Thursday, October 29, 2009

Halloween at Sweet Bee Cottage Part 2






















Happy Halloween!

Come back soon to see what the Sewing Bee conjured up for Baby Bee for Halloween!

As always, your visit is a treat.


 Bye! Bye!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

We have a winner!



Thank you for entering my first blog giveaway!




Your odds were really good for winning....



 but Baby Bee drew out ......





Carol from Old Glory Cottage !
Her teapot, mini-banner, and little pumpkin will be heading east tomorrow morning.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Last chance for MY FIRST giveaway!


I had so much fun with my little banners, I decided to share one with a lucky reader.  I also found a little pumpkin that looks so cute keeping little witchy poo teapot company that I'm including it in MY FIRST giveaway too.  So now, if you enter by commenting HERE you might win the whole assortment.  Get your entry in by 6 PM PDT on Wednesday, October 28 and Baby Bee will draw the winner!  Good luck!


I also promised to share some recipes from the 20th Annual Halloween Bake-a-thon.
(I think if something has reached its 20th year it deserves capital letters, don't you?)

Remember this delightful concoction?  Still wondering what it might have become?




Why it made the most amazingly tasty flavored popcorn!  Out of good old-fashioned jello!  Who'd a thunk?  We even made chocolate peanut popcorn with chocolate instant pudding.  Crazy times here at the cottage.





Fruity Popcorn

10 cups popped popcorn
Nonstick cooking spray
1 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 3 oz. package orange or lime flavored gelatin
3 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon light-colored corn syrup

1.  Discard unpopped kernels.  Spray a 17 x 12 x 2 inch roasting pan with cooking spray.  Place the popped popcorn in the pan.  Keep warm in the 300 degree oven while making coating.

2.  Butter the bottom and sides of a 2-quart saucepan.  In the pan combine remaining ingredients.  Cook mixture over medium heat until boiling, stirring constantly.  With a candy thermometer clipped to the side of the pan, stir constantly until the thermometer reads 255 degrees (hard-ball stage), about 10 minutes.

3.  Remove from heat and pour mixture over the popcorn in the warm roasting pan.  Stir gently to coat.  Bake in 300 degree oven for 5 minutes.  Stir mixture and bake 5 minutes more.

4.  Pour mixture onto a large piece of foil and cool. When cooled, break into pieces.

Can't you just picture making red and green fruity popcorn, putting it in a canning jar and decorating the jar with Christmas motifs?  What a perfect gift for a neighbor, dog walker, etc.  Count on seeing that idea showing up sometime in December.

Chocolate Peanut Popcorn

10 cups popped popcorn
Nonstick cooking spray
1 cup honey-roasted peanuts
1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup light-colored corn syrup
1 4-oz. serving-size package instant chocolate pudding mix
2 teaspoons vanilla

1.  Discard unpopped kernels.  Spray a 17 x 12 x 2 inch roasting pan with cooking spray.  Place the popcorn and peanuts in the pan.  Keep them warm in a 300 degree oven while making the coating.

2.  In a medium saucepan melt the butter.  Remove from heat.  Stir in remaining ingredients.  Pour syrup mixture over popcorn and with a large spoon, gently toss together to coat.

3.  Bake uncovered in 300 degree oven for 15 minutes, stirring halfway through the cooking time.

4.  Pour mixture onto a large piece of foil and cool.  Break apart when cool.



Thanks again for stopping by!  Guests are always welcome here at Sweet Bee Cottage.  Hope you can come back again!

Monday, October 26, 2009

Where do you find your inspiration?

I miss all my old magazines - Country Home, Cottage Living, Hallmark, and my favorite, Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion.  They were wonderful sources of inspiration.  I am just grateful that I still have Country Living and Romantic Homes.  I also enjoy Martha's Living and Better Homes and Gardens, but they don't inspire me like my old loves.

So where can I go for inspiration now?  Why to my favorite blogs of course.  This is a little something inspired by  Cherry's Jubilee.






Which led to this.....




And then this.....



A little of that....



 Some of this...



Which culminated in this....



the birthday gifts for the More Creative Friend and the Singing Nun.  In addition to the bake-a-thon, we also celebrate our late summer and early fall birthdays.  The girls each got a Wicked banner (they adore the musical and they keep promising to take me - HINT! HINT!), a framed 31 (for October 31, also inspired by a lovely blog that I can't remember the name of), and an apothecary jar filled with creepies and crawlies.  I hope they enjoy them as much as I had fun making them.  The cottage was really buzzin' that day!

Oh yes! And special thanks to my Cricut machine!  I couldn't have done it without you!

Thanks again for stopping by!  Hope to see you soon!

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Halloween Bake-a-thon! Remember the Giveaway!


It all started here on Saturday morning.......



I just couldn't decide what to make, even with all these to serve as inspiration.  The More Creative Friend faced the same dilemma and after much searching we both decided to make one of the same recipes!  In all these years that has never happened.  The Singing Nun made her always popular rice krispies treats.  We can always count on The Singing Nun to make something with marshmallows!  She even tried to get Baby Bee hooked on marshmallow creme when BB was a toddler!

