Initiation: Creation

New blog!

2011-11-15T09:31:00.000-05:00

I know I have been pretty lame about posting here (mostly because I haven't made much besides cakes and delicious dinners lately), but I've decided that it's mostly that I am out of the habit of being creative.

Therefore, a new exercise: I will write one poem every day of the week, not counting weekends. The original plan was a poem a day, but 1. that blog name is taken and 2. I most likely won't write on the weekends anyway since I am a total flake. Therefore, I present to you: Weekday Poems!

Please be gentle with me there at first... I am very out of the habit of writing poetry!

Sewing monster

2011-03-03T15:59:00.001-05:00

For serious—all day Tuesday I was a sewing monster. I bought a bunch of Magnolia Lane by Laura Gunn fabric, and I just couldn't resist making something with it ASAP. Look at the gorgeous tote bag and made:

Using the teal Painter's Canvas and Magnolia Branch

And look at this one!!

Painter's Canvas in teal again, along with Textured Plaid in Turquoise

Hmmm.... notice something uncanny? (Besides how messy my craft room is because that is totally normal for me?) The similar colors, the pretty much identical straps, perhaps?

...

OH SNAP, I tricked you!! It's a reversible tote bag!!! I have one bag but when I go out on different nights I can pretend I have two!!!! (Not that I really go out a lot but still!!) Since I couldn't find a reversible tote bag pattern that pleased me, I decided to make up my own using this pattern from Weekend Designer and this pattern from Skip to My Lou. I think it worked out pretty well, as long as you don't count that I forgot a pin and sewed it in between the two layers, never to be retrieved. You will be missed, pin, especially since I think you were one of the purple ones.

Since I know myself well enough to realize that attempting to use this tote bag in any shape or form to move around my everyday belongings would result in a dark, evil, pit of chaos at the bottom of the purse, I also decided to use the pattern from Fresh Crush to make your own purse organizer using scraps and a cereal box. I don't eat cereal, so I'm using a box that once held cocktail wieners. I eat a lot of those, which is also probably why I can't fit in most of my jeans. I should eat cereal instead, even though it is gross and always ends up soggy. I haven't finished it yet, but as soon as I do, I will post a pic. :)

A parade of foods

2011-02-24T12:00:00.003-05:00

Well, since I have been so lax about posting for the past couple of months, I've had a lot of photos log up into a giant, quivering mass hiding somewhere on my boyfriend's computer, since he is the one with the magical camera and all. Of course, now that I have started writing in my blog again, I have developed all of these incredible plans of crafting and sewing and embroidering, which involve me purchasing somewhere around 20 yards of fabric that I don't really need unless I do end up completing these grand plans. Phew. It's so exhausting, I wasn't able to make any progress this week, other than planning. I'm not even going to bother making promises—they will happen or they won't.

Anyway, back to the subject, which is one of my favorite subjects, might I add: food. Delicious, succulent, savory, sweet, rich, scrumptious, delectable, toothsome, wholesome FOOD. Food is one thing I can say with certainty that I would surely die without. Anyway, since I've made quite a lot of delightful and enticing treats, I figured I'd put in a cut, then begin my little food parade.

Since I was going to be working on filming a test movie with Wax Idiotical, I decided to bake some cupcakes. Since I had read and drooled about Bake It in a Cake's Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes, I just had to give them a try:

Ok, I admit it: I nibbled, not cut, to get it perfectly in half.

I think they came out quite splendidly. They were delicious, and lasted ages.

Next up: beef empanadas:

You can see me in the tea kettle!

I think my dad was over when I made these? I am not really sure. I am sure that I just completely made up a recipe after looking at approximately 18 thousand other recipes, and decided that none of them were exactly was I wanted. They were fantastic. I cheated and used premade pie crust though.

Date night time!

Candlelit dinner for two.

I don't really remember why we decided to have a cheese and wine-type dinner, but it was fabulous and romantic. Also, incredibly easy. I love laying out platters and salads in fancy ways for reasons that I cannot begin to explain (because I don't know them), and so laying out the bread, cheese, apples, and grapes was very gratifying.

Another dinner for two, this time, pappa al pomodoro with chianti:

Lookin' fancy!

My boyfriend actually did the bread and tomato and basil thing on the plates; I did the fancy soup configuration there. FYI, if you are not familiar with pappa al pomodoro, it is stale bread soup with chunky tomatoes and basil. (Ever had pasta pomodoro? Kinda like that, but with bread instead of pasta.) It is the ultimate comfort food—carbalicious, warm, and sticks to your tummy.

Ok, I think too much savory is happening in this parade. I think it's cupcake time again:

tropical party time!

These are pina colada cupcakes with lime cream cheese frosting that I made for my friend's End-of-Summer party. I used I'll Eat You's Man with a Tray cupcakes recipe, and added a considerably greater amount of coconut rum in the syrup the cupcakes are soaked in. Yum!

You may be thinking now, 'Wow, this is a really long post. It will probably be over soon, right?' Wrong. This is going to be a while. You should probably take your bathroom break now. And also get a snack, because I don't know about you, but writing this is making me soooo hungry.

Next up: roasted pumpkin!

No picture of after it was baked because we ate it all.

For a couple weeks before Halloween I kept an adorable little sugar pumpkin in my cubicle. On the Friday before Halloween, I left work with my adorable little sugar pumpkin tucked safely under my arm. I took it home, butchered it, covered it in brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon, and baked the crap out of it. It was heavenly.

And here's a little bit of an action shot of me in... action... >_>

The nice kitchen belongs to my bf, not me. :(

I'm making some kale with balsamic vinegar (my most favoritest veggie to eat ever) and pork tenderloin with a savory strawberry sauce that is my own recipe. Maybe I will post it on my food.com recipe book and share it with y'all—it is wonderful and easy. Plus, who can go wrong with a recipe that has brandy in it, amirite??

This one is mostly because it is a neat picture:

That's me holding another favorite topic: booze.

This was actually an attempt at a mai tai that went all sorts of wrong. I read the recipe, which included lime juice. So, I added lime juice. Simple, right? Wrong. It was sour and horrible and did not make me think of languorous lounging on a beach like it should have. So I added a crapload of grenadine and a couple cherries, and all was well. Then later I figured out that the recipe actually meant sweetened lime juice, not the straight juice I had used. It tastes a lot better when I make it now, but doesn't look as pretty.

MOAR CUPCAKES!

Made for my dad's birthday

I actually made these somewhere around forever ago and just never posted the picture, so I figured I would do it now. They look so pretty! How could I not share!?

Ok, are you ready? Cause this is the last one. For now. Unless I find some more pics and decide to insert them in the parade because I am mean.

Tapas!

For Valentine's Day Dinner with my boyfriend, I got lazy and decided we were going to do "tapas." Namely, Trader Joe's pastry pups, TJ's feta cheese and carmelized onion puffs, and my should-be-famous wine-soaked strawberries on cheesy bread. Maybe they would be more famous if I thought of a shorter name. Maybe, snorfles? I certainly snorfle them down whenever they're in my presence. Heh.

Anyway, vague future plans include embroidery, quilts, dolls, clothes, and tote bags. I'll keep y'all posted. Probably.

Chocolat

2011-02-17T12:22:00.005-05:00

Do you remember that film, Chocolat, with Juliette Binoche as a charming chocalatier and Johnny Depp as a rapscallion manouche? I could probably watch that movie at least a million more times, and listen to the soundtrack at least three more times after that. I love seeing the creamy, luscious ~~Johnny~~ melted chocolate and the perfectly tempered chocolate sculptures, and that roasted chicken with the chocolate mole in that dinner scene. Now I'm getting hungry.

Anyway, I always think of that movie whenever I make chocolates. I haven't quite the same amount of skill—making chocolate from scratch using rocks or whatever is definitely out of my skill set. However, tempering and molding chocolates, and making truffles and chocolate-coated fruit? I can totally do that.

Oh yeah. Totally.

I don't know what it is about Valentine's Day. I'm not really all that big on celebrating it. But I love it because it means it's that time of year when I make chocolates. :D So, in there we have regular chocolate truffles, bonbons with white dots on top that have mocha truffle inside them, striped/zig-zaggy bonbons that have butterscotch truffle in them, yin yang bonbons that have nutella in them (because my bf loves it and it was easy), pink marzipan hearts, chocolate-covered strawberries, and chocolate-covered cherries.

