Cooking with Lavender

I've had a small lavender plant for about a year now. Lavender typically blooms twice a year, so I was excited to see it do just that! The first time I clipped the buds, I hung them in our bedroom during the winter time and let the fragrance fill the room. Since then, I've been coming across so many fun uses for lavender in the kitchen that I decided to try my hand at baking with it!

I made these lavender lemon cookies. They are really floral and pretty fancy! I can imagine serving these at a tea. Since they are sweet, of course Fender says they are his favorite!  The lavender is used right in the dough.  I'm not going to lie...biting into a little piece of lavender was a bit alarming!  That is why this lavender-honey ice cream was MY favorite...

I could have eaten it all... Who am I kidding? I basically did.  The lavender flavor was extracted by steeping the flowers in the honey and then straining them out before making the ice cream.  I would even love to make just lavender honey for my tea.

If you've ever wanted to try cooking with lavender, I say DO IT, and then tell me how it goes!

Celebrating ONE year!

Well, it's been one year since I began this blog. It all started out as a way to share with my family and friends all of the crafty adventures myself, Fender, dC, and mC were up to. It continues to be an outlet for me to share what I love most...spending time with my family and making fun memories with them!

I have lots of fun things planned for the next year in my blog, but before I move forward, here were the top 5 most popular posts over the last 365 days...

#5 Christmas Countdowm

#4 Fall Craft

#3 Back to School





#2 Cake pops!

#1 Halloween Countdown

Make sure to come back to see what fun stuff we are up to this next year!

Garden Update

Our little garden has had some ups and downs...but after dC and I spent a few hours weeding it this weekend, we've been able to really see what's doing well and what isn't. The romaine, spinach, onions and cucumbers are all thriving! We've even brought the spinach in for a salad! (PS~ super cute garden spoons courtesy of my friend Jessica)

Getting ready for spinach salad!

The ones that aren't doing so hot were the broccoli and cantaloupe.  Could have called the cantaloupe, but Fender REALLY wanted to plant it because it's his favorite!  So we went back to the garden store today and are going to try our hand at late sowing and see if we can get some sugar peas and jalapenos before the summer is over!



DIY Fourth of July Wreath

I've never been one to decorate for the 4th, but this year I was excited to do something new!  There have been so many book wreaths out there - I thought I would create a tutorial to make your own patriotic flag version for your home.

Materials:

Old book

red and blue spray paint

foam wreath

hot glue and gun

marker

Start by finding an old book with weathered pages that you wouldn't mind parting with.  I found mine (with 600 pages = many projects!) for $3 at a thrift store.  Section the book of into thirds, and spray paint the edges of the book with

...blue...

...red...

...and leave the other third blank. 

Make sure to wait until each section is dry before painting the next.

Section off a foam wreath (I got this green one at the $1 store since you'll cover it ALL up the color doesn't matter).  Leave more space for the blue section since it will be in the upper left like the blue of an American flag.

Cut out the different colored sections of your book and begin building your wreath.  I like to twist the pages in all different directions before hot glueing them onto the wreath.  I glue the book page into the shape I want then add it to the wreath where it fits best!  This is where you can let your creative juices flow.  Fill in the empty spaces and make it as sparse or full as you'd like!  Just make sure to alternate red and white around the rest of the wreath.

Then using basic star origami I created 5 stars out of whiter book pages so that the stars would stand out a bit more against the older worn pages.  There you have it!  In less that 2 hours and for under $10 you can have your own wreath to start the summer off right! 

Happy 4th of July everyone!