Scarf and Mittens

I made this scarf out of this book. I wanted to just try out the pattern so I used some old cheap yarn that was laying around. I believe it is Red Heart Yarn. It actually turned out nice! It's really warm and the kinks the pattern made really turned out well and held as kinks. I will try this scarf again in a lighter yarn.

I also made these mittens. I have no idea where the pattern is from. It was laying around in my loose-leaf patterns. I used Filatura di Crosa Sempre Yarn color 7.

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

I ran a face recognizer for celebrity look alikes. This is what I got...humor me, I'm bored! Go here MyHeritage to try it yourself.

Vote

I know it's too late to go vote. But I was just looking through Flickr to see how many unbiased voting campaigns were out there. Not many. It's no surprise Obama won, if you watched the news, followed CNN.com, or talked to friends or co-workers you would have known that Obama was the big favorite. I hope he can pull through on all of his promises, or else all of his supporters may have made a big mistake in following the fad. No matter which way you voted, I just hope you voted based on research, knowledge and education.

New Blog

I have a new favorite blog! It is called bread & honey . It's a food blog written by two young women who love food. One of the women, I believe it is Summer, bakes all kinds of yummy desserts, and Alicia takes most of the photographs and makes more of the meals. Every recipe looks and sounds so good.



This pulled pork sandwich looks good, I may have to try out my new slow cooker this weekend.





Here is the recipe. Directly from the blog.
For a 2lb pork butt:
In a bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups brown sugar,
a few generous pinches of salt,
cracked black pepper,
some chili powder,
some garlic powder,
and rub on the pork.

Keep it overnight in the fridge letting the rub soak in.
In the morning, throw it in a large crock pot with one large white onion, diced, a few smashed cloves of garlic, and about 2 cups of apple cider vinegar.

After simmering for many hours (we did ours from about 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.), the meat is easily fork-shredded into bite-sized pieces

Here is the slaw recipe more or less.

half a head of green cabbage,
about a quarter of the red cabbage-
a couple of carrots,
some celery,
and then a LARGE dollop of mayonnaise, thinned out with some apple cider vinegar and seasoned with salt & pepper."

Mmm doesn't that sound really good? For a ton more recipes check out their blog !

Cereal

You can customize anything these days!! Cereal included! the website is called me & goji . You can customize your own cereal, you pick what grains and granolas you want, you pick if you want chocolate pieces, fruit pieces and nuts. It even includes a calorie counter and shows the nutritional facts of your very own creation as you add each item. You then name your creation they'll ship it right to your door.

I'm tempted to try it, but I'm not sure what would make a good mix. They do offer recommendations and suggestions. Maybe I'll start there!

Bored Again

I found this website...I cartooned myself and Ross. Aren't we cute?!

Try it here!

Cars

Ross is looking for a new car since he got his new job. I only dream of a new car. Since work has slowed down, I decided to browse used cars online. Check this one out!!

It's a Volkswagon Jetta!! They may as well put my name on that licence plate and mark in sold!!! Not really, but I wish.

It's a stick, which I like, not sure I'd like it forever, but I've always wanted a Jetta and this just looks so nice and clean and cute!!

Maybe Ross will end up with this one. I don't think so though, we don't have similar taste in this kind of stuff at all. He just told me the other day that he doesn't like my decorating style...I hope he understands that everything in my apartment is second hand and used out of necessity, not choice!!! Oh well. His car I guess!

Julia Roberts

How cute is this outfit?

I love the different length sleeves, the buttons on the short sleeved jacket are great, and the necklaces are the perfect accessories. Well done Julia Roberts!

Hands Up!

So, I was looking online for nothing in particular, but since I'm going Honduras in January, volunteering and mission trips seem to be on my radar! I know mission trips aren't for everyone but check this one out!


It's called Hands Up Holidays. I believe the trips are out of England so it will be a little hard to sign up for this type of volunteer experience. Anyway, the main gist I get from this is that you can pick out of a variety of trips they offer to places such as Australia, Indonesia, India and South Africa. The all range in prices.


