Doll House for Mila

Working on a dollhouse for my Boyfriend's daughter's 3rd Bday. I started with a wooden blank house (purchased from Michaels) and have painted the outside and wallpapered the inside.

This is the bookshelf inside the attic. The girls (Mila soon to be 3, and Nadia 5 1/2) love to be told stories and read to, so this is an important addition to the dollhouse.

I wanted the house to have a whimsical feel, so the colors are very little girlish and the painting is loose. The sides of the house are painted like brick, the front has ivy with flowers, and the roof is scalloped like singles, but all pink

I chose a paper for the inside that is also loosely painted and has soft colors.

Mila requested cupcakes for her birthday, so the kitchen is set with miniature cupcakes to celebrate.

I've used furniture from a dollhouse I had when I was a kid. Good dollhouse people are hard to find (they are all blonde) so this is one I had, and I'm sculpting the others from this weird soft modeling clay made by crayola. Its white, very light and feels like you're sculpting with Divinity candy.

I'll post some pics of the people once they are dry and painted. I think she'll like it!

Tonight was I enjoyed yet another Indian feast. My boyfriend is trying out a bunch of new recipes. Above is a Thai dessert, sticky rice with coconut sauce and mango. Delicious!


Chana Daal fried patties. A sort of Indian Falafel.


A dinner of Goan Bhindi or okra with cashew vinegar sauce accompanied by basmati and chana daal patties.

Had the morning to myself (boyfriend and girls were at preSchool) so thought I'd make good use of my time. It was nice to have a focus for a couple of hours. The canning process wasn't so bad, although I could have used another set of hands, but removing the skin from the apricots was a very laborious process! The jam turned out beautifully and I had to make biscuits because what else am I going to do with all of this jam? In the end, I wound up taking warm biscuits and jam to my boy and the girls at preschool. Eat your heart out Martha!

Today I picked apricots with Ellen of the^workshop. Hopefully they will make their way into jam by this evening. Ellen was a better harvester than myself, but we both wound up in the upper branches, reaching for that last bunch.



We ended up with more than 12 pounds of apricots!

Canning Take Two

So peach preserves this time. Strawberry jam had a 50% success rate, but we decided to try it again, this time with peaches! The key is letting the fruit mixture cook to the "jell point," which was not mentioned in our Strawberry jam recipe, hence 3 jars good jam and 3 jars strawberry syrup!

We used this recipe, but our peaches were really sweet, so we cut the sugar a bit and added some lemon zest too! Jam should be ready for the tasting in a day or so!!!!

Spoiled? Nah....

I came home after spending the afternoon with MJ, and found an Indian feast waiting for me! My boyfriend cooks the most delicious Indian food (despite the fact that he's a white boy from the Pacific North West). He recently purchased this amazing cook book called 660 Curries. I have been lucky enough to have eaten many mouthwatering dishes from this book without having cooked a single one myself! Tonight was cabbage with steamed lentils and pan-fried tamarind okra accompanied by Aaron' s delicious basmati which he usually seasons with cardamom and cinnamon; its light lemony and my favourite! I'm a lucky girl!

Wedding Shoes...

I'm still making paper shoes, and this pair was customized for a friend's wedding. Her colors were... can you guess?...hot pink and black. She also loves cameo style silhouettes and glitter!
This little scene was house in a glass dome.