Advent Calendar Goodies

We just posted an advent calendar in the Iron Timber shop. It is a handmade red pegboard with drawstring bags printed with numbers from antique rubber stamps.

Here are the treats I'm going to put in our advent calendar. I tried to think of a few things that are holiday traditions for our family and things that could be used year after year.

12 A scroll with the Christmas story from the scriptures and a small candle. We'll read the story by candlelight to remind us to keep the Christ in Christmas.

11 First clue for a treasure hunt to find new ornaments for the year. This year I'm going to start marking the new ornaments with the kids' names and year. I haven't done that in the past and I really wish I would have.

10 A bag of spices (cinnamon and cloves) for making apple cider.

9 A single Christmas light bulb. This will be our reminder to take a drive around town to look at the Christmas lights.

8 Mini candy canes with $1 wrapped around the stems and tied with a ribbon. My great-grandma used to give all of her great-grandkids one of these each Christmas and that is one of my favorite holiday memories.

7 A tiny jar of red and green sprinkles. My friend gave us a big jar one year with a note to use the sprinkles on everything from cookies to ice cream to oatmeal.

6 Glass hearts--one for each person in our family. Each person can do a service for someone else in the family and leave the glass heart behind (for instance, make someone else's bed and leave a glass heart on the pillow).

5 A piece from a board game to play together that night. Might be a new game or something we already have.

4 A harmonica. My grandpa always used to play us Christmas songs on the harmonica. Might need to get this book.

3 Chocolate!

2 A miniature apple. Make Grandma C's recipe for baked apple pudding.

1 Christmas Eve! An antique skeleton key hanging from a silver ribbon. This will be hung on our front door knob for Santa to use to get in our house since we don't have a chimney.

A New Tradition: You Are Special

You know the "red plate" tradition where the person of honor gets to eat on the red plate?

I've wanted to get one and start that tradition in our family for a while. Then I saw these awesome cupcake stands from vesselsandwares and decided to get one instead of the red plate.

Jeanette has some very cute cupcake stands with scalloped and ruffled edges, but since I have three boys she made one for me with a plain edge in sunny yellow. It has "You Are Special" stamped around the edge.

So now this cupcake stand will be on our table for the person who is having a birthday, who got a good grade on a test, who did something nice for someone else, or who just needs some cheering up.

It will look great with a homemade cupcake on top, but it will make a rice krispie treat or a stack of Oreos feel like a special treat as well.

What "You Are Special" traditions do you have?

Twig Pencils

Just bought these cute twig pencils from alliebeans on Etsy. I'm planning to keep them with my Christmas things for my kids to use for writing wish lists and the thank you note to Santa (the one that is left with his cookies and milk on Christmas Eve). These would also be a great addition to the treasure box...

Our New Etsy Shop

Hello there! So I'm still taking my "little" break on my jewelry shop (it was seriously supposed to be a six-week maternity leave, but the last year has been a whirlwind), but my husband and I are collaborating on a new furniture and housewares shop on Etsy called Iron Timber.

I've listed some hanging jewelry organizers like the ones pictured below and we're working on some chicken coop storage cubbies and play tables like we made for our playroom a while back. We'll also be adding some other storage solutions and decorative items soon.

Seeds: Saving and Soaking

This year I planted some flower seeds that were saved from my grandma's garden and some rattlesnake bean seeds I saved from my garden. This is what they look like now...

I also tried soaking all of my seeds in water for 24 hours before planting them (a tip I read about here) and I really think it helped them germinate and grow faster. Will definitely do this again next year (and will try saving even more seeds from my garden).

High Crown Muffins

{muffins with chopped apples and cinnamon}

King Arthur Flour has a recipe for basic muffins that I'm experimenting with (I really like my recipe for banana and pumpkin muffins, but was looking for a basic recipe where I could use things like berries, apples, peaches, etc.).

There's a tip in the KAF recipe for getting high crowns on your muffins like you see in bakeries. You start with your oven at 500°F and then drop the temperature to 400°F as soon as you put the muffin batter in the oven. It works!

