Magic Bean Buyer :: Jamie Ferraioli

a refresh

2011-11-22T10:15:00.001-05:00

You may recall the infamous blue chair that I talked about in a previous post. I can't find the post, so I'll just summarize. My mom and I dragged it out of the trash, after having earlier discovered it at a yard sale. We offered a price, the sellers refused, we said forgettt that. Imagine our surprise to find it on the side of the road later! They should have taken our money while they could! Anyways, it was in awesome condition those many years ago when we got it, but has since gone downhill. I'm in the process of reupholstering it. It's a nightmare. What was I thinking.

Anyways...a few years ago when I was visiting my parents in Virginia, my mom and I went to an antique store and stumbled upon this gem. It's a GIANT print of a painting of a 70's style girl and her cats. It's titled "Harlequin with Kitten".

When we asked the worker how much it was, he looked at us like we were out of our minds and said "take it!"
Yay! More free goodies!
The other night I decided a nice coat of black paint along the frame would freshen it up. I don't know why it took me so long. The frame has always looked so stained and gross. I imagine some bozo was eating his greasy pizza over it.

And...ta-da! All better! And now it matches my other black frames.

displaying figurines

2011-11-20T10:25:00.001-05:00

I've had people ask me before "what is it?" "what do you do with it?", when talking about my figurines. I didn't think they would be such cause for confusion. Set them on your shelf with your other trinkets & bits. Put one on your desk to cheer you up when you're feeling sad. Set one next to the coffee maker, because you can. It's your figurine...you can do whatever you want with it!

Anyways...this is how I display some of my figurines. It's one of those vintage printer's letterpress drawers, that I hung on the wall. It has a really cool drawer handle on the bottom. There's a ton for sale on Etsy, but they're all so expensive. $60 for an old drawer? Sorry, no. I appreciate good vintage and antiques, but just because something is "in", doesn't mean you can jack up the price. Excuse me while I go buy a brand new dresser with all the drawers for $60 instead. (ok, maybe not exactly, but you get the idea)
I got this one for about $20 on Ebay. There's a small break in one of the compartments that I plan on sanding down, but I always forget it's there. You can't even tell from afar.

It's a mixture of ones I've made, and toys the boy and I have collected over the years. Mostly the ones I have from me, are tests or rejects. Like the little Sundae kitty...you can't tell, but he has a broken neck! So sad. And that little green pocket kitty up top. Way too small to sell. I thought, hey maybe...but nah. The regular pocket kitties are already cheap enough.
I had planned on selling that lil grenade, next to the blue pocket kitty, but he just looks so cute on my shelf. I'll probably just make more one day.

Hello Kitty Pumps Giveaway

2011-11-18T13:14:00.001-05:00

Hawaii Kawaii teamed up with Twenty10Footwear to host this incredibly awesome shoe giveaway. These Hello Kitty pumps have a bit of a vintage feel to them, and the pattern is too darn cute! I'll be drooling over these, crossing my fingers, and hoping I win!
You can enter the giveway here.

I'm a terrible blogger.

2011-11-09T09:36:00.000-05:00

It's not that I don't like it. I just forget. I don't have very good time management skills. Or maybe self-control skills? Whenever I get "in the zone", when I'm painting or drawing or whichever, I tend to abandon all other things. I should be thankful that I'm able to queue up my tumblr to auto-post for me. Yes, I guess I could do that for my blog too. But then that means I have to find 20 things (that are actually slightly interesting) to talk about.
I'm not that interesting.

But here's something interesting today...remember the Super Mario heels I painted for myself a little while ago?

I finally finished testing the materials and figuring out a price. So now I'll be starting to take commissions (contact me for more deets) and also offering up some pre-painted heels in my shop. I have a finished pair of closed-toe size 8's, that I need to take pictures of, and then I can list them in my shop. (Probably this weekend). Surprisingly, I had a really hard time finding another peep-toe variety. The ones I bought for myself were a random pair on clearance. Lou says he likes the closed-toe better. There's definitely more surface area to paint with closed-toe. Hmm...I'm not sure which I prefer.

things to save

2011-10-12T21:17:00.000-04:00

My parents brought over more of my boxes that they've had saved of mine throughout the years. Toys, school papers, notes from high school, my cat statue collection. My mom is infamous for documenting all of the "cute things" I've said (and my sister) as a kid. I hope when I have children, I remember to do that, because it's hilarious to look back at now....at least for me. When I giggle uncontrollably and tell Lou "wait wait...you have to hear this thing I said when I was 5, I can tell it's not as funny to him, but he smiles. At least he's humoring me.

When my sister Kelly was born 15 years ago, I bought this Kelly doll (I think she was 3 or so, when I actually bought it). It's still sealed in the box after all of these years, a little squished, but alright. It's funny because I still think of her this age. It's hard to imagine she's almost driving and having boyfriends.

I was super excited to find these watercolor pages of Rainbow Brite. She was my favorite. According to the notes my mom wrote on them, I was 3 and a half. Look at those painting skills! Ok maybe it's just cheating. How cool were those water coloring books? Just add water. Do they still make them??

I'm not sure when this troll doll is from. I'm assuming whenever that Troll doll boom happened in the 90's. I wish I still had all of my trolls with the jewels in their bellies! Those were fun. And kind of creepy. Strange naked figurines with old man faces and crazy hair.

My mom wrote down a conversation she had with me when I was four...

mom - "what does a mother do?"
me - "she draws pictures, reads newspapers, watches tv when the kids are asleep, takes a walk to the park and reads magazines.
mom - "what do dads do?"
me - "go to work, put kids to bed and give kids dinner."
mom - "what do nanas do?"
me - "oh, they clean up."
mom - "what do aunts do?"
me - "watch kids"

And a scrap of paper my mom found in my room when I was 12...

"Misson: Spy on parental units

Clues:
1. They are in kitchen"

I don't know...I thought those were hilarious. Lou thinks I'm even more nuts now!

Personally...I think he's just jealous that he wasn't as cute and sassy of a kid as I was.

...to be continued (I have lots more!)

Sometimes I win things

2011-09-28T18:08:00.000-04:00

I entered a giveaway on Coffee, Cats n' Yarn a little while ago, and I actually won!

A snazzy robin's egg blue Martha Stewart double cat bowl with mat. It also comes with little air-tight covers for the bowls. Good for travel!

It came packed like a gift, which was awesome. It felt like Christmas opening it! I'm thinking I'm going to have to go out and buy myself a second one, so I have matching bowls for both the cats. Maybe in pink...

Ein, as usual, was more interested in the plastic bag it came in. For some reason, she has this fascination with plastics. She'll lick the shower curtain for hours.

Spike was concerned.

And confused.

Very confused.

another reason...

2011-09-26T16:18:00.000-04:00

...to never leave the apartment.

You know, I'm always joking about how I never want to leave the apartment. Sometimes "forces of nature" FORCE us to seriously consider that.

The other day, Lou and I were on our way out, when what does he almost bump into face first with full force?....the most GINORMOUS spider web spanning our entire doorway from the waist up to the top. We're talking Halloween decoration sized here. And the spider was monster-sized to boot, as well.We screamed like little girls, slammed the door, jumping up and down, running around the coffee table, trying to gather our sanity. I had to re-apply my makeup at that point from laughing so hard I was crying over our almost crapping our pants. I can't imagine the neighbors didn't think someone was being murdered from all the screaming.

How the hell does this even happen?? Within a single night, this jerk spider built a web across our whole door. It was hard to get the full angle and vast-ness that this web really was.

We've made a vow to always check for ninja spider traps when we leave now, instead of looking at our phones, or the keys, or shooing the cats trying to come with us.

It's hard to say if I ever plan on leaving again though...

moving...

2011-09-23T08:00:00.000-04:00

Well I'm only 3.5 months behind on this blog post....

As you may have learned, I recently (ok 3.5 months ago, whatevs!) moved from Delaware to North Carolina. The boy got a job down here, and I took this opportunity to focus on my art. It's been friggin amazing so far, and I've been loving mostly every minute. I do miss my friends, I'm not gonna lie. But I do love working on my artwork full time. Hopefully one day, we'll be able to move back to civilization, and I can have the best of both worlds!

I'm going to guesstimate that approximately three fourths of the apartment was my craft/art supplies. I seriously considered labeling some of the boxes "video games" to keep Lou from catching on. It was starting to get pretty ridiculous. I need lots of supplies, what can I say??
The drive took somewhere around 8-9 hours between stopping for food, gas, pee breaks and getting lost. I had the pleasure of following Lou in the moving van...which meant reading the back of the truck the whole time. Budget. Bud...get. Budge..it. Budge...get. Bud...it. Go Budget! I couldn't stop making other words with the words on the back of the truck the entire time.

The best part of moving to North Carolina was probably learning that they sell beer in average convenience stores. Beer Cave?! Are you kidding me?!? How am I not supposed to pick up a 6-pack at the grocery store every time I need some Cocoa Puffs? I don't want to have a wasted trip....am I right??

rainbows in cupcake form

2011-09-20T08:00:00.000-04:00

A few posts ago, I talked about the infused vodka I made for my dear friend Yesenia for her birthday. I also happened to make some rainbow cupcakes too! Since she was visiting us all the way in North Carolina (driving down from Delaware) for her birthday weekend, I wanted to do something birthday cake-y. I kept reading about rainbow-colored cupcakes, and they looked so nifty, so I thought sure, why not...I'll give it a try!

