Don’t forget!
Here’s a little reminder for you, if you’re still getting your Polka Dot Cottage fix through Google Reader: you have less than two weeks to switch over to something else! Yep. So, if you’ve been dragging your heels, I encourage you to take a few minutes and figure out a plan.
A few months ago, I wrote up this post that gives you some options for transferring all of your blog subscriptions. It doesn’t have to be as overwhelming as you may think – some of those options are pretty darn simple. Still, if you just can’t face dealing with all of your blog subscriptions right now, that’s ok.
Forget about them for the time being, and just deal with mine :-)
Ways to subscribe to Polka Dot Cottage:
- Feedly
- Bloglovin
- Other RSS reader (here’s the direct link to the feed)
- Android app
- Kindle
You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+ just be aware that it may be easy to miss a post, if you are also following a lot of other people in those places.
As for those other subscriptions:
I really recommend Feedly. They make it so easy to import your Google Reader reading list. It’s a total no-brainer. And it’s prettier, too.
And now back to your regularly-scheduled programming!
Diet food
As I edited a snapshot of my current mid-afternoon snack, the realization hit me that my last three Instaflick images were of food.
I guess it’s safe to say I’ve had food on my mind lately. I’ve been working on getting back to a healthier, happier weight this month, and it’s been working, for the most part. (Don’t ask me about this week’s weigh-in today, though. The scale and the tape measure totally betrayed me. Evil things.) Anyway, I’ve been paying more attention to what passes my lips, and thinking about healthier ways to enjoy food.
Being on the cusp of summer helps. Yesterday I went to a farm and got five quarts of strawberries: two to freeze, one for the family to snack on, and two to make into Strawberry Butter.
I got the idea for making butter instead of my usual jam from Simple Bites, and then I pretty much just winged-it. A tablespoon of this stuff is only 6 calories and 1.3g of sugar, and it’s loaded with strawberry flavor. Yummy.
I put some on toast this morning, just to try it, but I am thinking that maybe it would make a good stir-in to plain yogurt. Or maybe I’ll even attempt oatmeal again.
You can get my recipe at Bigoven, if you can call a pile of strawberries and a handful of sugar in a crock pot a “recipe.”
But the thing that really prompted me to write this today? A little discovery I just made.
See, I’m not an iced tea drinker, at all, but I wasn’t feeling much in the mood for plain water this afternoon. So I threw a bag of Trader Joe’s Candy Cane Green Tea into a blue mason jar, added twelve heart-shaped ice cubes, and filled the jar to the top with water. I sloshed the tea bag around for a few minutes before taking it out.
Refreshing!
I don’t care for strong tea, but if you did, you could certainly let the tea bag steep longer.
Also, if you don’t happen to have some of that tea leftover from Christmas, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Trader Joe’s only carries it for the Holidays. You could probably substitute some other pepperminty tea, but I don’t know that it would be the same. There’s something about the Trader Joe’s stuff that is really unique. It has a quality about it that I just can’t put my finger on. Maybe it’s eucalyptus? Or licorice? I threw away the box months ago, so I couldn’t tell you what’s in it. I do know they are all natural ingredients, since I’ve gotten picky about that in recent years, and the scent is intoxicating. Seriously, I’d wear this as perfume, if i could.
[Well, wouldn't you know it? There are people selling the tea on eBay! Glad I checked. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about buying food on eBay, but I guess if it's still sealed, it's ok. (That's an affiliate link, btw)]
Candy Cane water and a bitty bowl of Skinny Pop popcorn is making for a nice little snack this afternoon.
Oh, and I should say, it is perfectly acceptable to drink this tea in a boring old glass with normally-shaped ice cubes, but it would not be nearly as retro-chic.
Weekend Favorites
Are you one of those people who loses themselves in a project at the expense of everything else? When it comes to tinkering with my website, I totally am. I’ve spent the past two days doing very few things that don’t have acronyms. HTML, PHP, CSS… up to my eyeballs, folks. And do you know why?
Well, I thought my blog design could use a little more whitespace. And so I decided to go wider with it. But I didn’t want to alienate those who had smaller browser windows. And what about those who were using mobile devices? So I taught myself a thing or two about responsive design in CSS, and fixed up my site so that it grows and shrinks (and moves around sidebars) depending on the size of your browser window.
Go ahead and play with it – change the size of your browser window and see what happens. It’s fun!
I got the bulk of it done in about an hour, but the rest of the two days were spent tracking down niggly little bits that were just off a smidge, but they were smidge enough to throw parts of my site out of whack. That kind of work is both fun and frustrating at the same time. Especially when there are Real Life Things demanding attention all day, too.
Anyway, I’m done now, aside from one or two minor issues I am saving for later. And just in time for the weekend!
On Flickr
The mosaic below represents other people’s pictures that spoke to me this week. Be sure to click on the titles below the mosaic, if you want to know more about the image or the photographer behind it.
1. Rainbow Pendant, 2. dots ‘n stripes, 3. Rainbow Set, 4. kicking off the summer with homemade strawberry ice cream!, 5. summer planning, 6. untitled, 7. Untitled, 8. Quilts Boys1, 9. Untitled
Around the Web
I spend an hour or so every morning, Monday through Thursday, sharing my favorite crafty links on Sulia. And then I repeat them here on Fridays.
