Crafty Bastards

This craft fair will never be forgotten with a name like that. The Crafty Bastards Arts & Crafts Fair was the highlight of my fall; thanks to my friend Carrie for inviting me and introducing me to this amazing event! Its seems a little wrong to be writing about this now since it happened over two months ago but I just couldn't resist. I have had a lack of motivation to blog lately but this post has been in the back of my mind since I went.

The craft fair is in Washington DC and is completely packed with crafty people so I was hooked instantly. Carrie had gone before a couple years ago with her sisters and loved it. This is not your normal craft fair, well at least I had never been to one like this. There was booth after booth of inspiring crafts from clothing to purses made out of vintage book covers to jewelery, soaps, hats, photography and anything else you could think of. They even have a break-dancing competition going on. I had never seen one before it was awesome!!!

Carrie and I both left the fair with some great treasures, I have some pictures of mine below. I thoroughly enjoyed this and WILL be going back for sure next year!!

I was pretty excited about the short button scarf I had seen one on a blog that I follow and I thought to myself I would love to make one...but since I have forgotten how to crochet and I don't know how to knit I bought one :). I still would like to make one once I learn the skill. It's a great scarf, keeps your neck nice and warm without the extra fabric hanging down. The dish is hand made pottery, she had the most beautiful designs. The pouch is made with the cutest fabric. And the cuff bracelet is made from two materials, the bottom turquoise is seat belt material and then the top is like a tapestry, very pretty pattern. Below is Carrie and I with our memorable t-shirts.


Also I dyed my hair reddish...I guess you can say I'm all decorated for Christmas :)

Special Meal

The tradition I'm about to share I got from my family, and now Jordan and I have adopted it. When Thanksgiving comes around, no matter where we spend it, we always have our own special meal together another day. As a kid I always enjoyed this. This year we spent Thanksgiving with Jordan's family and it was really fun, with just the six of us. Jordan's Mom wanted it to be just us since Jordan and I will be in WA for Christmas. Unfortunately, I took not a one picture of the family to share:(

So anywho on the Saturday after Thanksgiving Jordan and I had a yummy meal, just the two of us. I decided to go with:

Cornish Hens w/Cornbread Stuffing
Macaroni and Cheese
Green Beans w/Shallots and Toasted Hazel Nuts

I was pretty excited about the small menu, sometimes I get a little excited and make way too much for two people. I got the Cornish Hen recipe the day before by watching the Barefoot Contessa and she just happened to be making the Hen's as well. So I copied her. except I made my own cornbread and she store bought hers. This stuffing was the best I have ever had! The mac 'n cheese recipe I get from a Church cookbook I have, it is my all time favorite.


Hooray for Family traditions!

New To Me

This summer I have found some great finds to place around our home. I have taken a couple trips to Lynchburg and stayed with my friend Carrie :). Both times we went to various places downtown, one being the famous Estate Specialist stores and I got great deals. We even stopped by a yard sale. It's always exciting to see what you might find that you can re-purpose from what someone else doesn't want any longer. Most of the pieces are white, as you will see I just love that white milk glass that is found in a lot of second hand stores or antique stores. My friend Natalie definitely gave me a new found love for white decor, it is so simple and pleasant.

Here are my finds.

This is a picture of my friends Carrie and Susannah who came to stay with me while Jordan was in Nicaragua...we had so much fun. My finds are the two mini vases which I found at a yard sale. The little flower was made by a child in Nicaragua and given to Jordan :)

This white piece was actually placed on top of the blue vase above which was actually a perfume bottle so I separated the two. The pear candle I found at the Farm Basket in Lynchburg which is a great shop.

On the left is a pinch bowl which I have used many times already for both prep work and serving, the piece on the right is on display above our kitchen cabinets.

On the left is a beautiful dark teal jar which is also on display above our cabinets. I found this at a yard sale which was on the side of the road when we went hiking 2 weekends ago. Also we got these amazingly yummy yellow tomatoes.

I saved the best for last...these are vintage Pyrex from the 60's and I am beyond in love with them. As you can see, they have a little aqua farm family printed on them. I love aqua! I found these at a little store in Woodstock, VA called, Three French Hens. Its is a wonderful store filled to the brim with fun finds and every week they have sale colors and if you purchase something in that color you get 20 % off! She has several other pieces I want. Also I found a matching butter dish on Etsy!!! Needless to say I'm pretty excited.


