Leroy Loves Mabel

you know...

2010-11-30T13:04:00.005-06:00

...i'm the type of person that really seems to enjoy creating more work for myself. i made the entire thanksgiving dinner this year. lots of fanciness:
devils on horseback
ham and gruyere thumbprints
herb and cheese palmiers
caramelized onion tartlets
berry citrus punch----yes, even punch
maple brined turkey
gravy
creamed leeks with parmesan crumbs
herbed mashed potatoes
corn
green beans
baked beans
sweet potatoes
rolls
cranberry apple butter bars
maple pecan pie

i even went to the trouble of styling the food on carefully chosen plates. sounds good right? i then proceeded to not bother to take a single photograph, even though that was the entire plan.
so, i have no photos to show you, but everything was a major hit.
....in my defense, the appetizers did keep flying off the trays literally as fast as they came out of the oven...

this is the remnants of the cranberry apple butter bars

pears, pears, pears

2010-08-29T19:32:00.002-05:00

i will be seeing pears in my sleep tonight. today i peeled, cleaned and diced the first pile of pears i picked the other day. 3/4 of a gallon bucket of tiny pears down, 3/4 of the tree still to harvest and prepare. decided to freeze them to make jelly, butter and other goodies later in the week maybe.
i've still got a crate full of apples to clean and three more trees to pick.
these projects always seem like a good idea before i'm actually in the middle of doing them...

pear crisps

2010-08-29T04:34:00.003-05:00

started harvesting the pears and apples off the trees the other day. today i made pear crisps out of some of the pears. this was super quick and easy to make and so good still warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.

a review of some recent new jellies i made this year

2010-08-01T16:43:00.007-05:00

from l to r:

white clover jelly:
sweet and mild with just a bit of tang to it

cantaloupe jam:
i am not really a cantaloupe person, but i actually liked this jam. it is sweet and tasted to me somewhere between cantaloupe and apricot

red clover jelly:
this is sweet and reminded me of a cross between jelly and honey in flavor

queen anne's lace jelly:
this is sweet with just a hint of honey aftertaste

2010-07-29T01:30:00.001-05:00

im declaring it official.
i prefer animals to people.
i keep trying, but people just keep disappointing me and animals never have,
except when the pee on my stuff..
but i think id still take that sometimes over what people do

things have changed..

2010-07-26T01:14:00.000-05:00

this year isnt going as planned. want to talk about it but dont want to either

year end review

2009-12-30T10:32:00.000-06:00

I thought I’d make my last blog of the year about some of the good things that happened this year.
I went from never having done a craft fair, to doing five this year.
My list of shops that carry my line of products keeps growing.
I got to hand raise six wonderful kittens. Hadn’t done that in a while.
My parents finally got a new dog after a few years without one.
I planted my biggest garden to date.
Made tons of pickles and other canned items.
Made elderberry jelly with my grandma.
Baked and baked tons of new things.
Finally taught myself to crochet.
Went camping for the first time in a long time.
Took tons of photographs again.
Did lots of paintings I was actually happy with.
Took several trips to hang out in Chicago.
Got to go to a bunch of the mr’s shows and even traveled a few times with the band.
Spent another great year hanging out with my grandma.
And of course, met my mister.
Lots of other things happened, but those were a few highlights.
Some things I’m looking forward to in the new year:
Marrying the mister.
My grandma turns 90.
Finally having our first place together with the mr.
Expanding my business to include new types of items.
Planting an even BIGGER garden this year.
Lots more pickling/canning/jelly making.
Tons of creating every day.
More camping with my favorite camping companion.
Spontaneous road trips.
A year full of more happiness and surprises than I can imagine.
Perhaps even a bambino.

hello blog..

