Little Details

I now have a small collection of decorations for the wedding that I commissioned from artists on Etsy. I had a great time working with the artists so I thought I'd share so you can check out their shops too!



I got these adorable little butterflies from The Gilded Bee: I've been eye-ing her stuff for a while now and finally messaged her to make a huge custom order of butterflies in approximately the colors of the wedding (the color choices were a bit brighter than I'm going for, but they are perfect in every other way).



When I ordered them I had a specific purpose in mind, but things have changed a bit since then so now I just have them for extra decoration. I'm not sure how I will use them, but it will be guaranteed to be cute. Seriously cute.



I also ordered these incredible stamps from SugarSkull7's Handcrafted Stamps & Fine Art. She has a fabulous collection of adorable stamps that I chose from, in addition to commissioning this one:



I also got these Ball jar and hive stamps:





The hive reminds me of the illustrations in Winnie the Pooh books! I got three colors of ink so I plan to mix and match all over the place. These are going on the back of the table assignments, which will just be hanging from a line by the guest book. Kind of like this.

Just over two months to go!

Hamantaschen!

I made these lovelies on Friday with a recipe from my future mother-in-law. They're filled with strawberry rhubarb jam and blueberry preserves, yum! I doubled the recipe and stored half of the dough in the fridge so I hope to make a second batch this week (and make them smaller!).

Hamantashen
by Helen Mann

• 1/2 c. butter
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 c. flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 2 T. orange juice
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Cream butter and sugar together and add the egg. Mix flour and baking powder. Add half of the flour mixture, juice and vanilla to creamed mixture. Mix well. Add remaining flour mixture. Work in well and form into 2 balls of dough. Chill several hours or over-night. (Keeps well in fridge for a week).

Flour surface very well. Roll dough to desired thickness. Cut into rounds. Fill with desired filling (prunes or poppy seeds are traditional) and form into triangles by pinching up 3 corners of the circle. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until delicately brown.

Yield: 3 dozen hamantashen



That incredible orange color is due to fresh eggs from Aunt E's chickens!

Success! (and more help!)

Thanks to everyone who helped Duffy fund his beekeeping project, he raised 141% of his goal!



This means that we will have TWELVE more beehives at The Woodlands, plus one at The Walnut Hill Farm AND a group of high school students learning how to keep bees and sell honey with us at the farmer's market! It's all very exciting.

Also exciting is Nic's novel that he finished and is getting ready to self publish! It's about the urban homesteading movement, and there's a character in there based on little old me. Read more about it here. Here's his Kickstarter page where he's raising the money to publish the novel. In return for donating you can get a signed copy of the novel, a ticket to the book release party where cool local Philly musicians will be playing, and even a secondary character named after you!



Thanks to everyone who has already donated to these causes and helped move us all forward towards a more sustainable, creative, and well compensated future!

(I'm also working on a Kickstarter page to help fundraise for UC Green, the wonderful organization that is Philly Rooted's fiscal sponsor and all-around chearleader. Look out for that in April.)

Shoots

The beginning! These chives are in a container on my porch, and there are also some coming up in my plot at The Woodlands Community Garden.

Buzzing along

We sent the invites and are now receiving RSVPs in mass quantities (fourteen of them came back in the mail today!). My wonderful friend Nicole from Blue Bicicletta designed the invites for us and I couldn't be more happy with them.



Just look at those adorable bees!