Mixed all the colors.

It was a lot more tedious than I expected, to layer each color one by one.

Ta-da! Rainbow-y cupcake-yness!...with Spiderman cupcake liners (found them at Michael's)

Fun times!

toys!

2011-09-15T12:00:00.000-04:00

Hey remember these toys from years ago? MicroPets by Tomy. Voice activated and they'd interact with each other. I love these guys. They freak the cats out.

I've had them packed away in my "toys" box for a while now, and every time I accidentally bumped into the box, they'd turn themselves on (the little power button is right on top of their heads). All of a sudden there'd be little electronic barks and meows and clickity clicks and squeals and whines for a good 10 minutes. Whoopsie.

It looks like they're still available in Japan. Why does Japan always get the cool toys??

Also, this reminds me...I need more toys for this shelf. It's lacking.

some work & some fun

2011-09-13T15:34:00.000-04:00

...actually, it's all fun. Who am I kidding?

While finishing up another batch of Ice Cream Sundae Kittehs, it occurred to me that trying to randomly paint sprinkles on something is practically impossible when you're a perfectionist. It's maddening trying to make the sprinkles look perfectly spaced out in such a perfectly random way in the perfect assortment of totally random colors. Oh well....I'll get over it!

All of these sundae kitties (minus 1) are going to ShanaLogic. I have a few other figurines available there too, if you haven't heard by now! I'm also working on some pink raccoons (there's a few blue ones available in the shop for now!), and a whole bunch of foxes in two different sizes.

In the tiny smidge of spare time I find, I've been working on painting a pair of shoes. I plan on wearing them to the boy's sister's wedding in October. I don't have a lot of time to finish, but this one side only took me a day and a half. I still have one whole shoe and the other side to go. And if you're wondering, as much as I'm loving how these are coming out, I don't have any plans to sell painted shoes in the future. Too much testing and annoyance involved, I think. Since I'm only making this pair for myself, I don't have to stress how well the art will hold up from wear & tear. I wouldn't want to sell a less than perfect product, and I'm way too lazy to do the research. EDIT: Ok, I changed my mind...I'm currently testing out some materials! Contact me through my Etsy shop for more deets.

Black & Whites

2011-08-30T09:48:00.003-04:00

I think my favorite part of baking is when it's over and I have something edible. Not that I'm a chronic bad baker, or even that I hate baking...but my cooking skills usually lie more on instinct and improvisation. Baking is so specific with measurements and cooking times. It gets a little tedious sometimes. You really have to stick to the task at hand. I get bored sometimes and wander off. Forgetting to grease a pan is my forte. If I come out of a baking session with something pretty, then I'm happy. If it tastes good? Even better.

Last night I made a big batch of black & white cookies. I've never made them before and was a little nervous. I hate hate hate wasting ingredients and my time. So if I try a new recipe, by god, it better come out edible or there's hell to pay. I scoured the interwebs for the perfect recipe, that would *hopefully* taste the most authentic. Annie's Eats seemed to have a tasty sounding one...and her pictures looked the best. Honestly, pictures are everything when it comes to me picking and choosing recipes online.

I was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly the whole process went. I thought for sure I'd mess up the frosting, but all of her instructions were clear and thorough.

In the end, I came out with 10 million monster-sized black & white cookies. Well, actually 2 dozen to be exact, but it looks like 10 million when they're the size of your head.

infused vodka

2011-08-29T09:23:00.000-04:00

For those who don't know, when it comes to my gift-giving history, I tend to make/bake/craft things. I have a lot of fun brainstorming what I think the gift recipient would like. I'm also particularly lazy when it comes to shopping in stores. Even more so...I can't stand other shoppers. Reaching around me, bumping my ankles with their carts, walking slower than a zombie in the center of the aisle, and all-around getting up in my personal space. It seems like the older I get, the less patience I have for other shoppers.

My lovely friend Yesenia had a birthday recently, and I decided to make her some jars of flavor infused vodka. She's a lush, so I knew she'd like them (or pretend she did and drink em anyway...)! I found a ton of recipes online for all different kinds of flavor infusions, but ultimately decided on a habanero-serrano pepper vodka, and a watermelon-rosemary vodka.

The "recipes" are really simple.
For the pepper vodka, slice in half 3 - 4 habeneros and 2 serranos..seeds and all, add to an air-tight jar and fill with a good quality vodka, let sit for 6 days in a cool, dark place (I used the fridge).
For the watermelon-rosemary, add 3 cups (more or less, depending on the size of your jar) cubed watermelon, fill with vodka, let sit 4 days in a cool, dark place, then add 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, and let sit another 2 days in a cool, dark place.
The longer you let them "soak", the stronger the flavor. But don't leave the rosemary in any longer than 2 days or it'll get a weird flavor. Also, make sure to agitate the jars every so often.

After the 6 days, strain the liquid in a cheese cloth or coffee filter. And ta-da! Vodka...with flavor!

Way more watermelon than I needed. No complaints!

Cubed! Oh darn...what ever will I do with this entire other half of watermelon? Nom nom nom

I only needed 4 habaneros, but they only had this monster size container of them at the food store. The rest are sitting in my fridge now, intimidating me. Should I try my hand at a hot sauce next??

I made little labels for the jars, when they were all finished. I really like that they took on a tint of the food each was infused with. I wasn't really expecting that with the pepper vodka. Also, notice how much less the watermelon is. There was so much more watermelon needed to infuse with, because of the mellow flavor, that it took up more room in the jar, which in turn meant less vodka. oh well...

And now for a fun side story a.k.a Adventures in Shopping & Why I Don't Leave The Apartment: So I'm in Michael's browsing the jar/glass section for these Ball jars (they're actually Kerr...but that's alright, I'll get over it. same difference). A little girl, maybe 7 or so, runs up to me, covered in body paint and glitter. I'm going to guess she was supposed to be a tiger or Lady Gaga...it was hard to tell, or keep a straight face. She asked me if I was making sand art (there were sand art bottles on the shelf above the Kerr jars) and she "loves to make sand art, and she has all kinds of bottles in her room and her mommy took her to the boardwalk to make sand art once, and her favorite color is purple and....". I hadn't really prepared for any kind of conversation about my vodka, especially with a little kid, and answered "uh...no...I'm actually making...um...infused...vodka?". Was I supposed to lie to her?? I had no idea what to say and my mind went blank. Did she know what vodka was? Did she know what infused meant?! She gave me a blank stare, paused for a moment, then proceeded to go on about sand art for another five minutes. Where were this child's parents? What would they think if a stranger was teaching their precious daughter about the finer points of infusing vodka?? Eventually I told her I had to go, and slinked off to the register, swearing off public shopping appearances for a while.

Death of a Plini

2011-08-25T11:06:00.003-04:00

I try my hardest to pack my figurines with as much protection as I possibly can. A mountain of tissue, a gift box, more tissue around it, bubble wrap if needed, and all nestled deep inside a fairly large "crush-proof" cardboard box.

You can imagine my horror when a customer (who was super nice and understanding) sent me this monstrosity back. Did the Post Office run this over with a MAC truck? Was there a postal employee with a hatred for figurines working that day? (not that he'd know what was inside).

I am laughing, however, at the giant green sticker they placed upon the package stating it's been damaged. Ah yes...all is forgiven now.

Should I have a funeral? I'll invite the neighbors. Or maybe just the cats.

weirdo cat behavior, continued

2011-08-24T21:12:00.004-04:00

So remember this post where I illustrated a typical day in my apartment involving paper and sleeping kitties?

I happened upon a real life moment quite similar tonight. And a double-whammy no less...

No cardboard box or plastic bag is safe. Look at all that floor space!

new cake toppers

2011-08-14T10:56:00.003-04:00

I have some brand new cake toppers available in the shop, and they're not only for weddings this time! You can place them on top of the birthday cake, or just use as a decoration. But I think they're cute enough to display anywhere and anytime!

I'll be making more soon with other "accessories" too. Maybe a cupcake, or a teeny present? Or a kitty! Yeah...I can't not include a cat in my creations.

weirdo cat behavior

2011-08-08T14:26:00.003-04:00

Is this a normal occurrence for all cats? Because every cat I've had does this. The house is filled with tons of surfaces to sleep on. Comfy ones, even. Without fail, if there's a random piece of paper randomly resting on a random section of the floor, one of the cats immediately curls up on it and goes to sleep. Here, I drew a visual.

Mini food cuteness

2011-08-03T17:00:00.004-04:00

When the little sister came to visit a a couple weekends ago, we went to this southern food place to eat. Chicken and gravy, hush puppies, ribs, greens, fried green tomatoes (!!!). Anywho, they also had the cutest little baked goods I ever did see.

Teeny weenie Pecan Pie. Lou and I bought one for ourselves, and one for my mom. She makes the best pecan pie, but this was a good hold-me-over treat at the time.

