Kitchen Towels Aplenty

All my kitchen towels are starting to wear out. Little holes are widening on the margins and frayed edges appearing on the hems and I admit there are even a few with burned bits from near musses with kitchen burners. Time to dust off my collection and upgrade by hanging a few brand spanking new linens. I have been thinking about buying some plain linen toweling and making my own or buying a bale them at Target (maybe these ones?), and then I read this post on the fabulous blog A Number Of Things. Gah! Am now drooling over many different options at Spoonflower's little shop. So many beautiful linen options. I am rather in deep like with the following designs:

Can't quite see the whole thing in this shot but I love all the graphic representation and bright styling on this one. The colors are great. And "Eat Well" has to be one of the best captions for a produce item beauty pagent ever. Yes, please...more veggies!

The illustrations on this one are cool, and even better...a way to support a young entrepreneur. The 14 year old daughter, Anna of the blogging mama from A Number of Things drew these as part of a little study course on herbology she and her mom dove into. I think these are beautifully done and some of them are very unique choices for "useful" herb representatives. I wanna go look up what honeysuckle is good for. I know now, since this last summer that plantain (common weed in lawns, hooray!) helps bee-stings not to inflate and to heal much more quickly. Simply take the fresh leaves, mash to a pulp (or chew in moments of desperation) and apply the gooey paste to the sting, cover with a bandaid to keep it on the spot for at least a half an hour. I left mine on all day. Major difference in the amount of swelling and reaction.

Love these bright butterflies too and the fact that I already have some framed butterflies hanging above the kitchen counter makes the theme a little more attractive.

Something about the swirlyness of these illustrations really appeals to me. Love those twirling cucumber vine bits and the little bloopy, real life shapes of the tomatoes. And how can I resist a vegetable lineup that begins with asparagus, my ultimate favorite. :)

Now I just have to narrow it down and decide which ones get to come live here.

Related articles

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• Mount a Binder Clip in Your Kitchen Drawer to Hold Towels [Clever Uses] (lifehacker.com)

Kitchen Spiff-Up!

I've been working on the kitchen and I had to share the results.
Kitchen Before:



I never remember to take decent Before shots when I am starting a new project. It's so much more exciting to get going!

Kitchen After:

Tada!!!! It's bright green, I know, really, really bright...but I love it! The color is Sherwin Williams, Direct Green. I think it will be an inspiring place to cook in, and that that peppy shade will carry us through winter well. There are still a few little minor details to finish like the ugly faux wood switch-plate on the wall next to the door..and the chic seventies hammered copper door cupboard handles which I am switching out as soon as my Ebay purchase replacements get here! 

And look at all that new counter space!!! I'm psyched! We have doubled when we had when we moved in by adding that pale green section over the dishwasher and then (and this is the latest touch of genius) moving the microwave off the countertop. Hooray for space!

Here's the stove area "Before." I took all those spices down from the cluttery arrangement above the stove and I think the new occupants of the space look a lot nicer. You can't see it in the Before shot but there is a cupboard above the stove and I took the doors off of it to open the space a bit and display some of my prettier dishware that we use all the time. (i.e. things that aren't in the china cabinet but are still nice to look at)

So, this is how it looks now. A good bit better. 

You can just barely see where I ripped off the wallpaper above the cupboard, I still need to remove the bottom bits of it and paint it clean white. Am considering some sort of scalloped colored painted border at the top (maybe cobalt?).

Here are the other bits of the new kitchen arrangement.

The spice corner, near the stove. :) The hanging rack with pretty jars of spices, then more spices in baskets on top of the fridge, and believe it or not, there are even more that are lesser used in a tiny drawer on the other side of the kitchen.  And my stone mortar and pestle on the tiny island counter.

Here's the window now, I need a little suction cup hook or a bit of chain to make that suncatcher hang a little lower but the colors make me happy. There is a kid-reachable spot for hanging  a couple of aprons on the left of the window-frame, a big chalkboard that I painted on the wall for quotes, notes to each other and jotting down grocery items, and then on the right hand side of the window I hung one of my paintings! Hooray!

Now you can see where the microwave migrated too. See it on top of the refrigerator? I know that's a little silly but it works well for us because of the steps which give easy access. I love having all our countertops free and it's kind of cool to use the top of the fridge for something more than just clutter collection. It isn't the prettiest arrangement but you never know, a way to make it look nicer may occur to me. It isn't bad.

Here's some close-ups here and there so that you can get a feeling for the fun details. The only thing I bought was the paint, and the aforementioned cupboard handles (a dollar a piece!) and the rest of the goods were just shopped from my own storage stash and wherever else throughought the house I hunted and found something I thought would work. The yellow gingham on the window was in my fabric stash, the baskets the spices are in were storing something else inffectively, etc.

Yay redecorating! Next on the docket is the dining room and further spiffing in the living room, and then I really roll up my sleeves with the playroom/homeschool room. I'm also working a bit on the pantry after a bout with the dreaded pantry moth. Will put all the dry-goods into glass jars or bust! Argh!

Anyone have any tips for how to store cereal? I would like to keep it in glass, no plastic in some sort of space-efficient system but in jars large enough to hold a whole box-full.  