I hope you enjoyed my summer finds :)

Alarm clock: Off

I love time off, I mean who doesn't. One wonderful thing about having time off is the fact that you don't have a schedule or at least you don't have to if you don't want to. I love days off and weekends for this wonderful fact. It's my favorite when I don't have to set an alarm clock. The sun wakes me up and I can do with my day what I will; which is such a great feeling. We just got back yesterday for a couple nights stay at Virginia Beach. Its was lots of fun and lots of relaxing. Playing in the ocean was my absolute favorite.

Also I want to tell you about my abundant Basil!! I'm so excited that it really took off. I had started out with; basil, rosemary, Italian parsley and chives. I followed the directions and started them indoors then moved them outdoors. Unfortunately I think I waited far too long to replant them in a larger pot so the other three didn't do to well. I decided to stick with the basil cause it seemed like it was going to make it. I sure am glad I did!

Look at it now...

It's huge and the flavor is wonderful. I find myself adding it to anything and everything. I have added it to scrambled eggs, pastas, and even a frozen pizza. Tonight we are having one of Jordan's favorites...Mediterranean pasta which calls for basil :)

Please send any yummy basil recipes you have my way!

Girl Time

A couple weeks ago Jordan's Mom and I had some girl time planned. We were all set to go to West Virginia to take a bike ride on the C&O Canal trail. It is a path that goes all the way from D.C. to PA. Its a great trail where you can camp along the way. We were really excited and then it rained like crazy the night before and when I checked the weather in the morning it looked like more rain so I suggested we reschedule; which later was a big disappointment because it turned out to be a beautiful day!

Oh well, instead we decided to paint pottery. It was Carol's first time at a pottery painting place which made it lots of fun! She really liked it and now she has her own special mug to enjoy.


And I have a fun serving tray


Always good to have some girl time, thank you Carol.

Date Night...and a Bear

Jordan and I most often get some time alone during the weekends. Most often I either plan something extra fun for dinner or we go out to eat. Then we usually finish up the evening with a movie either from netflix or we go out to the movies. We love movies! But needless to say we are doing a lot of the same. So we decided that each week we would take turns planning our "Date Night" this was the first week and Jordan planned it for us. We started out by getting some take out from Tropical Smoothie and then drove up on the Skyline Drive to the Visitors Center. There we chose a nice spot in the grass to enjoy our dinner while lounging in our Crazy Creek chairs. It was so much fun to get away and do something different.

Then after we finished up with dinner we took a little hike in the woods. It was so fun to get out in nature and unwind after our yummy meal.
Now for the Bear part. Right when we were finishing up our loop Jordan says to me, "Deb stop for a minute. " So of course I instinctively try to speed up because I'm guessing he saw a bear, this area happens to have a lot of them...lucky me. Turns out there was a cub to our right and Jordan was wisely trying to see where the mother was before moving on and he wanted to get a picture of it :) Well as my heart was racing I did my best to slow down and remain calm I am happy to say we did not cross paths with the mom.

Here is the baby bear running off.


Hooray for Date Night!!
Now I get to plan for next week :)

My Fabric Stash

I have a little obsession with fabric. I am on JoAnn Fabrics mailing list so I often get coupons for 40-50% off a single cut of fabric or anything that is not on sale already. Sometimes I use those coupons to add to my fabric stash. I am very happy to say that JoAnn's has been getting a little better fabric selection which has been nice. There are some great websites out there too but sometimes its hard to really tell what the fabric looks like without seeing the design in person. I have so many projects that I want to start and some that I have strayed away from (yes I mean the quilt...sorry Mom I will be getting back to that soon :)!).

I have recently been given the awesome opportunity by my Mother-in-law, to set up a table with some of my handmade goods and an event she is hosting. I'm really excited this will be my first try at selling some of my jewelry and I was thinking of making some purses as well. It is in September so I will need to create a lot in the next couple months. I have debated for awhile about starting up an ETSY site to sell some handmade treasures but I really just haven't had the time to devote to it. I keep thinking I would start one once I became a stay at home Mom....which I can't wait for that day! Maybe this will give me a jump start on doing that...who knows what could happen.
Back to my fabric stash; here are some pictures of some of it. I recently got some fabric with these darling birds all over. I can't wait to use them for something!


Also here are some fun eye masks I recently finished. For our anniversary Jordan bought me this awesome book, "Sew Liberated, 20 Stylish Projects for the Modern Sewist". This was one of the projects, I modified what she did because I wanted to use patterned silk instead of solid. The silk fabric makes them so nice to wear. The inside is filled flax seed infused with lavender essential oil so they smell divine.

