Headbands...

 

 

I remember growing up I did not have much options with headbands, although do remember having long hair when I was in elementary school. My mother use to braid it and tie my hair with ribbon and it supposed to be black for school purposes. I did not like it very much specially the braid would make my hair look funny. Then my mother took me to a hair dresser and chopped it off but very very short. I almost looked like a boy and then I hated my hair. I remember going to hair dresser as a very bad experience because it usually gets chopped off short.

Because of my past experinces with hair dressers I am extra careful when it comes to Nicolette’s hair. Because to begin she has super fine hair definitely not from me. For the longest time she did not had hair on her head when she was a baby. 

I know she wanted to grow her hair and I always make sure to make few hair accessories at home. Whenever I go to the fabric store I always roam through the ribbon section to see new beautiful prints and there are ton of ideas on Pinterest. I bought these few inches of these beautiful embroidery flowers and a ribbon which was embroidered with flowers few weeks back. It was sitting on my sewing table for a long time. It was the perfect snowstorm to take on unfinished tasks. 

She was not feeling well with her tooth coming out and was ready to model the finished headbands. I might make few as gifts to friends. I cannot remember the cost but I had the elastics at home from another project so it was very inexpensive to make these. 

Raised beds are going to get a generous amount of compost from our compost pile. I am very excited it worked I had my doubts on this project because we have been adding our kitchen scraps diligently everyday, but I did not see anything happening. I wanted it to be split and move bit further to the front, and this is what I got when I got home from a class. It was a fun day!

Now that the compost is already turned it is time to add it to vegetable beds. I am not totally done working  with this. We have few more things to add around this box. We totally love our compost area.  I know we had to limit items we add to it, because of the space issues and had to haul some to the dump such as clippings and leaves in the fall but not any more! 

Now that we have chicken we get to add more to the compost and our soil can be enriched with compost. Some areas in our yard can use compost seriously. 

Neck Warmers...

This year I am serious about knitting. I did not make a stack of fleece scarves from my remnant pile, instead decided to knit few cowls for little one. It goes pretty quick and knitting in the round is one of my favorite way of knitting. There were few skeins of yarn I received last summer from a friend, I did not know what to do then, because they were blends of wool and other fibers. 

Few cowls could make little one’s neck warm when she is outside with her friends at school and I know she loves them and lately she is asking me to make a scarf to cover her face. We have been hit hard this year with snow. I remember last year I had to dug my self out, to goto work. 

Cowls are easy to make, and not only that you can wear them as hats. However, they will not cover the head entirely but will do the job to some extent. Currently working on number four and so far I have finished three.

The first was using fine yarn with light weight yarn. It was much fun and that cowl keeps the neck pretty warm and so soft to touch. I felt my hands were in a cloud.

The second, was made with only light weight yarn. The light weight yarn was very stretchy to work alone but adds a totally different texture to the pattern and the knitted cowls sits snuggly around her neck, she loves it. It works great on, not so very cold days!

The third cowl pattern, I made it up on my own. I did not have a pattern and had two skeins of alpaca yarn. This is a very soft cowl, which sits around her neck with some room around, but gives her enough warmth on a cold spring day. 

Fourth, cowl is in progress, and we would like to use it as soon as its done, during this cold winter vortex. It is a very soft warm yarn and it will definitely keep her warm.

Happy, knitting during the month of February to ALL!

Decorating with cards

 

This year I decided to add some picture frames to our creative room. I received many cards during this holiday and some were really neat. I wanted to do more with them with these cute holiday cards. 

I bought few frames form IKEA and the rest was fun. I needed to get them on the wall soon! It adds a bit of whimsy to the room!

Turkey Stock

When I was in VA, I invited my neighbor for Thanksgiving and some of our friends and family. After the meal we were left with this meat caucus which I was about to throw one of guest suggested that I could make a great turkey stock out of it. After couple of attempts I have mastered making my own turkey stock. 

On the same day, I cut all the leftover meat, wrap them in foil, and place them in ziplock bags to keep them off from freezer burns. Then I cut the caucus into 2-3 pieces depending on the mood after the guest departure. Usually the wine get the best of me. Just kidding after all we are all human! 

1 turkey caucus 
2 carrots
1 big celery stalk
1 big yellow onion (cut into pieces)
Flat leaf parsley
2 thyme sprigs
Black pepper corns
1 tbs olive oil

Place big stock pot on medium high heat, and 1 table spoon of olive oil. Sauté onions, when it is translucent add the carrots and celery. 
Let vegetables cook for at least about 5 minutes, add the rest of the ingredients, and the  turkey caucus to the pot and cover with warm water. 
Bring it to boil and let cook for at least 40 minutes. Once it is cool discard the caucus and the vegetables run the liquid through a strainer you got your home made turkey stock! Thank you to my wonderful friend who was always eager to share her knowledge. 

The Remnant Rack...

I am a big fan of the remnant rack at the fabric store. I have bought  rwmnants for .75 cents. I have found that the best way to score is find remnant which is already on sale, because the price get slashed down at the register again.

Recently, I am testing waters, ways to sew with knit fabric. I also bought few prints from fleece to make scarfs. I did made few last year, and planning to make few this year for Nicolette I am sure she will enjoy one or two new scarfs. 

These will be added as christmas gifts to friends and family. I am planning to make a teenage cowl, if you have any ideas please post them and are welcome. I will probably use solid and print, and something to represent cross country.  

home made bath salts...

