Have a heart

Quite a while ago, almost a year ago, I entered my first swap. It was for handmade hearts. The swap coordinator, Sheri, who no longer has a blog, made the deadline sometime in the beginning of december but the date got moved to the end of January. So, in my typical fashion, I procrastinated and put things off and finally got them done. That's what my daily projects were for Friday night and Saturday. I only had to make 14 so it wasn't a huge project just slightly tedious and a bit difficult to come up with 14 different ones.





Anyway, here they are...

and now they're off to the post office.

Love Fridays

One of these weeks I'm going to make this post on a Friday. Oh how I loved this Friday!! A friend and I decided that we are going to start visiting local museums because neither of us really ever have so yesterday we visited the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena. The museum doesn't actually open til noon so we made plans for lunch first. We picked Daisy Mint. A very cute little Thai bistro. My Chilies, Basil and Beef hit the spot. Doesn't it look yummy?! (mine is the one on the left, L's Green Curry on the right)

So, on to the museum...I remember the commercials for this museum from when I was a kid. It featured a very young Candace Bergen and flashes of lots of Degas sculptures. At least thats how I remember them. I've never been to it...after living in SoCal for 35 years this was my first time. It was amazing! I love art museums in general. To quote my friend, they make me feel so educated and cultured. This one, for such a small museum, has a collection that spans about 800 years. And the numbr of sculptures is astounding. I think my favorite pieces were Bird In Space by Brancusi and Little Dancer Aged Fourteen by Degas. But my favorite part of the museum was out back...

It was raining so their sculpture garden was actually closed so this is all we got to see which was our view from out cafe table where we had coffee and dessert.

I really wish the garden was open cuz I wanted to get a better look at the scultpures. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to go back for a better look.

You should definitely go over to Tinnigirl and check out all the other reasons to Love Fridays.
Only two more days left for the give away!

Paper craft and Little pouch

I said that I needed to find a non-sewing project which was fine. I came up with all sorts of things. One problem...I can't find any of my craft supplies. They're all in boxes somewhere. So I sat down and started tearing into a couple of magazines and made this little scene...

Which I'm not all that pleased with. I don't know if it's the fact that it's not what I wanted to be doing or because I'm just not happy how it turned out. Either way, it'll go in the drawer until I can come back to it.

Luckily, when my brilliant sister came home she reminded me to look in the little compartment in the sewing machine for extra needles....duh! And they were there, of course. So I got back to work on my little pouch. I thought it was turning out so well but once I started to work on the zipper, I figured there were a couple things I did wrong but this being a first time, that's alright. It's all about learning as I go. So here's how it turned out...

Cute, no? I'm having issues with finding things, as I've mentioned, white thread included. But no biggie. The fabric that I used is part of a fat quarter from a vintage sheet that was part of a vintage sheet fat quarter exchange I participated in a while back. The lining is from the same swap. I actually don't really like the lining fabric but the colors matched perfectly with the other fabric so I couldn't not use it.

The best part of the whole thing, I think, is the strap...

I'm really good at making straps and handles for some reason.

So, next time there are a few things that will be done differently but for the most part, I like it. Now what should I make tomorrow?

Don't forget five more days till the give away!

I'm in the crafting groove

Since I went so long without a sewing machine (from the end of August to the middle of January) I have been going a little crazy and coming up with all sorts of things that I want to try and make. I’ve been finding all sorts of tutorials all over the place and bookmarking them or I’ve downloaded the pdf versions of them and saved them in my “Projects to try” folder. Basically, I’ve been hording ideas like a mad woman.

So, now that I’ve got this borrowed machine I’m trying to do some of those projects. The lunch bag was one of them.

Then came the pencil roll. Actually, this was supposed to be a Christmas present for someone, but better late than never, right?

Notice there are no close up shots of the inside. This is very much on purpose because to be quite frank, I can not sew a straight line to save my life. So all those little pencil pockets are a little wobbly but they get the job done.

Then last night I started on a small zippered pouch. This was to be my first zipper ever, that is until I broke the needle on the sewing machine right at the point where I was ready to put the zipper in. Oops! And it was going so well too. I refused to take pictures until it was finished so there’s nothing to show of it but rest assured it was coming out better than I thought it would. When I’m able to go get new needles, probably tomorrow, I’ll finish it and show it to you.

