Trevor’s Inner Samuel

Recently, Trevor received a beer making kit. From me. As a wedding present. And he has been embracing his flavor or craftiness by making beer! His first batch was Oktoberfest, just in time for Oktoberfest Sunday Dinner.

There were so many bottles! The recipe made 50.

He mixed it all up in this big pale… The Ale Pail (said with an echo-y Al Roker “Sunday Sunday Sunday” voice)

 

Two weeks later… trying the first bottle!

It was near tragedy. Not so tasty.

Trevor was sad.

HOWEVER. The first bottle was only half way full, so we suspected perhaps it didn’t form carbonation properly. So he tried another one.

Much happier Trevor!

And then we ate a salad.

The End.

The Vicki Show

This is a story I’d like to call The Vicki Show. As part of Kelly & Jason’s wedding present, we decided to get crafty with our bad selves and customize a serving platter for her. As you can see in my post about the gnomes, The Pottery Place is a unique business that fosters artistry and creativity for all ages.

We chose our piece of pottery to paint & Vicki contemplated color choices.

 

While Sarah & I play paparazzi, Vicki sketches out a design.

 

Let me take a moment to explain why I call this The Vicki Show. Vicki is our artistic one. Sarah & I are both creative in our own ways, but none of these ways are pure artistic talent. I, for one, am lucky I could fit so many different colors on my gnome instead of just painting him all green or something. Vicki can control paintbrushes, pencils, pens, markers… what else to artists use? I’m sure she could draw with a crayon. The perfectionist in her helps ensure the result will be beautiful.

Vicki continues to sketch while Rah & I chat. She’s so focused!

 

The sketch is done! It’s time to paint!

 

We used these little bottles of paint with a pinpoint tip. It was SO much easier than using paint brushes. I was a little nervous about the paintbrush detail situation, but I knew Vicki had it handled if my participation created failure.

 

Vicki did the words…

 

And then it was time for Sarah & I to help!

 

After some nervous moments, some blood, sweat and tears, and some 911 calls to the Potter Place employee helping us out, we were done!

 

The next step is for the Pottery Place to glaze it and fire it in the kiln. We picked it up the next week! I don’t have a photo of the finished product, but I’m sure Rah does. Check out her blog for more!

Alric, Wilber, Mayer & Pemrod

Gnomes gnomes gnomes! Kelly’s Bachelorette Party (Kelly Fun Day–you can read about it on Weddings!) was a “choose-your-own-adventure” day for Kelly, and the second activity she chose was gnome painting!

The Pottery Place in Albany, NY is an innovative art studio where budding artistes can get creative with a selection of practical and some not-so-practical pieces of pottery. We took advantage of their weekend promotion: for $20, we could purchase a ceramic gnome of our choice and unlimited studio time to make him our own. Each gnome comes with a unique name, a suitcase and a passport so we can collect photos of him traveling with us. As a result, I have added a page to my blog for gnome travel adventures!

This is Alric, my gnome. He’s a little creepy as an albino gnome, so let’s hurry up. We are ready to paint!

Hmm… what shall my gnome become? Sarah contemplates Wilber’s future identity.

 

I decided Alric needed a green hat.

Everyone’s hard at work!

 

 

 

Alric was coming together like a real gnome with colors and everything.

And his new personality was almost complete!

Kelly put her shiny new last name on her gnome’s feet!

 

And all of our little gnome soldiers came alive (not in the literal creepy way)! Let the gnome fun begin!

Left to right: Pemrod (Kelly), Mayer (Vicki), Alric (me) and Wilber (Rah)

 

COMING SOON! gnomeadventures.wordpress.com!

My Mom’s Inner Martha

As you may know, I get a lot of my creativity from my mom. Recently, she was tasked with this really fun project. She had to make a birdhouse that represented the theme of “Tuscany.” She only sent me pictures of the final product (no progress pictures), but it came out AMAZING! I can’t believe it’s a bird house. It’s so Tuscan! I want to live in it!

Great job Mom!

Bouquets for the Betrothed

Sometimes I get myself into things. Actually this whole blog began out of instances of me getting myself into things. Instance #694: Kelly and I were chatting at the Recovery Room about a month ago, and she mentioned she needed someone to put her silk Gerbera Daisies together into bouquets for her bridesmaids. Naturally, me being me, I said “I’ll do it!”

She had bags of Gerbera Daisies in shades of pink and ivory, and it was surprisingly easy to put together into tidy round bouquets with floral tape and… well, floral tape is about all it took. Floral tape and a little decorative ribbon.

She wanted her bouquet and her Matron of Honor’s bouquet to be multi-colored, and ours were each a different color. They cane out beautifully!

Kelly’s bouquet was wonderful with nice long stems, pearly white ribbon and bright big flowers.

The set… Left to right: Sarah’s, mine, Kelly’s, Lisa’s, Vicki’s.

Boutonnieres for the boys…

Jason’s boutonniere

Corsages for the moms…

Kelly loved her flowers! There are several nice things about using silk flowers instead of fresh, but most of all, these bouquets were super sturdy. Kelly’s niece Elizabeth was flopping them around even before the ceremony and they ended up looking fresh out of the “florist’s” shop!

Diaper Cake again!

Sometimes I just like to *make things.* Often, I don’t even have an occasion or purpose for the things I made. But! This time to have a reason! I work with a woman named Sarah (and I know way too many Sarah’s…) and she’s having a baby! It’s a girl. And now that she’s actually received this gift, I can post about it.

All my supplies…

I used 96 Pampers Swaddlers Sensitive. Ben said they’re the best, and he knows diapers. You may be wondering why there is a tangle of Christmas ribbon. In order for the diapers to all stay together, I used a throw-away ribbon. Rolling and rolling… adding and adding…

Until it looks like this!

And then this…

And then this!

It’s a little lopsided… but nothing I can’t fix.

Time for the real ribbon. Apparently I have a ribbon problem. The day I bought all this stuff, I bought six… ok seven spools of ribbon.

And one cannot have ribbon without feathers… right…? Well it makes sense, I promise. Her quilt set has birds on it.

A little tuck here, a little pin there…

A little birdie here…. and there….

And voila!

Cake that is diaper, diaper that is cake. She loved it.

Letter Garden

Sunday Dinner once again! This time, I was most definitely not on top of things. I have one picture of the food *I* made, but not anyone else’s. Well, for the record, and because it looks so delicious (and I know… this is not the food blog…), here’s mine.

This month’s theme was Alphabet Soup. Make a food that begins with the same letter as your name.  Mine was Eggplant and Pepper Kabobs. EPK

So to go along with the theme, I broke out my Cricut, which FINALLY arrived! I made all different types of letters in all sizes and fonts and colors. Then I stuck the letters on sticks & made a Letter Garden!

Pretty cool, huh? I love the Cricut!