squareby's corner

guide: pan chang chinese knot

2012-01-15T21:29:00.000-05:00

In a previous post from a few years back, I made some Chinese knots for Chinese New Year 2010. Well, January 23, 2012, is the date for this year, and it's fast approaching! I still had some of the same red cord from that previous project, so I decided to try and learn a new knot. And I picked a doozy of one called the Pan Chang knot.

It took me a few times, but I finally got it. I had to get some cardboard and stick some pins in it to keep the cord where I wanted it, but in the end it turned out kind of cool. I had take more photos, but when you work at night and your room has incandescent lights and therefore a dim yellowish hue ... it's just too much work trying to make them presentable. Anyhow, I missed using Adobe Illustrator so much I decided to use the program to make a little guide. Yay.

1. Get some cardboard stack it up (two or three layers so the pins stay in). Then following the guide, put pins where there are pink dots.

2. Get some cord/string that's got some thickness (red is a lucky color). You'll need about a yard ... maybe more. In the middle, create a loop tied off with a knot. With one end, string the cord around the pins following the guide - stringing it vertically and then horizontally. Make sure to note when it goes over/under the already-laid cord.

3. With the other end of the cord, you'll weave it through vertically and then horizontally. Again, make sure you take note when the cord is supposed to go over/under another one.

4. And that should be that. Carefully pull the cord up from around the pins and carefully pull on the outer loops. After you get the center roughly squared away, then you can begin adjusting the length of the loops by slowly working the cord through the piece, tightening along the way. The original knotted loop should be tight to the center square, and the two side loops should be bigger than the four other ones.

5. Voila! After all the tightening you'll have to trim the ends of your cord. And then you can either leave the ends hanging or finish them off with some button knots.

Whew. Wasn't that fun? I don't have enough cord to make another knot, so that's it. It's kind of a small thing to show for all the time and effort I put into making it. It was fun though. Once you make one successfully you can sort of understand how the knot is constructed. The one I made here has four rows, but you can easily expand the knot to have six or eight rows just by increasing the number of vertical and horizontal moves you make. Good luck! Wishing everyone a happy new year!

x-stitch ... years in the making

2012-01-10T17:48:00.000-05:00

Did I ever mention that I am quite the procrastinator? Well, here's proof. I finally finished a cross-stitch that I've been working on for the past few years. It's not that big (about 12"x12") and I really have no good excuse for why it took so long. This cross-stitch saw me graduate high school, graduate college, go off exploring, and start graduate school. Yeah ... when I say that this took me a "few years," what I really mean is 7 and a half years. Oh yes.

I received the pattern from a friend for my 16th birthday. We had taken biology together, and for a bug-collecting project, we managed to catch some butterflies. In the process of pinning them to the board, some of the wings fell off and we became the wingless butterfly friends. She gave me the cross-stitch as a reminder of that. We actually haven't talked in about five years or so and we've both just changed so much, but I'm glad that I've finally been able to complete her gift.

Kind of bittersweet in a way. The cross-stitch is completed, we've lost contact, time has moved on ... seems kinda final.

2012 - happy new year!

2012-01-01T14:42:00.000-05:00

Woot! This is my first post of 2012 ... yay! Yet another year has passed, oh wow.

I graduated college two years ago and it's amazing how much stuff I still have from my college days. I really should get rid of a lot of it, because when am I ever going to pick up charcoal again? Well, considering how I hated using that incredibly messy stuff, I'd say NEVER. That leaves me the problem of what to do with lightly-used art supplies. Most have been barely touched but they've been opened, so who knows. If I don't get rid of them during what's left of my break, I'll probably just leave them at my parents' house for yet another year.

I wish everyone a happy new year. Time to get started on those resolutions!

procrastination (er, study) cookie(s)

2011-12-11T21:59:00.001-05:00

It's finals time! Ugh. One more week until I get to go home! Basically all I have left are two papers and one presentation, so it shouldn't be too bad. Unfortunately, I'm having an awfully hard time motivating myself.

One cookie is pictured. Many were eaten.

I need sugar to work, and since we're low on flour I made oatmeal cookies (these cookies). And because I felt like they needed more sugar, I made them oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Yay! This is why I like baking. It's good for procrastinating, but it also yields morsels of yumminess which improve the studying. Therefore I feel like my little baking foray doesn't really count as procrastination because it was productive. Right? Yeah, this is how I justify things to myself. Wish me luck!

beginning to look a lot like xmas ...

2011-12-06T22:02:00.001-05:00

As much as I would like to get all Christmas-y and go to town on decorating this apartment, it just ain't really worth it since most of us are going home for the holidays. Also, it's finals time so I need to be focusing on school stuff. But ... I did manage to hang my stocking on my door. Yay!

For scale, the stocking's only about six inches tall. And those weird shadows are due to the weird configuration of lighting fixtures in my room. There's a little Christmas tree in our living room, so I guess that counts. Oh well, it ain't much but it's in the right spirit.

happy thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T11:57:00.005-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving! Yum yum, turkey time! I'm actually at a friend's house in Connecticut, and I'm going to experience my first ever truly American Thanksgiving. Excitingness. Sure I've had the turkey and the mashed potatoes before, but in a Chinese household ... Thanksgiving isn't very traditional ... and sometimes includes duck instead of turkey. Heh.

I hope everyone has a good holiday! Don't eat too too much! And try not to get trampled tomorrow, okay?

really non-mexican tacos

2011-11-17T18:06:00.000-05:00

I've been fairly busy lately (and still sick) so I haven't been very crafty and I haven't been making much food either. For instance, my lunch today consisted of crackers and juice. But I actually put a bit of effort into tonight's dinner! I basically survived college by eating everything in a tortilla since I can't really cook. Usually my meals involve simple reheating, a box, or a can. Eh.

I made myself some soft tacos with chicken sausage, mashed potatoes, corn, and shredded mozzarella. They were delicious. My roomies think I'm weird and I'm sure other people out there are wrinkling their noses at me, but hey - I never said I was normal!

If you're thinking: Where are the fruits and veggies? Well, the honest answer is that there are none. Nutrition-wise, I'm horrible. Not a big fan of healthy things. By no means am I suggesting that this would be a well-rounded meal for someone (unless you had a side of veggies). As one of my roommates put it, for me, the food pyramid is more of an hourglass shape, heavy on the carbs and sugar and sparse on everything else. I should probably get my cholesterol tested.

starting on xmas cards

2011-11-08T18:42:00.000-05:00

I like to make my own cards for Christmas because I feel like there are very few good ones out there that are unique but simple enough for my taste. And cheap enough for my budget. I'm currently experimenting, so I'm not sure what I'm going to end up with, but it'll probably just be black ink on white card stock, with maybe some added ribbon ... maybe.

I really want it to have a modern, simple look, where the typography takes precedence. Hm ... I'll have to play around more with it. I don't want it to be too boring, but if I'm making a whole buncha cards, I couldn't go too complicated either. Any suggestions?

I'll just shelve this for a while until I figure out something I'm completely satisfied with. After all, I still have over a month to make and write these cards!

life of a carrot cake

2011-10-29T20:17:00.002-04:00

One of my roommates (roomie I) had her birthday a few days ago so the rest of us decided to make a carrot cake for her. Fun times in our apartment! We used this recipe that I had used before except without pecans, and currants instead of raisins. After some carpal-tunnel-inducing carrot grating (thanks to roomie J and myself), we got the batter together.

It baked up pretty nice, but the darned thing wouldn't come out of the bundt cake pan even after I banged on it for forever.

However, it eventually did come out thanks to roomie D and a knife, and roomie D then whipped up the icing and sprinkled it all nicely with Halloween sprinkles. Cute, eh?

It was yummy. It got devoured pretty fast, leaving only a little bit for the fridge.

After the above picture was taken, roomie J opened the fridge (which isn't very organized) and the cake came tumbling out. Sad. So yep, the rest of it basically ended up in the trash.

Thus ends the story of this carrot cake's life. We still have extra carrots left, so carrot cake #2 might be on its way soon. Because it was yummy.

glass jar + paint = jar-o'-lantern

2011-10-17T16:55:00.003-04:00

A while ago I had seen this Martha Stewart project for Jar-o'-Lanterns and I thought, I got jars and I could easily get paint. So voila.

I decided to make my little jar-o'-lantern be a happy little guy, so I just freehand drew his face on with a permanent marker and let it sit so the marker would dry. Then I headed down to Michael's to buy orange paint. I probably should've gone with the recommended oil-based enamel paint ... but the orange acrylic was cheaper. And whatever, it looks fine. Oh, and the wire was just some normal silver 16-guage I picked up at the local hardware store. Simple and cheap - why does Martha have to make it seem so much more complicated?

Right now I've got him on our table in the living room, hanging out with our plastic pumpkin (filled with chocolate) and our real pumpkin (which is waiting anxiously to get carved). Now if only I can find some green ribbon to tie onto the silver wire, I'd be completely satisfied with it. In total, I only spent about $4 for the project since I only had to buy paint and wire. Yay!

cinnamon swirl bread success

2011-10-07T17:03:00.001-04:00

Woot! I finally got around to making bread in the bread machine AND remembering to take pictures. I got a Cuisinart bread machine when I first moved to New York and I've been making the cinnamon swirl bread that's in their recipe book. Pretty yummy.

I've been making the 1.5-pound loaves, and it basically fills up the entire thing, so I don't know how this thing is supposed to make a 2-pound loaf (although it's an option). It's just so easy, I love it. Back in Texas when I made bread by hand I always had trouble getting it to rise correctly, but never once had a problem here. I have a jar of yeast and a whole thing of vital wheat gluten, but goodness gracious flour goes fast.

This time the swirls came out better than the last time, but since we don't have a rolling pin, it's not too perfect. Plus, more cinnamon sugar would be better because ... there should always be more cinnamon sugar.

I made the bread as a procrastination tool while writing a paper. And whaddaya know? It makes a great breakfast paired with coffee after an all-nighter! Woot! This slice was further down into the loaf so the swirls are way different. Must had "rolling pin" to the list of stuff to buy.

More bread needs to be made though, because two days after getting baked, it's almost gone. Sadness. On the other hand, the paper got done and even though it wasn't the best, it got done. Now I just need to get going and start all my other assignments.

line squiggles

2011-10-01T23:17:00.001-04:00

I've been procrastinating again ... just a bit. I still need to do readings for class, I still need to go through and print photos from last year, and I still need to do laundry. On the other hand, I've gotten back into line drawing and short story writing. Yeah ... it's productive in a not-very-productive sort of way.

I did some shopping for craft supplies today, so I have a few things in the works for Halloween coming up which will be quite fun. I've also been working with my bread machine and it's making some yummy stuff, which is also good. Now if only I could get to be as excited about reading architectural theory, I'd be set.

getting back into the swing

2011-09-17T20:25:00.000-04:00

So ... I'm pretty much settled in by now. I moved in about one month ago and my room is pretty much set up, but I might buy a few more things in the upcoming weeks. Graduate school is really quite time consuming, not with busy work assignments like in undergraduate, but there are so many readings to do for each class that it takes a lot of effort to keep on top of them all. Two weeks in and I'm already not doing too well at that.

I'm not too fond of how my room looks decoration-wise, but it'll slowly get there. I like to keep myself busy with little crafts and tasks to give myself something to do when I need a break from all the reading. I'm currently working on a short story for a challenge swap, and the other day I bought two canvases (really cheaply from Michaels) and I want to do some kind of ink drawing on them. We'll see. I need to get some photos printed out ... which I've been saying for the last month.

Back in Austin I had a shelf that was devoted to clear glass bottles, and I've started doing the same to my windowsill here. I hate throwing away bottles, and I like the look of them when they're all different sizes and the light hits them. When there get to be too many I'll recycle them, but for now they're creating a little family on the sill.

