|
|
||
         |
Well, they are complete! My three plum pillow covers have taken over and the others have been officially retired (yay!). As I mentioned before, I don’t really think this is THE fabric for my living room so I made these super simple. I did, however, add a zipper this time because I was so tired of seeing the white pillow forms peeking out of the overlap closure every time one of the old ones got flipped around. Here they are snuggling together in our cozy big chair… and here is one doing a little afternoon sunbathing on the front porch… So nice to have completed something! ******* And in other news, I posted this photo on Facebook yesterday…
There were enough questions that I figured it would be a good idea to post here and include the recipe source for those who are interested. One of my favorite blogs is Beauty That Moves. Heather, the blog’s creator, has often posted about her green smoothie habit and her recipes. Check out this post for the recipe I used for the smoothie in the picture. I made a couple of minor changes: I used rice milk instead of almond (because that’s what I had on hand) and I used brown rice syrup as the sweetener. For my fruit I included one small apple, frozen mango and frozen pineapple. Not sure where I am headed yet with these smoothies or how often I plan to make them, but I must say that the repair of our long-busted Vitamix coinciding with the New Year could be a sign of things to come. Just a quick post to show off some in progress camera straps that will soon be in my shop. They are sewn from a jelly roll of fabric strips in Liesl Gibson’s Oliver+S Modern Workshop line. I just have to finish off the ends and add the hardware…Woot!
Currently on my work table are a few new pillow covers for our living room. I must say I have searched high and low for pillow inspiration, but nothing is really grabbing me. Since we lack a decent fabric store here in Marin, there is really nowhere I can go to lay out bolts of options and hope for one of those great Aha! moments. After many days procrastinating a drive to Berkeley, I gave up and decided to go local to a little shop in Mill Valley that has a decent but small selection of quality cottons. There I found this lovely plum floral print from Art Gallery Fabrics’ Paradise Collection.
It really is pretty, especially paired with the solid linen/rayon blend I picked up from Joann’s that is a miraculously perfect match. However, I have to say I am still not satisfied and I already know I will continue to be on the lookout for the perfect fabric and inspiration for the next batch of pillows. I really just couldn’t live with the previous pillows for a minute longer. I had hoped to finish these before our little New Year’s Eve party and when I didn’t get it done, I seriously considered hiding the old ones in the closet. Far too dingy to bother showing a picture of here, they have truly worn out their welcome in the Spilly household. As I continue my search for the perfect pillow, these will have to do. Photos of the completed pillows will follow…
In other news, I whipped up some cute little zipper pouches for the special ladies in my life for our family Christmas Eve gift exchange.
They came out really nicely. I made them slightly bigger than the ones currently in my shop. I realized a while back that the ones I have had for sale up until now weren’t quite the perfect size for carrying makeup which usually is the purpose of this sort of bag. They are just a bit longer taking into account the length of the average makeup brush, mascara, or lip & eye liner pencil. That said, “the ladies” loved them and future pieces for the shop will be updated accordingly to maximize their functionality.
Finally, for whoever might be reading this, I want to wish you a Happy New Year! The Holidays whirled through my life this year like a tornado taking with them my ability to think straight and, most certainly, my ability to write down or take note of a single thing. I am not one to make long lists of resolutions, but if you check back here you might just find a list of things I hope to accomplish over time and a list of things I am proud to have accomplished in 2011. For now, however, I wish everyone a year of peace, health and comfort in 2012. Hello folks! Well, December is upon us. I must say I am ill prepared for this Holiday Season. Many plans are made and moving forward, but no matter what I do to stay ahead, it seems I cannot get to that point where I can sit back and take a full breath of air. I have simply resigned myself to the idea that I will not be able to relax until January 4 when the kids return to school after the break. Until then it’s all making, selling, cleaning, decorating, feeding, eating and shopping. The purpose of this post then is to make my list and check it twice (lucky you, you get to help!). The list of what’s happened, what’s happening and a few items that are likely to not happen at all (but it’s nice to dream). What Has Happened?
What is Going to Happen (or should have happened already…)?
