Ahhh...the weekend!
The weekend is coming to a close entirely too soon - as all weekends do. I had what has been a productive and relaxing weekend - even considering that I had to work this morning, as our institution is hosting a conference here in town and I staffed the conference for several hours this morning.
I started yesterday morning with a homemade version of the Starbuck's Caramel Apple Spiced Cider. Yummy as always! Most of yesterday was spent running errands, doing laundry, and the other regular maintenance tasks of life (if you follow that link it will take you to Cairene MacDonald's blog - Cairene had a wonderful audio session on The World's Biggest Summit yesterday about maintenance tasks - I think thinking of those kinds of things in that way is useful and I enjoyed listening.) The day was, overall, quite productive and Lindsay and I both enjoyed a walk in the cooler weather and she was particularly happy to finally return to Saturday errand running with me. While it was so hot this summer she just couldn't go with me and wait in the car - even if I was only inside for ten minutes. Yesterday, however, a forty minute grocery trip was time enough for a nice nap with the windows slightly lowered for her to get plenty of air. We even met a couple of adorable Irish Setters while we were out and about.
Today, as mentioned, I had to work. The conference was fun and I had a nice chance to catch up with several folks from our campuses around the state who I don't get to see all that often. I am still trying to track down potential culprits in a bit of a prank - but more on that when I'm a bit more sure I've not just gone delusional.
When I came home today, I had two goals. 1. Make buckeyes and 2. Do something creative and crafty. While ordinarily the cooking part might have sufficed for the creativity aspect of the day, the buckeyes were a bit more of a to-do list item. I've been craving them lately and so thought I'd make a batch to pack off to my nephew Andrew who is a freshman at IU. His birthday is tomorrow, and while they won't arrive in time for that - they will still arrive during his birthday week. He and I share October birthdays and I now believe in celebrating my birthday for an entire month.
So, I decided to make two varieties of buckeyes - ones with Chocolate Peanut Butter (Peanut Butter & Co. Peanut Butter, Dark Chocolate Dreams to be exact) and ones with regular peanut butter. I also had thought about using only the light inside my fridge as a light source - which I find I like quite well (given all the white surface in the fridge that's not terribly surprising that it would have a nice look). So, buckeyes will be off to Andrew in the morning - and you all, I'm afraid - are left only with pictures using my fridge light as the only light source. It's good lighting I must say!
So...on to creative and crafty. I'm in Amy Tangerine's class call "The Good Life" over at Big Picture Classes. She did a tutorial last week on Reverse Applique. She has an adorable camera pattern in the class materials that I'm still going to try. However, I had to run into Walmart last weekend with my mom and I saw this pretty butterfly batik printed fabric and thought it would make a cute reverse applique. I decided to start with that since none of the other fabric really caught my eye for the camera pattern - and I didn't really feel like making a trip to a full-fledged fabric store just to try out this little project. I followed all the steps in Amy's easy tutorial and ...about 45 minutes later...voila!
This is just a cheapy little $3 Wal-mart travel pillow and a $2 travel pillow case (also Wal-mart). The fabric was less than a dollar and I had the embroidery thread so if I knew someone into butterflies, I have a cute pillow for $6 and less than an hour of my time - and it would be a nice little gift. I'd rather the pillow case weren't polyester (which some people even have rules about...) but for a quick first try - not too bad. I may add some antennae and perhaps some words in back-stitching - or that may come on attempt number two. I already have at least two others in mind to do.
Well...it's off to another week. I hope you have a good one.