Ugh ... alrighty then, I guess I should get back to reading now. From now on, if you see a post from me, you can go ahead and assume I'm procrastinating, so feel free to chide me back into being a responsible student.

i'm back! (sort of)

2011-08-28T20:21:00.004-04:00

My last real post on this blog was over a year ago. Whups. Anyway, I’m back from my adventure in China and I’m settling into college life again, only this time it’s graduate school and it’s New York now. What a change, eh? Unfortunately I couldn’t bring much stuff, so my crafting stuff is rather minimal at the moment. And by minimal, I mean bare minimum. Yikes. I’m going to have to seriously restrain myself from going on a shopping spree at Michaels to replenish my craft stash.

on hiatus

2010-12-21T03:26:00.001-05:00

Well, you haven't heard from me in about half a year. So I'm guessing you've figured out by now that this blog is on hiatus while I'm off adventuring in China. Can't do much crafting in Shanghai. If you really miss me, you can read my blog at miesby.wordpress.com. I switched over to WordPress for my China blog because the firewall here is pretty extreme and it took me this long (six months!) to figure out how to access Blogger.

Anyway ... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!

a little pouch

2010-05-12T16:22:00.005-04:00

Nope, I'm not dead and I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Wow it's been a while since I posted anything. Busy with finals and such. Graduation is coming up, tonight is my last final, and then I have a whole host of things to do.

By the way, does anyone need a place to live during the summer in Austin? If you're in the market for an apartment, let me know!

I haven't done anything crafty in a while. A week or two ago I made this little pouch when I was particularly bored. Nothing too impressive.

After tonight things should be better ... I hope. Probably not though. I still have to pack, sell things, find someone to sublet. And then I have a list of Austin restaurants I have to go to before I leave and friends I need to see before we all depart. That's okay though. I think I'd rather have too many things to do than nothing. I'd be too bored with boredom.

a bag for a swap

2010-04-21T15:49:00.007-04:00

Lately I've been participating in swaps over at swap-bot.com, which has been quite fun. For the latest swap I had to send something handmade. So ... if you're in that swap and your name is Clara, stop reading here (because I haven't sent it yet!).

I have a lot of fabric, so I'm going to try to use it by sewing stuff. I found a pretty simple tutorial for a bag which you can find here that I decided to use for the swap. I think the bag came out rather nicely, but next time I make one I'll probably change the fabric and shape.

Other stuff is in the works and hopefully my self-imposed deadlines hold fast. Now I'm off to actually do homework!

creative space: to be

2010-04-14T22:46:00.005-04:00

On Tuesday I went shopping. Yikes. But it wasn't aimless shopping, I was armed with a list ... and for the most part I stuck to it! I always seem to have lists and lists of projects in mind, so we'll see how many I finish by the end of the school year.

Bought some fabric, beads, and such. I'm planning to make a simple little pencil pouch because since my purse is so huge, I can never seem to find any writing utensils. On the other hand, with a large purse, I can carry around my entire life with me ... yay! The beads don't have anything to do with making the pouch, but they were purple and pretty and I couldn't help myself.

I have a whole stack of frames that I've been trying to use since my original grand plan for them fell through. I used one for this gift and used two more here, leaving nine sitting in a stack under my bed. I received the circles of paper in a swap, but since I don't scrapbook and rarely work with paper, they were kind of useless to me. So I stuck 'em in frames and ta-dah, instant art.

That's all that's on my plate for now. I got some real world stuff to get done (oh laundry, why do you never end?) and a story to finish, so hopefully I'll have projects in motion within a few days. Linking over to kootoyoo's blog for a whole lotta creative spaces.

in love with purples

2010-04-04T13:54:00.003-04:00

While blue is still my favorite color, purple is closing in ranks. I've always liked purple, but lately, it's gained some additional significance over here.

I have no idea what kind of flowers these are, but they're blooming ALL OVER THE PLACE. It's so pretty, there are petals all over the ground and it smells wonderful. Yep, it's definitely spring here. Spring is probably my favorite season. I can finally break out the tank tops and flouncy skirts.

Tassels! No, I haven't graduated yet, but I'm well on my way. I finally plunked down the cash to buy my gown, so now I get to stare at it for the next two months. Excited, nervous, also a little in denial. Does this mean I have to grow up and act like an adult? Sheesh.

I hurt my arm and I'm sort of sick ... again. So hopefully staying home, acting like a bum, and catching up on little errands (organizing that stack of papers, mending that hole, et cetera) will do me good. My chocolate stash will surely aid in that.

Happy Easter!

framed green letters

2010-03-14T11:26:00.002-04:00

I finally finished the gift I had blogged about in my last post. Here it is! I know, you're probably scratching your heads trying to figure out what the heck it's supposed to be, so I'll do you the favor and explain.

First of all, it's art, so it's not meant to do anything but hang on the wall and look pretty. I cut out the letters of my friend's name in various fonts out of green card stock. Then I ~~randomly jumbled~~ carefully arranged said letters on another piece of green in a lighter shade, stuck it all in a frame, and voila.

Pretty simple and I thought it was rather cute. Whaddaya think?

creative space: green letters

2010-03-10T17:57:00.004-05:00

My friend's birthday is coming up, so I'm working on a little present for her. I couldn't think of anything to get her and since she'll be moving soon, I didn't want to get her anything to bulky.

I'm making her a little art piece to hang on her wall. Green card stock, a picture frame, and some funky letters. Hopefully I'll get it finished tomorrow, but ... ya never know.

More creative spaces here at kootoyoo!

springtime: a musing

2010-03-05T16:01:00.005-05:00

There's something about sitting outside on a worn wooden bench and rolling a fallen flower petal between your fingers that truly embodies spring.

Enclosed in a limestone courtyard, the sky is a quiet blue gently sponged with soft whites. The tree branches overhead sway with tame wind gusts and drop petals around. I wore my hair down to feel the wind rustle through the strands, not minding when they get tangled up by my pearl earrings.

Today was such a fantastic day. I'm so glad it's spring already. To me, this season epitomizes simple happiness. Days like this, I think I'll never leave Austin.

some pillows bleed red

2010-03-03T15:19:00.004-05:00

I haven't posted in a long while, which I could blame on increased homework and studying for the GRE, but in reality I was just lazy. I had some fabric remnants from freshman year (that's three years!) and I finally got fed up with it laying around and cut the red into pieces and sewed them together with some white cottony/plushy fabric and gray fleece. The result was a passable but boring pillow about 12" square.

Then, because I'm a perfectionist, I thought: That just won't cut it. So I sewed on piece of black ribbon to make a bow. Yay. But then, because I'm also an idiot, I decided to wash it ... forgetting that RED dyes tend to bleed RED, especially on WHITE. Oops.

The white pieces are now more of a coral/pink tie-dye. Kind of ruins the effect I was going for, but it's not that big of a deal. All in all, I'll live. The pillow was meant as a floor cushion for myself because I tend to do all my work (like typing this post) while sitting on the floor.

What I am annoyed about is that I washed that pillow WITH my comforter. I've had that comforter since I was really little and now there's large red smears on it. Any solutions?

Happy March, everyone. Don't be stupid like me.

happy (fill-in-the-blank)

2010-02-15T15:32:00.003-05:00

This weekend was just chock full of holidays, wasn't it? To everyone out there: Happy Valentine's Day, Happy Chinese New Year, Happy Flag Day (to the Canadians), and Happy President's Day (to the Americans)! Oh ... and an early Happy Mardi Gras!

There wasn't much celebrating on my part because evidently my professors didn't get the memo. I had a break between my classes this morning, so I went home and took a little nap. When I woke, this is the sight that greeted me and I realized: Wow, I am kinda girly. I also realized that naps during the day are amazing!

It's a bit chilly here (by which I mean it's in the 30s), but my bed is right next to a window that gets southern sunlight, so I was all warm and snuggly. These are the things that make me happy.

giftness: m&ms in glass

2010-02-12T15:33:00.006-05:00

Have I mentioned that I'm a poor college student? Well, I am. I'm also incredibly fond of holidays, gift-giving, and collecting things. I especially like glass, so I hate throwing away glass bottles. Since the nearest recycling center is a decent drive away I figured I'd reuse them like the good eco-friendly person I am (well, I try).

I thoroughly cleaned some clear bottles, filled them with M&Ms, topped them off with some pink fabric, white ribbon, and red knotted cord ... and voila. Cheap, easy, and universal - because who can say no to chocolate? I wanted to find the red, white, and pink M&Ms, but the store I went to didn't have any. It was probably for the best since a few of my friends are being decidedly anti-Valentine's Day this year.

I don't see why people gripe so much about it. Is it a commercial holiday? Yes. Do I care? No. Why? Because whenever there's a chance for people to show how much they appreciate each other (and consume chocolate), it's all good in my book.

creative space: pink + red

2010-02-10T19:44:00.005-05:00

I absolutely adore holidays. ADORE. That being said, this Sunday is a double-whammy of Valentine's Day and the Chinese New Year. Thank goodness the colors coordinate!

I had planned to go all out on gifts for Friday, but I've decided against it. Instead, I'm just making little no-frills things. Nothing's been put together, but I have red satin cord and pieces of pink fabric ready.

Using some online tutorials, I figured out how to make the lucky and button knots. I was going to buy oranges also (for the Chinese New Year) but they're too darn expensive because of the frost in Florida. Oh well, I'll just have to do without.

Now I just have to wait for my glass bottles to finish drying and I can fill 'em with M&Ms. Yep, that's my grand plan: M&Ms. All my friends are college students - I doubt they'd mind.

Ah, and I almost forgot again! Linking up to kootoyoo for creative spaces!

creative space: ribbon

2010-02-04T12:58:00.007-05:00

I went out shopping to pick up some supplies for Valentine's Day presents. Since they didn't have what I was looking for, I was stressed, and therefore vulnerable to the ribbon section. Thankfully they had ribbons on sale. Unfortunately, that means I had little willpower to say no.

At Hobby Lobby they had some spools of ribbon for only a few bucks each. So in total, there's 50 yards of ribbon and 8 buttons ... for less than $10! I ended up simplifying my gift plans to suit what I had on hand, but oh well. Currently everything's still in my head, so there's nothing substantial on my table.

School and work are picking up, so I have less time to craft. I'm also ridiculously stressed about life ... don't even get me started on the financial aid drama.

I'm linking over to kootoyoo for creative spaces.

margarita cupcakes

2010-01-31T22:34:00.014-05:00

I've wanted to make these for a really long time. I bought lime juice back in September specifically to make these. Thankfully that stuff stays fine for a while and the rest of the ingredients I have on hand normally. The original recipe is from a book called "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World". I'm not vegan, but some of their cupcakes are AMAZING. I tweak their recipes to suit my non-vegan pantry, but basically the credit goes there.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup lime juice

1 cup milk

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons tequila

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup sugar

1 1/3 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Process:

mix together the wet ingredients with the sugar (first six items on the ingredients list)

separately mix the remaining ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt)

then mix the two mixtures together

pour into muffin tins - will make 12

bake in oven at 350F for 20-25 minutes

Frosting:

1/4 cup butter (softened so it's easier to mix)

3 tablespoons lime juice

1 tablespoon tequila

2 cups confectioner's sugar

The cupcakes are light, moist, and delicious. And even though these are "margarita" cupcakes, you don't taste any alcohol in the cake itself - it's all in the frosting. So once the cupcakes were cool, I whipped some up. There's no real need to follow a recipe - just simple frosting with lime juice and tequila instead of water. My hand kind of tipped a bit in the process ... so my frosting turned out to be quite, um, strong. But yummy!

My roommate hasn't been home since I made these, so I'll have to make sure to tell her about the alcohol-content of the cupcakes. Then again, that would be quite the surprise, expecting a simple vanilla cupcake and getting a taste of a margarita instead. That girl better love me. Seriously, I must be in the running for best roommate ever.

Oh, and a belated linkage here to Bake at 350, which is having a little party. Next on my list, after I buy coconut and pineapple juice, are these pina colada cupcakes. Yum!

day of recovery

2010-01-24T16:29:00.006-05:00

I have been sick for the past few days, but today, Sunday, I can finally take some time to rest. I woke up about an hour ago and I feel all-over achy (not to mention the sneezing and coughing). Oh, and I have a giant two-inch bruise on my arm from carrying groceries. Yucks. Times like these I really wish I had something stronger than Tylenol at home.

