last minute right hand turn to follow the signs.  We found it mostly without incident after that.  There was 30 minutes left in the sale, so we quickly ran through the house looking at random things.  I found some little kitschy things, and by the time we were done looking at everything else, we ended up in the kitchen.  We were on the look out for a few spare plates since we were constantly having to wash the 2 plates we own, but somehow we managed to come home with this whole set.  Mostly because they wouldn't let us break up the set.

These are Mikasa plates from their Galleria collection.  Mikasa plates go for at least $20 each.

We got this set of 6 dinner plates, 6 salad plates, 6 bowls, 6 mugs, and one serving bowl for $20 total.  I was super excited about the new dishware.  Probably more excited than anyone should be about dishware.



We always feel a little fancy when we use these :)



Plus, a silly thing, but those little felt spacer things came with the plates which keeps them from scratching each other.

This is basically my crowning thrifting achievement.  I keep going to various sales hoping to make another amazing find like this :)

Anyone else get crazy excited about thrifting?

Fresh Peach Cake

Yum, this is seriously a sweet taste of summer.  Plus, this is the perfect excuse to treat myself to some of those delicious smelling local peaches that I always catch a whiff of at the grocery store.  I'm the crazy person at the store who puts her nose into the peaches to sniff them.  See? This is actually why you wash your produce when you bring it home from the store.  (I'm only kind of kidding, I try not to touch all the peaches.)





Seen on One Sheepish Girl via Ina Garten

I placed the peaches on top in a radiating star design since I omitted the nuts on top (I hate nuts on or in cakes) and covered with an excess of cinnamon sugar :)  The sugar makes this amazing crusty top to the cake when it bakes.

Cautionary note: I'm not sure if I made my cake differently, but the peaches stay pretty moist, so definitely eat when it comes out of the oven :)  At least refrigerate right away because it's going to get soggy and mold really quickly.