Crafting Is Sublime

While on the hunt for the perfect library-esque embroidery patterns, I came across the perfect crafty-esque embroidery patterns!

I found these cuties while shopping at one of the greatest little shops in LA, Reform School, from the makers of the greatest little embroidery patterns I've seen, Sublime Stitching. I'm still on the lookout for my perfect library patterns, but until then, I can embroider scissors and sewing machines to my heart's content!

Paint By Numbers Progress

It's coming along...

I've pretty much got all the solid colors down, including some of the mixed ones, which I just did solid. Just to clarify though, I do know how to mix colors. I like to think the 3 years of private painting tutors and four years of art school taught me something.. I just don't want to mix them, because I want it to look simple and a bit amateur. It's hard for me to take my paint-by-colors kit too seriously, when it's not originally my piece. Though, I completely respect those who do master them, it takes a lot of time and patience!

Blue Mirror

This mirror has kind of been a pain. It has been sitting around in corners, while I can't figure out what to do with it. So, I thought I should repaint it. It was originally white, and I painted it yellow. Now, since I want my room to have more light blue and white, I decided to paint it blue.

Normally, one should sand the mirror down before painting, but I just went for it.


After all was painted and done, I'm still not sure if I want it on my wall.

It might just end up in the closet or somewhere where I don't have to think about it; possibly at a thrift store near you!

Sugar Shout Out

Just a quick shout out to the wonderful bloggers at Casasugar.com for featuring my quilt in one of their posts. Here's the link.
Thanks Casa Sugar!

Button Box

When I was about 12 or so, I made this box out of my grandmother's buttons. I even remember that I took the box from my teenager sister, who got it from Contempo Casuals! Does anyone else remember that store? I remember thinking it was so cool back then...

I've had this box forever now, and since I'm updating my room a bit, I thought it was time to change the box.

And while it goes better in my room now, I still think it was better off how it looked originally. The buttons were so colorful and interesting and I sorta took that away. Plus, I'm a sucker for sentiment and I feel like I may have stripped some of that away. I got a bit spray paint happy (more to come this week), but at least it goes with my bedroom now.

Paint By Numbers

Brian and I started painting a super complicated paint by numbers. Any guess as to what it's going to be?

It actually called for mixing colors! I've always worked on simple 12 color only ones my entire life, so this was a shock.

After careful consideration, we decided to stay old-school and stick with our 12 color palette.

It's coming along. We are going to paint all the single color shapes first, then flip a coin to decide which color to paint the ones we're supposed to mix. Paint by colors is such a great idea though, I wish I was that good of a painter where I could formulate my own paint by color series. Maybe I will anyway!
This weekend, I got a little craft crazy... a can of spray paint was involved. I should finish a few projects soon and will post tomorrow.

Another Request for Apple Cinnamon Pancakes

We also made scrambled eggs with feta and turkey, which was super duper good.

Glue + Blue = Box

Hooray! Yesterday my Quilt was on Craft Zine! Many thanks to the lovely Jenny, who is my true craft hero and new blogger on Craft Zine! Here is the LINK to the post!
Another thing to celebrate is my first class syllabus arriving in my email box today! I've already started printing off the billion zillion readings I have to get to, so I decided it was time to start an organizing plan. I really wanted one of those fabric covered boxes to store all my paperwork, but I've realized those can be quite expensive. So, I bought a white box for under $2 at the Container store, some fabric, under $4 at Joann's Fabrics, and went to work.

The problem with the adhesive and fabric is to use the perfect amount, in order to avoid dark glue spots where the fabric gets saturated with glue. I had a couple dark spots (not pictured here) myself, but the trick is to place the box strategically so that no one sees those! I paired my box with some colorful folders I got at the container store. Hopefully I won't fill the box up too quick, but judging by my new syllabus, my one class alone just might do it.

Scrappy Quilt: In Progress

I feel really bad, I don't craft as daily as I used to and I fear that this may only get worse when school starts. To prevent this, I've devised a plan.

