Artisan Bread From My Oven!

I recently had the pleasure of marrying a wonderful man named Ryan. I received a multitude of fabulous gifts as a result. One of my favorite gifts was a pizza peel, a pizza stone, and the book "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day". The first chance I had I cracked open that book and read. The theory behind the book is that you make a large batch of "wet" dough (no kneading required!), let it rest on the counter, and then stick it in the fridge for use at a later date (up to 2 weeks later depending on the recipe you choose). Once you get the jest of the process, it is pretty simple and requires little effort. Here are my results:

Here is the dough after a 2 hour rise on the counter top. This is a super large Tupperware bowl. You really only need a 6 quart container with a loose fitting lid. 

You simple form a portion of the dough into a ball (no kneading!) and place it onto the floured peel for an hour and 40 minutes.

Here is a pic I took of Ryan and Rhubarb while waiting for the dough to rest on the peel.

Here is the dough ball.

Once rested, I floured the ball and slashed a shell pattern on the top. 

Here is the beautiful baked loaf fresh out of the oven! Amazing. 

Here is a sideways picture of the book. Definitely worth picking up. It's easy to follow and for people who are starting out in the bread baking world, this is perfect. There are tons of blog posts about this book so I am not going to post detailed directions or the recipe, but I am telling you to give this a try. You won't be disappointed. I have a batch of dough for pizzas waiting for me in the fridge and this week I intend to attempt a grilled pizza on our new infrared charbroil grill. Can't wait! 

Free-Hand Embroidered Deer

For Mothers Day this year, I wanted to make something really unique for my wonderful mom. I decided to embroider something that could be hung up in my parents room at their cabin. My maiden name is Buck, so I thought it would be nice to do something with the animal of the corresponding name. I found the picture below and had an idea of what I wanted to do, a sort of stained glass mosaic pattern on canvas.

I traced the deer onto the canvas and began embroidering triangles. I did these mostly free hand and did not feel the need to take the time to draw the lines on. I did draw lines for the legs at first until I got the hang of what I was doing. 

Close Up!

Extreme Close Up!

           I added a little outline of Minnesota to personalize it a bit. Oh Minnesota, my home sweet home.

The antlers were the most difficult, but I think they turned out well in the end.

I alternated colors and did a simple satin stitch for the insides of the triangles.

I left the Minnesota patch empty so that it would stand out and I liked the end result. 

Here is a close up of the filled in triangles. I forgot to take the final picture before giving it to my mom, but will try to get one soon! I framed it in a modern frame and it now hangs in their cabin bedroom. It was a challenging, time-consuming, but rewarding project. Plus I love the way it turned out. Making something like this for my mom made me appreciate her all the more. She definitely deserves more than a store bought gift and I think the hours I poured into this embroidery were well worth it. Love you mom!

DIY Burlap Flower Wreath

After acquiring a cheap grapevine wreath from a garage sale I did some looking around to find options for creating something new with it. There are wreaths galore on pinterest. I decided to use a fabric flower technique that I have used before when making hair clips. I wanted an outdoorsy/rustic look that would be versatile and could carry over from summer into fall.

Here is the finished wreath hanging on the pillar outside our home. 

I started by cutting many circles out of tan burlap. They were about three 2.5 inches in diameter. Each flower  needs 5-6 circles.

Take each circle and fold it in half.

Fold the circle in half again.

Next, on the side where two sides meet (look below my thumb in the picture above), fold each flap back on either side. This is a little hard to show in a picture, sorry! Looking at the picture below, this petal is half finished. The flap that is at the bottom would then be folded back up towards my ring finger. 

Now, thread a needle and tie the thread to a button. The button will not show, so it can be any size/shape. This is so your thread won't slip through the burlap. Pull the needle through the burlap where a point has formed (like a tiny slice of pizza).

I find that it is easier to stack a few of these little "pizza slices" and thread them at the same time. You will want to keep all the pieces stacked so that they do not spring apart in all directions before you have them all on the thread. Next, let go of the pieces and pull the thread tight. Then tie the needle side of the thread onto the button.

This is what the bottom of your burlap flower should look like. Clip any loose threads. 

Here are a few of the flowers.

Burlap sheds like crazy when you cut it. I sprayed my flowers with cheap hairspray which works great to keep the flowers together and stops the shedding. 

I had some green burlap on hand and decided to make a few flowers out of that as well. I then hot glued the flowers to the lower right hand side of the wreath.

Finally, I sprayed the finished wreath with more hairspray. A lot of hairspray actually! This wreath was going outside and I didn't want it to be affected by wind and rain. I can vouch for the fact that this wreath has been up for a couple of months and looks the same as it did when I put it up. Yay!

Here is the finished product. The only thing that I would change would be the color of the burlap. The tan color is a little too close to the grapevine color. It looks very nice close up, but far away, it is a bit hard to see the tan burlap. Luckily, burlap comes in many colors and this could easily be done in colors to compliment your home or for holidays (red/green, black/orange, etc...). So go make your own burlap wreath!! It was easy, fun, and I love the end result. I hope you will too!