The trip I would love to take is the 'Way of the Dragon' to Indonesia. With this itinerary it would be hard to find someone who would not want to do this!







· Volunteering on Flores
· Artistic Ubud in Bali
· Komodo Dragons on Komodo
· Flores’ volcanoes and pristine beaches
· Luxurious Bali Hyatt hotel
· Spa & massage treatment


The spa and massage, luxurious Hyatt and pristine beaches sold me!





Enjoy the beach!!

Best Berry Cumble

My mom and I picked a ton of blueberries a week or so ago, and they've just been sitting in my freezer so I decided to try a new recipe. I found it through The Daily Green newsletter I've been getting sent to my email. Since I don't have a computer or Internet at my new apartment yet, I couldn't upload any pictures of the final product, but it was delicious. The recipe calls for blackberries but they were pretty pricey at the store so I just substituted more blueberries. I scooped it on top of vanilla ice cream while it was still warm and it was so good. Ross even ate it! He ate a lot of it! He's pretty much a chocolate guy, so for him to like this is saying a lot. Here's the recipe and a photo from the website. The pie looking thing in the right background is what it looks like.



BEST BERRY CRUMBLE

Crumbles are great sprinkled on your favorite ice cream. They're also good when mixed into hot cereals.


SERVINGS 4

COOK TIME 15

TOTAL TIME 45


INGREDIENTS
2 cups blueberries
1 cup blackberries
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2/3 cup flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
6 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
whipped cream or vanilla ice cream


PREPARATION
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Adjust oven rack to upper third.
Toss blueberries and blackberries with sugar, lemon juice, and 2 tsp. flour. Turn into 9" pie plate.
2. In medium bowl, mix remaining flour, brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, and oats with fingers until crumbly. Sprinkle topping over berries.
3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes until fruit is bubbly and top is browned.
Serve warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

ban.do

What do you think about this?

At first I wasn't sure, I'll admit it. I really like it a lot, the colors, the concept, I'm just not sure it's practical for day to day wear. Then I thought about it more, and I don't think it's made for day to day wear. I would wear these for my wedding (if I have one) I'm not sold on the veil so I think one of these would be a great alternative.

I even think these ones would make beautiful bridesmaid pieces or a great option for a high school dance or just to get dressed up.

These can all be found here, and they are all for sale, along with many other great pieces. Enjoy browsing!!

Daily Candy

I found this website after reading this blog post by sfgirlbybay . I love the postings on sfgirlbybay. She always finds the most interesting and inspiring pieces of furniture or artwork or designs.







I love the idea of placing beautiful fabrics in embroidery hoops and decorating with them. I think this may be the perfect idea for my new apartment.

And look at those pillows, so easy to make and embellish, such a pretty idea! Her whole blog is filled with stuff like this!

Anyway, back to Daily Candy. This website finds all kinds of special offers and events happening around a specific city and shares them all on their site. I chose Daily Candy Chicago because it's the closest city to me and because I'm going there next weekend for a bachelorette party!!


For example there is an article advertising this 'new' margarita. There is a showing at a fashion building and they are serving these tasty drinks while customers wander the store, they are also offering 20% off any item in the entire store.

Maybe there will be fun events like this next weekend!

Just another fun website I thought I'd share!

FredFlare Fun

I want to take pictures like these!! And I can, with this camera from fredflare.com!!

I was browsing online during work yesterday and stumbled upon this fantastic website! I am in love with everything about the site. Not only the goods for sale like this and this, but also because of the page set up, colors, and personality. I am becoming obsessed very quickly with reading their short and sweet blog posts.

They also offer this camera to take shots like these, with just one click of the shutter button!

One of the employees at fredflare.com, Anne is from Michigan and works out of Michigan!!! Maybe I can meet up with her and work for FredFlare.com out of Michigan too! I did however look at their job postings and noticed nothing was open in Michigan. And I can not move to NY to make their $10/hr offer. Bummer deal, maybe someday I'll get a fun job...until then I may just buy a few cameras!!

