The wee mousey burrito

The title of this post sounds utterly disgusting, I know, but don't worry it's not a real burrito or even real mice. If you ever find me eating real mice burritos, then you should consider that to be a sign of either my descent into insanity, or the apocalypse.

little mousey poking out of his cover

During a recent visit to our local antique store, I found a cute little box of mice with extraordinarily long tails. When I asked the proprietor for more information as to their use, he said that the very long tails were for holding cheese and other hors d'oeuvres. Well, I think I may have hopped with delight, right there in the middle of his store. I was so excited at such a cute and clever idea. And when he offered  to sell them for just twenty dollars, well, I couldn't refuse.  

such long, luxurious tails

Now I have a whole litter of tiny nice to help me with my next party. Fortunately, these mice are more like the little, happy, clean mice in Cinderella and not so much like the ones in my cupboards.…hmm, maybe scratch that next party until I can convince my neighbor to stop sending over all of his little furry cupboard friends.

So, to keep these little mice in tip top shape, I decided that they needed their own rolled felt case. This would protect them from each other and from any outside scratches. I will admit, they came in their original box which kept them nicely separated and displayed them beautifully. Somebody had taken great care to keep the box in fairly good shape, but it still had an inevitable layer of grime from having been around for many years. So, I tossed the box and, although I have little doubt that when I threw away that box I probably gave up any chance of selling my little Napier mice(Napier is the company that made them) for a fortune in the future, I find the tiny felt burrito cover to be a much more adorable way to keep them clean. And handmade by me, means that that I can make a new one anytime I want :)

so mysterious... what's inside?

oh, hello!

Now there are two of them!

so many mice came out to play.

The Cheery Gift

 
It may come as no surprise to those who know me, but I dearly love making a very ordinary (or even downright boring) gift special with just a little bit of extra cheery packaging.

 
Cheerful packaging can be as simple as a beautiful ribbon, or as complex as an expensive roll of paper with carefully selected ribbon and a perfectly matched card.

 
It doesn't matter much which option I choose, the important thing is making sure that what ever my choice, I make the packaging as perfect as I possibly can. I like to tie a single ribbon, or bit of twine into the most lovely bow I can manage.

 
Anytime I feel so inclined to indulge in expensive paper for a special gift or recipient, I take the time to find a good box so that I can wrap it with perfect corners and nicely folded down paper edges.

Sometimes the simple addition of a homemade Birthday flag or bouquet of red mushrooms can make a boring looking gift really fun.

Sometimes, cute packaging comes together very easily.

 
This tiny goody bag comes ready to give. I could have simply stapled the bag shut and it still would have been very cute, but I happened to have the perfect ribbon that I picked up last week on a whim and so I strung it through the top of the bag. I never would have thought to put them together until I had both the bag and the ribbon sitting on the desk together. It was purely accidental, but ended up being perfect.

Side view of the bag. so adorable!!!

reverse side of the bag. even cuter!!!

All these little details help make me feel proud to give whatever gift I have to offer, even if it's just a bar of chocolate or a packages of sticky notes.

And please remember: every day is a gift, and every gift is an opportunity to make someone's day or week a tiny bit brighter

My thanksgiving contribution

So, every year I go to a good friend's fabulous thanksgiving meal and this year was no different. And I have to admit that every year I feel the ever so slightest bit of competitive feeling regarding who brings the best dish to share. It isn't really a competition, and thank goodness it isn't because I deeply dislike any outright, verbally verified competition, but this year, if there had been a competition for cutest contribution, my friend Cat and I would have won. We copied a recipe off of Pinterest for rice Krispy hedgehogs. These were outrageously easy and just crazily cute. I would totally make these again.

These little cuties are made  by shaping classic rice Krispy treats into tear drop shapes and then spooning melted chocolate over the top, leaving the small point of the tear drop clean for the face. Chocolate jimmies give the prickly look of a hedge hog and the face is just black and red gel frosting. 

The little flower was a last minute emergency situation. The original directions call for fondant flowers. I, personally, hate fondant and never use it for anything. Besides, this was supposed to be fun and easy, not annoying and frustrating, so I just went to the local candy store, bought some brightly colored, fruit flavored licorice and sliced them into pieces. It was perfect and made the project extra adorable without any extra work, like hand shaping fondant flowers would have done. Blech. No fondant for me! :)

 

happy helmet

oops, my helmet is a little bit crooked, that's not safe!

I finally got around to having Matthew take a picture of me in my bike helmet. Of course, I went with the polka dots =) And, of course I really wanted a pink polka dotted one but the fellows at the bike shop didn't have such a darling helmet in stock. So, I went with the second cutest helmet, a red and white polka dotted helmet, because it actually exists!

Anyway, it's adorable and when I wear my red polka dotted helmet and my Hello Kitty Sunglasses; I look like a cute little weirdo riding down the street. It's great fun and very eye catching. Good for safety, at least, if not for fashion.

Easy plum cake and my happy new kitchen cutie

Today, I needed to use up a couple of ripe plums and plum cake sounded good to me. Never mind the fact that I've only ever heard tell of plum cake and have yet to experience the delicious flavors of plums baked into a soft, moist cake. I spent the five minutes required to put it together, baked it up and now it's cooling on my new little kitchen butcher's block cart.

On Tuesday, I had to exchange an item at Ikea and whilst wandering around the As Is section of the store, I happened upon a lonely looking little item that just looked up at me and asked to be taken home. It was too cute to resist and, ended up being just the right size for my teeny, tiny, pint-sized kitchen. Anyway, it turns out that this sweet little butcher's block cart is the perfect size for just about everything, including holding a cooling plum cake.

