Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Kitchen and Garden.

Apologies for the silence this last month — have been in the midst of wedding planning madness. I took a brief pause yesterday afternoon, however, to wander the forests with a friend and take advantage of the bounteous harvest this year’s warm, wet summer has brought.

My first batch of hand-picked wild Finnish bilberries! They were exceptionally plump and less than a ten minute walk from our apartment! Will definitely be going back in the coming weeks to get more for immediate baking and freezer storage. I’ve always been an opportunistic forager so finding a place to do it so close to home is very exciting. We also came across some nice patches of mushrooms, but I’ve never been a big fungi fan, so gladly let my friend take those all back with her.

Lessons I learned from yesterday?

1. My poor knees are obviously not used to extensive exercise — they are still a bit sore from all the crouching involved. This will happily fix itself with repeated use, however.

2. Mosquitos can still get you through thick tights. Will have to switch to jeggings next time and hope that they break their beaks on denim.

3. You can never use too much bug spray, especially when it’s warm and humid and you’re sweating buckets.

Hope everybody out there is enjoying their July as well!

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Kitchen and Garden.

Just a quick pictorial update of what’s been going on in the VK garden. June is the first month here when it’s warm enough to work outside daily and leave seedlings in the ground with no fear of frost. So, this past week and this coming week will pretty much be a gardening frenzy as I try to make up for a late start.

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

So, as most of you probably know by now, I’m in the midst of planning for our upcoming fall wedding. I’ve been talking to people here and there, but it’s getting hard to keep track of who has seen which pictures I’ve put up over the course of all my research and shopping. So to remedy this, I’ll start putting up my design planning stuff here and the finalized event plans on our more official wedding page. This way, I can share the pretty pictures with all my friends who can’t make it out to Europe due to distance/cost/what-have-you. First up, dresses! And also, rings — our engagement ones, that is. We have those on our hands at the moment, but the dresses are still being made. Will parade around and take a couple of snapshots when it arrives, and hope my bridesmaids will do likewise

Notes: We had the rings made by Renaissance Jewelry on Etsy. The dresses are being made by Lightinthebox.

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

One hour project for a weekday morning! And really, most of that work time was just devoted to ironing the thing out and measuring it. I decided I needed more skirts, so that’s what this second elephant sarong became. As simple as cutting it in half length-wise and adding elastic to the waist. Well, the bottom hemming did get a bit tricky. One half of the skirt used the natural hem, but I had to fiddle with the other half because it was cut in mid-pattern and thus the hem looked messy and incomplete. So I covered it up with a strip of simpler pattern, which gave it a more finished look and also added some weight to the bottom of the skirt. It is very light cotton so wearing it anywhere windy might be asking for trouble!

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

I didn’t have a lot of time to browse for fashion-related stuff this trip, owing to our tight shooting schedule. However, I did stop by the mall next-door on my penultimate day and browsed haphazardly through several stores. Had to be careful with my purchases because I was getting close to the weight limit for my luggage. Luckily, jewelry is light and could be stuffed in my hand luggage.

Dangly robots! Chunky roses! And a charm necklace that just screams “wear me to work”! Ah, Topshop — Forever 21′s older sibling with a better PR rep, but the same instantly-gratifying-yet-ultimately-disposable standards of young fashion. Basically, the foundation of any cash-strapped stylist’s collection.

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

Hmm. I’ve decided to change the name of my film projects category from “Hollywooded” to “Last Looks”, in recognition of the fact that I am no longer confined to one city for my costuming ventures. Whee! (And no, we didn’t have that many costumes for this particular film, thankfully. It’s rare that an entire project’s worth can fit on one rail, so I had to take a picture to chronicle it.)

The comfy little studio we shot at earlier this week. The notes for this post say that I’m supposed to talk here about the fashiony-costumey stuff that I’ve been doing while out here on my latest project. However, I think that’s best saved for a big wrap-up post after this whole thing is done so I can summarize and put it in an more appealing narrative format. I’m also supposed to post pictures, but there aren’t really that many of those other than the standard boring continuity ones, which get tossed in the portfolio folder only after a project is close to finishing post production. So instead, I will post really random photos and ramble a bit.

