life lately...

It was a magical sort of morning here today...the air was crisp, just 8 below...and the trees were crystallized in beauty as the sun came up. It never looks quite the same in photos though.
Yet the sunny start to the day afforded a good photo op for the new skinny scarf I just finished knitting. I started it last year, and like a lot of things, it was put to the side for a long time...mostly because I ran out of yarn and the store ran out of this yarn too. So I finally ended up finding some online. Lately, I've been trying to finish things up...books, projects, etc...just so I can start new ones!Little bits of re-decorating the nest have been taking place too...I pulled out this sweet tea pot and cups that had been boxed up since we moved. Hub gave it to me several Christmases ago. I think the cherry blossom design is lovely and its making me hopeful for Spring.
Of course buying pretty papers is somewhat of an addiction. These are just a few new ones that I picked up the other day...again, with Spring in mind! I can't wait until I have some time to just sit down and start creating with them.

Cooking, homemade lasagna the other night...always cooking and baking. Nothing new there.
There is something a bit relaxing about making a dish so tedious as lasagna though. A lot of repetition in the grating, chopping, layering and all. It gives one time to just ponder things...
And finally, I'm SO anxious to do some packing in this super BIG tote bag I recently bought. Soon, soon, we'll be on our way for a much needed get-away. Sometimes a little change of scenery is all you need to get you through the long months where you patiently wait (especially in MN!) for Spring to arrive, don't you think?

More soon! ~L

pretty plumage

For my Valentine cards this year, I sent out little surprise packages for some sweet ladies featuring feathery bobby pins attached to "hats" hand cut from paper stating "you're the feather in my cap!" I was inspired by a pretty hair clip I recently purchased and wanted to try making some smaller versions using the notions I had in my craft stash. They were quite quick and fun to make! I started by cutting out a small wool felt circle as my base, glued on a few feathers, and then stitched on by hand whatever else I could find...ruffles of vintage seambinding, bits of lace, shiny beads, tiny fabric flowers, and little vintage leaves. No two were exactly alike, just like the unique & special ladies in my life!

papaya pink roses

Gorgeous roses from Hub...a sweet, early surprise last night.

While arranging them in a vase, I asked Hub, "Are these red? They look a little bit...not red?"

Hub: "Um no, they're not red. They were all out of red."
Me: "Oh."

Hub quickly responds: "They're papaya!"

A safe response. He knows I have a papaya-colored puffer coat which I love and which I'm often quite insistent about is truly papaya pink. Not orange as some people have referred to it by.

So the flowers were dubbed papaya-colored. Honestly, I prefer that to the traditional deep red. And really its all nonsense anyways. It's just a sweet sentiment that is helping to color up the white and colorless winter days around here!

Wishing you a colorful weekend and a Happy Valentine's Day!

xoxo ~L

signs & observations

5 signs that you know it has been a crazy LONG winter:

1. You cozy up next to the space heater, gas fireplace, and electric heating blanket more than your Hub.

2. The main reason you're looking forward to your warm weather vacation is to be able to walk in a carefree manner on clean (ie: NOT icy!) sidewalks and skip through clean (ie: NOT sloppy, messy, wet, and/or snowy!) parking lots.

3. It feels like you spend more time washing "handwash only!" sweaters and scrubbing muddy splotches out of your Hub's work pants than you do brushing your own hair!

4. You hear a loud noise outside one afternoon and look out to find a random, large CAT tractor-vehicle thing pushing back your snowbanks even further into your yard (good thing we don't bother to landscape up there by the road!).

5. You can no longer see out of your 2nd-story window, not even when standing on your tippy-toes!P.S. At least there are sweet things like white rabbits (aka: Snowshoe Hares, as seen in the first photo) to brighten things up, little Chickadees that want to sit on our hands for some bird seed, and pretty, fluffy snow to snowshoe in! And well, the days seem to be getting longer too which is quite nice...See, I'm looking on the bright side of things as well! :)

in the studio {bits & pieces}

Many little bits and pieces of things are strewn about my desk lately as I've been dabbling in little projects here and there. Switching from stitching one moment to wire-working the next. It looks like a crafting bomb went off, total chaos, nothing completed...just lots of little things in the works. But that's how I like it. Always working on different things, so excited about each project that I switch back and forth. Many made with "love" in mind. I can't share any more than these brief peaks, because some are surprises! Eek, I'm so excited. I love to do surprises for those I love! Of course I'll share the results, in say, a little over a week and a half or so?