Anyway, I had in the back of my mind that I wanted to do a project a day this week just to get myself back into the crafty swing of things. I guess tonight’s project will have to be a non-sewing one. Anybody got any ideas? All my horded ideas seem to have all been sewing projects. Guess I’m going to have to do some more digging. Off I go…

Don't forget to sign up for the give away if you haven't done so already!!

Eye-spy, a blogaversary and a give away

Eye-spy:
I struggled with this one for some reason. We don’t have a whole lot of small things around the house. Mostly cuz one of the critters with chew it up and leave the remains all over the house. So I decided to pick something from work…

My sister and I made these a while back for a craft fair booth and I really liked the lady-bugishness of this one. It’s made from a terracotta pot that is only 2” high and about 2” wide. It holds photos of Jasper and Sasha and my friend Gloria’s pets - Joshe, the cat, and Bear, a HUGE black lab. (Just a piece of trivia for you…three out of the four animals were brought home because they were strays or abandoned and showed up at our office. Bear is the only non-rescue)
For more small things, visit BugandPop and check out the players.

Part deux:
I was reading up on some favorite blogs when I came across CurlyPops’ Blogaversary post. She’s reached her one year mark and the dinger in my head went off cuz CurlyPops was one of the first blogs I came across after starting mine and I had noticed that she had just started hers too. So, not knowing the exact date I started blogging off the top of my head, I looked. Lo and behold it was the 28th of January 2008. That was this past Wednesday. I also have past my 200th post (I’m at 208 with this one). And, if you’ll remember I had talked about a give away way back at my 100th but never got around to it because of the Big Move. So what better time than this post to have a give away?!

I’ve been obsessing over lunch bags lately and have decided to finally make one for myself. My normal lunch bag is whichever plastic grocery bag I can find, not stylish, I know but very handy. After trying very hard to go green and take re-usable shopping bags to the grocery store, I’ve found that I’m plastic bag deficient. So making my own lunch tote just makes sense. I had bought one from a market stall a few years back but the handles started coming undone. I took it apart and used it as my basic starting point but with a few tweaks and twists to make it my own.

So for my give away, one special person will receive one of these lunch totes…

This one is made from fabric I got in my tin from Tinniegirl (thank you, you’re awesome!). They come in 2 sizes. This one is the small size, just big enough for maybe a sandwich and a yogurt and has little pockets inside for knife spoon and fork. The other size can hold one of those throwaway type left-overs containers, has the little pockets, and comes with a placemat. It will be filled with various bits and bobs, not sure what yet.

I’ll leave it open for one week from today. Just leave a comment telling me the size you want and your favorite color. Oh, and tell all your friends who, like me, are completely unstylish and take a plastic grocery bag to work for their lunch, that here is the perfect opportunity to gain some style street cred.

Love Fridays on a Saturday and an award.

I. I've become so slack in my meme responsibilities! Mostly, due to the fact that I've become EXTREMELY lazy in the last couple of months. That's also why my Friday was spent just like this...

I think I was awake maybe 3 hours during the daylight hours. Which of course means that I was awake into the wee hours of the night. Just another reason to love Fridays...SLEEP.



II. I was completely tickled and excited and quite touched that I received an award. This award...

from the very kind Tinniegirl.

The Proximidade is described as follows:'This blog invests and believes in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes for self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers!'This blog award should be sent to your favorite eight bloggers and they, in turn should forward to eight of their favorites. You should include the text for Proximidade (above) in your announcement blog.

I started this blog for a couple of reasons. Mostly to see if I could actually keep it up, having been terrible at keeping a diary when I was younger, and to get things off my chest. It quickly changed directions and became an avenue for making friends, finding inspiration, becoming connected to someone, anyone out there that felt, thought and was interested in the same things I am. And I must tell you, there are blogs out there for everybody. I really feel I've found my bloggy niche. So, the following 8 blogs are ones that I feel that connection with or get inspiration from or both. (Just for the record, I would re-award Tinniegirl, but I don't think that's how it supposed to go)
Area Thrifty One
Kimono Reincarnate
Miscellany of Me
Strickerin
Edward and Lilly
(fossil compass) erin kobie
CurlyPops
One Little Acorn

If anybody reading this has not read any of these lovely blogs, I heartily encourage you to do so!

The cake will not win!!

One of my coworkers and I put ourselves in charge of buying a cake each month for all the employees who have birthdays in that month. So last night I picked up the cake and this morning it's sitting on my desk right next to me.

