Not Just Black and White

Posted on February 27, 2023 by lexicolton

Hello dear citizens of the realm!  Julius has returned to his place of schooling (ish) and the Colton household is filled with much rejoicing!  Three cheers for school and an uninterrupted work day.   Hip, hip, huzzah!

No, but in all seriousness I’m as happy as a clam, and so is Julius.  He told us today that he loves his temporary location (a church) because he “got to play hide and seek in the pews!” When I asked him “what?!” he explained to me what pews were.  Guess this is the sort of thing you must learn in parochial school.

Despite Julius getting frustrated with us for being cooped up at home for 3 weeks of half neglect while we worked, he is still such a sweetie.  Yesterday I was explaining to Julius what it meant to be sued (long story, only will further convince you of my craziness) and I may have impressed upon him that it’s when you get in trouble for something and a lawyer takes all your money (I swear I explained the concept more than that, but it seems that’s what Julius got out of it).  After the conversation he came up to me and whispered in my ear (so no lawyers could hear?) “if you run out of money, I have money that you could have.  I have two quarters!”  It was just so adorable I didn’t even know what to say!

Another cute happening, was that while Patricia was eating breakfast (Julius was still asleep) I saw a herd of deer crossing through our yard.  I grabbed Patricia from her seat and ran her over to the window so she could see them.  She watched in silence as they crossed our yard and I wasn’t sure she understood what I was pointing out.  Afterwards I asked her if she saw the deer and this was our conversation:

Patricia: “yeah, I not crying, I all done crying.”

Me: “You aren’t scared anymore is that what you mean?”

Patricia: “yeah.”

Me: “Deer are gentle they won’t hurt you”

Patricia: “Reindeers pet me?”

Me: “They won’t pet you but they are nice.”

Then she proceeded to run around the house and show me how the deer had run “really, really fast”.  It’s so baffling to think how toddlers are still not quite sure what their emotions mean or how to categorize them.

And have I mentioned how emo Julius is?  He frequently makes himself sad for the fun of it and draws pictures all the times with things crying.  His artwork has soul.  At some point last week Patricia was talking about walking on a cloud and I asked her if she thought she could stand on a cloud.  She said she thought she could, and Julius corrected her with this piece of poetry:

“Clouds are only made of rain and paper.  If you stand on one, you will fall.”

Julius was most heartbroken about Valentine’s day out of all the reasons he missed school.  He asked a dozen times why he didn’t get any Valentine’s from classmates even though a couple classmates were sweet enough to drop off Valentines to him.  I guess it was extra lucky that I made him the Valentine’s mailbox because he had something to look forward to, even if it was just from his mom.  Even worse we made 20 Valentine’s for his classmates.  You saw the penguins I made for Patricia.  Those guys took me no time at all to make because I did them assembly line style.  Julius loved them, but he thought classmates would prefer a DIY version.

So I had to figure out how to individually package paints for each kid and I thought of the brilliant(?) idea of putting them inside straws.  So I got some old straws that people didn’t want off our buy nothing group and spent like 5 nights filling them full of paint (in my bathroom with the fan on full blast and a painting respirator on.  I’m not going to lie, it was not the most fun use of my time and I will never do it again.   The instructions also took me forever to make.  And there are 17 of them still sitting on my table.  On the bright side?  They were dirt cheap!  I hope the few people we gave them out to liked them!  Julius and Patricia did!

Make your own Penguin Valentines

What you’ll need: 

  • 20 pegdoll blanks
  • 2 oz orange acrylic paint
  • 4 oz black acrylic paint
  • 4 oz white acrylic paint
  • 60 plastic straws
  • 20 paintbrushes (mine were leftover from a previous valentine)
  • 20 sheets of white printer paper
  • x-acto knife
  • double sided tape or tape glider
  • a candle
  • flat jewelry pliers
  • a plastic syringe (I used one from a Tylenol bottle)
  • stapler
  • Valentine template here
  • Valentine instructions template here
  1. Suck up 3.75mL of black paint with syringe.  Clean tip of syringe.  Insert tip of syringe into the straw.  Squeeze into straw and remove using care to avoid getting the top of the straw dirty with paint.
  2. Pinch the bottom of the straw closed with pliers, 1mm from the end.  Melt end over candle flame.  Gently press the pliers on top of the melted spot to close it.
  3. Repeat the same for the other end of the straw, cleaning the top of the straw with a rag first if any paint got near the top.
  4. Repeat steps 1-3 for 19 more straws full of black paint.
  5. Repeat steps 1-3 for 20 straws of white paint
  6. Cut 10 straws in half.
  7. Repeat steps 1-3 for 20 half-straws of orange paint using only 1.25mL of paint instead of 3.75mL.
  8. Print 10 pages of Valentines.
  9. Insert Valentine pages in the printer right side up.   Print 10 pages of templates.  (They should be on the back of the Valentines.
  10. Cut Valentine sheets in half.
  11. Using an X-acto knife cut two 1/2″ slits above and below the penguin’s raised wing.
  12. Fold two sides of Valentines in towards one another, overlapping slightly at the back, to form a pouch shape.
  13. Put double sided tape on the bottom of the pouch.
  14. Press flap (without wording) down onto the double sided tape.
  15. Put double sided tape on the edge of the flap you just placed down.
  16. Press other flap down on top.
  17. Sign and address Valentines.
  18. Insert paintbrush through the slits in the front.
  19. Fill valentine with 1 black, 1 white and one orange tube and a peg doll.  Staple shut
  20. Repeat steps 12-19 with the rest of the valentines.

