Crafts and Artsy stuff

Molasses — that dark, sweet liquid that tastes so good on a hot biscuit — was once a staple on every farm in eastern North Carolina Melvin Price and Lucy making molasses My dad’s family made molasses and to him molasses on a sweet potato was a meal. He told me all about how they… Read more

Vollis Simpson, called the Junkyard Poet of Whirligigs and Windmills by the New York Times Vollis Simpson is a craftsman of brightly painted metal art – giant creations he calls windmills and we call whirligigs. Driving through eastern North Carolina looking for Lucama and Vollis Simpson’s Whirligig Farm, you begin to wonder if you are… Read more

Want to make a special gift for the cook in your life? And for not much money? Homemade Vanilla extract is the perfect gift – everyone cooks. But not all vanilla beans are equal. If I can even find vanilla beans in eastern North Carolina, they are usually all dried up. But with some diligence… Read more

It’s magic — those tiny lights that twinkle in wine bottles at Big Mill Big Mill Bed & Breakfast The idea is really simple: just drill a hole in a glass bottle and push the lights in. Guests here at Big Mill Bed & Breakfast ask me all the time, “How do you do it?” … Read more

I saw my first Brown Bag Cookie Mold in the early eighties in a tiny shop in Virginia Highlands, a small Yuppie neighborhood in Atlanta, where I was living. This love affair has never ended. I have St. Nicholas from the 1983 collection, which was the first year they were made. The Brown Bag name comes from… Read more

When  holiday seasons approach I have to try to shed the Bah Humbug attitude. The best way for me to do that is to make something pretty or make a gift for someone. My mother and I used to cook and bake fudge, brownies and cookies and we made all our decorations mostly from things we had… Click to see how to DIY dried frut