30 March 2010

baking with kids

I love to bake. Being in the kitchen is so relaxing for me (especially when my amazing husband is cleaning up my mess behind me!)

My family loves fresh baked muffins for breakfast ~ like these yummy raspberry - lemon muffins...so fast and easy and great for those days when I just don't have time for anything more elaborate. They can be whipped up while the kids are getting dressed.


I made it a goal to teach all of my children how to cook and bake. When my kids leave home I want them all to be able to eat well, even if they are in university and even if they have a small budget. I want them to know what to do with fresh ingredients.

I've started them young. Each of my kids have started with whisking eggs and "helping" to knead bread not long after their first birthday. My Youngest is 2 1/2 and is currently the chief bread kneader in the house.


Nothing makes me happier than spending time with my kids in the kitchen and watching the older ones teach the younger ones.  But I think my favourite part is watching two year old hands kneading bread dough. I am going to miss that...

24 March 2010

transferware collecting

I love transferware! 
I think I inherited my love of dishes from my mother. I remember many trips with my mom to put a few dollars down on china she had on layaway. I remember her saving her pennies to buy the next place setting or a butter dish or tea cups, etc. I often wondered in a fire which would she grab first... me or her dishes??? For my twelfth birthday, my mom started me on my own collection which I wasn't too excited about at first (but now LOVE! - thanks mom!)

A few years ago, I found some dishes that I fell in love with...


I promptly bought up as many as I could afford...which I think was about four plates. I took them home and admired them. My first dish that I bought myself that didn't come in a box with a set of four place settings for under $50. I was very, very pleasantly surprised a few days later when my mom stopped by unannounced...with a large bag and said, "I saw some dishes that reminded me of you and thought you might like them"...guess what?  They were MY dishes!


A lovely surprise from my mother...thanks again, mom! Like my mother before me, I saved pennies and was able to purchase more and I now have a lovely 12 place setting...although only 8 bowls...I'm still looking...

We did the same thing again with these dishes...



I loved these as well...and they mix and match well with the previous set for really large gatherings.

Since then I have picked up a few odd pieces here and there, mostly brown...


I love scenes that remind me of 19th century England, my favourite time and place in history...




I love all the details and try to imagine the stories that go with them...



Some of these were part of a large stack I picked up at an antique shop in the Annapolis Valley for $20... I love all the deals available in Nova Scotia ~ BC did not have so many vintage things available and so reasonably priced!



This one I picked up for a pound at a charity shop in Manning Tree, England...


 I do have a few pieces that are NOT brown...


I have three blue plates, like this one, one medium and two small, that I inherited from my great aunt. I also have a medium sized red platter that my husband bought at one of our favourite window shopping stores in Halifax...



My husband has been in school for the past six years, switching careers to do what he loves...


Our budget has been very tight, but he still surprises me with little gifts once in awhile...he's my inspiration to follow my dreams...as soon as I figure out what they are!

And I also have one small green plate...


I love Anne of Green Gables and was SO excited to finally go to Prince Edward Island (I now live so close I can go there multiple times each summer!) While on the island, I've been looking for a cute souvenir that isn't too "tacky tourist" AND is within my very small budget (it costs a few pennies to go there with the price of gas and the $42  toll bridge). Sadly, I have been unable to find anything I really love. But, while visiting family in BC last summer I saw this little plate in an antique shop for $2 and picked it up, a little transferware plate...made in England...bought in BC...to help me remember my trips to PEI...so many of my loves in one plate!

That's it for now...although my husband has just graduated with his Master's... hopefully a good job will be secured soon...antiquing season begins in less than three months! After six years of tight budgeting, I am REALLY ready to start collecting!

10 March 2010

BIG week

It's a big week at our house. My hubby finishes his graduation requirements for his MFA tomorrow!!! His final show is on NOW.




My girl and I baked 165 cupcakes (10 different kinds) this past week-end for his show opening...her first catering event (and mine for that matter). We were both very excited.



AND...I learned something new. I found the Macro setting on my camera and for the first time in my life was able to take non-blurry close ups...really close up!!!!


I am again so excited, maybe, just maybe I can have beautiful photos that I will be proud of posting! (Okay so onions and garlic aren't so beautiful, but this was really close up and so NOT blurry that it made me happy!)

I was so excited about my macro discovery (old hat to many I am sure, but this is such an amazing discovery for me!), Anyway, I was so excited about my discovery that I went a little picture happy taking pictures of some of my favourite finds in my dining room...

Like the door knob, I love the door knobs in our house...



one of my favourite wedding gifts from a friend of my father-in-law...






Brown transferware, which I love and collect...I think I may do a post on this later as I have too many pictures of my different pieces to put here...



I also collect other colours of transferware as well, this was a plate I inherited from my great aunt eve...



An old teapot that I inherited from my granny...



an old plate I inherited from my granny.. this one is very wierd, looks like a paint by number plate or something...



one of my granny's dishes, she always used these for family meals...I have more maybe I should do a post about things my granny gave me later as well...



This is the back of the previous platter...I love not seeing dishwasher safe on the back!



The teapot that started my collecting, my mom bought me this for my 12th birthday...



My favourite rolling pin, my husband gave me this for one of my anniversary gifts two years ago...some get diamonds, some get trips...I get vintage kitchen ware...it makes me happy...



I love how well loved this rolling pin has been...



and I wonder who used it before me...think of all the cookies it has rolled!

Wow...this is a long post and I haven't posted even a portion of my pictures...more later...happy thoughts....