Patricia paints her penguin

Julius painting his penguin.

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 4 Comments

I loaf you so much

Posted on February 21, 2023 by lexicolton

Well I again didn’t realize it was blog night (aka Monday) until 10:30am!  I was busy making a silly surprise for someone that I will probably post eventually.  The good news though is that despite being one day late I have another recipe for you!  This one’s another winner!  I calculated today and I’ve been vegetarian for 3 years and 5 months!  And I only recently found out that a lot of cheese isn’t vegetarian…

Turns out that a lot of the super fancy hard cheeses and even the cheap cheeses like American are made with enzymes from cow’s rennet which comes from the lining of cow’s stomachs.  They have ways of making cheese from vegetable rennet or microbial rennet, but the fancy hard cheeses with controlled names and origins (like Parmesan) have standards that require them to be made with animal rennet.  My guess is that the cheap cheese manufacturers choose to use animal rennet as well because it’s probably dirt cheap as a byproduct from the meat/dairy industry.  Sigh.  But don’t worry!  This meal has 0 cheese in it and is still darn delicious!

This is my take on a vegetarian meatloaf.  I’ve told you about my infatuation with lentils as a meat substitute and this one is my lentil magnum opus.  It’s also a great excuse for something vegetarian to serve with mashed potatoes (sidenote:  my kids LOVE mashed potatoes – they get that from me).  It took me several tries to get this one to stick together properly and not be too mushy.  Don’t expect the consistency of meat.  It’s going to be quite a bit softer.

Look at that loaf.

Lexi’s Lentil Loaf

Ingredients

  • 1/4 tbsp of butter
  • 1.5 c brown lentils, dry
  • half an onion, minced (about 2/3 cup)
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp onion powder
  • 2 tsp soy sauce
  • 2 tsp ketchup + more for the top (probably like 3/4 cup!)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 1tsp parsley
  • 1/2c bread crumbs
  • 1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 F and grease a small loaf pan with butter.  Rinse lentils and add to a large pot.  Cover with water by 2 inches and bring to a boil.  Lower to a simmer and simmer for 30-35 minutes stirring occasionally.  Drain and mash with the back of a wooden spoon.  Stir in all other ingredients except the ketchup reserved for the top.  Press into greased loaf pan and cover the top with ketchup.  Bake in oven for an hour (or until center reaches 170F).  Remove from oven, let stand for 5 minutes, then slice and serve with mashed potatoes.

This loaf makes my mouth water.

Posted in Culinary Delights | Leave a comment

Penguins for Patricia

Posted on February 13, 2023 by lexicolton

Monday again.  Julius’s daycare is still closed from water damage.  Patricia has been a monster – seems like a case of the terrible twos.   I’m really hopeful that Julius’s daycare will open next week at a temporary location because between the 7 days he missed while testing positive with covid, the two weather days, and the recent pipe burst, on Wednesday Julius will have been to school less days than he’s been out of school!  I’m having PTSD flashbacks to 2020.  At least he’s a bit more self sufficient than 2020 and in the mornings he makes crafts or plays with his toys, though this morning “crafts” was spraying water all over some papers he made (and also the table) and loudly blowing on the paper to dry it.  I had to offer an alternative option that he accepted gladly.

Patricia, despite the terrible-ness, still has her moments.  For instance every time you are holding your phone she’ll say “I see penguins?” She wants you to do a google image search for penguins so she can scroll through and admire them.  Sometimes she will question the penguin-ness of the penguins and say “that not penguin, that owl”.  The other day she asked me out of the blue “hedgehogs eat mushrooms? yes?  or no?”  (She usually adds the yes or no when I’m taking a long time to respond.)  Well, I had to google it!  Turns out they do!   She was pleased with the answer.  Several hours later she asked “Mice eat mushrooms?” (She might have said “mousies eat mushrooms?”)  Guess what?  They do too!

So for Valentine’s day this year I decided to make penguin Valentine’s for Julius & Patricia’s classmates (though Julius’ classmates may never get theirs…)  My mom found a crazy deal on pegdolls after Christmas from Lowe’s.  (I have no idea why Lowe’s sells peg dolls, but they were 20 pegdolls for $1!)  Julius wanted his Valentines to be DIY, so I’ll show you those next week.  For Patricia’s Valentines I made up a batch of pegdoll penguins in assembly line fashion (they took me no time at all compared to Julius’) and then tied them onto little cards I made with silly penguin puns on them.  They cost me less than a box of valentines with toys in them, even including the cost of paint…

Will and I joked that the generic “Happy Valentine’s Day” cards are for the bullies in the class…

Pegdoll Penguin Valentines

What you’ll need:

  • pegdolls
  • black acrylic paint
  • white acrylic paint
  • orange acrylic paint
  • pink acrylic paint
  • modge podge acrylic spray sealer 
  • 65lb 8.5″x11″ cardstock (preferably white but I only had ivory)
  • craft twine (I got mine in one of those mix packs from savers, so it was basically free!)
  • needle with eye large enough for craft twine.
  • Patricia Valentine PDF

Make penguins

  1. Paint front of penguins white.
  2. Paint back of penguins black, curving the black “hairline” at the top like a severe widow’s peak and curving in the black at the neck to define the belly and face.
  3. Add black eyes.
  4. Add small white dots to black eyes for a twinkle.
  5. Add in little orange beaks.
  6. With a very light pink (pink mixed with white) add small checks below the eyes.
  7. After penguins have dried completely, spray coat them with mod podge sealer.

