andy

you will be missed.

it's hard to believe someone i never met could have meant so much to me.

Coral Castle

We happened to have an opportunity to make it to the  Coral Castle in miami, fl last week!  pumpkinbutt has been reading and watching everything he could about it for the past month or so and was super excited.
to put it breifly, the coral castle was "built by one man, Edward Leedskalnin. From 1923 to 1951, Ed single-handedly and secretly carved over 1,100 tons of coral rock, and his unknown process has created one of the world's most mysterious accomplishments. " he did all of it for his lost love, he called "sweet sixteen". (more on this topic at end of post)

 Admission used to be 10 cents!

 there are several areas to the grounds. one being the bedroom. seen here are two twin beds for him and his "sweet sixteen". nearby are a few smaller beds for children.

                                                                      the bathtub

the grounds were the background for billy idol's music video "sweet sixteen".  and were used for a horrible movie from 1958 called Wild Women of Wongo. the best thing about the movie is getting to see some of the coral in action.  there used to be many features that moved very easily (gates and doorways) despite that they were made out of 9 tons of coral.

pumpkinbutt relaxing in one of the coral chairs.

years ago, several of these seats were rocking chairs, but over time, they have flatten out and settled.

now let's dicuss his "sweet sixteen"

so the dark side of this... we bought a copy of a booklet written by ed.... i am still in the process of figuring all of this so called "sweet sixteen" jazz out. let me point out that on the grounds of the coral castle ed built an "repentance" area for him to sit and for "sweet sixteen" to put her head through, like a stockade, and for him to reprimand her for whatever she did wrong... along with his mother-in-law. in his booklet, entitled "one in every home" he goes into a bit more detail about his requirements of this "sweet sixteen"... pages on end about her remaining "sweet" for him and staying clear of fresh boys.  but fresh boys need not worry because ed says it's totally cool and acceptable for these fresh boys to use the girl's mother for practice!  yeah, it's ok because the mothers are pretty much damanged goods.  he also went on to blame picnic gatherings and even churches for encouraging boys and girls to mingle which only leads to you.know.what. those damn fresh boys!

soooo.... miss sweet sixteen made a good move by dropping him before the wedding...but the castle in general is super cool!

btw. spell check is not working so deal.

smash books

pumkinbutt and i have been working on smash books this summer.

i have been saving all these little scraps of paper with cute little images and what-not for some time now...like 17 years.  a few years ago when i was finishing up my bachelors degree in fine art i got the opportunity to have a locker in the ceramics room.  i was sooo excited to have a locker (cool like high school) and to get to put some of these little pieces of paper to work as interior and exterior decor.  as you may see, some got slip splatter on them:

i really like the pages in smash books.  they are already pre-decorated with very similar pieces of cute what-nots that i would have put in them anyway! as seen below:

here is a blog with other smasher's books: smash book blog

dinosaur wedding piece doohickey

here is a multi-use craft piece i created for  Dollar Store Crafts: Wedding Craft Challenge using 97.5% of items from the dollar tree.  it's a 3-in-1! Foremost it is a centerpiece.... but then again,  remove the little guys from the silver tray and it can be a cake topper...or even better yet, place wedding rings around the necks and use it as a ringer bearer piece as seen below:

items used :

* 2 dinosaurs (from dollar tree, $1 each)

*silver tray (from dollar tree)

*craft moss (from dollar tree)

*silver letter stickers, embroidery floss, and scrapbook paper for the bunting (had on hand)

i am sure adding a few flowers or making a little top hat and veil for the dino couple would be a cute addition.

i love me some dollar tree craftin'!

here are a couple of things i made from dollar tree items for halloween:

grave marker portrait piece

                                                               creepy hand luminary

and another challenge i participated in and won several years ago:

Dollar Tree Gourmet Meal Challenge

also found at the dollar tree, in terms of weddings, is a little something for the ladies!

coke bucks

got these a few months ago at the flea market for 1 buck each! there were a few more that had little "Season Greetings" stickers on them that i have a feeling were christmas bonus checks.

we spent 45 minutes at this booth looking through a set of scrapbooks from a woman living in the 1940-60s that spanned from high school til having children that was completely engrossing. 

i love looking through things like this trying to figure out the story and connect the dots.

in keeping with my cheap dollar store frame project, these checks got the same treatment.

can't get enough....

if you can finish that jingle than you are in the same mind set as i am lately. recently i started a decorate-the-kitchen project that started out as mostly hanging framed images of old cooking ads and recipes. i then recalled i have the book Krazy Kids Food! and then became inspired to focus on vintage kids food images. here are a few images that i found on the web i will be using:

example below:

dollar tree has these great 8x10 frames right now that the glass front pops out for easy changing. i bought about 73 of them. very handy for kid art work as well, making it easy to change the current exhibit already hung on the museum walls.

 i also stumbled across this "Eat-it-All" ice cream cones promo display mobile idea that i may try to make a version of:

so this kitchen decorating deal has morphed into painting the walls and making curtains along with hanging the new prints.  planning on taking those tasks on during the summer...still need to pick color and fabric.

yum!

i updated

Recipes!

