Award Winning Blueberry Pie.

I mentioned earlier this week that a pie I made won an award. This may seem like a silly thing to some, but I'm pretty proud of myself. It wasn't too long ago I was begging for tips from all of you dears. With your help + some practice I finally feel confident in making a pie crust. 

After reading all of your suggestions, I decided to give Martha's Pate Brisee a try. I prefer using butter to shortening and this simple recipe looked so easy I couldn't mess it up, could I? Well yes, actually I could. It took a bit of perseverance but after a few tries I was able to work out the kinks and wanted to share what I learned with you.

Martha's Pate Brisee Recipe:
2 1/2 C. all purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
1 C. unsalted butter
1/4 to 1/2 C. iced water

Blueberry Pie Filling:
4 C. fresh blueberries
1/2 C. sugar
1/4 C. flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 Tbs. lemon juice

The first problem I ran into was not owning a food processor. I found using an old fashioned pastry blender works great. Just combine all the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix with a wire whisk. Cut your butter into small cubes and blend into the flour mixture with the pastry blender.

When the butter has broken down into small pea size mounds, it's time to add the iced water. I used 1/2 C. of iced water to get the desired consistency for my dough.

You want the dough to just barely combine together. Over mixing will make the dough tough and your crust won't be flaky.

Split the dough into two mounds, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for an hour. Roll the dough out on a clean floured surface and when you have a big enough circle, place it inside your pie plate.

 

Pour in the pie filling and add the top crust. Bake at 425 for 45 minutes. It would be a shame to serve this pie without freshly whipped cream, so make sure you have that on hand.

As you can plainly see, I still have a lot of practice to do on the appearance of my pies. Are there tips I should know about making pies look pretty? I'm sure you have all kinds of tricks up your sleeves.

Super Herooooooo.

While cleaning out my inbox this afternoon I came across this little gem. Lin snapped it a couple months ago and sent it to me with the subject line "super herooooooo!" I'd forgotten all about it + it's reemergence made today instantly better.

I never want to forget these days of capes, masks and pretend play. They're magic.

Weekending.

  Summer weekends, I love you so.

This weekend there was. . . 

 an award for the "Sinfully Good-Tastiest Pie" at the Pioneer Day celebration,

Skiing for the first time since my teens. It was so much fun, and I am so, so sore.

There was a sleeping babe in the warm summer sun, 

and summertime suppers in the backyard complete with cousins and games of Duck Duck Goose.

Other highlights: A date for frozen yogurt + Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One (seeing the final installment tonight!), selling things on Craigslist (so addicting! what else can I sell?!), service projects and sparkling clean windows. How was your weekend, friends?

Around Here.

Happy Summer afternoon, friends. A little craft room sneak peek for your Friday. I've got a few touches to finish up before I show you the entire space but overall I'm over the moon happy with how it's coming together.

What are your plans for this weekend? I'll be sewing a pioneer skirt and apron for the upcoming 20 mile trek Ryan and I will be taking with the youth from our church. Maybe I'll snap a photo of me wearing them and share it on Instagram?  We'll see.

Here are some links to enjoy over the weekend:
-Speaking of Instagram, I'm going to turn a few of my favorite Instagram shots in to magnets. I can't get over them.
-I just signed up for this Friendship Bracelet Swap hosted by Ruffled Sunshine + The Modern Marigold. You should too. Maybe we'll be swap partners!
-I wrote up a guest post this week for one of my favorite blogs, Ardor. Kersey + her family are on the move to NYC. Dreamy, right? Be sure to look around while you're there. Kersey always finds the coolest stuff.

Happy Weekend!

Share What You Know | Organizing Children's Memorabilia.

I'm on the brink of having three children in school all day. I know you mothers will nod in agreement when I say school age children bring home a lot of papers. There are coloring and letter writing pages in Kindergarten. Then, it's counting papers. Spelling tests. Math quizzes. Projects. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It can be overwhelming, no? YES. 

I've always been fairly good at weeding out the junk but somewhere along the way I neglected to figure out a nice organizing system for all our kids papers. This is the result:

We're going to call this image the "before" ok?

I've recently finished organizing my craft room (yay! pictures coming soon!) and the next item on my summer to do list is to get a handle on all this stuff. I came across this image on Pinterest the other day which lead me to this post on I Heart Organizing. I'm feeling inspired but am wondering if you have any tips, tricks or words of wisdom? You dears always have great ideas and I'd love to hear them. Are there resources I should know about? Websites or blogs that may have some good ideas? A particular product that has helped?

Tell me what you know about organizing children's memorabilia.

This is the second post in the Share What You Know series. You can read all of the amazing tips on baking pie crusts from the first Share What You Know post right here.

Paper + Craft.

While Abby and I were in Utah we stopped in on one of my favorite shops. Soel Boutique has pretty clothes, inspiring displays, great baby items, and a nice selection of Chronicle Books. I made a big little pile of items on the counter to purchase and one of them was Paper + Craft.

Written by Minhee and Truman Cho of Paper + Cup fame, Paper + Craft has been on my wish list since it's release last year. The photography by Johnny Miller is lovely and the projects are simple enough for even the greenest of paper crafters. I'm sure you'll love the easy to follow instructions and free downloadable templates (available on the Chronicle Books website) as much as I do.

These paper boxes with geographical shapes stuck to the front are a favorite craft from the book and think they would make a nice favor for a going away party.

And these animal silhouette drink tags would be a fun addition to any party too, don't you agree?

Weekending.

This weekend I was spontaneous. I'd been thinking about the 30 Strangers Exhibit all week + really wanted to attend. It's a long drive from here to Utah (think 10-hours-long-drive) and everyone was telling me it was crazy to go. 

