penny carnival

Cake, camping and crafting

I have nothing profound to say. I'm only here to report that I love summer.

Who doesn't, right? I love it so much I want to make out with it in the back seat of a car. I want to tattoo the word "summer" on my right bicep (the left bicep is reserved for the imaginary tattoo I have designed in my head but will never get). I want it to last for-ev-uh.

Here are some reasons why:

1. The new bakery at Chaps called Cake, and eating lunch with my girls in the grassy outdoor seating area. 

I believe we were there for almost three hours the other day. That place is heaven on earth for a mom because the kids can just play in the sandbox while I read the paper and drink delicious coffee (Bumper Crop, of Coeur d'Alene).

Inside Cake, you can see how owner Celeste Shaw found amazing new uses for old objects. Can you tell what this round blue thing is?

Yep, an old display case from a hardware store that formerly held nails and screws. She has two of them in the space, and if I remember right the plan is to load them with to-go bread.

Celeste's creativity never ceases to amaze me. Here's some eye candy (or should I say "eye cake"?):

My pictures don't do it justice. You must see it in person. Perfect opportunity: The Latah Summer Market, organized by Celeste and happening July 10 and 11 in the parking lot in front of Chaps and Cake. Artisans, antiques, produce, baked goods, flowers, more. 4241 S. Cheney-Spokane Road off Highway 195.

By the way, Cake pastry chef Gina Garcia made my birthday cake this year. Lemon chiffon. Delish. 

2. Backyard camping.

You know we're getting ready to go camping bananas around here. Well, J and his close friends decided to celebrate the Great American Backyard Campout with a night of practice camping with the kids. (OK, they had no idea there was a national effort to promote backyard camping yesterday, but we were pretty impressed by their good timing.)

Hot dogs, s'mores, an outdoor movie and nine kids with their dads in tents. Does it get any cuter? 

Apparently the picture below was taken during a hilarious game of hide and seek. Our friend H was "hiding" behind a tree, and it took Bo forever and a day to find him. It's not even an old oak tree or anything. It's more like a cluster of thin branches with a big dude behind them.

Is she rocking the pajama bottoms + 2T T-shirt or what?

For breakfast, they grilled French toast kebabs.

 

So much fun I almost wish I'd been there instead of out to dinner/drinks with the wives and then on a long run in the morning with one of them. Darn. Maybe next year. (But probably not.)

3. Nature crafts.

I'm working on those eco kid crafts I mentioned the other day (prepping for the make-and-take craft booth at the county fair).

Here's our take on Maya Made's nature crown:

Bo opted to draw pictures of nature objects instead of taping them to the crown, (although I was not aware that Sleeping Beauty counted as an object of nature):

I also made a bird mobile from newspapers, inspired by projects from the Queen of Tarte, Kayte Terry and myself a couple years ago:

 

Do they look more like rubber duckies than birds? Oh, dear.

 

A bit of advice if you're doing newspaper crafts with kids. Do your best to use articles with nice words. This little bird snuck in somehow:

Damn media. (Wink, wink.)

Sleeping Beauty toasts a marshmallow

First of all, the Facebook thing is a hoot. How fun to see all of you there! I really appreciate you "liking" penny carnival. If you're not into Facebook, no worries. You won't miss a beat just by following along here like normal. I appreciate and am humbled by that, too.

With Bo's fifth birthday party coming up in a few weeks, I figured I'd better send the invitations. 

Just to refresh your memory (and mine, since the kid changed her mind so many times), the birthday theme is: Sleeping Beauty Goes Camping. I'm doing my best to marry the two ideas. A few weeks ago, I showed you the dress I sewed her for the party. And before that, I listed some ideas for the bash, although I think that was back when it was Barbie Goes Camping, not Sleeping Beauty. 

The original plan for the invites was to set up a scene with Barbie holding a fishing pole and a can of beer soda near a miniature tent, take a picture and use that as the card. With the change to Sleeping Beauty, that would have required me buying Barbie Doll No. 2 (one with a Sleeping Beauty dress), and I'm just not ready for that yet. 

Anyhow, I went with tents instead:

I wanted it to have a Cath Kidston feel to it. I love her camping stuff.

The print isn't from Cath Kidston, though. I took a scrap of fabric from my stash--just a flannel from Jo-Ann's I used around Valentine's Day--scanned it into my computer and printed it out at Kinko's. 

