Felt Farm

What is made out of wool and felt, has black beaded eyes, is 'born' on a farm in West Virginia, and can be worn on your neck?? Stumped? We figured you might be....

That would be Nancy Bevins "Motley Mutton" creations.

We stumbled across Nancy's felted farm friends when we were perusing Etsy and were just *smitten* with her creative usage of wool and felt.  It isn't that often that you come across a piece of jewelry that just makes you gasp a little (and not in that "Tiffany blue box" way that makes anyone a bit lightheaded) but in the way that you simply cannot comprehend how someone could be so creative -- or nuts! Hey, they're usually intertwined and go hand in hand, and we love it!

And, of course, we couldn't be more pleased that there is a fox on the Motley Mutton farm. So quirky... we are impressed :)

Go check out her website, and let us know what you think! Even if you would prefer not to wear such a critter around your neck, you can't help but appreciate her originality!

Until next time, 

J & J

Beach Time

Nothing like laying on the beach with a good book in hand...warm sun on your face and a breeze coming off the water.

Enough about the beach...has anyone seen the new Harry Potter movie?! You should go this weekend if you haven't already. We thoroughly enjoyed it! The movie stuck to the story pretty well and only left out a few of the smaller things. Can you believe that the last book is going to be divided into two movies?!

Until next time,
J & J

Cheese

We love cheese...a lot. I mean we really love cheese. We think it's the bees knees, the cat's meow, it's so yummy in your tummy....aaahhh, cheese. (Soy cheese = worst invention ever)

This weekend I was visiting my boyfriend up in Virginia and we went to a great little market in Williamsburg. It's one part really nice grocery store, one part sandwich shop, and one part cheese counter. Makes for a tasty late lunch or afternoon snack. Here's is the plate of cheese we got. We picked the cheese and they add bread and dried fruit to accompany it.Don't you love the wodden plate and knife the serve on?! The cheese on the left is a mild cheddar layered with stilton, the dark brown is cheddar with port, I believe, and the one on top is a double cream brie with herbs (AMAZING!). If you have never tried a double cream brie please go to your nearest Whole Foods and get some. It was one of the best cheeses I have ever had. We almost fought for the last bite. :)

Go get some cheese, crackers, wine/beer, have a good snack and let us know what you got to enjoy.

Munching Away,
J Squirrel

3/50 Project

Image from 3/50 Project website

Anyone heard about this? We heard about it this weekend down at the Atlanta Gift Show and thought it sounded like an awesome idea. Being in the "single shop" retail world we know how hard it's been for smaller stores recently. We urge you to learn a little more about this project and try it out if you can.

"Pick 3. Spend 50. Save your local economy."

Shop well,
J & J

A Squirrel's Guide to Fashion

This squirrel has been the highlight of our week. His name is Tommy Tucker, hehe. A friend sent the link our way and we spent nearly half an hour giggling at all the pictures. I wish we could get the pictures on our blog, but it wouldn't let us copy them and we're not that technically savvy. So, go check them out and let us know what your favorites are. We're fond of the the butcher shop (since when do squirrels eat meat?), the nurse outfit, and bedtime. :)

Enjoy!
J & J

Kudzu Antique Market

We love rooting through other people's old stuff!! So, going to the Kudzu Antique Market is a perfect hour of amusement for us. If you haven't been you should definitely check it out. It's totally worth it. It's got everything you could imagine and everything you couldn't imagine. We took a quick spin through the other day and here is what we picked up.

A set of four small drinking glasses with "Souvenir de la Fete" engraved on them for J Squirrel. $7 for 4 = good deal. Great for a refreshing summer cocktail.

J Fox brought home a lovely mermaid statue. I think it was about $20, so a little pricey, but she's been looking for a mermaid statue for so long that I wasn't going to let her leave without it. She LOVES mermaids...almost as much as she loves Tim Riggins. We brought the mermaid to the store to do a little photo shoot with some of the merchandise...it was just too fitting not too.

Oh...and the best find of the day, which I don't have a picture for, was a pair of Sevens Jeans for $4 dollars!!! What a deal!! That's why we love antique markets...you never know what you're going to go home with.