But then I thought about Abby. I thought about how many times in your life your photo is in a real art exhibit. I thought about the fun we would have. On Wednesday I decided. On Thursday we hit the road. 

The drive was lovely. There weren't any crying babies or diapers to change. There wasn't any "He's touching me!" or "I'm hungry!" There was just me. And Abby. Some Twizzlers, the open road + 20 hours of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to listen to. Dreamy, right?

We snapped self portraits,

and ate In-N-Out.

We saw one of my favorite people,

and marveled at the beauty of those mountains. Again.

Other highlights: Meeting Justin's wife Amy (she's so kind!), IKEA, Carina's motherhood essay (I wish she could read it to you, it was magic), and uninterrupted time with my oldest daughter. Nothing better than that.

Craft Camp Day Four | Cake Decorating.

It's hard to say, but I have a feeling day four of Craft Camp was a favorite for the girls. My talented sister in law Alicia joined us and taught my campers the basics of cake decorating.

Each girl showed up wearing the apron she made the day before + was given a little cake of her very own.

Alicia taught how to "dirty ice" and roll + apply fondant to the cakes. She even created cute canoes, tee pees, trees and marshmallows on sticks for the girls to add as a finishing touch. Everyone covered their own cakes and enjoyed adding the camping embellishments when they were through.

I was really impressed with the way each cake turned out and so thankful to Alicia for joining us. Don't my little campers look professional (and cute!) in their aprons?

Craft Camp Day Three | Simple Dishtowel Aprons.

Every year at Craft Camp I like to do some kind of sewing project. The girls love using the sewing machine and I love knowing that they're not only making something cute, they're learning a skill they will use for a really long time. 

For our sewing project this year I had the girls make darling striped aprons out of dishtowels. Lindsay came to camp that day armed with her sewing machine and the two of us (and our machines!) were so busy we didn't manage to snap a single picture. I did however create this tutorial for you.

If you think your little lady would like to create this apron too you'll need to gather:

1 cotton dishtowel roughly 20"X 28" (found at most craft stores)

rotary cutter, cutting mat + ruler

pins

iron + ironing board

2 1/4 yards of 1" grosgrain ribbon

sewing machine

safety pin

Read the full tutorial after the jump.

Craft Camp Day Two | Birdhouses + Birdseed Feeders.

One goal when planning crafts for camp is having the girls to do/try/create something they never have before. Building birdhouses would give my little campers the chance to make something from wood and use hammers + nails. They would feel the sense of satisfaction from building something with their own two hands, they would have to work together. 

The key to day two of camp was my dear husband. He stayed up until the wee hours of the morning cutting wood, pre drilling holes, and setting out the pieces of the kits into neat piles on the picnic tables. I'm so lucky to have him.

To create their birdhouses the girls partnered up, held each other's pieces in place and hammered away.

When they finished with the building they got on to feathering their nests with hand drawn rainbows, birds + flowers.

To create the birdseed feeders, we mixed:
3/4 C. flour
1/2 C. water
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
3 TBS corn syrup

We then added 4 C. of birdseed to the mixture and stirred until combined.

Once the ingredients were combined we applied cooking spray to a baking sheet, pressed the birdseed mixture flat on the cookie sheet and began cutting out the hearts with a cookie cutter. We carefully removed the cut hearts and placed them on another baking sheet lined with wax paper. The girls then placed cut straw pieces into the hearts (for the string when hanging) and let them dry in the sun for the afternoon.

This birdseed feeder recipe was shared with me by Lovely Lindsay (did you see the sweet ones she made for a baby shower?) and originally spotted by Lin right here.

Craft Camp Day One | Butterfly Wall Art.

I love brainstorming ideas for craft camp projects. I have a handful of girls who have participated every year (my Abby included) so it's important to not repeat crafts. One thing we've never done is wall art.

For this project I printed a butterfly silhouette in grayscale on cardstock for each girl + supplied buttons in various color schemes. The girls chose the colors according to what would look best in their rooms and got busy gluing away. Once their art was completed they mounted it to a clipboard that could be hung on the wall.

I serve a snack to the campers everyday. This day I couldn't think of anything more fitting than a few homemade shortbread button cookies.

Other details from camp: 

A Craft Camp sign made from backyard twigs, cardstock scraps and a feather garland.

Hand stitched name tags.  I stitched each of the girls names to cream colored wool felt using embroidery floss. When they arrived on day one they glued their names to a thin piece of wood, embellished it with twigs and added a pin back. It was a simple way to help them learn one another's names. 

Craft Camp Friendship Bracelets.

Happy July, friends! I'm pleased to report Craft Camp was a smashing success. I spent my week with the sweetest group of girls you can imagine. They showed up everyday excited to create. It was wonderful.

With Craft Camp under my belt and the 4th of July weekend over (Happy Independence Day fellow Americans!) I am planning on spending today getting the cozy brick house back in shape. It's a little shocking how quickly things fall apart, isn't it? Before I get to work I wanted to share with you a little detail from Craft Camp.

The Saturday before Craft Camp began all of my little campers received friendship bracelets in their mailboxes. It was a simple way to get them excited about the week ahead.

I used this amazing tutorial to create the bracelets. The photos in the tutorial are beautiful, the instructions-easy to follow. I plan on making up a few more bracelets just for the fun of it. They're a perfect poolside craft.

When designing the cards, I stayed true to my inspiration and included a line from one of my favorite scenes of The Parent Trap. (the images have been edited to omit location information)

This week I'll be sharing the crafts we made and other details from camp. Stay tuned!