More milk glass!

I believe I've made my love of milk glass known, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that whenever I visit thrift stores I'm always on the lookout for interesting pieces.  I wasn't on the lookout for anything, however, when I was at my grandmother's house earlier this week helping her make jam.  I went into the laundry room and saw these two beautiful serving dishes sitting on top of the washing machine, and I literally gasped.  After informing me that she never uses them and making me promise not to break them, my grandmother told me I...

Read More »

1886 Vintage Ingalls Embroidery Patterns

I literally  jumped for joy when I saw that Feeling Stitchy had posted a link to these beautiful 1886 Ingalls vintage embroidery patterns, which have been cleaned up and made available by Flickr's jeninemd.  There's no way I could pick favorites, but here a few that really jumped out at me: Embroidery has become my lazy-summer-watching-television-everything-else-is-in-the-garage-or-too-expensive craft, and I can't wait to stitch some of these beautiful vintage designs. (all images courtesy of jeninemd via...

Read More »

Embroidered Nesting Doll Pillow

A few weeks ago I posted about OlioBoard, and in that post I shared some images I collected from around the internet as inspiration for a project I'd been planning. I haven't done much embroidery, and I've never made an embroidery pattern, but I decided to give it a try. Up until this weekend my sewing machine was still packed up in the garage, and this whole home-buying thing is draining my bank account, so embroidery has presented itself as a very logical craft--it doesn't take up much space, I can design patterns myself, and...

Read More »

Dawn’s Famous Muffin Recipe

Dawn, my younger sister and health and beauty blogger over at Turby and John, is visiting today to share her famous (at least among our circle of friends and family) muffin recipe. I've eaten more of these than I'd like to admit, so I can testify to their deliciousness. Welcome, Dawn! I truly am crazy about muffins. I can easily think of ten reasons why I should not eat them, but sometimes I throw caution to the wind (not entirely, though, since I tend to bake with organic unbleached flour and sugar...which makes me feel better than it...

Read More »

Quick and Easy Sun Dried Tomato Pesto Pasta

The basil I planted early this spring has been growing like a weed, so I seriously cut it back today and make some pesto cream pasta.  I am too lazy and poor to make a special trip to the grocery store, so I just used what we had on hand and it turned out pretty well.  The only change I plan on making next time is using heavy cream instead of milk if I have it.  I tend to think that no matter what the dish is, heavy cream will probably make it taste better.  I really like the combination...

Read More »

Apple Brown Bessie

The best and worst thing about being home is that I'm surrounded by good food all the time.  For example, today for lunch I had a wonderful salad with lots of spinach, baby greens, cherry tomatoes, and a sprinkling of almonds and goat cheese.  I was feeling really proud of myself until my Nana walked in the back door with something hot, cinnamon-y, and wrapped in foil.  It smelled so good, I knew I was going to eat way too much of it before I even tasted it.  My grandmother calls this an apple cobbler.  She got the recipe from...

Read More »

Egg Pet House by Ephata

I'm consistently disappointed by the appearance of most pet accessories.  It seems like they're all cheaply made of maroon, gray, or hunter green plastic, and more often than not I find myself wondering how I can mask or improve their appearance with fabric or spraypaint.  Often times I simply give up, stick them in low traffic areas, and hope no one judges me too harshly for their ugliness. However, I'd have no qualms about placing this egg house (seen over at Modern Cat) front and center in any room in my house.  Too bad the company that sells it...

Read More »

Five Green Moving Tips

Packing might be one of the least fun things I've ever done. I'm downright bad at packing to go on vacation, but when it comes to moving I'm out of this world bad.  I spend the majority of my time complaining that I can't believe I have so much junk and threatening to throw it all away and start over again. At this point we're less than halfway done, and this is one of the neater rooms in our apartment. For the most part, clothes and furniture are strewn pretty haphazardly across the house. For someone who hates packing so...

Read More »

I Think I Need This: “Vintage Lace” Print

Something I often say to Kyle when we're shopping or I'm dicking around on the internet is, "I think I need this." In reality, I know I don't need anything other than sleep, the occasional meal, and some ice water (in fact, I could stand to get rid of a lot of the junk I've accumulated over the past few years). For the most part I shop at thrift stores and make as much from scratch as I can; I can't remember the last time I bought brand new clothes, and I haven't ventured down the shampoo, deodorant,...

Read More »

Something I Love

I really, really hate to dust.  Because of this, I am also not too crazy about knick-knacks, as they tend to just collect dust.  I think that too many of them can be overwhelming and look more like clutter, so I try to be pretty minimalist about what junk I choose to have on display.  These vases are some of my favorite things.  I have no idea what they're called, and I'm sure they're not worth more than the couple of dollars I pay for them at thrift stores.  Still, I can't help but love how clean and fresh that milky white...

Read More »

Next Page »