And here's a gratuitous Spikey-poo picture with my ugly kitchen floor.

Veggie Sandwich

2011-07-20T08:00:00.004-04:00

I made a really tasty sandwich the other day. I call it...find things in the fridge and put them between bread!

I toasted two pieces of country white bread. Ok, side thoughts...what exactly is "country white"? Do they just mean "rolled it in flour at the end so the crust looks fancy"? And I always feel so guilty eating white bread. I should be eating some kind of healthy wheat bread. But personally, I hate wheat bread. Lou described it perfectly the other day when we were sharing our disliking - "why is there always nuts and random crunchy shit in it?". So true. I'm still open to finding a good wheat bread. I just want it to taste like white bread, and not dominate the whole sandwich flavor. In my eyes, the bread is just an edible plate in which the tasty bits sit upon. I saw in the store once that there's something called "white" wheat bread. Does it taste like white bread or just look like white bread? And is that cheating? Who am I trying to kid?

Ok I'm getting side tracked now. The rest of the tasty layers were as follows...

cucumber dill feta dip (it said Greek Yogurt Veggie Dip on the container)
baby arugula
tomato
avocado (mmm...so creamy and delicious)
grilled onions
grilled asparagus
balsamic vinegar

I had a hard time closing the sandwich. Don't ask me why I piled awkward layers on both pieces of the bread. But in the end, it came out looking sandwichy, and tasted even better!

healthy chips....sort of

2011-07-12T08:00:00.005-04:00

The boy is obsessed with chips. When he buys a bag (we're talking the "family sized" bag. Though he claims the "family size" is the "normal size"), he'll finish it alone in two days. I think if it wasn't for his obsession, I could phase them out from my diet completely by way of forgetting they exist. Except for Cheez Doodles. omg. love. And anyways, those aren't chips...they're doodles.

Anywho, I found a few recipes online for baked chips using various root veggies. I even came across a recipe for kale chips! It all looked so good, and healthy! When I made my way to the food store however, I completely forgot everything I'd read. What was I supposed to get? A radish? A carrot? An avocado?!? I stared at the display of various leafy greens for 10 minutes. I drew a blank. This is why I usually try to bring lists. I managed to make my way out of there with a giant bag of carrots and two sweet potatoes. I didn't even remember the regular potatoes! Gosh darnit, I was right next to them when I picked out the sweet potatoes. On my next trip I have to remember the potatoes, kale, parsnips and....hmm, something else. See? I need lists.

The recipe, if you can even call it a recipe, is really easy. Slice everything really thin. Use a mandolin if you have it. Or use a knife and give yourself carpal tunnel, like me. Toss it all in olive oil and salt. Bake at 350 degrees, 10 minutes or til crispy, flipping halfway through.

One recipe I read suggested to sprinkle the slices with salt and let them sit for 20 minutes to seep out the moisture. I wish I'd done that, but my impatience got the best of me. My "chips" came out a little less than crispy. And the longer I kept them in the oven, the more they burned, instead of crisped. So that's my lesson for next time.

I also couldn't help but notice that of all the veggies in the world for me to choose, I picked two orange ones. Coincidence? Sure, why not. Aside from the less than crispiness, both veggies ended up tasting pretty sweet after they were baked. I was expecting that from the "sweet" potatoes, but totally forgot carrots have a sweetness too. I didn't mind it, but if I'm trying to get the boy to open his eyes to healthier chip alternatives, I'm going to have to pick something that can closely compare to salty regular chips.

Kale Chips are next on the horizon!

Art Print updates

2011-07-07T08:00:00.001-04:00

I started printing out some 8x10 sizes of my illustrations. While happily printing away, I couldn't figure out why I hadn't made more of this larger size sooner. Oh that's right....I need new larger mailing envelopes if I'm going to be making more 8x10 sizes. derp. I don't know why I'm being so lazy about ordering them. So one day...I'll have some 8x10's listed. They're sitting pretty in print form, silently judging me, for not having mailing envelopes readily available. But they'll get over it.

I'm really liking this new wood grain background look. Hopefully I'm not alone.

winner winner chicken dinner

2011-07-04T08:00:00.001-04:00

I guess I have to stop saying (with a whiny voice of course) "I never win anythinggggg". A couple of weeks ago I won some super awesome butterfly clips from WhichGoose. I've been ogling her shop for way too long. I just couldn't decide which of her many hair accessories I liked the most. So having won one of my favorites was the best day evurrrrr.

A reupholstery adventure

2011-07-01T08:09:00.006-04:00

So I have this vintage blue chair. I talked a little bit about how it broke here. And my mom does a good job of telling the story about how we originally acquired the blue chair when I was back in high school. Check out my awesome lime green room! *sniffle* memories.

Anywho...I finally decided to try my hand at reupholstering the poor chair. I'm learning a lot, just by tearing the vinyl pieces off. I also discovered that my blue chair used to be this awesome shimmery chartreuse color! You can see bits and pieces that was missed when it was painted underneath. I can't believe I never noticed before. While I love the blue, this goldish green is totally awesome. Now I'm starting to worry what new color to choose. I was originally just going to go with the blue again, but now my curiosity is sparked with the thought of this chair being other funky colors. Maybe I'll photoshop some ideas later.

At this point, I took the swivel legs off, so the chair is just sitting on the rug, looking sad and pitiful.

So very rusty. I'm wondering if I need new springs too. They are kind of squeeky.

Tearing the panels off has been like a weird archeological dig. I found coins, nail files, receipts, stickers, hair ties, and even a girl scout badge. There was also a lot of what looked like either mouse poop or beetle shells mixed in the stuffing along the back. Oh the horror. I'm wondering if that's why the original owners wanted to get rid of this chair. I sure know these "gifts" weren't from me. I imagine it sitting in someone's garage for years, collecting dust, and other....things.

I'm almost done ripping off all of the vinyl pieces. Making sure to take lots of pictures and label all the pieces. Then I plan to measure everything, and do some vinyl ordering! I'm a little concerned how I'm going to fix the seat and top front, since there's stitching designs and buttons. I totally wasn't thinking about that part when I started.

More pictures to come, as I progress!

Illustration updates

2011-06-23T16:27:00.012-04:00

Just a little something something I'm working on. This new monitor the boy bought me for my birthday is so amazing. It's big and bright, and really makes working on artwork a million times better.

I'm also in the process of waiting PATIENTLY for the FedEx guy to arrive today with the art prints I ordered. My printer seems to have a problem printing 8x10's, so I ordered a few from an online printer in hopes that I'll just use those guys until I upgrade my printer. The only problem is, FedEx shows my order as delivered today at noon and it's SO not delivered. I went to the main office of my apartment complex to see if it maybe got dropped off there. Nope. So now I get to stew all day, and wonder if/when/who/why/how so/where my order is. I'll give it til 6 today, and then I'm going on a rampage of the emailing variety - subject line: Where the frak are my prints?!

surfaces

2011-06-22T11:30:00.009-04:00

Whoever thought WHITE kitchen counter tops were a good idea, never had to clean them.

One of the things I miss most about my old apartment was the counter top. Before we moved in there years ago, they installed this spiffy new faux granite patterned (I have no idea really) counter. It was awesome. Shiny, no knife marks, didn't stain or show signs of stains (if they were there, I'd never know). It transported me into fantasy land where we lived in a snazzy modern apartment building. All the appliances were stainless steel and the floors pretty hardwood....not that crappy beige carpet.
Sorry...penis cookie shot is the only photo I could find of the counter at the moment.

Anywhoo...fast forward to my current apartment. I will admit, the counter space is literally double in size. But it's WHITE, and covered in knife marks. And no matter how hard I try, I cannot go a day without coffee drips finding their way onto the counter, making stain rings and dots everywhere. And where do all these crumbs come from? Is it a white counter thing? Did I just never notice them before? I have to zamboni the counter literally every 10 minutes. And it doesn't help that this photo makes the counter look not so bad. But trust me, it's seen better days.

I also think I got this clean counter obsession from my mom. I would say that 75% of my childhood (that's perhaps a big exaggeration) was spent watching her meticulously wipe a surface with a sponge. You gotta get to it before you forget, or it dries, or gets smeared by something else, or part of it falls on the floor. And I totally understand that now. It's very possible that I'm slowly becoming a clean freak, like she is, but this white kitchen counter isn't helping my cause!

Aside from ridiculous counter top woes, I've been working on a few custom wedding toppers, more foxes and some new raccoons! I'm loving how this zombie set is coming out. It's the first zombie cake toppers I've painted, but I think it's going well! Pardon the crappy camera phone pictures. I might be the last person on Earth who doesn't have a smart phone. My 2 megapixel camera phone will have to do for now!

And if you haven't heard by now, I have a few special necklaces and charms available over at SassyNPunk Boutique. Be sure to check them out!

Things of newness

2011-06-16T09:42:00.007-04:00

"Can I help?"

All of the kittehs I was diligently working on for the past week are now available in the shop! I also have another batch in the works. What can I say...I love making cats! I'm hoping to get around to making more kitteh necklaces soon too. I plan on branching out into more dog figurines and jewelry as well. I always forget about the dog lovers! It's possible that I live in a fantasy land in my head where everyone is a crazy cat lady like me.

