Yum...chocolate

Yesterday I gave all the moms in my life See's chocolate...and I even got some in return from my mom.

{raspberry cream...one of my faves}

I noticed on the See's site that you can create your own custom mix online. I think I'll print out this page and take it the next time I go to See's to make the decision making easier. I usually always get the same things, but I see a few on this page I haven't tried before that I think I need to try.

Hope everyone had a nice Mother's Day!

The Winners...

The winners are lalycairn, barb, and brynnmarie82! Congratulations! I am sending emails to you to get shipping information.

Thanks to everyone for participating! It was great fun reading the comments.

Mother's Day Giveaway

I'm having a contest this week in honor of Mother's Day. To enter, comment on this post with your favorite item from the Lost Button Studio shop (one entry per person). I'll draw three names and they will win the piece of jewelry mentioned in their comment.

Comment by Friday, May 9 to enter...I will draw the name on Saturday, May 10. I need to be able to contact you if you win, so you if you don't have a blog with an email link, please leave your email address in the comment.

Gardening Stuff

It's still cold here...I hope it warms up soon so we can do more clean up work in our yard and do some planting. I just have a few little pockets in my backyard for gardening, not a big square plot, but I'm planning to grow mini pumpkins, yellow and zucchini squash, green beans, tomatoes, and some zinnias and sunflowers.

I've been flipping through one of my favorite gardening books, Roots, Boots, Buckets, and Shoots by Sharon Lovejoy. It's a sweet little book with plans and watercolor illustrations for theme gardens, and fun ideas like planting nasturtiums in old boots and potatoes in an old wagon. I also have Sunflower Houses and Hollyhock Days by the same author. A couple of other gardening books I have that I've enjoyed are Lasagna Gardening and Square Foot Gardening.

Two of my favorite places for ordering seeds are Pinetree Garden Seeds and Select Seeds (antique flowers).

What are your favorite gardening books, seed sources, etc.?

Frozen Strawberries

I bought two flats of strawberries on sale recently. I made freezer jam with one (if you haven't made freezer jam before, Make and Takes has a good tutorial).

I froze the other flat to use in strawberry lemonade, smoothies, etc. To freeze whole strawberries:

• wash the berries, hull, and dry slightly on a dish towel
• place them so they are close together (but not touching) on a cookie sheet lined with waxed paper
• freeze for a few hours until solid and then package in freezer bags (freezing them separately helps them stay separate in the freezer bags)

They will keep up to one year.

Honey Cuticle Cream

Awhile back I made some lip balm based on this Honey-kissed Lip Balm recipe I found. It made a ton and I still have the Altoids container full of it so I decided to use it as a cuticle cream. It works great!

Here's my recipe (I modified the Honey.com recipe a bit since I didn't have as much beeswax and I had apricot kernel oil instead of sweet almond oil).

1.5 ounces beeswax
3 ounces apricot kernel oil
1 tablespoon honey

Melt the wax and oil in the microwave, stir in the honey, and pour into tins or other containers. When I made it there were some tiny honey globules that didn't mix in, but I made the recipe in a glass measuring cup with a spout, so I just didn't pour that part into the tins.

Treasures

On Saturday we helped put a sprinkler system in my grandma's yard. Her house is over 100 years old and I found some cool treasures in the trenches.

{bits of broken, crackled dishes}


{glass including an unbroken lid, two marbles, and a big aqua chunk}


{a few heart rocks to add to my collection}


{an old brick...or maybe a prehistoric Pez candy}

Yummy Granola

I've tried a lot of granola recipes and this is one is great: My Sister's Granola from HogieWogie (found awhile back via another great cooking blog, Cafe Johnsonia). I've made it a few times now and it's a keeper. The ingredients are simple, it's fast to make, and it's customizable. I follow this recipe exactly only I add the dried (or fresh) fruit afterwards.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

4 cups old fashioned oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup coconut
1 cup nuts or seeds
1 cup dried fruit

Mix all of the above in a large bowl.