The cherries were fun—I was thinking about making cherry cordials, but that involves a lot of effort and waiting a week and stuff like that, and seeing as I was making the chocolates the day of when I was planning on giving them to bf, I ended up just coating them in vanilla sugar and then chocolate. The result is absolutely scrumptious. Maybe if my bf reads this he will send me one of his fantastic closeups of the cherries, since my camera did a shoddy job, and his camera is made of magic and rainbows and generally takes good photos. Bf was definitely a fan of the cherries. Yesterday I suggested that I might make a double-layer box of just chocolate-covered cherries for him for his birthday, and he looked like he was going to cry with happiness. So I guess they're pretty good.

ETA: Picture from bf! Huzzah.

Beautiferous.

Anyway, since I made bf chocolates, I also had to make him a card. I'm not the best at papercraft or love-dovey declarations of love-dovey-ness, but I figured I'd give it a shot using a piece of cardstock, a heart-shaped paper doily, and my paper cutter:

See. It's a heart! Folded in half! With things cut out of it! Magic!

I thought I did a pretty nifty job. I like simplicity, so I figure this worked out pretty well. No peeking for you at the love-dovey declarations of love-dovey-ness, though! :P I'm guessing my cat approved of either bf or my efforts, because she wouldn't go away when I tried taking pictures. (In the picture above, she is behind the card because of the way I angled myself.)

Or maybe she just likes being the center of attention 24/7.

Speaking of cats, my other cat just clawed the crap out of my poor, legging-covered knee because it was absolutely imperative that she be on my lap RIGHT NEOW possibly because I was paying attention to the other cat via a computer screen. My poor legs.

Welp, I will probably post next week. Looks like Thursdays may or may not become a Thing. I make no promises. I've been doing a lot more work on my Tonner goddesses; a little at a time. Maybe I will post my progress next week. I've also been working on some silly embroidery that I might also post; I just need to finish the Q! But it's hard. :( Until next time!

TomTom ThingThing the second

2011-02-10T12:28:00.000-05:00

Well, hey there, blog. Didn't see you there! Ok, I've been pretty awful about posting. Let's just pretend I went through the whole apologizing spiel. I was laid off last November, and you would think that with all this extra time, I would be crafting my buns off. While I have been making a lot of things, I haven't really been finishing much. Plus, it feels like I have even less time now than I did before. I also feel like I now spend half my life cleaning, but that means that my apartment (and especially the craft room!!) is no longer a pit of chaos due to depression and general laziness. I still haven't finished organizing my craft workspace, but it's a big improvement.

Anyway, I wanted to share the first thing I did when I found out I was laid off:

Blue!!

The prototype TomTomThingThing most likely would have remained the only TomTom thing thing except for the fact that it was annoying to close and was made of really thin craft felt. Eventually I felt compelled to buy some luxuriously soft and thick felt from FitzFelt in 3mm turquoise.

Then I got laid off, and to distract myself immediately got to work! It was actually a great deal of fun to make, and I'm glad I practiced first with the crappy felt so that I figured out an approximate pattern without wasting expensive felt. I still have a bit left, and I'm not sure what I am going to do with it. Probably nothing. :P

I'm especially fond of the embroidery:

Flowers? Leaves? Not sure what they're supposed to be besides pretty.

Usually I draw patterns and then embroider them... this was all spur-of-the-moment freehand. Actually, I didn't really finish this until today... I'd been tucking the outer flap inside the case, and hoping it stays. Today I added the band and the sweet little antique button:

From the giant pile of buttons from my grandma. <3

Anyway, since it's almost Valentine's day, my annual chocolates should be coming up. (Did I ever post last year's??) So I will probably be posting that. Also, I will be hopefully posting all of those other things I have been working on.

Ummmmm

2010-08-26T10:56:00.001-04:00

Sorry, I haven't been posting. Or creating much. I have a couple entries that I have been meaning to write, but I haven't had the time or energy. I'm thinking that I will start knocking this down to once a week—twice a week was good at first but now I just don't have the time.

So

2010-08-02T17:05:00.002-04:00

I should have posted today, and last Thursday, but I didn't. :( Sorry.

My company's knitting club meeting is tomorrow—I think I will finish my hat to replace the one that I lost last year. And then I will make a matching scarf! :D

Evil Princess Lady Barbie

2010-07-26T08:00:00.004-04:00

So just to keep you on your toes, I've actually working on what I said I would work on in my last entry. Although I kind of forgot to post on Thursday.....

No matter!

Now there is actually something to post about! Ha!

I think sewing a villain doll is making me talk more like a villain in my head. And I write the way I speak. My apologies that you have to deal with this. Anyway, after two failed attempts (curses!) to create a bodice this morning, I got some coffee and finished the majority of the dress for Evil Princess Lady.

She looks evil, right??

The ribbon belt is a stand-in until I actually make one, which will be black. Although maybe I will use the ribbon somehow? I kind of like the contrast. I haven't really decided. I also haven't decided whether to give the dress sleeves—that's why the edges are unfinished on one side of the sleeves of the overdress. Everything needs to be ironed so that it doesn't stick out, and so that the seams are flat.

The underdress is actually two pieces, since sewing them together would have been too much work. No idea what the fabric for either is—it's all from my scraps. I think I might also add in some black embroidery on the black overdress. I know it won't photograph well, but I think it will look fancy and evil ~~when I play with her~~ in person.

And one more pic of her, for putting up with me so far. :P

holy crap!

2010-07-19T08:00:00.001-04:00

So I actually got some stuff done this weekend!

First, and most importantly, I started to clean out my craft room, so it is no longer the Pit Of Chaos, Cardboard, And Also Polystyrene, but the Home of Some Mild Cardboard-Related Chaos. Now I can walk out to my balcony without having to employ any wiggle maneuvers to get there. I still have a bunch of boxes though... how did I get so many!? If anyone needs some boxes (or giant pieces of cardboard), I am your go-to person right now. My floor is still covered in fleece scraps, though, because I finally finished the.....

NINJA BUNNIES!!!!!1111ELEVENTYONE!!

I am FINALLY mailing these puppies out to the folks in the craft chain I am doing. They are so soft and cuddly. I want to keep one for myself. They are also sneaky!

Those sneaks snuck into my living room!

They are made of fleece, and their ears are held up with recycled cardboard. :P Their tails are little pom poms. I love their little ~~bums~~ tails, and I got a photo of one as it was running away!

bun bun bum bum

Anyway, I also did crazy hair and makeup this weekend, and took a bunch of photos, but I don't think that is the sort of thing I should post here... And I also started drafting out a dress for my Evil Princess Lady Barbie, from that Novel I Haven't Actually Written Yet. She should be easy, though—I'm only doing a partial repaint, and I am leaving her hair as-is. Gotta say, though, I am not a fan of the Model Muse bodies... chicken legs! And no bendy limbs! :( Hopefully her dress will be done by Thursday, or at least started.

I lied. No ninjas. Yet.

2010-07-12T08:01:00.001-04:00

I have been really bad—I still haven't finished one of the ninja bunnies for the craft exchange I am doing! I finished one, but I don't want to post a picture until they are mailed out. Just in case.

I have done a little bit of cooking the past weekend. I made cupcakes for a fabulous housewarming:

Mmmmmm...

I warned everyone that tasting my chocolate buttercream would ruin chocolate frosting for them for forever. But no one listened! They ate my delicious cupcakes anyway. :D

I can haz sprinkl?

Someone at the housewarming had my camera at some point, and took a couple of photos of my cupcakes.

This one was my favorite.

Of course it makes my cupcake look way more tasty. -sigh-

I also made a mickey mouse pancake for the first time!

Pay no mind to the mushroom tin to the right.

But really that is all I did this weekend that was vaguely creative. I have been bad! Sorry. :(

End of hiatus (hopefully!)

2010-07-01T08:00:00.003-04:00

I know I promised on my twitter I would update, so here it is! I don't really have anything too interesting to share. I am going up to New Hampshire this afternoon, and I need to bring back the drill to my parents. So this morning I finally got around to finishing drilling holes so I can put knobs in my drawers (heh) as I said I needed to do back in April during my bedroom tour. I think it looks pretty good on my jewelry armoire!

so pretty!

I also have been on a kick of sharing all of my random doodles on facebook. Here is the latest page:

why yes, I am somewhere over the rainbow.

I hope everyone has a fantastic holiday weekend! And I promise that soon I will be posting the ninja bunnies that I have been working on, because I am making them for a craft exchange and I really need to get them finished ASAP.

:(

2010-06-09T21:47:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the long hiatus. Work, work, and ummmm.... other things have been keeping me busy and keeping my mind occupied. I haven't done much other than to try folding a bunch of origami cranes so that I can convert my Spring Tree (formerly my Christmas tree) into a Summer Tree. [Note: I am usually pretty good at origami. But I fail so intensely when it comes to paper cranes. :( I don't know why.] Also, I want to get little flags for the 4th of July. :D

I have been staring at my empty dining room wall for the past hour while I try desperately to catch up on work, and it is only making me want to work on the quilt I planned to make to fill up that ginormous space. Sigh.

