Crystal Madrilejos

Design & Creative

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Yellow

The trees in our yard have been bare for a few weeks now but before all the leaves fell I was able to get a few shots of them in their full autumn glory! I can’t believe Thanksgiving is next week. Where did the time go?

p.s. The glass circle hanging from the tree is a beautiful bird feeder by Eva Solo that we got for our wedding from our friend Iliana. We used to have it hanging on our porch but the birds loved it so much that they made such a mess all the time!

–c.

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Mushrooms

This baby is going to have one million crocheted toys before it’s even born! Here are the newest additions: Mushrooms! These are also from the same craft book (Ana Paula Rimoli’s Amiguri Two!) as the Peas in the Pod and the Turtle Mama that I posted about before.

These ones are a little different than the ones in the book though. The pattern called for white felt circles to be sewn onto the mushroom cap, but I didn’t really like the look of it so I just used white yarn to embroider circles onto the cap. I wasn’t so sure about how the circles turned out since they aren’t filled in completely like you’d normally see on a mushroom but I think they are growing on me.

I have plans to make a super-huge one but I’ll have to add that to the end of my list of things. I still have a quilt to get cracking on!

–c.

These were taken when I visited Andrew while he was living on Bodhi Creek Farm located in the foothills of Washington State’s North Cascade mountain range. The top image is of one of the many huge slugs one could encounter while on a walk in the woods (we don’t have those here in Ohio). And the bottom photo was taken in an old growth forest.

–c.

Taken in Utrecht while on tour with Herman Dune.

–c.

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Furnace

Our lives have been on hold for the past few weeks while waiting for our furnace to be replaced. We had to dismantle our craft closet and the contents have been strewn about cluttering up our living room. Also our whole upstairs has been in disarray since they had to put in new duct work that required us to move things from their designated areas.

This week the furnace dudes were finally able to make it out to our house. We now have a lovely new efficient furnace and vents on the second floor, which it was sorely lacking before. We are warm and toasty but our house looks like a war-zone and we now have the task of getting this place back in order. This weekend will be dedicated to this and I’m hoping to have more posts for next week!

Until then, I’ll leave you to be awe-inspired by this blog: Resurrection Fern


[Image via Resurrection Fern on etsy]

–c.

Taken outside the Alte Feuerwache venue in Mannheim, Germany.

–c.

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Happy Halloween

Spirit Photography by William H. Mumler via even*cleveland

–c.

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I Love My Family

I saw this over at “design is mine: isn’t it lovely?” and was completely blown away. Love everything about it and think it would be a perfect addition to the baby’s room.

Here is a detail.

–c.

A couple weeks ago we finally got around to digging out the potato bin that we had filled with all the extra potato plantings that wouldn’t fit into the garden proper. We were unsure of how this was going to turn out because:

1.) we had never done this before
2.) we started building up the soil too late
3.) the bin required so much dirt that we got overwhelmed and gave up on building it up
4.) the number of potato plants in the bin way exceeded the number it should hold, we just didn’t want to waste the seed potatoes

Due to the overcrowding, we figured that we would either end up with 300lbs. of potatoes, no potatoes, a bunch of tiny potatoes, or one obscenely large square shaped potato. We ended up with a good haul of small to medium sized potatoes, but not nearly 300lbs worth. I think next year we will do the same thing but with less plants to give them some room to do their thing.

Andrew’s Aunt Jane, who lives in Denmark, sent us these Potato Gloves that are meant for cleaning potatoes. They work great! And they are surprisingly similar to the bath gloves I use when I take a shower.

–c.

A couple weeks ago we finally got around to digging out the potato bin that we had filled with all the extra potato plantings that wouldn’t fit into the garden proper. We were unsure of how this was going to turn out because:

1.) we had never done this before
2.) we started building up the soil too late
3.) the bin required so much dirt that we got overwhelmed and gave up on building it up
4.) the number of potato plants in the bin way exceeded the number it should hold, we just didn’t want to waste the seed potatoes

Due to the overcrowding, we figured that we would either end up with 300lbs. of potatoes, no potatoes, a bunch of tiny potatoes, or one obscenely large square shaped potato. We ended up with a good haul of small to medium sized potatoes, but not nearly 300lbs worth. I think next year we will do the same thing but with less plants to give them some room to do their thing.

Andrew’s Aunt Jane, who lives in Denmark, sent us these Potato Gloves that are meant for cleaning potatoes. They work great! And they are surprisingly similar to the bath gloves I use when I take a shower.

–c.