moved (miesby.wordpress.com)

Howdy everyone,

I haven't posted on this blog in months, for a very good reason. That reason being that instead of separating my posts into two blogs, one for art/travel and the other for food/craftiness, I decided to go ahead and combine them.

I will no longer be updating this blog. Instead, you can find all these old posts plus a constant stream of new ones, relating to life, art, travel, food, and craftiness, at "From Here to (There)" at miesby.wordpress.com.

Cheers!

receiving gifts in the mail

There is something about opening up your mailbox and seeing a package in there that just makes your heart go all a-flutter, you know? Well, truth be told I get excited if I see any piece of mail with my name on it, but maybe that's just the egoist in me!

Then again, it's always really annoying too because our mailbox is super small where the opening is 5" by 6" and we don't have a locker for parcels either ... so you can imagine how absolutely stuffed it can get with the letters/packages/catalogs/magazines of four people. Sometimes we end up having to go down to the post office because not everything fits.


A bit back I won a giveaway hosted at Paints and Pans for a wonderful pair of earrings from Nell Belle Designs. And they arrived in a box that fit just perfectly in my mailbox. It was so exciting. Thanks, Natalie and Nell!

on hiatus

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!

baked + gifts + space

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!

gifts from ya'll

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!

lucky me (part 2)

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!

lucky me

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

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!