A few days ago my daughter said, wistfully, “Remember last summer when we did a craft project every day?”. My first thought was, wooo hoo! I made an actual memory for my kid! and it was a good one. Parenting win! My second thought was, dammit, how am I going to do that again?  Then I got an email from Beth (of Sew Mama Sew fame) telling me about an online summer crafts camp called the Summer Camp Adventure Club. Problem solved.

What is the Summer Camp Adventure Club? I’ll let Beth describe it:

Summer Camp Adventure Club is a subscription-based, online “camp” (an eCourse/online class) where Pre-K through 3-4 grade campers get fun, new ideas every day throughout the summer. There’s a new theme every week in June, July and August. Each weekly theme includes tons of inspiring projects, activities, journal prompts, downloads, recipes and more. Kids get the inspiration and guidance they need to work more independently to create projects they love.

Full disclosure: I was given a free month of club membership in exchange for spreading the word, but honestly I’m going to purchase subscriptions for July and August. I could be my normal cheapskate self and do it all myself (with the help of my pinterest boards), but with three little kids running and screaming around the house day in and day out, I don’t always have the brain power to think up, organize, and get a project going for the kids.  Summer Camp Adventure Club to the rescue! Come on, join the club!

Have you been following along with Jess and Kristin’s Vintage May? These two bloggers teamed up to show off handmade vintage-y kid’s clothes all month long. Many amazing bloggers have been making many amazing garments and tutorials too.  Today, hey, it’s me! Head on over to skirt as top to see more of this button up shirt made from a vintage sheets.

1. post  2. post  3. post  4. post  5. post  6. post 

While I was making this shirt, I started to think of all the other things I’ve made from vintage sheets. I used to be skeezed out by second hand sheets. All that yardage in awesome prints, though? Hard to pass up.  To over come my heebie jeebies, I wash the sheets a few times with extra hot water and let them dry in the sun. When you iron the sheets that thrift store smell appears again, but I power through knowing after I sew whatever it is I am making, I will never iron them again. All the projects above are new sheets made from old sheets (and one quilt). I’m a genius I know. We have extendable beds from Ikea, so the kids’ beds are all different weird sizes.

1.post  2.post  3.post  4.post  5.post  6.post  7.post  8.post 

Clothes from vintage sheets are much more fun. I think pajama pants from sheets and pillowcases are my favorite, but obviously I like a good floral tie too. More boy’s button up shirts from flowery sheets are definitely in my future.

When I am frustrated with a project, but not frustrated enough to pour a big glass of wine and watch some trashy tv, I make pillows. We have a lot of pillows. Tell me I am not the only one who does this. Do you turn to simple projects to make you feel better when you are failing miserably?

The fabric for the new ones are, from right to left: some ikea fabric left over from the crib bumper, plain old random blue fabric (some of which is half way to being shorts for my son), and this awesome drop cloth print by Jay McCarroll.

One more too, because that Wiksten tank I’m trying to fix is looking pretty Becky HomeEcy. This print is by Geninne who did a lovely line of organic fabric for Cloud 9.  I fell for it when Erin made this top (it seems the wiksten tank is haunting me).

Usually, I hold off posting recipes here until I have the exact measurements and directions for making it, which means I never get around to sharing any recipes with you. Dinnertime is always crazy and often straight up chaos. My cooking style has become a few glugs rather than tablespoons, half a palm full rather than teaspoons, and whatever cup-like thing is in reach rather than a cup, because the actual measuring cups are in the sandbox. But I still want to share some recipes with you. If you keep in mind that my ingredient measurement are estimates and the directions are guidelines, then I think we’ll be okay.

Lamb and Feta Burgers with Tzatiki

for the burgers:

• 1 1/2 – 2 lb ground lamb (I like to make a lot to insure I can have some for lunch the next day)
• 4 or so oz feta
• 1/4 cup (handful) chopped cilantro or parsley (a little mint thrown in there is nice too)
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• zest of one lemon
• salt and pepper

for the tzatziki:

• about 6 inches of a cucumber, peeled
• 1 cup good yogurt
• 1 clove garlic (optional, my children think it’s too spicy, silly children)
• salt and pepper

directions for the burgers:

1. Put the lamb in a big bowl with the garlic, herbs, and lemon zest. Crumble the feta into the bowl as best you can, smallish is better but really if there are big chunks it doesn’t matter. Mix everything up with your hands. Salt and pepper the mixture liberally.

2. Shape the patties. I usually make them on the smaller size: 3 inches, I’d say. Obviously any size is going to work.

3. Fry or grill those suckers until they are done to your liking.  If you end up frying them, use only a bit of oil in the pan because lamb gives off a lot of fat.

for the tzatziki:

1. Grate your cucumber into a bowl

2. Put all of it in your hands and working over the sink squeeze out the excess water–there is a lot. See unsqueezed, squeezed cucumber photo above.

3. Add your yogurt. As a side note, I really love this whole milk yogurt. We used to get the Stoneyfield yogurt, but then they very abruptly stopped making the cream on top kind and now their yogurt just tastes like gelatin to me. Obviously I’m picky and should probably make my own, but until I stop being lazy this Super Natural yogurt is totally delicious.

4. Add chopped garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. That’s it. I’m going to show you this picture because when it’s all mixed up it looks rather boring.

Tzatziki is delicious slathered all over the burgers. The kids use it as a dip. I try to get away with not even putting the damn ketchup on the table for the kids, but one of them usually remembers (the picky one).  We don’t use buns, but you of course could. To round out the meal, I use the rest of the cucumber for a salad and then make some other vegetable. That night it was peas (because I was so freaking busy taking pictures), but sweet potato fries are perfect with this meal.

There you are. This is dinner for two adults, one first grader, one garbage gut of a 5 year old boy, and one very picky toddler. Adjust to the size (and size of appetite) of your family.

It’s not all wine and finished projects in these parts. Trust me there are plenty of half done–half assedly done–things shoved in various corners of my studio. This afghan is not destined for one of those corners (I hope). It is actually coming along quite nicely.  I fell in love with this vintage afghan that Miss Rachel from Smile and Wave picked up at her local thrift. I had been looking around for crochet patterns I could use to make a blanket for my son, but nothing seemed right until that blue number popped up. A commenter on pinterest pointed me to a pattern on ravelry called the Vintage Fan Ripple Stitch Pattern, which turned out to be exactly the same as the original afghan. I went out and bought a bunch of yarn the next day.

I liked all the blues in Rachel’s blanket, so I stuck with that and threw some gray in for good measure. Ravelry came to the rescue again when I ran out of the light blue yarn I was using. The heathered light blue was by Berroco Vintage, which I had in my stash, and when I went back to my local yarn store for more they were all out. After a look on the interwebs, I discovered Berroco didn’t even make that colorway anymore. Luckily there was someone on ravelry who had two skeins of it for sale! I don’t know why the two rows of light blues look different in the photo–trust me they are not. Oh also there are more nerdy crochet details on ravelry. 

The other half done project is not coming along as nicely. The first time I made the Wiksten Tank it was nice, but it was a smidge small.  So I cut a medium this time. Well turns out the first one wasn’t small, it was just that the material I used didn’t have any give to it. The medium is too big everywhere and if I try to take the sides in, the wide set straps make me look, umm, beefy.  I can’t shove it in the corner because this fabric was expensive as hell. So here’s my plan: I’m going to cut this tank apart, cut the small from it (a little lower down), and then add a band of color to the bottom. What do you think? I picked up some navy linen that I think will work. I’m hoping it won’t look hackneyed.