Ummmm....

2010-06-03T07:49:00.002-04:00

So... I forgot to make anything. >_> I've been kind of distracted all week. I promise that I will post something awesome on Monday to make up for my lapse!

Birthday cake!

2010-05-31T08:00:00.000-04:00

So last Saturday was my parents' friend Mark's birthday. (He is also the Destroyer of Trifles.) Being the awesome and forgiving person I am, I baked him a birthday cake.

I taught myself how to do the criss-crossy shell thingeroo on the top when I decorated it. I had seen it in my baking book and I thought it looked neat. I always need to improve my piping skills. It was pretty difficult to make it in a countertop oven—it didn't bake very evenly. I had to switcheroo the two layers halfway through the process and the bottom one had risen higher than the wire rack, so it got a little torn. I also somehow managed to layer it weird, so it kinda... leans.

Oh well. It still tastes super duper delicious! It's a yellow cake and it is light and fluffy, but still very rich. (And of course, so does the frosting!)

I love cake. I wish I could eat cake every day all day.:-d

I also took a boatload of pictures of random things I love in Twin Mountain. :)

Tom Tom thing thing

2010-05-27T08:00:00.003-04:00

So this week I got a GPS because I was sick of getting lost in Boston and ending up on Storrow Drive even if I wasn't near it in the first place. It's cute, and I may or may not be getting the Darth Vader voice for it... >_> I mean I could wait until August and get Han Solo!! <3 <3 <3 I mean......

Oh! Look over there! Something not nerdy!! ---------------->

Anyway, since objects that enter my purse usually do not come out unscathed, I figured it would probably be wise to create some sort of protector case for the Tom Tom. Yesterday morning I was delaying before I went into work, and decided to make a mock-up of what one could be like using some crappy felt.

aw yeah, check out my too-short ribbon!

I kinda like the idea of it, but not the execution. I like the cross-stitch along the seams. I am going to make the foldy-top part [that's a technical term] longer, and use one of my 18 billion-trillion antique buttons from my grandmother. And I'm gonna embroider some flowers on it. I do like the color combo, though, even if it is unusually girly for me. (I suppose I should stop pretending I am still a tomboy at this point, considering how froofy my bedroom is and the number of heels I own.)

Also, I am thinking that I am finally going to be able to start decreasing the size of my yarn stash. My company is planning on starting a "knitting and networking" group that would meet during lunch once a week. Consistent knitting FTW! I know what everyone is getting for Christmas this year! :P

And, just a warning (though I am pretty sure no one besides my mom and sister read this), I am 97.3% sure that I am not going to post next Monday. It's a holiday and all, and I will be in the White Mountains with my awesome family. But maybe my mom will loan me her sweet new laptop ;) and let me post if I end up making something sweeeet this weekend.

Haha.

2010-05-24T08:00:00.001-04:00

So yesterday it occurred to me that I hadn't made anything for my post today. I haven't worked any more on the blue lady because my thread is still at my parents' house (along with all of my embroidery projects), and I haven't worked on any of my other stuff because I am lazy.

So I wanted a day project: something simple that would make me smile. Last week I doodled a little dude with enormous arms who I thought was super cute. It made me think of how I used to harass my sister in public by saying "biiiiiiig huuuuuug" in a doofy voice. I had drawn up a basic idea of a pattern, and I figured I could just go from there.

I used my sewing machine for once, and one of the problems with that is I tend to forget about things like places to put in stuffing, and arms. >_>

I'm gonna be honest, I have no idea what he (she? it?) is. He is still nameless.

But I still think he is super cute. :) I hugged him last night while I slept, and now his place of honor is on my chaise. ^_^ He's made of white fleece leftover from my bunny project (and I still have more), and his doofy smile is embroidered. I was going to embroider his eyes, but then I remembered how freaking stretchy this fleece is. Buttons, then!

I just think he is hilarious. You win a prize if you think of a name and/or what he is!

Blue lady

2010-05-20T08:00:00.003-04:00

More pictures of the work I've done on my blue lady.

omg bewbs

I need to find my original sketch and figure out how I meant her hand to go... I am feeling like she's missing a finger in the sketch on cloth right now. I don't think you can really tell, but she has more hair... I just haven't sewed it yet. :P Her hair was totally the most fun part!

swirly!!

I liked using the changy-color thread (that's the technical term). Man, I think I need coffee, because I can't actually remember the real word.

Anyway, I also finally taught myself how to do buttonhole wheels, which are great fun.

depending on your idea of fun

I am probably going to fill the background with these, since they are so entertaining!

ho hum

2010-05-17T08:00:00.005-04:00

Not much happening. I am so lazy. I am pretty sure that Homer would write an epic poem devoted to my laziness. I mean, Calliope shows up once in a while asking if I should write one about myself, and I am always like, "nah...."

I am such a literature nerd. And I guess a regular nerd, too.

Which reminds me: lately I have been wearing my powerup mushroom earrings a lot, but I find myself wishing I had one up earrings instead, since they would match my green clothes. But that would involve trying to sculpt more mushrooms out of polymer clay, which was super tedious. So... Yoshi eggs! :D

Those wires are just for painting and glazing, not for sticking in my ears.

I will make them into earrings later... I have a serious earrings problem, btw.

This also reminds me, I finally made my bunny and carrot charms into a pair of earrings.

Everyone is so happy.

I think I have been meaning to do this for two years now. Wait... no... close to three. -sigh-

Ooooh! I also did some more embroidery with my boobie lady. But I think I will save pics until Thursday, when I will have even more progress completed! I won't be done, because I left some of the thread at my parents' house.... -sigh-

Sorry.

2010-05-13T08:19:00.002-04:00

I meant to post a "sorry nothing to say" entry on ~~Tuesday~~ Monday because I definitely remember which days I have promised to post, but I forgot. I was ~~exhausted from~~ seeing the Colbert report. :D

Anyway, on Tuesday I made cupcakes for one of my coworkers, whose last day was yesterday. She loves my cupcakes, and says that my delicious frosting has ruined other frosting for her forever. (Sorry!) But anyway, I got to use my new silicon flower veiner, and it was a lot of fun.

I forgot to take a picture in the morning with good light (and a decent camera) so I took one at work with my cell phone. I still think you can see how awesome they are. ;)

Not much happening

2010-05-06T07:22:00.001-04:00

I was lazy the past two nights and haven't really done anything. I tried to embroider a nose for Mr. Lumpy Bunny, but it was really frustrating. I kept messing up, or the fabric would bunch, and then I couldn't unbunch it... argh. So I decided I'd pick up some felt and applique a nose. Just need to find pink felt...

What??? You want a picture of something!?

Fine. Sheesh.

I finished embroidering "LOVE" on my love and peas piece for my quilt. I had a list somewhere of all of the embellishments that I was going to put around each little embroidery, but now I can't find it. I am pretty sure I was going to couch some spirals, but I can't remember what color I was going to use for the smaller thread.

I know I said I was going to post cupcakes, but I fail at counting weeks. I need to make them next week.

Bunny foo foo!

2010-05-04T08:00:00.005-04:00

A bunny foo foo is a mixed alcoholic beverage that one drinks out of a chocolate rabbit. But that isn't the reason for my subject. I haven't tried one yet. Because, you know......... I've been busy making things!!!11ONE!

Liiiiiike.... Sangria!!

Doesn't that count???

No? What about..... a cute video of my cat?!?

No!?!? Well, I guess it is kind of dark.

Ok, well, to confess..... I did actually make something. I'm just not proud of it. It's kind of lumpy and creepy, and kind of awkward. (like me!)

You probably don't want to see it....

...

...

...

...ok I guess you do.

Awww... poor bunnykins. He's just misunderstood! He's actually kind of growing on me. I hated him a little last night, because I was sooooo close to being finished when I realized that I totally messed up because I didn't read the directions. I posted my frustrations on my twitter last night. Le sigh.

But this bunny seriously needs some new eyes! The buttons are kind of creepy.

On Thursday I am probably going to post cupcakes.

Bedroom tour!

2010-04-29T08:00:00.012-04:00

My bedroom. Where the magic.... doesn't happen. That's the craft room. Unless there is cat-magic going on while I am at work. I don't know, the cats won't say.

Anyway, since there is one full boatload of pictures, I put a cut in today! Seriously, I am not kidding, I went a leeetle crazy with the pictures. Because I know you want DETAILS.

