happy belated birthday

Two months ago today, Axel turned 1!

August 8th was a Sunday so we invited the family over for dinner to celebrate. Axel had fun opening gifts and playing with the wrapping paper and he loved the banners and mobiles I made to decorate. I think he had a pretty happy birthday!

Invitations, front and back:

I made his 1 onesie with some scrap fabric.

The mobiles were easy peasy to make...here's the tutorial from Project Wedding.

And the cake...

...came from I Am Baker. Very tasty!

butterfly catcher

My sister showed me these butterflies on Ali Edwards blog and then she made one and I made one, too.

And then I made another.

They're easy peasy (just paper, a frame, a decorative hole punch and double-stick foam dots) and quite pretty, I think. They're going to hang in my downstairs bathroom.

You can make one, too. Directions are here. More inspiration and variations are here and here.

a barefoot birthday with butter

My good friend Denise turned 28 today and invited a few friends to spend the afternoon with her for a picnic and a barefoot hike to celebrate!

This is what my bicycle basket looked liked this morning after buying flowers for the birthday girl, some rustic bread for the picnic, and some fresh mint for the butter recipes I wanted to try out to go with the bread:

The group of us drove outside a town near Pforzheim where we ate our yummy picnic in a grassy field and my mint butter turned out pretty good! I made some walnut butter, too, and that was also rather tasty! I got the recipes from a German magazine so I'll share them (translated to English) with you...

Walnut Butter
1 small shallot, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/2 bundle of fresh parsley, finely chopped
250 g butter (about 1 cup), room temperature
150 g crushed walnuts (about 1/2 cup)
salt & pepper
Add about 1/3 of the butter to a pan with the shallot and garlic cook til the butter's melted. Then add the parsley and walnuts and cook for about 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Take the pan off the heat and let cool a little. Mix with the rest of the butter then let cool completely in the fridge.

Mint Butter
250 g butter (about 1 cup), room temperature
3 tablespoons of finely chopped fresh mint
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon lemon juice
salt & pepper
Mix it all together then put in the fridge!

After our picnic we took a barefoot hike! There was a trail through a forest that was designed to be walked barefoot! We took off our shoes and walked along a soft forest trail where there were opportunities for all kinds of textures for our feet to walk on: sticks, leaves, moss, cork, pebbles. And there was a tree house and log balance beams and mud and water and every kind of natural texture your feet could possible want to explore! I've never seen a hiking trail like this and it was so much fun!

Walking on pebbles then sand...

Your humble narrator...

Knee deep and giggling in muddy water...

market tote swap

So, remember how In a Nutshell had her summer Market Tote Bag Swap? Wanna see the bag I made?

I made it from some heavy-weight cotton I had leftover from another bag project and the red arrow block I found in this book I recently bought with great quilts with house blocks.



So I guess the arrow is really a house but it looked more like an arrow to me. But I really liked how the block turned out no matter if it's a house or an arrow!

our fourth

Even in Germany we were able to celebrate American Independence Day!

On the 4th we were able to have a barbeque with some other American friends, making the evening a very American event. We had hamburgers and hot dogs, baked beans and pasta salads, and cupcakes and ice cream sundaes! Of course, the hamburgers were eaten with Italian ciabatta bread, the hot dogs were really German bratwursts and the cupcakes were make with dark German chocolate and much of our conversations were of various summer trips to Greece and France and Ireland and our enjoyment of German culture so the evening still had a very international flair! But, then, American culture is a melting pot itself!

I made the cupcakes and they were so yummy! Cakes and cupcakes are not at all German so I made them from scratch from this amazing recipe. They were easy and turned out very rich and chocolaty and super-moist...almost brownie-like. I took the recommendation of this amazing blogger and "frosted" them with whip cream and added fresh raspberries on top...they tasted sooo good with the rich chocolate! I must insist you try them out!

maybe knitting is knot for me

The other night my friend Denise tried to teach me how to knit.

She was a very good and very patient teacher...but, apparently, I'm not a very good knitter.



I do want to learn how to knit, though. Hopefully she'll be kind enough to give me a follow-up lesson and maybe I'll get the hang of it. Maybe.

holiday baking

I've been doing my holiday cookie baking today.

Angels and little stars to give away.



I didn't have any Christmas forms to use, so I just picked these cookie cutters up on Monday. I actually have a whole collection of cookie cutters...but most of them are in storage in America awaiting my return. I have added to it since we've been here...

I love this pretty church...



and this little eating utensils set...



I don't know why I started collecting cookie cutters. I only ever make sugar cookies once...maybe twice...a year. I just kept buying fun shapes I liked. And then my sister commented once that she wished she collected something fun like I did with my cookie cutters. It wasn't until then that I realized I was making a collection.

Now I'd better go eat that dirty rice that's just finished cooking...I've been munching on broken angel wings all day and I need some real food in my belly...

christmas stockings

I learned today for certain...although I was always suspecious of it...that Germans don't have the Christmas stocking tradition.

A couple of friends were over this afternoon and saw our stockings hanging up. They were aware of Christmas stockings but weren't exactly sure what they were for. I got to explain to them that they were filled with candy and nuts and small gifts and toys on Christmas Eve and opened Christmas morning.



I made our stockings myself for our first Christmas after we were married. When we first got married we didn't have much in the way of Christmas decorations and I ended up hand-making a lot of decorations that year. I had intended that most of what I was making would only be used for a year or two until we could collect more. But most of what I made have became some of our favorites to pull out every year. And our stockings are one of them.



I got the pattern from good ol' reliable Martha which you can find here (I just didn't add the birds). I didn't yet have a sewing machine at the time so I sewed each one by hand. It didn't really take very long but I like that our stockings have that hand-touched quality. Plus, I have memories of working on them over the course of a few nights, sitting on the sofa with a needle and thread and Christmas movies.