(it lives off to the right--> )

teacher appreciation

"Our Teacher is Dino-mite!"

last week for teacher appreciation i did several cute projects with pumpkinbutt and his class.

the first was a dinosaur and flowers theme of "our teacher is dino-mite".  i made a corsage (seen above) for the teacher to wear. it is comprised of the finest flowers and dinosaurs from $ tree and some scrap book paper from joanns.   i also decorated a thrift store vase to match and the kids brought flowers to put in it.

the next theme was "we are so fortunate to have you as a teacher".  i bought a large plain plastic take out box from michaels and Chinese food-ified it . i decorated the front with a print-out in a "chinese takeout" font and glued chop stick wrappers along the edge.  inside were long strips of paper (fortune-like) with dragons stamped on the ends where the children wrote why they like their teacher or something they learned from her.  we called them "fortunates". i also sent in some fortune cookies for the whole class to share.
  

the last theme was "we are nuts about our teacher".  i decorated a plastic tub with a cute squirrel with nuts image and asked that the kids bring in nut related items to give to her....candy with nuts, mixed nuts, circus peanuts...anything with nuts. one kid put in a picture of george washington carver! i made some chocolate covered peanuts that we put in a little brown paper bag with an image of a peanut that pumpkinbutt glued googly eyes on.

on the classroom door we continued with the nut theme.  i had the kids color an image of a squirrel with an acorn and some clusters of nuts. i rolled long sheets of newsprint and hot glued it to the background in a tree and branch shape and then attached their colorings.

on the tree i added a carving with the teachers initials.

the kids and i had a really good time making and planning the week and the teachers really loved it!

thrifted stuffs

it has been a long time since i have found several neat items all on the same day and at the same store so i was a bit excited over it!

a juice glass, a (possibily) "south of the border" bookend souvenir, an avon pandy pandy soap holder...

a chalkware rooster,  floral ribbon, and autumn hued fruits tablecloth.

for some reason i just have this feeling all these items came from the same home.  i left behind about 6 hot plate trivets of several cities along with one from "south of the border", which put the thought in my head of the bookend being from there.

on the subject of 'south of the border'.....making a trip there has been on my to-do list for quite sometime...along with myrtle beach. it sounds like a hoot! old roadside attractraction,  lots of photo ops next to big concrete gorillas, cacti, sombero clad fellows and more...much more !

below is a chuck o' plagiary to nutshell what the place is:

"South of the Border is a rest stop and roadside attraction on Interstate 95 and US Highway 301/501 between Dillon, South Carolina and Rowland, North Carolina dating back to 1949. It is named "south of the border" being south of the U.S. state of North Carolina.  The location was chosen as a convenient location for selling beer as it was located just over state (South of the North Carolina border) and county lines to a dry "alcohol prohibited" county adjacent to the north.The rest area features not only restaurants, gas stations and a motel, but also a small amusement park, shopping (including, formerly, adult entertainment at the "Dirty Old Man Shop"), and, famously, fireworks. Its mascot is Pedro, an extravagantly stereotypical Mexican bandido. It is known for being advertised by hundreds of billboards along surrounding highways, starting over 150 miles away. Well-known landmarks in the area, the irreverent signs feature Pedro, wearing an oversized sombrero and poncho, counting down the number of miles to, and promoting, South of the Border."

did you read that?!  Dirty Old Man Shop!



here is a song that i just found that captures some of the kookiness of the place!

  you know i am thinking of us taking a bit of a detour this summer to hit this place up, don't you?!

$25,000 Orange Kiss me cake

 1950....the 2nd pillsbury national baking contest.....$25,000 bucks to the first place contestant.... that's a lot of money back now... Mrs. Peter Wuebel of Redwood City, Californee took home the prize and prestige that year with her Orange Kiss-Me Cake:

(click to enlarge for recipe)

i was intrigued as of what a high dollar cake tastes like, as anyone would be.

therefore i made my own and it was absolutely delish!

i was a bit confounded by the first direction of grinding together orange rinds, raisins, and walnuts. grind them with what? i have a mixer, some cutlery and a hammer....all which did not turn out acceptable results. i am sure more experienced, kitchen gadget-laden folks out there are smacking their foreheads over this profession.  in the end i (very frustratingly) used a blender and all turned out well in the end.

i have a few of these pillbury grand national prize winning recipes booklets (1951, 1955 and 1964... searching for more of early era) and have recently became interested in the idea of baking the winners. i see it as similar to the Julie and Julila movie.  except that when my movie would be made and the story scene switched from me it would be to Pillsbury's Poppin' Fresh having his doughy belly jabbed with a finger.