2009-12-27T23:53:00.006-06:00

..i've been ignoring you again, but this time i really had a good reason. i spent almost a month in chicago and traveling around doing craft fairs. things started off with the drive to chicago, followed by the diy trunk show that first weekend. then there was much hanging out with the mister and housesitting, which was immediately followed by a weekend trip to wisconsin with the mr's band to finish off their tour. then it was back to his place for reorganizing of materials and creating of more things because the following weekend was the renegade holiday show. after that i had a couple more fun days and dropping off of items to my newest addition of shops i'm in, the renegade handmade store. then it was in the car, back home to iowa, where there was once again unloading of stuff, reorganizing and reloading for a trip to iowa city for the what a load of craft show. after that it was home again, unloading, reorganizing, inventoring, etc. followed by a brief exhaustion. then it was time for full blown cookie and candy baking mode. there was a week or so of nothing but making of cookies and candy, decorating the house, wrapping tons of presents, hanging out with the neglected fuzzie butts. this year i cut down on my candy and cookie list (haha sort of). i only made peanut butter balls, peanut butter fudge, chocolate fudge, pretzel rods dipped in chocolate and various other things, inside out chocolate chip cookies, outrageous chocolate cookies, crinkles, white chocolate macadamian nut cookies, peanut butter kiss cookies, and i think there are a couple i'm forgetting. i was really into peanut butter and chocolate this year apparently. no pictures though because i gave them all away before i remembered to take any and all were immediately and happily devoured by recepeints. then we had a christmas dinner at my grandma's house. all went great. in a couple of days, i am off to chicago again to spend a few weeks with the mister and celebrate new years with him. yeah! i suppose i should actually do a couple of things on my to do list now before i leave :)

one thing i forgot to mention, was while i was gone, my sweet kitty edith was hit and killed by a car. i miss her very much.

im running out of time..

2009-11-14T01:20:00.004-06:00

ugh, i leave for chicago in a couple of days and will be there for almost a month and i am so not ready. i still have tons of things to finish up since i will be doing several craft shows while im there. i pretty much finished making scarves tonight. i could probably use more, but im getting a bit burnt out on making them. i plan to take my sewing machine with me so worst case scenario, i can get some more fabric while im there and make more.
i still need to finish up making:
ginger people
cat toys
rings
mirrors
necklaces
cards
shoes
ive pretty much abandoned all the other things i wanted to make at this point because it is becoming too much.
i also need to:
redo a couple of my displays
make the mr a birthday AND christmas present--havent even started, maybe we can celebrate in february instead :)
figure out what clothes im taking and pack
load up the car
figure out some food thing to make to take to f's parents for thanksgiving
clean up my room and factory
i also wanted to take photos of tons of my stuff and do a huge shop updated. unfortunately my camera is still broken so this is going to be very difficult because i have to borrow a not so great camera
on top of all of this ive been fighting off a sinus infection for weeks and everything is becoming to much to do when i just want to lay down. bob is still sick and ive had to take him to the vet every other day for about three weeks now for injections. on monday he goes back for more testing since the shots arent working. i was really hoping to have him well before i left so my parents didnt have to deal with carting him back and forth to the vet but that doesnt look like it shall happen.
i am looking forward to spending so much time with f. we havent seen each other in a while and i really miss him. hes got a few shows to do while im there too. we shall both be busy bees. if i dont get everything made before i leave i may end up making things on the bus and in the hotels while hes performing.
well its back to work. id like to get at least one thing crossed off the list before bed.

my cats are a bunch of hippies

2009-10-31T23:26:00.005-05:00

Today I got my cats stoned. Like really, really stoned. More high than they’ve ever been. I finally harvested the three huge catnip plants still in the garden and the three little hippies helped me. They had a great time eating from the piles, running crazy, laying in the sun. Snidely got the munchies and disappeared to the food bowl, while Rudy and Edith just sat side by side for a very long time in the middle of the garden staring at the sun. You could almost see the “whooooaaa duuuude” thought bubble above their head.

Rudy too stoned to move:

At one point, Rudy and Edith got into a fight about whose "stash" one of the piles of cut catnip was:

I love my dirty little fur hippies.

more craft shows

2009-10-28T04:37:00.009-05:00

UPCOMING SHOWS
--------------
DIY Trunk Show
Nov. 21, 2009
10-5pm
Pulaski Park
Auditorium
1419 W. Blackhawk
Chicago
http://www.diytrunkshow.com/
　
Renegade Craft Holiday Sale
Dec. 5&6, 2009
11am-7pm
Pulaski Park Field House
1419 W. Blackhawk
Chicago
http://www.renegadecraft.com/holiday

What a Load of Craft
Dec. 12, 2009
Johnson County Fairgrounds- Building C
4261 Oak Crest Hill Road SE
Iowa City, IA
http://www.whataloadofcraft.com/

here are some photos from a craft show i did this past weekend. i tried another new display this time. im still not happy with it though, so im going to work on modifiying it again for the upcoming shows.

greetings from some of the gatolings

2009-10-28T03:54:00.006-05:00

had some fun with some of the cats the other day

alien rudy

snidely gets in the halloween spirit

as of late...