Almost exactly a decade ago, I flew out to western Pennsylvania to spend the better part of a month working on my first full-length feature. I was, randomly enough, doing makeup at the time. That made things sort of confusing for a while, because it became my first IMDb entry and people wondered what I was up to with all the department-hopping. It was a year of firsts, really — I was just starting to find work as a crew member, had never been further than a day’s drive from my parents’ house in Orange County, and was just getting involved in my first serious (but very questionable) relationship. That project became memorable not so much for the film itself (I never even saw a finished version of it), but for what I ended up learning about myself, other people, and life in general. Amusingly enough, there was wishful speculation back then of moving far away and possible finding work doing that sort of thing in London.

Given the funny way that life spirals back around, here I am again spending the better part of a month away from home (this time, in Finland) at the beginning of the next stage of my life. Leaving behind a decade’s worth of crazy Hollywood tales to start over in another show business town and see where this road leads. In a place that once was classified as just this side of fictional. Here on another independent feature, though this time in a much more suitable department. Still annoyed with the long-distance relationship part of these trips, but greatly assuaged by the existence of Skype and knowing there’s a welcoming home and family to come back to. So many more things worked out now, and yet so many echoes of that first experience. Being able to see everything with new eyes, while still being able to work with the assuredness of experience is really trippy. I keep on having these dazed out-of-body moments, wondering what that much younger version of me would think of where I am now. How she might have imagined the destination but never the convoluted path I took.

Having somebody apologize for how London wasn’t Hollywood earlier this month was just plain hilarious and wrong, somehow. If it ever became that way, where would I escape to then?

What happens when you put the hot water dispenser in a room with no ventilation. Instant sauna!

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Kitchen and Garden.

Anybody who has been around me for the past several months has probably heard me bemoan at some point or another the scarcity of shellfish in our vicinity. There’s nothing fresh and alive, most certainly — which has made it difficult to continue with my “Food That Moves” column for the foreseeable future. However, more frozen options have been appearing over the past few years, so we’re not entirely high and dry. The frozen mussels are pretty decent, frozen squid is readily available for calamari-makers, and lately there have been beautiful raw frozen tiger shrimp showing up that have made me very happy. And in fall of last year, I even started seeing these guys popping up:

Wee frozen cooked lobsters from Canada! Given, they are what I call “buffet sized” — meaning they’re the sort that you typically find at seafood buffets that advertise lobster. You know, the ones where they give you a ticket and everybody’s only allowed to claim one lobster dish, which is comprised of a teeny tiny tail and loads of sauce? Still, it’s an improvement over no lobster! At 8€ ($11.64, currently) a pop for 10.6oz. of lobster, it’s not something that we’ll probably get on a regular basis. Remember the live 7-pounder I got at the Asian store for about $30? Oh, Cali. For a special treat, however, it’s perfectly adequate.

Popping the bug out of the bag to defrost in the sink. It looks so sad, all bricked up in ice like something found on an archaeological dig.

Mr. Lobster, defrosted and rinsed. I’ve had jumbo prawns bigger than this little baby, back at home. I didn’t even need any heavy tools to open him up. Just bare hands, a fork, and a pair of kitchen scissors.

Wee bits of meat —  tail and two claws only, since the legs were too tiny to get in. Heated them up with a bit of butter, then chopped up the pieces and put them into a sushi roll with some avocado. There was just enough meat to make one fat roll, sliced thinly to serve two. Pictures next time, when my rolls don’t look quite as messy The meat actually held up very well! It tasted sweet and lobstery, didn’t really suffer from the trip over at all. Good freezing technology on fishing boats these days!

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

I saw this ingenious cat washing bag on Amazon the other day and just had to share it, since I know several of you have furry friends at home as well. Really, I wonder how it took so long to come up with something like this, considering the centuries of cat washing injuries that people have sustained in the name of feline hygiene. This is a vast improvement over the make-a-towel-into-a-bag-and-toss-the-screaming-cat-in method that I’ve been resorting to as of late to get Coco’s nails clipped. She’s too slippery to stay in a burrito hold for long, you see, so the only other choice is to envelope the entire cat, then fish around with your (heavily gloved) hand inside the bag until you find the right paw and carefully pull it out through the one available opening. It’s not particularly graceful or stressless, and the howls coming from the bag probably make the neighbors think I’m boiling it alive. But it works, dammit. However, if I could get my hands on one of these puppies, life would be a breeze. Zippers for each extremity! And it’s made entirely of mesh, so you can dunk it in water and wash the cat in the bag! Brilliant!

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Kitchen and Garden.