More soon! ~L

making gnocchi

For whatever reason, I've thought about making gnocchi for quite awhile now. Last Wednesday I happened to buy a 5 lb bag of russet potatoes for 48 cents (simply because they were on sale for practically nothing). Then on Thursday the latest issue of Bon Appetit arrived in our mailbox with a potato gnocchi recipe. And on Friday I had no plans for dinner that evening plus a rather free day to make it. So all these things working together, I decided it must be time. I'd perused the gnocchi recipe in our Joy of Cooking book in the past when I first started having gnocchi-making visions, but decided to go with the Bon Appetit version instead.I don't know why but it always seemed to me to be one of those elusive and difficult foodie-sort of things to make (like the kind I had here)...but I found it was just the opposite, rather fun and sort of like playing with Play-Doh! You start by putting the potatoes in the oven to bake for an hour and walk away to do other things...easy enough.

Then you need to scoop out the flesh and put it through a potato ricer. I didn't have one but the Joy of Cooking book said you could also use a sieve as an alternative, which I found worked really well.

Spread out and cool a bit to room temp.

Next, you mix the potatoes with flour and add in 1 egg, salt, & nutmeg.

Knead and form into a ball. This dough felt so wonderful and was easy to work with.

Divide the ball into quarters. Roll out and chop up!

Then I placed all my little gnocchi gems on a tray, covered them up, and put them in the fridge to hang out until dinnertime. When you're ready to eat, you simply boil them in water until they float and let them go for about 4 minutes more. We wanted to try a couple in their pure state (without sauce) so we drizzled on a bit of truffle oil and a little freshly grated pecorino cheese...and they were so delicious. Just the right amount of chewyness & good texture...perfect! The rest we had with a simple garlic + olive oil tomato sauce...and more pecorino of course!

I'm pretty sure the meat-loving Hub would've probably preferred them better when combined with this recipe...but with a mixed greens salad and some other good eats, he didn't complain one bit! Looks easy, no?

pretty details {accessorizing}

Being that it's late January (something I keep reminding myself - we're almost to Feb!) and I've been covered up in bulky layers, sweaters, scarves, hats, puffy coats, boots, and whatnot for a few months now...I'm starting to yearn for more pretty, feminine things...even though it just isn't all that practical here right now, since its oh so cold and I'm always freezing!

But I found a very pretty hair clip a couple weekends ago, when Hub and I took a little trip down to the Cities and popped into Anthro for a bit. This little clip is just the thing to pop in my hair and pretty things up a bit, and still stay warm in a cozy sweater! It reminds me too of the past when women often wore pretty accessories, hats, brooches, etc...something I've been thinking I need to start including in my own repertoire of accessorizing a little more often. Of course being the creative-type, I'm thinking of making some things for myself, like this brooch I made last fall, and some hair clips using some of the odds and ends I have laying around. I might as well use them, right?

In the meantime though, here're a few pretty hair accessories/shops I've been eyeing up on Etsy:

missrubysue

heartoflight

this lovely vintage bun holder

a pretty DIY tutorial

and a sweet vintage brooch

oh and this one too!

Of course there's so much more, this is just the tip of the iceberg...

Happy accessorizing! :)

silent snow (& messy pizza)

It was a very snowy, gray weekend here. So gray in fact that these pictures are really not very good. But they do tell the tale of our very snowy, very pizza-y, weekend. Not so much tea was consumed. More strong coffee, fruit smoothies, and granola than anything. Too much homemade chex mix. And topped off quite perfectly with a new adaptation of "Emma" on PBS...which I'm not exactly sure about, yet. Did you see it? Oh, and oodles of shoveling/learning to use the snowblower (we received about 10 inches of snow after the freezing rain!), and some very wet snowshoeing. The snow was so wet and heavy (with the temp hovering consistently all weekend around a balmy 33 degrees)...quite the perfect snowball-making kind of snow, which both Hub and I used to our full advantage!

As for the pizzas, we'd really welcome any homemade pizza-making advice. The top photo shows Hub's tragedy of a pizza. His method for getting the pizza from the peel to the stone consists of rapid shaking and rather spastic motions, until half of the pizza (note: my meatless half) is flipped inside-out onto the stone which resulted in a very "burnt pizza" smell throughout the house. The 2nd pizza, which I then took full control of, turned out much better. I gracefully eased the pizza from the peel to the stone (last photo). Hub has now declared me the official "Pizza Peel to Pizza Stone" person...but I'm not quite sure that it wasn't mostly due to luck. We'll see what happens next time. But I'm still debating the costs of just ordering a brick-oven pizza from Sammy's (our favorite local pizza place) versus making our own.

P.S. That's our old Christmas tree in the very first photo. It's become our little tradition since we moved here to stand our tree up out in the snow after Christmas, never mind that a Pine tree really wouldn't grow in our swampy woods. And do you spot the Chickadee in the 4th photo? We've been feeding them from our hands quite often lately! Its such a sweet way to start the day! :)

P.P.S. I still am not quite sure how to clean the burnt-on cheese and toppings on our very new pizza stone? Help!!!