My lunch today reflects my current state. Orange juice for the Vitamin C ... does that even help? Then leftover pizza and a cupcake for a pick-me-up. As a whole, it looks pretty discordant, but I'm sick, so blah.

Things to do: homework, laundry, cleaning, check mail, organize finances, and sleep. I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm only going to be doing the last item. And I'll probably have to skip work tomorrow, which would be the FIRST time I haven't come in to work. Darn.

hello again

2010-01-20T00:51:00.004-05:00

I realize that it has been a long, long time since I last posted. Please forgive me. Tomorrow (er ... later today) is the first day of class and will thus be the beginning of my resolve to post regularly once again. I also haven't been reading the blogs in a while, so I have a lot of catching up to do.

I briefly perused On the Refrigerator Door, one of my favorite blogs, and the most recent article was about displaying jewelry. So for a quick post, I thought I'd show my system.

Even though I'm in a rather small apartment, I have a rather large bathroom (and closet! - but that's another story). My bathroom has two sinks and a large mirror, which is kind of ridiculous since I'm the only one who uses it. I bought a pack of little suction cup hooks at the dollar store, and I use them to hang jewelry on my mirror. I think it's rather pretty and it makes it easy for me to grab that necklace, ring, or bracelet for the day without having to rummage through my stash. When I'm bored, I'll move the suction cups into various patterns ... it's great fun.

I leave a few pieces out and the rest is in a container on my counter, which is actually a repurposed embroidery floss organizer. On a normal day, I don't wear much jewelry, but I do love buying it. Generally I'll only wear a simple ring that I bought with my sister a few years ago and that's enough. Having things displayed on my mirror, where it's functional as well as aesthetic, well that just makes me happy though.

Welcome to 2010, everyone. Enjoy the ride.

xmas cards

2009-12-16T21:32:00.001-05:00

Christmas is coming up in a week and a half and I have yet to send out Christmas cards ... oops! Well I finally got around to making the cards, so that's progress, right? Now I just need to write out all the cards, make sure the addresses I have are still current, buy stamps, et cetera.

It took me a few trips to Michael's to figure out what I wanted to do, but I found these letter stamps and they seemed pretty nifty, so I grabbed those (along with a black inkpad) and that was pretty much it. The rest of what I used I had on hand.

I ended up with three versions of Christmas cards for this year. I've never been fond of giving everyone the same exact card, so I try to make different variations. After stamping each card with "Happy Holidays", I drew a tree, ornament, or present with a black marker. Then I hot glued a little something for color and dimension. The tree got a blue gem as a star, the ornament a red ribbon, and the present a green bow. Cute, eh?

My roommate left today, so I wrapped up the first part of her present and gave it to her. I used the rough draft of my essay (with red marks and all) and tied it with a bow. I go through so much paper in school so I try to recycle the best I can. Anyway, she thought it was hilarious because she recognized it as the essay I had been complaining about. As for other Christmas presents, well they're proving a bit trickier. I went to the mall the other day and after almost two hours, didn't buy a single thing. To be honest, I was shopping more for myself, but I kept having trouble finding the right size for things ... very disappointing.

Most of my friends have already left for home, but I'm going to be hanging around here for a bit longer to work and do some shopping. Christmas is coming up way too fast.

apt xmas

2009-12-02T20:50:00.005-05:00

An apartment next to a college campus is not an ideal place for Christmas. Thankfully I will be spending Christmas at home with my family, but I'll only be able to spend a few days at home. The rest of the time will be at my fabulously over-priced, run-down apartment. Therefore, while procrastinating one fine evening, I decided to decorate. Here, ladies and gentlemen, is how a college student decorates her apartment for Christmas (on a very limited budget).

1. White Lights

I dug up some white Christmas lights that I bought two years ago for studio. I actually bought them because when you can't find an extension cord, Christmas lights will work just as well. I had originally strung them around my desk to keep people from walking by my work area where I had models on the floor. Last year I was in the middle of a large studio space, so the Christmas lights were strung from the wall to my desk in the middle of the room, and the guy sitting next to me had Christmas lights strung from the other wall to his desk. All in all it was fabulous. Here in our lowly apartment, however, I just grabbed some drafting tape and taped these much loved white lights around our front doorway. The texture of the wall is kind of weird though.

2. Silver and Red Bow

I've always been a big fan of bows. Snowflakes are pretty. Christmas trees and stockings are too obvious. Bows are universal. And I happen to really like ribbon. So I grabbed some thick silver wired ribbon and created a big bow on our cheap Wal-Mart shelving unit. I thought it looked a bit drab so I grabbed some red satin ribbon and incorporated another bow into the mix. I think it's rather nice ... really classes up that cheap white plastic, eh?

3. Santa Hat

I've had this Santa hat for years ... can't even remember where/when I got it. Anyway, though I like the color green, I've never been a big fan of the red-green color combination because I just find it too cliché. It screams "Christmas!" in that overly commercial way. Therefore, our apartment's just going to stick with red and white/silver, which the Santa hat fits into perfectly. How is the hat standing so erect on our counter? Because it's hiding our very college-student bottle of tequila next to an empty bottle of wine. Yeah ... don't judge me. Oh, and the wallpaper was there when we moved in.

Christmas is my favorite holiday. I love giving gifts, wrapping gifts, decorating gifts, hanging out with friends, having that hot mocha latté at Spider House while exchanging gifts ... you get the idea. Though decorating was rather light this year, I think in conjunction with the nippy weather and the scarves around my neck, it's winter enough. Happy holidays.

interiors in austin

2009-11-20T18:13:00.004-05:00

I cannot believe how long it has been since I've posted. It's really quite a travesty. Since my sewing machine hasn't been touched (except to push it further against the wall), I figured I would share the only pictures I've taken recently - architecture around Austin. Figuring that most people wouldn't care about all the construction details, I picked some interior shots that I thought were particularly inspiring.

First up is the Livestrong Lance Armstrong Foundation Headquarters by Lake/Flato and Bommarito Group. From the exterior, the building was rather unassuming, but the interior felt extremely spacious. There was a lot of warm wood, with much of the wood used recycled from the previously-existing building.

Then comes a private residence called Undertree House by Loop Design. It has been described as somewhat "whimsical", but has a great Austin vibe and is very environmentally-responsive. Its name derives from the fact that the house's plan was arranged based on the existing trees on the lot.

Lastly is another private residence, Wolfe Den by MJ Neal. This was a very modern house - nice clean lines all over the place. The house's entire side wall was covered in touch-latched closets, so all their stuff was hidden.

There was the most beautiful bathroom ever in that house. Loving the white. And that white counter? It's cast concrete!

So this is the type of thing that I get excited about. I'll probably end up showing more architecture pictures on this blog, because it's my blog and I can do whatever I want. Also, I haven't been very productive or crafty. The holiday season is coming up, which I'm really excited about. Unfortunately that just means more hectic-ness for me, but if I'm going to be making any gifts, I should probably get on that. Anyway, I probably won't post again for a while, so: Happy Early Thanksgiving!

hello again (sort of)

2009-11-05T00:09:00.001-05:00

Whoops. It's been quite a while since I last posted. Felt like I needed to write though ... for fun, not essay-writing for class (because that's not fun). For anyone reading, I feel like I should warn you that this post is pretty much just going to be me complaining. Because that's what I do when I feel like this.

Work is work. Wow. Revelation. I feel so rundown and exhausted. Kids need to learn that it is NOT OKAY to cough in people's faces. I haven't been feeling too great for the past few days and I am completely blaming the kids. I give them tissues, I tell them to aim for their elbows, but nope. I get paid decently and my job isn't bad at all, so I shouldn't complain, but COME ON!

Usually when I go grocery shopping I go in with a short list of the things I absolutely need and then just buy whatever else sounds good at the moment. Since I haven't been feeling well, I haven't been feeling hungry, and therefore didn't buy much when I went to the store. For dinner I ate a corn dog (yay microwave!) because that's all I could really find. My lunch for tomorrow will be yet another turkey sandwich. I have eaten so many turkey sandwiches since the beginning of the semester, it's disgusting. But if I'm buying a loaf of bread, a head of lettuce, and a container of turkey, I pretty much have to eat turkey sandwiches all week or everything goes bad/stale/icky.

I want to take NyQuil and sleep a good sleep, but then I probably wouldn't be able to make it to my 8 AM class. That's kind of a catch-22. If I want to be alert for class, I need a good sleep (which only NyQuil will give - darn coughing). But if I want to make it to class on time, I cannot take NyQuil (which would knock me out for at least 10 hours). Ugh.

Then there's school. Need I say more? I cannot wait until Thanksgiving. I am going to relish that break so much. Oh, and my wallet currently has $2. It's just past 11 PM and this college student is off to take a long hot shower, crawl into bed, and hope that the world magically turns into cotton candy in the morning.

baked + gifts + space

2009-10-22T10:16:00.003-04:00

Whew. First I must mention that I made cookies again. Lots and lots of oatmeal cookies. I used the same recipe that I had used in this previous post, but I made the cookies a bit smaller and multiplied the recipe by 1.5. Ended up with about 70 cookies, stuffed about 25 per bag, and sent them on their way to studio. The rest stayed home and were promptly devoured.

Then I made rolls. Yay! Don't have a loaf pan here, so I haven't been able to make bread again, but I do have a baking sheet so I tried out this recipe and I think they turned out rather yummy. Pretty easy to make too. Next time I'll probably halve the recipe because this made a lot of rolls (not that my roommate minds).

Ingredients:

2 1/4 teaspoons yeast

2 1/2 cup warm water (divided)

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

7 cups flour

Process:

dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup warm water

in a separate bowl cream together the sugar and shortening

add egg, salt, the yeast mixture (after making sure it blossomed), remaining 2 cups of water, and about 4 cups flour

mix until smooth and keep mixing in flour until it turns into a soft dough

turn out and knead for about 6-8 minutes

place dough in a greased bowl, turn the dough over (to make sure it's all oiled up), and cover the bowl

place the bowl in the refrigerator to rise overnight or for at least 8 hours

the next morning, punch the dough down and form rolls (about 36)

grease a baking sheet and roll the rolls around on it to cover them in oil (this will allow you to take the rolls apart after they bake together)

cover and let it rise in a warm place for about 1 hour (until the dough has doubled - the rolls should start squishing together)

bake in oven at 400F for 12-14 minutes until lightly browned

I love getting mail! My sister mailed me this cute little spiders thing. It's currently hanging from a light switch in our hallway. Festive-y, right?

A while back I won a giveaway from SimplyNu, and I received this delicious piece of handmade Castile soap in the mail. It's called Daisy Castile and I must say ... its scent is heavenly (and the flower shape is too cute). They're pretty new and their etsy shop has a lovely range of candles, soaps, and stationery. So, a big thanks to SimplyNu! I wish them the best with their store.

Last but not least, my current creative space. Lots of black, I know. Halloween is next Saturday, can you guess what I'm up to? There's black tulle, black elastic, black feathers, and some silver and black jewelry. I rather like my costume idea, but since it has yet to be created, I won't say much now.

Linking over to kootyoo for a whole bunch of creative spaces. And over to Southern Hospitality for recipes!Goodness gracious, this was a long post!

weirdo fan pulls

2009-10-15T22:50:00.009-04:00

This morning I was lying on my floor (as I am apt to do) and looking up at my ceiling. Then I realized that I am a very weird person. The pulls to my ceiling fan were too short when I moved in, so I attached string for length as a quick fix. Bit by bit I've been adding things to them.

First were three plastic sun-catchers shaped like insects. I had painted them with my friends before going off to college, so I wanted to display them. Okay. Then came Bob, my mini-mannequin. He's been a fixture in every studio I've had, so I put him up there too. The string was too long, which was annoying, but instead of cutting it like a normal person, I let it hang there. Eventually I added a binder clip, which I had just taken it off some papers. I found an uneaten granola bar in my bag one day, so I attached it to that clip. Now I have all of that hanging in the middle of my room. Currently there are three granola bars up there at about eye level, which means that I am bound to walk into them at least once a day. I don't mind.

