Wheatloaf

Posted on March 2, 2020 by lexicolton

This past Thursday morning Will was packing for PAX in the man cave (aka the room where we keep all the board games).  The man cave happens to share a wall with the bedroom where Julius and I were getting ready for the day.  Will was being extremely loud and making lots of noise so Julius kept asking “what’s that?”  I explained to him that it was just Dada in the man cave to which he questioned in a terrified voice, “bears?”  (Bears after all live in caves.)

So I typically don’t like to post two recipes in a row since I have so many crafts lined up, but I feel like this is a special exception because I have very recently discovered the joy of seitan (aka wheat meat)!  This very gluten-intolerance unfriendly menu item is basically a big ball of seasoned gluten!  Sound disgusting?  Wrong!  It basically tastes like bread when you screw it up, and meat when you do it right!  You can’t go wrong!  And it has an incredibly weird (in a good way) meat like texture.  I think it’s best in flavorful sauces, but my attempt at “beef” stew with it came out delicious enough to post.

Gabe was clearly fueling my obsession with love of Geralt with this year’s program art.

Anyway, the reason my wheat meat recipe must be posted today is because of this Penny Arcade comic that allows me to pinpoint the first time I’d ever heard of seitan.  And more importantly did I mention we went to PAX this weekend?!  We didn’t see Tycho this time so I couldn’t ask him about wheatloaf, but we did get to play lots of fun board games and video games.  My personal favorites were Maquette, Barrage, and Die Crew but we played lots of great ones.  As a sidebar – I have totally forgotten how to play a first person viewpoint game so my skill borderline incompetence has gotten even worse.  This made it slightly nerve wracking to play Maquette in public in front of other humans who are video game competent.  Given that, it speaks volumes that it was my #1!  Anyway, go make some wheatloaf, play some games and don’t forget to vote tomorrow for those who observe Super Tuesday.

Yum. Almost-beef stew.

Wheatloaf Stew

Ingredients

  • 2 cup Vital Wheat Gluten
  • 1/2 cup chickpea flour
  • 2 cups water
  • 2 tbsp miso paste
  • 10 cups veggie broth
  • 1 cup wine
  • 1 tbsp oil
  • 4 carrots, peeled or scrubbed and chopped into large dice
  • 4 sticks of celery, chopped
  • 2 onions, chopped
  • 3 or 4 potatoes, peeled and chopped into large dice
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 3 tbsp corn starch
  • pepper to taste

Note: I started with this fabulous recipe for the seitan and it came out great!  As usual though I made the preparation lazier so my steps are for my lazified version below.

To make the Seitan:

Place the vital wheat gluten and chickpea flour in the bowl of your mixer, stir.  Add water and stir. When dough starts to come together switch to dough hook attachment and knead on low for 5 minutes.  Let rest for 5 minutes.  Combine the miso paste, veggie broth and wine in a stockpot and bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer.  Cut the dough ball into pieces that resemble 3/4″ thick steaks.  Add to the broth and simmer for 1 hour.  When the hour is complete, reserve remaining cooking liquid and divide the steaks into 3 portions.  Reserve 2 portions in the freezer for later, then chop the other portion into bit size cubes.  Note- I varied mine in size, but the concensus was that the smaller the cubes, the better it absorbed the flavor, so keep the seitan at like 1/2″-3/4″ dice. 

A dough hook makes seitan dough kneading a breeze.

Seitan dough becoming seitan

Finished seitan, cooling.  Looks weirdly like meat, right?

To make the Stew:

Heat oil over medium heat in the stock pot you used for the seitan.  Add onion and seitan.  Brown seitan on all sides and cook onions, stirring occasionally.  When seitan is browned, add carrots, potatoes, celery and bay leaves.  Cover with reserved liquid from the seitan cooking step.  (Note: if there isn’t enough reserved liquid remaining, add vegetable broth to cover the vegetables.)   Bring to a simmer and simmer for an hour.  Mix cornstarch with 1/4 cup of water and stir with a fork until combined into a liquid.  Add to the pot, stirring the stew constantly to incorporate it and prevent it from clumping.  Simmer for another 5 minutes to thicken then season with salt and pepper and serve.

Prepped veggies and seitan

Simmering stew components

 

 

Posted in Culinary Delights | 2 Comments

Sweet Dish of Meatballs

Posted on February 24, 2020 by lexicolton

You’ve probably heard me talk about my grandma’s Swedish Meatballs at some point in time (maybe here, here, or here).  My grandma used to make them every year for Christmas and over the years my mom and I have slowly taken over making them.  For this reason I’ve gotten lazier smarter in my preparation of meatballs.  The original recipe requires you to lovingly pan fry them a few at a time but when you’re making 200 meatballs that gets really old, really fast.

The other problem is that the delicious Swedish meatballs my grandma makes contain not one, but two types of meat!  This makes them twice as non-vegetarian (that’s definitely how that works).  German food and gravy are two of the things making me want to cave on this whole vegetarian thing.  I was looking over one of my recipes, which was chicken schnitzel with mushroom gravy, the other day and realized that pretty much the entire world of my grandma’s German cooking is out the window.  That is not okay!    This (and selfishness for not being able to eat Swedish meatballs on Christmas) lead me to attempt a vegetarian version of Swedish meatballs from Impossible Meat.  It was darn close to the original and I’ve had it 3 times now.  Plus with all the shortcuts passed down in the Kohm/Collins/now-Colton family, it is a breeze to make (as far as Swedish meatball making goes).  Now to figure out how to vegetarianize rouladen…

‘Meat’balls over spaetzle!

