scrappy vintage look 1930's quilt ~ I'm calling it Cascading Diamonds

So I have a new obsession ~ well, two, really. :-D I love a good old vintage sewing machine, and I love a colorful scrappy quilt! And do you know what? These two obsessions can happily chum about hand in hand quite successfully :-D

This is my current quilt top that I am working on (still need to sandwich and quilt it), and the two machines I worked it on.

This is some of my fabric selection ~ I used "dear little world" by quilt gate, as well as "arbor blossom", "child smile", "little heroines", "windowsill garden", "nana Mae 1 and 2", & lazy days". 

This is my 1950's Japanese badged Brother, with its perfect scant 1/4" presser foot (which also works quite well in place of a walking foot for machine quilting.)

This is my 1950's Japanese badged Remington,  same featires, but sadly the tension unit crapped out mid-project,  and I retired it to work on it another day.

These are the sweet little fussy cuts that I framed up. The little squares are 2", and the rectangles 4" X 2.75". The strips are 1.25".

Putting the blocks together. 

I used several different focal blocks ~ some are the fussy cuts

And some are 9 patch on point.

And some are 4 patch on point.

All in all, it makes for a fun, scrappy "Cascading Diamonds" 1930's sort of quilt. :-D 

My first Bento box

Well, here it is ~ my first ever attempt at making a bento box.  I literally have NONE of the nifty little parts & pieces that should make a pretty bento.  Only a few cookie cutters, an egg slicer, & some imagination.  That ancient round Tupperware from the 70's isn't the cutest container, either ~ but, it will all have to do until my ebay & Daiso goodies get here. 

the contents are portabella mushrooms & crab sautéed in lemon grass, ginger, & garlic (among other things) snap peas, avocado, & a boiled egg dyed in the beet juice, along with cucumbers, carrots, cheese & beets cut with a small flower cookie cutter ~ all on a bed of jasmine rice & some fancy or other long leaf lettuce. 

Took about 15 minutes to put it together.

I hope my husband likes it, because it was REALLY fun to make.

Recipe for the crab & mushrooms:
(feeds one ~ however, the sauce base you could definitely get a few more mushroom slices in there, as well as another 1/2 cup or so of the crab.)

2 portabella mushroom slices
about 1+ cup (or so) of imitation crab
3 TBSP sesame oil
1 tsp finely minced lemongrass
1 tsp finely minced ginger
1 tsp coarsely minced garlic
1 TBSP chinese 5 spice
2 tsp beef base (somewhat optional, but oddly enough it enhances the flavor, I get it from the bulk section at WinCo)
about 2 TBSP dill pickle juice (again, sounds odd, but adds the right flavor, I use Claussen, best pickles EVER...other than my mom's ;-D)
a little under 1/4 cup of Aloha Shoyu soy sauce

In a nonstick pan ( I use one of those white ceramic types), pour the sesame oil,
& sort of coat the pan a bit with it.
Then add the beef base, 5 spice, lemongrass, ginger, garlic & pickle juice.

Now heat the pan up to about medium, till it starts to make a nice sauce, then add the soy sauce in & stir that around for a second or two.
Just as it is starting to really bubble, lay the portabella slices in the sauce, let it sauté for about a minute or less, flip them over, let them sauté for another minute or so, then take off, & place on a plate for later. 
You'll notice the sauce nearly carmelized while you were putting the slices on a plate, so hurry & dump the imitation crab in there, stir it all around, cook it up for a few minutes, then turn the heat off & keep stirring it for a few seconds.  You want the sauce to really cook into the crab, but you don't want the crab to disintegrate into little shreds.
And voila, you are done!

This mixture is just about the perfect saltiness for 2-4 cups of rice, for more rice, increase the recipe accordingly.
A note about the lemongrass ~ you can save lots of time by purchasing the lemongrass pre-minced, sold in a tube, goes back in the fridge when you are done, stays fresh & lovely, & has a much longer shelf life. 
Same thing with the ginger & garlic, only that usually comes in a jar.  It's so win-win. ;-D
As for the pickle juice.... well, now you have something to do with it, no more guilt about wasting when you are done with the jar of pickles!  Just save it & use it in your cooking!  I have found that it is especially delicious with beef anything & most Asian recipes.  It's the vinegar, dill, & garlic combination.  YEAH! Never waste pickle juice again!

