Maybe There Are Some Things I Just Can’t Make Better At Home

These are homemade “Mello-creme pumpkins.”  They are very cute in their pumpkin-y plumpness, aren’t they?  And don’t they have a rustic, artisanal quality rarely to be found in their bland, mass-produced cousins?  These are rich in butter, sweet with best quality corn syrup and fine white sugar, boiled gently, hand-molded, and ridged with a bamboo [...]

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Crafthope Sock Monkey, Bicultural Ann, and the Legend of Zelda Costume

Mr. Stilton, Jr.,  here is our contribution to Crafthope #4.  We had a hard time boxing him up–I’d never made a sock monkey before this project.  Curiously, while I was making the cheerfully striped Mr. Stilton, Sr., (he of the mind-bendingly long limbs), and his little friend, I discovered that everyone in my household wanted [...]

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If I Post Once This Month, Can It Still Be Blogtoberfest?

This picture, of course, is from September–La Shanah Tovah, y’all–when we celebrated the new year with round challah, apples and honey, Cornish game hens, and the Rosh Hashanah Cake for which we bought the beehive-shaped bundt pan.  I know that Unclutterer frowns on having any kitchen item which serves only one purpose, but I love digging out this [...]

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Orderly Transition of Power Salad–with homemade chutney!

Despite the scorching heat (we were really pleased when it only got up to 82 F in the upstairs today!), I stood over the stove stirring a pot of boiling fruit, because I had a mad craving for Coronation Salad, or my determinedly Paleo-Fabian version thereof, and the price of store-bought chutney is a scandal.
Coronation [...]

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Steampunkery: Robot Children

Little Sunshine is designing and executing a series of redwork robots (say:  roe-buts) for me.  She does wonderful, evocative line drawings of robots and cityscapes–I have a folder full of them.  They translate beautifully into redwork, and she’s getting to be a very skillful needlewoman.  If you’d like a copy of one of these, drop me [...]

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Gold Diggers of 2009

Here’s Frankie again–with her new basket, bell, and flower.  I decided against the $60 basket at the bike shop, and went to Michael’s instead, where I picked up this perfect lined basket for$15 on clearance!  Rushed home and whipped up a flower (tutorial here) for the front.

It’ll be a diamond bracelet next.  I just can’t [...]

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Sweetness

These are Arnheim biscuits.  I found the recipe in a book called Pot on the Fire, by John and Matt Thorne.  It’s an idiosyncratic book, and it rubbed me the wrong way–I’m definitely not what Havi Brooks would call its Right Person.  On the other hand, this recipe made it all worthwhile.  No less a [...]

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Pink of Perfection, belatedly

So I missed this great Pink of Perfection project way back in July:  a happiness list.   (You can check out the  round-up for more information).  I’m not a cheerful person by nature, and although I love cutie-pie stuff, I am myself as far from cute as it is possible for one person who is not, say, Judith Anderson, to [...]

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Where did the summer go?

So while I wasn’t winning Iron Cupcake (our lovely winner was Bakerella), the summer got away from me.   Work, school, homework, housework, a nibble of interest from a publisher for the first four chapters of a historical romance that I haven’t finished yet, play dates, a sudden and unexpected longing to become a player of the French [...]

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Dollar Store Score!

I’m a gigantic fan of Lunch in a Box.  Biggie is a really gifted cook, and incredibly generous with her tips and tricks.  Moreover, her Bug will eat all kinds of interesting foods which my children would never, never try, so her bento are lovely, inventive, and full of remarkable food combinations.  All hail Biggie!
Recently, [...]

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