It seems to be willing me to open its container and take a swipe at its frosting. I can almost hear it whispering, "Come on, you know you want to...no one will even notice."

It's an evil cake. With an evil little whispery voice and evil mind manipulating powers. You can hear its little evil song, too, can't you?

But it doesn't know that I am a super hero. This receptionist gig is just my mild mannered alter ego. I'm really Ms. Power, Ms. Willhelmina Power, Will for short. That's right folks, Will Power is here to save the day. I, with my cape billowing in the breeze, will stop that evil cake!

Take that, evil little cake!!

*no actual cakes were harmed in the making of this post.

Eye spy...something that starts with J.

My first and most obvious choice would be, of course, Jasper…

I mean who wouldn’t think of that cute little face first? I think he must have some kind of hold on me…almost like I’ve been hypnotized. (*shakes head to clear the fog*)

But really, what I spy is January. So far, this January has been very strange. The first week or so was very chilly. So chilly I was sleeping in, not only my pj’s, but also a sweater on top of them and about 7 blankets. Then it got really warm, in the 80”s type of warm. Then we got a couple of days of drizzle. Then, last night, hail, thunderstorms, wind, the whole shebang. Today, sunny…

Weird, I tell ya.

For more J things, go here and check 'em out.

This weekend's project.

Because we have a very very far way to go to get the house where we want it I've got a list of projects that will take approximately one weekend to get finished. This weekend's project got put at the top of the list because we are having a candle party (think Tupperware but with candles and candle holders) and we have very limited seating. So, I decided I'd finally make cushions for this chair...

My family has had this chair since I was a kid, when my dad brought it home from somewhere. I always sat in this one (he brought home 2, this one and one with arms that are arch shaped) reading or watching TV, usually with my feet in the air and my head hanging over the edge of the seat. It's really a huge chair if you can't tell from the photo. For the last 8 years I've had it in my possession in this poor state. No cushion, paint peeling, etc. I kept telling myself I'd get to it but never did. Finally, though, due to necessity, I have. I spent the weekend making these cushions...

The seat cushion was made from scratch but the big pillow is a pillow form that I bought and I just made a sham. I love that Alexander Henry fabric on the seat cushion. There's something about the black and white combo that really speaks to me.

Eventually, the frame will be painted white and the arms black but for the party, this is ok. The back of the big pillow looks like this...

I was originally going to put buttons with loop closures on it but I just thought it would be too much. I'm a minimalist at heart.

I've made pillows and pillow covers before but the big cushion is a first for me. It was a challenge. I've never done anything box like. Making sure corners all meet up was an interesting experience.

How did you spend your weekend?

Love Fridays

I really do love Fridays. Being my day off from work and having no one else at home but me and the critters, I take advantage of the opportunity to do things I wouldn't normally do. Like cook myself a nice hearty breakfast. Today it was my favorite scramble...

my "Creamy Sausage and Cilantro Scramble"
Ingredients:
2 or 3 eggs (depends on how hungry you are)
1 tablespoon cream cheese
2 0r 3 breakfast sausage links
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 handful cilantro leaves
1/2 tablespoon olive oil

Cook sausage first, chop into small chunks, set aside. In a bowl scramble together eggs, garlic and cilantro. Slice cream cheese into small chunks, add to eggs. In a pan heat olive oil, add sausage. Pour egg mixture over sausage and scramble. The cream cheese makes the eggs take a little longer to cook, just be careful not to burn.

Plus toast and YUMMY Raspberry Peach Champagne Jam from Le Gourmet Chef.

All this after sleeping in til 8...yeah Fridays are good. To see more reasons to love you some Friday, go to Tinniegirl's blog and check out everybody else's weekend gateway.

They grow up so fast!

Remember this little kitty...

When did she turn into this big cat??

I think it happened over night. Big jungle kitty is now bigger than little pampered dog.

My first apron

It feels good to have a sewing machine again! Ours is still loaned out but my sister belatedly remembered that she teaches sewing as an elective every summer and has 10 sewing machines just lying around her classroom during the school year. She loaned me one of those and, frankly, it's a better machine than our own. So now I can make those Christmas presents that never got made, maybe they'll end up being Valentine's Day gifts.

