The Evelyn Top

Made from 100% cotton, the Evelyn Top features a Peter Pan collar, exposed zipper closure at back and drop waist with peplum detail. Fabric tab behind zipper protects little one's skin. Bodice is fully lined and all seams are professionally finished to prevent fraying. Available in sizes 18 months - 4T.

Housewarming

We've been in our new house for about four months now and decided it was time to have a housewarming party. I admit our house is nowhere near complete, but if we waited for everything to be perfect we would never have a party. We kept it simple with light finger foods and sandwiches.

The new counters in action!

I managed to dig out some fall decor from one of our many yet-to-be-unpacked boxes, and couldn't resist picking up this skeleton garland I found at the dollar store.





























I added a simple handmade touch to the decor by cutting leaves out of an old paperback book. Yes I cut up a book. Books are very special to me and I would usually cringe at this idea. I can't even stand when people dog-ear pages. Therefore I made sure to choose a book for which I would feel no remorse destroying, and bought a romance novel at Goodwill....let's just hope no one reads those leaves too closely. I'm sure the word "member" makes an appearance.

I printed out images of three leaves onto cardstock, then cut them out and used them as my template. This is pretty quick to do if you cut out more than one page at a time. I could fit about two leaves per page, and kept some full pages with a single cut-out in the middle. I got the idea from the fall Pottery Barn catalog.

Source

Before the party, I asked Zach to core and cut some granny smith apples for the pumpkin dip I was making. I went back to our bedroom to get dressed and when I came back out to the kitchen I found this:

Yep, power tools were involved. Zach had attached the apple corer to the drill! His response to my laughter, "What? It goes waaayyyy faster this way."

The weather was clear and sunny, but not too hot; we were actually able to spend some time outside on the patio.

My Sicilian uncle, giving the camera the stink eye

Thanks to all our friends, family, and neighbors who came to celebrate with us!

Candied Pecans

This was my first time to make candied pecans. I made a few changes to an exisiting recipe and this is what I came up with. The measurements are a little odd because I adjusted them for the amount of pecans I had.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 lb pecan halves
1 3/4 c white sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 tablespoon and 1 1/4 tsp water
1 tsp vanilla
3 egg whites

• Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Line a pan with parchment paper and set aside.
• Combine sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl.
• Whisk together water, vanilla, and egg whites in another bowl, until frothy. (An easy way to separate the whites from the yolks is to use a slotted spoon.)
• Pour the pecans into the egg mixture and stir to coat; then pour the pecans into the dry ingredients and toss/stir to coat.
• Spread the pecans out on the pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.

Yields approx. 8 cups of pecans.

I packaged the pecans in "broom bags" and gave them to my coworkers as a special fall treat! The idea for this project came from marthastewart.com. (I made similar bags last year, which I wrote about here.)

To make the broom bags, you will need paper craft sacks, scissors, twine, and sticks. You will use 2 bags per broom. 

Cut strips down all four sides of one bag, leaving the base of the bag intact. For the second bag, cut slits all around the top, a couple inches down.

Fill the inner bag with candy and insert stick. Place the inner bag on the base of the outer bag, with the strips fanned out. Then gather the strips around all four sides of the inner bag and secure around stick with twine.

Happy Halloween!

Fall is here!

S: Austin got some much needed rain this weekend, and although stuck indoors, Zach and I were busy at work. I spent most of my time sewing, making these pumpkin drawstring bags for my etsy shop.


Zach spent his time organizing the garage. It's really looking great, we'll share those pictures with you soon!