Weird, right? I LOVE the idea of having food hanging from my ceiling fan. It's so useful since it saves me those five steps to the kitchen when I want a snack. Yeah, I'm a total weirdo. Who would've thought a fan pull would/could evolve into this?

my creative space

2009-10-08T10:40:00.007-04:00

My creative space is a mess. My crafting table is generally pretty clear with everything pushed into a corner, but that has been completely empty for a while. Organized chaos is the name of the game for the rest of my room. Everything has its place, but within that place it's an anything goes kind of system. My embroidery floss is all neatly arranged according to number, with remaining spaces crammed with scraps of ribbon and string, other boxes holding magnets, bottle caps, and buttons.

All my fabric lives in a cardboard box ... well, except for the fleece, cheap green stuff, and some pink print because not all of it would fit. Aye. I have all this fabric and every time I go to make something I think to myself that what I have simply will not do. Once upon a time it was organized, with everything neatly folded and arranged by color, but then life happened, and now it's more of stuffing and stacking things so they stay within the general confines of the box.

When I'm having a bad day, I'll just pull out one of the boxes (embroidery floss box, craft things box, or fabric box) and rifle through 'em. Because even though I'm generally not big on colors (a fair percentage of my wardrobe is black), I do like colors in most things. So that's my kind of pick me up.

Oh, and this is linked over to kootoyoo's blog where there's a whole list of people's creative spaces. So much fun to browse.

gifts from ya'll

2009-10-02T15:19:00.003-04:00

I ADORE holidays, even the random ones. A lot of blogs out there are talking about Halloween, but over here, I'm getting ready for the Mid-Autumn Festival aka Moon Festival tomorrow, Saturday, October 3rd. Its date changes every year because it's calculated on the lunar calendar, but it's a great cultural holiday that involves the eating of moon cakes, which are delicious. Currently my moon cakes are hanging out in my fridge, just begging to be consumed, but I will resist until Saturday!

The main reason I love holidays is gifting. I love giving gifts, and I love receiving gifts. Just the small things make me happy. This post is about gifts I've received recently, from people around the blog world. Giveaways just make everything warm and fuzzy, don't you agree? Now I just need to make something worthy of being given away to keep the happiness flowing.

This beautiful pair of earrings (called "Pure Kindness") from Jane at She Greets the Day arrived in the mail, really nicely packaged. Jane has a lovely little etsy shop with cute pieces of jewelry that you should check out. It's always nice to find someone in blogger land who isn't a mother. No offense to all of you out there, but sometimes I feel weird reading all these posts about children and families.

Then there was this Callie Cat from Debra at Creative Ramblings. Precious! Currently I have her chilling out on my crafting table, sitting next to my sewing machine, chiding me for not being more productive. I feel bad because Debra spent a fair amount just on the shipping, but I do love the fact that my room now feels more homey because of its new addition.

Last, but not least, Lisa from The Davis Dialogues sent me this bracelet with panels of lavender ... on dominoes! Nifty, eh? It's a nice, chunky bracelet. I'll probably wear it when I go out tonight.

Oh, and I stopped by Michael's the other day and bought some snaps, so there starts my October total. First thing on this weekend's list is grocery shopping, because I am out of food. Seriously out of food, as in I was starving and ended up driving to McDonald's (the closest food source) to buy dinner. I feel pretty disgusted with myself. But I have moon cakes to look forward to and happy thoughts. Yeah, let's not think about that essay ... or that test ... or the real world. But thanks to all of you! Yay Jane, Debra, and Lisa!

things - bought and made

2009-09-24T21:46:00.005-04:00

I spent more money. But ... I've also been doing little projects, so I think it balances out. I didn't spend too much, and thankfully the month of September is coming to a close, because that means that my September total will (presumably) never hit the $40 mark.

Michael's is conveniently located between work and home, which is disastrously wonderful. Because that means that after a long day at work, I can very easily cheer myself up by buying a thing or two at my favorite happy place.

There was a little silver pail, silver embroidery floss, ribbon, and moss. Yep, a bag of green moss. It's going to get used on one of my architecture models, but I figured it was crafty enough to warrant inclusion. Wouldn't it look darling in that pail with a little something else? In addition to the items pictured, I bought two colors of embroidery floss and more floss bobbins - my collection is steadily growing. Yikes.

I then decided to make myself a pincushion, because I desperately needed one. Since I use needles as pins, when they're laying around on my table (or the carpeted floor) they're ridiculously difficult to find and pick up. I also made a little pouch that I'm keeping spools of thread in and two little wallet/pouch things. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to close them.

I sewed them up differently, trying to see what I liked better. The green one has a cleaner look to it, but I kind of like the "clearly handmade" look to the cream one. Debating between snap, button, and tie closures. This sewing has helped me a lot with improving my control on the sewing machine. I'm improving!

sugar cookies!

2009-09-19T11:18:00.005-04:00

My roommate had a review for her studio, so ... I made them (and me) sugar cookies! I went with my go-to sugar cookie recipe, which I still have no complaints about. I found it here and judging by the amount of reviews it has, a lot of other people agree with my positive assessment.

Ingredients:

2-3/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup butter (softened)

1-1/2 cups sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

Process:

mix together the flour, baking soda, and baking powder

separately mix together the softened butter (microwaved it for a while) with the sugar

to the butter mix, add the egg and vanilla

add it all together

form into teaspoon-sized balls on a cookie sheet

bake in oven at 375F for 8-10 minutes (I stuck to about 8 minutes for chewier cookies rather than hard ones)

They come out delish as always. The recipe yielded about four dozen cookies, which was probably a bit more than I should've made. I intended to halve the recipe, but while mixing ingredients, I forgot. And how the heck do you halve an egg, eh?

I ended up just sewing a quick bag, lining it with a paper towel, and stuffing about two dozen of the cookies in there. The rest stayed on our counter. I attached the sugar cookie tag I made a few weeks ago to a binder clip, and then just clipped the bag closed. Looking back, I should have added some ribbon, but guess I was just being lazy. Quick and easy. This week is going to be RIDICULOUSLY CRAZY with tests, papers, and what-not, but at least there are cookies.

shopping spree

2009-09-13T10:51:00.002-04:00

That last post was a tad depressing, so how about a happier topic? Buying stuff is always happy, right?

Yesterday I went shopping and spent about $20 on crafting supplies. Yikes! Why the high total? I went out to get some keys made, got lost a MILLION TIMES, had to get my friend to Google directions for me, and once I got there, was told that they didn't have any of the correct sized keys. Oh and it was raining all day. I had been out for over two hours (on what should've been a 30-minute trip), had no keys (which was the main purpose of my trip), and in addition to being stressed out, was wet and sloshy. So naturally I bought stuff, because that's what I do when I feel like crap - retail therapy.

I didn't feel so great when I got home, but the rain really was quite pretty and I normally do like rain. I took this photo when the rain let up a bit and my camera wasn't in serious danger. The white flowers just looked so calm and peaceful against the background ... if only my mindset would match.

remembering mrs. reinhart

2009-09-11T18:55:00.004-04:00

Today is September 11th. I was planning on helping with an event this morning, but at the last minute decided against it. This evening I was planning on attending a memorial event, but I'm not going to go. In previous years when I was still active in my organization, I participated in their 9/11 events, but it just makes me too mad and too sad.

It's been eight years since, but I still remember that day so clearly. Today while getting ready to go plant flags in the south mall of the campus, I remembered Mrs. Reinhart, my language arts teacher. I remember exactly where I was sitting in her class when the announcement came over the PA system, instructing the teachers to check their e-mail. It was in her class that the television was turned on, and we watched the towers fall. Mrs. Reinhart was never my favorite teacher and it took me a while to think of her name, but I will probably always remember her simply because of that day.

So even though I was awake at 4:30 this morning, I decided not to go. I don't think I would have been able to take it. I was still planning to go to the event tonight, but due to rain, they've moved it inside to an auditorium. Indoors, I'd feel suffocated and would probably end up running out crying like I did a few years ago. Then they'd all look at me with their sad eyes. And then I'd get mad that they didn't seem sad. September 11, 2001, changed everyone and everything, but you would never guess it walking around campus - is that hopeful or depressing? As I passed by the display of flags that I was supposed to help with, I heard someone ask about their significance.

In short: I'm better left alone today, because otherwise I might either cry or yell at you.

one week later

2009-09-10T11:02:00.010-04:00

It's been one week since my last post. From now on I'll probably only post about once a week because, well ... I really don't have much to post about. I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend. As I mentioned previously, my sister came to town and we did sisterly things, like eat and shop. It was so great to see her again. Good Austin-y restaurants to try: Blue Dahlia (on East 11th), Chuy's (on Barton Springs), and Woodland (on South Congress). I definitely need to go back to Woodland because their meatloaf sandwich was ridiculously delicious.

We went to the Farmer's Market at 4th and Guadalupe on Saturday morning, where we tried some very yummy samples and bought figs. I had never had figs that didn't come in a newton before, so I was completely shocked when I first bit into one. YUM. So sweet ... so lovely. The picture is of the very last fig - right before I ate that little piece of heaven.

On Labor Day I went to a friend's place for a get-together she was having. To thank her, I made her some oatmeal cookies and gave them to her yesterday. They actually turned out really good. I halved this recipe but still ended up with a few over two dozen 2" cookies. The ingredients list below is for the full recipe, so if you want a smaller batch, just halve it like I did.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter (softened)

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar (packed)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (I increased this a bit)

3 cups quick cooking oats

Process:

mix together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar

add the eggs and vanilla to the mix

in a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon

add the two mixtures together and add the oatmeal

form little balls of dough (about 1" in diameter) onto a cookie sheet

bake in oven at 375F for 8-10 minutes

I haven't had a chance to make those reusable cookie bags, so I just used a plain ol' ziploc with a piece of ribbon and tucked in a note. I left the cookies on her desk yesterday morning and got a voicemail from her thanking me later on. This is why I love giving cookies - it just makes people happy! And it makes me happy for making others happy! All in all, very happy. I also finally managed to give my friend X her birthday pillows. More happiness!

But ... apparently my sister thinks I'm tired all the time because I eat too many simple sugars. Yeah yeah, probably true. I just happen to really like bread, muffins, and cookies. Is that so wrong?

busy busy me

2009-09-03T23:06:00.008-04:00

First post of September! Life is so busy right now, in a frantically wonderful way, that I feel compelled to share everything with the world (but edited as to remove anything that could be remotely identifiable). Posts and projects are probably going to become a bit more sparse, but oh well. School is starting to pick up, and good golly, all that homework - sheesh! Anyway, I still have quite a bit of free time, so I had been looking for a job. And I found one! YES!

I celebrated by going to Michael's and buying myself stuff. Only spent $3.89. The picture came out showing everything as blue, so I tried photoshopping it to the correct shades of purple. Eh. Ribbon was an odd texture, but the spool was only a dollar. Then I got a skein of embroidery floss because I was running low on #333. And ... I bought myself the magnificent disappearing-ink pen that I have been craving for years. I first used one in high school and found them to be simply magical. They're not expensive, normally $4.50 (or $2.25 with a 50% Michael's coupon), but I could never bring myself to buy one, until now. YES!

Also, last but definitely not least, my darling sister is coming to see me. Well ... I don't know if "darling" is the right word to describe her. But I'm so excited! And then of course, Monday is Labor Day. Don't you just love holidays? This means I can be lazy (and catch up on sleep) since I won't have school and I won't have work. YES!

cookie tags

2009-08-30T17:58:00.002-04:00

I make a lot of cookies. Most of my friends are in architecture studio, slaving away until the wee hours of the night. Since I don't have studio and I get lonely, I like making them cookies or doing menial tasks for them (like gluing together a pile of cylinders). Since I make a lot of cookies and I feel bad throwing away all those plastic bags, I have decided to make reusable, washable fabric bags for cookies. Well, I haven't gotten around to that part yet, but I've made the fabric tags to identify the cookie types. I'll get around to making the actual bags later ... eventually ... sometime. I'm busy!


