{ valentine trickery }

...
Hello lovelies. Happy Valentine's Day.

I thought I would share some of the sneakery I got up to for my sweetie, with the aid of others' creative talent I found on our good friend, the Internet. If you are still in hunt of some ideas before the day is over, perhaps you can use them, too.

First, when he got up in the morning, he found this fun tag on his toothbrush...

...accompanied by a sign on the mirror instructing him to look in the fridge where he found a yogurt parfait waiting for him.

...and a 'card' waiting at his desk. I loved this moldy peaches lyric quote poster art, but we don't get color ink for our printer because we are so cheap(poor), so I tried to jazz it up with some colored pens and doodling.

Some of my plans came out of GOOP suggestions, such as changing the wallpaper on his phone and setting alarms on it for various times, with instructions to check different locations for hidden treats. I changed his phone wallpaper to this fun poster art.



He wasn't supposed to find this until the first alarm on his phone, but due to him changing coats and checking pockets before he left he found it early...and left a photo of him wearing it that he put as the desktop wallpaper on my computer. Sweet.

At the second alarm, he was sent to find this cross-stitch heart card and a couple heart-shaped cookies stashed in his backpack.

There was also an origami heart stowed in another pocket.

Other than that, I did a couple things for myself to celebrate the day.

With some more of that leftover grey felt I have sitting around I threw together a little heart garland to hang in the window.

And in my frequent and addict-like browsing of Pinterest, I spotted this lovely valentine manicure tutorial by jenna beth.

I tied my own version with colors that I had on hand (no pun intended) and wound up with this.

I'm not as skilled as the originator, but still something fun to feel fancy today.

Happy celebrations to you all.

...

Pin It

{ hubby's tuque and scarf}

...
Finally, I made a tuque and scarf for my hubby. While I am an American living in Canada, and have mostly kept my native vernacular, I have loved " tuque" ever since I first heard it. It is used by Canadians in reference to any typical knit cap and, it seems to me, feels like a very happy word. Just try saying it aloud.

The patterns used for these, the Molly tuque and Matilda scarf, may have girly names, but they were made for manly purposes. Both patterns are available for free. The tuque pattern I did alter to remove the cable. I made it first as prescribed, and and decided that the inclusion of the cable made it look significantly more feminine... so I frogged it and started all over again without, much the horror of my cast-mates who had been watching me knit it backstage during performances.

The cabled scarf is beautiful, and so fun to nuzzle your fingers into the texture of the multitude of cables. It is also nice and warm due to the cables. The downsides of it is that it took forever to make...I would estimate about 6 times longer than your average scarf. At least that was my experience. Also, I'm not a fan of the look of the backside of cables, so you have to be specific about how you drape it. That doesn't seem to be as big an issue in practice as I worried, though.

So I finally am able to send my husband off in the morning warm and with remembrances of me wrapped around.

...

Pin It

{ be my honey pie }

...
St. Valentine's Day is approaching and I'm in a lovey-dovey mindset.

Are you planning any baking for this season? If so, I found something just right: Honey Pie.

I had always heard 'honey pie' as a (slightly mocking) pet name, but it never occurred to me that there was a real baked dish of the kind. Then when I stumbled across a recipe for one on Pinterest, my mouth watered at the thought. After sending the pin to my husband to check out the recipe it was quickly determined that this must be made in our home.

As much as I have an insatiable sweet tooth, I admit that I worries that something called honey pie would be too sweet to bear. I justified in my mind that there must be some reason I hadn't come across it before.
NOPE.
It was amazing. Not too sweet, not too overwhelming an honey flavor. Inside, it is the most lovely soft yellow color, and the top gets a bit of a creme brulee flavor to it as it carmalizes a touch. Amazing. The closest thing I can compare it to is a pecan pie without nuts, but so much better.

You'll just have to try it.

Here is the recipe I followed from South Brooklyn Post. Try it out and send back some love to the makers of this recipe.

Salty Honey Pie

By Melissa and Emily Elsen

Makes one 9-inch custard pie.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Have prepared one pre-baked pie shell of your choice. We use an all butter crust.

For filling:

1/2 c butter melted

3/4 c white sugar

2 Tbsp white cornmeal

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 c honey

3 eggs

1/2 c cream

2 tsp white vinegar

1 tsp vanilla paste

1 or 2 Tbsp flake sea salt for finishing (Maldon is a good choice)

–

All of the mixing can be done by hand, or with an electric mixer.

Melt butter and combine with the sugar, salt and cornmeal to make a thick paste. Add the honey, vanilla and vinegar and mix together. Fold in the eggs, add the cream and blend.

Pour the filling into a pre-baked pie shell and bake at 350 F for 45 to 60 minutes. The filling will puff up like a marshmallow and the center will be just slightly wobbly. Once cooled (at least one hour), finish with a sprinkling of flake sea salt. Slice and serve with freshly whipped cream.

Happy Pie Time

...

Pin It