Summer brings a lot, working in the yard could make ones body a bit painful at the end of the day but, in an unusual way. A bit of a satisfied pain and lately I have been going through it bit more often due to weeding and cleaning. No matter what, I believe a good long soak in the tub can magically cure all aches. 

I like investing on bath salts a bit, recently I decided to make my own bath salt. With my little helper, I made couple of batches. The first batch of course for me. 

Gathering all the materials took a while but the process was fairly easy. After the initial attempt we decided to make few batches for gift giving. 

I bought culinary lavender from from amazon shop, and bought epson salt. I had lavender essential oil from a previous project. I used two cups of salt to 1/4 cup lavender seeds and then few drops of essential oil. Mix them well and stored in a jar!

I did used mason jars to store the rest of the batch for gifts! Neat gifts to teachers, friends, and baby sitters! 

I personally loved it. I feel like totally renewed after a bath! 

How to make Cabochons Jewelry at home...

I always wanted to make these beautiful ear studs at home and I finally did it. It is so much fun to make these and give them as gifts during summer for all your girlfriends. I wish I knew them when I was younger then I would make a set to all my friends at school. 

They are easy and fun to make. All you need is a good creative time, quiet time, and nice warm tea. I know I am just kidding but you can make them in a jiffy. 

I love the color pallet that I choose. They are not too bright, very subtle, and of course charming. 

Quote of the day “ give a gift anonymously”

Enjoy!

How to incorporate a COMPOST UNIT to the garden...

I always wanted to add a compost unit to our garden. I research, read, watched my neighbors, and friends. I finally said YES, I am ready make ours this SPRING. When I was voicing out this idea to my neighbor she offered her mesh wire from her bin last year. (She is going big this year and made one with pallets) I do not have the space since I am big into gardening.

I decided add one in my gardening space we will move as we get more creative in future. Panduka decided to use the post that we took of from our bathroom to build the frame. He did a wonderful job creating this. 

We hammered the mesh into place around the posts. Now we have a compost bin. I am happy we can contribute to make a change in the carbon print we leave behind on our dear mother Earth...

Then it is all about layering brown and green. We had some leaves from Fall well the reason for that is we residents in the town of Mansfield is responsible for taking our recycle garden material to the dump. 

We gladly empty out our fall leaves and fresh cut grass there goes our first two layers now we have been adding the kitchen scrap. No meat or dairy products. Once in a while toss it. I add some lime to the pile for easy composting but you do not have to. We will be adding to this pile through out this year. 

Quote of the day “refuse to quit learning"

Enjoy!

Raise Beds...

This was last Fall, yes we did add a raise bed to our yard last fall. According many gardeners raise beds offers many advantages. You can move the bed you want to that’s mean you are in control when it comes sun light!, water source, and enrichment of the soil condition. 

We did add a bit of height for our bed, technically you do not have to go this crazy for height. We used simple cement blocks. We also get much sunshine to this area we have to keep in my we do have older trees in our yard and we were not willing to cut them because we really love them. 

We dug a trench so we can lay the blocks and level it. Very simple steps to build. You can do this anywhere you want to. 

We are excited get this started this Summer... and will post more...

Quote of the day “ stay curious, explore, discover”

Enjoy!

Aththamma Visits… from Sri Lanka…

 

We were very excited to have Aththamma from Sri Lanka to celebrate Niegel’s Birthday… and to enjoy a little bit of Sri Lanka food, dry fish, and most importantly Sri Lankan tea.

Being away from Sri Lanka for a long time and not having my own family living in Sri Lanka it is really hard to have some Sri Lanka goodies. Also this was a great opportunity for to practice my religion which is to let go some of holdings… may be in other word likings… enjoy what I have… I have been practicing this concept lately a lot… I guess sometime we all need reminders on that subject.

However Aththamma got us some tea we enjoy every day… The other day in my class presentation one of the girls gave a presentation about an artist’s/photographer who worked in East Asia capturing the beauty of nature few decades back and she was trying to pronounce Ceylon… with the help of the professor she finally did and I was just happy to hear that my professor knew so much about Sri Lanka… specially the beaches… you cannot find anywhere else… I do miss it may be that could be a reason I want to make my home close to the Cape…

I did share my precious tea with my new neighbors… they all appreciated it very much…

Quote of the day “it is not our preferences that cause problems, but our attachments to them”

Enjoy!

Organize your Hoops…

 
 
After a long wait I have started to wear hoops. Part of the reason I simply couldn’t do it because I work with children a lot and for the safety of my own as well as for children. I have decided not to wear hoops. (work related)

Now that I am staying at home and back at school I thought I want to give it a try. I did had a couple of dangling earrings from work. Parents have given to me as gifts and I save them so I could remember the little hearts that I have touched.

So I did have a collection but not a very big one. They were all over the place sometimes ending up in the jewelry tray. They get not worn, half the time lost or buried with my jewelry.
After looking at couple of blogs and at my local bead shop I decided to make a frame to hang my earrings. Now I wear them more often, mainly due to easy access.This hoop organizer could be a piece of art in your closet for those blah walls…
This was one of my spring cleaning projects…

How did I do it, what I had used was basically a picture frame from the craft store, and some window screen… I do have a lot of  window screen left over from this project. I am looking up ways to use them around my house…

My art professor does a wonderful job with this window screening and I love what she has done with it, she is a very creative and a talented person I am glad I took a 3D art class it has come handy in so many ways past few months…

Stay tune you, I am planning to have a slide show of pictures of all the creations I have done…

Quote of the day “be creative with the time you have”

Enjoy!