APT

I finally got a new apartment!! I'm not entirely sure I can afford it yet, I'm pretty sure, but I'm holding off on cable just in case!

Here are some pictures of my apartment off of the website.

This is the kitchen.

This is my spare bedroom, it used to be the elevator shaft.

This is the master bedroom.

This is the veiw walking in the front door. It shows how small the apartment really is!

Maybe I will take some 'after' photos after I decorate a little bit. I'm happy to have my own place, it was time to move out, I'd be living at home with a full time real job for a year. I decided it was time to take the plunge, I just hope I don't regreat it. Living on my own may get lonely!

Bored

So I'm super bored and work this week. It's not all bad to have nothing to do at work, but it sure makes the day go by slowly! Anyhow, I am catching up on blogs that I used to enjoy on a daily basis and found this neat idea from stitch marker. You type your answer to a list of 12 questions into the flickr search bar, and using the Mosaic Maker create a piece of art! Just copy and paste the URL from flickr into the Mosaic Maker, hit create and there you go. Just to get a look at some of the pictures on flickr is amazing.

This is a great way to browse flickr if you've never done it and also a great way to try out Mosaic Maker. I became a member of bighugelabs, and there are a ton of cool things you can create using that website. Unbelievable fun!!

Here are the questions. Try one for yourself!

The Questions:

What is your first name?
What is your favorite food?
What high school did you go to?
What is your favorite color?
Who is your celebrity crush?
Favorite drink?
Dream vacation?
Favorite dessert?
What you want to be when you grow up?
What do you love most in life?
One Word to describe you.
Your flickr name.

Enjoy!!

What Happened to April??

Wow,

Not one post in April. Good thing I don't have a huge fan base!!!

I joined Paperbackswap.com yesterday. It seems like a really good idea. I added 10 books in order to get my first 2 credits. I'm not sure that I like that you have to have credits in order to request books. The only way to get credits is if someone requests one of your books. Other than that it seems good. The main idea is that you post your used books that you no longer want and request others' books for free. You only pay for postage and shipping when you ship one of your books. You pay nothing to receive a book. I haven't requested a book yet, so we'll see how that works!

I haven't been doing much crafting or photography. I hate how I do that, I get a big kick then it fizzles, that's what happened with photography. I will try to get back into it now that there's sun light for more than 6 hours a day.

Oh, I made some great granola last week. Here is the recipe. It is so good. You can add whatever you want. I'm not a big fan of chunks or 'stuff' in my food so I just went for the oats and the coating. There is a generous amount of coating so I may try adding more oats. The coconut option sounds really good too. I may try coconut next time and craisens would go really well in it. Slivered almonds would also be a good addition. The granola is awesome in yogurt. That's all I've used it for but there's enough crunch and spices to make it really good. And it's all done in the microwave. Really good!

Well I guess that's it for now. I will try to add some pretty pictures for the next post.

It's been a while...

It's been a while since I've posted. Not that anyone reads this anyway, it's just for me I guess. Life's kept me busy.



I've been working on another Ribbed Lace Bolero. This time in brown, I think I will like it a lot better than the white. The white is kind of dressy and the brown is more laid back, I think I will have more to wear the brown one with.



I've picked up sewing again. I just have to hem the bottom of this top then it's done. I also reconstructed a sweatshirt into a cardigan. Just simple and black, I made it 3/4 sleeves and cut it up the middle and will be adding some kind of closure either snaps or buttons to complete the cardigan look. I just have so many things that almost finished. I need to finish them! The bolero has a ways to go but the cardigan and top are almost done, I will finish those by this weekend.



That's it for now!

Great Job

I said in a previous post that I would post about the earrings Ross gave me for Valentine's Day, well here they are.

I need to start taking pictures during the day. The beads are actually purple, but at least you can get the general idea of the style. I've worn them a few times already. I like them a lot. The purple isn't too purple, which is good since I don't wear much purple, I've worn them with black and they look really nice.