Assemble cards

  1. Using the template above, print onto cardstock.  (4 will print per page).
  2. Cut each page in half and then in half again to form 4 4.25″x5.5″ cards.
  3. Use a needle threaded with craft twine to poke through the middle of the valentine (between the two penguins).  Leave a tail, then poke back thru the front of the card 1/2″ over from the first hole to form a horizontal line.  Trim tails so they are about 3″ each.
  4. Place penguin between two tails of craft twine, and tie twine in a bow around the penguin’s neck, securing them to the card.
  5. Hand out to all your friends!

    Patricia added the stickers herself.

 

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 4 Comments

I’m Gonna Write You A Letter

Posted on February 6, 2023 by lexicolton

I just want to say thank you to everyone who comments on my blog (regularly or only once) it really makes my day!  I’m a bit late tonight because I did a library craft tonight (a Korean lotus lantern).  Okay I lied, that finished before I even put Julius to bed.  The real reason I’m late is because I procrastinated for an hour and a half scrolling the internet.  And as a bonus though I found out my neighbor has a local flower business and I’ve got some great local flowers coming my way for Valentine’s day (and several pairs of yoga pants but I won’t talk about that).

Since we got covid we’ve been starting to get out of our shell more.  We even started inviting people to the house because Will is desperate to play games.  I keep telling myself I’m going to host another ladies’ night, but I haven’t yet pulled the trigger!  I don’t know why!  I think I’m just exhausting myself by thinking of all the prep work I’ll need to do. I’m out of practice with entertaining!  And it’s soooo much easier to be a hermit.  I don’t even need to wear pants!

When I was a literal hermit living in the basement for 4 days with covid, trying to avoid giving it to anyone (spoilers I’d either already infected everyone or whoever infected me infected everyone else too) I kept thinking to myself “this is the perfect time to get some crafts done”.  Except I had a fever of 103 and couldn’t sit upright for more than an hour without a nap in between.  I did though end up accomplishing one craft and I don’t think you can tell that I had covid when I made it.  Apologies though if the tutorial is muddled, because, well, covid and all that.

I could have watched TV I guess but instead I scrolled Pinterest for hours while sick.  During that time I decided that I really wanted to make one of these adorable pottery barn Valentine’s chair backer mailboxes.  They are so darn adorable.  They don’t sell them anymore though and the only pictures I could find of them is a slightly blurry 400 x 400pixel resolution image that someone screenshotted and put on Pinterest 5 years ago.

Pottery barn mailboxes, that only exist on pinterest now.

This is what I came up with, and I think it’s pretty cute.  Also I think I should tell you that the kids LOVE the backpack.  They have been checking it for notes every morning so I’ve been writing them little love notes (and once I made them little heart candies).  Shoot that reminds me I have to finish this up so I can do their next little love note!

Valentine’s Backpack/Chair backer

What you’ll need:

  • ~1 yard of exterior material (mine is some red curtain material I bought at savers)
  • ~1 yard of lining material (mine is hand me down from my grandmother – side note – how did I NOT have any hearts or valentine-y fabric in my stash?!  Strawberries was the best I could get)
  • ~1 yard of peltex 70 (some of it was scrap I sewed into a bigger sheet – you can do this it totally works!)
  • bias tape in contrasting color
  • Assorted felt for decorations, embroidery thread for details
  • 3 buttons
  • elastic cord
  1. Cut out 13.5″x26.5″ rectangles of outer material and lining material
  2. Cut out a 13.5″x25.5″ rectangle out of peltex.
  3. Fold the rectangles in half (right side in) to form pieces 13.5″x13.25″.  The fold will form the bottom of the bag, stitch along the two unfinished sides adjacent to the bottom.
  4. Measure out a 1.25″x1.25″ square inside the stitching on either side of the bottom of the bag.  Cut out square.
  5. With right side of fabric still facing in, pull one set of squares apart to form so the raw edges meet and the seams align. Stitch along the unfinished edge.   Repeat for other side of bag.
  6. Repeat steps 3,4 and 5 for lining piece of fabric.
  7. Repeat steps 3,4 and 5 for peltex piece of fabric (except in step 3 your folded fabric will form a rectangle of size 13.5″x12.75″.
  8. Leave lining fabric right side in.  Turn outer fabric right side out, and place inside lining fabric. Turn peltex right side out and place peltex inside outer fabric.
  9. Force all the layers into a box-y bag and put pins to mark two of the corners adjacent to one of the long sides.
  10. Stitch from pin to pin along the short sides and remaining long side,  just above the peltex.
  11. Turn lining fabric around the rest of the bag and into the inside of the peltex.
  12. Cut a piece of peltex 9.5″x9″ Along one of the shorter ends round the corners gently.
  13. Trace peltex on top of 1 piece of exterior fabric, and 1 piece of lining fabric, right sides in.  Stitch around all corners except the side opposite the curved end.
  14. Trim edges to 1/2″ then turn right side out and insert peltex inside.
  15. Here is where I embroidered my kiddos names onto the flap.  I used my machine, but you could of course do this by hand.
  16. Make straps (I will be honest, I stole some from the curtain fabric I reused for the exterior).  I recommend cutting a 4″x19″ rectangle, folding it lengthwise (right sides in), stitching along the long side and turning it right side out.  Fold one of the ends in, then stitch.  Repeat for second strap.
  17. Insert unfinished portion of flap into the unfinished portion of the bag, in between the peltex and the lining.   Fold the lining and exterior fabric edges in so the unfinished edges are tucked inside. Do not stitch yet.
  18. Insert unfinished end of each strap between exterior material and flap at the outer ends of the flap.
  19. Stitch along the entire back of the bag through the lining, peltex, flap, straps and outside.
  20. Stitch buttons to just above the bottom back corners of the backpack.
  21. Make buttonholes 1″ above the bottom of the strap and 8″ above the bottom of the strap to accommodate your buttons. 
  22. Stitch a button to the center front of the backpack about an inch below where the flap lands when closed.
  23. Stitch a loop of elastic in the center of the flap just above where the button is.  to serve as a closure.
  24. Add embroidery if desired (I did a running stitch along the flap edges), and felt details (like the stamp).
  25. Open the flap out and lay it flat on a cutting mat.  Using a ruler and a rotary cutter, cut a 7″ line through all layers of the flap, an inch from where you stitched the flap to the backpack.
  26. Attach bias tape along unfinished ends of the flap on both sides.  Open out the bias tape and lined of the unfinished edges up with one of the unfinished edges of the slot.  Stitch along the fold.  Fold around the unfinished edge so all the unfinished edges are inside and then stitch close to the fold. (In the pictures I start attaching it to the inside, and finish by stitching on the outside of the flap, but I actually removed it and did it the opposite way.)
  27. Hang from a chair and put Valentine’s inside!