2009-10-16T01:01:00.011-05:00

haven't updated in a while. things went well at renegade. i spent the entire first day in my booth, so i never got a chance to walk around. on the second day i didn't get to leave much either except, i got to check out a few booths on my way to get something to eat. other than that, the crowd kept me in my booth the whole time. i can't complain too much because they were customers after all, but i was disappointed that i didn't get to see any of the other booths. i guess you can't really sell and shop too. not bad for my first craft fair though. :) here are a few shots of my booth from the 2nd day:

since i've been home i've been working on restocking items and adding some winter ones. i've got several craft fairs coming up in the next few months so i'm sort of in overdrive. below are a few scarves in progress i made the other day. they're still waiting to be stamped with my logo and then the ends sewn up. i haven't been able to update my shop lately because the internet isn't working again. :( i can't wait until i move and can have real high speed internet instead of pretend high speed satellite internet.

i also got into another shop recently. i will soon have items at wholly craft in columbus, oh, which is quite exciting. i want to continue to add to my list of retailers. i find it quite flattering when i am accepted into one.

things have not been so great on the kitty front. bob is still very ill. he has been battling a urinary infection for quite some time and the antibiotics only seem to make him sicker. i'm not sure what we will try next, but i hope we find something that works soon. also, mouse has been missing for the last 4 days. she is the latest of our kitties to disappear in the last several months. i'm not sure what is happening to them, possibly coyotes, but we've never had that many disappear in such a short amount of time. now we're down to four outside cats. i hope they can survive.

Whoo Hoo!!

2009-08-03T17:32:00.005-05:00

I just found out today that I got into the Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago.
I also got into The DIY Trunk Show in Chicago too. Plus I will soon be selling items at Dear Deer in Guadalajara Mexico.
This has been a very good past couple of weeks. :)

Renegade Craft Fair- Chicago
Sept. 12-13 2009
11am-7pm
Division St. between Damen Ave. and Paulina St.
renegade's site

DIY Trunk Show
Nov. 21, 2009
10-5pm
Pulaski Park Auditorium
1419 W. Blackhawk
Chicago
DIY's site

Dear Deer

The pickles have landed

2009-07-23T21:03:00.004-05:00

My garden is really starting to produce. Especially in the cucumber and zucchini department. I'm trying out tons of new pickle recipes this year.

The other day I made dill pickles, sweet pickles and zucchini pickles.

Before that I made two kinds of pickled watermelon rind and they're good :)
The one on the left is called super-sweet clove-scented watermelon rind and the right is watermelon pickles.
In the coming weeks there shall be much more pickling. I can't wait. I also can't wait until the tomatoes hit and I peeked the other day and I've got a baby watermelon growing. Yeah!

a trip and a bumpy time

2009-07-18T21:44:00.007-05:00

I had a lot of fun visiting f. in Chicago the past few days. I have no photos because apparently we were having such a good time that I didn't take a single photo the entire time, which I can say has never happened before. Oh well :) We did visit a couple of photobooths. The first one was better quality, but I was cut off and in the second one, the chemicals were very weak and there was this sludge over the whole strip. I was able to tweak it a bit and it is better, but still bad.

While I was gone, Mouse unfortunately had her babies and it appears that they didn't make it. She is a mess of hormones and worry crying constantly. Today I introduced her to the abandoned kittens and she hung out with them for a while and napped. They seemed to be a real comfort to her and calmed her down a bit.

the most frustrating berry

2009-06-20T16:59:00.006-05:00

I made gooseberry jelly the other day. This was the first time I've ever made it and it was a lot of work for not a lot of jelly. I picked berries for over four hours, then spent quite a while destemming and detailing them, before washing and cooking them to make the jelly.