Grandma Kohm’s Vegetarianized Swedish Meatballs

Ingredients

  • 2 packages (12 oz each) of Impossible Meat
  • 1.75 tsp allspice
  • ½ c breadcrumbs
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • 1 tbsp graded onions
  • 1 tsp fresh parsley minced (or 2 tsp dried – I know most people say halve the dried herbs, but in this recipe, don’t)
  • 1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
  • olive oil
  • 2 cans of mushroom gravy**

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Combine all ingredients except mushroom gravy and olive oil.  (It is easiest to mix with your hands to really get everything properly combined.)  Let stand 30 minutes for flavors to mingle.  Scoop meat by teaspoonful and roll into balls.  Place on a rimmed baking tray, drizzled with olive oil and either toss balls in olive oil or lightly spray with olive oil.  Bake at 400 for 10 min until the meatballs have browned, then flip meatballs and cook for 7 more.  At this point you can freeze the meatballs* on a new tray in the freezer until firm and transfer to ziplock bags or freezer proof containers for storage.  If you would like to eat them right away, stick them in a large saucepan, cover with the mushroom gravy and bring to a simmer, stirring periodically to prevent the meatballs from sticking to the bottom of the pan.  Let simmer for 30 minutes so the meatballs impart flavor to the sauce.  Serve over spaetzle.  

*To reheat the meatballs from freezing I usually stick them all in a crock pot in the morning, throw the sauce on top and cook on low until dinner time.

**My grandma is the original smart cook, she used to make a delicious gravy to go over the swedish meatballs but eventually realized that canned gravy worked nearly as well and took way less time to make.

Combine ingredients

Meatballs prior to rolling.

Meatballs after the first browning step.

Finished browned meatballs.

Posted in Culinary Delights | 2 Comments

Short stacks

Posted on February 17, 2020 by lexicolton

Julius has had so much fun this past week with his cousin Finnegan!  They have been doing lots of adorable things together with lots of adorable giggles.  After the first evening Julius spent with Finn I went up to his room to say goodnight because I was late home from work.  I asked him what he thought of his new cousin Artemis and his response was “baby’s crying” because at the time she was indeed crying.  Then seconds later he got all excited and said, “oh! Finn’s here!” And I told him that I knew and that it was very exciting.  His response was “I like cousin Finnegan” in the cutest contemplative little boy voice ever.

A rare photo where both boys were (mostly) in focus (usually one or the other was blurry due to constant movement).

In other news,  we’ve learned this weekend that while Julius’ love of baking may be waning, his love of music is only just beginning.  He saw Aunt Mandy’s guitar this week and could not contain his excitement.  He asked to play it about a dozen times. My favorite part?  He called the guitar strap “seatbelt”.  Watching Julius play the guitar while singing was adorable.  And I got front row seats! (“Mama sit.” says Julius, patting the ground in front of him.)  The only ones closer were Julius’ loveys Gaga, Sheepey and Baby Sheepey (who got stage seats).

The face of a future rock star.

Despite Julius’ new found love I still decided to reorganize my cabinets for easy access to my muffin tins.  You know, just in case his love of baking renews.  I have this incredibly long, thin cabinet where I keep my baking sheets, cutting boards and cooling racks.  It’s so deep that I also keep all my muffin tins (mini muffin tins included) in there behind the baking sheets.  This is fine when you only need to make muffins every so often, but it got to the point where I’d be pulling out the muffin tins more often than the baking sheets!  In addition to being long and thin, it is also very tall.  To solve the muffin problem I decided to grow vertically.

Baking Half Shelf

Before – Check out all that clutter! You can barely make out the stack of muffin tins behind all the front row baking paraphernalia.

The shelf is an old piece of scrap cabinet that I cut to 10″ deep by 7.5″ wide and sits 17″ above the floor of the cabinet, leaving a shelf 11″ high space for me to slide muffin tins and cooling racks onto.

Finished shelf sits 17″ above the bottom of the cabinet and only protrudes less than halfway into the depth of the cabinet, so if needed taller items can still fit in the front space.

I used repurposed those Ikea wall mounting brackets as the braces for my shelf and screwed the braces onto the shelf before I mounted it.

Note the repurposed Ikea brackets.

Because the cabinet is only 7.5″ wide, mounting the whole thing inside the cabinet was a task of perseverance and raw muscle.  I used a short handled ratcheting screwdriver (that I got from a Yankee Swap several Christmases ago and LOVE) and lower arm muscle to drive the screws into the walls of the cabinet.  The walls were made of some kind of compressed hardboard type board so it was VERY difficult to get them to bite.  I attempted several times to tap in some nail holes to use as pilot holes with limited success.  (7.5″ minus the length of a nail is not very much room to hammer a nail…)  I don’t have a picture of this because it was nearly impossible to wedge myself into the cabinet in such a way that I could reach that far back.  It was completely selfie proof.

Look at how much more organized my cabinet looks!