Front

Back (in chair mode)

Slot for Valentine’s (top view)

Julius and his backpack.

Patricia being a goose and her backpack.

My child model

She wore this thing all over the house.

Child model #2

He also wore his all over the house.

 

Posted in Crafts & Sewing, Thrift Finds | 6 Comments

Ollivander’s Edibles

Posted on January 30, 2023 by lexicolton

What a week!  I’ve been exhausted so we’ve been watching White Lotus and going to bed early.  So that and filling straws full of paint has been pretty much my only activity this week.  More on that later, I promise.

The only other thing I’ve been doing is writing secret love notes to put in Julius and Patricia’s Valentine mailboxes (next week, I promise).  The other day I wrote ones that just contained all sorts of silly pet names I use for the kids.  Patricia always corrects me when I call her pet names.  For example, “I not Pumpkin Muffin, I Patricia!”  The other day though she got me.  After a round of correcting my pet names for her I called her Patricia and she told me “I not Patricia, I Patty Cakes!”  She then giggled maniacally.

I still have so many tutorials to talk about from Patricia’s birthday party.  Today I want to show you how I made the edible wands.  Before I tell you about this fun dessert though I have another silly Patricia story.  For Christmas Patricia and Julius got a bunch of costumes from Sugar and Daddy-O to put in their costume box.  One of the items for Patricia was a fairy star wand and cape.  Patricia brought the star wand over to me to help get it out of the packaging.  She was very excited to open it.  Once I handed it back to her she grinned and immediately bit into it.  Like tried to take a big chomp out of the star.  I told her, “no Patricia! Don’t bite that!”  She looked legitimately taken aback.  She seemed to be wondering why couldn’t she bite this star wand.  And how she was supposed to eat it without biting it.  That’s when I realized that the only wands she has ever seen were indeed star shaped and edible.

So I mentioned in the fairy party post that my original plan here was to make some kind of elaborate sandwich cookie wand, but I was too lazy to make cookies AND cake for the party.  So instead I decided Rice Krispie treats were the way to go!  Will declared them delicious and ate two. (After decorating them himself.)

Wands ready to be decorated

(Edible) Rice Krispie Treat Star Wand

Ingredients

  • 3 Tb butter
  • 5 1/2 cups miniature marshmallows
  • 6 cups of Rice Krispies
  • Star cookie cutter (roughly 4″ across at the largest points)
  • 12 Giant Pretzel sticks
  • Frosting (I used a container of Pillsbury vanilla cake frosting)
  • Assorted sprinkles
  1. Prepare Rice Krispie treats as per the recipe at Kellogs: https://www.ricekrispies.com/en_US/recipes/the-original-treats-recipe.html.  Included here:  In large saucepan melt butter over low heat. Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat.  Add KELLOGG’S RICE KRISPIES cereal. Stir until well coated.
  2. Using wax paper (or parchment paper) evenly press mixture down on a tray lined with waxed paper (or parchment paper).  Press until mass forms a sheet 1/2″ -3/4″ high.
  3. Let cool for a couple minutes, then use star cutter to cut out a star shape. 
  4. Place it on another tray covered in wax paper then gently press the tip of a pretzel down on top (tip should be in the center of the star and the rod should poke out between the points of the star).

    Just before I pushed the pretzel down on top.

  5. Cut another star out and align it with the first star and press it down gently on top of the pretzel rod so the two rice krispie treats merge and the pretzel rod is securely inside.

    Krispie-pretzel sandwich

  6. Repeat until you are out of Rice Krispie mix.  (Should make 10-12.)
  7. At this point I let them set completely overnight (in an airtight container).
  8. Place frosting in a microwave safe bowl.  Melt in 30 second increments, stirring in between until frosting is liquid.
  9. Drizzle frosting over star and then sprinkle with sprinkles.

    Julius shows off his creation

  10. Eat!

    Nom!  Now I know why she thinks wands are delicious!

Will’s wand (or maybe the second one I’m not sure).

(Complete side note – don’t you think Ollivander’s Edibles would be a great name for a Harry Potter themed weed shop?)