In other fun news, I have some brand new necklaces and charms available at SassyNPunk Boutique! I'm really excited about these pieces. You won't find most of them in my etsy shop, so definitely check them out! Most of them are teeny replicas of my larger figurines, which was a lot of fun to make. Putting the teeny charm next to the larger figurine for reference. Too cute! My head exploded.

The birds are back

2011-06-06T20:20:00.003-04:00

I'm working on a whole bunch of things at the moment, but I'm pleased to say I finally listed some new bird earrings. I have lots of color options too, and many more to come. But for now...here they are! Bitty Bird Earrings

I have a lots of new kittehs too. Black and whites, calicos, etc. I'll be listing them in the next few days.

Baked Crab Rangoon

2011-06-01T19:40:00.005-04:00

One of my favorite things to order from the Chinese food place is Crab Rangoon. Little deep-fried pockets of cream cheese-y crabby deliciousness. I usually end up eating most of them and then feeling like a fat cow for the rest of the night.

In my previous post I mentioned we picked up a mountain of blue crabs. I decided to try my hand at making some crab rangoon with some of the crab meat. I stumbled on a few baked recipes, and thought that would be a nice alternative to drenching them in hot oil.

You can find the recipe I followed here. It was a little tedious to fill and seal each pocket, but sooooo worth it. And the butter brushed on top really made them perfect. Nice and golden, crispy, buttery....mmm. I dipped them in a Thai chili sauce that I had in the fridge just waiting for a purpose in life.

I can't wait to make more!

Nurses and birthdays

2011-05-31T09:16:00.006-04:00

We went to NJ this weekend for a BBQ graduation party for Lou's sister and also, it was my birthday! (Lou got me an amazing new monitor, which I'll talk about later!)
She's in the nursing program, so I made her a lil nurse figurine in her likeness.

I'm thinking I'll probably make more of these gals soon. I really like the way they turn out. I just forget about them most of the time, being consumed with every other project idea. I need an ideas notebook!

Lou's mom got me a birthday cake like she does every year. She's so thoughtful.

On our way back to North Carolina, we made a stop in Maryland for gas and saw a truck on the corner selling crabs! We all said heck yes, and got in line. Of course, we didn't really think this plan out....seeing as we still had 3+ hours to drive. The three of us (Lou, his sister, and I) decided to share a half-bushel....which I learned is 48 crabs. And holy crap, 48 crabs is a lot!

They packed them in a big box with lots of extra seasoning. Lou had the pleasure of staring at the box in the back seat the whole way home. The worst part, was the entire car was wrapped in this delicious Old Bay crab smell. So we were just marinating in this delicious aroma the whole way home. It was torture!
At some point on our way, we got caught in bumper to bumper traffic, so we caved and each grabbed a crab leg. We must have looked like weirdos cracking crab claws out the car windows. Soooo worth it though.

I'm thinking I want to make some baked crab rangoon with some of the crab meat. Crab rangoon is my favorite, but I hate that it's fried. So we'll see how that goes.

a new secret lair

2011-05-18T08:42:00.004-04:00

For those not in the know, I recently moved to North Carolina, from Delaware! Lou got a job down here, and we just up and moved. It's pretty scary! A huge decision. We left all of our friends, my job, shopping tax-free (*sniffle*). We've been here about 2 and a half weeks and things are finally starting to settle down. There's only one or two boxes left to unpack. But even better news, with his new salary, I can devote my time to selling my artwork full-time! Livin the dream (hopefully). And of course, during the move, I threw out my light box and I have mountains of new figurines ready to list that need their pictures taken! Luckily, it's just a diy box from foam core. I just have to go pick up some more from the store! (so.very.lazy) Plini dolls, kittehs, birds, some more necklaces. And I finally got around to bringing my bird earrings back! I have lots of colors ready to go!

And a little side project...determined to make something super cute from a video game that Lou plays that I find not so super cute at all...Call of Duty.
I present...the grenade.

DIY Funky Frames

2011-04-09T15:25:00.006-04:00

Every now and then, I try to remember to take time to tackle crafty projects that don't have to do with my Etsy business. While I love painting figurines and making illustrations, I think it's good to take some time to create something new and different. Exercise that creativity muscle. Relaxing and stress free. No deadlines, no trying to fit into someone's custom vision, no worrying if a stray cat hair made it into the project.
I picked up two frames from Goodwill months ago. They've been sitting around collecting dust mostly. I kept meaning to go to Lowe's to pick up some spray paint to paint them a bright cheerful color. But I've been lazy. Partly due to the fact that I knew I'd be spray painting outside, and the weather has been less than great. I didn't want any rainstorm/monsoons ruining my crafty project.
So last night, I took it upon myself to just use acrylic paint, and I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out!

The first frame I painted a bright aqua. I picked it up from Goodwill for a dollar. It's not vintage, but it has the look of vintage and that's good enough for this girl. (pardon all the poorly lit cell phone photos)

The second frame is actually an oval mirror. I picked it up for $5. This one is definitely old. There's a label on the back that says Syroco Wood, which I googled and found a bunch of people selling various Syroco framed mirrors for $20 and up. (I win!)
I originally started painting this frame aqua too. I couldn't figure out what color would look best, so I thought if I painted it ANY color, I would get inspired. Halfway through, I realized a nice bright minty color would look awesome.

I sealed it with an acrylic gloss and hung it on the wall. Ta-da! I can't wait to hunt down some more frames. I'd like to dedicate a whole section of wall to brightly colored frilly ornate frames.

St. Patty's Day fun

2011-04-05T08:00:00.000-04:00

This is probably one of the most timely posts on an event that I can manage. 3+ weeks later! shh...be quiet.

A big group of us went to Seaside, NJ to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. We went last year too, but this year we got a hotel room! And just like last year, we missed the parade. But that's alright, because all of the fun lies in bar hopping along the boardwalk! Being the responsible adults we are, we thought we could better drink our faces off if we had a hotel room to stumble to at the end of the night. And let me tell you, if you're ever visiting Seaside, NJ, do not, DO NOT, I can't stress this enough, do not stay at the Surfside Motel. The only thing it has going for it, is being across the street from the boardwalk. Other than that, it was one of the worst motel experiences of my life. I would have rather slept in a gutter. The room was filthy. There were mysterious stains all over the floors, the wall, the couch. No toilet paper. Weird dirt on the shower floor. A dirty towel on top of the sink. Cigarette butts in the toilet. And it barely flushed. The two double beds had these strange 90's floral blankets and one of them had a period stain. They both dipped down in the middle like the springs were broken. We found an empty soda can under one of the beds. The air conditioner (thank god we didn't need it, because I doubt it worked) was half secured by peeling duct tape. There was a strange stovetop/sink/freezer combo in the living room area. Inside the freezer, there was at least 5 inches of solid ice and some strange mysterious colors/bits frozen within the mess. The worn table and 2 chairs looked like they'd been thrown down a few flights of stairs and then doused with mysterious liquids. The blinds were broken in different places. And there was a strange victorian style side table with a giant floor length mirror balancing on top, with a 4x6 piece of plywood screwed into the side to keep the mirror from sliding off.
You're probably thinking, well why didn't you complain? Why didn't you at least sleep in your car? Or get your money back?! Well the room was $15 each between four of us, and we really only planned on using it to sleep in for a few hours at the end of a drunken boardwalk escapade. Our motivation was....get as drunk as humanly possible so that the motel room doesn't seem so bad.

Aside from the motel drama, I shall continue....

Firstly, I decided to make a St. Patty's Day headband for the occasion. I cut clover shapes out of foam and felt, layered them, and covered some in glitter. Hot glued that all to a plain headband and BAM! fun and fancy accessorizing. I ended up making two headbands...one with glitter and one in gradating shades of green. Looking at the glittery pictures now, I'm wondering why I didn't choose the glittered one instead! Oh well...

Our terrible motel. Don't get me started on the mysterious floating objects in the pool.

See my cute green bow necklace? I got it from Acrylicana!

It was so crowded everywhere we went, people kept buying beers in bulk so everyone wouldn't have to wait on line. We had waaay too many.

And that's how it's done!

Spike the watercolor kitty

2011-04-02T19:27:00.003-04:00

I'm having a hard time drawing anything besides my cat. But that's okay, right? I'm also having a hard time scanning these watercolor illustrations. I used my scanner at work this time which surprisingly is more craptastic than my "3 in 1" Lexmark printer that I use exclusively for scanning. I don't know, they just don't look very watercolor-y to me. Colored, yes. Watercolor painty, eh? Especially compared to the original, that looks perty and soft and texturey. (sorry for all of the imaginary words). The wrinkled paper makes the color of the paper uneven too. It took a lot of Photoshop to get the whites to look this even. Do people usually photograph their watercolor pieces instead of scanning? I'm not used to these issues, since I usually scan in a black & white drawing and digitally color it. No muss, no fuss. Oh well, I'll keep practicing. Maybe I'll even paint something other than my cat Spike! hmm...maybe my other cat Ein. That's something different, right?....