Anyway, I joined a swap on swap-bot called "Sound of Music - My favorite things" swap. Basically you make something that is inspired by the lyrics of the song. So I made this apron as my "girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes" interpretation. It's my first apron. It came out a little narrow but other than that it came out pretty decent. I lucked out and found this 3 inch wide satin ribbon at Joann and just used it like bias tape for the waste band / ties. And used some white eyelet from the stash so it was a very cheap project and a quick one too. I finished it in just about an hour a half...for me that's super quick.

In other news, I got a pleasant surprise the other day when I got home from work and this was in my mail box...

My very cute ornament from Edward and Lilly. Isn't it adorable?! Thank you, Rebecca!

Take Action!

Have you heard of the CPSIA? That’s the Consumer Product Safety Information Act. If you haven’t then let me shed some light on it for you. In an attempt to prevent products with high lead contents from reaching America’s children the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has come up with this act that basically says all products geared for children 12 and under must be tested by a third, neutral party for lead (they require 600ppm or less at the moment to go down eventually to 100ppm). I have read, mostly on other people’s blogs, that every product will need to be tested, not every product line, but every actual, individual product. That sounded ridiculous to me even considering the sources so I did some snooping around on the CPSC site and frankly, the wording is vague, purposely, I believe.

The latest update that they have listed on the CPSC website does propose that certain materials aren’t harmful because they naturally do not have or have very very small amounts of lead in them. Here’s a quote:
“The staff recommends that the following natural materials be found by the Commission not to exceed the CPSIA lead limits based on the available scientific information and the staff’s best professional judgment that such materials do not contain lead or contain lead at levels that do not exceed the CPSIA lead limits. The staff recommends that these finding only apply to a material that is untreated and unadulterated by the addition of materials or chemicals including pigments, dyes, coatings, finishes or any other substance, and has not undergone any processing that could result in lead content that exceeds the CPSIA lead limits.”
(So basically there are certain materials that they think are ok but only in their natural state, no dyes or pigments, etc.)

Here are the items they deem to be ok…
Precious gemstones: diamond, ruby, sapphire, emerald
Certain semiprecious gemstones…provided that the mineral or material is not based on lead or lead compounds (duh!) and is not associated in nature with any mineral that is based on lead or lead compounds (huh?!)
Natural or cultured pearls
Wood
Natural fibers, including cotton, silk, wool, hemp, flax, and linen
Other natural materials including coral, amber, feathers, fur, and untreated leather
Surgical steel
Precious metals

The crafting world is in an uproar about this, and rightly so. There is a point where government regulation becomes heavy handed, invasive and absurd. This act has past that point. They have dismissed a whole sector of people whose livelihood depends solely on what they make at their sewing machine or in their workshop in their garage or in their “studio” that’s in the spare bedroom. For any item to fall strictly into any of those categories above is unreasonable. To ask that these handmade items be tested by a testing lab (which I know from first hand experience) is not only unreasonable but criminal. All those Etsy or MadeIt sellers that would fall under the CPSIA purview will have no choice but to close up shop or to sell strictly to people in other countries. It would mean the end of all those booths at farmer’s markets and street fairs and craft fairs and holiday boutiques where men and women have not only toiled to have a fair amount of inventory at their booth, they’re also sitting there making more. You won’t see this anymore. It’s a piece of Americana that’s about to vanish.

If you’ve read this far (well, I’m impressed because I’m usually not this wordy) I implore you to take action. It doesn’t take much effort on your part. Go to the Handmade Toy Alliance website, do some more reading if you’d like, or just do a letter to your senator. On the site they have a sample letter where you just copy and paste and fill in your information then email it to your senator. Don’t know who your senator or representative is? They’ll help you with that too. They also have some suggested solutions if you've decided to look into this further. And last but certainly not least, don’t forget to sign their petition.

If you're an American and this has struck a chord with you, please do not sit idly by. Take action.

One of my resolutions

Ok, let me start by saying that I stopped making new year's resolutions when I was around 20 because I never stuck to them and I figure why set myself up for disappointment on an annual basis. So instead of resolving to stick to my resolutions I resolved to make no more resolutions.

This year, though, I decided to make a couple, ones I know I can stick to. The first is to cook more, eat out less. So tonight I made myself dinner (yakisoba noodles with soy steak stripes, garlic, and corn - we're low on groceries right now) and dessert, this dessert...

I call it Cinnamon Pear Crumble. I've never made this before or actually anything like it, I'm more a cake/cookie person so it was something of an experiment. It came out rather well, I must say. That's why I decided to list the recipe (or what I think ended up being the recipe :) ) I hope you enjoy it!