Shabby Chic Wedding Reception on the Cheap ~ 3

 All right, here is the final chapter on my daughter's wedding reception ~ with the exception of actual pics of guests at the event. We had so many wonderful friends who helped out, brought their own items & ideas into play, and just really made this actually happen. We are sooo grateful to them all!


These cake plates were a breeze, & very inexpensive ~ I just found vintage plates & vintage candlesticks & glued them together with glass glue.  Another good way to glue them together, especially if you have bumpy designs on the bottom of the plate, is to use a clear silicone glass sealant.  The sealant comes out white, but dries clear, & you can wipe off the excess with your finger. 

Did you wonder how all of those crocheted doily lanterns would turn out?  Well, I think it's a little like a fairy land!

We held this at our church, out on the lawn, so there were signs that we sort of wanted to ~disguise ~ .  You can still see the sign on the street side, but the other side housed our cupcakes, as well as some pretty flowers in a few old buckets.  We just used a double-ended hook to hang one of them.  Oops ~ see the fern that fell down in the background from the lattice backdrop?  I didn't ~ too busy hurrying to take a few pics before the guests all arrived.  I did straighten up as I went, but....you'll notice a few laces out of place, windblown tablecloths, etc, don't mind those ~ ;-D ~ I had to put the camera down & straighten & by the time I got done, guests were going to arrive, photographer came for photo's, & it was time to "play ball".

The beautiful backdrop ~ this was the effort of several people ~ One awesome friend & her totally awesome mother provided the backdrop & picket fence pieces & quite a bit of greenery, another had the beautiful flowers & more greenery, & yet another helped to put it all together.  I am so blessed by good friends!

Several of the table set-ups.   The vintage wooden chairs came from a set that we bought for the bride & groom as a wedding gift.  The duncan phyfe table is one of a matched pair that we had hanging around the house & thought would look right.  The bird cage is just an old cage I had picked up years ago when I thought I might try bumblebee quail.  The beautiful topiaries came from a wonderful friend of a friend.  Same friend also decorated the arch.

 All of these flowers came from the dollar store!  yes, it's true, with the exception of the greenery by the picket fences, the hanging petunia's, & the greenery stuck into backdrop, all of the flowers were Dollar Store! The crystal & statuary came from 2nd hand stores, and the crocheted tablecloths all came from eBay.  A few of the cloths were quite stained &/or made with different colored thread, so I just evened the color out by dying them.  Of course, being cotton, they took beautifully!  And those are just linen napkins under the vases.  Most of the silver came from either garage sales or eBay.

 Here you see some simple chair covers ~ from the same awesome friend that had the backdrop ~ not fussy, but just enough to pretty it up.  The cast iron table & chairs came from my mother's garden, as did the playing frogs, the large angel & the other garden statuary.  In the background, you can see the large glass water dispensers; we haven't added the ice or the lemon & lime slices to them yet, nor have the nuts, chocolates or creamcheese mints been set out on the tables.  Also, see those beautiful silver candelabra's in the background?  Those came from craigslist... for $10 each!

 These beautiful vintage milk-glass containers came from garage sales & 2nd hand stores.  The cute little resin birds as well as the clip-on paper birds came from the dollar store.

Pretty brass swans ~ from garage sales.  Really, see, I clearly just collect a lot of interesting crap, & when the time comes to put on a "whing-ding", I just have so much stuff tucked away, that it's easy to assemble it all into something actually usable.  See, I now have total justification for having all of this crap. ;-D

This awesome old steamer trunk was from a dear sweet friend, she also loaned me the orange chair, the birdcage on a stand, & the 2 wooden benches.  The cool old leather trunks were from... you guessed it, a 2nd hand store!

Isn't this arch just amazing?!  The arch itself came from my mother (who bought it online from Walmart, in the garden section) & the tulle was... yup... from a  garage sale!  That kissing ball hanging in the background is just a round foam ball with dollar store flowers stuck all about, a ribbon secured by one of the flower stems, & hung from a garden planter hook that my mother happened to have.