The shelf works great and makes my cabinet feel so much more organized!  I no longer have to move things around to get access to my muffin tins and I even had space to put my cooling racks on the shelf, making the bottom space feel roomier!

Wow! Everytime I open my cabinet I stand in awe of the baking organization!

Posted in Home Improvement | Leave a comment

I’m Knots About You

Posted on February 10, 2020 by lexicolton

Well friends, we had a great time this past week!  Lots of fun for all including a thrift shopping spree with my mom, another truffle making ladies’ night/board game night for Valentine’s day and an epic lion king birthday party for a friend that Julius attended complete with live exotic animals!  And on top of all that, my family is visiting from all over the country this week including my brand new 2 week old niece!  Woo!

Julius is testing out calling me “mommy”.  I’ve been mama exclusively to this point, but during the last week or so he keeps throwing the word “mommy” in there every now and then.  It confuses me every time.  Much like when I first became a mother and in the hospital room they’d address me over the intercom as “mom”.  I was confused the first several times as to why they were asking for my mom (which to be fair, my mom DOES work at the hospital on that floor, and everyone knew she was my mom).  Either way, I loved being mama but I’m happy to be mommy!  Though I’ve been warned that after “mama” and “mommy” come “mom” which just doesn’t sound right.

Speaking of things that don’t sound right, how about the title of this post?  I googled that pun after I thought of it and NO HITS came up!  Does that mean it’s bad or ingenious?  It’s okay you don’t have to answer.  Anyway, this year they are doing a Valentine’s card swap for Julius’ toddler room and I was ahead of the curve.  I already had plans to make heart shaped toddler lacing toys for all the toddlers using shoelaces I found at the thrift store.  I found the shoelaces in a bag marked $2 and it included at least 10 pairs of shoelaces.  I really wanted to make the lacing toys out of recycled leather scraps, but I couldn’t find anything suitable.  Instead I decided to make it out of the scrap hardboard I had left over from the trail map coasters I made a couple years ago.  I am not skilled enough with the band saw yet to do heart shaped designs, so I had to improvise.  The design for the Valentine cards and lacing toys is uniquely mine.  I hope you like it!

Knots About You Toddler Lacing Toy

For each valentine you’ll need:

  1. Mark holes on one edge of your square on a line 1/2″ from the edge and parallel to the edge.  Holes should be at 1/2″, 1 1/4″, 2″, 2 3/4″, 3 1/2″ on that line.  Repeat markings  for other 3 edges.
  2. Drill holes that you marked in step 1 with a 1/4″ drill bit.  (I drilled 5 toddler lacing boards at a time)
  3. Drill one additional hole 1.25″ below an edge in the center.  You’ll use this to lace up the toy as a heart.
  4. Sand around the drill holes and edges of the hardboard square.  Then dust off thoroughly with a tack cloth.
  5. Assemble by threading a shoelace through the heart, starting at the hole you drilled in step 3. Thread halfway through this hole, then continue threading, doubling back when needed to form a heart.  (See diagram here)
  6. Tie the excess shoelace into a bow on the back of the toy.
  7. Print out the sheet of valentines on one sheet of cardstock, having your printer set to print on both sides of the paper and automatically flip on the horizontal edge if it supports this.  If not, print page one, then manually flip along the horizontal edge and reinsert into the printer.  Print page two.
  8. Cut valentines into 3 strips 2.83″ x 11″ long, then turn and cut each strip into 4 rectangles 2.75″ long.  (2.83″x2.75″).
  9. Hole punch the corner of each card.
  10. Thread a ribbon through the hole in the valentine and the hole in the top left of each toddler toy.  Knot.
  11. Give to your toddler Valentine.

Julius practicing “writing his name” for the Valentine’s cards

Lacing toy – started by Julius

Julius lacing up his lacing toy.

Posted in Crafts & Sewing, Thrift Finds | 6 Comments

Totally Totoro

Posted on February 3, 2020 by lexicolton

So I’ve gone all in on fantasy novels again.  I started two series at once.  The first is Wheel of Time, a classic high fantasy which I have never even attempted. It looks like it is going to be a slow burn so I started it on audiobook.  The second is the Witcher series, because I just can’t seem to get enough of Geralt…  So far I’m enjoying both of them.  Apparently I don’t enjoy Totoro though.

Since I returned from my work trip Julius has been a bit grumpy with me.   Yesterday Julius saw the Totoro sticker I have on my laptop (it looks like this).  I commented that I love Totoro and he told me that I don’t like Totoro and that only “Dada and Julius like Totoro”.  Who knew?!  I’m not sure if it’s because he’s being contrarian or if he truly believes I don’t like Totoro because Will lets him watch movies more than I do…

Either way I’m Totoro committed – and you can be too!  The Giant Totoro I made for Julius’ birthday party is bigger than Julius and only took me three nights of sewing/embroidering.  For the fabric I bought grey and off white fleece blankets at the thrift store for only $2 a piece.  I intended to stuff him with recycled packing peanuts to save them from the landfill but I wasn’t able to acquire any over the course of 2 months!  (I suppose that might be a good thing?)  Instead I used the polyfill I already had at home.  I know, I know, polyfill is made of plastic.  It already killed me a little bit inside.  Apparently they sell a recycled version so I will be buying that next time – it’s even cheaper than polyfill!  Even including the cost of the polyfill, Totoro cost me less than $30 to make!