Posted in Culinary Delights | Leave a comment

Stollen Memories

Posted on January 23, 2023 by lexicolton

Well this weekend was a snowy one!  We had 3 different snowstorms pass through!  And today was so snowy that Julius’ daycare was closed, and Patricia’s closed early.  I was just telling my friend last week (after all the rain we’ve been having) that “I’d rather have snow then rain.” I guess I got my wish…

Patricia and Julius play so nicely together.  Today Patricia handed Julius a rumpled up napkin with something inside it (hopefully this is because I’m trying to move to reusable wrapping paper – more on this later), while Julius was busy building something out of magnatiles.  I was worried she’d knock over his creation, as she does at least once a day, so I tried to get her to move away from Julius.  Instead she stalwartly stood in front of him and said “no it’s for Julius”.  So Julius opened it up to reveal a little green bowl from the kitchen playset with a pretend cookie inside. He said in a completely sincere voice, “oh wow Patricia, thank you so much!”  Just the best.

Patricia is such a spit fire.  I was telling Will last night how we are so lucky we were able to have two because while they started off the same, they are so very different.  Julius is sweet thoughtful and extremely emo, and Patricia is wild and rambunctious also but kind and helpful. I just love watching the two of them play though.  I have so many Patricia quotes from the past month that are totally incohesive that I might just have to post them in no particular order so I can’t forget them.

“I have fluff!” (Fluff is referring to armhair while she desperately stars at her bare arms.)

(Sung): “Happy Birthday to doggies and any more!”  (Everytime she sees her sticker of a dog with a hat on.)

(Drops something by accident.) EEK! (in a pretend high pitched shriek.)  Chika chika boom BOOM!

Another one I don’t know how to fit into a blog post… Patricia calls Donald Duck, “McDonald’s duck”.  I’m not sure if it’s because of the fast food chain or “old McDonald had a farm”.  Hopefully the latter.

On Saint Nicholas Day Patricia climbs out of her booster seat and says “I’m going to get another orange and heads to the front hall.” I ask, “where are you going to get an orange?”  Her response, “ummmm… Dada’s shoe.”

Patricia, closely watching Julius work on play-doh creations looks up at me and says “I watch Julius make poke-dots?”  (Just to make sure I wasn’t going to tell her to leave Julius alone perhaps…)

“I want Patty cakes for dinner!”  I eventually figured out that patty cakes are Morningstar Chik’n Patties.

Patricia, leaving a room, any room, “Bye-byes, see you later!”

Likewise, Patricia, flushing the toilet, “Bye-bye poopies, see you later!” (Patricia thinks the word poopies is hilarious, but I’m not sure I want to see them later.)

Oh and one Julius one…
I hear this from the other room while on hold with National Grid…
Will – “Where’s mama?”
Julius – “On the phone with the government.”

So for Christmas this year I made tea towels of some recipes from my grandmother and Will’s grandmother.  I’ve been thinking of doing this with my grandma’s stollen** recipe for a couple years, but with two kiddos I just didn’t get around to it.  Will’s grandmother was a fabulous baker and since she passed away this fall, I thought it would be a nice tribute to do something similar for her as well.  So I made like 20 of these towels for my family and Will’s family.  I’m so happy with how they came out, but in all honesty it took me a very long time.  I ruined about 10 towels before I got the process right.  They key was first and foremost to make sure the towels had absolutely no moisture in them whatsoever.  The second critical step was to press them on a flat surface with very little give. I switched my cricut heat press pad out for a heat resistant table pad.  The good news is now that I’ve worked out the kinks it should take you no time at all!

Grandma’s stollen recipe on a towel.  I always loved my grandma’s handwriting. 

Keepsake Recipe Tea Towel

What you’ll need:

  • handwritten recipe from your loved one
  • sublimation printer/dye/etc
  • 100% polyester towel sublimation blanks (I used these great ones) – and yes you could just buy 100% polyester material and make your own towels.
  • heat resistant tape
  • heat press
  1. Scan your recipe as a jpg and open it in paint.net
  2. Using the eraser tool or the select tool remove any borders or trim (unless you want these on the towel) and leave just the handwriting portion.
  3. Crank the contrast up and the brightness down to turn from a color image to black and white.

    Right side is before, left side is after.

  4. Repeat this with other side of recipe (if required).
  5. Save as a jpeg and resize with your sublimation printer tool to a size of 5×8.  (So you can print two per page.)
  6. Follow your printer instructions to print design in reverse on sublimation paper.
  7. Preheat your heat press to 375F.
  8. Steam out the entire towel for 30 seconds, one heat press area at a time.
  9. Steam the area where you intend to press for another 30 sec.
  10. Lay down transfer dye side down, tape to the towel.
  11. Lay parchment paper on top, lay heat press gently on top.  Let sit for 60 min, then swiftly remove heat press by tipping the heatpress back.  Then remove the parchment paper and quickly and gingerly remove the transfer like pulling off a band-aid.
  12. Repeat for other side of towel.

Finished towel

All wrapped up and ready to go!

**A bit about Grandma’s stollen recipe

This recipe was handed down from her mother (and probably beyond).  When she was a girl (probably before World War II, because she lived in Germany and they had very little then) her mother and sisters would make up dozens of these stollens before Christmas and carry them in a wagon to the baker’s to be baked.  The baker would bake them in their giant oven after hours.  Crazy.  As a kid I didn’t really like the stollen.  It was honestly, the one thing my Grandma made that I wasn’t crazy about (except maybe her cheesecake).  (She was one of the best cooks of all time – I know everyone says this about their Grandma but I swear it’s true for mine.)  Nevertheless my Grandma made a dozen of these loaves before Christmas for family and friends.  Sometimes my cousins would help, and towards the end of her life my mom and I helped her do it.  Every year when we’d make the stollen she’d provide “executive guidance” offering “oh maybe a bit more of that” or “cut them a bit smaller” or “that looks pretty good”.  And always complimented my kneading of the dough, providing ample motivation, which is seriously tough when you are kneading 12 loaves of dough worth!  I don’t know how actual bakers do it.  Anyway, sometime between the last half dozen years of making stollen with Grandma, and my Grandma passing I decided I like her stollen.  It reminds me of Grandma and Christmas, and you can’t get better than that.