Related articles

• Creating a Little Extra Workspace in a Small Kitchen (apartmenttherapy.com)
• Easy Ways to Renovating Your Kitchen (allhome-improve.com)
• Rescue Your Kitchen Along With Spice Racks (mydecorarticles.com)
• 2 Must-Have Designs For a Small Kitchen (casasugar.com)
• Jenniffer's Small Yet Luxurious Kitchen Small Cool Kitchens 2011 (thekitchn.com)
• Before and After: A Fresh and Bright Kitchen (casasugar.com)
• 10 Things We Learned from Small Cool Kitchens 2011 (thekitchn.com)
• Kelly's Bright Double Green Kitchen Small Cool Kitchens 2011 (thekitchn.com)
• Kathleen's Super-Bright, Super-Happy Kitchen Small Cool Kitchens 2011 (thekitchn.com)

Cinnamon Uplift

Little ears are suffering at our house. First Nib had a double ear infection and then Dee got the same bug. It's all coughing, snuffling, gasping and then head-splitting nocturnal wailing around the clock these days. The thing I hate the most is the unsettlingly drawn-out fever that just burns perpetually with this illness. Nib was all flushed and sweaty and now he's over that stage and Dee is the one with the pink cheeks and the glazed eyes. He's finally over the stage where he lays draped over the arm of the couch either unconscious or moaning all day long. We are on the upswing. I thought maybe he would be pretty normal + a cough this morning and we'd be back to normal operations but instead I felt like I was waking a steamed lobster when I kissed him good morning on his forehead.

And that is how we came to be home, making cinnamon rolls in the kitchen sunshine instead of attending church. I was so sad to stay home but there are few more potent balms for soothing ear infections or wounded mommy spirits than home baked sweet rolls.

I think I'll be okay now.

Apple Picking

We had a great little excursion to pick apples at Blue Jay Orchards and finished the fun with a warm box of apple cider donuts, rolled in cinnamon sugar. Autumn joy abounds.

Blue sky, red fruit, green leaves....beautiful.

I love the bounty of fruit rolling around under your feet, everywhere you step.

Snow White apple all shined up and glowing

I love that Dee puts little bits of flora that he finds behind his ears.

Witness...

Nib, riding in the baby pack during picking...

Ooo....new ones!

And yeah...you can see where Dee is getting the idea. Hee hee.

Apple cider donuts are so very, very good.

...lick your fingers off good.

Smiley babe, blazing blue sky.

And now there are bags of apples in the basement, rows of apples on the fruit table and apples in our minds and their dusky taste embedded in our mouths. Tasting every variety several times all the way through a mixed orchard will do that to you.

We are dreaming of warm pies ala mode, and apple dumplings, oozing buttery cinnamon...and I hoping this weekend to take my first crack at the bags of fruit and make something truly delicious...another apple cake could be squoze in too.

I leave you with this beautiful poem on the subject, which makes me want to be in my Mama's kitchen with sisters at my elbows.

Apple Season

by Joyce Sutphen

The kitchen is sweet with the smell of apples,
big yellow pie apples, light in the hand,
their skins freckled, the stems knobby
and thick with bark, as if the tree
could not bear to let the apple go.
Baskets of apples circle the back door,
fill the porch, cover the kitchen table.

My mother and my grandmother are
running the apple brigade. My mother,
always better with machines, is standing
at the apple peeler; my grandmother,
more at home with a paring knife,
faces her across the breadboard.
My mother takes an apple in her hand,

She pushes it neatly onto the sharp
prong and turns the handle that turns
the apple that swivels the blade pressed
tight against the apple's side and peels
the skin away in long curling strips that
twist and fall to a bucket on the floor.
The apples, coming off the peeler,

Are winding staircases, little accordions,
slinky toys, jack-in-the-box fruit, until
my grandmother's paring knife goes slicing
through the rings and they become apple
pies, apple cakes, apple crisp. Soon
they will be married to butter and live with
cinnamon and sugar, happily ever after.

Last Jam

Happy Strawberry Season!

Today the boys  and I started smooshing and stirring and ladling out our annual batch of strawberry freezer jam. We picked berries together this past weekend and it has taken me until today to be able to finally get the pectin out and haul the boxes of half-pint jars out of the attic.

We've been busy because we've been working on pulling together bids and comps and forms and heaven knows what else in paperwork and last night it all culminated in our offer on a lovely three story colonial being accepted. We are really excited and I'm daydreaming pretty constantly about where I'll put the vegetable garden and the bee hives and which rugs will go in which rooms.

This berry jam will likely be the last big project I'll ever  do in our boiling hot, gray kitchen. I hope I'll be canning my August peaches in my new kitchen....looking out the window at the lilies in the backyard. I'll miss the sunshine in this space, all my plants crowded into our story corner under the solarium windows and the cool of the marble floor not to mention the marvelous way it hides all cooking spills and drips. But, we are moving on to greener pastures folks. Literally. There is a wide green lawn, front back and side of the house where boys will tumble happily, an apple tree of our own to love, a big one car garage where bikes can live and a beautiful sunroom where I'll paint and sew and make emerald with green growing things.

So, here's to jam! The last ruby product of our little condo. Grey eighties place, you have been a good home but, not our real one, we hope, hope, hope (pending inspections and mortgage stuff and appraisals and all manner of other processes) you will be a piece of our past by the end of July!