Ein Apfel Strudel, several ghosts & a New Tooth

Here's another hodge-podge of photos taken last week in no particular order:

First up- Annika's Candy Corn Treat for reaching her Accelerated Reading Goal. It's supposed to look like candy corn. Annika was over-joyed with this tasty treat...it's got vanilla pudding on bottom followed by pumpkin pie pudding (both from a mix) with schmoo on top. {Hooray for Annika!}

Next up- Annika's New Tooth. Do you see it in the photo? (it's coming in behind her other teeth) Pretty amusing seeing as how she hasn't lost any of her baby teeth yet. Guess I'd better get on the phone with the dentist tomorrow!

{Apfel Strudel}

aka...apple strudel Apfel Strudel is something I remember Mama making. You could always tell she was making it...because you could hear her slamming the dough on the countertop! This was my first attempt at making it. I got very detailed instructions from Mama how to make it. I wish I'd taken a photo of the dough before I started stretching it out over the table. It's absolutely amazing how elastic/stretchy the dough is. You just very carefully keep pulling it out from the center.

The dough is supposed to be stretched so thin that you can read a newspaper through it. Here's proof that I managed to get something like that:

An ocean of shredded apples, browned bread crumbs and spices. Yum!

Carefully rolled up and placed in a large baking dish and dotted with butter. Ready for the oven!

{Fresh out of the oven!}

Annika's favorite activity: coloring and making books.

I really like this book she made about cats.

But I really like this orange and white striped cat!

Do you remember those glue ghosts we made the other day? I strung a few of them on to necklaces for the girls and the rest I hung up on our Halloween tree.

Love Annika's cute ghosts!

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{Window Trim!} :: Before & After photos

HOOORAY!

We finished putting up the window trim up on the five windows in our living room space!

I've been searching high and low for before photos that adequately show the space before...but these will have to do...

{Before}

-hate hate hate hate hate that trim!
Another beforeBefore- Giant TV cabinet in one corner of long, narrow and very awkward living room space. Furniture is pushed up against the walls. No color- it felt like being in a hospital- sterile and unfriendly.

This post here shows the most recent BEFORE photos of the space. I just wanted to show you what it looked like when we moved in.
Very awkward- the woodstove and the wall opposite it don't line up.

{AFTER}

We decided to paint our main floor walls TWO YEARS AGO. The living room walls are Sherwin Williams Svelte Sage. We decided in a fit a genius to remove all the trim to make the painting go faster. Managed in the process to break most of the trim. Oh well. We didn't like it anyway. Then I spent the next two years going back and forth on whether we should do stained wood trim or painted trim. Painted won!

We rearranged the furniture (several times I might add) over the course of the last several years. This configuration seems to work best. It allows for a cozy space to watch both the TV and stare at the fire in the woodstove. Behind the sofa we have the play area corner.
I'm thinking of adding more artwork or perhaps mirrors on the walls on either side of the woodstove. The artwork stands out now thanks to the new off-white mats I recently purchased.

We were working on getting our new entertainment furniture put up (which is why I was late joining the After party!). I certainly love it far better than what we had before! (notice trim on door missing...and we're going to change out that ceiling light soon!)

Ah yes...just to show you that we're no where near completed with our task. And that bookshelf used to be our most recent entertainment center. I'm going to paint it and try dolling it up a bit. I think it'll be a perfect catch-all unit (hats, mittens, etc). Yes, the walls are bare. I took everything down in a recent decorating fit I had and have yet to put stuff back up. I thought maybe it'd be good to take it down and start fresh- perhaps with some new ideas (using old materials!).

Oh yes...and more doors to trim out. I think I'll paint the front door unit the same color as the painted trim.

Better view of the kid area. There is stuff missing from the walls and that hanging lamp needs to be moved (it's a recent & very welcome addition- thank you Ikea!).

So...what do you think?

We've obviously got quite a task ahead of us in finishing up the trim work. I'm pretty excited now. I love how the windows look now.

There are a few other things ahead...I'd like to some how get all the plant pots to match in color. Not sure how to best accomplish that with as many plants as I have. We will also purchase a tall bookcase to place next to the TV (the TV will be off center on the wall because of the strange wall lay out) and the bookcase will make it look a little more even. I think the walls need more artwork- I've always loved that ...oh what's it called? studio look....with lots of artwork on a wall. I've got several light fixtures I'd like to change out. I'd like to paint that one little bookshelf and make it useful with baskets. I'd like to get some pegs/hooks to place near the door to the garage (that's the deep red door).

It's coming together slowly but I really like the changes.

I'm linking this post to The Inspired Room's Procrastinator After Party...One day late! (better late than never, right?)

Now I'm off to cut out more bats out of black foam sheet to stick on the outside of my house!

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Fall-ified Window Boxes

Happy...CHILLY...Fall!

Last year during this time I think we were in a heat wave!
I can't say the same thing about this year. It's been in the 20s at night. I think the growing season is most definitely over!

Thanks to my good friend Amy and her family we now have lots of fun gourds to decorate with...and....

I had LOTS of fun fall-ifying my window boxes!

I very carefully dug a hole on the bottom of each gourd and stuck a stick in that hole. It needs to be a sturdy stick. Then I just jabbed them into place in my window boxes. Easy! (except the hole digging bit...not a kid friendly activity!) I'm leaving the sad looking plants in place because I think it gives the boxes a creepy-halloween-ish sort of feeling. I just love the red cabbage against the yellow & orange gourds. I might get a few more fake fall leaves (the real things don't seem to last more than a day) to add to these boxes. Maybe I'll make a few bats to put on sticks.