I did the same thing to make the envelopes, but using the kitschy camping fabric ("Happy Campers" by American Jane for Moda) I had from the party dress I sewed.

I'm planning on posting a template for making custom envelopes on my About.com kids' parties site soon, but in a nutshell--just dissect an envelope you already have, lay it flat and trace its shape on any paper you like (even old magazine or book pages) and then fold and glue it into place).

And here's Aurora herself, toasting a marshmallow (I took the liberty of adding that to a coloring book image): 

Sorry for smudging out some of the details. I dislike creeps showing up at my house.

I created a place on the kids' parties site where readers can submit pictures of party invitations they've made, so head on over there, if you like, and show off your stuff.

And while I'm on the topic of paper projects, I never posted the Father's Day gift we gave J this year. He doesn't like to get anything fancy, so we made him a camping cookbook of outdoor recipes that we printed off the web and, ahem, illustrated:

 

(Yes, a cannoli. You mean you camp without cannoli? OK, we've never brought cannoli on a camping trip, but Bo insisted on including it in the book.)

(Not together, I hope.)

I would be happy to give my husband "real" gifts on his birthday and Father's Day, but the fact that he'd prefer things like this makes me love him even more.  

If Penny Carnival had a page on Facebook ...

... would you become a fan?

Just thought I'd throw it up the flag pole and see if anyone salutes.

The page is pretty bare right now, but eventually I'll upload all my photos, links to tutorials, etc., and will make note there whenever there's a new post here. It'll also be an easy way to remind folks of some nuggets in the archives, since searching this blog isn't the easiest thing to do (in case you haven't noticed).

Would love to see you there.

Tidbits

Poor Penny. She's been pushed aside again. I've been hustling to get a bunch of work done before camp-a-palooza 2010, and this little blog has suffered as a result.

I do have a bit of stuff to say, though, so please accept this random wrap up of thoughts and experiences. There's no theme here, unless you care to find one?

1. First, congratulations to Spokane seamstress and Etsy seller Cherie Killilea, who recently landed a licensing deal with Simplicity patterns. Simplicity will begin selling her patterns for duffel bags (remember mine?), clutches and luggage tags next year under the name Studio Cherie. What a thrill, huh? You can read my blog post about it (including some comments from the designer at Simplicity who discovered Cherie) over on Dwell Well.  

2. Also on Dwell Well, I posted a roundup today of links to several eco crafts for kids. I'm gearing up for this year's make-and-take craft booth at the North Idaho Fair, which you might remember from last year. There are some neat projects there from Kayte Terry, Maya Made and others. Check it out if you're looking for something fun to do with the kids.

And by calling them "eco crafts," I'm generally talking about projects you can make from stuff around your house or stuff headed for the trash bin. In other words, they're the best, most creative kinds of crafts.

3. Speaking of all things eco, have you seen this video yet? It's excellent. It's 20 minutes long, so grab a cup of coffee, and the start is a little slow, so hang in there. 

4. We are going on four different camping trips this summer, one of which involves visiting three different campgrounds within one week. In other words, we will be living out my mother's worst nightmare. 

A few weeks ago, in a moment of irritation, Bo turned to her little sister and snapped, "Get out of my campsite!" instead of "Get out of my sight!" Hilarious.

A big part of planning a camping trip is preparing the menu. I'm sure I'll post photos of our camp-food successes and failures when that time comes, but putting all this thought into meal planning has reminded me that I never wrote about some of the wonderful meals we ate this spring. 

For the last few months, we've been spending two weeks with a particular cookbook (like Almost Meatless), a stack of magazines (like Sunset) or a blog (like my friend Sarah's, called In Praise of Leftovers). We pick two weeks' worth of meals from each, grocery shop for the main ingredients on one day and leave a few last-minute items on the calendar so we can pick them up fresh, as needed. The system has worked beautifully, and here's a sampling of what we've been enjoying:

Broccoli Fried Rice with a Poached Egg:

or two.

Squash-Walnut Galette:

Moroccan Grains & Greens:

Some of our other favorite dishes were:

Potato Taco Salad with Creamy Lime Dressing

Bruschetta Steak Salad (uh-mazin')

Eggplant and Chicken Stacks

Almond Gnocchi with Lamb Ragu (although I must admit we used plain, store-bought gnocchi instead of making it from scratch, which--when you have two young "helpers"--can get quite messy)

5. Besides love, family, children and sex, running is the key to happiness. You don't have to go fast. Just go. 

6. I turned 36.

My plan was to do 36 random acts of kindness, like Robyn of Mix Mingle and Glow did on her birthday. I even had appointments scheduled at the blood bank and a nursing home (we were going to help with an ice cream social). But Magpie woke up sick, so I only got to squeeze in a few things, like buying coffee for the person behind me and bringing grocery carts inside from a parking lot.