Giant Totoro Stuffed Animal

  1. Using the template as a guide for shape, fold your grey throw blanket in half and trace the outline of Totoro’s body.
  2. Cut, adding an inch for seam allowance all around.
  3. Cut 4 pieces of grey fabric for Totoro’s ears and 2 pieces of interfacing, to scale with the body you cut out.
  4. Cut 2 pieces of grey fabric for Totoro’s tail, to scale with the body you cut out.
  5. Draw an oval for Totoro’s belly on one of the Totoro body pieces
  6. Cut inside the oval for Totoro’s belly by an inch.
  7. Use the oval you just cut out in grey as a template for Totoro’s belly in white.  Add 2″ all around to account for the seam allowance you removed and additional seam allowance for the belly.
  8. Mark the locations for Totoro’s eyes on the body piece with Totoro’s belly removed.  (Use template as a guide.)
  9. Embroidery first eye onto Totoro.  (Hoop fabric with medium weight stabilizer, put black embroidery thread in machine.  Sew first set of stitches.  Apply white cotton fabric with light adhesive to cover the first set of stitches.  Sew second set of stitches.  Trim around second set of stitches, very close to stitching.  Sew next set of stitches.  When stitching stops, swap in white embroidery thread.  Embroider last round of stitches, then trim.)
  10. Repeat for second eye.
  11. Embroider nose onto Totoro.  (Hoop fabric with medium weight stabilizer, put black embroidery thread in machine.  Sew first set of stitches.  Apply black fabric with light adhesive to cover the first set of stitches.  Sew second set of stitches.  Trim around second set of stitches, very close to stitching.  Sew final sets of stitches. )
  12. Embroider mouth onto Totoro using black thread.
  13. Mark locations for three large fluff marks onto top of white Totoro belly.  Make sure they start a couple inches below the seam allowance.  Mark 4 smaller fluff marks below those.
  14. Embroider large and small fluff marks. (Hoop fabric with medium weight stabilizer, put black embroidery thread in machine.  Sew first set of stitches.  Apply grey fabric with light adhesive to cover the first set of stitches.  Sew second set of stitches.  Trim around second set of stitches, very close to stitching.  Sew final sets of stitches. )
  15. When all the embroidery is done, stitch belly to rest of Totoro’s front, right sides together.
  16. Stitch two pieces of tail together, leaving opening at the bottom.  Turn right side out then stuff.
  17. On the back piece of Totoro make a horizontal tail sized slit on the lower 1/5th of Totoro.  Insert tail into the slot then stitch tail between both edges of the slit.
  18. Place two ear pieces on top of one another with ear piece of interfacing on top.  Stitch together leaving an opening at the bottom.  Repeat for second ear.  Turn right side out then stuff.
  19. Place front of Totoro on surface, face side up then place ears on top with unfinished ends near unfinished edge of Totoro, and finished points pointing slightly inwards towards Totoro’s mouth.  Pin.
  20. Place back of Totoro, tail side in on top of Totoro front an ears.  Pin all around.  Stitch, leaving gap at the bottom.
  21. Cut one last scrap piece of grey fabric the width of your Totoro bottom in an “eye” shape.
  22. Pin eye shape to bottom of Totoro, right sides still in.  Stitch closed leaving a 5″ gap.
  23. Turn Totoro right side out through the gap then stuff.
  24. Hand stitch gap closed using an invisible/ladder stitch.

    Julius loves to watch Totoro while sitting with Totoro

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 2 Comments

Sweet Gravy Love

Posted on January 27, 2020 by lexicolton

Hello dear friends and family!  I have been away for the last 5 days on business travel in Austin, meeting lots of co-workers who I’ve never met in person, and seeing lots of co-workers I haven’t seen in years.  My poor co-workers had to deal with my vegetarianism while I was in Austin, a city known for it’s superb barbeque.  I tried to assure them that I could find something to eat anywhere, but they insisted on going to several places with great vegetarian options instead.  They’re too nice.

I hate being vegetarian!  The food is fine, it’s just that I feel like I am doing a disservice to people or being difficult.  My mom is especially affronted.  The other day my mom and dad took us to my favorite seafood restaurant.  After dinner my mom confessed that she was hoping the seafood options would have been enough to convince me to cave and order lobster.  Good try mom… but I haven’t caved yet!

One thing I do miss though is gravy and mashed potatoes.  Roast beef or roast chicken are great, but the real magic of roast meats is gravy.  My mom makes a truly incredible gravy from any roast meat.  My dad and I used to (mostly jokingly) fight to lick the spoon for the last drops of mom’s gravy.  For this reason I knew my only chance of surviving a vegetarian Thanksgiving was a great veggie gravy.  In advance of Thanksgiving I piloted a recipe for mushroom gravy that I thought was pretty great.  It didn’t come out quite as perfect on actual Thanksgiving day because I forgot to buy vegetable broth and couldn’t find Gravy Master anywhere in the south (for this reason I advise you to follow the recipe to the letter).  Even so, it was delicious and better than a no-gravy-Thanksgiving.  Will tested the gravy and rated it “great” (though he didn’t grow up with roasts with gravy, so he is only a novice in the joys of gravy).