First comes the template. I would've just cut out a chunk of fabric and started sewing, but I have finally learned that I am not good at cutting a straight line. I drew a rectangle 2.5" by 6" in the corner of a manila envelope with my trusty metal L ruler. Cut out a chunk from the corner of the template and then went about tracing shapes from the fabric. I have a lot of this cheap fabric because I originally used it to cover the wall partition in my studio. It's the same fabric I used for these.


Cut out all those shapes, and then fold them in half with the wrong sides out. The fabric I used was the same on both sides so it really didn't matter. Sew the two long edges and the short side closed while leaving open the wedge. Then flip it right-side out through the opening that was left. I ironed it at this point to make it easier to work with. I'm not good at drawing a straight line, cutting a straight line, or sewing a straight line. Oh well. Wonky edges make it seem more homemade, right?

Then comes the stuffing. I just added a bit of stuffing into each tag to give them some thickness and make them a bit more substantial. Batting probably would've worked easier, but I don't have any of that. While embroidering I would have to keep pressing the stuffing to where I wanted it because it moves a bit. Once the letters are embroidered, however, it's pretty much stuck.


To make it easier to attach the tags onto the bags (which I intend to have some sort of drawstring or handle), I decided to sew on some loops. I used a random shoestring that I had and cut it into three-inch strips. By the way, this was a new, clean, completely unused shoestring. Since it was going to be used near food and was meant to be washable, I avoided my usual twine and ribbon. Tucking it into the wedge, which had been folded in, I secured it with a pin, and then took it to the sewing machine. I stitched around the edge of the entire thing, and when it got to the area of the wedge, I stitched that opening closed, making sure to get the ends of the cord as I went.

Then came the final step: embroidering! This was the most fun but also the most time-consuming part. I didn't really plan much before starting the letters, so in some cases I had to go back and redo a letter or two to fix the spacing. This is where a disappearing-ink pen would've come in handy ... if only I had one. Make sure to sew all the way through the tag to cinch in the stuffing. I think it's cute because the reverse side of the tag spells out "oatmeal" but backwards.

I currently have three made: oatmeal, choc chip, and sugar. I plan on making a few more, but I have no idea how I'm going to embroider "peanut butter" onto one of these things. I'll probably also have to make another "choc chip" in case I make a batch of chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal chocolate chip (which would require both an "oatmeal" and "choc chip" tag). I'm running out of the purple embroidery floss I was using, so that is yet another thing to add to my list. On the other hand, my August total is so tiny!

lucky me (part 2)

2009-08-24T19:10:00.001-04:00

In a previous post I mentioned that I had won two giveaways, and this is the second one! It actually arrived in the mail about a week ago ... but it's been hectic over here! Anyway, it's this beautiful Green Garden Wallet from Maggie Whitley. She has a lovely collection of wallets and pouches at her etsy shop and the giveaway was hosted by Everything Etsy.

Generally the yellow, green, orange color scheme isn't really my cup of tea, but the print is very fun and her signature ruffle gives it character. Now I just have to decide what I'm going to keep in it. I think it'll probably turn into my catchall for coupons and receipts. Hm ... I'll probably have to leave it on my desk and stare at it until I can find a use deserving of it. It also has a magnetic closure, which in my disaster of a purse is a necessary thing.

On a side note, I'm not sure if I like the black background for photographing things. I have two desks in my room, one black and one white. The white one is my designated crafting desk (on top of which my sewing machine sits proudly!) and the black is generally my laptop/schoolwork desk. I like the classiness of black, but I think in general I'll stick to the white ... or the carpet ('cause that's the classiest of all).

School starts in two days. AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't feel prepared to start classes again. And those eight o'clock classes are going to be the death of me. I haven't really had the chance to get into the back-to-school mindset since I'm waiting until the first week of class to buy books in case my professors change their minds, which happens way too often.

The other day a bunch of us rented a boat out on Lake Austin to celebrate a friend's birthday. It was great fun except for when we had to get rescued by a patrol boat ... yeah, that wasn't so much fun. But otherwise I've pretty much been hanging out at the apartment and sleeping. With my new roommate N, I watched the first three Harry Potter movies and now we're working on the fourth episode of Pride and Prejudice (the six-part BBC series, of course) ... we are really cool like that. This summer has been ridiculously hot, so I prefer staying indoors with air conditioning and Mr. Darcy to melting onto the sidewalk any day.

I also haven't had the chance yet to give X her birthday pillows since she's in the process of moving into her new place right now and I figured I'd wait a bit until her unpacking craziness calmed down a bit. And then I need to make plans to meet up with former roommates K and S.

I don't wanna go back to school!

gifting pillows

2009-08-21T14:17:00.001-04:00

I'm back in Austin! Actually, I've been in Austin for a while but I didn't have Internet. But now that I do (after wrestling with Time Warner for forever), I'm going to be better about posting and being productive. I seem to say that a lot.

While I was away one of my friends had a birthday so I wasn't able to make it to her little birthday shindig. So I made her a pair of pillows for her new place. Well, it was partially making her a gift, and partially me teaching myself to use my sewing machine. I'm still not very good at it and none of my lines come out very straight. All in all, I still really like sewing by hand (even though it's time consuming as heck).

I was planning on making pillows with a nice quilt-y pattern, but I quickly realized that I didn't have enough control to manage that. So I just pieced together some fabric. I sewed it all together, then thought they seemed a bit ... bland. So I added some color around the border.

Then sewed the edge, flipped it inside out, stuffed, blind stitched some of the funky areas, then blind stitched the openings closed. Eh. These took me quite a long time to make, probably just because I'm so darn lazy.

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They're not that great, but I'm still learning. Tied a ribbon around them and despite my measuring, they're not exactly the same size. Close, but no. Argh. Well hopefully she'll at least appreciate the thought. School starts in a week, so I'm off to celebrate the last remaining days of summer.

lucky me

2009-08-11T20:15:00.001-04:00

I've won TWO giveaways! I can't believe how lucky I've been. You jealous? The first one was hosted by Dionne at City of Dionne. I just received it in and mail today and could not wait to share it with everyone! I won this beautiful clutch from Amy at IMH Designs. Seriously, check out her Etsy shop - it's full of beautiful clutches. The fabric is fabulous and it is really well crafted, high quality all the way. A big thanks from me to both Dionne and Amy!

I chose the Lavender and Green Floral Clutch Purse with Dupioni Silk Lining, and it's fantastic! I love the green lining and kisslock clasp. There's a layer of batting in there, making it nice and thick, which will keep things like my camera from harm in case I drop it (I'm clumsy!). I'll let you know about the second giveaway once I receive it (and can gush more thoroughly about it).

Then, I decided to be bad and go shopping. I know, I know ... but I was armed with a coupon for Michael's, and I was in the area, and ... I'm just making excuses for myself. Bad, bad me. I didn't splurge much, just bought some buttons and silver ribbon that had been on my list for a while. And then I found a cute set of lime green measuring scoops that I simply could not pass up. I love Michael's! But I love the blogging community even more!

the corner's new layout

2009-08-04T04:11:00.001-04:00

I finally have a new layout! Woohoo! The black text on a gray background in the previous layout was annoying me. I whipped up the layout pretty quick in PhotoShop, but then it took me forever to figure out all the little CSS quirks. It's been a few years since I did any HTML-ing, and back in the day I stuck with simple HTML and frames. This look is much more me (and less standard template) so I'm pretty happy with how it came out. I'll probably be working on some quirks for a while, but all in all it's pretty much good.

A few days ago I bought some fabric at the Wal-Mart here because I simply cannot resist cheap fabric. Besides, I needed fabric to craft some pillows. I bought a total of a little under five yards (four yards and one remnant piece). Each yard was either $1.50 or $2.00 so the total was $8.54. Not too bad. Anyway, that marks my last purchase for the month of July, bringing my total for the month to $38.43.

Hm ... what else? Has anyone ever changed a tire before? It is RIDICULOUSLY DIFFICULT! My mother and I were out shopping and when we got back in the car (an SUV), we realized we had a flat, so there we were in the parking lot, trying to change a tire. Ugh. Some guy driving by helped us put the spare on, which was seriously a godsend because neither me nor my mother could lift the tire. So now I know how to change a tire.

About two more weeks at home and then I'm off to my new apartment! I have a new layout and now I'm starting a new tally for the month of August ... yay!

guide: stuffed hedgie

2009-08-02T17:18:00.001-04:00

I've been a bit busy hanging out with the family, so I haven't made anything recently. This project is from a little bit ago, but I'm just now getting around to posting it. It's a stuffed hedgehog made from a car-washing mitt that I got at Dollar Tree. I posted a step-by-step here, but by no means did I think of this myself. All credit goes to Darling Petunia and her tutorial here. The only variation was that I embroidered the eyes. So cute! I named him Hedgie ('cause I'm creative like that).


First step was to get the mitt from the dollar store. I had seen the Darling Petunia blog post a while ago when it was featured on Dollar Store Crafts over here. So I had actually been holding onto this mitt since June. Snipped off the wrist and thumb and then pulled out the sewing supplies.

I had looked for black buttons, but sheesh! Buttons are expensive. I ended up just embroidering on eyes just with black floss, just eyeballing their placement (har har ... I'm so punny).


Then came the harder stuff. First up: sewing it up. After the eyes were on, the mitt was flipped inside out and I drew lines, forming a triangle to make its nose. Sewed that shut, leaving the thumb hole open. Once the wrist was sewn into a triangle (and some of the excess material snipped off), it got flipped right-side out and stuffed. Then the thumb hole was blind-stitched closed. Is it called a blind stitch? Like with closing pillows? That's what I've always called it because that's what my mother calls it ... but who knows.


Unfortunately though I had finished the sewing, I wasn't done because it looked a bit funky. The mitten shape was a little weird, asymmetrical because it was meant to fit a hand, so the poor hedgehog was a bit wonky. The square picture shows how it was, with the weird corners, and the second picture shows the hedgehog's underside once I fixed it. I just blind-stitched a bunch around the edge to smooth out all those weird bumps, giving it a nice rounded edge. Then the very last step was to sew on a black pom-pom to serve as his nose, and voila! Hedgie is born.

We had some family friends over today and their little boy V is about two years old. He's such a cutie. Anyway, I had put this hedgehog in the storage room that has all my stuff from school and V, being curious, started rummaging around in there. When he found the hedgehog (although he called it a rat) ... it was so cute! He played with it and this sheep that we had. Absolutely adorable. Also, I'm working on a new blog layout, which I hope to be up within the week. It's been taking a while though because while I know HTML, CSS is a bit new to me.

being bad

2009-07-22T01:34:00.000-04:00

Okay, so ... I've been procrastinating. I've pretty much been chilling out at my apartment and being a useless human being. To be fair, I was sick over the weekend so I just laid around drinking water and eating crackers, but that's really no excuse for my laziness. I have watched A LOT of television shows on hulu.com though: Kings, New Amsterdam, The Listener, Jack of All Trades, and Death Note. Oh, and last night I went out and saw "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". I actually enjoyed the movie and thought they did a pretty good job with it, but I think they over-emphasized all of the teenage relationship drama.

I have been somewhat good though. I finished reading "Prodigal Summer", which I found to be an okay book. Not exactly my type of novel since it just felt too static. I'm not sure if that's exactly the word I'm looking for, but most of the novel is written from within people's heads, so there's not so much action but a whole lot of thinking. It was well-written and I can see why it's a rather successful novel, it just wasn't my cup of tea. Now I just need to finish off "Mere Christianity" so I can finally return it to my friend. I borrowed it over a year ago. Yeah, I'm a bad friend. Hm, that reminds me that one of my friends still has my copy of "Sophie's World" from a year or two ago.

