Girl’s Sewing and Crafting Weekend Retreat

Breakfast & Tassels

Our girl’s weekend began Friday morning when I picked Misty-Jade up from the airport.  From there we found a wonderful breakfast at the Henhouse Cafe in Gilbert where many traditional foods are served with a Mexican flavor.  We shared a Santa Fe omelete and a lemon blueberry mascarpone pancake.  The food was awesome and followed by a short shopping trip to the mall.

Later in the day Gramma and Misty-Jade made tassels for her blanket and the DIY tree branch to decorate her bedroom while I began preparing fabric for our pillows. The chunky tassels are super easy to make, and directions can be found on many internet sites.  We used directions from Design Sponge.  The tree branch was spray painted white before attaching tassels.

Making Tassels

Orange, Blue, and White Tassels

DIY Home Decor made from a Tree Branch and Tassels

Marble Dipped Vases and a Blanket

Saturday morning Misty-Jade created marble-dipped vases.  It took a few tries to make it work, but the end result was perfect!  We did find that the nail polish will flake off, so we’ll see if we can find a sealant to spray on them.

DIY Marbleized Glass Vase

DIY Marble Dipped Glass Vase

Black, Gray, and White Nail Polish Floating in Water

After finishing the vases, we began working on the blanket.  One side was cut from navy blue fleece and the other was cut from white Shannon Cuddle fabric which feels very luxurious!   A monogram matching Misty-Jade’s bath towels was embroidered in the corner.  Then the tassels were tacked to the navy fleece before sewing both fabrics together to form a cozy blanket with just the right feel and weight.  I’m sure she’ll appreciate this blanket on cold, snowy Utah nights!

 

Cutting Blanket Fleece

Sewing Blanket Tassels

Blanket with Monogrammed M

Finished Blanket with Orange Monogram M

Finished Cuddle and Fleece Blanket

Blanket Made with Shannon Cuddle and Fleee

 

We ended our day with an outing to the Harkin’s Theater to see the “Lion King” followed by a swim in our pool.

Waffle Breakfast and Pillows

Sunday morning began with healthy Easy Oat Waffles.  We grind our own grains ensuring our flours are fresh.  One of my favorite sites for healthy and organic foods is Forks Over Knives.

The rest of the day was used for finishing the blanket and pillows.  My mom and I love pillows but have found that there’s not enough room to store all the different pillows for every season or holiday.  Envelope pillow cases solved that problem, so now we only have to change the pillow cases which are much easier to store.  The DIY directions by So Much Better With Age are super simple and easy to follow.  I also found a tutorial at sew4home that helps to maintain the square corners of the pillow.  You can see the difference in the corners of the beige pillow in the pictures.  Each pillow front was embroidered with a fall design before construction.  We’re making five more pillows before September with additional designs.

Black and White Gingham Harvest Time Pumpkin Pillow

Fall Bicycle Pillow in Red on Black and White Gingham

Harvest Time Pillow on Sparkly Home Decor Fabric

Pumpkin Embroidery

Relaxing and a Birthday Celebration

A girl’s weekend retreat would not be complete without relaxing, cooking, watching movies and just spending time together.

Relaxing on the Sofa

Birthday Cake

Our Completed Weekend Projects

All of our projects for the weekend!

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Instant Pot Spaghetti!

Last weekend we went camping out at the coast with the goal of photographing waterfalls and autumn leaves.  Since Amber is back in school we needed electrical hookups and wi-fi for homework assignments, so we stayed at an RV park.  During the day we went hiking at Sweet Creek Falls and captured some wonderful fall photos.

Amber has been wanting to try the Instant Pot on a camping trip, but I hadn’t wanted to lug it out camping and back home after each trip.  The RV’s crock pot broke a couple months ago, and I had been thinking about replacing it with an IP.  When I found a larger IP on sale at Fred Meyer I purchased it, so now we have one for home and one for glamping!

 

 

 

Instant Pot

Spaghetti Sauce

Instant Pot Spaghetti

Saute in the Instant Pot

I like using the Instant Pot for soups, chili, dried beans, baked potatoes, and vegetables.  Amber suggested making spaghetti, so we gave it a try.  The recipe we used can be found at The Salty Marshmallow.  The IP is wonderful for making one-pot meals, and we always freeze the leftovers for quick and easy lunches.  The hamburger and onions are cooked using the saute mode, and then the dry spaghetti noodles, diced tomatoes, spaghetti sauce and water were layered on top of the meat.  After locking the lid on the pot, the spaghetti cooked for 8 minutes.

 

 

 

Instant Pot with Lid

Dinner and a Movie

Spaghetti Dinner

Spaghetti in the Instant Pot

The spaghetti was served with my favorite veggie, broccoli, and garlic bread.  The spaghetti was okay, and it works for a camp meal, but it was a bit soupy. However, it did get thicker as it sat.  Some of the noodles stuck together during cooking.  I love my IP, but some things are still better cooked using a conventional method.   This spaghetti may not be my favorite, but there is definitely a place for the Instant Pot in my beach house!

 

 

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Sutton Campground – Siuslaw National Forest, OR

Tucked safely into the campsite.

Amber and I went to Sutton Campground near Florence, Oregon last weekend.  It was our first attempt at taking the fifth-wheel to a national forest campground, and it was well worth the 3 hour drive.  The campground roads and sites are tight, but we were able to get into our pull-through, site A13.  Sutton Campground is beautiful and well maintained.  Most of the sites are surrounded by foliage providing campers with a great sense of privacy.  While we were in a pull-through site and close to the road we couldn’t see other campsites beyond ours when we stepped outside our door.  As typical of NF campgrounds there is a lot of space between sites, so even though we were close to the road we didn’t feel like we were trailer on top of trailer.

We decided to take out the dutch ovens and try the new dutch oven table we found at Sportsman’s Warehouse on a discount night.  Then we got a further discount because it was the last one left and didn’t have a box.  Amber’s the dutch oven fire starter and loved her new toy.  The baking powder biscuits, sausage gravy, eggs, and maple sausages were yummy!

Breakfast

The best baking powder biscuits made with butter and cream of tartar.

The new dutch oven table and baking biscuits.

We’ve always camped on the coast, but usually stay at Honeyman when we’re near Florence.  This last weekend we wanted to stay at a NF park, go kayaking and explore other places in the area.  It ended up being too windy and cold for kayaking, but we found three lakes we want to try next time we visit.  Mercer Lake, Sutton Lake and Alder Lake were all close by.  Then Cleowox Lake is at Honeyman State Park just a few miles south of Florence.  We went out to North Jetty, but the wind was making the sand sting as it hit us, so we didn’t stay long.  Instead we found Harbor Vista Campground that appeared be a quiet place for camping.  It’s a small park that I believe is operated by Lane County.

While walking through the campground we found the Darlingtonia Walkway.

Darlingtonia Walkway

Before going home on Sunday we practiced backing the 5th wheel into some other sites.  I also took several pictures of the campground and some sites we might be able to use for our next visit.