Mark said these window boxes were worthy of a post. :-) I'm joining A Soft Place to Land's DIY Day Party (a little late but I guess it's better late than never!)

My fall front door wreath. Perhaps not the prettiest wreath out there (I really wanted to buy different fake flowers) but I used what I had so the cost was perfect- FREE! My favorite. Remember that I joined the Procrastinator's Party? I wanted to show you the windows we're working on. There's one window already completed and four more to go in the living room. There's another window in the kitchen plus countless doors....but I'm not sure I'll get to completing those before the After party. I'm working full speed ahead on priming, sanding and painting those trim pieces!

Keep your fingers crossed- we might get to put them up tomorrow evening. (and...I have NOT bothered to properly decorate the house. Stuff just is where it lands. After the trim is up I'll concentrate more on clearing stuff out).

Okay...this is what I get for canning 20 pints of applesauce over the weekend:

A nasty burn on my arm!

(why the burn? I was determined to not let my applesauce burn - for a change- this year. The canning instructions say to get the applesauce up to 212F before canning...and so far it also means burnt applesauce or burned hands. I'd rather have my hands burned rather than letting all those apples go to waste.)

OH!

And my soap fragrance oils just came in....do you want to know what "flavors" of soap I'm making this year?

Let's see...there's beeswax, vanilla (requested by Mark), Aria by Culti, and Angel. It'll be interesting to see what these soaps will end up smelling like! (I had no idea what the fragrances smelled like- I ordered strictly based on their written descriptions. It's kind of like playing Russian roulette- you have no idea what you'll really get! I did get lucky this time as all the fragrances are wonderful and they're different from each other and different from other soap fragrances I've used in the past.)
Now soap making needs to commense!

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Window Trim, A Banner, Apples & Ghosts (& not in that order)

Gluey Gooey Ghosts.

Annika's ghosts: These glue ghosts were the Craft of the Day on the Martha Stewart website. The glue dries and you're supposed to peel the ghosts off and turn them into pendants for necklaces. I'll take After photos when they're dried.

First you draw the ghosts on parchment paper with pencil. Next you outline them with white glue and let that set for a few seconds. Then it's filling in time! Ava needed help but Annika was a real pro at this. She kept making more and more and more....

We went apple picking again this weekend! We went back to Starry Ridge in Gays Mills to pick beautiful red Spartans. Oh boy, are they pretty apples!

Luscious red Spartan apple....

the ground was covered with apples!

at Fleming Orchard in Gays Mills
My quickly sewn together Happy Fall banner. I had fabric from a quilt project that never got off the ground. It had fall colors (and one print even had acorns). Perfect! I just guessed the triangle size- I cut one triangle and used that piece as a guide for all the other pieces. I found some leftover fabric ribbon. With my new-found sewing machine skills (ha!), I sewed the triangles on to the ribbon. I really wanted to cut the letters out of felt and stitch them on but I was running out of energy (and nap time) so I cut the letters out of paper using my Cricut machine and then glued them on with tacky glue. Sorry it's not the best photo.

Here's the BIG thing we're trying to get done: putting up trim on the main floor. We've really been procrastinating on this...we took the trim down to paint the walls. Then we decided that we hated that trim all along and that we were going to do something else. That was TWO YEARS AGO!

This weekend we bought enough wood and paint to try trimming out one window. What do you think? I know it's not a good photo- definitely not accurate color representation. I also know it's odd to have mixed wood stain and painted trim (some day in the very distant future we might paint the window sashes to match the trim but definitely not now!).

Now, only five windows + countless number of doors to trim. Then it'll be time to put up the baseboard....and maybe beadboard? I think I'll be bouncing off the walls happy if we get the windows and doors trimmed.

By the way, the wall is painted Sherwin Williams Svelte Sage and the trim is SW Alabaster (an off-white). ...just to remind you this is the After photo of our first trimmed out window....

I'm joining the Procrastinator's Party at The Inspired Room. Obviously we've procrastinated long enough on this particular eyesore! I promise I'll post photos of the untrimmed windows & doors. I'm just crossing my fingers that we'll get this done in time to join the After Party!

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A Garden Harvest

Fall is here!

And that means frost advisories...which translate to clearing the garden of all veggies that can't handle the cold (mostly tomatoes and peppers in my garden). Most of veggies have been done for the year. I could have easily picked the peppers earlier but I was hoping they would change color. Only a handful of the banana peppers changed to red.

Something weird happened to this Kellogg's Breakfast tomato. I think it might be two tomatoes that grew into one. I had a few others like this on other tomato plants this year. Weird. (it's a yummy yellow/orange variety) I have to check to see what variety bell pepper this one is. I had planted bell peppers that were supposed to turn into yellow ones and red ones. Green is good too! This particular one is the biggest of the bunch.

Now I have to figure out what to do with my bounty. I think I'll be making and canning salsa soon!

I can't wait to see how many butternut squash I have this year. The pumpkins faired poorly...and I think we got one acorn squash. Hmmm...I'm going to need to rethink my pumpkin planting/growing technique (or lack thereof) next year.

What have we been up to lately? Annika is in school and this is her first year in Girl Scouts (trying it out). Ava is home with me (not that we're home much these days). I've been hitting the YMCA four mornings a week to workout. Ack! Now if I could only stop the eating I'd lose some weight!

I'm trying to work through my creative dry spell and start doing some arts and crafts projects. It's not as easy to do them with the girls because it seems lately that we eat dinner and then it's already time for bed. Where does the time go? I need to get the crockpot going again....I feel my afternoons are taken up with cooking - even though I enjoy doing cooking.

How do you work through your creative dry spells?????

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