Everlasting blossoms for my living room

Everlasting may be an exaggeration, but these blooms will last through a couple winters.

These are dried hydrangeas.

Do you know what's an amazing thing about hydrangea blooms? When you cut them to bring indoors for a vase, you don't have to do much of anything to produce lovely dried blooms.

You simply fill a vase with water, trim the stems of your blooms, remove excess foliage, place the stems in water, and allow them to dry, as the water evaporates.

I've done this the past couple of summers. It always amazes me, because so many other flowers don't look so great after a few weeks in a vase of water. But hydrangeas do dry so nicely, and so easily. They fade some, as they dry, and then a bit more after drying.

I think they're beautiful. Delicate, china blue petals. A remembrance of summer, when the winter light is dim and icy.

Confetti cupcakes, just for fun

Kids like rainbows of color. And frankly, so do I! Those "funfetti" cake mixes are always a hit for kids' birthday cakes and cupcakes. They're also fun, just because.

I had the occasion to bake a just because, fun treat item last week. But I was short on time, and wanted to bake from what I had on hand. What I did have was all of the ingredients for vanilla cupcakes, and some rainbow sprinkles.

My cost for the confetti cupcakes was about 73 cents, plus 12 cents for cupcake liners. That's about 7 cents per cupcake. Not bad for a fun treat, just because.

• My scratch vanilla cupcake recipe, for 1 dozen (cost 61 cents)
• plus, 2 tablespoons rainbow sprinkles from Dollar Tree (about 12 cents worth)
• plus, 12 cents for the cupcake liners, bought 100 for $1 at Dollar Tree

Here's the breakdown for one dozen cupcakes, halving a recipe for a 2-egg yellow cake (this recipe, here):

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour (7 cents), flour bought at $12 for 50 lbs
3/4 cup sugar (10 cents), sugar bought at $19 for 50 lbs
1/4 teaspoon salt (1 cent)
1/2 tablespoon baking powder, or equivalent substitute in baking soda/vinegar (2 cents)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (4 cents)
1 egg (7 cents), eggs bought at 79 cents per dozen
1/2 cup milk (6 cents)
1/4 cup butter (24 cents) butter bought at $1.89 per lb

(Your costs may vary, according to prices in your area.)

I could have shaved costs on these cupcakes, by subbing oil for the butter, and using imitation vanilla in place of real vanilla extract, but I like the flavor of the butter and real vanilla. Ain't nothing like the real thing, baby.