Technical Concerns

My computer likes to do this awesome new trick where it shuts off while I'm in the middle of typing a new blog entry. Awesome. Thank goodness for auto-save!

Rachel May

Salsa!

We made some wonderful salsa this summer. I'm not much of a cook, but sometimes I just want to feel cute and look like I know what I'm doing in the kitchen (Note: my salsa does not require cooking whatsoever...just chopping and the use of the blender). The great thing about making salsa is that you can have all of these great ingredients out, be chopping away, and it looks really advanced-it's totally an excuse to wear an apron.



I'm sure there are better recipes out there, but this is how I made it:

Salsa!
3-4ish Red tomatoes
2 Green tomatoes
1 Red onion
2 Jalapeno peppers
salt
pepper
cilantro
(we got our ingredients at our local farmer's market-you will not get great tasting tomatoes like these at a store!)

Chop up all ingredients and add salt and pepper until it's to your liking. There's no exact science in this recipe.



When boyfriend comes into the kitchen and complains about the consistency of your chopping-throw it in the blender and ask him if that's to his liking:)

Dump in jar, refrigerate and consume later, if you can wait that long.

Enjoy!
Rachel May

The New Place: Our Pantry

I love our new house. I hope to be able to truly make it a handmade home and to document that through this blog. It has SO much potential.

My only major issue with this house so far (I say so far because who knows what this winter will be like) is that apparently, 100 years ago when this house was built, there was no need for closets. None.

Where did they put all of their stuff, I ask you? They must have been minimalists in the early 1900s.

For the first edition of Our New Place, I give you: Our Pantry.

The first thing we needed in this house was a pantry. Food storage was our priority.



The boy doesn't like for me to use the saw-it makes him nervous (who knew?), so he cut the pieces and I drilled and started the screws for the makeshift bracket pieces.


The boy and I are in the midst of changing our entire diet, and this pantry doesn't really do it justice, but I wanted to get some pictures of the new house up asap. Once this pantry is looking more "interior design magazine" ready, I will repost the pantry pictures.

I would love to get pretty canisters for our food items. Wouldn't it be fun to add cute handmade labels to them? I might have to try that soon.

Enjoy!
Rachel May

New Etsy Line: Handmade Cards!

Check out this new line I've created for Etsy! I wanted to create a product that was fun and used up scraps of handmade paper (reduce, reuse, recycle) and to serve as an idea for the use of handmade paper that you can get in my shop (if you want to buy colored handmade paper, go here).

Use these cards to brighten up a friend's day or to tell that special someone how much you love them.

Each card is made using either card stock or kraft paper (recycled), adorned with a stamped element with handmade paper scraps sewn to the front. The handmade paper gives the cards great dimension! You also receive an envelope with each card, as shown in the images.

Stay tuned! Tomorrow will be the first post of Our New Place: The Pantry!

Enjoy!

Rachel May

The old place

Before I start showing the blog pictures of my new place, I thought I should share pictures of the old one for comparison. The boy and I moved from a one bedroom apt to a two bedroom house, and I couldn't be happier about it. I've really enjoyed having a yard, and the house that we live in now is adorable.

I'll show you the house later, but here's the apartment upon moveout.


living room

balcony

kitchen

bedroom

bathroom

It looks really sad without stuff in it. Next up: The new place!

Back to School

I love fall. My favorite part is that it is all about change. It's about each day being different than the last. It helps to break me out of my funks and repetitive routines.

I also love that with fall, comes school-freshly sharpened pencils, whiter-than-they'll-ever-be-again shoes, books. Ahh..I just love it. But I also love crafts. What could be better than marrying these two ideas?

I'm not in school anymore, but some of my friends are still in college-so I decided to make a very special friend a gift! I was really excited about this.

This gift was sent out just last week, so I wasn't allowed to post it until the lucky girl received it!
This special friend received two sandwich bag pouches, with velcro closures for ultimate re-use and hand embroidered apple details. But no gift is complete without a lovely handmade card-so I made one of those to match.


Finally on the ball with something, I couldn't have been more proud. I hope she enjoys it as much as I did making it for her (I may have debated whether or not to send the gift or to keep it-only to test it out indefinitely, though).

Rachel May

One Day at a Time

Yesterday I had one of those days again. It all started with a call around 4am (which woke me up, night owl I am not). The car had broken down and the boy was stuck at a friend's for the night-or so I thought. He rolled in around 5-they gave him a ride home. My poor car is in desperate need of repair. I took it in a while ago to see what was going wrong and the mechanic told me everything was alright, but I knew better. So I waited until now, when it's broken down somewhere and now I suppose I will be needing to get it towed-yuck.

I wasn't too worried about the car, surprisingly enough. I knew it was coming, I was sort of mentally prepared. But I woke up later that morning and realized there was no coffee-still ok, I have tea. I start heating water for tea and cleaning the kitchen. While attempting to rinse my french press, I broke it. Completely shattered the glass beaker. Awesome.

Later I'm unloading the dishwasher and *the boy had loaded it for washing* a steak knife standing sharp side up decides to attack the palm of my hand. Now I'm getting ticked.

There's also another issue I've been dealing with regarding student loans, so that stress isn't helping either. But today is a new day. I stayed up late last night cleaning, reading my magazine, figuring out dinner plans, writing down ideas for the website, and doing laundry. This morning I got up (a little later than planned, but not too late) and went for a run, which I haven't done in over a month, but not before throwing some clothes in the dryer. That really helped jumpstart my day. I followed up with a relaxing shower (you don't appreciate showers until you feel really gross, am I right?) with time to spare for blogging.

The buzzer just went off. Time to fold laundry, eat a banana, and head off to work!

What do you do when you're stressed out?

Rachel May

Labor Day Weekend

After a jam-packed weekend, I have lots to share. First, I give you-Taste of Colorado.

Every Labor Day, people gather in downtown Denver to buy tickets and purchase overpriced food-and it's totally worth it. It's such a fun day. The boy and I went on Saturday and met a friend there. Tickets were $5 for 8, so we purchase $25 worth (40 tickets). We proceeded to walk around and calculate what we could get for our alotted tickets (we didn't want any of them to go to waste).

We ended up buying beef brisket sandwiches from a barbeque place-pretty good, not awesome. Then we had to decide what else we wanted-I got an ice cream cone-the boy got Sausage on a Stick. Fun for hours, folks-lots of laughs. I would post some of those pictures, but I don't think I want the boy to be posted on the internets like that-it might give you the wrong impression.

We spent the remainder of the time walking around and enjoying the sites (the first picture is one booth-they were playing "grill hero" or "grill band," I can't remember-check out those giant spatulas!) and trying to figure out how to take pictures in the dark. It was a ton of fun.

How was your Labor day weekend?

Rachel May

Sort of...

Okay, so not really "still moving." Technically today we are officially out of our old apartment-yay! However, just because you are out of one space does not mean you are settled in another. I have a TON of boxes to go through. Stay with me and I will have lots of fun treats to show you soon, including:
-really awesome bedroom shelving made by the boy and I
-fun kitchen details that are good looking and functional (and details because the entire kitchen isn't all put away yet)
-my craft space! (nuff said)


Wish me luck on the boxes-sorting through your life's junk takes a while!
Rachel May