Posted in Crafts & Sewing, Culinary Delights | 2 Comments

Fairy Tales

Posted on January 16, 2023 by lexicolton

Well that was a week from hell!  And of course, Julius had absolutely no symptoms until yesterday when he had a fever of 104!!!  Let’s just say he did not sleep well last night and we are trying to figure out when the kids can ever go back to daycare.  Sigh.  I guess we’re just lucky we have dodged this for so long!

We did manage to take down our Christmas decorations this weekend and put up some winter/Valentine’s decorations instead.  That was pretty liberating.  We also got rid of some baby toys and baby books that Patricia has outgrown.  Always great to de-clutter.  But did I tell you we already filled the costume chest?!  The good news is that it is working as intended!  The kids have been asking to go downstairs on put on costumes nearly every day!

One of the items I created for the costume chest are the sets of butterfly/fairy wings for Patricia’s birthday!  There are lots of beautiful wings with appliques online and I fully intended to create a version like that, but as always I started to run out of time and created a simplified version that just uses some beautiful shibori fabric.  I felt it would be a crime to cover up any of it, so I didn’t applique over it!  You can use the below pattern to make your own!

My little fairy!

Kids’ Fairy Wings

What you’ll need: 

  • Pellon 70
  • ~1/2 yard of cotton material of your choice
  • 1/4″ metallic elastic
  • pattern here
  1. Cut out 4 wing pieces of cotton fabric (adding 1/2″ seam allowance) and 2 pieces of pellon 70 (adding no seam allowance).
  2. Stitch 2 wing pieces together along the outside of the wings, leaving the flat side where they connect to the back opened.  Repeat for second wing.
  3. Turn right side out and insert pellon 70 wing into each wing, tuck the unfinished edges in, and stitch closed.
  4. Cut a 1″x6″ piece of pellon to form a placket.
  5. Cut a 3″x7″ piece of contrasting fabric to cover the placket.
  6. Fold placket fabric in half (right side in) and stitch along the bottom edge and side edge (with .5″ seam allowance).
  7. Turn right side out and insert the pellon.
  8. Tuck the extra seam allowance at the top into the placket and stitch closed.
  9. Pin the wings to the placket but don’t yet sew.
  10. Cut two 18.5″ pieces of elastic. Tuck one end of each piece under the top of the placket and other end of each piece under the bottom of the placket (between wings and placket).  Stitch all along the placket to attach wings and elastic to the placket, backstitching along the elastic for strength.

Here I am demoing the wings!

Back view of the wings.

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Castles and Dreams

Posted on January 9, 2023 by lexicolton

Well I’m sitting in the basement in quarantine.  I somehow caught covid despite wearing a mask in public all the time and being one of the most cautious people I know.  Ironically I went into work the day before I got sick, something I only do every other month, so I also potentially exposed a bunch of friends and co-workers.  That seems incredibly unlucky.  Anyway, guess it was bound to happen sooner or later, I’m just glad it didn’t happen during the holidays!

For Christmas this year I fell in LOVE these adorable Maileg mice.  They each come clothed in a little outfit, with a little stuffed bed set up inside a pretend matchbox (or the like).  They are very well made.  For all these reasons they are a bit expensive.  I had convinced myself that I was going to sew my own version of these little mice for the kids, but a couple months before Christmas (right when I was cutting down on the crafts I had planned for Christmas) I convinced myself I should just buy the real deal.  So I gave up on making the little mice and bought Julius and Patricia each a mouse from Maileg.  Some day I’ll probably make them outfits…

And instead I decided to make a mouse house!  The cool thing about the Maileg designs is they are plastic free.  A bunch of their dollhouses are made of cardboard!  Having made many a cardboard dollhouse in my day, this seemed right up my alley.  What I decided to make is really close to the Maileg castle tower, which I love.  Is has an adorable modular design that you can add other components to.  Originally I had grand plans to make two towers, but it took me so long to make just the one that I halted construction of the second.  I will get to it someday though, I’ve already cut out all the doors which took me a considerable amount of time!

Oh and before I forget – Patricia LOVES her little Maileg mouse.  It was the first present she opened on Christmas, and she flat out refused to open any other presents for a solid hour afterwards.  She just sat there snuggling it.  Now she sleeps with the mouse in her bed, in it’s bed.  It’s very frustrating to find all the pieces whenever she loses them (which is all the time) but it’s so adorable watching her snuggle it that it makes up for the constant scavenger hunt.   And I asked Julius if he liked the castle and he said “who made that?”  His response when I told him I did was, “wow Mommy, good job it looks great”.

Well if you want the Maileg castle, you should definitely buy it yourself.  But if you’re like me and had lots of boxes lying around from that pirate ship you never made then have at it!