And the online housekeeping… It seems that I spoke too soon in my last post. I was so excited that I got my banners to work and all, that I just went ahead and deleted my old blog. Well, in my excitement I forgot I had one more step to take. The second I hit “delete” all the links to my old photos were gone because apparently they were still living in my old blog. So, if you go back into an old post here you might find there is no picture where there once was one. I am working on that, but I have to manually go back and find each photo in my files and upload it new into each post. Fun! Anyway, bear with me please. I am clearly not technologically inclined but I am doing my best. Happy Holidays! More to come… Well, good morning! Let me just start the day by saying, I did it! I finally did it! I closed my Typepad account and the old version of my blog will no longer be available there. I feel a sense of relief. Why did I hang on so long? I don’t know. All I can say is that this process has been frustrating and complicated and annoying. Pulling everything together for the new blog in this new space took some time. I couldn’t get the banners to show up right, they were the wrong size, other things got in the way of me sitting down and just getting it done, and overall I procrastinated (as I am known to do) an awful lot. In fact, I spent so many days trying to get it all right that when I reached a point where I thought I would never figure it out, I just shut down. I couldn’t log in to WordPress for fear I might just cry. I considered stopping this thing altogether. I even considered dumping all of this work and just sticking with the old blog, but then my frustration made it so I couldn’t log in there either. But, here I am and I am feeling pretty good about it. A weight has been lifted. I have the feeling I get when I finally drop off that load of clothes at Goodwill that’s been taking up space in the back of my car for a month. You know what I’m talking about – those bags you take out and put back in each day so you can make room for the dog and yet you just can’t seem to drive those extra few blocks to drop them off. It’s a genuine freedom I can feel deep down in my bones! The banners now are not only the right size but they appear, somewhat magically, on the right pages!! I nearly peed my pants when I got that to work. Really! I let out a whoop and the kids came running like I might have fallen and broken my leg or something. That alone is worth celebrating! The funny thing is I can’t even really tell you how I did it except to say it’s how I always do things. I worked on it until I was about to throw my computer through the window and then I took a long, long break. Then, one day I opened it up, spent about an hour poking around and, Voila! (as they say in France) here it is. Now don’t get me wrong. I know there are still glitches here and there, things I can add and fine tune, pages missing and photos with bad lighting, not to mention days and days worth of posts that should have been written and my shop that should have been updated long ago. But, it’s a start and a darn good one if you ask me. So, I invite you to poke around here. Let me know what you think. Let me know what might not be working. Make suggestions right in the comments section and tell me what you’d like to see here in this space. If you see something here you think might appeal to someone you know, send them the link. That’s what this is all about after all – sharing ideas and thoughts. Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to check it out too. I really appreciate the feedback and knowing that you stopped in to see what I am up to. Well, I know this has been true for a few years now, but my babies really aren’t babies anymore. Today was the first day of school and I am officially the mom of two elementary school kids now. Yikes!
In 2nd Grade now, N. has moved over to the big kids building across the schoolyard and G. is venturing into new territory for all of us with a different Kindergarten teacher than N. had. It’s all so exciting and nerve wracking too. I expected to get a little choked up this morning leaving G. behind, but N. left me little time for that. As we stood outside of G.’s class N. asked what his room number was. Before I could say “13”, he was running across the schoolyard, no kiss, not even a good-bye. It so distracted me from G.’s situation that I quickly handed her over to her teacher and made sure she was taken care of then ran off to say good-bye to N. and get a picture of him at his new desk. That was it – done. Two kids in school, no more driving north four days a week to the pricey preschool, everyone safe in one spot just a few blocks from home. Happy! As I fulfilled part of my volunteer duties stuffing envelopes this morning, I spied G.’s class taking a little tour of the school. They looked so small yet grown up all at the same time, walking in a perfect line, hanging on their teacher’s every word. Half of them walked with fingers in their mouths and eyes popping open – it’s all so big! I know they are both happy to be back with their friends. The summer was great and relaxing for us all, but I know they reached their limit on how long they could stand playing mostly just with each other. We’re all glad to get back to some sort of routine, a rhythm. As relieved as I am to have some of my own time back, on this first day I can’t help but spend my time off anticipating the stories I will hear in just a few short hours. Old friends, new friends and a sweet mix of fear and excitement over what they’ve been told to expect from the school year. It reminds me how many memories of my own I have from similar days as a child, all of the many new beginnings, and I can only hope they look back on these days with the same fondness because they are truly special. So the second and final part of our trip was three nights in Boulder, Utah. Our adventures there were beautiful and peaceful and, of course, filled with nature and ridiculously amazing food. Our need for a bit of wondrous site-seeing was fulfilled with several drives through the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument. This is miles of roads weaving through red rocks and deep canyons, many of which lead you down into the north side of Lake Powell. When it got a little too hot in the car, we would park and walk down to the river running alongside the road, cooling ourselves in the pools and sunning like lizards on the rocks.
We stayed at Boulder Mountain Lodge, which in and of itself is really worth the trip alone. The lodge is family and pet friendly, has a hot tub, comfortable rooms and beautiful grounds. The kid’s favorite part of the day was getting badminton rackets and a birdie from the front office and attempting to hit over the too-high net in the middle of the field. They also managed to talk The Mr. into croquet one evening as well.