“I Survived Vegetarian Thanksgiving” – Vegetarian Gravy

  • .1 oz of dried porcini mushrooms
  • .1 oz of dried maitake mushrooms
  • 1/2 onion, thinly sliced
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 veggie boullion cube (to make 1 cup of broth)
  • 1/4 tsp of Gravy Master
  • 1 1/2 tbsp of corn starch
  • salt and pepper to taste

Pour 1/2 cup of hot water over mushrooms and let sit for an hour.  While mushrooms are steeping, carmelize onion in butter and olive oil over medium high heat in a saute pan.  Remove from heat when light brown.  Heat a kettle of water to boil, and deglaze the onion saute pan with 1/2 c boiling water.  Return the pan to heat and let come to a bare simmer.  Add mushrooms and mushroom liquid and a veggie bouillon cube.  Return to a bare simmer.  When the cube has dissolved and the bits of onion are off the bottom of the pan, strain out the onions and mushrooms, reserving the liquid.  Return the liquid to the pan, add Gravy Master, another 1/2 cup of water and salt and pepper to taste.  Again bring to a simmer.  Mix cornstarch into 1/4 cup of water, stirring until combined.  Slowly pour cornstarch mixture into simmering liquid, stirring constantly to prevent clumps from forming.

Posted in Culinary Delights | Leave a comment

Catbus

Posted on January 20, 2020 by lexicolton

As you may have seen from my last post, this catbus was a hit at Julius’ party!  The toddlers had fun climbing into and out of the bus, looking out the windows and pushing it around.  It was made completely of cardboard, so it was both sturdy and toddler-friendly for when they felt the need to destroy it.  It has held up well though, even with 7 kids playing on it and Julius dragging it around the house over the last 10 weeks.  The best part?  It cost me $6 to make because paint was my only cost; the boxes were upcycled from the sink I had delivered and I already had everything else!  Note the entire project did take me some time.  It took me about a week of nights after work to complete, though at the time I (apparently) had pneumonia, so it might take less time if you can do more than an hour of fever riddled work per session.

Giant Toddler Sized Catbus Playset

What You’ll Need

  • 3 – 3’x3’x3′ boxes
  • Wood glue
  • Xacto knife or razor blade
  • Scissors
  • Foam brushes
  • 16 oz – Orange Washable Tempera Paint or Acrylic Paint 
  • 16oz – Brown Washable Tempera Paint or Acrylic Paint
  • 16oz – White Washable Tempera Paint or Acrylic Paint
  • 20z – Yellow Washable Tempera Paint or Acrylic Paint
  • 20z – Red Washable Tempera Paint or Acrylic Paint
  • 20z – Black Washable Tempera Paint or Acrylic Paint
  • Magnum sharpie
  • 6 pipe cleaners (black preferred, I only had purple)
  1. Place cardboard box open end up and use the Xacto knife or razor blade to slice down middle of one side of the box.  Ideally it is best to do this with one of the sides of the box whose flaps are not taped together on the bottom of the box.  Start at the top flap, and continue cutting down the side of the box, through the bottom flap of the box.  Open out.  Repeat with second box.
  2. Place boxes overlapping each other at the pieces you just opened out.  Wood glue the flaps you created together, and clamp or place heavy books on top while glue dries.
  3. Flip the entire structure over (it should now be 3’x3’x7.5′).  Using a pencil, mark out the locations for a large door on one side of the bus (taking up much of a 3’x3′ face) then 3 1’x1′ windows on the top half of the side.  On the other side cut 5 1’x1′ windows on the top half of the side. Cut 2 1’x1′ windows on the top half of the front and back of the bus.
  4. From the third box cut an oval 2’x3′ for the catbus’ head.  Cut two ears with a roughly triangular shape with two curved legs that is 1.5′ tall by 1′ wide at the base.  Also cut a curved rectangular sign 6″x1′ and two mice.
  5. Cut 3’x1.5′ flaps on left, right and front sides in half down the middle, then curve down from the tip to form paws.  Cut tail into the center of the back of the bus.
  6. Using wood glue, attach ears to the oval head at the top left and right.  Clamp or hold together with books.
  7. Using a pencil, sketch a horizontal wavy center stripe down the center of the boxes on left and right and legs of catbus.  Sketch out ears, stripe, eyes, nose and smile on catbus face.
  8. Using a foam brush paint the side of the bus orange above and below the middle line and on the front on the bottom.  Paint paws orange above and below middle stripe.  Paint tail above the tip of the tail orange.  Paint the cat head orange in the part indicated.  I needed a second coat to make the bus look more orange.
  9. Paint the middle stripe on the bus and paws brown along with the top of the bus, and the front and back of bus where not already painted.  Paint tip of the tail brown.  Paint the stripe on catbus’ head brown as well as it’s outer ears.
  10. Finish off the catbus head by painting the nose red, eyes yellow, teeth white and ears a mix of orange and white.  (See photo.)
  11. Outline the cat’s face, and stripes with the black permanent marker.
  12. Paint the sign with red paint then outline with black permanent marker and the location of your choice.
  13. Paint both mice grey, then add white eyes and a red nose.
  14. Use wood glue to attach the cat face to the front of the catbus so you can still partially see out the front windows.
  15. Glue mice on top front of bus on right and left side.  Glue sign on center of the bus.
  16. Insert pipe cleaners into the face of the catbus through the corrugation, 3 per side to look like whiskers.  (You shouldn’t need to poke holes or anything).