t-shirt upgrade

some "hit and run posting" due to, as normal, massive time constraints:

 i bought this sweatshirt in the boy's department of target around halloween on clearance for ~ 3 bucks.

snipped and stitched it into an old black tee that was getting a bit faded......upgraded both of them!

possibilities of other such projects could even lay in the little children's department clearance area as well...adorableness robots, monsters, kitties and such stitched onto adult tees or throw pillows or hoodie backs or used as canvas bag patches ETC!

easter droppings

 this year's bunny cake included the easter bunny's chocolate malt ball excrement ....

a few year's back, pumpkinbutt embellished mr. bunny by having him munching on gummy brains...

not sure where else we can take this for next year other than maybe road kill rabbit.

ration party

We had a WWII birthday party recently with a spin on turning 43 in 1943 for my man.  Pumpkinbutt and i decorated with posters we printed from the internet of WWII propaganda, model airplanes and a million little green army men. We also pulled a bunch of japanese items from around the house into the mix.

for the cake, i came up with using the recipes of rationing and discovered a particular dessert called a

Wacky cake....

best described through plagiarism:

"Wacky Cake has been around for almost seventy years; since the days of World War II. It was created by inventive housewives in response to food shortages, and the limitations brought about by rationing.Somewhere in America, an unknown but inspired housewife rose to the challenge, devising a completely different cake recipe, and Wacky Cake was born! It could be made without using up precious commodities like eggs, butter and milk, and it tasted great, too!

As its popularity grew, Wacky Cake was known by several names; but whether it was called Crazy Cake, Wartime Cake, Rationing Cake or even Eggless, Butterless, Milkless Cake, one thing was true--Wacky Cake had become a bit of Americana."

Here is the outcome and it was surprisingly good!

Wacky Cake

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 Cups Flour
• 1 Cup Sugar
• 3 Tablespoons Cocoa
• 1 Tsp. Baking Soda
• 1/2 Tsp. Salt
• 1 Tsp. Vanilla
• 5 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil
• 1 Tablespoon Vinegar
• 1 Cup Cold Water

Instructions

While oven is pre-heating to 350, measure all the dry ingredients into a 9-inch square baking pan. (Ungreased!) No need to sift these ingredients, but do stir them well in the pan, to blend evenly.

Make three holes, or "wells" in the dry ingredients. You'll be putting the wet ingredients into the wells. Make one a little bigger than the others.

Have all the wet ingredients measured and ready before proceeding. Then, into the bigger hole, pour the oil. Put the vanilla into one of the smaller holes, and the vinegar into the other. Always add the vinegar last. Pour the water over the whole thing, then stir until everything's just blended. It doesn't have to be perfectly smooth, but don't leave pockets of unmixed ingredients or big lumps.

That's it! Now, bake at 350 on middle rack for 30 minutes or until center looks done. You can do the toothpick test to check for doneness.

Cool in pan, and when completely cool, dust top of cake with confectioner's sugar.

Store tightly covered.

******************************

Here is a public service announcement of the 1940's that all should take note of.... it was also the front of the birthday card.....just a friendly reminder!

cherry mash

cherry mash is a yummy candy of chocolate, nuts and cherry nougat center goodness. they have been gracing the world since 1876 and are not so easy to locate.  i recently however, found them at hobby lobby! after perusing the official website, i found a recipe area and hence below is the cherry mash cake! it is quite tasty and looks just like an enlarged version of the candy.

Chocolate Cherry Cake Recipe
{Tastes Just Like Cherry Mash Candy Bars}

For the cake:
1 box Cherry Chip cake mix
1 can cherry pie filling
4 eggs

For the frosting:
1 package chocolate fudge frosting
1 Tbs peanut butter
1 cup salted peanuts, chopped

Cake:
Beat 4 eggs until light and fluffy. Beat in 1 box Cherry Chip cake mix. Mix in 1 can cherry pie filling. Pour in a greased and floured 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Let cool before frosting.

Frosting:
Mix frosting according to directions. Stir in peanut butter and chopped peanuts. Frost cake when cool.

i haven't quite figured out what the little candy police guy is all about but he was called to the scene to investigate along with his baton and ..... fruit pie?

a few neat finds i got today:

little NOS butter boxes from 1960 at a thrift for 49 cents. they were even still flat when i found them!

and some bottles of "pop" with retro graphics at big lots for 60 cents.
the"Pop Shoppe" has a website that is super cute with an interactive cartoon of woodlandish creatures inside a bottle! there is also a history of the drink, however i fear that the 2012 timeline entry is going to be a repeat of the 1983 one if it being sold at big lots is any clue. i tried the "lime ricky" and it is quite tasty....kinda like maragrita mixer....now there's a thought! what a minute....Zima! that's it! it tastes like a nonalcoholic Zima. are those still being made? just checked and sadly no.  stopped production in 2008... shows how much of a boozer i am not! i am so out of touch, even beyond the world of hooch.