Happy (antique) Hunting,
J & J

FNL

Dear Diary: I have an unhealthy obsession with 'Friday Night Lights'

... and I don't even like football.
Help. 

We here at Squirrel & Fox love us some 'Friday Night Lights' drama and have found it so addicting and habit-forming that we will likely need some OCD meds pretty soon to control ourselves. 

We love this NBC show for its fabulous cast, its "real-life-ness", its drama, humor, romance, and the nostalgia it conjures of our own memories of highschool. Oh, and not to mention  #33 TIM RIGGINS...  Um, Abercrombie & Fitch called, and they want their coverboy back! Good grief!

Expanding on the hit feature film and best selling book "Friday Night Lights," this poignant series centers on the small rural town of Dillon, Texas, where the coveted state football championship rings are held in the highest regard. 

This award-winning show has all the drama and eye candy you could possibly need to keep you coming back for more (...or purchasing all 3 seasons from Amazon.com at 2:00am! What?! Who does that?!!)

We love the family dynamics of the Taylor family, and the relational drama acted out by Lyla, Jason, Riggins, Tyra, Sarason and Julie....

We encourage you to check FNL out... and we promise that you will be at the least entertained, if not addicted, after a few episodes. So get your fabrics and metals and beads and papers and paints out... (and perhaps a few Kleenex) and Netflix an episode or two to watch whilst you craft away, and let us know what you think! 

But don't bother trying to steal Riggins from J Fox or QB1 from J Squirrel - there's already been stalking warrants issued to both on behalf of NBC and the actors' publicists ;-)

Crafting

We've been trying to come up with a good project to do for a "craft night" get together and our friend Shell came up with a great idea. Key fobs! What is a key fob you say? Well, a key fob is a "medallion used to identify a key ring" (thanks Wikipedia), but we just called them cute, fabric keychains. We started with piles of fabric and spools of ribbon, a really good sewing machine, and templates cut from a Cheez-its box. (By the way, we love Cheez-its)

New fabric from Hobby Lobby.

Old, maybe even vintage, fabric from my mom's stash.

We had a great production line going with one person cutting fabric, one person ironing and the one person sewing.

My sister ironing down the edges of the key fobs.

After about three hours of crafting fun we ended up with 17 different key fobs. They are so cute and they were soooo easy to make!

The metal keychain rings we got from Michael's and the metal fob we found on a website that specializes in webbing and hardware. Don't you love how much you can find through a google search?!

Let me know if you would like to know how we made the key fobs. I can try to put together a tutorial or at least write out directions.

Happy Crafting!
J & J

Refreshing Drinks

I wanted to do a little something different for our girl's night "out" this week. Instead of the usual red or white wine I wanted something light, cool, and refreshing since it's been so darn hot here in Georgia! I found some fun recipes to try out from my July copy of Real Simple. (Love my Real Simple subscription, thanks boyfriend!) Below you will find the drinks I made and how I did it. Try it out the next time you have guests over and let me know how it goes!

Cucumber and Lime Spritzer
3 limes cut in thin circles
1 small cucumber cut in thin circles
some sugar (about 3 tablespoons, but I don't measure)
chilled Seltzer water (depends on how big your pitcher is)
Muddle the lime and sugar in the bottom of a pitcher, add the cucumber and seltzer water. Serve in fun cocktail glasses, and here is what you get:

Very refreshing and crisp. You get a taste of the lime and seltzer first, but the cucumber hits your tongue at the end. Kind of interesting for those of us that don't really like cucumber all that much. (Tray and yellow pitcher are both estate sale finds and the glasses are from the Kudzu Antique Market)

Next up:

Iced Tea with Plums and Thyme
5 to 6 tea bags - black or herbal (I used red zinger)
2 plums sliced
6 or 7 sprigs of Thyme
Make tea and add sugar or honey to sweeten(I didn't sweeten it). Let tea cool to room temperature then add plums and thyme. Refrigerate and serve tea chilled, with or without ice, and here is what you get:

I'm not sure how I feel about this drink. I couldn't really taste the thyme or the plum. :( Next time I would probably add the thyme and the plum in while the tea was still warm to see if the flavors came out with the heat. Either way it was fun to try something new and the cool drinks were certainly refreshing for a warm night in Georgia.

Back tomorrow,
J Squirrel