Royal dishes for pins, rings and other things

The other day I came across a couple of rather battered looking biscuit tins among the things my now deceased  mother-in-law had given me. I fully expected them to be filled be photos and souvenirs upon opening, but oh no, it was yet another set of what I call Royalophile little trinket and commemorative dishes. I sort of grouped them by what they were about and at least three of them were about the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spenser back there in July 1981.  So I've dutifully photographed them and posted them up on Ebay for sale as I really don't know what else to do with them. I'm not a collector of these items myself and I'm hoping there's a at least a few persons out there in Ebay land who would want these. They are all quite pretty and have interesting images on them and some are gilded. They are all made in England so I am fairly certain she acquired them while on trips to the old country.  The best use of them is probably as pin dishes (like glue a magnet on the underside!) or as ring catchers beside the kitchen or laundry sink. Or maybe use them as soap dishes?  Natch, I have put up the biscuit tins for sale also on Ebay!
Follow up Note: It looks like I've sold all of these on eBay now. Very happy they found new homes!

Easy Peasy Pencil Pen Scissor Holder

This little project took me almost no time at all, except for the paint drying part. It starts with a nuts can -- cashews, peanuts, mixed nuts come in this packaging. Once you've eaten the nuts (!) rinse and dry out the can. Take off the plastic lid and spray paint the can with whatever leftover colored paint you have. I used the apple green left over from some other projects. While the paint is drying, punch half a dozen slits in the plastic lid with a scissors blade and then cut across them to make X-shaped openings into which you will push pens, pencils, scissors, etc.   Once the paint is dry, you can decorate the outside of the can however you like -- in this case I had some gold-colored duct tape (an amazing product you should snap up every time you see it on sale in the Dollar Store or a hardware store).  I then weighted the can with some stones and put the lid on it and stuck in the pens and pencils.  Hey presto change, another item kept out of the landfill and made useful in my kitchen through recycling and re-use.

Turning Almond Milk Bottles Into Candlesticks

Inspired yet again by all the arty crafty things I see on Pinterest, I decided to do something with the shapely almond milk plastic bottles I seem to accumulate. So I stripped off the plastic labels from three Califia almond milk bottles and took them outside to paint them with some silver spray paint I'd recently acquired for $2 at a going-out-of-business sale at a nearby hardware store (Brookland True Value) and that was leftover from another project (spray painting used light bulbs as Christmas ornaments). Over a couple of days I did about two coats of this nice shiny silver spray paint on the bottles.  I then inserted some plastic candle holders I'd kept from a floral centerpiece that someone had once given me (yes, you can find a use for all those bits and  pieces you are hoarding!) and after also spraying them silver, put some bright orange candles in them. The candles I got at T.J. Maxx on sale, ten for $4!  I also weighted the bottles with some stones on their insides so there'd be no tipping over! Two of the candlesticks  I put next to my fall floral display in the dining room and the other one got a bit more gussied up with a green ribbon and silver paint sprayed fake flower for a kitchen shelf. I'm quite happy with these ornaments and know I can change out the colors, candles and embellishments once Christmas, Easter, St. Valentine's Day, or a birthday comes along. Who'd have thought painting ole plastic bottles and keeping them out of the dump could be so fun?

Tomatoes From the Garden

ripening

window ledge ripening

hairy stalks!

It's nice to grow tomatoes in your own garden as they taste so different -- much more sharp and tangy -- and of course watching them flower and bud is very interesting. For instance, I had no idea how hairy the tomato stalks are and I assume that's to stop bugs crawling up to get at the flowers or fruit.  Also, the yellow flowers turn out to be very pretty and you can see how the centers become the fruit and how they get that little star shape at the top.  I generally pick mine once they start turning white to yellowish and then finish the ripening process on my kitchen window ledge so as to avoid feeding critters or birds that might spy them glowing in the garden. This year I've had over 30 tomatoes already so we've had super salads, crock pot stewed tomatoes and tomato snacks for a while. They make a great extra snack to pack into lunches to go to work with (with a little salt added!). And once when I had 5 tomatoes all ripe at the same time, I put them on home-made pizza. Such bounty from the Creator!