Dairy-free Cream of Broccoli Soup

I made this recipe over the weekend and we liked it. It uses a potato to thicken the soup instead of a roux made with butter, flour, and milk (like another recipe I have) so it's dairy-free. I saved half of the broccoli florets, steamed them separately, and added them into the pureed soup because I like chunks of broccoli in there. Because of that, next time I will probably add more potato (I used a Yukon Gold) or less water or both for a thicker soup. It was good with toasted onion bagels.

Freezing Raspberries and Home Food Preservation

{image from raspberry lovers}

This morning we picked a bunch of our raspberries and I wanted to freeze some since they won't last long fresh. I was going to freeze them just like I froze the strawberries last year but I wondered if that was best...so I decided to Google it and found a cool resource, the National Center for Home Food Preservation. Never knew there was such a thing.

There's a ton of info on the site for freezing, drying, canning, etc. Just glancing around I found some things that sound interesting like Cranberry Marmalade, Pumpkin Leather, Sweet Cherry Topping, and even info on how to freeze avocados.

Oh, and on the question I had about freezing raspberries I found out it will work just fine to wash, drain, freeze on cookie sheets, and transfer to freezer containers.

The Cutest Homemade Vanilla Extract

I've been wanting to make my own vanilla extract for a while and the other day I decided to look for a "recipe" and found the Coco&Me blog and the cutest ever bottles of homemade vanilla extract...clear glass bottles with lettering and designs made with a white paint pen which stands out against the dark vanilla. I am totally going to have to copy cat this.

After seeing these bottles I had to look through the rest of the Coco&Me blog and found it is written by Tamami, a mom of two who sells handmade chocolate, cakes, and tarts at a London market on Saturdays. OK, I can tell by her blog that she works hard, but how cool of a job is that? And the best part is she generously shares her recipes for things like Lemon Drizzle Cake with Lemon Icing, Crème Patissière, Pâte Sucrée, Luxury Brownies, and Ganache Truffles. So nice!

Here are a few more photos to drool over...

A Yummy Life Photography

My friend Jodi just launched a new web site for her Salt Lake City photography business, A Yummy Life. She specializes in candid portraits of children and I love her style. Here are some of my recent favorites...


She also offers Polaroids with any of her packages which is so cool. I love the colors in this one...

Birthday Treasure Box

I have 24 nieces and nephews, can you believe that? Shopping for individual and thoughtful birthday gifts could be really time consuming, so this year I decided to fill a wooden "treasure box" with inexpensive small gifts and treats and let the younger kids (up to about age 10 or 11) choose five things out of the box for their birthday. The older kids get gift cards they can use to buy something they'd like or put towards a bigger item. So far the kids seem to really enjoy this so maybe it will become a tradition.

Here are some of the things I have in the box, have had in the box, or think would be fun to put in the box:

$1 coins * small notebooks * unique pens and pencils
hair barrettes and clips * candy and gum * bubbles
matchbox cars * foreign coins * stickers
mini puzzles * fingernail polish * disposable cameras
$2 bills * art supplies * magnets
lipgloss * sidewalk chalk * yo-yos
cool rocks and shells * small travel games or cards
costume jewelry * glow sticks * small flashlights
post-it notes * bookmarks * garden seeds
pencil toppers * patterned or colored shoelaces
magic towels (the ones you soak in water to expand)
Pez machines * shark teeth * small books
pocket mirrors * finger puppets * rubber stamps
fun band-aids * Japanese erasers * silly putty

I would love to add more handmade items (I need to search Etsy to see if I can find items around this price range). If you have ideas to add, please comment!

Strawberry Agua Fresca

{image from Sunset Magazine}

Last night we made Strawberry Agua Fresca using this recipe. It's like all-natural Kool-Aid. I used four cups of strawberries instead of five and I added a little more of the water into the blender so it pureed easier. We also just squirted a wedge of lime into each glass instead of adding the lime juice. Here's the updated recipe:

Strawberry Agua Fresca

• 4 cups hulled, rinsed strawberries
• 1/2 cup sugar
• Lime wedges
  

In a blender, whirl strawberries, sugar, and 2 cups water until very smooth. Press blended strawberry mixture through a fine strainer into a pitcher. Add an additional 6 cups water, and more sugar to taste. Serve over ice with a lime wedge.

I'm going to try this same basic recipe with other fruits.