Here is another canned delight from Sweden that brought I back from our trip this past December. Given, this one came straight from the grocery store’s prepared foods aisle and not from a gourmet food boutique. The first picture is slightly misleading, since I mixed a bowl of rice into the can o’ stuff. That disk-shaped lump of white matter on the spoon should be a clue, though.

If it helps, here’s what the stuff looks like in the can, prior to being served. Any clearer?

Alright, then. If you’re still stumped, click to go behind the cut…

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Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

Today, I’d like to share with you a small fantasy of mine. It involves going to Alaska and smuggling home a muskox. See how fluffy and cute they are? Aren’t their noses just adorable? Who wouldn’t love that face? Besides being cuddly and decorative, muskoxen produce a highly valuable wool fiber called qiviut. Much like the muskox it came from, qiviut is ridiculously soft, warm, and durable.

Since the Inuit collectives who farm these creatures probably would not take kindly to my trying to kidnap one of their four-legged income sources, I will probably have to settle for merely obtaining a garment made from qiviut. For the past ten years now, I’ve been trying to justify spending a few hundred dollars on a single lacy shawl or nachaq (lovely cowl-type neck accessory). Southern California weather was not kind to me in that regard. After this past frigid Finnish winter, however, I think I finally have a very good justification.

A gorgeous traditionally-patterned lace cowl made of fuzzy, happy, non-scratchy, 8-times-warmer-than-sheep, shrink-proof muskox down, hand-crafted by adorable little Inuit ladies sitting in their merry knitting circle. I must have one!

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Kitchen and Garden.

Like almost everybody else who has had to shop for their own groceries throughout their university years, I’m on very friendly terms with instant ramen noodles. Living in Southern California, however, we had a wider selection in this category than the rest of the country. The Japanese, Chinese, and Southeast Asian stores would all import their own home-grown brands, often in awesome random flavors with no English translation. They were invariably authentic, despite being, essentially, packets of dried noodles with MSG powder. There were also the American varieties, of course, which tended towards the saltier side of things but were flavorful enough in a pinch. I had a ramen craving late last fall and bought several packets to try out. These are my very biased reactions as a noodle-loving Asian-American living in a Northern European country where East Asian food of any variety has not made that much headway yet. They are here mostly to remind myself for future shopping trips, and also so you can see what happens when I’m too lazy to cook.

Blue Dragon is an UK-based purveyor of Western-made Eastern condiments and food staples. I’ve tried several different items in their range, since they seem to be the most commonly stocked line at most of our supermarkets. These items have varied from very decent to shockingly bland — enough inconsistency to make it necessary to have notes to refer to when shopping. And, as you can see, one of my favorite ways of having ramen is with 2 poached eggs and some veggies in the broth.

The first one up was Blue Dragon’s 3-minute Noodles in Chow Mein flavor. Now, when I bought this, I was slightly puzzled as to what that exactly meant, since chow mein translates to “fried noodles” and that doesn’t really specify any flavor, other than perhaps soy sauce and oil. So in that regard, I guess I shouldn’t have been entirely surprised when it ended up tasting exactly like plain unflavored ramen, despite my having added in the packet of mysterious brown powder it came with. I guess I should be glad it wasn’t overly salty, but I was mostly just confused. There was a bit of an artificial smell while it was cooking, but I couldn’t tell if that was due to the noodles or the bit of melted plastic that was left on the burner from when T boiled his new floorball stick in one of my pots to shape it. Oh, confusion. This is not an offending flavor, but it is highly forgettable and really needs something more added to the bowl to give the dish any sort of personality.

Next up was Blue Dragon’s 3-Minute Noodles in Crispy Duck flavor. This one definitely had a stronger taste, though whether that was supposed to be duck or something else was somewhat hard to tell. It was some sort of meat byproduct. There was also a bit of an aftertaste reminiscent of duck skin, so I suppose that makes this something of a success. After tasting the broth on its own, I did add a few bits of Finnish bacon (less fat) to the mix, so the end result was actually rather tasty.

The last offering from Blue Dragon was their 3-Minute Noodles in Won Ton flavor. This one had a more pronounced taste than the first packet, but less than the duck flavor. It was like the watery essence of pork wonton, I suppose. I went on the offensive this time after just a brief broth tasting, and added a couple dashes of soy sauce and sesame oil, then topping everything with the crunchy bits left over from some of  my old udon packets. The end result was very satisfying. Yay!