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | Leave a comment

Hey Let’s Go!

Posted on January 14, 2020 by lexicolton

Holy cow, just finished The Witcher series on Netflix and I’m now going to read all the books.  I just love fantasy with magic and a good love story.  Julius (obviously) has not seen it, though he has heard the song “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher” about a dozen times.  Julius’ favorite show remains My Neighbor Totoro.  Which brings me to a post (and set of posts) I’ve been putting off for far too long.  For Julius’ second birthday we decided to host a Totoro themed party.  The main snags that came up were that his birthday is in November, right when the weather gets too cold to go outside and Will and I both ended up being diagnosed with pneumonia about a week before the party.  This meant I was out of commission for half a month before the party, trying to struggle through party decorating and planning as if it were some mad fever dream.  Perhaps needless to say I didn’t get to accomplish everything I wanted.  Here’s what I managed…it was still pretty awesome and Julius loved it (which is all that matters).

My Neighbor Totoro Toddler Party

Theme

If you’ve never seen My Neighbor Totoro, you should give it a try.  It is an adorable story about two little girls who meet a giant bunny-owl type forest spirit called Totoro.  Mei, the main character, is a little girl who is not yet school age (and Julius adores).  She stumbles upon the huge sleeping Totoro in the forest underneath a giant camphor tree when playing in her backyard.  She has several encounters with Totoro and his friends which include an iconic Catbus.  As with all Miyazaki’s films there are heavy themes of protecting nature.

For the invitation I sketched a picture of Totoro holding an umbrella, which Totoro wields as a magic staff in much of the movie.  I sketched and colored it on my Yoga X1 Carbon which I’ve become quite fond of.  As always, I used Evite to send out the invites.

Activities

Umbrella Favors

Julius’ favorite word around this time was “umbrella” and Totoro uses an umbrella as a sort of magic wand after Mei’s sister Satsuki gifts him her umbrella.  I bought cheap white umbrellas from Oriental Trading to use as a canvas and intended to have the kids color them with fabric markers.  At the last minute I decided not to use the fabric markers because they are technically not safe for kids under 3 (though I honestly think no products say things are safe for kids under 3….)  Instead I bought a bunch of waterproof Totoro stickers online. In addition I bought green permanent adhesive vinyl and cut out each child’s name and a bunch of leaves with my cricut – this was even cheaper than the Totoro stickers.

Umbrella Stations ready to go…

Cricut cutouts of leaves and kids’ names.

We had all the kids do this craft first to keep them occupied while other guests were arriving.  Julius and the other kiddoes loved sticking the stickers on the umbrellas, though they really would not survive a rain storm.

Enchanted Forest Playset

As I mentioned earlier, Julius’ birthday is in November, which unfortunately is too chilly around here for an outdoor party.  Totoro is all about exploring the outdoors, and I wanted Julius to have the whole Totoro experience so I set about making an indoor toddler friendly playset.  I kept the entire thing a surprise by setting it up in the room over our garage.

Soot Sprites

Leading up the stairs into the man cave, I sprinkled dozens of “soot sprites”. These are elusive spirits that hide in dusty corners of old houses.  Mine were simply black glitter pom poms with tiny googly eyes hot glued on.  I didn’t have the patience to glue on more than a couple dozen eyes, so I strategically scattered the few with eyes amongst the plain ones.  Julius knew exactly what they were when he entered the staircase.

The Catbus

In the story, Catbus helps Satsuki find her sister Mei when she goes missing.  While the Catbus is normally covered in fur inside and out I made the Catbus entirely out of recycled boxes.  This took me the longest time to make, since I worked on it for a solid week while I was sick with pneumonia (before I actually knew I had pneumonia).  I was so exhausted that I could only work on it for about 30 minutes at a time before I’d have to take a nap again.  Somehow I finished it before the party.  I’ll post the how-to in a later blog entry.

The Big Camphor Tree

My friend Ibis had the great idea to do a giant spooky tree in our office cafeteria as part of the Halloween decorations this year, so when we took it down I recycled the paper into a giant camphor tree.  While the Halloween tree was barren of leaves, I got a couple packages of green paper garlands from the Dollar Tree to make our camphor tree lush and verdant!   I used blue tape and push pins to adhere the tree and branches to the walls and ceiling.

Hidden Path to Totoro

Of course Totoro could be found hidden under the big camphor tree, just like in the movie, so I made a little path from the Catbus to the Camphor Tree which included a slide and a tunnel.  To make it a bit less obvious what was under the tree, I used two adhesive Command hooks with a clothesline hung between them, then draped over an old curtain with leaves on it from Will’s grandmother.  I already had an Ikea play tunnel that I used underneath the curtain, so the kids could climb into the area with Totoro under the camphor.  Most kids were too nervous to see what was on the other side of the tunnel so I had to shimmy through myself first (going to have to lose some weight next time) and Julius followed right after.