My giveaway ends in TWO DAYS! I'm so excited to see who wins and what they choose! It's been a lot of fun promoting and really nice to see all of the sweet comments.

Revisiting watercolor

2011-03-29T19:10:00.007-04:00

I picked up a set of watercolors (in pan form) and some new brushes a few days ago. The lady at the register said to me "oooh! trying out some painting, are we?". I had to disappoint her though. And revealed I actually had a pile of watercolor tubes at home, but I just couldn't find them. She looked like I shot her puppy when I said that. Like I had ruined her incredible detective skills. Oopsie.
Anywho, I've been meaning to go back over some of my illustrations with a bit of watercolor, for funsies. I really love the soft look it has. And it's a lot of fun to work with. For me, anyways.

So here's Spike. I drew him up on my break at work. He likes to sleep all twisty like. His top goes one way, and his bottom goes the other. Who does that??

P.S. If you haven't already, stop by TokyoBunnie and enter my giveaway! All you have to do is leave a comment there! Ends April 4th. Winner gets their choice of anything (minus the wedding cake toppers) in my shop! Click here!

New Giveaway!

2011-03-21T19:37:00.003-04:00

To celebrate my 1000 sales on Etsy, I'm having a giveaway over at TokyoBunnie! Head on over there and comment to win your item of choice from my shop! Super Awesome!

Illustration Friday - Layer

2011-02-24T18:19:00.004-05:00

This week's Illustration Friday word is "layer". I immediately thought of nice, fluffy, warm sweater layers for this crappy cold weather we've been having. But I decided to go in another direction. Not unlike me, really. Food. And cats. It's all I ever think about.
I didn't get a chance to color it just yet. I also don't recommend eating a cat sandwich...living or otherwise. However, this illustration rings true, as many a time have I found a cat hair in my food. I'm sure other cat lovers can say the same, while everyone else is saying "eww!"

Onion Overload

2011-02-18T08:00:00.004-05:00

For actual Valentine's DAY, the boy and I got a mountain of crab legs from our favorite spot The Reef. I had a lot of leftover crab, so what better to do with them than make crab stuffed mushrooms??
I scoured the interwebs for the best recipe. And finally settled on one by Paula Deen. I love that lady. She knows her stuff. Everything she makes is delicious. ...or so I thought.

So here's how it went...

I'm not sure where I veered...where I went wrong. Actually, no, I know what happened. Onion overload! The recipe called for [in my opinion] an insane amount of green onion. But I had faith in Paula. Paula wouldn't let me down! Plus, this recipe had over a hundred rave reviews. Clearly these weirdos have never had good stuffed mushrooms. Or maybe they were all part of the onion lover club. Or maybe I had a really potent batch of onions. Hmm. Don't get me wrong, I like onions, I just wish I could have tasted any of the OTHER ingredients involved too. I spent like a half hour picking crab meat from crab bodies. I kind of wanted to taste them in what I was making with them.

Here's the recipe if you're brave: Crab Stuffed Mushrooms
I think if I halved the amount of onions, it would have been a lot better.

I love food.

2011-02-16T21:32:00.008-05:00

For Valentine's weekend, the boy and I cooked each other food. He made breakfast. An egg sunny side up (he gave me the good one), with pork roll and canadian bacon. Waffles on the side!

It was so good. I almost didn't have room for my pulled pork and homemade coleslaw! Unfortunately, I forgot to take a pic, but I drew one up. I think this somewhat accurately portrays the joy that was the pulled pork sandwich.

The best part of the pulled pork, was how EASY it was. I forgot how friggin awesome a slow cooker is. Here's the recipe:

2 lbs. pork, chopped in large chunks (I used a pork roast I found on sale)
1 can rootbeer
a few squirts of worchestershire sauce

Put all of that in the slow cooker on low and cook for 7 hours.
Drain. Shred the pork with a fork. (heh heh...rhyming is fun)
Add an 18 oz. bottle of BBQ sauce (I used Stubb's Spicy BBQ Sauce. LOVE)
Mix it all up and devour!

As for the coleslaw...I mixed together mayo, cider vinegar and sugar until it tasted like coleslaw (very precise, I know), and poured that over shredded cabbage and carrots. Yummm. Oh, and pepper. Gotta have pepper.

Illustration Friday - Sweater

2011-02-14T20:24:00.003-05:00

I think I'm going to start submitting work for Illustration Friday. (For those who don't know [mom. hehe...] ....IF is a weekly illustration challenge for artists to participate in. A random word is chosen as the inspiration and left up to your own interpretation).
I could use some inspirational challenges. This week's word is Sweater.

clay woes

2011-02-09T20:56:00.003-05:00

Crazy happenings are occurring in the Ferraioli household. The clay I use for my figurines is getting a little unpredictable lately. I've been getting a few bad batches and it's starting to really get annoying. Usually when I go to pick out the clay, I'm hunched over the shelf, opening all the packages (it's okay, it's just a flip top, no seal breaking. i'm not that douche), poking them to see how soft they are. If the block of clay is too soft, I know it's going to be terrible to work with. It's the difference between say...trying to sculpt with softened butter versus refrigerated cream cheese. Weird analogy, I know.
A couple of weeks ago, I was desperate. I needed clay and the store only had the "soft butter" clay blocks. Great. Awesome. I'll deal. I guess.

Not only did ALL of my little clay figurines slump over in the oven, but their bitty heads all cracked at the necks. Needless to say...it was not a good day.
I used the rest of the butter clay as filler for other random things, and cursed the day I ever got desperate.

Then the other day, I went and picked up more clay. It was the good kind! The refrigerated cream cheese kind.
But of course, because the universe is against me, something went wrong again. While making a few 3 inch cake topper figurines, some of their bottoms bubbled out. Possibly I didn't knead the clay enough or smush the foil inside tight enough and it made an air pocket. Either way, those are scrapped. What a waste.
I did save one to use to verify the size for my future cake toppers though! Doesn't he look happy...

A Bachelorette Party

2011-02-05T08:00:00.006-05:00

I'm really behind on my blog posts. While I was browsing some of the files on my computer, I remembered that I haven't yet posted about my friend Jenell's bachelorette party, that I and my other lovely friend Yesenia threw! It was in....ok...August. Yes, I know. But shh...pretend this is all still relevant.

Yesenia and I made up these really cute gifty bags for all of the attendees. There was a mini bottle of alcohol, mini shot glass, a lolly pop that strangely looked like a penis, a mini crown, a penis straw, aah...and some other things...I'm blanking. It happened back in August afterall!!
We also included some well received penis-shaped sugar cookies! I wasn't about to blow (heh heh...) $5 on a penis cookie cutter I was only going to use once, so I took an old snowflake shape I had, and with pliers, shaped a penis. It turned out rather well!
The first batch was a little puffy. But the second batch turned out much better, after I tweaked the cookie cutter shape a bit. (I forgot how much cookie dough expands)

We spent the night in Philly, and a time was had by all!

The only sustenance in our hotel room fridge.

We went to The Continental Mid-Town, to eat what fancy people like to call tapas. It was fancy. And expensive. I could feed a small country for what I paid in Rad Na Thai Chicken. It was really really good though. And I had a ton of leftovers! Most of our time there though, we passed around this giant cocktail shaker that was ordered, trying our hardest to pry it open. We finished the liquid in it, but we could hear the clinking of ice and knew there was still tasty beverage within!

Look at my mini crown. Isn't it precious?

Yesenia and I also attempted to organize a scavenger hunt, which entailed doing certain things while we were out to earn points.
One being to kiss a bald man's head. His face is priceless.

Irish Stew

2011-02-03T08:00:00.003-05:00

Winter time makes me crave all things stew, soup, and WARM. The other day I made the most amazing (and easy!) stew ever. It's great for not only this super frigid winter weather, but also the up and coming St. Patty's Day holiday.

I don't have a picture of the final product, unfortunately. Day 1, I devoured it. And days 2 and 3, I...ok...I devoured it then too! But just envision the best meaty potatoey goodness in a bowl that you can, and there you have it.

This is the "before" pic. Before the apartment filled with the most delicious aroma...

I can't remember the website I pulled this from, as I scribbled it down on a post-it note a week ago. But here it is...!

1 onion; chopped
2 lbs beef stew meat
2 to 3 carrots; chopped
3 cups Guinness bottled beer (3 cups equals 2 bottles, but I added a little more)
2 tsp worchestershire sauce (I added a lot more...I can't remember how much. I love that stuff)
1 tsp salt
2 tbs olive oil (I actually didn't have it at the time, so I used the bacon grease from breakfast. Is that bad? I don't care...it tasted oh so good)
3 cloves of garlic; minced (I used 4)
4 medium potatoes
1/2 tsp pepper

Cut two of the potatoes into slices, and the other two into quarters. (The sliced potatoes break down and thicken the stew.)

Put a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil (or bacon grease!)
When it's hot, add the onion, carrots, garlic, and salt & pepper.

Cook until soft. Five minutes or so.

Add the Guinness, worchestershire sauce, beef, and potatoes to the pot, and turn the heat to high.