Yarn
- Solid ‘Willow’ Crochet Block, tutorial from Annie’s Place (via Jenn Dorion)
- Making Stripes Match Easily with Top-Down Knitting, tip from WEBS Yarn Store
Polymer Clay
- Polymer Clay Stones Necklace, tutorial by Mashia Crafts
- Polymer Clay Global Perspectives, a new book by Cynthia Tinapple of Polymer Clay Daily
Fabric
- Constellations Scarf, tutorial from A Beautiful Mess.
- Adjustable Unisex Apron, tutorial from The Purl Bee (Father’s Day, anyone?)
Other materials
- Rosemary Mint Shaving Cream, a tutorial by Food for My Family
- Comic book DIY coasters, a tutorial by Cheltenham Road via Mod Podge Rocks
- Shrinky Dink Father’s Day Gifts, a tutorial from Oh Happy Day
- Made by Dad, a cool book recommendation for Father’s Day
- Strawberry Jam Labels, free printable from MommyCoddle
- Mason Jar Straw Lids, tutorial from That’s What {Che} Said…
- Glowing Play Dough, a recipe by Natasha Levochkina McCain via Tinkerlab
Crafty business
- How to Blog: My Rules, good advice from Dinner: A Love Story
- Feed Yourself! Making Lunch A Priority, advice from Mixed martial Arts and Crafts, via Oh My! Handmade
I hope you have a great weekend, and please, if you notice any wonky behavior from this website, please do let me know! I tested my new design pretty well, but there is always the chance I missed something!
BOG and Mom’s Excellent Adventure
Boring Office Guy has always been full of big plans. This summer, he has requested that he and I embark on a series of “adventures.” Thankfully, he doesn’t mean we should go sky diving or rock climbing. No, his definition of adventure is Mom-pleasingly broad, and really only requires that we go somewhere new and see things we don’t usually see. I can get behind that.
So a few weeks ago on a Sunday morning, we were sitting around in our PJs, all four laptops open, kids with their headphones on – you know, a typical Weekend – when I looked up and asked, “does anybody want to do anything today?”
This particular question in this particular situation almost always garners a chorus of “nah” and “not really” without any eyes ever leaving their respective screens. But this time, I managed to engage one of my offspring, with eye-contact and everything.
“Let’s go to Princeton,” BOG suggested. It was on our Adventure List for the summer. And although summer hadn’t officially started over here at that point (and still hasn’t – we have to slog through 2 more weeks of school, as of today) I thought it was a terrific idea!
So, BOG and I, after switching from pajamas to actual clothes we could wear in public, hopped in the van and drove to Princeton – about a 45-minute journey from where we live. Portions of the trip are really lovely and we enjoyed listening to music and chatting. BOG is great company. Even at 13 years old.
Princeton, to me, is not a historical destination so much as a great place to shop. BOG and I might have gotten our wires crossed a little bit on that account, because after we’d browsed through the third or fourth store, he turned to me and said, “are we going to do anything historic while we’re here?” Oh, well, yes, I suppose we could do a little bit of that between coffee shops and gift galleries.
It just so happened that we were a few steps away from the Princeton Historical Society‘s little museum when BOG put in his request, so it was really easy to make it happen.
And then we could go back to window shopping 
We took a bunch of silly pictures of each other that day. Consider yourself lucky that you are seeing my shots and not his – while BOG is actually pretty good with a camera, his perspective of this trip was dominated by blurry zoomed-in close-ups of my cheeks and chin (apparently extreme out-of-focus close-ups are funny?). Anyway, nobody really needs to see that.
We’re not sure where our next adventure will take us. We’ve made a google map for jotting down ideas, and I’m hoping to keep it updated with places we actually did visit alongside the places we might like to go. I enjoy having a record of these things in case one day I run out of the Gin Blossom perfume I bought and want to remember where I got it. (Mandalay Trading Co., by the way)
View BOG and Mom’s Adventure Map in a larger map
If anybody is familiar with North/Central Jersey and has any suggestions, we’re open!
I Like My Skirts Fast and Cheap, 2.0
I finally, finally checked off an item that has been on my to-do list for the last two years: re-write, re-photograph, and re-package my most popular blog post into a handy-dandy ebook tutorial.
(Those of you with short attention spans can click here for the good stuff. The rest of you who like back story and details, read on!)
Yep, 2008′s I like my skirts fast and cheap: a tutorial post easily gets the most page views every month, even now, five years later. I wrote it before I really had much sewing or photography experience under my belt, and every time I look back at it, I think of ways it could be better: it needs in-progress photos, better descriptions, and more discussion of possible variations.
So, on a whim last week, I made myself a new skirt from one of the sheet remnants I still had left from last year’s swap, and I photographed the whole process.
A few days later, I had a shiny new PDF to be proud of. Yay!
If you’ve got some vintage sheets hanging around your linen closet, now’s a great time of year to turn them into easy skirts. This ebook is totally beginner-friendly. All you need to know how to do is sew a straight line. (You technically don’t even need to use a machine, if you don’t want to.) All of the steps are explained in plain English, so you don’t need a degree in sewing terminology to get through it.
BEGINNER level, step-by-step tutorial.
Fully illustrated, 6-page PDF.
Price: $2.99
(Want to buy a copy, but don’t see an Add to Cart button? Click here.)
Here’s a fun idea: grab a few friends, hit the thrift shops together, and have a skirt-making party! You can easily get more than one skirt out of a given sheet, so there’s plenty of potential for swapping leftover remnants. (The more I think about it, the more I love this idea – I need to find out if any of my friends can sew a straight line…)
If I haven’t sold you on this ebook yet, or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. Happy sewing!
Oh! and if you can’t find a decently awesome sheet at your local thrift shop, try eBay. I’ve put together this custom search for you.