My wonderful friends on Facebook picked up the slack, though, and completed their own acts of kindness as a birthday gift to me. It was so fun to read throughout the day about the things they did, like my friend JoNelle, who was buying a candy bar for her son and decided to buy one for the cashier, too, because the woman mentioned it was her favorite treat. 

Facebook gets a bad reputation as a time waster and all, but how else could I spend my day at home with a sick kid and see friends I've known since grade school and friends I've made just recently spreading joy to other people in my honor?  

7. Like any family, we get caught up in the go-go-go-ness of life. Rush to preschool so we can rush to work so we can rush back to preschool and rush to get dinner on the table. Every once in a while, we have a day that stops me in my tracks and reminds me of who I am and what is important to me. 

It's never any big, major deal. Tonight, for example, we decided to go out for ice cream. As we passed the market near our house, we realized they were hosting one of their outdoor music nights. Very low key--just a bunch of neighbors sitting in the parking lot drinking beer and eating cookies.

There, we ran into the parent of one of J's former students. She (the parent) is running for office, so we got to catch up with her and talk about that.

Then, we saw a teacher J knows and his wife, who just had a baby. Had a wonderful conversation with them as the girls ran around in circles to the music.

By that time it was 8:30--way past bedtime for us, but J decided pizza sounded good, so we drove to another neighborhood we love and ate a pie on the patio, struck up a conversation with the sweetest 4-year-old boy you can imagine, and then got to talking with his parents, who we hope to bump into again.

Yes, the girls were tired, but happy, like us. They won't remember this night, but maybe somewhere deep down they'll make a connection. Meeting new people + building relationships with neighbors and old friends = happiness + love.  

8. Thunder and lightning out my window right now. Life is good.

   

Teacher gifts and rainbow jello

Wouldn't you know it? It's the week before summer vacation and now Bo's reading is starting to really take off. She's sounding out a lot of words and comes home every day all jacked up about the "movable alphabet." Um, they don't have the movable alphabet at the public swimming pool.

(Side note because this is interesting to me: After jumping for joy about reading, she often proudly tells J that she "did math" at school that day. One day early on, he made a big deal about learning math, I think trying to pump her up and build confidence in her. She picked up on it and I think as a way of pleasing her dad, she likes to tell him she does math ... even on days when I know she doesn't. The father-daughter relationship fascinates me. Meanwhile, I'm just glad she's figured out it's not OK to snatch things out of other kids' hands or pee on the carpet. I'm pretty sure that's what preschool was all about when I was a kid.)

Anyhoo, to say thank you to the teachers who have taught her all of these things--and much more--I sewed aprons.

These are more bistro style than billowy.  

One of the teachers at Bo's school grew up in France, so she's been interjecting the French language and culture into their school days. Inspired by that, I embroidered Frenchy roosters on the pockets of the aprons, following a pattern in Kaari Meng's beautiful book Handmade Soirees. 

Here's a closer (but blurry) look at the cockadoodledoo:

 

Here's a side shot of the apron:

 
No pattern this time. I just set down one of my Nana's old aprons to get a general size, then sewed a long tie to the top--long enough to cross over in the back and knot in front.

Since I never know who truly appreciates a handmade gift and who just sort of smiles and thinks I'm nuts when I give them one of my creations, I try to pair my presents with something non-homemade whenever possible.

In this case, it was supposed to be a bottle of wine for each teacher, but I came home tonight and found J had popped open one of the bottles I intended to give them tomorrow morning. Nice. The only other wine in the house is either cheap or has the label Menage a Trois on it.

I know what you're thinking. Hey! At least it's French. But c'mon. Menage a Trois for a preschool teacher? Looks like we'll be making a pit stop at the grocery store tomorrow morning.

COMPLETELY unrelated (I swear), check out the Fourth of July Jell-O I made for my About.com kids' parties site:

Recipe here.

Oh, great. I just said menage a trois, cockadoodledoo and Jell-O in one blog post. Now I'm going to get all sorts of crazy Google hits.  

Farm Chicks Part III

We couldn't resist. My friends and I went back for more Farm Chickery this morning and walked away with a few additional treasures. I'll show off my finds in a future post.