Big Totoro

I don’t think you can have a Totoro party without Totoro.  Totoro was waiting for the kids on the other side of the tunnel!  I’ll put up another post with instructions on making this big guy, but I made him from old blankets I bought at Savers so he was very inexpensive, even with the cost of 5 pounds of fiberfill.  I intended to stuff him with packing peanuts, but (maybe this is a good thing) I wasn’t able to find anyone online getting rid of large quantities of peanuts.  Julius was very happy and huggy when he saw Totoro, so I’d say the hunt for Totoro was a huge success!

Food

Menu

After the Totoro hunt, everyone was hungry for lunch.  For the kiddoes I prepared Bento Boxes with Julius’ favorites ingredients.  These were prepped right before the party started, and were kept chilled on the porch (it was nearly freezing that day hence why we couldn’t have the party outside).  The bento boxes were made from a 5.5″ square palm leaf bowl, and a 6″ square palm leaf plate “cover” held on with a green ribbon.  They looked really cute and were completely compostable!  We served them at a very short sofa table that we moved to the lounge.

I made a double batch of the sushi the night before and simply served it chilled (I know, I know this is not how sushi is made to be eaten, but I had to entertain toddlers so I couldn’t play sushi chef during the party).  In the interest of time I did not tempera the sweet potato and instead roasted it until soft. I served it with wasabi, pickled ginger and soy sauce.  It was the first thing that disappeared, so it must have been alright.

For the Yakisoba I chopped everything in advance the night before (I made a triple recipe, plus a single recipe of the vegetarian version for 15 adults).  I also mixed up the Yakisoba sauces and stuck those in the fridge.  We had someone allergic to shellfish so in lieu of the oyster sauce I used the website recommendation of substituting “stir fry sauce”.  In addition I used ground pork instead of the pork belly since it was easier to find.  For the vegetarian version I just omitted the meat, doubled the veggies and stir fried everything in oil instead.  For the sauce, I threw together something that tasted more like teriyaki sauce since I omitted the Worcestershire sauce (it contains fish).  Before the party I quickly made the Yakisoba, transferred it to their serving dishes (which were oven safe) and held it in the oven on warm (150 degrees F).  This worked perfectly.  Also – fun fact – I found my Yakisoba noodles at Walmart in the refrigerated (not frozen) section!

The edamame was purchased frozen at Trader Joes and I steamed it a few minutes before I served everything.  I served it with sea salt.

I had big plans to make a Totoro cake but I was so behind after the pneumonia that this got cut.  Instead I made green velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  I didn’t even have time to make any cute toppings so Will printed two of my Totoro invites on cardstock (one mirror reversed), cut them out and glued them together with a toothpick sandwiched between.  I thought it looked like the big camphor tree if you squinted hard enough.

Thank you to my mother and father in law and my parents for helping to clean, set up the party and prep food before everyone arrived!

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Get Stuffed, Animals

Posted on January 6, 2020 by lexicolton

Julius has full on separation anxiety again. Every morning that I drop him off at daycare he cries uncontrollably and I have to extricate myself from his grasp and practically run out the door to escape.  It is incredibly heartbreaking, especially since I hear him wail, “mama!  Mama!!!” as I dash out the door.  It was bad enough when he was an infant and would just cry when I left, now Julius verbalizing that he doesn’t want to stay at daycare really is another level.  Recently he asked me why I have to go to work and I answered “so I can make money to buy things for my Julius”.  He immediately followed up, “I make money?”  To which I had to respond, “no, your job right now is to play and learn at daycare.”  I explained how money was a necessary but terrible part of life, and he needn’t worry himself with it until he was grown.  He wasn’t satisfied with this answer so our conversation turned onto a ridiculous/adorable path of Julius devising how he could make money at daycare to “help out mama”.

A couple days later while I was leaving the daycare Julius started up his usual crying routine.  I managed to wriggle myself free after a very sad hug, and turned to wave at him one last time.  He desperately sobbed out “I make money! I make money!”  It was simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious.

On a more lighthearted note, I have further developments on the wine front – I have no idea why but Julius is still convinced he is going to love wine.  (“I like wine.” – Julius, age 2.)  Yesterday I made a risotto with white wine, and he really enjoyed it (did I mention that it had cheese in it?)  Afterwards I told him the risotto had wine in it expecting him to be excited that I “let him try wine”.  He was at the time drinking a sippy cup filled water and didn’t even put down the cup to remark, seeming thoroughly unsurprised.  When I followed up with, “did you know that it had wine in it?”  He stopped drinking, held up the sippy cup filled with water, smiled really big and said “this? This (is) wine?”  I almost died laughing.  I only hope he doesn’t ever say “I like wine” in front of any government authorities.

On a completely unrelated note, you can use the following pattern to make your adorable 2-year-old match their adorable Build-A-Bear.  Julius got his Build-A-Bear, Stuffy Bear, on his birthday this year so the bear only cost his age – $2!  We let Julius pick out some accessories, but he only was interested in some roller skates and a happy birthday balloon.  This meant Julius’ birthday-suit roller skating bear only cost $19!  No one could believe we got out of Build-A-Bear spending less than $20.  (Until I told them birthday suit really meant that Julius wanted his bear in the buff…)

For Christmas I decided to make Stuffy some PJ’s to keep him warm at night.  This clothing set was a snap to make and since I used recycled flannel for the pants it only cost me $3.  Making Julius and his bear matching outfits for $6 is pretty incredible if you ask me.  The truly comedic part is that Julius still wanted Stuffy to remain nude even after opening Stuffy’s PJs.  I showed Julius several days after Christmas that he and Stuffy had matching outfits and he was finally happy to allow Stuffy to wear his PJs to bed.  