Here are some vintage salt birds that my grandma gave to me & my husband back when we were married (wow, that was 21 yrs ago!) & the crystal vases were....uuhuhhh.... 2nd hand store!

Ah ~ you can see how the wind picked up there for a bit whilst we were setting up.  Had us a bit stressed, but it died down, so I only had to re-arrange once or twice.

My foster-daughter's little angel, dancing around like a princess!!

The same wonderful gal who decorated the arch & brought the white topiaries also brought this beautiful birdcage. 

Again, believe it or not, the paper clip-on birds & the resin birds came from the dollar store, and the mushroom birds all came from Micheal's.

This kissing ball was my mom's idea, and I loved it!  Perhaps you can see the cake table in the background, before we put any cake on it.  That is the table that goes with the cool sway-back chairs.

My foster-daughter, her daughter, & my nephew, surveying the scenes before guests arrive.  Do you see the patio she's standing on?  My husband & son brought those over from our garden & arranged them so that we wouldn't be trampling the ground coming in & out of the primary room.  I think they did a stellar job!

Patio close-up ~ again, milk glass from 2nd hand stores & garden statuary from my mother's garden.

Such cute frogs ~ again, from my mother's garden.  And all of the little floral arrangements you see here & there are, again, dollar store flowers arranged in green foam & put into pretty silver sugar bowls & creamers & pitchers & the like.

One of my dear friends had these little white felt love birds ~ I was so thrilled, because I had really wanted to make a bunch of little white felt birds (you know this if you have seen my felt adventure posts ;-D), but I just plain didn't have the time.  She had no idea I had wanted to do that, but came up & offered some birds she had which she thought might go with the theme.  I was ecstatic, because, of course, they were perfect!  Just what I had hoped for, but I didn't have to make them!

The doily cupcakes.  These were really easy to do.  Sam's Club sells a box of 150 cupcakes for $26, & a HUUUUGE bucket of whipped icing for $20.  If you use a Wilton shooter, you can shoot 3 boxes of cupcakes with ONE bucket of icing.  Crazy cheap, doesn't take too long, you can make them up the night before, (they come frozen, & thaw as they sit overnight.), & they look pretty darn cute!

The doilies are really easy to do ~ you just get a package of 8" or 11" rounds ( see which fit you like better), fold them in half snip off the ends generously, cut out the centers, and use double sided sticky tape or glue that won't be affected by moisture as they thaw.  I found elmer's to work nicely, but the double-sided tape was faster.  We just used some of the cardboard from the cake boxes cut to fit the wrought iron corner stand.

Oh boy, at this point, we have the cake on the table, the guests are going to start arriving in about 10 minutes, & my daughter ( the bride!?!) is working through the last of the formal photo's.  Here you can see the different types of cakes we bought.  They were from Sam's Club, cost $36 each, & were scored to feed 96 from each cake.  Three different cakes ~ white cake & pineapple filling, white cake & strawberry filling, and chocolate cake with bavarian creme filling.  The fun thing about putting them on cake plates (each plate had it's own silver server) is that guests could come by & serve themselves from the plates.  And, in my mind, anyway, it made the cakes look more homemade, but beautifully were NOT ~ saved me HOURS of work... worth every single cent & then some ~ ;-D (and, they were good cakes!).

The wedding round ~ this cake also came from Sam's Club, and only cost a whopping $14!!!!  Yeah!  It came with the pretty gum-paste flowers, too.  The bird cake topper was a pretty awesome find as well ~ we went to a small local cake shop, & the owner heard us talking about incorporating birds into our theme.  She said " I just pulled this bird out of storage the other day, would you like this?"  Of course, we were all freaking out happy, because it was PERFECT!  And, come to find out, it was vintage as well!  Straight from 1978!  And she only charged us $4.99 for it.  Too perfect!

Uh-oh, one last hurried shot before the guests start to arrive.  I've been shooting pics, straightening things out, adding little touches here & there, & it's almost time to go!