When it begins to boil, turn the heat to low and cover the pot.

Simmer the stew for two hours (I stewed it for 3, taking the lid off a half hour before it was done, to thicken a little), stirring every once in a while.

About ten minutes before it's done, taste it and add more salt and pepper if you like.

By day 3 of this stew, it had really thickened up, so I found an easy way to break it down was to add a little bit more worchestershire sauce before I re-heated it.

Next time I'd like to add some mushrooms and more onions. And parsley! I do love me some parsley.

I'm sorry

2011-02-01T19:49:00.004-05:00

...for being such a random blog poster. My last post was over a month ago! Sometimes crazy happens and I run out of time to blog. Other times, video games call my name. Or naps. I like naps.

It's a new year, and I'd like to start posting more consistently. So we'll see how that goes. So much has happened since my last post...Christmas, New Years, crazy snowstorms. I've been busy making up 5x7 prints of my illustrations....

...along with lots of new figurines. You can find them all here

I just finished cutting the card backs for some of my earrings.

And I attempted to make some necklace backing cards. But my lazy self failed to measure the length, and instead just eyeballed it, so now the pendants dangle off of the card. It's a quick fix. (reserved for later though!)

productivity, packages, and pizza

2010-12-14T16:14:00.004-05:00

I mailed off three of the commissioned pieces today. Kissed them on their foreheads and reminded them to look both ways before crossing.
Two of the smaller ones, I matted. I was going to mat all of them, but it wasn't until I was at the store picking out supplies that I realized an 8x10 illustration would need an 11x14 mat. der. I don't have that size mailing envelope at the moment. Ah well.

On a super dee duper note, I had off from my day job today due to lack of power throughout the building. It was like Christmas when I woke up this morning and found out the news! Of course...we were all "on call" for half of the day, as they thought the power would come back on soon. Anyways, I got so much accomplished! I love random days off! There's a lot of new things in the shop. And I'm adding more in the next few days. I have a bunch of "very teeny" plini's to finish up, as well as lots more Pocket Kitties.
I also have the coupon code MAGIC10 for 10% off your order going on from now until next Sunday. Every little bit helps right?

As for pizza....I'm trying to convince Lou that we need to order it in celebration of our random day off! The only problem...he's a pepperoni man, and I'm a super vegetable girl. I say we get it all, and he can pick off the veggies. Good compromise, yes?

Illustration overload!

2010-12-10T13:16:00.005-05:00

Here's some commissioned pieces I just recently finished up. I've been working like a crazy person trying to finish them in time to get to the recipient for Christmas. I just have to print and mat them, and they're good to go!

Lia

Lillyanne

Junelouise

Joanne

shop update

2010-12-01T22:08:00.005-05:00

I've been working like a mad woman in between custom orders and coffee breaks, to get my Christmas ornaments finished in time for the holidays! I have 10...count em...ten!...ornaments ready to list. The "starlight mint" figurines are the ones that take the l o n g e s t. So much detail. But I love them the most!

I'm finishing up the photos now, and will hopefully have them all listed by this weekend. A few today...a few tomorrow...etc etc.

Check it out!

Adventures in Pie Pop making

2010-11-24T21:34:00.006-05:00

Let me preface this entry by saying "what the effing eff". Because that's what I was saying most of the time I was attempting to make these mini demon pops. Ok, I'm being dramatic. This was pie pop attempt #1. I knew I'd screw it up somehow, so I wanted to get some practice in. The plan is, I'll be making these cutey patooties for an upcoming "hat party" where we're going to have cutesy mini hors d'oeuvres and desserts. They'd be perfect! But of course, once I figure out the best way to make them.
Join me, won't you?, on a photo journey of my adventure.

First off...the ingredients. Not many. This seemed easy enough. Ready to bake pie crust (eh...), canned pie filling (I guess..), lollypop sticks (wrong!), and a cookie cutter (gah! why me...). Since attempt #1 was more about form, I went with the ease of ready-made pie crust and canned pie filling. The pie crust wouldn't stick together, the pie filling was okay, the lollypop sticks were the wrong ones and the pies wouldn't stay on them, and the cookie cutter was most definitely the wrong shape. It was a mess all around. But I tried to stay positive.

Cut out my lil flower shapes. That was the easy peasy part. At this point I was patting myself on the back, envisioning the cuteness that would soon emerge from the oven.

Added the lollypop sticks. As you can see...they're really long. There were two sizes at the store and I spent a good 10 minutes back and forth trying to decide which were the right ones to get. These long skinny ones, or the other shorter thick ones. Lesson learned.

Put a dollop of cherry goo and 2 cherries. WAY too much. It gooped out everywhere. But at the same time, way too little. I need more fruit, but have to figure out a way to keep it from gooping out everywhere. It would probably be better to just use a jam or jelly instead of actual 3-dimensional fruit. See? Lesson learned. Attempt #2 should go better.

I pressed the edges shut with a piece of another lollypop stick. And here's where I realized I used the wrong kind of cookie cutter. The "flower petals" were just too obnoxious to deal with when trying to line up the two pieces. They ultimately didn't seal very well. But I brushed them with an egg wash. That part turned out nicely.

I yanked out the lollypop sticks after they came out of the oven. None will be the wiser. They're just cute mini pies now!

But notice how they barely sealed shut? I squished them closed like nobody's business. What's the dealio? I'm wondering if it's the pie crust itself. Poor quality? I did use the store brand. Would that matter? I'm not a pie crust connoisseur.

I have a crap ton of leftover cherry pie filling now. Of the 2 pie crusts I used, it made 11 pie pops. Quite a lot of annoyance for not a lot of reward.
Now what to make? A regular-sized pie? Hmmmmm.....

Ein the Cave Monster

2010-11-16T22:19:00.003-05:00

My kitty Ein loves to bury herself in things. She's a big cuddler, and a super big hider. She's also a super bitch. I blame myself. During her impressionable years, (in my college days when I got her as a kitten), she was an only child. I think she got lonely. We have a second kitty now. But I think the damage is already done.

Back to the burrowing. A few nights ago, Lou and I came home to find Ein having burrowed herself in my new comforter on the couch. The funniest part...we're pretty sure we didn't leave the blanket in this nice spiral shape. There's so many unanswered questions. How did she roll the blanket up herself? Did she crawl in backwards? Was she hiding from the other cat? What possessed her to try this out? Did she think it through if we didn't see her and accidentally sat on the blanket???

She got bored during the photoshoot, and decided to fall back asleep.

Goodwill finds

2010-11-07T18:58:00.003-05:00

Last week I came upon a really cool cat ceramic thing-a-ma-bobber at GoodWill for only a dollar! Actually, I think it's a planter. It's hollow in the back. That's all I know. {hmm...now that I think about it, growing catnip out of it would be cute}. When I saw it in the store, it was filthy. I'm surprised Lou even let me touch it, let alone bring it home with us. But it cleaned up just fine and now will be my new favorite pencil holder!

A thought on trends

2010-11-03T19:08:00.003-04:00

There was a forum post today on Etsy complaining about the overabundance of fox-themed treasuries on Etsy's front page. How foxes are the "in" thing right now, along with owls and other woodland creatures. While I agree with the post and think there should be more variety on the front page...{why do they always focus on the super indie hipster themes?}...it also left a sour note with me.

When we talk about trends, they're usually these fleeting ideas. Quick to come and go. Not necessarily something deep and positive. People talk in the forums about others who make "trendy" items as if they're followers, uncreative, unoriginal, not as good as they are with their own craft.

Which brings me back to the treasuries. I make fox figurines. They've been featured in a lot of fox treasuries. None of which have made it to the front page. {Guess it just goes to show how many fox treasuries there really are}. But I didn't start making them until one was requested as a custom order. That's when I realized...wow, these are a really cute idea. Since then, I've had nothing but positive responses about them.

So now does that make my work "trendy"? I'm making (and enjoying) and selling something that people like and want to buy. Isn't that the damn point of all of this? To be one of the elite "I don't conform to the norm" people...do I have to go out of my way to make things that people don't like and don't want to buy? And if "trendy" pertains to something people like...is that such a bad thing? How long does something have to hold a person's interest for it to leave the "trendy" realm and enter the "timeless classic" era? Isn't everything technically a trend? Who's to say?

I guess the next time someone requests a woodland creature, I should scoff and say no, that's beneath me and my art.

Cutest erasers ever

2010-10-22T19:47:00.004-04:00

Aren't they? I stumbled on them in Michael's the other day. For a dollar! They also had little dolphin-shaped eraser toppers. And...dinosaurs..? I say that with a question mark, since I wasn't entirely sure. It was some kind of dinosaur-like creature.

I'm hoping these photos look normal. My laptop's power supply died the other day, so I've been subject to using my new desktop computer for now. I haven't color corrected the monitor, and just got around to installing Photoshop on it. Plus, it has Windows 7 on it. Pretty snazzy...but difficult when you're used to Windows XP. I feel like I'm working on someone else's computer, or even a Mac. Everything runs so different in an ever so slight way....if that makes any sense.

