Planet Nice Crafts

  Hello Everyone! Finally, some rain the past week which lead to a few free hours to write to you instead of setting up and watching sprinklers. I hope the summer has gone well for you so far. Funny that kids are going back to school next week but summer goes until September 21 technically. The emphasis as of late has been the garden, not just watering, but feeble attempts to contain the weeds, harvesting, cooking, and taking photos. The longest duration harvests have been kale and poppy seeds. The green beans came in with a flourish but were finished and just not looking very good, so they were extracted and a few bean seeds planted in their place. The tomatoes have started ripening, the fruits are big and tend to be very juicy and messy. The peppers look great and just started too with the tomatillo and ground cherries not quite hitting their stride yet. The cucurbits - cucumbers, watermelon, and pumpkin - are growing and doing battle with the cucumber beetles. We ...

  Welcome Back! I know it has been more than a couple days.. On to the actual craft part. Here is an updated photo of the embroidery for the earring box. It is about half finished. At first, I was really unsure but I think the colors and the textures make this interesting. I foresee substantial patience being required when covering the box top with the fabric and then doing the final fitting to the bottom. I finally tried a recipe that has been in my recipe folder for 10 years or so. It was for Grasshopper Pie by America's Test Kitchen. I don't remember why I originally put it in my folder, maybe I was having a pie fascination at that time too. It was a success and better than the apple cider vinegar pie in April for a couple reasons. The crust is made of mint oreo cookies. The filling is basically whipped cream so not recommended if you have health restrictions - Planet Nice Crafts wants to promote good health on the blog, not bad! To obtain the grasshopper, you add crème de ...

Hello Everyone! Hope all is moving along and tolerable. Planet Nice Crafts continues to strive to be an antidote to life’s burdens – at the moment, slightly different interests are being pursued to accommodate a new work schedule that only allows an hour or two each week for creative activities requiring full energy. As mentioned at the end of the last post, reading is the interest that has grown in dedicated time. Since last time, the second volume of the fantasy soap opera A Clash of Kings by George RR Martin was completed. Now that I am oriented to Westeros and Essos and the players – it is becoming easier to read and cutting myself off after my daily reading goal of 20 pages helps too. The characters are so richly written that you do become emotionally attached to them, akin to a feeling of familiarity to your favorite dysfunctional family. The unfortunate thing of reading such a lengthy book is that by the time I reach the end, I can’t recall what occurred in the first chapters....

Hello Everyone! The wintery weather continued from the end of last month to last week and now we have a very Springlike forecast. I am going to acknowledge right at the beginning that I have no video to share this month. I need to think of interesting 10 second snippets of the projects to share. Luckily, there is plenty to show this month as the exploration of pies continues and progress on the box was made. The first pie to be examined was a savory kale pie. This pie was the opposite of last month’s vegan beet pumpkin – it had lots of butter in the crust and filling ingredients included sausage, mozzarella cheese, eggs, and cream. For all the pies shared this month, one of the first steps was a partially baked pie crust: Do you see the butter pooling? Here is the filling of the kale pie that was placed into this partially baked crust: Another crust was placed to top of the pie before the whole thing baked again to reveal this treasure: Very flaky, decadent crust – the filling gave m...

Hello Everyone! I hope 2021 has treated you well thus far – even with the remaining challenges. It has been pretty good here at Planet Nice Crafts. The weather has been mild up to about a week ago and then normal, wintry weather kicked in but still very nice. As much time as possible has been devoted to crafts and experimental baking. Baking and cooking are somewhat unique because they provide adventure and immediate benefit, something to eat. So if there was a choice between baking or cooking and crafting when the fridge and freezer are quite bare, you can guess which one wins. Food brings community across the animal kingdom. With the addition of safflower seed to the birdbath, winter visitors have been numerous and all are welcome. The cardinals have been daily visitors. They provide entertainment and are not demanding so I would put them in the preferred category. I think it is interesting to watch the interaction between the females and males. I have never seen them eat at the ...