Cotton & Brass on Store Envy

We are excited to announce the Cotton & Brass Store Envy Shop is up and running! Happy Friday, and have a great weekend!

Garden(ing) Party

The first day that spring arrives is magical. When jackets are no longer required and everything is flushed with color after long days of gray. It’s inspires us to clean out the garden beds and plan for the upcoming years crop. It beckons guests, fizzy cocktails, and fresh flowers.

This day is the one we wanted to capture for our spring shoot and we are excited to announce we are pairing it along with a new shop! We have hand picked a curated selection of items that will soon be featured in our Storenvy shop opening April 19th. Stop back Friday morning for the link.

Happy Easter!

photo property of Christa Kimble Photography

More shots from our Spring Shoot and our upcoming Pop Up Shop coming soon!

Triangle Quilt Tutorial – Part II

Once (or even before) you have the triangles cut out it’s good to get an idea of how to arrange them. Here is a simple template that I created. I quickly realized that I would need many of these to get it is just right. Having this road map will make the next step MUCH easier. So download the template below and print it out, as many times as you need to.

quilttemplate

Spring Fever

Green Bicycle print property of Christa Kimble Photography

Spring is almost here! We tend to hibernate during winter in Ohio, despite our best efforts, making spring all the more lovely. Here’s a few things we’re excited about:

• Spring Forward is March 10th this year! So early!
• Cadbury Eggs and Peanut Butter Eggs
• Celebrating Spring with a new lipstick
• Sandals and Dresses with bare legs
• Recipes that are not soup
• Spending more time outdoors…entertaining, walking, running, biking, etc
• Gardening–we’re planning an awesome Garden themed shoot complete with garden and entertaining inspiration, tutorials, recipes, and the launch of our first ever pop up shop. We can’t wait to share the results!

What are you most looking forward to this Spring?

Happy President’s Day

For the Love of Flowers

In celebration of Valentine’s Day we put together a little floral arrangement tutorial for you. Everyone appreciates a hand-made gift and you will be sure to surprise your loved one (even if that’s you).

Supplies
• 8-10 big bright flowers (ranunculus & poppies)
• filler flower (wax flowers)
• green filler (leather leaf fern & eucalyptus)
• vase
• sheers

step one
Set the shape of your arrangement by placing in a couple of structure pieces. I detest ball shaped arrangements so I usually place one taller bigger piece on one end of the vase and a smaller shorter piece on the other and try to follow that throughout. I cut each piece by lining it us against the vase then cutting the stem at an angle under cool water (not shown).

step two
Start adding in your bigger brighter flowers. Try to scatter them and don’t worry if they stick out a bit – the filler will fix that. Keep stepping back to make sure your not veering off of the main shape you had in mind.

step three
Add your filler flower. I like to make mine slightly shorter that the big bright flowers.

step four
Add in more green filler. If you have started to lose your original shape this is a great place to add filler where needed to re-create it. Don’t be afraid to move flowers if you feel like you need to – just do it ever so gently. Keep turning and adding until you are satisfied (or in my case, until the vase can not hold anymore).

*scrap bouquet*
It is inevitable that some blooms will break and you will have leftover filler. I always have little bud vases or jelly jars near me to create miniature bouquets from the scraps. No reason to let a pretty flower go to waste!

Have a lovely Valentine’s Day!
xoxo – Cotton & Brass

All images property of Cotton & Brass and Christa Kimble.  You are welcome to post, pin or share, but please link back and give credit where credit is due.  Thanks!

Triangle Quilt Tutorial – Part I

Quilts are often thought of as daunting “I can’t do that” projects. But really they are not so bad and you only need the most basic sewing skills to do a patchwork quilt like this one. I’ve made several quilts for friends and have been planning for a while to make one for myself. I’m going to blog it as I go (so posts will be spaced apart). The supplies and steps will be based on each specific part of the tutorial.

Part I is incredibly easy. We are going to create a cardboard template to use for your triangle patches. You are going to want this to be as perfect as possible. If it is off even slightly it can skew the whole quilt. We will then use the template to cut out 420 triangles (for a queen size quilt).

Supplies:
cardboard
a triangle
utility knife
ruler
pen
10 yards of 44″ wide fabric (I would go with at least four different fabrics and feel free to just use scraps until you have enough squares)

Steps:
1. Take you cardboard (I used a scrap from a box) and measure 8″ on a clean edge. Mark.
2. Use your triangle and ruler to create a perfect 8″ square based off of the clean edge.
3. Connect opposite corners to create two triangles and use your utility knife to cut.
4. Carefully trace the template onto the backside of the fabric and cut out.
5. Repeat 420 times

*hint* alternate to the second template half way through as it will start to wear after a while.
*hint hint* stack the triangles in piles of twenty to easily keep count

Wax on Snow Recipe

This is a summer tradition for our family. My grandmother boils down maple syrup from our cousin’s farm while little fingers and mouths wait anxiously over pans of snow. When I was a kid we would eat it until we were sick. Today we don’t give the kids that chance. I decided to try my hand at it for New Years Eve Brunch.

The snow is pretty important. It should be packed down icy snow (almost like slushy ice). If it’s to fluffy the hot syrup will sink right through it. One trick it wait until you have a few snows right in a row and dig down the first one. Another trick is to just use a slushy machine.

Supplies
• 1 cup maple syrup (you’re going to need the real stuff)
• a tall pot
• small tupperware container of clean snow
• candy thermometer (optional)
• pan of clean snow

Directions
1. Bring the 1 cup of maple syrup to boil in a tall pot. It’s going to bubble up and you want to let it reach the “soft ball” stage. This is when it’s thick enough that it drizzles off the spoon, not drips. Or 230 degrees on a candy thermometer, around 20 minutes into boiling. Don’t let it go past this!

2. Test the “wax” on the small tupperware container of snow. When it’s ready it will firm up into a taffy like texture once it cools on the snow. Ideally you can stick a fork in it and swirl it around the prongs.

3. Once the tester passes pull the wax from the hot burner and drizzle onto the pan of snow. You should be able to get a couple rounds from one pan.