Cardboard Castle Dollhouse (inspired by Maileg)

What you’ll need:

  • 1 sturdy box about 2.5 feet tall and 1 foot deep and at least 1 foot wide (mine was a server box, so double layered and very sturdy)
  • Additional cardboard for turret and balcony
  • Hardboard for flooring
  • Assorted colored paper for wallpaper and flooring
  • ~6 feet of quarter round
  • brown craft paper
  • 1/2″ washi tape
  • colored pencils
  • wood glue
  • Glue gun
  • xacto knife
  • Pattern here
  1. Cut your box in half to form a box about 1’x1’x2.5′.
  2. Use wood glue to glue the box flaps shut.
  3. Measure and divide box into 3 equal height floors.  Using my template draw a door to a balcony on top floor of one side, and door to outside on bottom floor on opposite side. Cut.
  4. Using my template draw and cut out windows on sides opposite the doors, and the middle floor.  These should be an inch or so above the floor dividing lines.
  5. After the doors and windows are cut, wrap the entire box in kraft paper, leaving the inside open.  I folded the sides first, then cut a piece to fit on the top and inside top.

    Wrap outside of box in kraft paper.

    Cover top of box (inside and outside) with kraft paper.

  6. Cut an ‘x’ in the center of each door or window and fold down the kraft paper over the exposed pieces of cardboard as best you can to form the window ledges/frames and doorframe (note: I actually only did this for the doors, but wish I’d done it for doors and windows, so I’m telling you to do it this way for future reference :D )
  7. Measure the size of each segment of wall and cut down paper to this height.  Hot glue paper into inside of the box in each “floor” segment.

    Wallpaper glued in place.

  8. Glue washi tape into window openings, curling into the inside of the castle over the wallpaper.

    Gluing washi tape into windows.

    Inside view of washi tape.

  9. Measure the inside dimensions of the box for each “floor” and cut two pieces of hardboard for the upper floors.
  10. Cut piece of cardstock for bottom “floor”.  Glue in place.
  11. Cut quarter round into segments to fit within your box.  The flat side will need to be on the top to hold a piece of hardboard, and the two pieces of wood should be cut at 45 degree angles to meet in the corners. (See image below)

    Cut quarter-round.

    Example of how it should look when completed.

  12. Glue quarter round into place on middle floor

    Gluing quarter round into place. (you can see the bottom floor is also glued into place in this picture).

  13. Glue hardboard into place on middle floor.

    Hardboard in place.

  14. Repeat steps 12 & 13 for top floor.

    Top floor completed.

  15. Measure the outside perimeter around the castle.  Cut two pieces of cardboard that length and 5″ tall.
  16. Offset pieces slightly then glue on top of each other to form a thicker piece of cardboard. Fold to form a box that will fix over the top of the castle.

    Gluing to form a box.

  17. Glue offset portions together.
  18. Cut pattern into top of castle wall by cutting a 1/2″x1″ rectangle notch with every 1″ between along the castle.  (Note:  I had to fudge this slightly to get it to measure out evenly)

    Cut notches into top of castle.

  19. Cover top of castle wall with kraft paper by folding a piece of kraft paper in half so that it is slightly taller than the castle wall.  Glue inside portion in place first, then cut slits to match the cut out portion of the wall.
  20. Fold slits over down to the front of the castle wall, glue in place.
  21. Glue the outside of the wall in place, then cut a slit down the center of the cut out portion of the wall, and along the bottom of the cut of portion of the wall.  Fold onto the large sections of castle wall, and glue in place. (*note this picture doesn’t show step 20 being completed first, just ignore this, I didn’t have a better picture with the correct placement.)
  22. Fold the top of the wall down and glue in place.
  23. Create the balcony.
  24. Use my template to cut and fold the balcony as indicated.
  25. Glue bottom to sides at tabs.

    Glue bottom to sides using tabs

  26. Glue back sides to bottom at tabs.

    Glue back flaps to the bottom of balcony via tabs.

  27. Wrap in kraft paper.
  28. Create a smaller brick topper for balcony 5.5″ wide and 1″ tall.
  29. Cut out  1/2″x1/2″ notches with 1″ bricks in between.
  30. Cover top of castle wall with kraft paper by folding a piece of kraft paper in half so that it is slightly taller than the castle wall.  Glue inside portion in place first, then cut slits to match the cut out portion of the wall.
  31. Fold slits over and down to the front of the castle wall.  Glue in place.
  32. Glue the front (outside) of the wall in place, then cut a slit down the center of the cut out portion of the wall, and along the bottom of the cut portion of the wall.  Fold onto the large sections of castle wall, and glue in place.
  33. Fold the top of the wall down and glue in place.  Fold unfinished sides in to the back and glue in place.
  34. Using template for windows and doors draw windows and door on front of castle, and then draw an outline around windows and doors on side of castle and fill in with colored pencils.
  35. Use a ruler as a guide to draw 1.5″ bricks spaced 1″ apart on entire face of castle.  Repeat for top turret portion of castle as well as balcony.
  36. Glue the top of the castle with brickwork on top of castle.
  37. Glue the brickwork piece of balcony on top of balcony.
  38. Glue balcony on outside of top balcony door.

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 2 Comments

You Can Dress Them Up

Posted on January 3, 2023 by lexicolton

Today is Tuesday?!  I know what you’re thinking, “\s you’re starting off the year great Lexi /s”.  I know, I AM.  I FORGOT IT WAS MONDAY!  How zen must my vacation have been if I didn’t remember what day of the week it was?!

I did have a great vacation!  The kids got to play with their cousins, we got to hang out with my siblings and parents, we played lots of board games and I did lots of crafts (at the expense of lots of sleep).  Oh, and Santa came!  (As Patricia would say, “Santa!  Ho, ho, ho, Mewwy Cwistmas!”)  For the first time ever Santa delivered presents to our house!  It was awesome.  I loved opening presents in front of our fireplace and the kids were so excited for Christmas and Santa this year, especially Julius, but even Patricia!  (Patricia told Meepah before we left my parents house on Christmas Eve this year, “I’m gonna go see Santa!”)

