Author: keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

Asparagus Soup

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Recipe

A friend of mine had gotten some advice to have asparagus the days before and after a vaccine shot, so I made this soup for us.  I wasn’t sure how the kids would do with whole asparagus, but when a couple pieces hopped out of the pot, I had them, and they were SO amazing.  Oh, well.  Next time.  But the soup was delicious, and I didn’t even grab a photo of it, because it was gone before I thought of it.

For this soup, I halved the recipe since I only had about 12 oz of asparagus.  I made a couple other small changes:

–I added two carrots (in pieces) to the 12 oz of asparagus.
–I added a small bit of pre-cooked onions and mushrooms from last night’s dinner.
–I added a little bit of thyme at the end.
–We didn’t have heavy cream, so I used this substitute. (Except, in this case, just a quarter of this recipe.)

It tasted like spring!  Yum!

Reusing Projects

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Fabric
(unusable clothing, sheets, etc.)
—Fabric Gift Bags

Paperboard Boxes/Card Stock
(food boxes, tissue boxes, store-bought toy boxes, etc)
—Gift Bags
—Gift Tags

Paper Products
(magazines, catalogs, pages from damaged books, outdated maps, paper bags, etc.)
—Envelopes
—Paper Fortune Cookies
—Stocking Gift Bags

Card Stock Paper Products
(old greeting cards, old calendars, etc.)
—Gift Tags

Shipping Boxes/Moving Boxes
—Storage/organizing cubes or like this

Nature
—Stick Stars
—Branches

Upcycled Paper Stockings

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Stockings from UPcycled Paper

I was inspired to make these during the COVID shutdowns.  I’ve been a reusable bag person long before it was law in many places.  When grocery stores were scrambling to find their own safety policies at an unprecedented time, some stores let us continue to bring our bags, but one of them didn’t.  We started limiting our trips to that particular store, but we still ended up with way too many tragic paper bags.  I began brainstorming uses for them, and this is one project I particularly love.

These homemade stockings are darling!  I love that they can be customized to the size you’d like.  You can leave the bag designs on the outside or turn the bags inside out for a blank canvas.

You can use these as actual stockings, decoration, or as very creative gift bags.

This is such a fun way to upcycle any paper product, whether it’s paper grocery bags, catalog pages, magazine pages, calendar pages, reused gift wrap, old maps, damaged book pages, or even coloring pages.

 

It’s quite simple:

–Cut the shape of a stocking on two bits of a paper –  Remember, if you’d like a specific side facing out on both sides, you may have to flip your template for the second cut out.

–Punch holes all along the edges.  The closer they are, the more secure the stocking will be for smaller objects, but the longer the threading will take.  Then just weave a piece of string, yarn, or t-shirt yarn through.  I’ve also used my machine to stitch these closed.

–Make a bunch at once to have them on hand for future gifts or to share with friends who might like to use them.

–Try making a bunch of tiny ones and number them for a decorative advent calendar.

Have fun with it!

What are your own creative ideas you’ll add to this project idea?

Your actions can and will make a difference.

Nose Whistles

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Although nose flutes have respectable traditions throughout the world, the plastic nose whistles sold as novelty items just gotta make you smile.  I don’t know why these came to mind yesterday as I was telling the kids a bedtime story, but the nose whistle became a central part of the story, and I promised the kids I would show them a video of one today.  And I was truly surprise by what I found.  But then again, not.  The Internet can be awesome like that.  Anyway, hard to watch these without smiling.

“God Only Nose” video  (I mean seriously?!  The title alone.  I told my husband if we weren’t already happily married, I’d marry this guy based solely on this video.)

Mozart’s “Magic Nose Flute”

“Bear Necessities”

“Africa”

 

 

 

 

Which led me on a tangent to all sorts of cool instruments.  YouTube can sometimes get a bit depressing, but, Wow!  There are such talented people out there posting.

Check out this guy performing “You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch” and “Evenin’ “ with this rockin’ trumpet funnel kazoo, which I first saw here

Fabric Gift Wrap

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I am ALL about fabric gift wrap!  And having just been through the holiday gift opening, I’m going to highlight some of my favorite things about using fabric, instead of paper:

–It’s SO easy to wrap with fabric bags!
–No need to shop for wrapping paper every year.
–No need to store bulky, awkward wrapping paper rolls and tape.
–SO much better for the environment!  (especially when using upcycled cloth)
–WAY less mess!  (Can’t emphasize this enough.)
–SO easy and compact to store
–Looks quaint, creative, and homey

For me, using fabric gift wrap has been a gradual process, and I think that’s important to remember.  It’s awesome if you can make/purchase a whole stash of fabric gift wrap/bags all at once and dive in, but that wasn’t the case for me.  It started with small fabric gift bags people had used to gift me presents.  Then, I sewed a few of them one year.  And a few the next.  This year, I finally had the time to round out our stash quite a bit, which is probably why I’m on a fabric gift wrap mission right now.  It was so amazing to not deal with paper or tissue paper.  Not only for the mess factor, but for my environmentalist-self as well.  My heart sinks whenever I see piles of wrapping paper.

I also think this would be an awesome fundraiser for a school.  What a fun project to teach kids basic sewing (these bags can be very simple), to teach them and their families about reducing and reusing, and to help them get started on that journey.

I highly recommend giving fabric wrap a try, even if it’s only a little bit at a time.  Keep your eyes out for fabric bags throughout the year, and collect them with your gift wrapping supplies.  If you do sew, even if you’re a beginner, sewing fabric gift bags is EASY.  As with any project, you can make things more complicated if you’d like, but the basic idea is an easy one.  Collect fabric bits, old sheets, even old tee-shirts to use for sewing a simple bag.  My favorite fabric gift bag to make is a drawstring bag, but I don’t always find the time to make these.  Making fold-over bags for gift wrap is super easy, but sometimes I just sew a simple bag shape and tie a ribbon around the top.  Some people will even just use a piece fabric cloth to wrap with and use fancy folding methods.  These are beautiful to see, but the process is something I don’t have the patience to master right now.

Whichever method you use, I highly, highly recommend the switch!

**St. Nick comes to pick up some of our fabric bags at the beginning of December to take to Santa for that year’s gifts.**

ALL our holiday wrap in one small, little stack!

Other alternatives to wrapping paper:
Magazine Gift Wrap
Food Box Gift Bags
Upcycled Paper Stockings