I haven't boughten anything unnecessary in a while either. Well ... I did buy one spool of ribbon, but it was just one! It's just simple 5/8"-wide white satin ribbon, which is always useful, right? That's my justification. Oh, and it was just a dollar too. Forgive me? I also caved and asked my roommate to buy me some croissants for me because I was craving them. I'm trying to finish off all the food that I have before I move, so I wasn't supposed to buy any more food. But a girl needs a little indulgence once in a while. And today I finally pulled out some boxes and am starting to pack. Okay, that's not exactly true. I did pull out some boxes, but they're still empty at this point. Oops.

geeky necklace

2009-07-16T15:25:00.001-04:00

I have a habit of accumulating "things", so I'm trying to clear stuff out by either throwing stuff away (unlikely) or using them in projects (slowly). So I rummaged a bit in my odds and ends box and found this circuit board from what I think was an old radio that was really static-y and not very good. And, hello, but ... who uses a radio anymore? Ergo, I made it into a necklace.

I liked the circuit board because it was brown rather than that green that most of them are. Also it's a pretty weird shape. I found a d-ring (also from my odds and ends box) that just happened to fit that shape beautifully. Sure I probably could've gone without attaching the d-ring, but I think it gives it more substance and it keeps the back (which isn't completely smooth due to the sautering) a bit from me and my top. I just super glued the d-ring to the circuit, let it dry, and it stuck just fine. The black leather cord came from one of my previous shopping trips, so I was all set to attach fixings and go.

I strung some silver wire (on hand) through the headphone jack and a coil on the circuit in order to attach a jump ring on it. I kind of messed up a bit, pulled too hard here, twisted it wrong there, so I had to secure things with some crazy glue. Not perfect, but no one will know. Then I strung the cord through the ring and stuck on cord crimps (available at Michael's or any hobby store with a jewelry section). Instead of using a clasp, I just closed it off with some jump rings since I made the cord long enough that I can just slip it over my head. I might attach a clasp later on, but I don't have any clasps on hand, so eh.

All in all, quick and easy. Haven't worn it out yet, but I will. It's pretty geeky since it's a circuit board, but I think it's cute. I'm going to be a bit busy for the next few days, but I'll try to keep posts coming.

breadsticks

2009-07-11T21:45:00.002-04:00

I have a thing for carbohydrates. I admit it, my diet is not balanced at all. Since I love to bake, I love cakes, cookies, and breads. Therefore, I made breadsticks. Yes, I still have a large amount of that slightly weird white bread left, but I needed breadsticks. Yummy ones, too. The below recipe is an altered version of this one.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup milk

3 tablespoons butter (melted)

Process:

combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt

gradually add milk to mixture and stir to form a soft dough

turn onto a floured surface - knead gently 3-4 times

roll dough into a rectangle slightly smaller than your pan

cut into strips the size desired for breadsticks

pour melted butter into your baking pan (I used a 9"x13" glass pan)

place breadsticks into the butter and turn to coat

sprinkle oregano and parmesan cheese on top of butter-coated dough sticks

bake in oven at 450F for 14-18 minutes (or until golden brown)

They actually turned out pretty good. A bit on the chewy side (probably because I worked the dough a bit too much) but all in all tasty and rather easy. So now I have two bread things on the baked goods counter. Yep, you read that correctly: baked goods counter. My roommate and I have an entire section of our counter dedicated to stuff we've baked (usually by me ... she ain't as "domestic" as I am). The slightly weird white bread doesn't taste so bad when it's toasted and eaten with a lot of butter. I also have strawberry preserves and orange marmalade, so I'll be good. I will eat it all. I will.

spending money

2009-07-10T17:15:00.001-04:00

Since I don't have a job and there's no money coming in, I really should not be spending money. But since I don't have a job, I have a lot of free time to go shopping (my class is also over). It's really a vicious cycle. So off on the sidebar, I decided to start tallying up how much I spend on these little shopping expeditions. I'm only including the money spent on non-necessities, like for crafts and such. I was going to include money spent on eating out as well, but then I figured that would be too depressing.

First up, remember how I was so upset that Wal-Mart no longer carries fabric? Well my friend X mentioned to me the other day that there was still one in the Austin area that does! So I was all excited and decided to head down there to check it out. It's at 9300 I-35 S, in the Southpark Meadows shopping center. The fabric selection was somewhat miserable, definitely nothing worth a special trip for. At least I now know it's there, and since there was also a Hobby Lobby nearby, I stopped by there as well.

When I go shopping, sometimes I just can't help myself. I tell myself I'm there to browse, and then I keep picking things up. From the cheap fabric, I got one yard of checkered light pink and one yard of purple with white polka dots. I think I'm going to turn them into aprons ... we'll see. I also picked up some forks (four for a dollar). They're really cheaply made (obviously) so they bend easily, an attribute which might come in handy for some projects - once I figure out what kind of project would use forks. Then there were just some more random supplies for in-the-works projects.

Next up, CraigsList finds! Woohoo! I love CraigsList, and the free section is my friend. But things there go fast, so I was pleasantly surprised when I received a positive reply to my e-mail. I picked up this paper shredder and trashcan (love that shape and color) from a girl who was moving out of her apartment and didn't have room for them in her car. After the trashcan got a good cleaning, I decided it was too pretty to use as a trashcan, so it's holding some fabric and rolls of cross-stitch fabric.

Another CraigsList find, this time in the household section, are some picture frames. Twelve of them for $5, not bad. They're all the same, outer dimensions about 9.5" square (square!). They're a dark kind of wood, but I think I'm going to leave them that color instead of putting in the extra effort to paint them black like I was originally planning. These will also be for a project ... eventually. Maybe something with frames and forks?

bottlecap magnets

2009-07-07T22:31:00.001-04:00

I'm somewhat of a packrat. I collect things thinking that one day I'll make something of it all. But usually it comes to nothing and I'm stuck with a lot of ... stuff. But today I'm actually getting to use some of that stuff, turning it into functional stuff. Yay! I have some bottle caps from soda bottles, mostly IBC sodas. I have a whole stash of glass bottles too, but I'm still trying to figure out what to do with those. Anyway, I decided to make magnets out of them after seeing the concept online. So, let's get started, shall we?

First, we gather our materials. Bottle caps - yep. Wood circles - yep. The circles that are 1" in diameter fit beautifully into the bottle caps, and they can be found at pretty much any hobby store (yay Michael's!). Then there are magnets. I got these at Wal-mart and they have foam and adhesive already attached to one side of the magnet. These are 3/4" in diameter and have a total height of just under 3/16".

If you have magnets with adhesive, go ahead and peel off the backing and center them on the wood disks. Press, hold, and voila. The main purpose of including the wooden disk is to give the magnet height, because to clear the edges of the bottlecap, the magnet's going to have to be at least 1/4" thick (which would be a waste of magnets). Then pull out the hot glue gun, squirt a big ol' dollop on the wood circle, and press it into the bottle cap. There should be enough glue that it squishes around the wood when you press it down, securing it into the bottle cap's ridges. This is just a precaution, because generally things don't glue too well to metal. Also, be careful because the bottle cap will heat up due to the glue. All of my hot glue turned yellow over the years so I have to be careful to keep most of it hidden, but if yours is clear (as it probably is) it won't be too big of a deal if you're a bit messy.

Then stack 'em together or stick 'em on the fridge. I ended up making a total of eight, four from cherry limeade and four from the tangerine cream soda. I still have some more, but I'm going to wait until I have enough to make a proper set so I can give them as a gift or what-not. They're functional and cute, which is just my style.

project supplies + updates

2009-07-06T17:53:00.001-04:00

Whew. I really need to stop beginning projects and then storing them away ... where they tend to sit for a really long time while I begin other projects. Oh well. My class ends tomorrow, so I'm going to have a lot of free time to start finishing up these things. I constantly browse CraigsList because I love seeing what other people are trying to get rid of and sometimes I find really good deals. Case in point: stuffing!

Three full bags of Cluster Stuff, a total of 48 ounces, all for $5! Sweet. I generally work with poly-fil, but I figured it was all kind of the same, right? Well, cluster stuff is definitely different, but it works find for my little projects. Poly-fil is more clumpy, but this stuff is like a lot of little curls. Now I need to add projects to my list to use up all this stuff!

With stuffing crossed off my list, I made a trip to Michael's. There, I picked up some 2 mm black leather cording (yay for 40% off coupon!), 1" diameter wooden disks, and some metallic-y pink ribbon that was on sale. There was a Dollar Tree nearby, so I stopped in, but all I could really find were some birthday cards. Eh, I can always use more of those. Then I went to Hancock Fabrics and got a yard of gray fleece that was 30% off. So all in all only spent about $25. Fabulous.

Well, before I got started on using those supplies, I figured I had to finish some of the lingering ones. First up, the little pouches that I had been making. Now I have six, neatly hanging on my door (next to my beautiful scarves). I'm debating whether I should make more or not. Eight would be a nice number, and I do need more places to put all my odds and ends, but do I really have the time to hand-stitch two more? I'll have to mull that one over. Then comes the embroidery I've been working on (off and on) for the last month. I could probably work forever on the thing, but i decided to stop. It'll probably become a pillow, but it needs some sort of border thing. But at least it's out of the hoop now, which will allow me to start another embroidery ....

birthday gifts

2009-07-03T22:36:00.002-04:00

My last three posts involved food. Kind of ironic considering that I'm mighty low on food right now. I still have a lot of bread, but not much substantial food. Anyway, it was my birthday a bit ago so I got some of the most fantastic gifts that I feel compelled to tell the world about (well, if the world read this blog, that is). People know me so well. For example, they know:

I like pretty things. From the sister: necklace with metal leaf and beads. She sent it to me in the mail, so I got it before my birthday. When I told her I had already opened it, she yelled at me. True love. Anyway, I wore it on my birthday and it's the perfect length!

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I like crafty things. From friend X: merino blend wool yarn and glass beads. She also included red ribbon and yellow flowers because she knows that I hate the colors red and yellow. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is true friendship.

I like glass things. From friend A: blown glass container/orb/beautiful-thing-that's-going-on-the-coffee-table. She said it's made from recycled glass from some specific brand of soda that I forget. Anyway, it's fabulous and she got it from Austin Art Glass, which has some really nice pieces. I need to visit that place sometime.

I like nostalgic things. From roommate S: DVD of "The Breakfast Club". Sweet. This is one of my favorite movies, but for some reason I never owned it. Now I can watch it again, and again, and again! Yes.

Fantastic. I had a great birthday and the gifts, while fabulous, could not compare to the dinner I had at Kerbey Lane with my friends. I love this town.

making bread

2009-07-02T00:19:00.003-04:00

Doesn't that look ... odd? Yes, I made bread in a pie pan. It's kinda weird. Usually I halve the bread recipes that I find, but this time I forgot. Therefore, I had a whole lotta dough and since I had already filled up the loaf pan and square pan, I resorted to using my trusty pie pan. I used a different recipe for bread this time, and it wasn't that great. Although I'm not sure if it's not that great because of all the weird stuff I did to the recipe or if it just wasn't that great of a recipe to begin with. Either way, I think I'm going to go back to the rosemary bread recipe and just tweak that to suit me.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons yeast

1 cup warm water

1 teaspoon sugar

3 cups water

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons salt

6-7 cups bread flour

Process:

mix the yeast, warm water, and 1 teaspoon of sugar together

let the mixture stand until it foams (the yeast blossoms)

add three cups of water, 1/2 cup of sugar, and flour

add salt once the mixture is thick

add flour until you cannot add any more - knead

place the dough in an oiled bowl covered with a towel

put the bowl in a warm place and let rise for an hour

punch the dough down and let it rise for another hour

bake in oven at 375F for 25-30 minutes until browned

The thing is, I ran out of bread flour about three cups in. Therefore I started using all-purpose flour, until I ran out of that too. I really need to start planning better. Anyway, that's why in the picture of my dough rising, it still looks pretty wet ... because it was. Eh. Tastes okay, but it doesn't have that yummy chewiness that I generally like in my breads because I ran out of bread flour. And it just looks weird. But now I'm stuck with a lot of bread. I wouldn't give it to any of my friends because it has a slightly weird taste, probably because of the random dash of honey I threw in (I don't know why), and a slightly weird texture, probably because of the flour shenanigans.