And now the tour begins! I am going to start off saying that I am really not that great at decorating. I chose a really simple theme that looks good no matter how hard you butcher it: white furniture! I also threw in some blue-ness because my favorite blanket is blue and there is no way I'm ditching it just for prettyness. And for the record, white furniture is kind of a bad idea when you are messy... although it looks a whole lot cleaner when my bed is made. Speaking of which, when you first enter my bedroom, the dominating force is (obviously) my bed:

I even made my bed, special for y'all.

It's super comfy, and now that I have my super awesome blanket folded at the bottom of my bed, the cats sleep on that instead of getting kitty hairs all over my comforter. Also, note that the bookcase in the background has EMPTY SHELVES. omg I am so excited that I now have room for moar books!!!

My super sweet dresser is to the right of my bed thar.

I was also half-heartedly going for shabby chic.

The doily (yes, doily) is from etsy. The lamp was my grandmother's. According to my mom, the dresser belonged to my great aunt Stella. I used it when I was a kid, then it was retired to the basement. I repainted it creamy white, and added a fancy-pants rose thinger.

It's a technical term.

I also added little roses on the corners.

So cute!

I'm really glad that I was able to keep the drawer pulls that came with the dresser. I had been worried that they wouldn't look good, and it was going to be dang hard to find new ones in the right size.

Now, I started this whole project because I was dumped and wanted something to distract myself with. So the first piece of furniture that I bought was a chaise. I have wanted one of these bad boys for ages, but didn't get one because a) it is a ridiculous and useless piece of furniture that I b) would have to move or get rid of at some point. But now I'm not moving anywhere! So I got what I wanted! :D

The cats love it, too.

I don't even want to discuss how freaking messed up the shipping was. Suffice it to say, I ordered it first, and got it last. Well, got the second half of it last. I had the arm and cushion sitting around in my room for a while.

Now you may notice the cute little end table next to the chaise. I wanted that for a long time as well. Actually, pretty much all of the furniture is stuff I wanted but could not justify. Just an FYI. Anyway, I have also started collecting milk glass stuff, and a little bit of my collection is on the table.

I would keep real flowers, but I'd kill them.

The picture is me with my grandmother for my first communion. :)

And another piece of my milk glass collection:

You can't see it, but around the candles is sea glass and seashells. :D

That table is actually a kitty litter box container, next to my vanity. Yes. I am a crazy cat lady.

but oh god look at the leetle door!

I do actually use the vanity; it's great to use the massive amounts of sunlight pouring in through my windows when I put on my makeup. :P The florescent light in the bathroom just doesn't cut it. Also, I got an atomizer to keep on my vanity, mostly because they are super awesome.

You know you want to pretend to spray yourself with it.

I was trying to emphasize the super-girlyness of my room. I also changed most of the knobs on my furniture to these pretty glass ones:

Does something seem off?

I discovered afterward that the measurements did not include the part that goes in the hole. (Uhhhhh... you know. The metal part.) So I need to find a drill and make all of my holes bigger in my drawers. Dang. I can't discuss this without giggling.

To change the subject, my froofy curtains also help a lot with the girlyness. I got them from IKEA and then hand-sewed them to have the poofy tops. The original plan was to have them around my bed to create a canopy bed effect. Then I discovered how my cats felt about long curtains. Luckily, I was able to disguise the massive rips by rearranging the curtains.

Speaking of my cats, I bet you're wondering: how the crap do you keep this stuff white when you have two dark-colored cats?

I don't.

But I bet I am keeping those people who sell lint rollers in business!

And that is the end of my tour! Next week, I will hopefully have something to share with y'all.

Those works in progress...es!

2010-04-26T08:00:00.006-04:00

A surprising amount of embroidery, really. I guess that is what I am really focused on right now. I have no idea why. That and dolls... I need to get back to my less girly crafts, once I figure out what they are. Also, a warning about this entry: it has... bewbs! A bewb. An embroidered bewb. But still a bewb. Can you tell I like saying bewb? But now you know to shield the tender eyes of your babies in case they have never seen one! I even put in a cut JUST FOR YOU.

First is some embroidery that I am doing to make into a quilt. I want to hang it in my dining room, so I figured having food as the subject makes sense. Right???

Oh god I just love their little feets

Above the little heart it is going to say "LOVE" in hot pink. Because I love Trigun and I am not ashamed. The cupcake is going to say "Bite me!" I'm not telling what the other two are going to say! I love the apple with the aviator glasses so hard, though. I embroidered the word "PEAS" without sketching it out first, and have since decided I will never do that again. So sloppy!

Next is a cross stitch that I have been working on for a seriously epic amount of time. I was planning on giving it to my sister for Christmas, then in September I accidentally left all of my embroidery thread at a friend's place on the Cape. I got it back a week or two before Christmas, and have been working on it on and off when I have time. Usually when I am traveling. You get a prize if you can guess what the crap it is!

I know what it is and I can't tell!

Also, I am working on a lot of dolls. A while back I mentioned making the four seasons in dolls, and I haven't really made a lot of progress on that, other than to behead Spring so that I can give her new hair.

I don't know why people think my craft room is creepy.

The other headless doll (farrrrrr on the right) is being rerooted already. I was going to make her a character from a novel I'm writing, but I'm not really writing the novel anymore.... Maybe playing with a doll will give me more inspiration??

I know you've been wondering, "Where are t3h b3wbs??" Well, I haven't shown you that embroidery piece yet, but I will! ....

...

...

And here it is!

Scandalous! I know!

Ok maybe not really scandalous. I probably shouldn't have built it up, but I couldn't resist!

Hope these works in progress have sated your hunger until Thursday, when I show you my super awesome girly bedroom!

Also! You may (not) have noticed, but I changed the layout of my blog! I was really bored when I was home sick last week. (I probably should have said something in my last entry...) It looks mostly the same, I just added a bunch of gadgets, including search! I love search. I hate when blogs don't have a search function. Now you can find ANYTHING!! (on my blog that I wrote)

Other things I finished...

2010-04-22T08:00:00.002-04:00

...that I forgot about. I swear, I am one of the flakiest people I know. If my head wasn't firmly attached to my body, I definitely would have misplaced it several times this week alone.

Anyway, it's not like I forgot a lot of stuff... I mean, one is right there across from my bed and I see it every morning when I wake up...

Holy crap blue

...but isn't isn't it pretty!?

The blue is more intense than I had intended... It was kinda dark when I painted it, and it looked like a very different color. But I am too lazy to fix it, and it was fun to paint. Except I got paint all over my wall when I was doing the splatter. Whoops! Sorry, landlord!

I also did a pretty little tablecloth (bookcasecloth?) for my bookcase. The top of the bookcase is kinda scruffy, so it needed something:

The sake set is from Heather.

:D I need a new iron. Mine does not actually get rid of wrinkles in linen! What kind of crap is that!? But it did make the leaves flat, and they are super cute:

I'm not that great at an even chain stitch.

And that's all I got! Next week there will be some works in progress (mostly embroidery) and a tour of my super sweet and girly bedroom!

Also! For the record! My new goal is to post twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays! Why those particular days, you ask? I have no idea! I chose them arbitrarily but you can't complain because I am awesome! I think I overuse exclamation points!

Terrariums!

2010-04-19T08:00:00.003-04:00

Terrariums! Aren't they fantastic? Little ecosystems that I never have to water! It's like the whole thing was invented so that I could not kill some plants for once.

Since I have an intense love for apothecary jars, I was really excited to have an excuse to finally get some. I always pine over them in home decorating sections, despite knowing that I am not the sort to fill them with fake lemons as part of my decor. Of course, the jars I got sat empty in my living room for a couple months before I got around to making my terrariums (don't judge me!).

I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.

Photographing glass was more difficult than I anticipated.

I am especially fond of the little one with moss. Moss is probably one of my favorite plants—it's soft, comfy, and super easy to transplant. I found some more moss at my parents' house that looks like little trees, and once I find another container, I am going to make another terrarium with it. Since the moss one is my favorite, it got to have my super awesome holey rock that I found on a beach in Costa Rica.

It's like a little bed for my pet rock.

I am eventually going to take pictures of the other stuff I am working on, but it's been rainy and my camera sucks butt, so I haven't gotten around to it. But I will! Promise!

Oh man

2010-04-15T16:22:00.008-04:00

I am so seriously bad about keeping up with this blog...

I haven't actually completed any projects lately (bad Megan!), but later I will take some pictures of WIPs and post them. :)

I am working on so many things! And I keep wanting to start MORE!

