Our Wreckorated Sofa

So we purchased this lily-white Ikea sofa with two matching ottomans earlier this summer and foolishly put it in our heavily used all-purpose play/TV/rumpus room.  Let's just say it did not maintain its  virginal color qualities for long before it was sullied with spilled juice, dusty shoe prints, pizza sauce, melted chocolate, and whatever grime seems to come from simply sitting your bum on a sofa cushion over time.  Sure, I made an honest effort with upholstery cleaner at some point and managed a modicum of recovery with much vigorous scrubbing...but I already knew the battle was futile.   

So I just gave up and put out a mason jar full of Sharpies of every color and announced to every child and adult who entered our house that the sofa was open for graffiti and doodling if anyone was so inclined.  Did I get some, "Are you freaking crazy?" looks from parents?  Loads.  Did Beeper's friends look at me suspiciously from the corner of their eyes as they tentatively uncapped a Sharpie and moved toward the sofa?  Sure. But as you may imagine, the kiddos were pretty quick to embrace this notion of doing something normally completely forbidden and this is what we have today: our wreckorated sofa....

My only two rules for drawing on the sofa are: 1) no writing anything unkind about anyone else, and  2) no scribbling over drawings.  Adventure Time related drawings have been particularly popular with the kiddos--and tagging the sofa with their names, of course.  Best of all, the graffiti really does disguise the dirt and grime and spills.  And no, the writing does not rub off on your bum.  

I have found that I love all the color it brings to the room.  It is a design in constant evolution as people add more and build on one another's drawings.  Just this morning I came in and Beeper had added a rainbow platypus with a mohawk to one of the cushions.  Yeah, it made me smile.  I ask you, how often does your sofa make you smile?

Baby Come Back

Dear Blog,
I just have to tell you that I miss you.  Loads.  I know it has been months and months since I have come around to see you, but I still think about you all the time--most every day, really.  You see, I decided (very unceremoniously) that I wanted to try my life without.  Just to see what that would be like--returning to what life was like before you were ever part of it, reclaiming those chunks of time previously devoted to editing photos, creating tutorials, logging new entries--but what I have found is that I miss you so very much.  I yearn for you every time I make something, see something beautiful, admire something that someone else has made--my heart pauses for a moment and aches for you.

There are so many new things I want to share with you still--my iPad and all the inspiring apps I have discovered (no, please don't think of this as cheating--the iPad and I have a different sort of relationship than you and I), things I am creating--and the things I want to share so others can make them too, all the lovely things other people are making, all the new recipes I have made and some of the amazing cookbooks I have found, Beeper's latest moment, the wonder of the later afternoon winter light, some of the changes Mr Beeper and I have found time to make to our home...I need someone to share all of these things with because you are the only one who cares about these very same things.  We just get each other in ways no one else does.

I always knew you were important to me, but I guess this time apart has made it clear exactly how much we are meant to be together.  I promise you that I will be around here more from now on--I hope you can forgive my rude and extended absence--but I know we have a future and I am looking forward to this new year--together.
Love,
H.

A Glut of Tomatoes

Our tomatoes around here have been a little lazy about getting around to ripening, but suddenly we have heirloom tomatoes stacking up on the window sills and tumbling out of overly full bowls on the counter.  Each day is another day to find a way to use fresh tomatoes in whatever we are cooking--this morning, it was in my most favorite ever omelette.  What we do not eat, I am slow-roasting and freezing for later, less seasonable enjoyment (honestly, one of of the loveliest ways to save tomatoes--sort of like sun-dried, but less chewy, and sweeter--read more about it here).  

What are your favorite things to do with a crazy glut of tomatoes?

Color Around Here

Beeper's Strip of Color

Oil Crayon Rainbow

String Weaving

(A Wonky) Quilt Made for My Mum

People Rally

Perler Bead Circles

Perler Bead Squares

Lots of color going on around here lately.  Last weekend we found a large set of perler beads (Beeper calls them "melty beads") at the thrift store for $1.25, and new designs have been showing up daily.  Not sure what we are going to do with all the circles and squares (please share your ideas--tiny frames?  coasters with half-assed coverage?), but I am happy to see new patterns emerge daily.  And the throw--I actually made that for my mum for Christmas, from that Anna Maria Horner fat quarter stack I bought ages ago and intended for a quilt for our bed, but--well, it just found its way into a little wonky throw because I thought my mum might like all that color to curl up under (and let's be honest, I could not stand the silent reproofs that lovely stack of fabrics gave me every time I looked its way).  Oh, and the weaving set was an impulse Christmas gift for Beeper (bought it from Jack Be Nimble's brilliant little Etsy shop), one I second-guessed after buying, thinking he would never be able to slow down his pinball-energy long enough to weave a single row, or even have the interest--yep, I was wrong.  