My final take on this particular brand? It’s not really worth getting the “flavored” pre-packaged noodles. It probably *would* be worth getting the plain unflavored noodles that they also carry and then flavoring it myself with a mix of homemade soup stocks and spice blends. Has to be healthier than powdered preservative packages.

This one was a pleasant surprise — our local market also carries a few varieties of Mama Noodles, an actual Thai brand. They stock mostly the “safe” flavors (chicken, shrimp, etc) but also have Shrimp Cream Tom Yum Flavor, which I was very quick to grab. Tom yum of any sort always scores high on my list of favorite soups, so it was a no brainer. I got the “jumbo” packet, which came with a very healthy portion of noodles. I decided to toss in a can of crab meat with this particular batch, and it definitely added to the seafoody flavor. I’ve also added frozen prawns to this stuff before and that worked out even better. This brand comes with a few different flavorings that can be used together, separately, or in different proportions — besides the standard powdered flavoring mix, it also gives you two plastic envelopes — one with chili oil and one with a flavor paste. I usually go light on the chili since I’m a spice wimp, but use all of the other two packets. The result is a strong-tasting soup that definitely echoes “real” tom yum. As one reviewer said, it will do in a pinch, and I’d say living in the land of no Asian restaurants definitely falls into the “pinch” category. This stuff made me happy after the several mediocre encounters with other ramens last year and it is still something I like to pick up when I need a quick noodle fix.

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

Yep, I got another pair. Handmade sterling silver bunnies with the most adorable giant eyes.

They’re from Etsy designer Giedre Koloksanskyte. She makes several other little animals as well. I kinda have my eye on the sheep and the cats…

Did I mention they’re seriously teeny tiny? Each bunny is just 1cm wide, so they don’t feel bulky at all. Perfect for spring

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Kitchen and Garden.

I did quite a bit of gardening last year, but didn’t get much of a crop by the end of the season because I’d started my seeds too late. Here’s a pictorial retrospective of last year’s various horticultural endeavors to hopefully encourage me to get some seeds started earlier this year.

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Kitchen and Garden.

Today’s Mystery Meat comes to us courtesy of the specialty foods store in Stockholm Arlanda airport.

Yeah, I know I won’t win any points for classy presentation with these photos, but these were just quick snacks that I snapped pictures of on the way to the table. Were I serving this for guests, I’dve probably chosen a nicer plate, prettier crackers, and encased the pâté in a pastry skin or something. But that wouldn’t have looked as much like a mystery meat, would it? These tasty chunks of pâté were a fine example of native Scandinavian wildlife. That ought to be more than enough hint for most of you. Anybody still wondering what mammals they were made from can peek behind the cut…

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Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

As many of you know, I am a child of yuppies. This meant that, growing up, I wore a disproportionate number of polo shirts and dainty floral prints. A bit of this deep, dark past still lives on in my fondness for all things Laura Ashley. I also happen to have a big thing for coordinated comforter sets, ever since my parents bought me a gorgeous burgundy jacquard ensemble to take away to college many, many years ago. So it seemed pretty obvious, when we moved to our new apartment a year ago, that the first thing I’d need to feel at home was a well-decorated bed.

A bit of online shopping and a few weeks for shipping later, this was the result. I picked blue and white for our first set as a nod to our new country. And also because I wanted something light and airy to take advantage of the bright light we get from the bedroom windows. The simultaneous use of various floral prints, gingham and eyelet just make me happy. I have a feeling a lot of my decor choices have to do with stuff I wanted as a child.

The top layer is the Laura Ashley Sophia 8-piece ensemble. Sadly, the extra cushion covers and shams were not available or I probably would have gotten the entire set. Yes, I do have something of a matchy-matchy complex Incidentally, the smaller cat ADORES the bottom flounce — it keeps her very well hidden when she dives under the bed to avoid being seen.

The second layer, which is mostly hidden under the more decorative comforter, is a comfy white down comforter 6-piece set. Mostly there because I’m used to having at least 4 layers of blankets in the winter. It’s not strictly necessary, since we have excellent indoor heating in this apartment, but I still find the weight of lighter blankets very inadequate from decades of conditioning.

The one year anniversary of our move has me contemplating getting another decorative bed set now. We could definitely use it so that I can change out stuff more easily when it needs washing or airing out. Not sure what colors I’m going for this time, though, since I’d also like to start changing the curtains to match. Maybe something with a splash of lemon yellow or poppy orange? I’ve been feeling the need for citrus colors to bring back some of that California feel, lately… Anybody got any favorite discount linen stores that sell online and deliver internationally?