Cinnamon Pear Crumble

Filling:

1 can quartered pears

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Topping:

3 or 4 tablespoons brown sugar (I used light brown but it would probably be even better with dark brown)

1/4 cup flour

1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon

2 tablespoons butter

Heat oven to 375 degrees (Farenheit).

For the filling I drained then divided the pears into two ramekins then divided the cinnamon and sugar between the two and made sure the pears were well coated.

For the topping,melt the butter and mix together with the brown sugar, cinnamon and flour until all flour has been mixed in. Crumble on top of pears. Cook for 20 minutes.

I'm not generally a cooked fruit lover but pears are one of my exceptions to that rule. They're just yummy!!

Happy New Year! and my butt hurts

Happy New Year everybody!! I tried valiantly to stay up last night and ring in the new year with, if not some revelry, at least some wakefulness. Alas, I fell fast asleep well before midnight then woke up again at 12:05, so I missed the ball dropping and Dick Clark. That's a symptom of age, or so I hear.

Anyway, My sister and I have gone back and forth over the last 2 months since moving into the house on what sofa to get. We agree that we want a dark color (probably dark brown/chocolate) but other than that we can't seem to agree. I like clean lines, she likes the poofy overstuffed floppy looking sofas. So we have yet to get one. In the meantime we've been sitting on all manner of chair. From dining chairs to camp chairs to outdoor chairs, which is what I'm sitting on now. This is why my arse is continuously sore, at least while I'm watching tv or on the computer. If it were solely up to me, it would be one of these...

They are all from this company their & names are 1. Park 2. Arlette 3. Lola 4. Metropole. I love them.

Merry Christmas!!!

The AWESOMEST give away ever!!

Burda Style is having a huge give away! they're giving this away...

I mean, really, how awesome is that?! Unfortunately, it's only open to people in the United States or it's jurisdictions. That kinda stinks for everyone else out there. But if you do live in the US you have until midnight tonight (eastern time - that's less than an hour, sorry for the short notice!) Hurry!!

Babies

The babies are everywhere these days! I just thought to myself the other day that for a single, childless woman, I sure do buy a lot of baby clothes, toys, items, etc. I guess my friends and I are all in that age group where having children is the thing to do. I don't mean to make it sound like some passing trend, I just can't seem to think of better wording right now.

Here's one of the most recent arrivals...

Eye spy...some bling

This week's theme was a bit hard for me to get a handle on. I'm not a bling-y person. I rarely wear jewelry, I don't like rhinestones, and I don't generally decorate with shiney objects. Attracted and distracted by shiny objects? Of course. So, I decided to use this little ornament...

Do you see it? It's right here..

It's one of those ornaments that have made it through years of Christmases in our house. I can't remember a single Christmas with out this and several other ornaments. My mom, just a couple weeks ago, gave us a box of stuff she had packed away with s ton of her handmade ornaments, this one single glass ornament and a couple of other odds and ends. I was so tickled to see this shiny little bauble! Too bad this is the only one of the glass ones that survived.

Thanks to Hoppo Bumpo for the topic! Check out some more bling over at Bug and Pop.

As a side note, a while back I said that since this is the first fireplace I've ever had I will make a point of making a fire and drink hot chocolate in front of the fire. So that's what I did. We were all cozy and warm with our frst fire in our new house with a nice big mug of steaming hot chocolate...

Love Fridays

I don't technically play along with the Love Fridays meme but I just felt I needed to today. And really, I do love them. Fridays have recently become my day off (not by choice but that's alright) and I can't wait to put them to good use. So far they've been spent waiting for some type of repairman or installer of something to come to the house and then waiting for them to finish. I should be utilizing my waiting time knocking out the gifts that I still have to make (and haven't started) but my sister loaned out the sewing machine to a friend of ours and we haven't gotten it back yet.

Sooooo....instead, my time is spent torturing my poor pets with things like this...

Please forgive me, I couldn't resist! I don't know if you can see it in the picture but the hat has little pointed elf ears on the sides. And let me tell you, poor little bub did not like that thing on his head. But after much hemming and hawing or at least the doggy version of hemming and hawing he finally sat still enough for me to get 2 pics squeezed out, both of which are blurry but this one was the lesser of the two.


Maybe next friday I'll actually be productive, or maybe not.