Build-A-Bear Pajama Pants

What you’ll need:

  • The pattern here
  • 1/4 yard of flannel fabric (or an old pair of dad’s pajama bottoms – I made both Julius and Stuffy’s pants with one pair of Dad’s pants)
  • 1 foot of 1/2″ elastic

Follow the instructions for the 2T Toddler Pajama pants with the following change:

  1. In step 2, mark where the tail hole will be from the pattern and leave that portion unstitched.
  2. In step 3 only stitch and serge the sections surrounding the tail hole, leaving the gap for the tail unstitched.  Fold the seam allowance towards the pants then stitch 1/4″ from the gap for the tail into the seam allowance on either side of the gap.
  3. In step 10 the piece of elastic will only be 12″ instead of 21″.

Build-a-Bear Long Sleeve Tee (from a toddler 2T shirt)

What you’ll need:

  • Template here
  • Size 2T toddler shirt (I bought mine for $3 from Walmart)
  1. Take your 2T toddler shirt and lay template over it so the template is lined up with the shoulders and centered.  Mark.
  2. Cut out around your markings through both front and back layers of the shirt, leaving 1/2″ seam allowance.
  3. Measure from the cuff of each sleeve up 3.5″.  Mark.
  4. Cut off the sleeve 1/2″ above each mark in step 3 (at 4″).
  5. Turn shirt inside out, and pin along the sides you marked.  Leave a gap the width of your t-shirt arm (the length of the line you marked in step 3).  Stitch.
  6. Place one sleeve inside one of the gaps in step 5.  The sleeve should be right side out.  Pin all around the armscye, so the right sides are together.
  7. Stitch around armscye.
  8. Repeat step 6 & 7 for other armscye and sleeve.
  9. Serge the bottom hem, fold inside and then stitch.

 

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Snuggle Bear

Posted on December 30, 2019 by lexicolton

Julius is definitely going through a growth spurt.  He has been eating like crazy for the last several days!  Tonight he ate a ton for dinner, then when we got home he asked for more food!  It was right before bedtime so we gave him some applesauce.  Several minutes after going to bed he kept saying “I eat” over and over again.  Luckily when we went in to check on him he only wanted a bedtime song.  I honestly wasn’t sure if we should pull him out of bed and feed him second dinner.  Is that a thing?

The other hilarious thing Julius has been doing lately is telling him how much he likes certain things.  This past weekend we were in Maine and it was “I like boats!” every time we saw a boat.  We also ordered wine at a restaurant and Julius kept telling us “I like wine!” every time someone ordered a glass.  The waiter declared that he had to keep the bottle away from him, and we had to explain to Julius he had to wait 19 more years to order wine for himself.

I’m super tired tonight, but I’ll show you one of the quick gifts I made for Mr. Man for Christmas.  I made Julius and Stuffy Bear (his build-a-bear) matching PJs!  I’ll post the tutorial for Stuffy’s outfit in a later post, but I made both pairs of pajama bottoms from a ripped pair of Will’s pajama bottoms, and the shirts were just 2T cotton long sleeve t-shirts from Walmart for $3 each.  Julius is my snuggle bear, and Stuffy is Julius’ snuggle bear so it seemed appropriate to embroider the shirts with the text “Snuggle Bear”.

What a cutie.

Toddler Pajama Pants (Size 2T)

What you’ll need:

  • The pattern here
  • 1/2 yard of flannel fabric (or an old pair of dad’s pajama bottoms)
  • 1/2 yard of 1/2″ elastic
  1. Cut out pattern pieces according to instructions on the pattern.  Note there is no seam allowance and you should add 1/2″ everywhere.  If you are using an old pair of pajamas, omit the extra seam allowance and instead use the bottom hem of the pants as your bottom hem.

    Cutting out pattern pieces – note that in this example I am using a pair of pajama pants so I don’t add any seam allowance for the bottom hem since I’m reusing the hem from the old pants.

  2. Pin the pants fronts together at the upper front seam and pin the pants backs together at the upper back seam (right sides together)
  3. Stitch, then serge.
  4. Pin the pants front to the pants back at the inner leg seam (right sides together).
  5. Stitch continuously from the bottom of the pants, to the crotch, back down the other inner seam of the pants.  Then serge.
  6. Pin the back and front pants together at the outside edges (right sides together).  Stitch then serge.
  7. If you are using flannel (not an old pair of pajamas) hem the bottom of the pants.  Turn right side out.
  8. Serge the top of the pants.
  9. Fold the serged edge into the inside of the pants an inch.  Pin and stitch, leaving a 1″ gap unstitched in which to insert the elastic.
  10. Thread a 21″ piece of elastic onto a large eyed yarn needle and pass it through the waistband of the pants.  Use care not to twist the elastic when inserting it, so it will lie flat against the body.
  11. When the elastic reaches the other end, overlap the two ends of the elastic by 1/2″ and stitch.
  12. Stitch over the unfinished gap of waistband hem, then vertically stitch up and down the waistband 1/2″ from either side of the back hem, to both keep the elastic in place and mark the back of the pants.
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