While it was rising, I cooked my sweet potato. The oven was already on since I find it easier to let the dough rise when it's sitting on top of a hot oven. Usually I just put the oven on a low setting, but I figured I might as well use the oven rather than let all that heat go to waste. After washing the sweet potato, I stuck it in the oven for an hour and a half at 350F. Yum.

mia and muffins

2009-06-30T19:07:00.005-04:00

Ack! It's almost been two weeks since I've made a single post. Bad, bad me. So much has happened in the last two weeks and I just went to download pictures off of my camera today, so there will be a few posts in quick succession. First of all, the reason why last week was so busy was ... wait for it ... I GOT A JOB! Okay, it was a temporary job that ended on Sunday, but still! And it was with Mamma Mia! I sold programs and CDs before and after the show and during intermission, so the rest of the time I was free to do homework or watch the show - which was amazing. Bass Concert Hall is a beautiful space. The renovation a few years back made it really modern and simple, just my style. Although now I can't seem to stop humming ABBA songs.

But in the mail I received a silicone muffin pan from an online offer thing.

So ... because I had these spiffy new silicone pans, I had never used silicone before, and I was craving chocolate, I decided to make some oatmeal chocolate chip muffins. I love these things and they're sort of my go-to recipe for yumminess. And the oatmeal makes me feel healthy despite all the chocolate. I'm not quite sure where I got the recipe from since I've had it for a while, but I've made it a few times (great each time). The recipe follows below.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups quick-cooking oats

1 1/4 cups milk

1 egg

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup packed brown sugar (divided)

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup (+/-) semisweet chocolate chips

1 1/4 cups flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

Process:

combine the oats and milk and let the mixture stand for 15 minutes - let the oats hydrate, otherwise the muffins won't be soft

stir in the egg, oil, 1/2 cup of the brown sugar, and vanilla

stir the chocolate chips into the mix

in a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt

once you have the two mixtures ready, add the oatmeal mixture into the flour mixture until just moist

fill the muffin pans about 2/3 full

sprinkle the tops with the remaining 1/4 cup of brown sugar

bake at 400 degrees F for 20-25 minutes

So what do I think of silicone? Eh, works okay. It's kind of annoying because since the pans themselves are pretty flexible, you have to put them on a cookie sheet when baking so they don't flop all around. Also, they don't brown as nicely so the edges of my muffins looked uncooked and kind of weird. On the other hand, they did clean pretty nicely and they are blue .... They might grow on me, but for now I think I still prefer metal muffin pans and glass for everything else. But for just a dollar, could you find a better muffin pan?

from the oven

2009-06-17T18:49:00.002-04:00

On Sunday I went grocery shopping with the roommate. I tried not to buy much because I still have a lot of food that needs to get eaten. Therefore, I decided to get to work in the kitchen. I made three things, all mostly oven-based, totaling maybe three or four hours. There's rosemary bread, rosemary potatoes, and chicken parmesan. Ingredients and instructions are below. I'm still trying to work out the kinks in the layouting ... I'm not fond of the way the lists look.

First up was the rosemary bread. I followed this recipe from AllRecipes.com, which is a great site to procrastinate with. Sometimes I find myself browsing recipes for hours. The ingredients are as they were listed originally, but I used fresh rosemary from the apartment complex across the street (so convenient, I love it!). It was designed for use with a bread machine, but since I don't have one, I sort of made it up as I went.

Ingredients:

1 cup water

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 1/2 teaspoons white sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 1/2 cups bread flour

1/4 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 tablespoon dried rosemary

Process:

warm up the water and add the yeast to it

wait about 10 minutes until the yeast blossoms

add olive oil, sugar, salt, and flour to the mix - knead

add in the seasoning, pepper, and rosemary - knead

place the dough in an oiled bowl covered with a towel

put the bowl in a warm place and let rise for an hour

punch the dough down and let it rise for another hour

bake in oven at 375F for 30-ish minutes until browned on top

So during the hours while waiting for the dough to rise and such, I prepared the potatoes and chicken. First went the potatoes. They weren't looking too good but I figured they still looked okay enough to eat.

Ingredients:

red potatoes (I used 5 small ones)

rosemary sprigs (wash them first)

French or Italian seasonings

olive oil

Process:

cut up the potatoes into equal-sized portions

in a bowl mix the potatoes with some olive oil and seasonings

stick it all in a shallow pan (I used a pie pan)

tuck in the rosemary sprigs

bake in oven at 350F for about hour and a half, checking every half hour and mixing around the potatoes to make sure they're even

While the potatoes were in the oven and the bread was still rising, I went ahead and prepared the chicken that I had set out to defrost before we left to the grocery store.

Ingredients:

chicken breasts (2 large pieces)

1 cup or so of bread crumbs

1 egg

parmesan cheese

Italian seasoning

spaghetti sauce

olive oil

Process:

cut chicken into desired size and smush flat or slice them to no more than 1/2" thick

crack the egg into a bowl and beat it

get out a plate and spread out the bread crumbs with some parmesan and Italian seasoning mixed in

dip the chicken into the egg and press both sides into the bread crumbs (the egg helps the crumbs to stick)

put some olive oil into a frying pan and put the stove on medium

cook the chicken on each side until just browned

put the cooked chicken into a shallow pan (I used the pie pan again)

pour spaghetti sauce on top and sprinkle parmesan cheese over that

bake in oven at 350F for about 15 minutes

That's what I've been eating for the last few days. And that's what I'll be eating for the next few days as well. Everything turned out okay, but nothing was fantastic. Next time I'll probably go back to making white bread and just work on perfecting that. I think in conjunction with the rosemary potatoes and chicken parmesan, the rosemary in the bread was just too much. Oh, and if you look closely at the picture, you'll see the fine use of my crocheted trivets. The purple rectangular one actually turned out to be a great size for the loaf pan. Go figure.

little improvement

2009-06-15T22:47:00.001-04:00

My sister had mailed me this picture frame in the fall as one of her random little care packages (this is why I love her). It's a pretty glass frame with a translucent image of lavender and a square (square!) 3"x3" frame. The quote from John D. Rockefeller says "I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure." So it sat on our kitchen counter for a long time, just a cute little homey touch. But there was one thing that bugged me about it - the craft was slightly off. As you can see in the before photo, when you look at it from an angle, you can see the image of the flower just peeking within the frame ... annoying for a detail-minded person like me.

So I finally got around to detailing it a bit. With the help of some 1/4" black ribbon and good ol' Elmer's glue, I vamped up my picture frame. Nothing drastic, just a touch of class that happens to oh so conveniently hide its flaws. Just glued the ribbon straight to the glass, tucking it in some under the silver frame. Now I think it looks pretty darn spiffy. So spiffy that it is no longer relegated to the kitchen; it belongs with me!

shopping trip

2009-06-13T21:23:00.005-04:00

I bought a new table! It's originally from Ikea, but I bought it off CraigsList for a mere $13. Superb. So, from now on my pictures are probably going to look a lot prettier with the white tabletop as the background instead of my nasty carpet. And I'll have a dedicated workspace for crafting (no more floor, yay!) Hopefully now my back and neck won't hurt so much.

This morning I woke up early (around 10 AM) and went garage sale-ing. There were a few things that caught my eye, but nothing enough to tempt me to buy. Since I was in the area I stopped by Dollar Tree (a different one than last weekend) and picked up some cheap dollar goodness. I'm lucky, right? I have two Dollar Trees to choose from, and though they have a lot of the same stuff, they do have some unique things. Afterwards I drove a few streets over to Goodwill and picked up a few more things. I took two pictures (the second after I had cleaned things up and added some mood lighting ... lol). Oh, and my memory card reader worked again! What a fickle thing.

from Dollar Tree:

green car wash mitt ($1)

woven basket ($1)

orange votive candle holders ($1)

from Goodwill:

wooden square frame ($1)

green square glass container ($2)

The basket went to the kitchen to hold my potatoes. Hm ... those potatoes don't look so great, I wonder how long I've had them. Guess I'm going to be cooking potatoes tomorrow. Today was so productive! I got home around 2 PM and then I did laundry, vacuumed the apartment, and took out the trash. Tonight I'm going to start my homework due Monday and prepare for my interview on Monday (my second official interview - wish me luck) and tomorrow morning my roommate S and I are going grocery shopping. Whew, what a weekend!

shopping trip

2009-06-08T23:38:00.001-04:00

Who loves the Dollar Tree? Uh, that would be me and any other sane person in the world. It's so much fun to just browse around there. All the stuff in the picture other than the magnets and ribbon were from there. So cheap! So wonderful!

On Saturday I was all a-fluster. I drove all the way down to the Re-Store since I had heard some wonderful things about it, but nope - complete bust. I was looking for tiles, door numbers, and cabinet knobs, and couldn't really find any that suited my needs. They do great work, but because their stuff is donated, their selection is limited. Their stock is always changing though, so I'll have to stop by later. Well then I went to Wal-Mart to look for fabric to make pillowcases, and I was shocked, SHOCKED, to find out that Wal-Mart no longer sells fabric. In my opinion, this is a great loss to humanity. They always had such cheap fabric ... I guess next weekend I'll have to go to either Hancock Fabrics or Hobby Lobby.

Anyway, I was depressed and was already stuck on the highway, so I figured I'd might as well just drive up to Target and pick up the desperately-needed fourth pillow. The fabric's a bit different, which aggravates me, but at least the shape and size are the same. Which brings me back to the Dollar Tree. I shopped at Target, and discovered to my amazement that there was this wonderful Dollar Tree in the same shopping center! I had only been to Target once before (to get the original three pillows) and had never noticed it. It was meant to be.

I'm working on a bunch of small projects and job-hunting-wise, I've decided to lower my standards so tomorrow I'm going to be applying to (THE HORROR!) food-service positions. Beggars can't be choosers, right? And you know how technology hates me? My mouse won't click anymore.

need money, need job

2009-06-07T01:07:00.000-04:00

When I complain about being a poor college student, it is because I am a) poor, and b) a college student. I have been desperately job hunting, and so far NO LUCK. I have e-mailed my resume to nine people and have heard back from three. One said they were no longer hiring, one said they received a lot of applications and would get back to me later, and the third gave me an interview (but it's only a three-day job). At the suggestion of my sister, I'm looking into volunteering positions, but that doesn't solve any of my money problems.

Arg ... yes, this is a rather pointless rant, but I'm just so frustrated. I did a bit of shopping earlier today (er, Saturday afternoon) and I'll have pictures and a more in-depth talk about it ~~tomorrow (er, later today)~~ Monday. Sheesh, I need to get back on a normal sleep schedule. Anyway, after my shopping trip I was exhausted since it's hot out here and traffic was a nightmare, so I stopped by HEB because I have been craving milk. I'm lactose intolerant and haven't had milk for months, so I picked up some yummy Lactaid milk, which unfortunately set me back about $3.50 for a half-gallon. That price made me sad. And before anyone starts pointing out that I had just been shopping, I'll have you know that I only spent about $15 before I bought the milk. Yeah, so I'm not destitute, but I'm still decently poor. I NEED A JOB!

crocheted trivets

2009-06-05T18:28:00.001-04:00

Ain't they purty? Hey now, remember I'm new to this crocheting thing. Anyway, as a college student, I get a lot of t-shirts and the thing is ... I'm not a big fan of wearing t-shirts. So, I found this website about crocheting with t-shirts and I thought I'd give it a try. But I didn't have nearly enough for a rug, nor do I have need for a rug, so I decided to make hot plates (trivets) instead.

This one was made using the white material that was in a pouch I had made earlier. Using my 10 millimeter crochet hook, I sort of followed these directions to crochet a circle, but I apparently am no good at counting, so it's a little wonky. If you're wondering, those bits of purple in the white were from the image on the t-shirt. I found another t-shirt and decided to try making a simple rectangular one. But unfortunately that t-shirt was smaller so there was less fabric to work with, and thus it's kind of small. I also had to add extra fabric in order to complete the row (I was double-stitching), so there are some not-so-pretty moments. Actually, there were quite a few wonky moments.It's actually a really pretty purple that matches the bits of purple in the white one. I think it looks blue in the first picture because of the fluorescent lights in our kitchen.