Ross started an internship with Julie Sanford. He found her by looking for an internship on Grand Valley's website. He only needs 150 hours and he does most of his work on his computer from home. It's not a bad deal for him. Unfortunately it is unpaid, but he's learning new things too. Here are a few samples from her website. I'm not sure if you can order from the site, but I'm sure she can be emailed if you find something you love!

I would love to have a job like hers, or any creative design work. Julie recently set up her studio in a little building in Grand Haven. I'm hoping Ross will introduce me to her so that I can learn how she started up her business. I also see that she has already signed up to attend a few craft fairs this summer...I wonder if she needs any help!!

I don't know how Ross finds these great jobs. He doesn't even know how great of an opportunity this would be for me, but I'm hoping he keeps me in mind through all of this. He is setting up a data base of her current mailing labels, and she wants him to research how to get her work sold at current retailers. She seems very talented.

Jess and I are taking a silver clay class. I thumbed through some of Julie's magazines that she wanted Ross to look through to learn the industry, and I noticed that silver clay was a very popular theme through out the magazine. So Jess and I are taking the class at Creative Fringe. It is a little expensive for 2.5 hours, but I think it will be something fun to learn. I feel like I've been spending all my money on classes. But I don't want to be sitting in a cubicle forever, this job is just to get me to the next item on my wish list, and the list is growing quickly!

Staying On Track

I'm trying to post more regularly, for no particular reason except to prove that I can. I have my photography make-up class tomorrow morning. Should be a good one since we will actually get to take pictures in the day light!!

Our assignment was to take 3 pictures that we want to share with the class focusing on Aperture, Shutter Speed, Metering, White Balance, ISO and Exposure Compensation. I mostly chose my Apterture and the camera chose the Shutter Speed, I chose the White Balance, ISO and Exposure Compensation. It was hard to find things to photograph since I had Thursay evening and this evening available to take pictures and Thursday was Valentine's Day so I didn't get many pictures taken. Here's what I've got.



The top left is Abby Rose Sullivan, Ross's dog. She is the most beautiful, friendly, loving dog ever! I took her portrait! It's a little blury but she had a hard time holding still! The flower is also at Ross's house. His mom got this as a kit for a Dirty Santa game. I think she made out pretty well in the whole deal. It is such a vibrant red/orange against that beige wall. I think the colors pop quite nicely. I'm not sure if I'm going to use the final picture or not. Ross decorated his chocolate chip pie very nicely and wanted me to photograph it. While the swirl is beautiful, I like how the Cool Whip looks on his fork. If I would have thought about it I would have taken more time on this picture, I don't really like the orangy tint but it was dark and a fire was going, so it kind of captures the mood.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I finally got my camera to connect to my computer!!! So I'm back online with the photo blogging, now I have no excuse not to continue posting my thing-a-day projects.

With Ross being unemployed we decided not to do anything big for Valentine's Day this year. I decided to make him a chocolate chip pie that I found here. My parents and Ross and I went to Jack's located in our local Holiday Inn for their famous perch dinner. And it was as good as ever. Then we came home and had this delicious pie.


Ross had two interviews today. One was for his internship and he got it! Yay!! Getting so close to that diploma! The interview is with a woman who makes her own jewelry right here in Spring Lake. She is working on opening a new studio and she wants Ross to help her with that and several other computer related things. She was generous enough to give Ross a pair of earings to give to me for Valentine's day and I love them. I will post more on this later, I haven't photographed them yet, but I will because they are beautiful. I will also post her website and other store information. Her work is really beautiful! I told Ross to get me an in with her so I can do something I really enjoy with my time. He did say she will be looking for an assistant in the near future!! I'm ready!

Hope you all had a great Valentine's day! I have a photography class this Saturday so hopefully I will have some interesting photos to post!

New Ring

I thought making wire wrap rings would be easy, quick and fun. I think I was right! I went down to Creative Fringe, our local bead shop in Grand Haven and picked up a ring mandrel so that I could form a circle and in a specific ring size. I need to work on wrapping the wire tightly around the mandrel, it's pretty hard to hold it tight! I also bought some 18 gague silver wire so it won't tarnish. I think it turned out alright. Not perfect but it was my first attempt, I can only get better!!
I need to work on my picture taking skills as well. It was late last night when I took this, that's my excuse. I should take a better one, but this will have to work for now.

