Prudence pouts

heute

hair and bow

 

gifts

 

and the babe

 
 

Gingerbread's birthday

Ideas for the big day...

 

Sweet stuff

The sun is out, again!, and it's a lovely day for crafting and thrifting. Today I started sewing little sets of super sweet cloth children's napkins (which will be in the etsy shop in the next day or two), walked to SCRAP with the kids and found a bunch of great vintage goods - little cards, lustre ribbons, spools of tulle, and pale pink and cream papers - plus fun pompom and lovely Italian and German yarns, micron pens, sharp scissors, tracing paper, a little cardboard aqua suitcase, and a bag full of faux fur for one 6-yr-old girl's upcoming Totoro costume.  And I love this little sweater that I found when Madeline and I went out "window shopping" yesterday morning.  No tag; I think it's hand knit.  I was going to put it in the shop, but...   

Raspberry and rose souffle

What we've been up to the past week:

Listening to Christmas music (Frank, Dean, Bing, Doris, et al) and watching favorite Christmas films: Elf, Miracle on 34th Street and a new favorite since last year - Peter and the Wolf.  The second two are streaming on Netflix. 

 

On Thanksgiving the kids and Dave and I made:

Scalloped Yukon Gold and Sweet Potatoes

Orange Cinnamon Sweet Rolls

Green Salad with cherries, walnuts and apples

Lemon Cream Pasta

Sage Stuffing

Hutterite Turkey with homemade gravy

and Pumpkin Creme Brulee! 

So good.

We've also been working on Christmas decorations and handmade wrapping and gifts.  We started some paper mache puppets based on these:

which you can find instructions for here

There is a Santa, an elf, a reindeer and a deer girl in the works so far.

And baking sugar cookies.

And last night Madeline and I made Raspberry rose souffles - oh my god - so so amazing.  We made them with two pints of fresh raspberries, which were pureed and put through a fine sieve to remove the seeds - the prettiest bright pink, no food coloring required.

 
 

But after making souffles (10 egg whites) we had a bunch of yolks leftover...  So tonight M and I are making eggnog custards!

A new favorite

blog:

Rifle Paper Co.

And a new favorite artist:

Diane Sudyka

The Last Farm

Dave and I watched this a couple nights ago.  Really beautiful, and sad. 

 

I love this

find it on etsy!

Winter

Just a little inspiration searching for my Halloween costume.  I'm going to be Winter this year.  I had been debating the Snow Queen (Hans Christian Andersen), Drusilla (from Buffy), some kind of deer girl, Margot (The Royal Tenenbaums), or even the Butcher Bunny (Mark Ryden) - but I think I've settled on being Winter. 

So here is the start of my inspiration board - going to go all out this year.

The next few are Sarah's beautiful dolls - which I'm using as hair and make-up inspiration.

The trees and squirrels will watch for you

Some things that I love right now:

Huckleberry tarts

It's huckleberry picking season here!  This was our dinner a few nights ago. 

 

Gigi's little poppy garden

Another new doll in the works

And a new Artful Agenda planner with one of my linoleum cuts on the cover.  This planner is my favorite.  If you haven't picked one up yet - they're really great - you can find them here.