Feast for the 4th

I always enjoy coming up with a menu for holidays. Jordan has lots of studying to do right now so we didn't have any extravagant plans for the 4th this year. This was the perfect time to make a fun meal; it gives me something to do with all my time and keeps us home for studying. It wasn't hard to come up with the menu because I got it from a cooking show...of course :)

Last week I was watching, 5 Ingredient Fix, and Claire Robinson was doing what she called a "Passport Picnic." It was a Mediterranean menu and right away I knew I wanted to make these recipes soon...what better time but the 4th of July?!

On the Menu:

Fresh Cucumber Salad

Toasted Israeli Couscous

Lamb Sandwich




The only ingredient I couldn't find was ground lamb, maybe if we lived in a bigger city I would have. I used ground beef instead. The ground beef patties turned out great the mint and feta really gave them the Mediterranean taste. The Fresh cucumber salad was so wonderful; the honeydew melon with the cucumber was a great match and the jalapeno and red onion really set it off with a nice punch of flavor then the Greek yogurt made it nice and creamy! The Israeli couscous was delicious. The crunch from the pistachios and the sweet chewiness of the apricots were the perfect textures; also I love pretty much anything with scallions in it. These recipes were a huge hit with Jordan and I. You should try them all out for sure.

Summer Bounty

Summer is the time for lots of yummy veggie bounty.

We had a couple over for a game last week and to enjoy a wonderful strawberry rhubarb pie (any dessert with rhubarb is my favorite...so tangy and delicious). As a gift they brought with them some summer bounty. They have a friend who is growing some zucchini and they had lots to share. They brought us quite a large one; so I felt that I needed to try something new with this summer goodness. I have heard of zucchini cakes but have never tried them. I went to google and typed in zucchini cakes and tons of recipes came up I went with THIS one, very simple and I had all the ingredients. They were done in a flash and so tasty we just ate them plain. I'm sure they would be quite good with some sour cream and scallions on top as well.

Thank you Aaron and Maddie for this amazing zucchini!

A Girl Can Dream...

I'm in love... with a cookware set and I must share it with all of you.

I love watching several different cooking shows that air on the Food network channel and I have noticed that each of them have something in common. They all use the same pot by Le Creuset. So after seeing these pots so often while amazing meals are being created it makes a girl want one. The other day I was printing off some recipes from the food network website and I happened upon this beautiful set in a wonderful Caribbean blue color...yes in love. Most of my kitchen is filled with red; which I like as well and it seems that most kitchen items are available in red which is why I have so much of it. I am getting a little tired of all the red and would like to add some splashes of colors from the turquoise family which seems to be harder to find; so it was nice to see this set in this color!! Now its time to save up!


Do you have any reviews on this product to share??

Scrumptious

We just ate the most amazing dinner! A couple weeks ago we were visiting our good friends, Carrie and Jesse West, and we had the most yummy stuffed peppers. It was my first stuffed pepper experience and an excellent one at that. Carrie made a rice mixture with corn and beans for the stuffing it was so good. Then a week or so later I was watching my favorite cooking show and she happened to make, Couscous Stuffed Peppers with Basil Sauce. So tonight that is what we had and they were so delicious I can't wait to have them again. The stuffing was incredible; it was full of couscous, feta, dried currants, spinach and garbanzo beans. I had to improvise a little on the basil sauce because they were out of basil at the store and the basil I am growing is not yet big enough; so I bought chives instead. Also I could not find creme fraiche so I bought mascarpone cheese. When making the sauce I added a little more olive oil and lemon juice since the mascarpone is thicker than creme fraiche. The sauce taste great and went so well with the flavors of the pepper and filling!!

Snip Snip

I cut my hair!! I have had long hair for awhile now and I have loved it. I actually didn't think I would be able to cut it and then one day I felt the urge for a change. So I made an appointment and found a picture of my new do.....take a look!

I still want to figure out what hair product to use, it's fun to wear it smooth too. It sure is a fun change for the summer!

Go Fish

For awhile now Jordan has been encouraging me to cook more fish. For one he likes it, and also for the health benefits. I have been a little reluctant, not because I dislike fish, but because of the lack of good selection around here. Growing up in WA there was always a good selection of fresh fish because our location was so close to fresh water. I have decided to give up my prejudices and to cook fish once a week. Since I have a half day on Fridays I have decided Friday is the day for fish. After I get off work I stop by the grocery store and pick out whatever is wild caught and then go home and figure out what to do with it. So far I have done this for 2 weeks. The first week was wild caught Cod. It's a nice mild white flaky fish. I dipped it in an egg mixture then a seasoned flour mixture, it was quite tasty.

The next week I found some wild caught Sockeye Salmon. We love Salmon :). A little butter, lemon juice and herbs was all it needed. It was so delicious!

Next I want to make this Mahi Mahi recipe from a friends blog! I wasn't able to find fresh Mahi Mahi so I went with frozen, it says its wild caught but who really knows.