1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup honey
2 t. vanilla

Heat oil and honey to a rolling boil. Turn off heat and add vanilla. Pour over granola mixture and blend well. Spread on a baking sheet. Bake for about 15-20 minutes, stirring the granola every 5 minutes while baking to ensure even browning. Watch it closely as it can burn fast. For softer granola do not bake as long.

Add or subtract ingredients according to your taste. You can use less sugar if you like, increase the amount of wheat germ, add flax seeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, cranberries, raisins, etc.

Recipe and photo courtesy of Jenni at HogieWogie. Thanks, Jenni!

Playroom Makeover

We used to have a playroom in our basement but I took over the room for Lost Button Studio. So we moved the playroom into a bedroom upstairs. I didn't think to take a before photo, but for the last little while it has basically just been a room with some Rubbermaid containers full of toys. Here's what's new:

My husband made this table for Legos (we have a lot of Legos). There's a rail around the top so pieces don't fall on the floor and each side of the table has six drawers for storage.

The drawers are on nice metal sliders so they are sturdy and pull all the way out.

My husband also made this big frame for a map we had and and a huge chalkboard. Oh, and I painted the walls.

Here's something I actually made...these stackable chicken coop cubbies for toy storage. I did the cutting, sanding, and finish on these. But my husband did help set up the equipment and figured out all the dimensions so I guess he still deserves credit too. I wish I could have made five (always better to have an odd number), but we only had the materials for four.

There's a little area with a beanbag and the PlayStation...

And a bookshelf...

And here are the F-U-N collages on the wall. They are hanging above a half-size door that goes into a little cubby under the dormers. It has been a club house, recording studio, and reading nook. Someday I might paint in there and add a few throw pillows.

Not only does B spend a lot of time in here with his friends, but we have 22 nieces and nephews so this will be a fun place for them to play when they come over.

F-U-N Collages

Here's a project I did for the playroom. It's based on the technique by Kelly Rae Roberts in "Patch it Together" from the November/December 2007 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors.

I started with three inexpensive 8x8 Blick canvases with the gallery profile.

For the collage I used found papers like bits of junk mail, a drawing by B, graph paper, a page out of an old atlas, and a page out of a Japanese dictionary.

For the paint colors I used Golden Fluid Acrylics in Cobalt Teal and Green Gold, both mixed with a little Titan Buff. I added a few Cadmium Red Medium circles made with the rim of a cup.

Instead of drawing a figure like Kelly does in her article, I printed out the word "fun", sizing to fit the canvases. I then traced over the letters onto the canvases using carbon paper.

I traced over the outlined letters a couple of times with Prismacolors.

Then I filled the letters in with Cobalt Teal, painted the sides of the canvases Cadmium Red Medium and added a couple more cup circles in Cadmium Yellow Medium. I sanded the edges a bit and sealed everything with another coat of medium.

It was definitely a F-U-N project for me...

Today's Creative Blog

Just found out today that I was featured on Today's Creative Blog. Sweet! Thanks for the mention!

I'm finally getting around to putting the finishing touches on our new playroom...a project I started after Christmas. Photos coming soon.

Save the Honeybee

{image from the National Honey Board}

The May 08 issue of Country Living has a good article about the dwindling honeybee population. I knew there was an issue with honeybees because my husband's friend is a beekeeper and has lost some of his hives, but I didn't know nearly a third of the honeybee population has disappeared in the last two years! We need these little guys! Luckily the article mentions some things we can do at home:

1. Plant flowers that attract bees (some bee-friendly flowers in North America are cosmos, cornflower, sunflower, black-eyed susan, and zinnias...more are listed here)


2. Choose plants that flower at various stages to provide food for pollinators


3. Use organic gardening techniques (reduce or eliminate pesticides and insecticides in the garden whenever possible)
   

More information is available at pollinator.org