In Farm Chicks Part I, I noted that the color white seemed to be a popular choice this year. In Farm Chicks Part II, I said burlap was also a material of choice this time around. 

One final theme we kept seeing: laundry. It came in the form of wheely laundry baskets lined with ruffled linens, a giant metal sign that spelled out the words "coin laundry" and other really good goods. I have one of those scary basement laundry rooms with all the pipes showing, but this booth from Station 8 Antiques has me thinking I could add some brightness and cheer by draping (a lot!) of fabric.

Update: Debi Burton from Ormolulu saw this post and kindly sent me a photo of the "coin laundry" sign she had for sale at the show. This thing was huge. Makes me wish I had a GIANT laundry room.

 
 
Every vendor I asked said they were pleasantly surprised by the volume of sales. And I don't blame them. Serena announced on the loudspeaker this morning that 4,300 people attended Day 1, and several booths were notably more bare than I've seen before on Day 2. 

Update: Serena told me today that they normally get less than 4,300 attendees the entire weekend, let alone the first day. It was a big year!

One note about the pictures I'm posting here: The vendors enthusiastically and generously allowed me (and many other people) to take photos of their creations. Much of what you see are vintage household goods that look great because of their timeless design and well-worn patina. Other items, though, are crafts that the vendors came up with themselves--ideas that belong to them.

I, personally, am inspired by their work and have plans to re-create a few projects in my own home. But please don't use these images to replicate the creativity of these talented individuals with plans to sell the goods. I don't mean to be preachy; I just think there are still a lot of people in the craft community who don't understand that that's not OK.

OK?

On to the pictures ...

A daybed from Station 8 Antiques:

 

Thread spool photo holders from Carly Tee Photography & Design :

Total darlingness from Funky Junk:

Enamel goodness from Big Ship Salvage:

    

Honest Abe from the Queen of Tarte (this painting was my "one that got away" this year):

A lovely deer, also from Tarte:

Sweet bunnies from Hutch Studio:

 

Birdies, too:

Super cute hats from Old Mans' Pants (yes, they're made from old mans' pants):
 

 

I think the nice man behind me approves:

Many, many beautiful things from Celia (who happened to get engaged this morning! Congratulations, Celia!) and Gladys from Junebug:

From The Rusty Bird (vshawver@earthlink.net):

From the Vintage Barn:

From Wild Whimsy:

(These are fabric flower cuffs for your wrist:)

      

Whew! And there's so much more to say, not the least of which is a huge thank you to Nis and Emily for making the trek to Spokane and filling my weekend with laughter. More on the treasures we found ... coming soon.

  

Farm Chicks Part 2

This is a continuation of today's earlier post about the 2010 Farm Chicks Antique Show, which is happing this weekend here in Spokane. 

We went back to the sale after lunch and detected another theme among many vendors: burlap. 

It was used in every which way--as tablecloths, wrapped around wreaths, as upholstery for chairs and benches, etc. One vendor made what were sort of burlap socks for flower vases.

I love the look but I read something recently (don't ask me where) about all the icky chemicals that are in burlap. I have no idea whether that's true or not, but I like brown muslin just as much so I think I'd go with that if I were trying to re-create the rustic look from the show today.

Here are some more shots from the day. I'll probably post parts 3 and 4 tomorrow. 

From Retreat:

I want this kitchen island!

 

From Summerland Style:

   

 

  

From Bella:

I love, love, love these rolling laundry carts--

 

Walking into each booth was like opening a book of creative inspiration. I'm always amazed at the effort and talent that the vendors bring to the show.

More Farm Chicks pictures coming Sunday. Time to sleep.
  

Farm Chicks Part I

It's Farm Chicks weekend here in Spokane, and I'm tickled to have my friends Nis and Emily here to enjoy it with me. 

The show opened this morning, and we're home for a lunch break right now. We've decided that the big theme among vendors this year is the color white. White on white. White on cream. I love it. It's gorgeous. But maybe these people don't have young kids?

I'll write more about it later, but here's what you really want. The pictures.

(I'm breaking this into a couple parts. Here's the first batch.)

Cubbies, lockers and other goodies from Lisa Souers:

 

From Heather Bullard Home & Lifestyle:

 

From Luluz:

Cake from Celeste Shaw:

 

Hanging clouds from The Farm Chicks:

Hobby horse, from I don't know who:

More later ...