Thing-A-Day Kick Off

Well, I'm having a bit of a hard time getting used to the blogging on Thing-A-Day. I think I'll catch on after a few postings. I tried to post a cool picture that I messed with on Photoshop, but my computer at work can't open Photoshop files...so that'll have to wait for another day. Instead, I decided to post a winter scene so in case the 1500 people or so that are on Thing-A-Day aren't experienceing this cold weather with the rest of us, they can have a glimpse of our weather!

This also takes care of part of my assignment for my photography class. I have to take a picture on each programmed setting on my camera. This one is using the scene setting. I took this in the morning before work. I'm standing in the middle of my street, good thing it's not a busy street! The moon is actually still up and shining but it is behind the trees in the front of the picture on the left hand side, so it's kinda hard to see, but I think that is what is causing the pink glow or it could just be the gross street lights.

I opened a new Flickr account because Thing-A-Day can't handle too many uploads and I honestly have no idea how big my pictures are so I may just link my pictures to Flickr. I'm starting my account right now, geez I am getting myself all over the internet! I had no idea it took so long to upload photos on these sites, all I do is wait for the pictures, good greif!

Stay warm!!!

Thing-A-Day

I just registered for Thing-A-Day Challenge!!! I think it will be a big challenge but I'm excited. There are 920 people signed up as of 10:17 am January 30. Registration ends tomorrow at midnight. You have to make a new thing each day and post it on their WordPress site. The project can't take longer than an hour and should be a minimum of 20 minutes. I have to start coming up with quick crafts. One a day will be tough. I can't really knit a whole project in an hour. Sewing something might be easier. I just borrowed a Badge In A Minit from my church, I need to find pieces for it and am thinking of using that for some new project! I'm trying to think of new things, since most of my crafting projects take a me weeks to complete, I've heard that making a theme a week helps...now if I could only come up with a theme to start with!!! Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

New Cookies

I recently purchased a new cook book for JoAnn Fabrics. It was in with the $5.00 books. I got Cool Girls Guide To Knitting and JoAnns for $5.00 and it was a great buy. Pretty basic patterns but perfect for a beginner. So based on that good find I thought this cook book would be decent too. It is all for baking, I love baking, not just desserts but all kinds of food, and this book features a variety of dishes. It's called Greatest Ever Baking or something. I decided to try a recipe and chose a basic cook it was called Vanilla Cookies. The recipe wasn't very detailed, I think the butter needed to be a little melted, softened was not soft enough, and all the instructions said were 2/3 cup butter diced. So when I decided my dough was never going to hold together I put it all in the microwave, all of it, and then tried to get it to stick together, it finally worked and I was able to roll it out and cut cookies out of it. This is what they looked like right out of the oven.


I tried one, not very good, so I found some frosting in the fridge and raided the pantry for decorations and Ross and I decorated cookies, Mike even got in on it as well. And this is what they looked like decorated. Much prettier, but still not too tasty.


I don't know what my problem has been lately, but nothing is turning out very well. My last 3 attempts were failures. I made a couple pumpkin pies...forgot the sugar...yup, eww. Next endeavor, we got a new cookie press from Pampered Chef, so I decided to try it out and found a recipe online that involved jello to make the cookies a little fruity...not good. We threw away almost the whole batch.

I started on Weight Watchers again and made some brownies that are only 2 points each. Those actually turned out, so that's good. The recipe is scary but easy. It is a box of low-fat brownie mix and a can of black beans. You put the entire contents of the can of beans in a blender and grind them up, add the puree to the dry brownie mix and that's it. I put mine in muffin tins and cupcake papers to get the suggested serving size on the box of brownies and baked them for 26 minutes. Amazing really, that a combination like that would even be thought up, but it's genius really at how good the brownies are!