Snow Day Creations

Even though we only got about 3 inches of snow, there was enough hype over the "Blizzard of 2015" to get me two snow days.  I stayed indoors and off the roads like the good citizen that I am, and used the time to do some creative projects I've had on my mind for quite some time.

The first (above) is a Nugget pillow!  Nug loves to put her head on a small pillow.  I have one with sequins on it and another with embroidery from Mexico, both that I really like, that she is constantly drooling on.  So I figured I'll make her her own pillow.  (Because that's not a spoiled dog or anything.)  And then I saw this cat pillow, and figured "oh! if I make it look like Nugget then she will know it's hers."  And so far its working.  I always knew there was genius inside that thick head of hers.

Staying with the theme of pillows, I decided to give another one a face lift.  A couple months back I bought a box of Rit dye for like $2 to jump on the dip dye bandwagon.  I tried that with a white shirt and the results were terrible. 

 But I love the pillow pictured left, it was just getting dingy even after being washed.  So I threw it in a dye bath and rewashed it and I love it now.  It's funny because in my paintings I keep covering original paintings with a uniform layer of blue.  I think I just need to put my whole living room in a blue dye bath.

And what kind of snow day is it without cooking?  Especially a soup.  So I made a minestrone.  It's pretty classic although I used gluten free noodles which turned out surprisingly well, sometimes they disintegrate, and some aged balsamic on top.  

The one big family secret I will share and my mommom would be so distraught to know I am doing this...add a sweet potato to broths.  They disintegrate in a good way and sweeten and thicken the broth.  We do it with chicken soup and I did it with this soup and it really added to the flavor. 

  

And finally, I replanted this pig pot!  My friends gave me this amazing planter for my birthday and I had been keeping basil in it.  But that all died, its too cold in the kitchen.  So I split succulents and replanted them here.  I recently learned about this which I guess a lot of people know but I had no idea.  You can take an arm of a succulent and plant it in the soil and it will grow roots.  I tried it with another planter and its been about 4 months, so far so good.  It's great because when my original three little pots are looking leggy I just break them off and replant.