We started with this....



Moved onto this....





Then we had all these done....



Don't you want to know what this ended up being?

At the end of the day, everything was all packaged up for sharing with friends and family.





Check back soon for recipes and details!

Also, don't forget to enter my Witchy Poo Teapot Giveaway! The winner will be drawn on  Wednesday, October 28.  Go to this page to enter it by leaving a comment.  Baby Bee is looking forward to pulling out your name!

Saturday, October 24, 2009

A little before and after for Baby Bee....

Now that Baby Bee is in third grade, she needed her own little space for homework and special projects.  She is definitely at that 'tween age.







To help her find a space of her own, we took a desk that we'd been storing in the garage and a chair we'd had for about 15 years and painted them.  I used the paint with the primer already in it from Home Depot and loved it.  The coverage was great and it only took two coats.  The chair was sprayed with Peekaboo Blue by Krylon that I picked up at Walmart.  Baby Bee picked the blue to start to get a little bit away from all the pink and green.








We also had the Fabulous Phyllis sew a dust ruffle and a hamper liner for her.  The trundle bed from the guest room was moved into her room and the bed was centered on the wall with bookcases I repainted a couple years ago.  We put in a full length mirror, hung a couple of accordian racks we bought here.  The pink and green paint job with the scallops was done about 3 years ago.  Her bedding is a Rachel Ashwell pattern we bought at Mervyn's about 5 years ago.











After all was done, Baby Bee LOVED it.  She is doing a much better job keeping her room picked up and she feels so grown up with the way the furniture is placed.  Her favorite change is the wall lamp we attached to her bookcase for a cozy little reading light.















Thank you for stopping by and please don't forget to enter the giveaway for a sweet little witchy teapot from HomeGoods that I'm giving away in honor of my actually starting to blog!  You can go here to enter.

Thanks for stopping by!

Friday, October 23, 2009

It's almost time for the 20th Annual Halloween Bake-a-thon! Giveaway alert!



Yum!  Delicious!

This adorable little treat was a product of the 19th Annual Halloween Bake-a-thon.  What's a Halloween Bake-a-thon?  It's where two or more friends get together and create, bake, and make Halloween goodies.  I can't believe it's actually been 20 years.  We started the very first year Worker Bee and I were married.  Somehow it has turned into one of my favorite days of the year.  (We also have the Christmas Bake-a-thon to look forward to.)

The 20th Annual Halloween Bake-a-thon is this Sunday and I must decide what to bring to make with the More Creative Friend and the Singing Nun.  Any suggestions?  We always love cute and chocolate!

Thanks for dropping in!

Oh, before I forget, to celebrate the start of my blog I'm having a little giveaway.  I'm giving away this little witch teapot.  If you would like to be entered to win this teapot, please leave a comment with a way to get in touch with you.

 

So sorry, but entries are limited to the United States and Canada.  The winner will be drawn on Wednesday, October 28 and their name will be posted that same day.  Good luck!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Halloween at Sweet Bee Cottage Part 1

What is it about Halloween that makes me have so much fun with the decorating?  I kind of like the cuter side of Halloween, but a little creepy is fun too.


Somthing new this year is the 31 in the frame.  I have to admit I saw this on someone else's blog.  Shame on me, but I can't remember where.  I just used my trusty Cricut and some scrapbook paper I picked up at Michael's.  The frame was from Walmart.  Simple, but to the point.


The More Creative Friend and I made these several years ago.  I know it was from before Baby Bee was born.  We based it on something from Family Circle or Woman's Day.  They used nylon, but that involved sewing.  Why sew when a glue gun is quicker and easier?  These are made out of felt that we cut from their pattern and then glued together.  Some of these also live in the kitchen.

This is our sofa table and it's one of the first things you see when you enter the living room.  Many of the things on this table have been picked up from Target over the years.  Can you see the black hobnail pedestal cakeplates?  I got those from Fabulous Phyllis at her darling shop Sawdust & Stitches.  (She promised I could blog about the shop when they are ready for Christmas - which is soon.)  The apothecary jar is also from Sawdust & Stitches.  It's filled with some deliciously creepy things.

These Halloween treat bags and buckets have all been used by Baby Bee over the years.  Baby Bee also lets me use her ghosts for Halloween too.  You never know where they might end up!

This is our breakfast nook.  Probably Baby Bee's favorite Halloween decorations are the cat pillow and the pumpkin pillow.  Why do you ask?  The cat meows when you squeeze its tail and the pumpkin plays a spooky fugue when you squeeze its leaf.  Tomorrow Baby Bee's cousins come over for breakfast before school.  I know there will be lots of squeezin' tomorrow morning!

Here's something new this year.  I picked up this wire cake stand from Gooseberry Patch.  More creepies under the cake dome are just the right touch, don't you think?  Baby Bee loved it!


These are some lanterns I picked up at Dollar Tree last year.  Didn't do much with them then, but now I tied them to our entry ceiling fixture.  Got that idea from Magpie Ethel.

I hope you can come by again.  There's even more Halloween to come!

Thanks for visiting!