A Birthday Picnic

Penelope had been talking about throwing me a birthday picnic for about a week before my birthday. She just really really wanted to have a picnic, with me, on my birthday. It was imperative. The only problem is how is a five-year-old going to put together a picnic on her own? So I gave in and packed up a pretty girly picnic just for the two of us. We went to this cute little park with a lake and a small beach (hello...love living here!!) and a fun little playground. There's a ton of open space to spread out a blanket and read lots of books (as per Penelope's request). I packed light, just the two of us you know. I made a spring lettuce salad with fresh fruit and light raspberry vinaigrette and I also made goat cheese and berry crustinis on whole wheat bread left over from our brunch the other day. When I picked Penelope up to take her to the picnic some friends gave me a bundle of sunflowers for my birthday so those also made their way to our picnic (as per Penelope's request of course). She read me books and chased some ducks around. It was sweet and I was happy to spend my day with her of course. Little sassy thing.

When I turned twenty eight last year my Aunt told me that when I was twenty eight I would really find myself. She told me that both her and my mom talked about twenty eight being the year that they really figured out what they wanted in life and who they really were. It's kind of a weird thought but I very vividly remember our conversation that evening. I thought in my head that I had already kind of found myself and that maybe I was ahead of my aunt and my mom. Now that I review the past year I think they were right, I think it's the year that you find yourself. I don't really remember it happening over night or anything and it probably has a lot to do with all the scary medical things I went through last year along with the months and months of fertility treatments but I do feel like I've found out what I really want in life. I want moments, I want moments that and sweet happenings that bring memories of the best times. I want to look back at my life and know that I stopped to smell the flowers (or take picnic breaks with Penelope). I want my life to slow down a little and be worth something. I realized that those quality moments mean more to me than anything in the world. So I will stop and I will have silly girly picnics whenever I can. This last year I have come to know in my heart that I am destined to have a creative career. Life put me in a position to work in a 9-5er job for awhile and it only made me more passionate about what I do with my handmade business, etc. This past year I learned that learned that I want to take care of my body (doesn't mean strive to be as skinny as possible but to be as healthy as I can be living with PCOS) because I want to live a long time with my family and hopefully one day have another child. The bottom line is this, during my twenty eighth year in life I feel like I finally realized what is most important to me. To have a quality worthy life, full of art, healthiness and sweet sweet memories. The most important things in the world (to me). I just realized I mainly want to focus on these things that are of the utmost importance and no worries about anything else. Just good things. I think that's what my aunt meant about 'finding yourself' I think she meant you realize what means the most to you. I may have not finished every single goal on my goal list for my twenty eighth year but I have learned some valuable lessons like, stop and go on a picnic.


Love,
   Erin 

DIY Chalk Board Painted Planting Pots

It's that time again, time to plant something beautiful. I recently planted about 15 succulents in my favorite brass planters to go in my living room. I even started picking up some ivy for my kitchen and bigger plants for our dining room area. I just love plants. Westlake Ace Hardware contacted me about making a fun project with supplies from their store and I was pumped. DIY and plants. I'm in!

I thought about a few different things when I preparing to do this project. First, I thought it would be a great project to work on with Penelope. Second, I thought it would a great project to teach her responsibility. Last year we planted some fresh herbs in our yard and it was Penelope's job to water them. She did great until we went out of town for a couple weeks and the herbs started to dry up. This year I thought I'd try an indoor plant for her. It's just her plant and it's her job to water it. I explained that we can use the herbs to cook and she can watch the plant grow. I thought it was a great activity to do together as mother and daughter right before Mother's Day.  Penelope is just learning to read and write and I think it would be fun to have her write each month or date on the plant when she waters it. You can never go wrong with chalk board paint fun.

For our project we painted the inside rim and the outside completely with the Krylon chalkboard paint from Westlake Ace Hardware. I used two coats of spray paint and let it dry completely before painting our bottom plate gold.  I showed Penelope what areas she could paint gold and she painted three coats. Once everything was dry we planted a basil plant with potting soil and watered it. After the chalkboard paint dries for over twenty four hours you can cure the paint by rubbing the side of chalk all over the chalkboard area and then wipe it off. Very easy and very kid friendly. If I lived close to my mother and mother-in-law I would absolutely be making them one of these for Mother's Day too!


Hope all you mammas get pampered this weekend! Have a good one.

Love,
   Erin

Brunchday - Poached Egg Portobello Crustinis

Thank you for your sweet words about my shop opening yesterday! I'm excited to throw myself deep into work. This week for our brunch day (which I squeezed in between tons of photo editing and birthday fun and so on) I made poached egg portobello crustinis. It was kind of involved. I realized in the midst of cooking that I had gotten in too deep. I was making so many components at one time. It was nuts. Here's what I put together.

Toasted who wheat bread.
A layer of smashed avocado.
One thin slice of low sodium bacon.
A grilled portobello mushroom (balsamic vinegar, sea salt and pepper).
A poached egg (with salt and pepper).

We had this with a side of sautéed brussel sprouts. I make mine with balsamic vinegar, salt, lemon juice, olive oil and paprika. So if you want to recreate these you might want a helping hand. Like a nice husband or something like mine. I was grilling portobellos, toasting bread, sautéing brussel sprouts and cooking bacon all at the same time. It was crazy town. But it was good and Josh and Penelope loved it. That's all that mattered. I love this little thing we've got going. A special meal that we all work together for. It's much needed quality time.

Happy almost weekend!

Love,
  Erin


P.S. There's a small peek at our little home. We are completely unpacked with just a stack of art to hang. So happy to be finally settled in. 

Carosello Fete a new Handmade Shop

About six or seven months ago, after I started working full time at a 9-5 office job I found myself itching for something new and I couldn't control my creativity. It felt like because I had to lock of my creativity for most of the day it made me even more inspired and creative when I got back to my studio. I started watching etsy workshop videos, picking up various artisan books and then one day it just hit me...I wanted to make jewelry. I made some jewelry a long time ago when I first opened my shop and it became to confusing for me to include jewelry with my hair accessories, especially when I knew my future goal was to go bridal. So around seven months ago I had this very specific vision of brass jewelry specifically these brass layered abstract flower pieces. I couldn't get it out of my brain so I started ordering supplies, cutting into brass sheets, hammering, bending, sculpting and so on. I had a specific vision but parts of the process were so foreign to me that I wanted to practice for a long long time. Once I have a handful of jewelry pieces made I started to wear them around to see how they fit, how they were wear down and so on. I finally felt ready to put out some of my designs and then we had to up and move in a matter of weeks. So here I am, a month-and-a-half later after moving into our new home and I'm ready to take on two handmade shops and pursue my new passion in jewelry.

I have a hard time finding jewelry I really really love when I got shopping and so part of this is purely me creating jewelry pieces that I really want to wear. I can't wait to set up at craft shows and work on packaging and so on. I will still be running the Sunshine and Carousel's shop (my first love) but mainly focusing on bridal which doesn't allow me many opportunities to carry my work in stores and at craft shows. I'm looking forward to getting back into the crafting/handmade community beyond my bridal dreams. This shop has been my little baby for so many months and I'm happy to finally get it all out there. So many more good things to come! Hope you love it.

You can view all jewelry items in my new shop Carosello Fete on Etsy.

Erin