Paul's favorite yummy baked rice pudding!

I have a recipe that I love for the most yummy baked rice pudding, it's not as full of rice as you would expect, but so creamy and custardy! There always seems to be a little rice left over after making it for whatever meal, so being able to whip up an easy dessert with it is fantastic.

preheat your oven to 325 degrees F

1 cup of cooked rice

1 3/4 cups of milk

3/4 cup of cream

1/4 cup of sugar

1/4 cup of brown sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp salt

3 eggs slightly beaten

Put rice at the bottom of your oven safe dish of choice and then mix all of the other ingredients together and pour over the rice. Put your pudding inside of another dish or tray filled with water (a bain-marie) and then place in oven for 1.5 hours.

When you pull it out sprinkle a little nutmeg and cinnamon across the top and enjoy either warm or cool (we have never actually made it to cool we are always in too much of a hurry to eat it!)

Paul loves this so much he has taken to making rice just so he can cook it, (my hunny couldn't cook ANYTHING 10 years ago and now he just loves to cook and loves it when I show him something new) and it was on his request list for Father's day dinner this year.

Here he is enjoying some I made him for Sunday diner a few week ago!

my summer craft class final

I thought I would share the final display that I went with for my summer craft final.

Here are a couple of closeups of the dyeing.

Paul figured out I had to do over 8500 lines in order to do the resist on this one.

The image is much less clear when close up!

And here it is with the correct lighting and flanked by 2 of the other student's final projects.

another quick necklace

I make a quick necklace to fill a color gap in my jewelry, it's out of turquoise and dyed coral.

It is 2 strands on jewelry wire with a simple lobster claw clasp held together with crimp beads. I really love how summery and beach-y it is!

the front porch

We are in the process of jazzing up the entry to our house, here is a before of our decking.....

Paul power washed the deck, which really made a huge difference in how it looked, but not nearly as much as the stain did!

And here is my hunny working on coat 2 of the colonial blue stain we decided to go with (I totally helped too, there is just no pictorial evidence!)

Anyway, we still have to do a coat of white on the railing to crisp it up, and then add all the fun decorator bits to make it functional and homey!

My vintage milk-glass necklace

Remember my vintage milk-glass necklace?

I finally got around to rethreading it with new spacers. I used milky colored Swarovski crystals in order to keep it pretty neutral.

So it's not a huge change, just better then the awful peeling plastic pearls and a quick 10 minute project!

New cushions for the front porch

I am in the process of trying to make my front porch more presentable, so I bought some really cute vintage style patio furniture on clearance at Lowe's as the first step in the process. I wanted cushions for the furniture so I bought some ugly pads on clearance at Lowe's for $7 a piece and then found the perfect outdoor fabric on sale at Hancock's to recover them.

I love the fabric! It sort of looks like marbleized paper/Ikat with shades of blue, green and white. I measured the original cushion from seam to seam and added 1/2 an inch on all sides for seam allowances. I used the back of the original cushion to get the curve right and then cut out 2 per cushion.

I sewed around 3 sides leaving a 10 inch opening along the curved back. Next I took the front 2 corners and sewed the corners so that I defined the depth of the pad.

After sewing the corners I clipped them off to reduce bulk.

I took 1/2 inch strips of the fabric and folded them in half and then half again and then top stitched them to make the ties. I sewed the ties in at the back right on either side of the seams I left open. I cut the original fabric off of the pads, and then inserted them into the new covers. (insert lots of squishing here)

I pinned the opening in the back shut with the raw edges turned in, and then used my sewing machine to top stitch right along the edge.

"wash, rinse, and repeat" 3 more times and then voila! 4 stinkin' cute patio cushions! (I like how well this picture shows what cutting the corners off looks like.)

http://thediyshowoff.blogspot.com/

My new dress!

I am making a new formal dress for an upcoming Air Force Association diner that I get to go to in September, and I am so excited about the fabric!

I bought some really gorgeous coppery skin colored silk taffeta in DC the last time I was there, and have been looking for a complimentary fabric since then to inspire the design.

I took a sample of the silk with me to New York and Philly in order to know what I needed as a match up, and found some stunning beaded ivory silk chiffon for over half price!

I got the fabric from fabric row in Philly at a little corner shop I never caught the name of (I went to so many) there was 7/8ths of a yard left on the bolt of fabric, and it was originally $140 a yard, but he offered it to me for $60 to clear it out of his shop!

the bodice is sewn over a corseted under-bodice, so there is a lot of hidden structure!

Anyway, I am sort of drafting this on the fly but so far I love how this is turning out! The picture is a sneak peak of the bodice front.

I am afraid I was terrible about keeping up with blogging about this dress, so I am just going to add in a picture of the finished garment. The skirt is silk. (sorry about the picture, this was taken by Paul after a long night on his cell phone camera!)

The finished dress, the belt has a fantastic crystal detail I peeled off of a J Crew headband I bought just because it was the perfect color!

A quick trip into "the" city!

We are going to visit my mom in the next couple of weeks, but first my Hunny had a business trip that would take him through NYC and Philly. Since the kids and I were all off of school we decided to go with him for the little get away. On the morning we left I harvested a great bunch of raspberries from our bush (they were freshly rained on and so sweet!)

Since we were driving, we left with a few days to spare so we could do the trip in a couple of legs; the first day we were off to Dover Delaware, and then on to New York. As a special surprise pilgrimage for me, the first thing we did when we went into NYC was go to the Garment District and visit a few of the fabric stores there. As a fan of Project Runway we HAD to pop into Mood fabrics and pick up a few things. I got some silk velvet that will hopefully work into a ball gown that I am making for a military formal we have coming up, some wool fabric that I want to make a purse out of, a few fun trims, a painted leather remnant, and Paul bought me a Mood work apron with Tum Gunn's signature phrase "thank you Mood" printed across the front.

We wandered over to Battery Park and took some pictures of the Statue of liberty, but decided not to do the ferry over to Liberty Island since the line wrapped around the block (I don't have any pictures from the good camera uploaded to the computer yet, but the telephoto lens really showed a lot of detail, so we let the kids look at the statue through it as if it were binoculars so they could see the lady's face.)

We saw the empire state building too, but weren't particularly interested in going up (I admittedly get vertigo in tall buildings.)

We then took the subway to the Museum of Natural History (which is nothing like "Night at the Museum.") During the long subway ride both kids fell asleep which I really think refreshed them for the rest of the day. After the museum we walked through Central Park which really was an oasis in the city.

Paul proved once again that he is the BEST by surprising me with a visit to Tiffany's and a little blue box of my very own filled with a signature "return to Tiffany's" pendant (we tried for a bracelet but they were all too big for my wrists, I have little bird bones and large chains just don't work for me)

Anyway, I know this was not really a craft post, but going to fabric stores makes it sort of relevant right? Anyway we have had a lovely few days and aren't even done yet!