The Lure of Girl Scout Cookies

I was just reading Rachel’s blog, where she mentions eating girl scout cookies, which reminded me…

I had an opportunity to buy some girl scout cookies at the library a couple days ago. As we passed I asked David if I should get them now or after we were done picking up our books. He said when we’re done. Then I said,”But what if they run out of our favorite (Samoas)?” And he said they wouldn’t. So. I hesitated. Then acquiesced. While in the library, I kept thinking about chewy, delicious Samoas, and how I was so excited to buy a box (and, uh, support the girl scouts, ahem). Finally I went to check out my books – only to find I had to pay overdue fines that took up almost all of the cash I had. What a blow. So… no girl scout cookies.

The moral of this story is to buy the girl scout cookies right away! And pay your library fines later.

Fertility Charm & Sewing

For perspective, the white contents in the center are grains of rice.

I recently made this fertility pendant for one of my swap partners who is trying to get pregnant. It took me some time to research the traditional ingredients carried in charms like these, but once I knew what to look for I found all kinds of information. For this purpose, I included only herbs, seeds, and grains, although stones (Basalt, Carnelian, Tiger’s Eye, Garnet, Rose Quartz) seem to be pretty popular, too. You can’t tell from the picture, but the vial is tiny, about 1/2 an inch tall. Then I put it into a vellum envelope and sealed it with a wax seal for presentation.

Meanwhile, I’ve been struggling the past few days on a new hobo/tote bag for myself. I saw this particular style while I was out shopping a couple weeks ago. The fabric was a red sailors stripe that I didn’t like, so I thought I’d try making my own. The outside is almost finished. It took me three tries to attach the oval bottom without the seams looking like hell. I’ve never attached an oval piece before. Is there some secret I don’t know about? I used a straight stitch, but there were all these little puckers. So I did it again about a 1/4 inch from that seam, and then again once more until it looked semi-reasonable. Now I’m in the process of sewing the lining pieces. I finally had to put it away though, so I wouldn’t get too frustrated. Being a beginner sucks sometimes. Would someone please tell those pattern makers to come up with some different styles, because this would have been so much easier with a pattern. Sigh. Hopefully, it will be complete and ready to share by this weekend.

Sister-in-law Love

I’ve probably mentioned this before, but one of the most crafty/creative people I know is my sister-in-law Liza. She always seems to be painting, cooking, knitting or sewing something really cool, and because of this her gifts are always unique. This past Christmas, one of the handmade gifts she gave me was a pair of grey cashmere arm-warmers (re-purposed from a thrift store sweater) hand-stitched with a lovely little flower design. Oh boy. Its hard not to feel like a million bucks wearing them.

Recently, she sent me this snowflake obsidian and labradorite pendant as a belated birthday gift. Believe it or not, but dark grey is one of my favorite colors to wear. Of course, I love it. It reminds me of living in the Eastern Sierra Mountains of California, where huge blocks of black obsidian could be found right along the highway. A quick web search says that snowflake obsidian can clear away negative energy and bring balance and harmony to the wearer, which I’m all for (if you believe in that sort of thing).

A few of Liza’s other handmade items can be seen here.

Japanese Variety

I seem to be stuck in a procrastination phase. I was hoping to be more productive this weekend, but I don’t think I was. Actually, I can’t even remember how I spent it all. Some of it was watching a few netflixed Alias episodes (great eye candy, although the mini anxiety attacks from all the suspense and drama are rough), surfed the net, a little gardening, attended a baby shower and put together some swap packages. I did get a little work done, too, so that’s good.

……….

Not far from my house is a Japanese supermarket called Uwajimaya. It’s a great place for exotic foods and asian gifts like ceramics, specialty papers, and traditional art supplies. We had an asian theme to our wedding (red tablecloths, paper lanterns, chopsticks, etc) and most of our food was ordered from here. I picked up the packages of candy shown above this weekend for some swaps (as well as some Haribo candy for myself). The whole side of an aisle is devoted to sweets, and of course I want to try them all.

Next door to the supermarket there is a Tokyo-based bookstore called Kinokuniya. Besides their unique office supplies and selection of kawaii, I love to browse the imported craft books. Their fine aesthetic and clean photographic style really appeals to me. Sometimes they’re written in English, too. My budget has pretty much limited me to only looking, but someday I’d love to bring a few home with me. For now I just try and soak up the inspiration while I’m there.

Babyness – Cutest Baby Shoe Tutorials

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VitaminWater + Timberline = Free Snowboarding

A photo of Mt Hood I took this past fall, through the windshield of a moving car

David and I went snowboarding at Timberline Ski Area on Mt Hood today. They were running a special where you could get a free lift ticket just for bringing in an empty bottle of VitaminWater. A sweet deal since tickets run around $50 per person. The weather was mostly cloudy, but not too cold.

Ten years ago, when I first taught snowboarding, I was the only female instructor. Needless to say, my male co-workers were much faster and more daring, but I learned to keep up and hold my own pretty fast. Now I’m content just to coast at my own speed and just enjoy the ride. Of course, the thrill isn’t the same, but every now and then I impress myself, that I can still ride with style, albeit for barely half the time. A half a day on the slopes now is plenty enough for me.

