Hi! Thought I'd pop on here and share some pics to show that I've actually doing something. If I wait much longer I'd probably forget. My current "maybe I can make these and sell them?" idea is these little twill pinafores with applique fronts. I'm making them in sizes 1 through 4.
The thing that would keep me from getting too bored (doing different designs) is so far proving to be the thing that will keep me from making more than one per day :-P
But I suspect it's just a learning curve and once I figure out good designs and nice fabric combinations it would go faster.
I AM having fun and being creative so that's probably what is most important, huh?
Blueberries are just about ready for the picking here in Northern CA. Earlier this week I was googling (can't go a day without it!) if it is possible to can sugar free jam. YES it is! yay! So I hopped on Amazon and found this awesome pectin that makes it all possible.
It arrived around 4:30 yesterday and by 5 I had run to Costco to buy 4 lbs of organic blueberries and was firing up my big canning pot. What--me wait?! I followed the recipe on the box insert. I used liquid Stevia, and I couldn't be happier with the end result. It will be awesome on almond flour pancakes, coconut milk ice cream, as well as peanut butter sammies!
I keep quite a stock of liquid Stevia flavors on hand. I stopped buying soda of any kind over a year ago. Instead I buy several big bottles of club soda at a time and just add a few drops of one of these flavors.
I put a couple drops each of clear and vanilla in my coffee every morning. I put the choc raspberry in the almond joy bites that I make. I put some lemon or orange in the boys' berry smoothies every morning. For the jam I added a squirt of orange, a smaller squirt of lemon and half a squirt of vanilla. I'm really happy about this discovery--if you know of someone who can't/doesn't want to do white sugar anymore I hope you'll pass it on!
Last Friday I drove by a yard sale that had SO MUCH STUFF out front that one simply HAD to stop. The guy had emptied his three storage sheds and was trying to sell it all THAT DAY. Yikes! He had an ugly painted drop leaf desk that I liked the lines of so I gave him the asking price of $25 and carted it home. Not being one to wait ;-) I immediately started stripping the paint off. I thought I would be repainting it, but the wood seemed pretty nice at a glance and it seemed an awful lot of work to strip paint OFF just to put more ON, you know? As it further dawned on me that yes; this was a pretty nice piece, I decided to call my mom's good friend Lois who has been refinishing beautiful oak pieces for resale for many years. I showed you some of her great lettered tables here. Even tho I've been refinishing furniture since I was a 17yo bride, I suspected there were tips and steps that should be taken to really make the most of a piece. I am SO GLAD I asked and that Lois was so generous (I think she gave me ALL her secrets!) but I didn't do much else between the past two Fridays :-)
I've ordered these iron drawer pulls--unpainted. I couldn't decide on a color and I think I may just want to clear coat them bare. Will wait and see (concept!) Anyway, as much as I'd like to show you it complete with handles, I'm afraid I'll forget between blog posts and I have to admit, I AM pretty proud of it :-)
I think I'll leave it at that for today. Gonna go make something else now!
cheers.