It doesn't help that my craft room is currently the Pit Of Chaos, Cardboard, And Also Polystyrene. My computer desk also got moved into there, as well, since I redecorated my bedroom. Hey! Does that count? Cause I finished that... Executive decision—yes, it counts, yes, I'm blogging about it. Later. >_>

Update! I am a flake and I forgot that I did actually make three terrariums that have been lounging in my living room, basking in attention and sunlight. I just forgot about them. I'll post about them later this week.

Sneak peek: Spring!

2009-12-07T21:16:00.000-05:00

It's been pretty busy here, not really in a crafty sense, but in a "Holy cow I have so much to do in less than three hours!" sort of sense.

A couple months ago, I ordered a Tyler Wentworth and Jane doll because..... ??? I don't remember. I'm sure I had something awesome planned. But I thought of something better. Something cooler. Something that I have managed to remember.

The four seasons! Well, the four seasons, personified! With dolls! In pretty dresses! :D

I've already planned out how the outfits will look, start working on patterns, acquired two more dolls, you know. Important things. Things that keep me from blogging... >_>

Anyway, to make you feel better I've included a sneak peek at Spring, since her dress is approaching being finished. (It just needs some more embroidery and flowers!) Here is Winter modeling it, since I don't have Spring in my possession yet:

Also coming up: some more paintings, my first quilt, and perhaps OOAK Barbies as Jem and the Holograms.

Craft room!

2009-11-14T12:42:00.000-05:00

Ok, I promised a look into my not-cool craft room, and you know I always deliver on my promises. Well, except for the promises I make about crafting. >_>

Here is my desk. If I were on Cribs, I would say "This is where the magic happens," mostly to confuse everyone because that's what people say about their bedrooms. Since I'm not cool, this will never happen, but it's a nice fantasy. Over on the right wall there is my collection of "Shakespeare in Penguins" doodles. I'm really quite fond of them.

Oh, does my curtian decoration look familiar? ;) It's pretty sweet having a balcony, even though I don't really use it. Unless it's warm and it rains. Then I bustle out there with my chair and a glass of wine. B)

Painting in progress and my fan for when I burn things in the kitchen. I don't have an easel. I mean, I do, I just have no idea where it is, which pretty much means I don't have one. A piece of cloth on the floor is sufficient, right?

This is where I was planning on putting a loom (the whole reason I got a 2br apartment!!) but I ended up not getting one. :( But I love lamp. And penguins. And Mermaid Lady.

Finished product from yesterday

2009-11-12T08:00:00.004-05:00

So I embroidered this piece yesterday, and then had no idea what to do with it. I was thinking I might make a suncatcher or something, but the sober view of my stitching made me wince, so that's a no go. I consulted an internet forum that has nothing to do with crafting for their opinion, and decided that I would just frame it in an embroidery hoop with my new etsy cloth behind it. But I was also thinking about crazy quilts, from another not-on-topic post in the forum.

So it's not exactly crazy quilted, but it is a little silly. I couldn't help myself! I thought a little lace at the bottom to make it less empty... and then saw the ribbon... and there were all these beads that I spilled everywhere that I haven't cleaned up yet...

And then it was too late. For future reference, though, using a hot glue gun on LACE and SHEER FABRIC and then pressing it down with your finger: NOT A GOOD IDEA. I don't know whyyy I kept doing it.

Just a lil' tease.

2009-11-10T23:40:00.006-05:00

I did some quick embroidery tonight. Since the cloth is translucent, I couldn't be lazy about about the stitches look from behind, like usual.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do with this piece yet. Probably I will sew it on to some of the fabric I just got from etsy and hang it on my wall.

I like how the piece dangling in front of the face is actually just dangling there.

What I've been up to: aka, picture-spamming my way to forgiveness.

2009-10-23T17:07:00.001-04:00

Ok, I said I made lots of things, and I know you want pictures, so here we go! Things I have created recently include:

A knit bunny. Mostly a prototype, I'm planning on making a larger one later. Not sure how well it will work out, but it's a cute (and easy) pattern from my knitting calendar. I'm hoping it will look a little less like an evil white ant with ears next time.

And as usual, cupcakes for my coworkers!

These were for a meeting to go over editorial standards. I wanted to butter up the writers so they'd be nicer to me. ;) They were my tastiest yet; I had coworkers coming to my desk the next day to see if there were leftovers.

These were for a group outing. I had a lot of fun making the sugared raspberries. The left is gluten-free chocolate with vanilla icing, middle is coconut-lemon meringue with lemon-curd filling, right is vanilla filled with wild berry jam-filled and topped with vanilla icing and a vanilla-sugared raspberry. I picked the berries for the jam, too. :) The berries on the cupcakes are from the supermarket, though.

My Mom's birthday cake. I know, I am an awesome daughter. ;) I didn't have any more pastry bags, so I ended up using my cookie press to do the frosting decorations. It's not really even close to my best, but my mom was happy, and that's what counts. That bonsai tree in the back is also for my mom. You can't see it too well, so another pic.

Also for my mom's birthday. A lil' fishin' dude. A long time ago, my mother and I were looking at bonsai trees. She saw a lil' fishin' dude similar to the one here, and said, "Oh! How cute! I want one!" (or something close, it was over a decade ago, gimme a break!) I said, "I could make that." And I did. Then that lil' dude was broken, and so I made another. I think that story was too long.

I also made this totally sweet flatware organizer out of duct tape and cardboard. I couldn't find any that actually fit in any of the drawers in my new kitchen, and doggone it, I can't have my chopsticks touching my spoons! They'll just fight and make a mess! Especially the Nesquick Bunny spoon. That guy is fiesty.

Ok, does making a dandelion wreath count? My parents' dog really liked it! And by liked, I mean, liked to chew on it. (I also just really like this picture.)

I made... a ... fort? Does that count?? Ok, now I'm stretching. I think this is where I stop and admit that I didn't really make all that much stuff. :(

Anyway, plans for the future involve a lot of knitting, embroidery, painting barbies, and making doll clothes. :D

How embarassing...

2009-09-25T12:28:00.008-04:00

So... it's been a while. How are you doing, blog? Feeling neglected and unloved!? How could you say that!? I know it's been a while, but you've been in my heart and guilt-laden thoughts! Every time I create something I think of you, and how I should be posting here, oh, and there's all that other stuff I need to post and that is gonna take an awful long time. And you know I just moved and it really does take me a month to unpack. Oh... it's been two, near three, months? Uh, you're right. Like always.

So let's get back together. We'll take it slow, k? I'll show you a few things I've done, then you can talk about your feelings some more.

First, and I think this is the most important... I have a craft room! It's not really organized yet, and frankly I doubt it will ever be as cutesy or clever as the craft rooms I see on the internets, but it speaks to me, and is my space. That's what counts. I will devote an entire entry to it later.

I also finally learned how to knit a hat. I'm actually really proud of myself, because I pretty much just taught myself and went from there. It was surprisingly easy! I also FINALLY finished knitting the red scarf I've been working for, oh... two years approximately. Here is a pic of me wearing both!

Yes, the wallpaper, I know.

Also, I'm taking the plunge again this year (because obviously I love to torture myself): I'm doing NaNoWriMo. Again. I just realized today that I had no plot, so I thought of one. It's about three sentences right now. I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. OMG DED.

I have about 20 more things I have made that I need to post, but we'll take it slow. Now tell me again how much you missed me.

Hey mom!

2009-05-11T12:07:00.006-04:00

Well, this weekend contained Maternal Figure Day. (My PC term, since not everyone has/likes their mother.) Since I am in the happy position of having a wonderful mother, I celebrated the day with her. And of course, since I’m me, I couldn’t just buy her some fancy-pants present; I had to make something. Well, more than one something.

First, I decided to remember how to do embroidery. Embroidery is actually something I really enjoy doing, it’s just so tedious that I tend to get lazy and not finish. Also, I really need to sketch out what I’m going to embroider in detail, and I’m always lazy and use a pen, and then the pen bleeds and it looks crappy. (And yes, I made that mistake this time, again… -sigh-)

I forgot to take work-in-progress pictures, which is too bad, since you would be able to see how I totally changed my mind while approaching the end of the piece and decided to fill in the branches with a poorly-done staggered satin stitch. (I know that’s not the proper name, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it is!)

Anyway, here is the finished piece:
Probably the best part was filling in the bluebird with crayon. (Note to self: next time, do that before finishing all of the embroidery.)

My mom really loves it, and it’s already on display in the kitchen. I put black cloth on the back so that you can’t see my messy stitches in the back, and it makes the cloth look kind of dirty. And I keep looking at it and getting irritated, because I can see all of my mistakes and how easy it would have been to fix them. I was on a schedule, though, and I just barely finished it in time (1am, Friday night). Why did it need to be finished by Friday night, you ask? Oh, because I had to make these:
Mmmm. I used vanilla bean seeds for the first time in these cupcakes. My mom was really happy. I hope she doesn’t mind me posting a picture with her in it!

