Recipe for a basketball jersey:

1. Find out Thursday night that Friday is Jersey day at Hoops Camp.

2. Be told by your 9-year-old son that his favorite player is Kobe Bryant (huh? has he ever even seen a Lakers game? oh well)

3. Look online to see what a Lakers jersey looks like.

4. Look for appropriate existing clothing and fabric in gold and purple.

5. Find some:

(Mom's old muscle-T - waaaay too big for mom now...how's it gonna fit him?)

(Ry's old shirt....too small now)

(Mom's old sports top......really really really old and not used anymore)

6. Check for appropriate size by looking at appropriate-fitting tank.

7. Start cutting.

8. Go online and find a Lakers logo and Kobe's name and number and download them, then print them out on cotton laser printer paper that you happen to always keep around.

9. Sew, baby, sew!

And voila:

(Tried to place name and number low enough so hair didn't cover it....turned out a little too low - oh well)

Look, it ain't perfect but it made a 9-year-old very happy....especially when somebody at camp did something wrong and the coaches made all the kids who had NON-California team jerseys do push-ups... he was thrilled.

Today's project - homemade peppermint patties. Yum-yum. I looked up this recipe almost two years ago and never got a chance to make them until now. Why now? Because I'm avoiding finishing my other project....sewing box cushion covers. Whenever I get to a particularly tricky part of a sewing project, I completely retreat to something I know I can accomplish. Ah well - at least I'm getting through some of the recipes on my To Do list.

These are the easiest thing to make ever. I found the recipe here, but I substituted 1 bar of Scharffenberger 70% Dark Chocolate (9.7 oz) for the 16 oz bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips. It was plenty of chocolate and I love dark chocolate.

This is what it looks like in the process:

After mixing and kneading sort of like a dough, it gets rolled out and cut into it's circles. I used the top of a salad dressing bottle. I would have taken a photo of the kneading process, but it was so sticky I had to get a rubber spatula and go over my hands with it to get it all off....not a good combo for trying to use a camera.

Little circles all lined up, waiting for their chocolate bath:

Ahhh.....dunking in the good stuff (and by the way - the recipe says you can put the chocolate in the microwave or a double boiler - I highly recommend the double boiler):

Now fork me out of here:

And let me rest in the refrigerator to firm up:


And finally, the inside of the finished product:



Perfection. But I guess tomorrow I really do have to get back to those covers. Aargh.

It's project time around here....the last couple of weeks before back to school, and I'm feeling the pressure to get things done I've been wanting to do. I didn't know this was going to be something I wanted to do. This is called a French Pigeon Basket Table, and it seems to be the rage right now. Apparently it has been used in the 2008 Coastal Living Idea House in WindMark Beach, FL, which you can apparently enter a sweepstakes to win through September 30 (the home and all its contents).

I actually first saw it on some blog, and my apologies to whoever I'm not crediting....I think I'll just throw a few out there that I like just to cover myself - shelterrific, Etsy, Apartment Therapy, More Ways to Waste Time....okay - I think I'm covered. ANYWAY, it made me a little crazy that it actually costs $1385 + $150 shipping....yup, that's right folks....$1,535.00!!!! Don't believe me? Check here. So you know what happened, right? Yup, that's right....a do-it-yourself project. And here we go:

Okay....so let me explain the differences. I really wanted these for outdoor use for our new patio (more on that in another post)....and I really wanted two, as we now have a loveseat and a chair, where we'll want people to be able to sit and sip a cool drink. I gave Craig's List about 10 minutes of my time, then decided I needed to head out for Cost Plus World Market. While I really would have loved to do it all as a recycle project, it wasn't to be. I found these baskets at Cost Plus on sale - they were originally $36 each....I picked them up for $8.75 each. Since I saved so much money on them, I decided to splurge on two wood trays to put on top to finish the look, instead of the glass on the original. I got two different shapes, because I don't like it to all be matchy-matchy.

Then it was time to go to Home Depot and OSH to get a nice piece of 1" thick wood to mount to the bottom, as well as big castor wheels and hardware to attach it all together. Fortunately we already had some wood stain in the garage for the wood we attached to the bottom, which seems to match the trays pretty well....I kind of like that look!

So in all, how much did my two side tables cost? Surprisely, $199.57 for everything, which breaks down to $99.78 per table. I actually thought I would spend a little less, but the castors are kind of expensive, and of course, the big outlay of $19.99 each for the trays was a lot. Oh yeah....and of course I wanted finish nuts for the inside of the suitcases on top of the bolts just in case I want to store stuff inside and I want it to look pretty (in unison with Scott now...okay-Crazy [crazy being a noun in this case]). Anyway, I did save $1,335.43 over the French Pigeon Basket Table, and frankly, I'm just as happy with the results. What do you think?

Why is this little girl smiling? Click over to Ry and Si to find out!