Middles

2010-10-16T22:06:00.006-04:00

If you'll recall "Beginnings"...I was working on some upcoming sketches. Here's how the first one is moving along. She's inspired by sailing/boating and drinking/partying.

In other news, we had a pumpkin carving get-together! I made a Hello Kitty carving. It was between that and Mufasa. I was feeling lazy, and Hello Kitty was a lot easier. Lou ~~did~~ attempted a storm trooper. Yesenia made us these interesting Halloweeny layered cocktails that had black food coloring in them. They were tasty, but they also made our tongues and mouths all black. Oh, and our hands, and the counter, and any surrounding towels. lil bit messy.

Beginnings

2010-10-13T19:29:00.003-04:00

I typically don't like to show people my illustrations in progress. Then again, I don't like to show people ANY thing I'm working on when it's in the works. I just can't deal with people critiquing [unless I'm asking for a critique] (whether it's out loud or in their heads) what I'm displaying at that moment. It's not the finished piece! This isn't how it's going to look! It may or may not be different in the next five minutes!
I prefer the "ta-da!" look what I just produced out of thin air with my magical skills method.

But...today I felt like sharing. Maybe I'm getting more confident in how I know the finished piece of my things will look? Or maybe it's just because these photos are terrible quality (yay camera phone), and it's a little hard to decipher all of the lines. hehe...

Framing

2010-10-12T18:32:00.003-04:00

In college I was a bit obsessed with drawing super detailed frames around all of my illustrations. I veered away from it for a little while, but have recently been getting back into the framing groove.
I'm especially interested in those intricate vintage frames. You know...like those big gaudy ones that are gold-leafed and house renaissance-style paintings in em. Yeah...I like those.

Cuddle Buddies

2010-10-11T18:26:00.004-04:00

Ein hasn't left my side for the past few days. She's a bit bipolar I think. The queen of cuddling, but also the queen of bitchy scratch-your-eyes-out if you move in a way that she disapproves of.
It's gotten to the point where, when I'm sitting in front of my desktop computer, I just lay the keyboard on top of her. She doesn't mind.

In other news...aren't these mini Saltine crackers the cutest ever?

Lou says they made the cracker mini, but forgot to make the salt content mini. Too salty for him. He's crazy...they're perfect. And oh so good in crab bisque soup.

Sunday snacking

2010-10-10T10:52:00.004-04:00

I like to think of Sunday as a nothing day. Whatever I do on that day, won't matter the next day. No guilt allowed, no "darn, I should have taken today to finish that [enter responsible thing here]". So I think that might be why I always stuff my face with everything in the apartment. Eh...I'll eat a salad tomorrow.
Breakfast was a delicious and nutritious cup of noodles. But for "brunch" I had a candy apple! Who eats candy apples at 11 AM? I do.

I'm a little disappointed in this candy apple though. And I do this to myself every year! I see them in the food store around October and say "ooh! my favorite!". And only when I unwrap it, that's when I remember it's not that hard candy shell that I'm hoping for, but a gooey caramel-like mysterious red coating. ugh. What's a girl got to do to get some crunchy candy on my apples?
Still...it was tasty.

I'm thinking....a bag of pizza rolls for lunch.

Goodwill finds

2010-10-09T08:00:00.000-04:00

Last week I stopped into a Goodwill store. There's actually a few in the general radius of my area, but for some reason I always forget take a peek. And boy am I glad I did!
I found the most amazing dish set in a super cool aqua color. It kind of reminds me of fiestaware. I was going to take a picture of it, but I already put it away in the cabinets, and there's so many dishes, and they're heavy....and I'm lazy. Oh whatever. Lou, of course, was full of positivity when I showed him my fantastic find....telling me the color makes him nauseous. Apparently in high school art class, his teacher had them work with an aqua colored glaze for pottery that looked just like the dishes I bought. He said the smell made him nauseous. Wonderful.

Another one of my amazing finds....some sort of shadowbox that is absolutely perfect for displaying my figurines!

I've been tirelessly searching online for a display for them and focused in on typeset print drawers. They're giant vintage drawers that were once used to hold the letters that were used in old time printing presses. There's lots of little sections and I think they'd be great for figurine displays. Unfortunately, they're all $30 and up in price. While $30 isn't very expensive, I've yet to find a decent shipping price.
Anywhoo...this shadow box only cost me TWO DOLLARS and is exactly what I was looking for!

Also got a great "vintage" looking frame for a dollar that I'm going to spray paint some bright awesome color like pink or neon green.
An artist easel for a dollar, and a belt for $2.
All in all, I left Goodwill feeling like I robbed the place. Looking forward to stopping at another one tomorrow. It's payday after all......I might come home owning the whole store!

And just for funsies....darn, I wish these weren't blurry. Spike just loves to get scratches when I'm busy taking pictures.

sketchy sketchy

2010-10-07T18:06:00.004-04:00

I forget if I mentioned I've been trying to sketch, draw, doodle, do any sort of pencil to paper situation at least once a day. It usually turns out well, since I spend my lunch break at work drawing.

Just thought I'd share a few of my recent pieces.

Eventually I'll get around to coloring these and making some prints to list with the others I have in my shop!

presents!

2010-10-05T18:42:00.006-04:00

I was pleasantly surprised when I came home today to find a rather large package waiting for me. I bugged out for a second though, worrying I was ordering craft supplies in my sleep or something. But that's when I remembered about a giveaway over on Sweetopia.net that I had won! And let me preface this by saying I never win anything!! I'm pretty sure the last thing I randomly won was a dozen bagels in a school raffle in 6th grade. Ok, ok, side story....so I won these bagels at a school dance raffle. They gave me the voucher and I rode my bike up to the bagel shop to redeem my bagels. They shoved 12 whole bagels in a paper bag and sent me on my way. When I got outside, that's when I realized I had an overflowing paper bag of bagels that I now somehow had to balance in one hand while riding my bike. I guess because I was so shy, I didn't go back in and ask for a plastic bag like a normal human being would. So I did my best to wobbly ride my bike home and balance bagels. Of course, the bag ripped halfway home and I lost about half of the goods. And that's the story of my free bagels. I think about that incident all the time and ask myself over and over again....why oh why didn't I just ask for another bag?? I'm so dumb.

Anyways...back to the exciting things! I won the most amazingly awesome and super cute lip gloss sets. I don't even want to use them, they're so adorable. And they smell so good too. A big thanks to Sweetopia for her super giveaway!!

new prints!

2010-10-03T11:15:00.004-04:00

I FINALLY got around to listing some art prints in my shop! I'm so excited to get them all listed, as I have piles and piles of illustrations waiting to be worked on. I'll be listing a couple a day, if all goes to plan. Just have to wait for another nice, sunny day to take some photos. It's been dreary and rain-tacular this past week!

The Party Girl

Cat Hair

Sisters

A Wish

Cookie

epic Mac n' Cheese

2010-09-21T19:34:00.003-04:00

Lou: So what's for dinner?
Me: Macaroni and cheese
Lou: Uh...umm...is it gonna be good...?
Me: Of course it's gonna be good!
Lou: ...I don't know....
Me: It has bacon in it.
Lou: Oh, ok good. Alright then. I'll have some.

I've been eating salads for lunch and dinner the past month (with a few slip ups...who can say no to pizza?) in an effort to try eating healthier, and kind of to see if I could actually do it.
I've had a big bag of shredded cheese (it was on super sale! I couldn't help it!) just sitting in the fridge begging for me to think of something to do with it. I finally broke down and decided to make some baked macaroni and cheese. I love me some pasta. I'm craving it!

The key to baked mac n' cheese epicness is most definitely insane amounts of cheese, crumbled ritz crackers and BACON.

I cooked a pound of elbow pasta, then mixed that in a casserole dish with two cans of stewed tomatoes (drained and chopped) and a bag of shredded italian mix cheese. Then topped it with 5 slices of crumbled cooked bacon and a sleeve of crushed ritz crackers.
Baked that all in a 350 degree oven for a half hour or so covered with foil, then took the foil off and cooked another 10-15 mins for the crackers to get all golden brown and delicious.

My only regret is not using enough cheese. I know, I know...how can that be?? I used a full bag. No, still not enough for my liking. I think next time I'll actually use TWO bags, if you can believe it. Still, it was delicious.
Possibly I'll add a can of crushed tomatoes and some pats of butter next time too, but that's just nitpicking.

Howard

2010-09-20T21:13:00.002-04:00

I stumbled on this video on this blog. She mentioned it made her cry. Yeah, it totally made me cry too. A beautiful and sad story.

Adventures in Nachos

2010-09-19T19:29:00.004-04:00

I recently was commissioned by a friend to make a special something out of clay. A TacoBell Nachos Supreme charm! I've never made anything quite like this before. I've done food, but it's always been something sweet, like a cupcake, or a cookie, or whatnot. But I think it came out pretty well! And I'm especially proud of my "ground beef". I figured out that the best way to make a crumbly looking beef was to simply take a toothpick and drag it along the clay. It balled up and crumbled no problem! Lou was not as excited as I was with my adventures in crafting. Now I have to think of more things with ground beef to make, as I went crazy and made a ton!