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Kitchen and Garden.

In mid-September, Rauma really takes on the port city role and has a weekend seafood festival called the Baltic Herring Market. There are other tents selling local crafts and freshly canned produce, of course, but the main attractions are the several large fish booths set up smack in the middle of the event. We went to take a look around last year…

One of the stalls, selling dozens of varieties of pickled fish, mostly herring. Pickling being one of the favored ways of preserving seafood in these parts.

Smoking fish is the other vastly popular way to preserve it. Several different varieties of smoked fish at this booth. We bought a couple of these for dinner.

A booth that was plank smoking their salmon fillets right there and then.

Another view of the big smoking fire. This is the only time I’ve seen this being done — I believe smoking is usually done in a more confined setting, but there’s something so awesomely rustic about just having a giant fire there.

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

I just finished making this. It is my first sweater. It is also the first full thing I’ve ever knit. I’m rather happy with the result. It actually looks more boobtastic on me because I tend to wear my belts a bit higher (short torso and all) and have a bit more curve than this form does.

So my recent crafting timeline looks something like this.

Two months ago, I visited my buddies in Turku. We visited a local yarn store and talked a lot about yarn, crochet, sheep, and general winter craft stuff. I returned home with a deep need to Make Things again. I immediately dug out my yarn stash and crochet hooks, which hadn’t seen the light in nearly a decade, and started churning out small project after project until my hands felt like they were ready to fall off. I also started using my Ravelry account for the first time in months, and ended up with a to-do queue that would probably clothe a small island nation.

A month and a week ago, I went to visit my very first Finnish friend and expressed regrets over never really learning to knit. She, figuring there was no time like the present, whipped out some needles and a ball of yarn and patiently demonstrated Continental knitting for me right there and then. I think she might have had to correct every other stitch I made in those first few agonizingly slow and clumsy minutes, but I finally saw where everything was supposed to go. Something actually clicked and made sense this time around, probably because I’d been scrutinizing stitch structures so closely for the past month. Later that week, I went out and bought my first pair of straight knitting needles. This was quickly followed by a pair of circulars.

After doing a few stitch sampler blocks for my in-progress patchwork afghan, I went for my first project. The first thing you’re supposed to knit is a scarf right? Well, I tried.  It wasn’t meant to be. Figuring it as an all-or-nothing sort of deal, I set my sights instead on the real goal of learning to knit — full-sized garments. Finding the simplest-yet-still-wearable sweater pattern possible, I cast on and tried my luck. The first week of sweater-making went well, right up until I reached the neckline and botched the entire thing by not understanding what “add second ball of yarn” meant. The entire project had to be frogged because my stitches were too tight to pick up after dropping and I learned a hard lesson in monitoring my stitch tension. Some time during all of that, I mail-ordered a cute little kit of KnitPro interchangeable circulars.

Starting over again, the sweater grew a lot faster since I knew what I was doing and my hands had developed enough muscle memory for me not to worry as much with my stitches. I learned to increase and decrease. I learned how to join yarn by felting so I wouldn’t leave a messy knot in my wool garments. I learned how to add a second ball of yarn so that my neck hole could actually fit a head through it. Ten days after my second start, with only a few further fumbles, I had an entire sweater. Sure, there were a few inconsistencies — I used a needle half a size larger than recommended because the store where I shopped didn’t carry the size I needed at the time. I compensated by making the sweater a size smaller. Turns out I could have gone two sizes smaller, but live and learn. I also misread the pattern a bit and ended up with a garter stitch side seam stripe rather than just an edging along the bottom vents. This ended up looking like a nice design detail, actually, and helped hide my less-than stellar handseaming. Chose to not add a garter stitch cuff to the wrists, since the arms were already quite long on their own and I rather liked the rolled edges. I ended up with something closer to a tunic — a few inches more and it could have been a mini-dress, really. Done up with a belt, big necklace and leggings, it actually fits right in with the stuff currently in stores. Go figure.

