Showers of blessings (what's in your hand?)

This is sort of a Make-it-from-Scratch roundup, with a list of things we have here that need using, or using up.

1 cup of molasses:  Vegan gingerbread for a family Thanksgiving potluck tonight.

Package of brown paper lunch bags (nobody here takes lunch in a paper bag):  homemade paper-lunch-bag albums (there are tutorials on You-tube as well).

About two pounds of navy beans:  cook them in the pressure cooker, freeze them, and use some to make soup or a casserole.

1 small chicken and 1 small ham in the freezer:  Maybe Mr. Fixit will make his grandma's chicken soup.

Frozen "Nature's Balance" vegetable mix, bought on sale:  white vegetable lasagna, when I get some mushrooms.

Six square foil pans and a stack of foil pie plates:  I know you can string up pie plates to scare critters away, but we're in the wrong season for that.  I also don't have a birdcage that needs lining, or any need for a homemade tambourine.  I guess I will just keep using up the pie plates for sending cookies and so on, and as freezer containers combined with foil.

One springform pan we don't use much:  I am looking at this recipe for stuffed pizza.

Cinnamon, ginger, cloves & nutmeg:  homemade pumpkin pie spice mix.

Rolled oats, coconut, honey, and wheat germ:  granola, granola bars.  Ponytails really likes the Chewy Granola Bars recipe on Budget101.com, especially made with butterscotch chips.

Enough long bamboo skewers to make a lifetime of shishkabobs and fruit bouquets:  some food ideas here.  I'm thinking fondue.  And some craft ideas here.

A lot of cornmeal and a package of cornbread mix (gifted from a neighbour who couldn't use them):  well, I guess we're going to be eating corn muffins.

A mess of old Easter baskets:  I found a bunch of recycling ideas here.

Cream cheese, bought on sale:  Baked Potato Soup.

Non-alcoholic beer:  Beer Bread, to go with the soup.

Sweet potatoes, because I bought too many:  baked (or oven fries), puree the leftovers to make muffins or doughnuts

Library card:  Go explore the Dewey Decimal system.

Basket of yarn:  Go explore some amigurumi sites, thinking Christmas?  I like this one (link fixed!), and also this one.  Also this egg carton, although the pattern isn't free.

Aunt Sarah Scrap Challenge: the smallest fabric stash around? (Re-posted with more photos)

You've heard the saying, "she who dies with the most fabric wins?"  I've read a variation that says, "she who dies with the most fabric...wasted a lot of time."

I tend to go with the second choice.  Although I like to sew when I do have fabric, I don't keep a lot on hand.  I don't have a handy, inexpensive source of new fabric (even the mill-ends store can be very expensive); I'm not a quilter, or much of a clothes-sewer, so I don't have ongoing large needs for fabric; so it wouldn't make sense for me to stockpile much more than we can easily use.  One carton, maybe.

Lately I've been trying to get even that "stash" down to the minimum.  I used up three large pieces that had been in the bottom of the box for a very long time. 

One was a maternity skirt that I sewed so many years ago that it qualifies as "vintage" fabric.  One was Dollygirl's baby sling.  One was just a piece of flowered fabric that had been there so long that even I didn't remember where it had come from.  All of those became cloth napkins, because we're trying to be frugal like that.  (I think I made about fourteen--I lost count.)

A pair of red corduroy pants, three red and blue placemats, and a piece of calico became Crissy clothes. (More about that in another post.)

I used a piece of fancy pink fabric (from that yard sale back in June) to make a ribbon bulletin board.  If you think it looks a bit lumpy, you're right.  I wanted it up so badly that I kind of jerry-rigged it together with a lot of safety pins.  But I'm planning on taking it apart and straightening it up a bit.

A thrifted piece of red print, plus some white sheeting and eyelet, became a new dress and pinafore for Dollygirl's Abby. 

The rest of the red print, I made into gift bags.

The fabric carton is now about one-third full, and most of what's left, I don't think even Aunt Sarah could make much use of.

All photos by Mr. Fixit and Dollygirl. Copyright Dewey's Treehouse 2012.

Quote for the Day: "Call forth its riches"

“If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Frugal but fattening

A bits-and-pieces dessert: you need vanilla ice cream, hot fudge sauce, and a lot of broken bits of brownie.

No, I didn't have a kitchen disaster, although that could get you there as well. But recently I made a large pan of regular-old-brownies for company, and I had a lot of little bits and ends that didn't cut well. I broke them all up--not into crumbs, but into small pieces--froze them in a plastic container, and then thawed them just before making dessert. I made the fudge sauce while I was making dinner too.

And you can figure out the rest: a small helping of brownie bits in the bottom of the bowl, a scoop of ice cream on top, and sauce on top of that. We felt completely decadent.