What kind of color are you finding in your home this week?

Belated Post Ahead: The Great Pumpkin Patch

File this spot away for next year--that is, if it happens to be October and you happen to be in central Illinois, right smack in the middle of an Amish community, lots of soybean fields, and small town America.  It is called The Great Pumpkin Patch and is located in a Arthur, Illinois, down just about a million intersecting dirt roads, just past 100 or so farms, and take care not to hit the Amish teenagers driving that buggy there.  It also happens to be just down the road a spell from where my in-laws live.  There's lots to do--it's sort of like the Disneyland of Squash--check it out...

...learn your ABCs via squash...

...visit an old time school house...

...become a pumpkinhead--variety of your choosing...

...admire the rainbow o' squash...

...eat a freshly made caramel apple or 12...

...get lost in  corn maze...

...admire the variety of presentations of squash...

Unfortunately, the actual Great Pumpkin Patch was closed the day we visited due to MUD, but it's not like there are any shortage of pumpkins to choose from...

Yeah, we took home a trunk full.  I wish I had taken a photo of all the brilliant jack o' lanterns Mr. Beeper and I designed and carved--the one with two faces was my favorite...but, you'll just have to imagine what that looked like.

You can see more photos--but only if you really want to--because there was lots more to see and do--find it here.  

A Halloween Crafting Compulsion: Part 1

We are planning for a little Halloween party here later this month, so you can just brace yourselves now for the posts to come about the search for the right supplies and the mad crafting that ensues.  It's all Martha's fault, really.  I mean, she has so many good ideas for Halloween out there that it is hard to choose just one or two--so why not 5 or 6 or 10?  Damn you, Martha and your wily crafting ways.

Exhibit A--the two projects above.  The first are the creepy-cool skeleton invites, instructions and downloadable templates found here (plus many more  genius invite designs here).  I did not have any brads handy when I made these so I just used some small grommets instead--worked just as well.  The black envelopes came from Paper Source, if you care to know.  The second is the creepy-crawly snake wreath--instructions here.  Not hard to make at all--bought the snakes at Target in the dollar bin, painted them with black craft paint, then had Mr. Beeper do the grapevine wreath up with some matte black spray paint. I just used thread and needle to attach the snakes to the wreath--worked fine aside from the fact that grapevines really like to snag your thread and thwart your sewing efforts.  This is the first wreath I have ever made.  I know.  Wreaths are just not my thing--but they are sort of a crafting staple (sort of like how Meg describes owls), and it seems that if you do enough crafting, you will be compelled to make one at some point.  Resistance is futile.

More Halloween madness to follow...

Madeline Island

Cliffs of Madeline Island

Old Fishing Cabin on Manitou Island

Lake Superior Rocks

Canoe near the Lagoon on Madeline Island

Mr Beeper and Beeper Exploring Manitou Island

Old Fishing Camp

Cabinet Remains in Fishing Camp

Lagoon on Madeline Island

Rocks and Drift Wood

Tim Naps on the Dock

Sailboat through the Grass off Manitou Island

Tom's Burned Down Bar

Mr Beeper's Favorite Sign at Tom's

Mad Island Style at Tom's

Hammock in the Yard of the Mad Island Public Library

Little Miss Lily Leaps into Lake Superior

Beeper Fearlessly Hops In

Canoes on Mad Island

As a rule, given the inhospitality of the weather around here most of the year, we deliberately make our vacation plans for near locales and try to make the most of the what is right here while the weather is lovely--you may have noticed this.  Thus, we have been away in the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior, staying at a friend's wonderful new home on Madeline Island--and then saved a few days on the back end for a short trip to Ludlow's Island for our annual summer's end visit.  I had never been to the  Islands before and as you can see, the beauty is pretty staggering.  For me, few things can compete the with the rocky shorelines, fresh water lake-swimming, boreal forests, and that rustic-feel of Lake Superior.  Having grown up in northern Minnesota, those red cliffs and cold waters feel like coming home and I can shuck off whatever else may be preoccupying me and just be right there, right then.


And for future reference: when it would seem I have disappeared off the face of my blog, you can probably safely assume I was on vacation.  I always have the best intentions of dropping in here to say hello, let you know where I am,  squeeze a post in here or there about whatever we are up to--but somehow, I just fall into my vacation headfirst, forgetting everything else.  I hope you understand.

I will be back tomorrow to announce the winner of the Tea gift certificate--I pinky-swear.

July 4th

grilled and listened to records with friends

made vanilla vodka lemonades (recipe later)

went to the beach when it got too damn hot

ate drippy ice cream

visited an organic strawberry farm and picked 9 pints

made some strawberry-rhubarb jam

spent a lot of time at the vet with Socrates who broke his paw

That's what we did over our July 4th weekend.  What about yours?