Beauty Farming Life

On Thanksgiving, we went to 2nd Man's extended family for dinner.  When we got to their beautiful home, the hostess, "A", had this fun idea.  She put up this sign in a frame on a table.  It says "Welcome! Tell us what you are thankful for on a leaf and hang it on our tree." She had these leaves cut out and put in a can with some pens.  The leaves were different colors and there were also some pre-cut pieces of twine.   Then when people were done writing on their leaves, they hung them on the tree, as seen below.   Tree of Thanks Then after we ate dinner and dessert, she read all the leaves on the tree.  Lots of laughs (kids being thankful for Wii's and tablets) and lots of warm thoughts of family and love.  Definitely something memorable and we're thinking of doing something similar, but on a permanent basis, at the farm.

Vintage typesetter tray One of our dear friends asked me if I wanted this the other night when we all met for dinner.  She thought we could do something neat with it at the farm. Of course I said yes! These things are cool! For now I'll put it aside as a project for later when there is more time to just relax inside but my mind is wondering about the possibilities. Should I paint it? Leave it as is? Wallpaper the back side? Put glass over the front? Hang it on a wall? Lay it on a table? And then what to put in it?  I've seen shells, rocks, leaves, photos, trinkets, mementos, etc.  I am going to create a crafting space at the farm, and this could also be valuable to hold beads and thread and things like that. Decisions decisions.  Anyone seen any cool ones?

Muffins in an egg carton  I'm always on the lookout for neat ways of taking something ordinary and making it just a little bit 'extraordinary'.  I found this online and thought it was such a fun idea.  It's an egg carton, used as a presentation "box" for mini muffins!  Of course this one is decorated as well, looks like someone decorated it for Earth Day.  A very neat idea! I just found the picture randomly with a google search, so I'm not sure who gets the credit for this.  As always, if you know, let me know and I'll make sure they get credit and a link back to their website. In the meantime, I think I foresee some mini muffins brought to the office in an egg carton...courtesy of Seda Bolsa Farm! Enjoy!

  This is a neat craft project and it's pretty simple too.  I don't have step by step pictures, because I haven't made one yet, but the instructions are pretty clear.  You simply glue a teacup to a saucer using some glue... Lightly sand the bottom of the cup so that it will make a stronger bond to the saucer....  E6000 Craft Adhesive (available most anywhere) would be the best type of glue to use...glue the cup to the saucer, let set, and if putting a spoon on it, repeat steps for that as well.  Let dry for 24 hours (I know, waiting is the hardest part).  Then get a 1/2" copper cap, sand the top of it and glue it to the bottom of the saucer.  This must also wait for 24 hours, and be sure to use lots of glue, it's the part of the project that needs the strongest bond.  After the cap is good and stuck, insert a length of 1/2" copper pipe into the cap (this is what holds it on) or you can use a wooden dowel...

OK, so for the last almost 16 years, I've saved, for some odd and sentimental reason, every fortune that 2nd Man and I have ever received from our fortune cookies.  Hey, what can I say, we enjoy Chinese food! For awhile, I just dropped them into a small box we had, but after a couple of years, they started to overflow.  So then I started taking them, folded slightly... ...and dropping them through the top of this retro vase with a flower frog wire mesh top. Then I just take the jar, shake it a few times so that they fall down into it and... Jar of fortune cookie fortunes Voila!  15+ years later and we have this jar full of fortunes! Hmm...I wonder how many missed winning lotto numbers are in there? I figure it will make a great crafty project someday, but of course, I don't know what we'll do.  I guess I'll figure out something in time, not that I need to do it now.  I just thought it would be fun to blog ab...

Now that our monsoon season is over, let's get back to fun stuff, like these cool craft related items I found while out shopping yesterday.   For those with a TARGET store nearby, I thought I'd give you a heads up for these pretty neat craft items.  They are metal hang tags that could be used for any number of interesting craft projects or maybe even organizing.   Chalkboard metal tags Above is a set that is made with chalkboard paint so you can write on them with chalk and to label and/or identify something.  They have twine string to tie them onto whatever project you are using them for. Galvanized metal hang tags This set is galvanized metal, pretty neat and old fashioned looking.  You could of course write on them or better yet, use an adhesive label of some sort to identify whatever you use them for. Metal storage tin They are only $1.00 per package and with four per package, that's really only 25 cents per t...

So last year, I posted about some fortune cookie fortunes we were saving. We've also, in the last few years, started saving wine bottle corks. I found this cool vase (candle holder?) at a thrift store last year (and now it looks great in our apartment, since we're going for a mid-century vibe) and we just started tossing them in there (even bringing some home from dinners out). Wine Corks And now as they build up, I'll have to figure out a cool craft thing to do with them someday.  I know Colleen (a sweet, frequent commenter here) has mentioned she saves corks for crafts.  Maybe she will share her ideas?  We don't have a ton yet, maybe 3 or 4 dozen, but moving forward, do we save up for something big or do several small things? Anyone have any ideas for future projects?

During our unusually harsh Winter, I forgot to flip the birdbath over, it filled with water in the rain and then in our 15 degree weather... ...it broke.  And not in several large pieces where it could be glued together.  No, it had to be many small pieces.  I haven't thrown it away yet though, much to 2nd Man's dismay.  Maybe a future art project?  And speaking of, any suggestions for this part of it?  This is the base of the birdbath and it just seems too pretty to throw out. Any thoughts?

Have you had any of this yogurt?  It's SO good, our favorite yogurt right now. But the really cool thing about them is that they come in these wonderful, little glass jars... The yogurt is made in the US but the jars are actually produced in France. In France (most of Europe from what we've read) the yogurt almost always comes in a glass jar.  We have an aversion to getting rid of something like this (recycle of course, not trash, since that's what we do) but we just mean in general, getting rid of something that could be turned into something cool and useful. Oui Yogurt glass jars After several months of peeling off labels, running them through the dishwasher and putting them in the back of a cabinet, we've ended up with about three dozen (I told you we like the stuff, ha).    So I Googled "Oui glass jars" and wow, some people are amazingly creative.  LOTS of ideas.  I'm glad we've saved them.  I fear that eventually they'll...

Shhhh...this is a secret.  Don't want to have one of those " why do we need this?"  speeches conversations.  Yeah, yeah, I know I'm publishing it on a blog for the world to see, but 2nd Man never reads this, I think he's afraid of reading about himself, LOL! Anyway, I was driving home from work the other night and I saw this lonely set of shutters on the curb, calling my name. I immediately pulled over, snatched it up and put it in the back of the car (I felt like I was doing something wrong but hey, it was on the curb where they pick up  trash, what could I do?).  It just had the "look" that told me I could turn it into something we could use. I need to google it and see what others do with old shutters so I can have a "plan" in case it's found. There's bound to be something fun I can create!!

I mentioned in one of my pre-holiday posts that we were making several of our gifts.  Well, since the gifts have been given, I thought I'd share some pictures of what we did.  I'm sort of known among my friends and family for the mix in a jar recipes.  Most of the ones we use are our own recipes that we have tried out and made to use just for the jars.  Here is the dessert jar we made, it's a jar of chocolate chip cookie bar mix...dump the jar in a bowl, mix with some wet ingredients and you end up with a giant chocolate chip cookie/brownie hybrid. This one is our version of I guess what you could call something similar to hamburger helper.  This one is actually a goulash mix.  Just add hamburger, some tomatoes, water and this jar of mix and you've got a great meal ready to eat.  The one with the bow tie pasta in it was a special request from a dear friend who loves it, it's a turkey pasta dish. Once we got them done, we go...