A Tasha Tudor Valentine

This is a valentine card I made for my mom about twenty years ago. The idea and instructions came from the wonderful, but, sadly not-in-print book Drawn From New England, by Bethany Tudor. She's the daughter of children's book author/illustrator Tasha Tudor — who's about 93 by the way! Each flower or tree can be pulled out of its pot where a hidden Valentine message waits.

I used to spend a lot of time with this book dreaming about all the crafts, seasonal celebrations, and old-fashioned farm lifestyle this creative family experienced. Now that I have children I'm even more amazed at the life that Tasha made for herself and her family. If only I could accomplished a fifth of what she did/does...

Read more about the Tudor Family at their website, where you can also buy things directly from them, including Bethany's book.

Soup & Bread

Two of my favorite things — yum!

It was a cold rainy day here yesterday, with snow in the mountains! That only happens once or twice a year. We stayed home and made bread, looked for rainbows, caught hail in our mouths, painted pictures, and watched videos. On rainy days without school, filling up the ten and a half hours that papa isn't home is always interesting (How do you do it Eren?). What do you do, especially when you have a little one that makes doing bigger kid things a little challenging? We have a list of things to do while he's napping, but that still leaves at least nine hours. And, someone always seems to have a bit of a cold, which makes me not want to take them out into the cold.

On a different note: I love it when people share their favorite cookbooks. The Soup & Bread book is one of mine (Patchwork Slaw with Curried Vinaigrette; Chicken with Pasta Soup; Oatmeal Molasses Bread). I love a cookbook with prose, and Crescent Dragonwagon is a great storyteller. I love reading about the life she and her husband created at Dairy Hollow House in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Awhile back I looked online to see if the Inn was still going and was sad to see that it is closed (now a writer's retreat) and that Crescent's husband had died — hit while bicycling.

I just checked and Amazon didn't have the book. I'm sure you can find it used.

The Cobweb Christmas

There have been a lot of book recommendations going around these days — always a nice thing, to my way of thinking.

Lori over at Camp Creek has a bunch of great lists, including: holiday favorites, read-alouds, and books for 8-to-11-year-old set. Amanda has her Winter reading list up, too. This got me thinking about The Cobweb Christmas — a favorite of our family. It's the story behind the tradition of putting tinsel on trees.

This spiderweb ornament that I made was inspired by the story, as well as the wonderful MSL beaded snowflakes. I put it together many years ago while recovering from surgery. It was definitely a pre-kiddeos endeavor — I can't imagine having little trays of beads and wire cutters lying around right now.

I didn't find a link to the version of the book that we have, but here's a picture.

Vintage Reading Rainbow

Guess you could have seen this coming — I couldn't help myself. I just had to do the books by color thing that's so popular these days (see last post for the before shot). Turns out my mom isn't so happy about the new order, she prefers alphabetical by author — she likes to "know" which ones she has.

These were the books my mom grew up with; they were her father's. His name was Quentin, but they called him Kip. I think I'll call him Al.

Click on the book photo if you want to see it bigger, maybe recognize a few titles.