These tasted pretty good, but served as a life lesson: don’t try to bake or make meringue buttercream when it is REALLY FREAKING HUMID. Also, don’t forget to put in the last egg white when making said meringue buttercream… >_> In other news, Swiss buttercream was a lot easier to make than I thought it would be, and delicious to boot. I’m bringing in the leftover cuppies for a meeting tomorrow! :D

(And see that cupcake in the bottom-left corner? That's the one my brother ate. Because it had the most frosting. Of course!)

picture spam!

2009-04-22T18:29:00.008-04:00

Happy Earth day!! I've made a couple things since my last post, and I've been too lazy to post... sorry. :( A lot is going on. And I have lots of writing that I should be doing... :(

Anywho, Heather came to visit and I made her a mini cake:

(Note to self: next time, DON'T forget the baking powder! hehe)

I also made trifle for my mom:

This is my parents' friend, attempting to ruin my trifle:

And a very scribbly self-portrait:

(At the bottom, it says "Self-portrait #18 million." Probably accurate.)

Caaaaake.

2009-03-27T17:45:00.006-04:00

I baked a cake. :3
It's a yellow cake, with white chocolate buttercream frosting and raspberry filling. I layered raspberry jam, raspberries, and frosting in the middle. The pink frosting is raspberry frosting. It is delicious! :D

It really bothers me that all of my cakes and cupcakes come out lopsided. I'm not sure if it's because the oven cooks unevenly, or if the oven is slightly tilted forward. I'm gonna have to invest in something to prop up my pans. Or I could wrap the pans in a wet towel. Y'know.

I'm going to be doing Script Frenzy, starting next... Wednesday? I should probably check that. I'm writing a "script" for a graphic novel about superheroes with useless powers with AJ. It is seriously hilarious. Perhaps I'll post excerpts.

I think I'm going to go work on my painting of Medea

moar cupcakes

2009-03-16T09:31:00.010-04:00

I made pina colada cupcakes this weekend. Very delicious. I only got one picture of them, though, which doesn't at all show how pretty they were.

-sigh-

You can almost kind of see how pretty the frosting swirl was, and how there's lime wedges and shredded coconut on top. You can't really see the pretty yellow color they were. I knew I should have taken pictures before I gave them to people, and had someone who wasn't well, er, marinated take a picture.

The recipe was really good, though, and really easy. I used box white cake mix, (lazy) replaced a portion of the water with pineapple juice, and added crushed pineapple to the batter. Then I made simple sugar syrup with pineapple juice (note: do not take eyes off of boiling pineapple juice for more than 5 seconds... seriously.) I added copious amounts of Malibu to the sugar syrup once it cooled, and soaked the cupcakes in it! :3

The buttercream was made the American way, with butter, powdered sugar and ~~milk~~ Malibu. Heh. I also added some of the pineapple simple syrup, and colored it.

32 of the cupcakes went to my friend's birthday party on Friday, with good reviews. (Best review: "Whoah... this isn't an onion. Awesome!" nom nom) I brought the remaining 15 to bf's pre-show band practice. Bf's friends really liked them. I have decided that my groupie responsibilities are pretty much just to make cupcakes for the band.

I drew up a pattern to sew a gumdrop penguin (you gotta see it to understand). I'll get around to making it once I have suitable fabric. Maybe I'll use the same fabric I did to make Matt Demon.

Strawberries!

2009-02-16T22:03:00.011-05:00

I've been pretty into strawberries recently. I don't know why. Ok, I know why. They are delicious and they wear their fruit-clothes inside out. And they were on sale at Trader Joe's.

It all started a couple weeks ago when I was thinking about college. In college, I was really poor, but still a bit of a foodie. (And I was really pretentious, but that's beside the fact) A frequent meal of mine would consist of (day-old) french baguettes with hunks of (store brand) cheese. Sometimes I'd drink wine (good ol' strawberry Arbor Mist) with it, and if I was really feeling fancy, I'd ~~steal~~ grab some strawberry slop from the resident's dining hall to eat with it. Iknow, I know, so classy!

The thing is, it was a really delicious combination. So I decided to try to recreate it, with good food.

I soaked strawberries in Cotes du Rhone wine with a bit of black pepper, then baked the (premade, I'm lazy) mini french baguette, and sliced it up. I topped the slices with TJ cheddar cheese (my favorite!) and baked it. I topped the melty-cheesy-bread with the wine-soaked strawberries. It was incredibly delicious, and not just because I had already finished off the bottle of wine. I even made it again for bf, and he agrees. I'll probably post the recipe on recipezaar, when I remember to.

Later, bf and I were talking about how making chocolate is my new thing. I made chocolates for my friend Heather's birthday (and forgot to take a picture >_>) and she really enjoyed them. Bf always has these ideas for Restaurants That He Should Open, and he said that it would be really interesting to open a chocolatier that only made fruit/chocolate combinations.

The idea piqued my interest, so for Valentines Day I made him a box of fruity chocolates.

Obviously, there were chocolate-covered strawberries, which were actually superfun to make. The little chocolates are filled with raspberries that were coated in chocolate and wine truffle. (Note: Chocolate wine truffle was a surprisingly bad idea. I'm going to have to work on it. Or use a recipe next time. It was fine with the raspberries, but not so great on its own.) I also made (no picture) wine-filled chocolates. It was really hard. :( Only four of the nine I tried to make actually worked out, and they leaked a bit. I'm not sure how to make it work next time, but I'll figure it out, cause it was really good.

This reminds me of some polymer clay charms I made. So cute.

Pretty in pink

2009-01-28T13:48:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I craved cupcakes. I think you know where this is going:

I stopped at AC Moore on the way home from work (well, it's really quite out of the way, but nevermind that). I bought myself a mini cupcake pan, and a 1M tip. This tip is amazing!! I don't know how I survived without it before! I'm still a beginner with it, but I think I did all right. I had the green cupcake papers from when I made the truffles (I needed something to put them in!). They kind of clash, but I don't really care.

These are (gluten-free!) rice flour cupcakes with strawberry buttercream frosting. The frosting was a learning experience. I don't know what I was thinking last night, as I joyfully poured the (defrosted, sorry!) strawberries in with the butter, and then tried to mix in the sugar (I'm going to blame it on it being 10pm with only 5 hours of sleep the night before). It was a complete failure. An awful, terrible, disgusting-looking mess. I wish I had thought of taking a picture, because mere words cannot describe how gross it looked. I panicked, and scooped it out of my mixing bowl into another bowl. Then I mixed up some regular, no-flavoring-added buttercream, and slowly added the curdled, nasty blobs that were supposed to be strawberry frosting. The result, as you can see, had no nasty blobs, and had a good strawberry taste, despite only having half the amount of strawberries it was supposed to.

Actually, eating one of these cupcakes tastes a lot like eating strawberry ice cream in a cone. But sans the brain freeze. I have like 2468735789 of these in my fridge. Why did I make them last night!? I knew I wanted to bring them into work, and that I wasn't going to work today because of snow. I set myself up for eating-all-the-cupcakes failure!

Busy busy bunny

2009-01-26T13:27:00.003-05:00

I've been busy with work and boyfriend and family and that kind of stuff... I also rearranged my room. I also have been gathering my craft stuff (and my new sewing machine!!!!) together in the basement so that I can set up a craft area down there. It should be excellent.

Anyway, on MLK day, my boyfriend was over, and I had the sudden urge to make truffles. I didn't really have a reason to make them, but I had the ingredients... so I made some! I covered half of them in cocoa powder that had a little cayenne in it, and (with bf's help) dunked the remaining truffles in chocolate and decorated them with white chocolate. I forgot to take a picture of the best-looking ones (which I gave to bf to eat and share with his family). I did take a picture of my less-than-stellar examples, though.

They were delicious, though, and I guess that's what really matters! It's gotten me on a huge chocolate spree, and I bought some chocolate molds. I think that some people are going to be getting handmade chocolates for Valentines Day! Mmm mm!