Oh and Santa even brought Julius a jelly cake!!!!  I have no idea how Santa knew what a Jelly Cake was, but it appeared to be made of pumpkin bread, raspberry jelly and marshmallows for frosting!  Wild!  Perhaps all elves, Santa included, have a palate like that of Buddy the Elf.

I wasn’t such a slouch myself this year.  As I mentioned, I once again had way too many plans to make for Christmas.  My favorite one I’ll have to talk about next week because it took me so long to make I know it is also going to take me comparably long  to post about… So instead I’ll tell you about the big gift I made for the kiddos!  The kids have lots of costumes… I’m an enabler, obviously, because I’ve made them mermaid tails, fairy costumes, so very, many Halloween costumes, renaissance costumes… and half those are just from this year.  So I wanted somewhere to store all the costumes so they could use them whenever they want.  Originally I was going to make a big trunk, but (you guessed it) I ran out of time.  So instead I found a secondhand one off craigslist/fb marketplace that I actually was quite fond of!  (Fun fact – I paid asking price for it, which was $30, and given the time, wood and labor it would have cost me to make I thought it was a good deal.When I got it home I noticed a garage sale price sticker on it for $15.  I really should work on my bargaining skills.)

I actually liked the dark wood color, but I was set on painting it with a whimsical motif and cherry stain didn’t scream whimsical to me.  Plus it doesn’t match the grey scheme I’ve got going in the basement.  So I decided to whitewash it using this technique, which worked pretty well!  It was a wee-bit finnicky though and I ended up doing the coat, wait and wipe twice before I got the look I wanted.  I will suggest that as the author said, you start off by lightly wiping until you get the hang of how much pressure to apply.  The good news is you can always add more paint if you take off too much.  I will warn you that I was convinced I ruined the box until after the second attempt.

Waiting for the first coat to set in.

I didn’t like the first try.

Second try, a bit lighter which is what I was going for.

After I painted the box, I used water based acrylic to paint on some designs.  I sketched them on my tablet, then I freehand sketched them with pencil onto the box (I find it is so much easier to do a couple sketches to work out the kinks first).

Then I painted, highlighted, and outlined until I was happy with my unicorn and dragon.

Sketching designs onto the box.

Coloring in the basics.

Mid-coloring

Outlining

For the names, I didn’t risk freehand sketching because the acrylic whitewash was a bit delicate and I would not be able to erase or cover it up with paint if I messed up.  Instead I drew both names on a piece of paper then I placed patternmaking tracing paper below the name sheets and traced over them to transfer the names.  This also meant I could ensure the names were perfectly straight first before doing the transfer.  Then I colored over them.

I wanted a little mirror in the box so the kids could look at themselves, so I was planning to make a frame for a dollar store mirror I bought 6 years ago for my hat shop.  Then I had a genius idea to buy a frame for my mirror.  Normally I’d go to a thrift shop, but we are talking two days before Christmas, so I ran to Michaels.  I had a 50% coupon so I think I paid about $10 for an 11×14″ frame.  I then sanded the entire inside front cover and then I applied wood glue to the ends of the frame, and nailed it into place on the cover.

Hammering on the mirror… bit dangerous.

I decided the little holes they made for the screws to hold the top together were ugly, so I pounded some wooden button caps into place.

Mirror with screw caps in place

Then I applied 2 coats of water based polyurethane over the entire box.  I should have probably done 3 but I was in a rush and I wanted it to completely dry between coats.

Then I tackled the hinges.  I’d removed these to paint the boxes, but I wanted to make them not-black. I guess spray painting was an option, but as you know, I’m into gilding lately so I decided to use some of my gilding supplies to gild them copper.  I used my steps here and folded them towards each other to apply adhesive, apply foil to gild them, then eventually apply varnish, making sure to move the joints a bit after applying foil and after applying varnish.  I also gilded the screw heads to match.  It worked GREAT.  They are works of art!  And they still move perfectly.  I think they came out better than they would with spray paint, but we will just have to see how long they last!

Gilding the hinges and screw heads.

The last step was to replace the handles.  The plastic rope handles for the box were ugly and a bit discolored, so I decided to just cut those off and replace them with clothesline I had from when I had a clothesline in my basement for the last 10 years (more on that someday I swear.)  I am ashamed to admit that I needed Will’s help for this part.  I know how to make many types of knots, having learned from my dad, who has owned many types of boats and being both crafty and a scout, but I could not figure out how to make a square knot with just one piece of rope.  Luckily Will showed me quickly and I was able to make some very secure knots for my handles!

My beautiful square knots

It was a fun project, and good thing too because I’ll have to make another one soon since with the excessive amount of costumes it’s already overflowing!

Posted in Crafts & Sewing, Thrift Finds | 2 Comments

Happy Winter Solstice Holidays 2022!

Posted on December 27, 2022 by lexicolton

Well I’m a day late of posting my annual happy holidays post, and I was so swamped with last minute gift making last week that I’m behind on a craft.  So let me make up for it!  For anyone who still needs some last minute tags for some belated Hanukkah or Xmas presents, you’re in luck I’ve got a quick cricut template for you below! Though these would work for any occasion!  And feast your eyes on my I’ve-gone-off-the-deep-end cards!

Gift Tags

What you’ll need:

  • 12″x12″ paper (in color of your choice)
  • cricut cutting tool
  • cricut fine point pen (black)
  • cricut template here 

Mount 12″x12″ paper.  Follow instructions on your cricut to load cutting tool and fine point pen into specified slots and load mat.

 

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