El Dia des los Muertos

I will get better at this......

This Week's Projects and Dreams

I saw these cookies on Pinterest so I decided to have a go. It's nice to have them ready in the freezer for when our granddaughters visit.

For some reason my Peter's eyes look angry.

This coffee shop in KC by my daughter's house has a lovely frozen concoction called the Beehive.

Living in the country I can't always satisfy my frozen coffee craving so I decided to give it a try at home.  I took leftover coffee and froze it in ice trays, vanilla almond milk, a long drizzle of honey, put them in the blender and.....

Beehives for two.

I made a new maxi skirt.  It started as a dress from Goodwill....

I cut off the top, added a waist band and elastic...

and I have a new skirt for $4.00.

And finally, Pinterest dreaming....
I love these green houses made from recycled windows.....

And this one uses them for skylights....maybe we could add this to our playhouse renovations.

What do you think?

Anthropologie remake

Have you seen the Swarm tote bags at Anthropologie with a price tag of $398? 

Well I copied the idea, my price tag, $11.

A five dollar garage sale painting, a six dollar leather strap from Hobby Lobby, and some leftover fabric for the lining.....

I especially like the idea of recycling things into something else......

Photo editing now that Picnik is gone

I was really heart broken when Google decided to end their free online photo editing site, Picnik.  And for me, sometimes photoshop is just too cumbersome to use.  But luckily after some surfing and some trial and err I found two easy to use sites. 

First, http://makeagif.com/ makes it easy for you  to animate still photos.

And http://www.lunapic.com/editor/ does just about everything that Picnik did.

But unfortunately, and even though I am still learning it, nothing beats photoshop for extensive editing.  

Local Indian Cemeteries

On Memorial Day Paul and I took a drive to find 3 local Indian burial grounds. It made the day special for us. It also made watching the Hattfields and the McCoys on the history channel this week a bit more powerful.  All three of these cemeteries are within 20 miles or our house.

I tried grave rubbing for the first time.  I am going to add some embroidery, maybe join them together into a quilted wall hanging.  I think they would be great hanging in the entry way of our church.  The church we own on our property was erected in 1872.  It burned and then was re-erected in 1917.  

Paul said it's striking to think how really young this country is, amazing compared to England and the rest of Europe.  God save the Queen and happy Jubilee!

Learning curve

I wanted a pond for water plants and fish.  Paul wanted a better way to collect rain water for the garden.  So he bought a 8ft stock tank.  Pipes feed water from the gutters into the tank.  The tank sits over the original cistern that was built for the original farmhouse.  He put in an overflow valve to flow into the cistern.

Next came gold fish and pond plants.....

And finally the fish high rise.  It took them a few days to figure it out but now they love it!

Paul says it's a reverse glass bottom boat.  They can view the outside world from another angle.

We can't wait to share it with Olivia!



Ginger syrup recipe

I love club soda; I love ginger ale; but I just discovered how much I love ginger syrup.  It's so easy.  I can pour it in my club soda to make my own ginger ale, or add it to my iced tea.  My first batch I made with Stevia, but from now on I will use real sugar.  It's definitely worth the calories.  I found the recipe on epicurious.

ingredients:
3 cups water   
2 cups surgar
2 cups thinly slice fresh ginger (1/2 lb; from a 10-inch piece), left unpeeled

Bring water, surgar, and ginger to a boil in a 2-quart saucepan, then stir until sugar is dissolved.  Simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, then remove from heat and let steep 15 minutes.  Pour ginger syrup through a sieve into a bowl, discarding ginger.  Chill, covered at least 2 hours. 

Syrup keeps, covered and chilled, 2 weeks.

I wonder how it would taste added to my iced tea with bourbon.  I will definitely do the research.