Harbingers Of Spring

The weather has reverted to its normal cloudy grey self today. Right now all their little heads are tightly closed against the cold, but this weekend several little blooms peeked out to say hello. David and I both snapped several pictures, hoping to preserve the feeling of joy at these first little signs of spring. Neither the snowdrop or the yellow crocus shown above are ones that we’d planted, so their arrival is that much more pleasantly unexpected.

Spring Fever: Tokyo Tie Bag

Tokyo Tie Top Bag in Lotus by Amy Butler for Rowan fabrics

The past several days have been so beautiful. Sunny, breezy… almost warm. It inspired me to do some spring sewing this weekend–when we weren’t outside enjoying the weather, that is. Meet my new Tokyo Tie Bag, from Sew Everything Workshop.

In search of suitably spring-like fabric (and to broaden my search for a solid grey to match another fabric I already have, that I want to make a larger bag with later. You would not believe how hard it is to match greys!), I checked out Fabric Depot for the first time. It’s over on the east side of town, where I rarely wander. They bill themselves as “the largest, most complete retail fabric store in the west” with 73,000 square feet of shop space. The place is huge, seemingly a sea of fabric bolts, including some of my favorite designers, organics, and even bamboo material. And they were having a 30% off sale!

For this new little bag I found a pretty flowered pattern and a matching heavy canvas for the lining. This was a good project for me to learn some new techniques – grading seams, clipping curves and adding a snap. Actually, I decided to use a magnetic snap instead, and was happy to find this tutorial for a little help. I didn’t machine sew the hole (since I don’t know how), but I did reinforce the sides by hand. Also, I couldn’t get the prongs to lie flat on top of each other properly, so I bent them outward instead. I hope that doesn’t cause too much of a problem later on.

Because I can’t leave anything well enough alone, I altered the shape of the pattern from the original sizing specified in the book. Instead, I made the straps just a little longer and the bag body a little wider. You can download my template here, but it has to be tiled onto two sheets.

I actually remembered to wash and iron the material before getting started, but I’m thinking it was a mistake to wash the canvas. It came out of the dryer a hard, wrinkled mess. I tried stretching, ironing, re-wetting and hanging, and even used some dreaded Downy Wrinkle Releaser (why do they make it smell so strong?!), but never got it very smooth and flat again. I could swear it said it was machine washable.

Next time, I think I’ll make the straps longer, so it’s more of a shoulder bag instead of a handbag, add an inner pocket, and maybe choose an even heavier weight canvas for a slightly more structured body. Either way, it’s pretty cute.

Cool Online Game

gettheglass.com

If you haven’t already, check out this creative online game. I can’t believe how well it was designed, with gorgeous graphics and advanced interactive details. It sort of reminds me of Myst. Very impressive for a milk campaign. We came in at about 9400 out of 41,000. How well can you do?

Handmade Valentine Cards (a personal swap)

This year for Valentine’s Day I asked David for just one thing, a handmade (by him) Valentine’s card. No chocolates, or flowers, or store-bought card. Just a little of his personal time and effort. And I promised not to judge him. That whatever he chose to make would be just fine. I really meant that. And in return, I would make him a handmade card, too.

Look at this beauty. I would never have expected this in a million years. It looks like a rolled up piece of paper in the photo, but it is actually a little cylindrical box made of heavy paper, secured by a red thread around two eyelets. About 4 inches across.

This is what it looks like inside – surprise! Filled with little strips of pink paper, each with a word on one side and the matching design from the container on the other. Words like love, forever, we, you, mine, desire, romantic, emily, david, always. I could re-arrange the little strips into many different combinations. Pretty and clever. I’m clearly blown away.

This is the card that I made for David. He really loves to flyfish. On our drive back from the coast on my birthday, we stopped at a tiny scrapbooking shop in the seaside town of Gearhart, where I picked up my first collection of brads. That’s right. Before making this card I was a Brad Virgin. I don’t know why I waited – they’re so fun! Such a variety of shapes, sizes and colors. I purchased these little fish, the dragonfly, and the heart paperclips, chosen individually out of tiny drawers. They worked perfectly for this card. The writing on top says “Fishin’ for your love.” The little fish hooks are made of staples I bent with needle-nosed pliers. The inside reads “…and now I’m hooked on you! Happy Valentine’s Day!” embellished with two red heart eyelets.

I’m so proud of us.

If that’s what motivates you

A couple days ago David announced during breakfast that he was “scheduling a meeting” at 11 o’clock for us to take care of some lingering tax documents and business paperwork. As I’ve mentioned before, these are things we procrastinate on every year. I reluctantly agreed, and then (typically) put it out of my mind. I was in the backyard when David stepped outside onto the deck at 11:05am to tell me that the meeting has already started and would I please join him? And get this… he was completely showered, shaved and fully dressed in his best suit and tie! A dramatic difference from our daily uniform of jeans and tee shirts. To see him make such an effort (for humor? or motivation?) really cracked me up. But, I did follow him into the office and we proceeded to take care of every related task on our list.

Artful Photography

I recently learned about photographer/artist Al Magnus and thought I’d share a couple of my favorites here. I like their dreamy, magical quality, and how they open up the imagination.

Originally spotted on The Erraticist.