The real kicker? All the lecturing I got from teachers back in school was right, much as I hate to admit it. Blocking does wonders for smoothing out the details. This was how the sweater looked immediately after finishing. It was all fuzzy and smelled like five different hand lotions plus two cats. The stitches were kinda bumpy and the hems were flipping up in odd places. I’m usually far too impatient to block things neatly, so I tossed the thing in the washing machine on wool setting, figuring it would have to get a taste of what I was going to put it through normally. I put it onto the dressform to block dry and come back in the morning to find a light, comfortable sweater tunic with lovely smooth stitches! This might just be enough to convince me to hand-block my next sweater, if it comes in pieces. Woohoo!

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Kitchen and Garden.

Yes, Mystery Meat is back! Because I’m really too curious for my own good sometimes. Here’s something from this past winter:

It does look like caviar and cream on toast, doesn’t it? That’s probably why I decided to try this stuff out — one of the things I miss the most about SoCal is the variety of fresh seafood. You could easily get at least five different kinds of fish roe at the local Japanese market. Not so much the case here. The only stuff they have is salmon roe, and even those are teeny tiny in comparison to the plump marble-sized ones we had back in OC. Mmmm, salmon roe.

Anyway, love of fish eggs drove me to try this stuff out. But as you know with anything featured on Mystery Meat, it ain’t what it looks like. Click below to see what I really bought…

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Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

A while back, Cim mentioned a pet peeve about Finnish apartment shelves in her blog. I’d meant to respond to that, but for some reason never got around to doing so. Considering the amount of time I’d put into figuring out a system that would take advantage of deep shelving, I thought I’d babble on a bit about it in this spring cleaning post.

The problem is this — most US shelves are made to accommodate just one row of folded clothing, typically making them about 12 inches deep. Give or take a few. The shelves we have here in this apartment measure 20 inches deep, and I’m guessing that Cim’s are similar because most apartments around here seem to be made from the same cookie cutters with minor alterations. 20 inches is deep enough for 2 rows of stacked and folded clothes, which can get annoying if you’re trying to get at the back row of stuff for some reason or another. The only way to make everything openly accessible in the shelf is either to ignore the extra space and only use one row, or to have everything chucked in a giant messy pile.

Now, I took a three-pronged approach to making the most of these problematic shelves. For the top couple of shelves, I keep folded stacks of out-of-season clothing (such as thicker tights, thermals, and layering sweaters now that spring is here) in the back row and put the in-season clothing in the front row. Then I just switch them around depending on the season and keep the stuff I don’t use out of sight. For the middle few shelves, filled mostly with t-shirts, tops and jeans that get constant use year-round, I fold or roll the shirts longways and stack them like skinny logs. I can identify which is which easily this way and just slide out the needed garment like a Jenga puzzle piece. Then, there’s the socks and underwear drawers. I’m not showing my underwear to anybody, but here are the socks:

The ones in the box are in season. The ones outside the box are going out of season. The ones outside the box and near the front are still usable, but get slowly pushed to the back as they become unsuitable for the time of year. You can see the long woolen socks and leggings starting to migrate to the back in this recent photo. These two lower shelves slide out, so it’s easier to organize and pick things out than with the upper shelving.

Besides the shelves, there’s also the garment rack that I use for dresses and skirts (anything that can’t tolerate prolonged folding), the hanging wardrobe for out-of-season outerwear, and the hallway wardrobe for in-season outerwear. Plus the folded and rolled scarf, glove, shaped hat and flat hat drawers. A place for everything, yo. I am not giving a full photographic tour here because it’s not entirely to my liking quite yet and I plan to do some rearranging soonish to fix that. But yes. Funny thing, closets.

Speaking of hanging things, this is something I whipped up last fall to keep my jewelry in check until I get a proper jewelry box that can handle all my earrings. I’ve got tons of colorful lace that I’ll never actually use on any clothing, so it seemed as good an application as any.

It’s also nice to have all my jewelry hanging on the same rack as the dresses — makes it tons easier to pick something that matches without having to go hunting for different containers. We do something similar but more utilitarian for keeping outfits together on the racks when working on projects, too.

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Kitchen and Garden.

I actually only bought two amaryllis bulbs this past winter — one in October and one in November. Between them, I got 5 stalks of flowers over two months. The 1-stalk bulbs we were getting in Cali must have been serious runts. Sorted below in order of growth — the bigger bulb really put on a show, giving us two large flower stalks in the first month, then another stalk in December before sprouting its leaves. The smaller one first gave us a wimpy flower stalk and lots of leaves, then relented and gave second stalk later. Overall, a great holiday show. Will definitely get a few more to put around the house for the 2011 holiday season, hopefully in a bigger variety of colors.