🔥 Around the Campfire (week 37)

Dear Campers ~

Here's a quick recap in case you missed anything at camp last week:

Posts ~

9/5: 🔥 week 36

9/6: welcome to the wedding sign

9/7: solo cup trivia

9/8: mojitos

9/9: window signs

9/10: flower seed wedding favors

9/11: 20 years later...

My goodness this week flew by! Short week, plus catching up from the wedding (I still haven't put everything away 🤦‍♀️), time just gets away from me. Having said that - I don't have good menu ideas for you this week, no time for cooking so most of our meals were quick salad and grilled something. Hopefully I get it together and make some more interesting things next week hahah. Hope everyone had a happy Labor Day last summer hurrah weekend! Stop back often to see more projects, recipes, crafts, whatever else I can think of (and have time for) to make!

Sincerely ~

Jill

camp counselor

9/11: 20 years later

I cannot believe it's been 20 years since the 9/11 attacks on our country. That is just unbelievable - well the attacks themselves were unbelievable but I'm talking about how fast time flies. I read something the other day about how kids nowadays don't remember the awful events, and how would they - they were too young or not born yet and 9/11 is now historical history that they learn about at school or from parents and grandparents. That's so weird to me, especially since it doesn't feel like it happened all that long ago! 

I'll never forget where I was on that shocking, horrific morning - and I'm sure you won't either. I love the lyrics of this Alan Jackson song and am sharing again in memory of that September day - "Where were you (when the world stopped turning)": 

by Alan Jackson, found on Pinterest. (I originally posted in '16 for the 15 year anniversary)

Flower Seed Wedding Favors

We made little packets of perennial wildflower seeds to give as wedding favors at Mickey and Kyle's wedding last weekend - they're very easy to do other than it took me a while to figure how many seeds we would need to fill 120 packets...Googling didn't help much so today's post is to help clear that up if anyone else is looking for this info! 

A lot of the bulk seeds I found have 'filler' added to help spread the seeds when sowing over a large area, but we only wanted seeds in our little packets - fortunately I found some on Amazon that are just seeds so ordered a 1/4 pound bag not knowing how many packets that would fill. We played around with different amounts of seeds in each packet, how much seemed like enough - we settled on a generous 1/2 teaspoon per packet. I know that doesn't sound like much, but it is!

1/4 pound bag of seeds filled about 70 packets so I needed another bag but had quite a lot left over (I planted the leftover in the ground and they're sprouting already - there isn't going to be time for them to flower before Fall, but I'm hoping the seeds will establish themselves and make it thru the winter!). It's so fun to watch them coming up and knowing they're from the wedding. 

We folded the envelope tops and held them closed with a sticker that says the name of Kyle's family farm, that's where they held the wedding, how cool to have a little favor/gift from the farm to remember the wedding; Mickey made a sign that said 'Let Love Grow' and we put the packets in a pretty basket with the sign. 

Window Signs

 Mickey got a bunch of old windows from someone on FB that was getting rid of them for free with the agreement you had to take all 15 of them - some were broken but she ended up with quite a few in good shape. The frames are old and 'distressed' from original use, not because we did any kind of trendy distressing technique hahaha. Macey painted directly on the glass to make signs for the food stations and seating arrangements - look how great they turned out! I love this idea. 

For the stations she painted the words on the front and then did a wash of blue paint mixed with a little water all over the back of the glass so the words would stand out better. Cool, right? 

Mojitos

Al made us mojitos using mint leaves from 'mojito mint' plants that Cathy and I bought at a nursery at the beginning of summer - and they are so refreshing and delicious! Do you like mojitos? I'm a fan of the sour notes of lime and mint, you can make them as sweet as you like depending how much simple syrup you add - I prefer it on the tart side. 

Simple syrup is simply equal parts sugar and water; heat them in a saucepan for a couple minutes until the sugar is dissolved. 

Muddle a few mint leaves in the bottom of a cocktail shaker or glass (muddling is just gently smushing the leaves to release their juice and fragrance, you don't want the leaves smashed into pulp tho). Add a couple tablespoons of the simple syrup, couple tablespoons of lime juice, rum to taste (I'd do equal amount of rum as syrup and lime juice - in this case about 4 tablespoons of rum, more or less to taste). Shake and pour over ice. Garnish with additional mint leaves and lime wedges. 

Tip-sy Tuesday: solo cup

Well here's something I didn't know about Solo cups - not that I've spent much time thinking about what the lines actually mean, but it's an interesting tip...although I kinda wish I didn't know that I've been drinking way more than 5 ounces of wine hahahahah! 

 

Welcome to the Wedding Sign

Kyle gave me a big hunk o' tree (39"x21") that he planed smooth on one side so I could make a welcome to the wedding sign for them, the thought was they'd prop it up somewhere near the entrance. It's sooooo heavy that I had no idea how I was going to work on it; first I tried leaving it flat on the ground, then propped up against the garage wall thinking I'd sit on the floor to do it but that was really difficult - so I wrestled it to my truck's open tailgate where I could work on it while standing, much easier. It's way too heavy to have carried into the house so I could work at a table! Next I laid out blue painters tape roughly where I th

ought the words would go so I knew how much space I had to fill and how big the letters needed to be. 

Second small hurdle was that it isn't square so I wasn't sure how to make the words straight - I finally settled on where I wanted the middle of the wood to be (the bottom is wider than the top so I found middle using the top) and then measured from the ground up and put a piece of blue painter tape indicating where the line was parallel to the ground (not parallel to the bottom of the wood). After marking it with tape I ran a level along the tape edge to make sure it was level before sticking on the vinyl Cricut letters I cut out.

 I love how this turned out! 

If you're curious, the fonts I used are Noelan, PT Sans Narrow, and Pingfang HK

🔥 Around the Campfire (week 36)

 Dear Campers ~

Here's a quick recap in case you missed anything at camp last week (it was pretty much an all-cake week leading up to Mickey and Kyle's wedding yesterday!):

Posts ~

8/29: 🔥week 35

8/30: layered birthday cake

8/31: tip-sy tuesday: making cake layers

9/1: swiss meringue buttercream frosting

9/2: naked cake

9/3: tiny wedding cake

9/4: beer tap pull handles

What's Cooking ~

• grilled pork chops, gnocchi, chopped salad
• grilled chicken, caesar salad
• tacos, chips with salsa and queso
• grilled salmon, parmesan couscous, green beans

It was a busy week with the wedding rehearsal night, Brooke's 18th birthday, and the wedding so not much else got done. It was busy but it was also a ton of fun! The wedding was beautiful and perfect (even with some rain, everything turned out great), and my feet are tired today from dancing - the sign of a great party, right? hahah!  Hope everyone had a great week - stop by often to see more crafts, projects, recipes, tips, etc. Bye!

Sincerely ~

Jill 

Beer Tap Pull Handles

Quick little last minute thing for the wedding - added some labels to plain wood pull handles to identify what is what in the beer cart. As we were setting up Mickey asked how hard it would be to cut some Cricut words to stick on the handles and I ran home to make them - for real this was like a 20 minute craft and they turned out so good!

The font is 'Saginaw' if you're interested...

Tiny Wedding Cake

I had a little left over batter from making Mickey and Kyle's naked cake for their wedding tomorrow - so I made them a tiny baby wedding cake. I'm thinking they can freeze it and do that tradition of eating it a year from now on their anniversary - if they don't want to do that then they can just eat it now, I don't career hahahah. 

Ignore the winter decorations, this photo is from the first time I practiced the naked cake back around Christmastime!