Time to Rearrange

As a young kid I would frequently rearrange my room. I always enjoyed a fresh new look to my room and loved to reorganize. Since I have grown up so has my furniture. Instead of my twin bed and skinny dresser I now have a Queen bed and and very long dresser. So it seems there is only one way our room can be. I started thinking about other rooms in our apartment and our Living room came to mind. I began visualizing all the ways I thought our furniture could fit. Our living room isn't huge but for some reason we didn't feel very cozy in it and it didn't feel like a good conversational layout. Whoever was on our chaise lounger felt ages away from whoever was on the couch. One day a rearrangement idea hit me and although I wasn't positive it would all fit well, we gave it a go...and loved it!! Jordan and I were so excited we wanted to spend more time in this room. It felt fresh and new even though it was the same furniture.

Here are some before shot's. It's tough to get the whole room in one shot but here is an idea of how it was set up. The couch was facing the fireplace, which is not shown in any of the pictures. The chaise lounge was on one side and the TV is on the other side of the fireplace.


Here are a couple shots of how it is now! Our couch faces out our window/door to the deck, which is a wonderful view to look out at. Also with the rearrangement we feel closer together as well as feeling like a more conversational space. The new arrangement even gave room for a lovely new storage ottoman we bought, which provides easier access to our board games! Check it out.

Gifts

It is fun giving gifts especially when they are a little homemade. My brother recently got married! I'm excited I have a sister now and I am very excited for my Brother too:)

I wanted to get her something special and I have had friends in the past who gave this kind of gift to their soon to be sisters so the idea came to mind. I got her a necklace with two tags one is round and has her new initials on it and the other is rectangle and has their wedding date in it. I found the necklace on etsy at this store. Then I went out and found a beautiful yellow bead (since yellow is her favorite color) and added it also I got some extras and made little earrings to go with. It was so fun to mail to her. And their wedding was beautiful!!
Here is a picture of the finished product

There is a First Time for Everything

I am excited to share with you two very fun things that I have tried in the last two weeks.

1. I had Sushi for the first time...unless you count the California roll...This was my first raw sushi experience. I loved it! I always thought I would get the gag reflex as soon as it hit my mouth so I never would try it. As years have passed and I continue to meet more and more people who really like it I decided that next time we went to a Sushi place I was going to try some no matter what. Last weekend Jordan and I went out to a place called Mimosa's. There I ordered the Vegas roll which had salmon, cream cheese and avocado; Jordan ordered the Mimosa roll which had tuna, eel, a few other things and topped with caviar. I ended up liking his more but they were both really good and so fun to eat!


2. This past weekend we went Cross Country Skiing!! It was so much fun! Before this weekend the only snow activity I had ever experienced was tubing. For several years I have wanted to try Cross Country Skiing but it has never worked out. We went with Jordan's parents who have gone 4 times this season and love it; so they showed us the ropes. The whole day was gorgeous, full of sunshine and beautiful views. We can't wait to go again next season.






It's so fun to try new things!

Spring Time Here I Come!

We enjoyed a small glimmer of warmer weather this weekend and it got me thinking of Spring! I am very excited for Springtime. This year I am going to get a few rectangular hanging flower boxes to place on our porch railing. This will be my first outdoor growing attempt so I am very excited. At the present time our porch is completely empty accept for a strand of Christmas lights we still have out. So it will be so fun to have some pretty flowers and plants to look at. Also this weekend I ventured out to Pier 1, a store that I love. For my birthday my husbands family gave me a gift card to this wonderful store and I was very excited to use it. After walking around the entire store not wanting to make a rash decision I stumbled upon a beautiful outdoor chair in a weathered dark teal/green color and then I saw the price tag and got super excited...this chair was normally $100 and is now marked down to $24.99!!! It so happens that it is from last year's collection how awesome is that!! I was a little nervous cause there was only one on the floor but after asking someone they had six in the back!!! Jordan and I have been looking for outdoor chairs for a couple years now, but the ones we actually liked were are always way out of our price range so we have just stuck with our camping chairs. Now we have chairs for our porch that are something we actually find attractive! I'm so glad we never settled :)
Here they are


Also I updated my wall sconce flowers for spring. The past 4 years I have had the same red Gerber daises in my sconces and I was ready for something different. So a few weeks ago I found these beautiful spring green hydrangeas; it's a fresh new look for our dinning room and I love them!

Then while I was grocery shopping I found these beautiful orange baby roses. I love bright baby roses they always brighten my day.


Happy almost Spring to you all. Please let me know if you have any growing tips for my new growing adventure.