My dinner date with Heather

2009-01-06T07:52:00.005-05:00

Oh yeah, and our menfolk came as well.
Heather and I spent wayyyy too much time making craploads of cupcakes. We made 12 Mars bar/rice crispies "no bake cupcakes" (you can see them in the tower picture), 12 carrot cake cupcakes with coconut cream cheese frosting, and 12 Victoria sponge cupcakes, half with chocolate buttercream, and the other half with raspberry filling and whipped cream. Delicious. A couple of pictures:
Heather really wanted to try out my snowflake fondant cutters, which I warned her were less-than-useful. It only took her about 18 million tries, but she got 5 snowflakes! Then we stuck the Cornish hens in the oven, later than planned. We made sangria which tasted like "raisin juice," but damn, did it look pretty! I was at the supermarket and I saw some starfruit, which has always interested and intrigued me. I smelled it, and I was SOLD. And, it's even as delicious as it smells. I want to go wherever these things are grown, when they're in season, and try some of those. It must be magnificent. (Yes, I am biased against produce in the supermarket, and for good reason.) But slices of the starfruit looked lovely as garnishes for our sangria. I'll have to try to think of more things to do with it!
The hens were kind of a failure, because Heather and I stuffed them with dates, and then I forgot to factor in that extra time, and we cooked 4 instead of 2, and I didn't factor that in, and we didn't cut them in half, either. So, you guessed it! They were seriously undercooked. It may be tacky to stick a little hen in the microwave during a dinner date, but we were too hungry to wait. Reviews said, however, that the recipe was delicious. I will make it again, but I won't stuff it, and I'll only make 2. And I'll use less olives, cause Josh doesn't like 'em, and who else would I cook it for!?

Should I be making a New Year's resolution to write here more? Nah.

2008-12-29T12:56:00.005-05:00

So, for Christmas my parents gave me a sewing machine. Oh yes. You know how this is going to turn out. My plan is to set up a little craft area in my basement, because my room is really just too small for me to do crafts in. So hopefully, I will start churning out those angels and demons soon.
I did a lot of cooking for Christmas, and even took a couple of neat pictures. I love deviled eggs, and I got a new cookie-maker-pump-thingy device from my sister. It is my new best friend, and I used it to make swirly centers in the deviled eggs. :D

And (of course) I made cupcakes, too. I was lazy and used cake mix and premade frosting. My sister was happy. She loves the ~~crap~~ stuff. Eventually I will convert her to my delicious baked goods.
This weekend I have some grandiose plans with Heather to make an excessive amount of baked goods, all magnificently decorated. I'm not sure how well it will work out, but at the very least, I'm gonna make some more cupcakes. We're also making a fancy-pants cornish hen dinner for our double date. I'm crossing my fingers for success.

oh hai

2008-12-23T21:03:00.006-05:00

So I did make those cupcakes for the company party, by the way. Only about sixty of them. They were gone within an hour, and I was a little too busy at the "special" eggnog table to take a picture of them. But! My peppermint vanilla cupcakes were a hit, despite being my own invention, and everyone was demanding the recipe I used for the chocolate buttercream frosting. Cause damn, son, it was some good frosting. (You can find the recipe on America's Test Kitchen's web site. Really, all of their recipes are amazingly delicious.) Two of my coworkers have gluten allergies, so they were very grateful for my gluten-free cupcakes. :)

Now I'm doing some secret crafting for Christmas (yes, last minute, whatever). Other homemade Christmas presents that I have already made include: Irish creme from scratch, home-brewed raspberry cordial, and delicious delicious fudge. And I'm supposed to make cookies and brownies, too. Mmm. Brownies. I'm not really worried about posting presents here cause the people they're for never read this blog, anyways. Heh.

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukkah, Happy Festivus, Happy Yule/Solstice/Dong Zhi, have a wonderful Makar Sankranti and may the Flying Spaghetti Monster touch you with His Noodly Appendage this Holiday.

I are wizard?

2008-12-04T10:36:00.007-05:00

I don't know what sort of voodoo magic I used, but somehow I managed to get my word count up near 60,000 by the 28th of November. Impressive, right? What's more impressive is that I somehow managed to convince myself that I still had only about 30k words written, and I gave up. That's right, my friends, that last weekend when I should have been rejoicing, I gave up. I knew I couldn't handle writing 20k words in two days without going crazy. And then, on December 1st, I checked my real word count. Head? Meet desk. You're going to be friends for a while.
I don't really feel like I won, though, because my story still isn't finished. So I'm trying to get it done by the end of December. I'm pretty close, I just need to get my lazy tush around to doing it.
And, in my writing spree in that last week, I managed to scrounge up the time to bake a pretty cake for Thanksgiving. I've already eaten most of it, but you can still see two of the three pretty roses. My brother ate the yellow one. Pic will be posted when I get home. It's vanilla cake with raspberry filling and lemon buttercream frosting, and it is freaking delicious. I've got a slice in my lunch box right now, and it's killing me to have to resist eating it until afternoon snacktime. Yes, I know it's old, but I have a magical cake storage device that, despite looking cheap and lame, does a really good job of keeping my cakes fresh!

Right?

2008-11-23T17:07:00.001-05:00

I said I would update on Sundays, right? Right? No. =/

So my word count is a pretty pitiful 28, 546. So, yeah, I don't really think that I'm going to have this finished by November 30th. But I'm going to try!

I spent too much time last week making cupcakes for the Thanksgiving party. But hell, they were delicious, adorable, amazing cupcakes. And guess what? I forgot to take pictures. They were pretty amazing, too. Damn. One of my friends, after tasting one, hid one of the containers of 15 cupcakes so that she could take it home. Haha.

Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them

2008-11-12T18:23:00.001-05:00

So remember that time when I said that I would be posting my word count every Saturday? Yeah, I lied. You see, it was my birthday weekend. I wish I could pretend that it took me this long to recover from the intense partying, but that would be a lie, too. I had like two glasses of wine. Oh, and I got a zombie (the drink, not the walking dead) on Monday at a Chinese food restaurant for $5. Which was awesome.

Oh yeah, by the way, my word count is 17, 232. Not bad, eh?

I made the gimbap, and it was an epic disaster, so I am not posting the pictures of my shame. Note to self: it really doesn't freeze well.

I told my friends I would make them cupcakes for a Thanksgiving party. Probably 36 cupcakes. That's November 21. I told my family that I would make cupcakes for Thanksgiving. Only like 12-24 of em. That's November 27. I told my coworkers that I would make cupcakes for our holiday party. That's probably going to end up being 144 cupcakes because I'm an overachiever. On December 12. So hopefully, I don't die doing NaNoWriMo. Or die of too many cupcakes. I think that's possible.

Word count update

2008-11-01T22:04:00.000-04:00

So, I figure that every Saturday until November 30, I'll sneak in a word count update for NaNoWriMo before bed. Hopefully I will actually do this. >_> Also, at some point I will be posting the awesome cupcakes that I am going to make at some point when I'm trying to avoid writing. I just bought a new digital camera, so you won't have to put up with any more of my whining. Oh, and I'm going to try to make sushi/gimbap this week. I'll try to take pictures.
My word count goal for this week (really, just today) was 1725 words. The churn-out for today? 3205 words. That's almost double! I know, I know. I rule. It's ok. You can tell me about it later. :3
Maybe I'll post an excerpt if I find a good one. Right before I quit for the night, I was writing a description of a dress. One sentence long, but I considered going all Robert Jordan on it. "She smoothed her skirts while pulling her braid at the same time. Her dress was a fine olive green velvet from France, made by little fairies, and embroidered with the world's finest............."
You know what? I can't even fake it. I guess I should be happy about that. Although I did already describe the contents of a trunk, so I guess I've been influenced too much. Ok, I seriously need to sleep.

NaNoWriMo

2008-10-27T12:43:00.003-04:00

So, I'm going to do it. I say this every year, but this year, I totally mean it! I even signed up this time! I'm going to take part in NaNoWriMo. I feel nervous and excited, but I already have an awesome idea of what to write. :D Ooh, and if anyone else is doing this, let's be writing buddies!

So... I have to write a 50,000 word novel. There's 30 days in November. Subtract one night (for my birthday, cause no way am I writing on my birthday!) and that translates to about 1725 words per day. Ok... that's like, what? 3, 4 pages? I've written 5 page papers in one night before! Loads of times! OMG I CAN'T DO THIS I'M GOING TO DIE.

This is pretty much my shout out for someone to please check my apartment for my corpse on November 30th. kplzthxbye

(xposted to my eljay)

zomg

2008-10-26T18:44:00.000-04:00

I just had an excellent idea, and I wanted to share it because I can't find any documentation of it anywhere else on the internets. I've been trying to think of more things I can make with the unnecessary amount of rice flour I have when I thought of it. What if one were to make ochazuke, but instead of using rice, to use rice flour cupcakes?
I imagine it being soaked in a tres leches cake kind of way, perhaps with a whipped cream frosting that is flavored with myoga or crystallized ginger. Hot damn, that would be awesome.
I know that ochazuke is supposed to be savory, but I don't see why it can't be sweet and cupcake-y, instead! This is now, officially, on my to-do list. And if you make this, you are officially required to let me know and/or taste. :D

ETA: I'm not referring to green tea cake, by the way, the kind where you include matcha in the recipe. Oh no no. I'm talking about pouring a hefty amount of strong green tea on top of a cake, and letting it slowly soak in. Yum.