Striped Amaryllis Just in Time for Christmas

Each year while doing some Christmas shopping in November, I usually pick up an amaryllis bulb and plant it in the kitchen hoping, God willing, it will bloom in time. Well, I planted this one and forgot it was called a Candy Stripe and so was very pleasantly surprised when this started blooming with four lovely heads in bright red with white stripes.  Candy stripes! Christ stripes! I think this is why I like this type of bulb so much.  Of course I've put in some hyacinth and tulip bulbs for next spring, but it's these stunning giant bulbs that come out at Christmas time that I just marvel at every year. This year it stands almost two feet tall and the four flowers each are as big as saucers This one's been blazing away for almost a week now and it's such a delight to have on the kitchen table sharing breakfasts and suppers with us!

Teddy Bears for Grown Ups

Car bear

Bears I  nearly bought recently

Cute bears

I don't know why we like teddy bears so much but there's a lot of them lying about my house and, actually, in both of our cars. Sometimes someone we are giving a ride to will inquire about the car bears, as in "Do these belong to your children?" or, upon seeing two or three on the back seat, asking "Do you know your kids left their toys here?"  Most of the time the car bears are just something warm and fuzzy to look at but they have done occasional duty as window wipes and fly swats when nothing else is at hand in busy traffic. (Of course, they get washed in the washing machine occasionally, in case you're thinking EEW!)   I'm sorry to say there's six -- maybe seven -- little and not-so-little bears in our bed also;  they get used as pillows, such as to prop up an elbow when you're reading at night or to keep out the draft around your neck or as extra support to the middle of one's back when lying on one side. And then, there's half a dozen little bears sitting on a table upstairs, just collecting dust and they have a miniature tea set in front of them and appear to sip tea when we're not around. I don't want to think about the other dozen or more teddy bears that got stuffed into a suitcase and stored in the garage in a recent anti-hoarding binge. Nor do I really want to think about the number of bears we've given away in our sporadic urge to purge ourselves or to share with others. And, now,  I'm recalling there's a bear in the kitchen with a chef's hat and there's a giant bear in the man cave upstairs (seriously!), not to mention the keychain koala bear that hangs off my bag. I consider it a good day if I don't see a bear and buy it.  So we're bearing up pretty well with our toys. How about you? Ha ha.

Stupendous Amaryllis Blooms in Bloomingdale Kitchen!

The first blossom opens

Amaryllis almost fully opened

About three weeks ago I bought a very large amaryllis bulb for $9.99 in Walmart. The bulb was huge: about 4.5 inches in diameter and 3 inches thick. I stuck it in soil per the instructions and lightly watered it for a while and watched a lot of green shoots growing up quite quickly. I hoped it would bloom at Christmas, since the package said it would be a big red flower. This week, it has budded and at least one of the flowers has opened.  There are still three buds to open yet and there's a second flower stem as well which might open into another classic 4-flower head. In fact, there may even be another flower stem sprouting. So it's in the kitchen and I said to my husband, "Have you seen the amaryllis flower I've been growing in the kitchen? It's flowering." I should mention as an aside here that Hubster often doesn't notice things that I've changed in the house -- like the curtains, or a string of Christmas lights I've hung up, or a new wreath on the front door, but that's a guy for you -- anyway, back to the amaryllis. So off he trundled into the kitchen and gasped when he saw it, calling out "It's stupendous!"  Well, I agree, it's the largest one I've ever grown. And this is just the first flower! What a wondrous thing a flower bulb is!

Keeping City WIndows Open

One of the nice things about having the windows and doors open, as a result of our foregoing air conditioning the whole house, is that you hear the neighborhood. For instance, there are a surprising number of tweetie and singing birds, even though we are essentially in a busy city neighborhood. This is because the city finally trapped all the feral cats that were decimating the birds so I think the bird population is up a bit beyond the pigeons and sparrows. Also the rat population was nicely assassinated by the city and I think that helped though I'm not sure rats eat birds (?). We did spy a very tiny little humming bird sized tweetie on a neighbor's tree at dinner tonight when we ate on the porch. Earlier in the spring every morning there were cardinals flashing about the front garden and I swore there was a blue jay or two hiding in the privet hedge. We also hear the children play, cars going by with rap or gospel or talk radio or pop music. And we hear snatches of conversations from passersby or people talking to themselves (on their cell phones, most likely). In fact, sometimes our conversations drift out the window and someone will join in. Hubster in the kitchen was calling out to me in the living room about how cute the home grown tomato was and a neighbor outside heard him and she called from her back yard saying "ooh that tomato is so cute;" very funny! Sometimes of course there are some dratted dogs in the neighborhood that set up a barking cacaphony but heck, with the windows open, you can just yell "SHUDDUP" real loud a few times and it seems to work. What an interesting world God has given us~