A lovely, fanciful baby shower

 This summer I took on a fairly unusual project: planning a baby shower for a friend. I've never planned a shower of any sort, bridal, baby or any other type(is there any other type?) so this was a great learning experience. I had loads of fun with the whole event and, for the most part, thought the whole party went perfectly. Of course, I forgot a few details which only I noticed but the excessive preparation during the two months before the baby shower made for a really lovely experience, even for me. In fact, I may have enjoyed it more than anybody.

The snack table

A Tier of treats: Blueberry and Lemon curd tartlets

Fruit skewers and baby scones

Chicken and Arugula sandwiches and tomato basil skewers

I loved decorating the tiered tray with tiny porcelain bowls of baby pink carnations

My favorite: the hand crafted flag toothpicks. These were made with washi tape and turned out very cute

Prickly pear vs cotton yarn pear

So many different types of pears and neither of the ones featured in this post are actual, real live pears!

I've recently conducted a comparison of the prickly pear which is the fruit of an edible cactus and the little cotton pear that I recently crocheted. So far the prickly pear wins for tastiness and the little crocheted pear wins for cuteness :)

So, obviously I am not actually comparing these "pears" but it sure was cute to set them next to each other for a photo. This was, in fact, my very first experience with buying, prepping and eating prickly pears. 

When I saw them at my favorite grocery store, I just knew I had to try them. I love buying new, to me, fruit and this was about as unusual as I've ever had.

Turns out they are just the loveliest color ever(my favorite color) and they taste a little bit like pomegranate, because of the earthy, seedy taste. Basically, I blended the flesh of the fruit and then strained it to mix with sugar and water for a light syrup. This syrup went into margaritas and bubbly water. I only used this to make a few delicious beverages because the other things people tend to make with prickly pear(jelly, candy) require many more prickly pears than I had purchased. 

Maybe prickly pear jelly can be a "someday project" which I will make if I ever have more prickly pear fruits than I know what to do with, until then, I think it's fun to enjoy their contribution to making fun and unusual beverages.

cheerful pear

My latest crochet project was very quick to make and easy. It required very little stitch counting and almost no sewing of little parts together, so when I was done I was done, unlike so many of the projects that I've made which can take upwards of 30 min or so of hand sewing fins or limbs or little tails to bodies once I've crocheted all the pieces.

I made this little pear over the course of two craft night sessions, but I really think it could come together in less than an hour if I was focusing all my attention on working on the pear and less time on chatting with friends (but who wants to do that? =))

Of course, as with all my little crochet projects, the big question is, "what's it for?" I'm not entirely sure but I suppose the real point of making these little creatures is that they are cute and cheerful and fun to make.

 

A picture post: happy spring

 Okay, so this post will just be a quick blast of photographs. All the fun and adorable things that have been keeping me so very busy in these recent months. So busy, but so happy!! =)

Tulips (c/o Jessica) to welcome spring

Such perfect bud vases, I need to make a serious effort to find some of my own (if for no other reason, then that I stop coveting Jessica's).

Valentine's day mushroom bouquet- What could be more romantic? Is it any wonder that Matthew loves me when I offer him such fabulous gifts :)

But really, why doesn't every card come packaged with such a perfect bow?

Carrot Cake Cupcakes- in anticipation of Easter. Somehow, I don't think there will be any left to offer the Easter bunny when he hops by on Sunday.

Sadly, for the sake of cuteness (but happily for the sake of my sanity), I did not use these tiny baby carrots in the cupcakes. These are so sweet and tender that I couldn't bear to do too much with them, just sauteed them in loads of butter and a sprinkling of fresh mint for the simplest and tastiest preparation.

And, last picture, because it's a little ugly compared to all the pretty little things in the photos above: this is my very first little baby lettuce shoot of the spring. I was so delighted to see it just a couple days after planting the seeds. Now the planter is full of baby lettuces. I really should take another photo to post. I love the freshness of seeing green lettuces growing right outside my front door.

A Valentine's Day Tea

So, it may be fairly apparent that life has pretty much had me struggling to stay afloat for the past two months, considering that I haven't even posted an I'm-sorry-I-haven't-posted-recently post. I will say, though, that I am looking forward to unflummoxing my life in February now, rather than in January, like I had originally planned. And, I think this past Sunday's incredibly lovely (and ridiculously filling) tea party was the start of that new plan.



Our lovely Valentine's Day tea party forced me to sit down for four hours straight (something that rarely happens) and just enjoy munching on treats and chatting with friends. It was really delightful. Perhaps, I won't log quite as many hours jogging or as many laboriously healthful meals in February as I did in January, but I will have eaten more cake and celebrated the best holiday of the year(who can possibly hate a holiday that celebrates eating candy, is decorated with my favorite color and promotes the best possible feeling, that of love).



For the tea party, I made a Strawberry Mousse recipe from one of Donna Hay's magazines. It was absolutely fluffy and delightful; such a treat. Also, I tried to make petits fours and felt it to be quite a failure but, to be honest, I hadn't worked out the recipe before hand, which I knew was a mistake. Some of the components that I had been planning to use for the petits fours were either not usable or not ideal, but that's what happens when one doesn't take the time to plan ahead! =)



Over all, I just adored everything we ate; the table setting was just stunning, and the day couldn't have been more perfect for a tea party.

(I should mention that all photos were "borrowed" from Cat's Facebook page =) I totally forgot to take any photos!! Pretty crazy, considering all the work that went into this tea party. But, thank goodness for friends who take photos of absolutely everything they ever eat ;))