The jelly was really good, but all these berries only made this much jelly. I did find a different recipe than the one I used after I was done that called for a lot of water, so I may try that one if I ever make it again to see if it would stretch it. Otherwise if I ever see it at a farmer's market, it would be worth buying just to save the work :).

I also made some homemade doggie versions of snickerdoodle cookies for Leon and Lexi. Leon already loves them, but he loves everything, so the test will be Lexington since she is the picky eater.

my dinner with lois

2009-06-04T21:57:00.006-05:00

I had dinner with my grandma last night. I had picked a bunch of polk the other day for her and I wanted her to teach me how to make it. We also had fried potatoes, breaded squash, and she made me special flourless cornbread. then we hung out for a long time talking. It was nice because it was just the two of us instead of a bunch of other people too, which doesn't happen too often.

signs of life

2009-05-27T21:32:00.000-05:00

long time no blog.
After much work and several rain delays we've finally gotten the garden in for the most part. We still have a few gourds to plant, but they won't be in the garden and I'd maybe like to do an additional herb garden, but i may end up mixing them in a flower bed or just putting them in pots or something in the end, I haven't decided yet...Anyway, the basics are done. I ended up dropping some things from the original plan, that I may shoot for again next year and we still need to build the deer fence since they went completely mad last year and ate the entire garden, but at least the plant part is done. Now it is back to concentrating on redoing the flower beds.

This is the layout for the gardens this year. The trees in red are old, but everything else is new.

2008-11-30T03:42:00.006-06:00

Recently, one of my photos of the Japanese Garden from my trip to Portland was included in the Schmap Guide, which is an online guide for various cities. It is kind of cool to be included.
http://www.schmap.com/portland/home/

I'm still plugging away on things for the what a load of craft show coming up. Today I got a bunch of steak pillows sewn and got another few steps on some mushroom display things. I also got a bunch of pieces pieces cut and several steps painted for some toadstool footstools. Tomorrow I'm planning to do the detail painting on the footstool underbellies and upholster the tops. I'm also hoping to stuff some of the pillows and get a few other odds and ends of some other things finished up. I'd like to get everything finished up this week and then just concentrate on the packaging up of everything and building a few display things and then I think everything should be ready to go. I'm getting excited and more nervous.

suprise

2008-11-20T15:06:00.005-06:00

Yesterday I was trying to figure out why I had this sudden burst of hearts on my etsy page. I couldn't figure it out all day and of course the internet wasn't working well so I hadn't been able to load my daily Etsy Finds email. Today, I was finally able to open it and mystery solved. My wooden one eyed alien doll had been featured in the to my beloved geek theme. A special thank you to Ashley for including my little guy and to everyone for the hearts.

long time no see

2008-10-28T19:46:00.006-05:00

Oh, wow things have been just crazy since my last post. The house got flooded and I've had no internet and everything has just been a mess. Everything is in storage and working on projects has been next to impossible. Things are finally starting to come back together though. The floors were finished being redone the other day and even though there is still tons of repainting to do, I am starting to unpack some things to work on some projects again. I've been working on some small painting, but they're not quite finished yet. Unfortunately, with all the chaos, most of my Halloween projects were cancelled, but I did do a few favors for my nieces and nephews and a birthday cake for my mom.

2008-09-13T03:41:00.003-05:00

I haven't been creating as much as I'd like the last couple of weeks. I had two spinal taps last week. The first one was incredibly painful and unsuccessful and they ended doing it again under a fluroscope. I had tried to get them to do it that way in the first place but hospital policy dictates that they do it the other way....very stupid policy. Anyway, I'm pretty sure the lady doing the first one didn't know what she was doing because the second one wasn't nearly as painful and just talking with her made me think she screwed up. Plus my back has been messed up ever since. It hurts even more than usual and I can only stand for a few minutes at a time, so I've spent the last eight days laying on the couch in pain. I'm going stir crazy though and on the fourth day I forced myself to make a bunch of necklaces for the shop. I got some chain that I needed in the mail and I need to do something productive. If it ever quits raining, I'm going to try to photograph them, so I can get them posted.
In good news, I found out today, I've been accepted to use Spoonflower. I'm very excited and have tons of ideas. I wish I had a drawing tablet for my computer though. It would make it so much easier than drawing, inking, scanning and coloring, which is the way I do it now.
Off to lay down..

