Nearly Knee High

The garden is growing! The heat wave that is upon us is doing wonders for most of my garden.

One of the tomato plants is outgrowing its cage and another is quickly following suit. I really wish I remembered which tomato plant was which! Here you can see the flowers and a single tiny tomato!

The pumpkins are doing really well too; the leaves are getting quite large and there are even blooms and those swirly things pumpkins get!

Overall, the watermelon plants are doing pretty good. At least one, maybe two plants fell victim to the horrible fungus that spread from the pumpkins.

The corn I planted especially for my father really picked up the pace this last week. I didn't think the stalks would be "knee high by the fourth of July" like the old saying goes because of the cold wet spring, but they are nearly there!

A downside to the heat for the garden is that my lettuce and spinach is bolting! I am hurrying to eat as much of it as I can before it is all gone. I hope everybody's crops are doing just as well as mine. Happy Growing!

Lots of Popcorn!

On Tuesday I invited friends over to watch TiMER, a romantic comedy I have been waiting months to see, and made lots of popcorn for everyone to eat.

There were three varieties: Buttery, Parmesan and Spice, and Chocolate and Pink. For each type I started with air popped popcorn.

For the Buttery Popcorn I drenched it in melted butter and sprinkled on salt.

The Parmesan and Spice Popcorn was a modified version of this Spicy Popcorn from Lisa's Kitchen. I think I over did it on the Parmesan and didn't add any amchoor because I didn't have any. I had never heard of amchoor before, I am quite intrigued by it and will have to try some soon.

The Chocolate and Pink Popcorn followed this Pink Popcorn recipe from Erin Cooks. I obviously used chocolate for most of the coating; there were some technical difficulties while trying to melt the white chocolate... it turned into a chunky paste instead of becoming smooth. I tried to make do, but it just wasn't working. If you try this recipe I definitely suggest you avoid using cheap white chocolate chips.

There were a few other popcorn recipes I wanted to try, but didn't. Maybe sometime soon I will try these: Maple Bacon Popcorn from Eat Make Read and Buttery Cinnamon Sugar Popcorn from Purple Foodie.

Hanging Pom Pom Cat Toy

About a month ago I got a kitty. His name is Winslow. You can see more pictures of him here.

This weekend I made pom poms to hang from Winslow's cat tree:

I used rainbow colored yarn and made sure to tie them extra tight. They are attached to the cat tree with cup hooks.

While I was attaching the pom poms Winslow had to come find out what I was doing. Here he is sniffing and then licking his new toy.

A bow tie for my father.

I made this bow tie for my dad for Father's Day.

My sister and I were recently looking through some old photos and came across these pictures of my dad and aunt. Don't they look adorable?

Inspired by the photo of my father, I decided that I needed to make him a bow tie for Father's Day even though he isn't a tie sort of dad. I used Burda Style's David Pattern and attached Velcro to the back so he wouldn't have to tie it.

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures before tying the bow and tying it was a bit of a fiasco so you only get to see what it looks like tied.

I also made another stitched paper bag as wrapping. Here is the full bag:

And here is a detail shot of the stitching:

The stitching isn't very straight, but it still looks good. I think the slightly uneven stitching gives these bags more charm. If you want to make your own stitched paper bags, I have a tutorial you can follow.

Happy Father's Day!

Padded Handle

I made a padded handle for my sister's tennis ball caddy using fabric I had on hand, some batting and leftover binding.

Here is a detail shot:

I think the triangles look like paper airplanes, tiny pastel paper airplanes.

A Beaded Necklace

I made a necklace with some of the leftover beads from this bracelet.

There are two more pictures of the necklace on my flickr here and here. I still have tons of beads left! What else should I make?

Cinnamon Rhubarb Bread

Over the weekend I made this cinnamon rhubarb bread from a recipe I found on use real butter.

The rhubarb was from my garden and needed to be used up quickly, this recipe was just the ticket! In my search for a recipe it seemed like everything called for strawberries too. Why are there so few rhubarb recipes that don't have strawberries?

When making this I added about half a cup more rhubarb than was called for in the recipe to use it up! I also had to add some extra cinnamon (about half a teaspoon more) to the batter and decided to pass on the sugar topping. It tastes great!

Vintage Finds

Some vintage Etsy finds:

Top Row:

 Vintage Glass Jar from Bird in Hand

5 Small Vintage Keys from Spacejams Vintage

Whiskey Tool box from Hindsvik

Middle Row:

Industrial Divided Milk Crate from AMradio

Vintage Dance Card Pencils from Beau Papier

Vintage Blue Ball Canning Jar from Adventures In Vintage

Bottom Row:

Turquoise Electric Fan from Finding Fabulous

Vintage Ampersand Milk Bottle from Modish Vintage

Six Vintage Bookends from The Relic Trail

Patterned Envelope

I made another free printable for you!

This patterned envelope is inspired by some vintage envelopes my grandma gave me years ago.

These envelopes are so fantastic, a lovely surprise for whomever receives a letter in them. The one I designed for you has a blue star pattern and prints on a standard 8.5" x 11" piece of paper. All you need to do once it is printed is cut, fold, and glue the flaps together.

view blue star envelope
download blue star envelope.pdf