But the true highlight of Utah was… well, the food of course. Boulder Mountain Lodge is home to Hell’s Backbone Grill, a restaurant started in 2000 by Blake Spalding and Jennifer Castle. I won’t go into too much detail except to say that if you have a chance, go! And if you don’t, at the very least, check out their cookbook, With a Measure of Grace. And, if you plan to go and stay at the Lodge, do your self a favor and book two nights (or more) right up front because one just isn’t enough. You need at least two dinners and two breakfasts at Hell’s Backbone to really experience the restaurant. The menu is heavily inspired by the flavors and dishes of the Southwest and the ingredients are all local and organic, many of which are grown personally by the owners. Needless to say, my food (creamy enchiladas, cornmeal encrusted trout, a vibrant red beet salad, a plate of radishes and rosemary infused local cheddar, pueblo rice, steaming hot posole, butterscotch pudding with homemade pine nut brittle…) all disappeared so quickly that I didn’t even think to take pictures. I suppose I should plan that for next time… there will most definitely be a next time. In the meantime, I’ll just whip up some new concoction from the cookbook and daydream about next year’s trip!
We’ve just returned home from our annual trip to Crested Butte, Colorado. Every year we find our way there – we used to go in the Fall as the leaves changed – now we go in the summer as the last of the wild flowers fade. We are able to head out for a nice long stretch and get back just in time for school to begin.
Crested Butte has come to mean so much to us, and that goes far beyond the beauty of the town and the surrounding terrain. We have come to love quite a few people there just like they are part of our group of friends here at home. It’s amazing how you can meet someone and see them only a few times over the span of two weeks a year and somehow still feel so deeply connected. The Mr. and I find ourselves looking forward to this trip months in advance with a bit of giddy excitement similar to the kids’ before our other annual trip to visit the cousins and go to Disneyland! While The Mr. spends the weeks before reminding himself of all the trails and planning the routes he wants to cover on his bike, I spend time (honestly!) thinking about wild flowers, coffee and food.
Seriously, the coffee and food in this town are worth the trip alone – people in CB are serious about both, but mostly the coffee. While the main street is lined with some pretty wonderful restaurants and really any kind of food you could possibly want, it’s the two coffee spots in town that truly draw you in. Coffee is a ritual here – I love that! It reminds me of growing up in the City, being in high school and college, getting a latte and sitting down for a real conversation and losing track of time. Something I rarely do these days! When we are in CB, we find ourselves walking over to the main street in the morning and getting coffee and actually lingering over it, enjoying a little people watching. We get the kids donuts, find them a dog to pet or some raspberries to pick and then we have more than a few precious moments to savor nearly every sip of the brew. The Mr. gets his usual strong latte (extra shots involved!) and I enjoy an Americano with lots of cream (there doesn’t seem to be any drip in this town and that’s OK!). This year I even found myself adding a little raw sugar, making the whole cup pleasantly tangy and the last few sips truly sweet.
And the wild flowers? Well, they are off the hook in CB. Really! It’s the wild flower capital of Colorado, in fact, with a wild flower festival in July. This year in particular I knew we would be in for a treat because of the late winter. It seems no matter where we were – rivers, lakes, trails, dry land, wet land – there were flowers. And not just flowers, but crazy beautiful flowers. Flowers in colors that can only be found in nature. Fields of delicate Sunflowers standing at attention facing the Sun as he moves across the afternoon sky. Sprays of Columbine and Larkspur jutting out between the rocks. Blue Flax and white Flox sprinkled along the edges of a trail. Wispy stalks of Penstemon waving in the mountain breeze and Yarrow growing higher than it will ever get in my own backyard. All of this and more still thriving amongst slightly melancholy bunches of already spent, but still sadly beautiful Black-Eyed Susans. All so truly breathtaking!
Leaving CB is always bittersweet. Losing all of that unscheduled time, time to roam and be both active and a bit lazy. Knowing that we will soon be back in the land of work and school and driving everywhere. And most of all, saying goodbye to friends we won’t see for another year. However, we always leave refreshed by more time in nature, adding to that we get at home. We reach our limit on restaurant dinners and trips to the adventure park on the mountain. The kids want to get back to their toys and friends their own age. I find myself newly inspired to get back to my sewing machine and my own kitchen. The Mr. starts getting nervous about time away from work and antsy being away from his man-cave (a.k.a. our garage). And the dog I’m sure yearns to follow the sun beams around his own familiar backyard. So much can be said for having a different adventure in a new place every time you leave home. But the same is true of having a place you can go again and again to get a refill on all those things that make life new and fresh once more.
Finally! I posted some new items in my shop… including these sweet little zip pouches…
… a couple of messenger purses …
|
|
|
Copyright © 2012 Jen Spilly Designs - All Rights Reserved |
||