Scarves

2008-08-08T02:35:00.005-05:00

I made some new scarves for the shop. I'm really not a scarf for no reason other than warmth type person, but I rather like them for myself even.

trying to catch up

2008-07-16T03:27:00.004-05:00

i've been adding tons of new stuff to the shop. even though i've spent the last three days posting for hours, i still can't keep up. i make it faster than i get it posted.

2008-06-22T15:02:00.002-05:00

I'm off to the hospital tomorrow for who knows how long. I'm taking along lots of books and several hand sewing pieces to keep me busy.

back and feeling productive

2008-06-03T01:52:00.009-05:00

Got back from Portland a few days ago and am feeling very inspired. We went to this thing called the Saturday Market, which is basically a weekly outdoor craft show during the summer. Although I was disappointed in most of the booths, I love the idea and wished we had something similar around here. I find that posting items is the most time consuming part of everything. I tend to make way more things than I ever actually get around to posting. Every listing seems to take so much time for some reason. A weekly booth would be a nice way to get stuff out there without the supposed pressure of a one time large craft fair. Anyway, since I've been back I've gotten several projects I've been working on finished.

Some wooden mushrooms and mushroom pins:

some ice cream plushies:

and my order of bobby pins arrived while I was gone, so I got tons more of those made yesterday. I made so many, I got a blister from the cutters for some reason. :(

Plan to post some things tonight to the shop and hopefully the rest tomorrow. I need to check the shipping on some of the things first

my todo list just keeps growing

2008-05-14T01:12:00.003-05:00

i feel like ive gotten nothing done this weekend. i guess its mostly because i didnt do much sun and mon. sunday all i managed to get done was to go visit my grandma for mother's day/my birthday. and mon i got nothing done but a bit of sleep that ive been missing, repotted some plants to give to my brother and played with the kittens a bit. today i guess i did get several things done, but not everything i wanted. i didnt get my molds made for the resin pieces or screens for my new shirts and i didnt get any shoes painted, but i did manage to do:

planted a new flower bed full of pansies, dahlias, calla lilies, egrets, and some ranunculuses
weeded one of the old flower beds
made about 40 buttons
made new business cards
made 5 necklaces
made 1 pair of earrings
i also joined this site called redbubble the other day and uploaded some images to that, but im having internet problems again and it takes like 45 mins to upload each image. very frustrating.
i think i will go sew up a couple of prototypes i cut out last night for some new plushies and test them out. and then hopefully sweet, sweet sleep will visit

happy rubber day

2008-04-30T00:09:00.001-05:00

rubber

snagged another treasury today

2008-04-29T04:15:00.005-05:00

hungry, hungry hippos

Treasury

2008-04-27T08:09:00.007-05:00

I finally got the chance to make a treasury on etsy.

clicky, clicky

Deer and Hippos Oh My!

2008-04-20T17:58:00.001-05:00

I rediscovered some photos from a couple of years ago, the other day:

So I decided to take some similar ones today:

I'm thinking about printing some postcard and greeting cards of them at some point.

package monster

2008-04-16T23:58:00.002-05:00

new, new, new

2008-04-16T03:57:00.000-05:00

I'm changing the name of my company, so I decided I needed a new blog for the occasion. I hearby promise to try to maintain this blog in the future and not abandon it like the previous one, though in my defense, the abandonment started when the other comp. died.In honor of the newness, I thought I'd start off with a birthday package I'm sending off to a special person tomorrow. I can post this worry free, because by the time he gets around to reading this, the package will be long devoured.

I sent him a little bank, that I did not make, but think is funny. But I did wrap it in some homemade pill printed wrapping paper.

I also made a "Happy Birthday Kit." It comes with a candle, a cupcake and instructions. I forgot to take a photo of the cupcake before I boxed it up, but it is a chocolate cupcake with marshmallow creamy filling and frosting. I also am sending some chocolate, chocolate chunk cookies, but alas, no photo of those either.

I'm taking some of the leftover cookies and cupcakes to my gramdma tomorror and giving some to my parents, but now that the package is all wrapped up and ready to go, I think I shall have some of those left over cookies and a glass of milk and then tuck myself in for the night.