Now if only I can scavenge up more t-shirts, I can have a whole collection of different shapes! Wouldn't that be neat? My new roommate will probably think I'm crazy ... but whatever, I'm a college student who can be found embroidering or crocheting at 4 AM. I think I'm already crazy.

finally back (sort of)

2009-06-05T02:09:00.002-04:00

Whew. So first week of class is over, and it's a doozy. So far it's pretty easy, but it's philosophy and there's just a ton of reading and on and on and on. Eh, not really my kind of thing. I've applied to a lot of places, but still no job, but I haven't given up hope yet. So ... I finally went to the computer lab on campus and got some pictures off of my camera.

Ta dah! The embroidery I've been working on. It's currently far more intricate than in these pictures because I just keep working on it. There are a few places were I screwed up (this is what happens when you embroider at 4 AM) so I need to add more swirls to "fix" those areas. It's kind of losing its clean look and becoming a bit too busy, but all-in-all I'm pretty happy with it. It's all just chain-stitching. I expect I'll post later when there's more completion, when I'm finally happy with it, and when I turn it into a pillow. Hopefully I'll get to that last stage sometime this summer, but who knows? Oh, and I almost forgot one of my favorite pictures.

It's a sewing machine! My mother bought it for me when I was back at home as an early birthday gift. It's just a simple beginner's model, which is fine with me. I'd never actually used one of these things before, so it took some trial and error and I'm still not very good at using it. Anyway, it won't be making much of an appearance as it's staying at home for the summer, but no matter, since I have plenty of projects enough for now. In fact, this evening I finished a project which I'll post tomorrow ... if I manage to make it to the computer lab again.

upcoming week(s)

2009-05-31T23:51:00.000-04:00

Today was all about preparing for "routine" and running errands. I drove around Austin a bit, making sure I knew how to get to my interview and seeing how long it took. Then I went grocery shopping: yay for food! Either food prices have lowered or I bought less than usual. My bill was only $25, which I was kind of surprised by, but oh well, I spent any money saved on gas. It's $2.31 a gallon here, which isn't as bad as some places, but there went a quick twenty bucks. Sheesh. And tomorrow I have to pay rent and the cable bill. Some days I just feel so poor, ya know? Well, after I finish typing this post, I'll do the orientation quiz online for my philosophy class tomorrow.

Now for some upsetting news, well upsetting to me at least. I left my external hard drive at home because I think it would just depress me too much to see it everyday. I asked for a quote to have my files professionally restored and they said $700-$1000 ... like hell. But I just realized that what I have lost includes two years of pictures, two years of college papers, and two years of architecture work (all those CAD drawings and photoshop renderings - hours upon hours). Gone. Until I can find a magic solution. Ugh, cannot think about this now. This is why I left it at home! To keep myself from worrying so much about it. But there's another worry. My memory card reader? Yeah, it's dead dead now, not just sort of on-off dead like it used to be. Erg. So I'll still be posting twice a week, but picture posts will be sparse since I'll have to trek to a computer lab to download images from my camera.

Back to happy things, a break down of what I've been doing. 100 pages into "Prodigal Summer" - decent book, not exactly my kind of a read but still enjoyable. It's been a while since I read a book just for fun and it's so nice to read for an hour or so in bed when the world seems so quiet and peaceful. Starting to embroider a piece of fabric. Cut a 13"x13" square of white cloth that I had laying around and I'm embroidering a random curling design on it with a few dark colors. What really sucks is that I only have a 6" embroidery hoop so I keep having to stop and move the hoop around - very annoying. And I made dinner. Well, pasta. And I had a cup of flat ginger ale to go with it ... yeah, did I mention I was a poor college student?

back to normal

2009-05-31T01:42:00.001-04:00

Whew. Well, I am finally back in Austin, meaning that now things should be getting back to normal. Classes start on Monday (ack!) and I have a job interview on Tuesday (double ack!). I measured the throw pillows I have and they're 18"x18", then I measured my fabric ... and wouldn't you know it? I don't have enough fabric to make three matching pillowcases. The pillows themselves aren't bad since I just bought them at Target about eight months ago, but they're solid navy blue and boring as hell. And I'm not a big fan of navy blue. Also, I can't imagine why on earth I only bought three since I'm generally not a big fan of odd numbers. So I think I'm just going to go out and buy a fourth pillow and get enough fabric for four.

I also scanned some images from some old sketchbooks to serve as inspiration for my embroidery. Originally I was planning to trace the images with one of those disappearing-ink pens to exactly replicate the drawings, but I have since decided on a more freehand approach 'cause that's just how I roll.

I tend to do a lot of abstract line drawings so I think a series of four pillows with these kind of random designs would look pretty spiffy in a college apartment, eh? The little guy ... well I just thought he was cute. Found him in a sketchbook from my first semester of college. I might embroider him on something just for fun, he's just so pudgy. I need to draw more, I do so love it. More meaningful posts to come - honestly!

learning to crochet

2009-05-27T02:32:00.001-04:00

I'm teaching myself to crochet. Yay! Well, it's slow progress but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. Today I went out and bought two crochet hooks, one small 3 mm and a larger 10 mm. I bought the larger one because there are some specific projects that I have in mind which would require such a hook, but since I'm not sure when/if these projects will come about, I'd better not mention them yet.

Thank goodness for the internet. I got hung up on some really confusing online how-to guides, but the website NexStitch has easy-to-follow video tutorials. So I got the single and double crochets down pretty well, I just need practice keeping the stitches even. I'm also trying to crochet a circle (flat) but it keeps curling up even though I'm doubling the number of stitches ... frustrating. I kept practicing with stitches and unraveling it to start over since I don't have much yarn, and by golly, my hand hurts.

spring cleaning

2009-05-23T01:46:00.002-04:00

Ah, that time of the year again, when you realize just how much crap you have accumulated. For me, it was mostly papers. Old notes and tests that I always told myself I'd go back and review, but never did and now have no inclination to ever do so. I think the oldest papers were from 2004 ... five years! Sheesh, I can be such a pack rat. So I started the long process of going through all my folders and sorting the stuff I wanted to keep (a very small pile indeed) and papers for recycling. The latter stack is about eight inches high and I'm only about half done.

But I also found some pretty cool stuff mixed in with my old school papers. Namely, some black and white images my sister had found in some old book and some old bookmarks that match my summer reading! I borrowed "Mere Christianity" from a friend over a year ago, and since I still haven't read it and we're graduating next year, I figure I really need to read it and hand it back. And then my sister bought me "Prodigal Summer", so I'll read that. I was just uber-excited because I found both green and gray bookmarks that match the covers! Ah, the simple joys in life.

So yes, I'm supposed to be working on projects and what-not, but I'm cleaning and organizing for the time-being with a lot of planning on the side. Once I get back to my apartment and I start a more normal schedule with school, work, and reading, it'll probably be easier to set aside some crafting time. Well, that's the plan. And in even sadder news, froze the hard drive, did nothing, so now I'm kind of screwed. I could shell out for professional recovery of my files, but that costs money which I don't really have.

multiple firsts

2009-05-20T19:18:00.002-04:00

Okay, so for some really odd reason, AFTER I go out and buy a new memory card reader, my old memory card reader begins to work again. Oh well. So at least I've been able to download those pictures. I ended up switching out the ribbon for twine because I was starting to run out of the rainbow ribbon ... and I really like my rainbow ribbon! I now have four of the pouches, but I'm probably going to end up making two more before calling it quits.

At home for a week or two, so probably won't be doing much in the way of projects. But ... I did buy a new external hard drive and I'm going to try freezing my non-working hard drive, and we'll see how much data I can get off of it. Then I'll be able to sift through my old architecture files and work on my portfolio.

home for a bit

2009-05-19T02:24:00.004-04:00

So tomorrow (later today) I shall be leaving for home, or rather my parents' home. Hopefully while I'm there I can buy a new memory card reader and external hard drive. I'm a slave to technology. Anyway, so I'm officially done with the year and now is just the long wait to see what my grades are ... very nerve-wracking since I was on the border for most of my classes. But I have my mommy's wonderful cooking to look forward to. Why, oh why couldn't I have inherited her height or her fantastic-ness in the kitchen? Seriously not fair.

Anyway, since I cannot upload any pictures of what I've been working on, I present sketches I did from a few years back (these date back to high school). I'm thinking about putting them on pillows. The image is of crappy quality (back when I had a crappy scanner) but I think I think if I embroidered it in bright purple or something on a white pillow it would be pretty nifty looking.

Oh, and I almost completely forgot. I made bread the other day for the first time. Saturday afternoon I made bread, and it didn't rise. And no, I didn't kill the yeast. So that ended up being a flat thing of really, really chewy bread. I tried again Sunday, and turned on the oven and let the dough sit on top (at the suggestion of my roommate). And voila! It rose, though the bread still didn't turn out all that great. By the end of the summer I hope to perfect this bread-making business - wish me luck!

progress report

2009-05-15T04:09:00.001-04:00

Ah! It's almost been a full week since I've written! But no fear, I haven't been goofing off, just busy. I am a college student after all, so I've been studying for finals an writing final papers. Okay, okay, so that's not entirely true. Yesterday I did spend my entire night watching "Pride and Prejudice" - the BBC version of course, all six hours worth of Jane Austen glory. And today I did laundry, so that was productive, eh?

I've made more of the little pouches, but my memory card reader is being mean, so I haven't been able to upload any pictures. I now have a total of four, and each time I make one it takes less and less time. I also did some research and prep work on a few projects, so once things calm down school-wise, I'll get to working and documenting. Well, after I shill out for a new memory card reader.

first project: organization

2009-05-11T00:11:00.005-04:00

There are quite a few crafting blogs that I follow, and I find most of the projects really inspiring. however, I have one main complaint: These people do not seem real. They show photos of their workspaces, these huge tables with great lighting, cute organization, and swoon-worthy supplies. Who's lucky enough to have all that? Not me, I'm a poor college student. Therefore, I present my workspace: the floor of my apartment, with my supplies all stuffed in a box, and books and paper everywhere.

So for my first project, I wanted to create something to organize my supplies and the scraps of my projects since I tend to begin a bunch of projects simultaneously.

Supplies:

cheap fabric rectangles: about 10"x17"

ribbon or cord: about 50 inches long

Process:

fold over (about .5") and sew short ends of rectangle

fold over (about .5") and sew long ends of rectangle

pull cord through long ends of rectangle

squinch the fabric around the cord

gather and voila

After a while I took a break. Got coffee with K at Spider House ... for two hours. Mocha latte, yum. Anyway, it was fun, hadn't had the chance to chat with her for almost a month. When I got back I finished it off (and watched the second Harry Potter movie as well).

I just used a piece of scrap fabric to tie around the cord so I can slide it up and down, keeping the pouch closed when not in use. It makes a keyhole where I can easily see what's inside.

Pretty simple. All in all, completed at approximately four in the morning. I think it turned out pretty cool. But I think I need to make a few more and hang them all from a suspension rod or something for them to make a real impact.

Also, I don't know if anyone's noted it, but the reason why this took so ridiculously long was that I hand-sewed the fabric (back-stitched for strength, and because this fabric unravels pretty easily) and I braided the cord. With a sewing machine and any normal cord, this would've been simple as pie.

the beginning of a dream

2009-05-09T18:52:00.000-04:00

So today I have decided to go ahead a begin a blog, for real. I used to have one of those anonymous ranting blogs, but those are so passé, but I wanted a blog, this blog, to motivate myself to be productive. Thus, squareby's corner was born.

The plan is for me to write twice a week, and complete at least one project a week. This is essentially a functional little place, a place for me to document me not being a total waste on society. And well, there may be the occasional rant.

In conclusion: Greetings, to squareby's corner.