Mandoline Slicer and Homemade Potato Chips

After reading post from Jessica at Sunny Stitching named Chips, I was excited to make them.  Just looking at her photo made my mouth water!

I rushed to Walmart and purchased one but when I got it out of the box, there were no instructions and lots of blades!  I decided to research the different Mandoline Slicers and finally decided not to jump in too deep with my purchase and found one by OXO at Williams-Sonoma with three adjustable settings and only cost $14.95.  It can be used handheld or over a bowl.

Side note:  I love the artistic look of the two mosaic tables in our kitchen.  I got them from a small cafe that was closing with 2 chairs each some years back...a huge impulsive decision for me but I have not regretted it at all! Here's a quick photo:)

Back to the chips.  I followed the tutorial on Jessica's blog and the chips came out fantastic.  I used 4 small russet potatoes which proved to make plenty of chips for all of us.  The Mandoline Slicer worked fantastic and we had a great dinner.  Our friends came over and we had a picnic dinner:  Chicken Salad Sandwiches, Green Salad, Potato Salad that Liz made, and the Potato Chips.

We watched a good movie called Courageous and enjoyed the Flower Sugar Cookies I made Friday.

I tell you, these homemade potato chips were the hit of the evening...not one left!

Flower Sugar Cookies

Tomorrow is Saturday and our friend Liz is coming over to watch a movie in the evening.  I had some leftover sugar cookie dough from making Valentine's Cookies.  I had taken it out of the freezer Thursday so it had thawed by today.  I found a really pretty "flower" shaped cookie cutter in the drawer and made more sugar cookies from the dough.  They came out "yummy"........

The dough is rolled and ready to cut.

I used a new glass cutting board to flour and roll the dough out on and it did not stick at all.  So easy!

Pretty flower sugar cookies sprinkled with sugar.
In the background I tried to tilt the sugar bowl for an artistic effect.....well, at least it did not spill.

I rolled out every bit of the dough ending with this tiny cookie.

I will serve the cookies from this beautiful ceramic dish made by my mother many years ago.

Hope you can all enjoy a really good cookie this week!

Where I Sew!

The other day I was getting ready to cut out some fabric and sew.  I cut out fabric in the dining room where there is a sliding door that lets the sun in.  It is so warm to stand there and feel the sunshine through the glass door....I love it.  So I looked around and wanted to take pictures of my work areas to share with you all.  As you can tell, the dining table is used more for cutting fabric than "dining".

The Beautiful Sunshine

 I keep my sewing machines out all the time.  I have a Bernina 1010 that is over 25 years old and a Juki Serger that is probably at least 20 years old.  Also on the sewing table is another Bernina 1000 that belongs to my daughter Jessica of Sunnystitching.  She left her machine here when she moved abroad so I use it frequently to keep it running good.  It is a messy area and I used to feel like I had to keep it all tidy but not anymore.  I love looking at the chaos represented!

Sewing Machines and Serger

I am so thankful to have been raised with a mom and neighborhood full of women who sewed, cooked, crocheted, gardened and made ceramics!  Sewing does keep me moving foward......

Joy to everyone!

Henry and Nanny Build a Lego City

Henry, my 4 1/2 yr old grandson spends the day with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Each Tuesday we go to his class with Miss Connie.  After that is over we go to the gym, Fitness 19.  He gets to play in the Kids Club there while I exercise.  Next we go to the 99 Cent Store and usually buy either gatorade or chocolate milk for him.  Every now and then we get yogurt at the Velvet Yogurt Store.  When we got home, he built a train track with legos and asked me to help him build a town.

We had so much fun....as you can see .....

Henry, the town and train

The town (behind the train) from left to right: Velvet Yogurt, Train Station, Gym, 99Cent Store

He made me promise to keep it up for Jerry to see when he got home.

I love his great imagination!

Glimmering Heart

We have a lovely wind chime that hangs outside out kitchen that we purchased from a friend who is an artisan here in San Clemente.  The name of her company is Treasures of the Heart.  At the bottom of the wind chime is a heart that actually glistens when the sun shines on it and glimmers at night.  I love looking at it.....

A photo of the windchime is below....A Beautiful Fairy Angel.  The other one we purchased several years ago also shows in the picture.  They make a beautiful sound when there is a breeze.

New Hat for Evie

I got a little bored working on an afghan over the weekend so I decided to crochet a new hat for Evie, my granddaughter who lives in England.  I was inspired by a cap pattern in the July 1993 issue of Golden hands Monthly Magazine.  I did a variation on the flowers but did use the basic hat pattern in the magazine article.  The pattern size was for an average 4 year old.

Henry, my 4 year old grandson agreed to model the hat for the 2 pictures for this blog post.  He is a real trooper but he did tell me that when I make him one, he wants it to be blue and that I cannot put flowers on it!  He picked out the blue yarn from my yarn stash and I promised him there would be no flowers!  The picures are below.

 I put some light pink, purple and clear beads in the centers of all the flowers to add a little sparkle.

I am excited to take it to Evie when Jerry and I visit in April.

Happiness to everyone this week!

Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice

Each Tuesday my 4 year old grandson Henry spends the day with me.  Last week he asked if I could get some oranges so we could make some orange juice.  So over the weekend I bought some oranges at a really good buy of 19 cents each.  I have a very old juicer that used to belong to my in-laws. 

Henry chose two oranges out of the fruit basket that is on the kitchen table and we washed the oranges off really clean and dried them.....then the fun could begin!

We then cut each orange in half...well, I did do the cutting.

Then we put a jar under the spout of the juicer and Henry put one of the orange halves on the spinner top and we turned it on.

It is so fun to see the juice start dripping and flowing into the glass jar.

To get the most juice, I put my hand under Henry's to get that last bit out of the orange halves.

Looks like we did a great job!....

And the juice was delicious.......Henry had a few sips and then wanted to save the rest for his dad! 

 Henry is a happy juicer!

It was a wonderful day!