More Canning Supplies!

Thanks to the circa 1980's stash from MominLaw, it's year 2 in my experiences w/canning, and it's tomato season:
These were put into the pressure canner, and turned out beautifully, if not a little on the watery side-- ready for soup or sauce!
Now it's time to make some cool stickers for the jars....

Being Allergic to Gluten- Look Ma! No Gluten

My sister in law just started a website that is a collection of gluten free recipes! It's called "Look Ma! No Gluten" because she noticed that there wasn't an easy central location where people who are allergic to gluten could go to for useful receipes. Yay for online communities!

Aiggs!

I've made my first attempt at buying a local non-vegetable food: Eggs! From Pete and Jan's Backyard Birds, in Concord, MA. They are colorful and come in different sizes, and, uh, taste like eggs! I especially like the color of the blue one. And yes, there is a completely artificial yellow bunny Peep in there, that is completely not local, but I added it in for color.

Canning, the new obsession

Because I have a husband who works near orchards, I have been picking fruit like crazy all season-- you could say C. and I have turned it into a sport! Hence, what to do with all of that fruit? These things can be canned! This is my new hobby, and I love it, it's so much fun. Obviously, it's much cheaper to buy canned peaches and jars of tomato salsa at the grocery store, but I found that orchard fruit is much cheaper if you pick it yourself, and it tastes amazing! Another way I have been economical is the fact that in the 1980's, my mother in law was doing a lot of canning, and has a 20 year old treasure trove of canning jars and supplies. And not just a few supplies, but A LOT of jars! Above are some of the circa 80's jars she had. I also have created some labels, to make each jar that leaves my hands a nice little customized treat. If you have Illustrator or a computer program that can manipulate PDF files, you can download them here. If not, I can make some for you!

Making My Own Birthday Cards

Perusing the scrapbooking aisle at A.C. Moore, I'm noticing that the scrapbooking sections are much nicer looking these days. But since it's pretty easy for me to make my own labels, I have a bunch of birthdays coming up, so I made some "Happy Birthday" labels, to be printed with clear 8 1/2" x 11" full page label sheets, which you can feel free to download here.

Nice Detailed Video of custom apparel production!

I just found this Eco Apparel - Factory Tour explained by a nice graphics guy showing all of the process details, neat!

I really like the idea of custom apparel because what is ordered is developed specifically for the customer.

The First Lady likes retro girly dresses!

On the Huffington Post recently, they posted that Michelle Obama is wearing another Talbots dress I worked on!

They mislabel the dress as red, but it's actually orange and white, and there is another colorway in blue that I personally like better. It's another girly summer smock, and I helped with making this dress look good in plus sizes, reduced the bulk in the lining (because a lot of factories don't make their samples with separate lining patterns, they just copy the shell) and helped to make those scoopy armholes look nice on a lot many more shapes of women than our muscle armed first lady.