So hey....

2008-10-26T14:11:00.000-04:00

Remember that time when I didn't post for, like, ever? Yeah man, me too! Totally weird.

I haven't really been creating much other than poetry, which I no longer will post on the interwebs (for publishing reasons). I also invented some recipes, which are definitely delicious.

Speaking of delicious, I have made some delicious, adorable cupcakes. Yesterday I tried making gum paste flowers for the first time. (Yes, I spent my Saturday night home alone with two cats and a lot of sugar.) My main successes involved getting gum paste all over my hands (and hair!) and getting powdered sugar all over the floor. I had forgotten my book on making gum paste flowers somewhere, so they are mostly magical flowers of my imagination. Very cute and girly magical flowers.

Today I decided to make cupcakes to show off my pretty flowers, not to mention, I'd been meaning to make gluten-free lavender cupcakes for ages. I made lemon buttercream frosting like two weeks ago for these cupcakes I intended to make, but alas, I am lazy. But the frosting has been a great midnight snack until now. (Don't worry, the recipe I use takes seriously forever for the frosting to go bad. As in, I have never, ever had my frosting go bad.)

So, here we have my adorable rice flour cupcakes, soaked in lavender syrup, frosted with lemon buttercream, topped with cute flowers:
Those little yellow bits are lemon "zest." I fail at zesting, so they are big chunks. And here is the front, so that you can see my pretty rose:
And a close-up of the rose that is positively soaked with vanilla vodka because I don't have any edible glue:
I am going to be getting a new digital camera, because I'm sick of my phone's subpar photo-taking abilities. And my old digital camera wasn't close to being the best, either, and I really don't feel like sifting through ten metric tons of crap to find it.

(Hey, does the excessive length of this entry make up for the fact that I haven't posted in like 18 years?)

Ugh.

2008-09-09T20:08:00.003-04:00

Moved recently, so I haven't been able to do much. I'm actually still in the process of moving–all of my craft/sewing/nerd stuff is still at my parent's house. I'm working on it!

Posted a new old poem on fictionpress. I've been writing, but everything I write recently is angsty crap. And you know that when I say it's angsty, hot damn, it's angsty. And it's all way to personal to share on the internets, anyway.

So I'll try to get back to work.

Hm.

2008-08-21T19:47:00.000-04:00

So I don't seem to be very skilled at sticking to doing something, like, say, posting regularly on a blog I made. Whatever.
I haven't been making any of the things I said I would (sorry Emily!) but I have been baking! Oh yes.
Last weekend (or was it three weekends ago? I don't know) I went to New Hampshire. During a thunderstorm, I decided it was an excellent time to go berry-picking, and I picked a boatload of wild blueberries and raspberries. And then I made some delicious turnovers! (Raspberry, blueberry, and mixed berry; yum!)
You can get a little preview of the operation I had going:

I made 3 dozen turnovers in a teeny leetle countertop oven. (The only pans that could fit into it are the ones on the table there on the left, with the turnovers on them.) They didn't even last a week. A close up of the raspberry ones:

Tonight I'm making chocolate chip cookies. I'm using my secret trick of throwing in some cinnamon, and I put a dash of allspice in too. The dough is resting right now, because the cookies taste so much better when you let it rest for a while. (I've heard that the optimal time is 36 hours. I'm too impatient.)
The cookies will probably be eaten before I can take a picture of them. Not that you need a picture. You know what cookies look like, right??

New old stuff

2008-07-17T22:01:00.000-04:00

So I posted a new poem on teh schweetness of fictionpress. I'm not going to link it. It doesn't count as creation. I mean, yes, I did create it. I wrote it almost two years ago, though. I just found it while trolling through old livejournal entries of mine, and I wanted to share it.

So now you know it exists, but not where! Heh!

Ninja bunny!

2008-07-16T20:54:00.001-04:00

So... it only took me approximately 8 million years, but here are the pictures of the ninja bunny. He is just so darn sneaky! He followed me to work, and stood still for .2 seconds in front of my phone. I managed to catch a shot of him with my cell phone.
Yeah, corporate buzzword bingo. I'd be ashamed to go to a meeting without it. I don't actually play, I just look at it and think about playing and then end up doodling all over it cause that helps me concentrate. Oh yeah, and all that origami all over my phone. I like origami. You can also kind of see a little sculpey chibi bunny I made, if you look real hard. Anywho. Here is another picture of the ninja bunny lurking behind my keyboard. You can kind of see his little ninja star. It took me longer to make that stupid origami star than it did to make him! Mainly because I forgot how to make them.He's made of felt and schtuffing, his ninja star is aluminum, and his face is acrylic paint and embroidery.

Next on the list: an angel kitten for my sister. Not like I usually actually do what is on my list, but I told her I would make her a kitten already, so I had better get KRAKEN.

Ninja!

2008-07-02T12:35:00.000-04:00

I made a ninja bunny. No pictures yet; he's really fast and really sneaky.

Also in the works: nerd bunny, pirate bunny, hamster angel, and penguin angel. And then a bunch of creepy and adorable demons. I also have some non-plush creations in the works. I should really finish them.

Bunnnnnyyyyy

2008-06-29T18:14:00.000-04:00

OMG CUTENESS:I made her in a couple days. Her name is Mercedes. She likes to chill with fishies and eat strawberry cupcakes. Her best friends are two fishes named Phil and Liam.

^______^

Made with felt, schtuffing, acrylic paint, and chalk pastel.

Pictures taken with my cell phone. I have no idea where my digital camera is.

A poem and a demon!

2008-06-28T18:42:00.003-04:00

Seriously. I have created a poem, and a demon. Well, three poems. I wrote some limericks a while back, but I decided to edit them and place them on the holy throne of fictionpress today.

And I made a demon! His name is Matt Demon. He is a prototype for a series of angels and demons that I am eventually going to be making. I was lazy and sewed him by hand. (It's a lot of work to drag out the sewing machine, okay?) Here's the little guy from the front:and here is his cuteness from the back!
Matt likes to go on Twitter and eat babies. He also likes to eat salsa. Especially on babies. :3

He is made from an old work polo, felt, schtuffing, and two really old buttons.

New poems

2008-06-16T09:46:00.003-04:00

I posted two new poems on fictionpress. I know, fictionpress is the home of emo teens, but I've been there since it was still a part of fanfiction.net, and I'm too used to it to find somewhere else. I wrote both of these bad boys at work about two months ago, but I let them marinate and did (what I hope are) the final edits. They seem popular among angsty teens, so perhaps they are good.

-links removed-

Lazy

2008-06-04T22:19:00.001-04:00

Documenting my creations is beginning to prove to be a bit difficult. This is because of two things:
A. I have no idea where my digital camera is.
B. I am lazy, and haven't been doing anything.

Perhaps "anything" is not the correct way to say it. I have been lazing around trolling the interwebs. And baking. Baking counts as creation!

I wanted to know what it tastes like to use tea in cakes, (more specifically, cupcakes), and I was (you guessed it!) too lazy to bake them from scratch. So I used white cake mix, and used vanilla chai tea instead of plain ol' water. Then I whipped up some cream cheese frosting (from scratch cause it's easy, and cause there is an overload of cream cheese and powdered sugar in my house). The result tastes a lot like spice cake, to be honest. When you eat the cupcakes with butter pecan ice cream, though, you can really taste the essence of tea-ness.

So next time I might use something a little less spiced, and a little more obvious. Perhaps Earl Grey, with lemon frosting? Speaking of frostings, I bet Chambord would taste great in frosting! Alcohol is always good with desserts.

And the cupcakes:

Notice that quite a few have been eaten. They are extremely delicious. Sorry for the crap-tastic photo, I suck at taking pictures.

And now it begins.

2008-05-04T17:52:00.000-04:00

I don't know why I wanted to start a new blog. I think it would be safe to say that I have enough already. I'm sure some of them are now deleted due to lack of use. Too bad. I'm sure there is a lot of valuable teenage angst there.
I am hoping that with a device to track it, perhaps I will be more inclined to share the things I create. Creation is one of my favorite activities, right up there with naps and eating cupcakes. Baking cupcakes counts as creation to me, so that's all set already.
Anyway, first creations first. My borderline-trademark-infringing power-up mushroom earrings:
They are made with Sculpey and acrylic paint, and glazed with clear nail polish. ^_^