In the past, here and here, I've dabbled with a scrappy quilt. Now, my plan is to keep it going throughout my library school process. I will probably make other quilts in between this time, and definitely work on various other crafts, but I thought why not make this quilt a little sentimental? Plus, since it's scrappy, it can be my "when-I-have-a-free-minute-I-will-work-on-you" craft. I think I will make the back part of it a little plain and embroider library themed items on it. Books, glasses, pencils, etc. I'm excited.

Sunday Breakfast

I grated a lot of things for this particular breakfast.

I never made Apple Cinnamon pancakes before, so I went for it by using the basic pancake recipe with one grated apple and cinnamon to taste. Then I grated zucchini and potato to make a hash brown type of thing.


Sure, it looks fine there, but the reality was that the hash was a huge mess. Because of limited space, I don't have many pots and pans. I had to use my grilling pan to do the hash, but things got stuck and messy and well, not good. I guess it tasted fine, but it wasn't pretty. Brian likes his eggs scrambled, so I just got some of the hash mess and scrambled them in with his eggs. Not too bad.

Pretty good for a Sunday morning.

The Wheels On The Bus

This entire week I have taken the bus to school. Sure, people take the bus all the time, but it's the first time I've mananged to do it for the entire week. I'm really proud of myself. I've saved what would have been about $25-30 in gas and done my little part to help the environment. I did witness a fair amount of verbal abuse, drunkeness, bloody sores on people, coughing without covering the mouth, etc, etc.. but all in all, I managed to survive. Better yet, I think I will start taking the bus to work on a regular basis now too! Eventually, I will dig out my old bike from my parent's garage, give the tires some air and start taking mini rides around town.

Coupon Pouch: Part Two

I never really used the first coupon pouch that I made, so I made another.


I might eventually embroider something on the outside, but I'm not sure yet.

Peanut Butter And Jelly

This has been my dinner lately. Today it will be lunch. I hear a lot of people look down on Goober style pb&j, but it's my absolute favorite!

Cookies For Crystal

This past weekend, my dear friend Crystal got married. Per her request, I made chocolate chip cookies for the wedding.



I made a million of them.

Our Exotic Dinner

I apologize for the lack of posts lately, things have been hectic. I have been consistently crafting, just not posting. Last night Brian and I had ourselves quite a meal.

Crab legs were the main course, but we also had some steak and corn on the cob as well. I gave Brian garlic duty, since I started school today and did not want to alienate my fellow classmates with garlic smelling hands.

We cut some of the cloves in half and smashed them, then threw them in a pot of boiling water for the crab legs and the corn on the cob. We kept the other half of the garlic, sliced, for our butter mix.

By the time we got to dessert, we noticed a shell cracking theme happening, which was a complete accident, but kept dinner exciting.

I almost forgot how good fresh coconut tastes.

Put The Books Back On The Shelf

It's been super hot here in LA. It's been hard to move in the heat, but I didn't let that stop me. I've been very active in getting my room together before I start school.

Lately, I've been installing new shelves. My biggest challenge has always been that I have too much stuff. Stuff that I unfortunately can not get rid of. I think at this point I would get rid of a lot, but I'm not looking forward to the process that is involved with getting rid of junk. So, I build shelves instead. Storage for my bad pack-rat habits.
To my surprise, my Ikea Expedit bookcase has really taken care of it all. After installing my 2 shelves, I've been scrambling for ideas what to put on them. After looking through my Domino, Blueprint, Readymade, and Martha Stewart magazines, I think I have a few ideas.. but it may be a while since it all comes together.

Apple Tart

When you have apples and puff pastry on hand, this is the simplest little snack to make.

I cut the apples nice and small then added melted butter, splenda (I was all out of sugar, but the splenda mix-up wasn't even noticeable), nutmeg, cinnamon, chamboard liqueur, and I think that's it? I may never be able to replicate this exact recipe.
I then spread a layer of apples onto the puff pastry.

I continued on to make 2 layers, with a layer of stars on top.

I may have added too much butter, because the pastry was a bit transparent.

Luckily, butter makes things taste good! I added some vanilla ice cream and it became our new favorite!