Shabby Chic Wedding Reception on the Cheap

Here's a fun money-saving decoration (since I'm in the middle of wedding preps, I am doing this~thought some of you might like to file the idea away as well).

Collect up some old round doilies. Get a bottle of clothing starch (not the spray kind, but rather the thick liquid, make sure it has no dye or bluing in it ~ I used Sta-Flo from Winco) & pull out some of your mixing bowls. I used my stainless steel bowls with the grip rings as well as a few glass bowls ~ just find a few with the shape & size you like. Throw doilies into the wash & then into the dryer.
 
 

 
 
Pour some straight starch (no watering down!) into a bowl ( not the ones you'll be using to dry the shapes) & dunk your doily.
 
 

Squeeze the starch into the doily threads ~ dunk it again, let it drip off ~ MILDLY squeeze it again, just enough so that the doily is still saturated but not dripping all over wasting your starch.

 
Turn your ~designated shapes~ bowls upside down & put the doily onto it, stretching it evenly all around, arranging it to look like you want it to.  (By the way, see that doily being stretched?  It has too much fabric in the middle & did  not make a good candidate for a doily lantern.  See the dry ones on the bowls next to it?  Those ARE good for doily lanterns.  I found out that a small fabric center is not a problem, but a larger one is.) 
 
 

Another note ~ see how there is almost too much fullness at the bottom of this doily?  I also did not care for that look, but the real reason that this doily just didn't work as well, is that the fabric is too hard to smoosh off of the bowl once it's dried.

 
 
Let it sit till it's completely dry (overnight works fine... these are "make in advance" type decorations ~:-D~)
Another note: see that doily in the background ( ecru, larger holes, on the stainless steel bowl?) ~ see how the edges are rippled up?  That is another way to deal with too much fullness on the outer edge of your doily.  Just shape it the way you want, let it dry ALL THE WAY & be sure to be careful when you are removing it from the bowl.  
 
Oh yes ~ & do you see the bag of ballons in the background?  I bought those in anticipation of making these lovely lanterns, because I had read that that was what needed, however, I quickly found out that it was a waste of money.  The balloons are not sturdy enough to pull & stretch & shape the doilies around it, & if you coat it with plastic wrap first, it's even worse.  It slides all over the place.  Perhaps if you were to use a much hardier glue than starch, & a round playground ball ( the kind that has little cross-hatches in it), you could actually pull off the round lantern, but those weren't materials that I had access to easily, and I didn't want to ruin the doilies I had with glue anyway, & I also knew I could wash out starch without a problem.  
Some folks have used sugar starch, but that takes a really long time to dry, & since I only had 6 wks to reception day, that really wasn't an option either.  (ooohhhh, only 4 wks to go at this point ~ what the HECK am I doing writing on my blog???? :-D) 
 
 

 
~ to remove the doily, press hard against the bowl, sort of mooshing it off of the bowl. DO NOT peel it up, or you will lose the shape. If you don't like it, or want to re-use the doilies later, you can just throw them into the wash, & VOILA ~ doily is back to it's former grandeur! ;-D
 

Be sure to smooth out any extra decorations on the doily, or you will have little folded over flowers like I did.  If this does happen to you ~ just put the doily back over the bowl in it's dried form, and moosh some more starch on the flower parts, fixing them, let it dry, and VOILA! ~ need for perfection completed. ;-D

Nice open airy doilies seem to work a little better than the heavier types, however, both can produce beautiful results.

 
 
These next few pics are my testers~  I went down to the church where we are holding my daughter's reception & hung a few up to see how & where & with what sort of string to hang them.  White ribbon looks pretty & intentional, while green kite string blends in very well with the trees & leaves & greenery.
 

 
Overall~ I love the effect.  A word of warning, however, if you intend to do this for your reception, be certain to start at least 6 wks in advance.  Since I only had about 5 bowl shapes that seemed to fit the doilies I had, I could only make 4 or five of these a day, & we need about 35 - 40 doilies, since I have 5 or 6 trees to decorate & it looked like about 7 per tree looked right. 
 
Next post I will show Cream cheese mints, easy molded chocolates & hand-dyed vintage cutter/stained crocheted tablecloths.