A fisherman's birthday

2010-09-14T17:24:00.004-04:00

If there's ever a birthday to remember, it's my Pop-Pop's. His just so happens to be on 9/11. Every year I make or buy him something having to do with fishing or history, or both. This year I made him a card in the shape of the fish we most often fished for out on his boat. Fluke. You know, that ugly flat fish with it's eyes on one side of it's body.

I sandwiched together two fish-shaped pieces of card stock with a pink piece in the middle. Then I cut the fish open like I was "filleting" it. A few hand drawn bones on the inside and a happy birthday note to follow. Made sure to mention that "this card is a keeper".

Photo Love - Animal Crackers

2010-08-23T19:27:00.003-04:00

Animal Crackers are a strange thing. For one, why are they called crackers? Aren't they really cookies? What determines a cracker vs. a cookie? Sweetness? I can't think of any other "cracker" that's sweet.
Either way...they're tasty. But I can only eat them in one bite. I don't want the animal to suffer! Got to put it out of its misery fast. That's the humane way to eat an animal cracker afterall...

erincooks

knittingskwerlgurl

{ karen }

craftzine

TheNon-DairyQueen

Dessert First

RuthsFun Shop {wow, these are soaps!}

mollymindcandy

Williams-Sonoma

The REAL Polly Pocket

2010-08-22T08:00:00.000-04:00

For those of you in your late 20s, you may remember what I like to call the REAL Polly Pocket toys. None of these larger dolls with their rubber clothing. What is that crap? My little sister had that crap. But I had the real deal. The compact-like clamshells that housed the teeny Polly Pocket and friends at barely an inch tall. Like the tiniest dollhouse you could literally fit in your pocket. Hello...Polly Pocket.
Why did they change the design anyways? What marketing genius thought a larger doll with interchangeable clothing and less portability was a good idea? Ok, it might be cool to kids who have never seen the original Polly Pocket.
In June, when I went to visit my parents, I had the joy (no really, no sarcasm! I haven't seen this stuff in years!) of going through all of my boxes upon boxes that I packed up when I went away to college years ago. And lo and behold, I found my Polly Pockets! I felt like a little kid again!

There's even a ring that comes out of the organ that you can wear! It barely fits over my pinkie. Too bad. See the bridesmaid behind the couple? And the cake with the table setting, and the DJ turntable section?!? I love this wedding-themed Polly Pocket. So many great details!!

I was really amazed that out of all this time passed, there was only one thing missing from all of my compacts. The dolphin from this mini Polly Pocket. See the dolphin shape in the "water"? Too bad. That was the cutest part. Aside from the fact that the whole boat comes out and is a ring that you can wear! Score!!

Perhaps Polly Pockets are where my love of super cute miniature things came from. I can't seem to recall a time when I didn't love love love teeny tiny things.

Black Bean Burger Bonanza

2010-08-20T08:00:00.000-04:00

I try my hardest to attempt to think about eating healthy....sometimes....on some days. Last time I went food shopping, I picked up a bag of dried black beans. My mom always said that they were good to have. Healthy. Cheap. Easy to cook. Ok cool.
Apparently, black beans (and most other dried beans) require soaking overnight before they can be used. Wonderful. The queen of never-thinking-ahead has to remember to soak a cup of beans the night before if she wants to eat the next day.
I somehow managed it, and came upon the idea to make black bean burgers from the beans. I'd never had [or cooked] a black bean burger before, but it sounded healthy, so hey, why not? I loosely followed a few recipes I found online. Mushing [haha. mushing...so very] them all together into one.

2 c cooked black beans (or a 16 oz can)
1 egg
3 tbs minced garlic (I totally added more. how could you not?)
1 tbs chili powder
1 tbs cumin
1 tsp chili sauce (I used a sauce simliar to Frank's Red Hot)
Half and onion (minced as finely as possible)
1/2-3/4 c bread crumbs (made my own from stale hot dog rolls)

Mash beans w/ a fork in a med. bowl until thick n' pasty. [Side Note: I didn't cook my beans enough apparently, because I spent FOREVER trying to mash my slightly hard beans. I ended up using my hands for half of the work and the little obnoxious beans were slipping out of my fingers like tiny bars of soap. There were bean bits everywhere. Nightmare. So if you're using dried beans you cook yourself, don't be like me, make sure to cook them until they're almost mush, to save yourself the trouble].

Stir the garlic and onion into beans.

Mix egg & seasonings together and add to beans.

Mix in breadcrumbs; add more crumbs as needed until mixture holds together nicely.

Divide into four patties and bake in 375 degree oven on lightly oiled pan 10 mins on each side.

I melted cheese on mine towards the end. Does that cancel out the healthiness?

I also made a quick chipotle mayo to go along with it. Which I really think made the meal. It was super simple too. Mayo, mixed with chipotle pepper seasoning, paprika, some garlic powder, and a teeny weeny splash of lime juice. Add the seasoning to taste. (however spicy you'd like). I let the flavors meld in the fridge while I cooked the burgers.

The sad part is...not only did I forget to take pictures once, but TWICE. I made four burgers. Which made two meals for me and the boy. Yep, forgot both times. Luckily, the bean burgers were not winning any presentation competitions. They looked like tiny circular bean bricks. But they were oh so tasty! I'll definitely be making them again soon.

wedding topper madness!

2010-08-19T08:00:00.000-04:00

For those not in the know...Mueller's Bakery is now carrying my larger sized (3 and 4 inch tall) cake toppers! So if you happen to be in the Bay Head, NJ area and if you happen to stop in Mueller's, you might so happen to see some of my lil couples!

Meanwhile, I'm still only listing the smaller 2 inch..ish sized couples in my shop for immediate purchase. The larger sized couples take a bit more time to make, so I decided to save those for custom inquiries only.
I'm hoping to have these bitty couples listed by Friday.

(In case you couldn't tell, the last two couples are pretty similar, except the first groom is a bit shorter and with a bigger head!)

I may or may not add some top hats to the grooms. Hmm....

Sketches for Wednesday - Paper Dolls....still!

2010-08-18T08:00:00.001-04:00

Still working on paper dolls. I'll probably start coloring them soon. I'm thinking this braided girl will be my "cowgirl", but we'll see. I've yet to draw any cowgirl-esque attire, but I think her pigtail braids lend themselves well to the cowgirl theme.

Dress Finds

2010-08-17T08:00:00.000-04:00

Are dresses with pockets still in? Because I totally love them. Many a time will I be swayed to purchase a dress on pockets alone. I think that's what I find most annoying about wearing dresses. When I don't have somewhere to stash my random pocket change, a toothpick, or that strange button I found on the ground, I get frustrated. All of my jeans have pockets....why can't all of my dresses and skirts have pockets??

For some reason, this dress inspires me to sew pockets on all of my dresses. I don't know...the picture makes it look so simple. Also, maybe because it's sold out and inaccessible on ModCloth

Lavender Pocket Dress

If only I was a Blythe doll...I could have the cutest pocket dresses.

merwing little dear

Cutest heart-shaped pockets with white trim.

quietrebal

Love this photo, as well as the pockets!
yourfairytalewedding

I'm absolutely in love with this color. And polka dots, and a bow, and strapless?? mm....loverly.
kitakhruschev

ChudCity

There's pockets somewhere in this adorable dress. I really have a weakness for anything polka dot.
ModCloth

Photo Love - Mary Jane Shoes

2010-08-16T19:18:00.002-04:00

I looooove mary jane shoes. Sadly, I only have three pairs in the variety. Amongst them...

by emandsprout
She makes the CUTEST shoes!

Here's some other mary jane pics I found that I thought were super cute as well.

Melissa.Tse
*L*u*z*A*
one daaaangerous easter egg
The Linen Lavoir
norakaren2002
dear tilly
NikP.
ittybittybirdy

my boyfriend, the super nerd.

2010-08-14T08:00:00.003-04:00

My boyfriend is a super nerd. Well okay, he's not a super nerd, but he likes a lot of nerdy things. And hey, don't get me wrong...I have nothing against nerdy things. {I think I just like calling him a super nerd}
One of his nerdalicious things to do is play the card game Magic The Gathering with our other male friends, (while the female significant others look on disapprovingly, trying to find something else to entertain themselves with).

One of my latest ventures (because I do so love taking on random crafty conquests) is making a custom d12 for him. A d12 is basically just a 12-sided die that he uses to keep track of....something....(I have no idea)...in the game.

I made a mold with another d12 out of the Sculpey Mold Maker material, which is totally awesome by the way and a lot of fun to work with! I had a lot of trouble at first lining the two sides together to form one piece. But in the end, I'm really happy with how it came out. I'll probably make a quick little tutorial the next time I make another die, as this first one was basically just a practice run. I didn't think it would come out as nicely as it did!
The die on the left is the one I made from sculpey clay, then painted black and added the white numbers. The blue die on the right is the one I used to make a mold from.
Not too bad, if I do say so myself.
Also, they're actually both the same size, despite the optical illusion of the photo.

Shopping for trash....cans

2010-08-12T08:00:00.000-04:00

I was looking for a cute mini trash can for my desk at work. I found two that I really like...but I have to mull it over. Would love to find more cute ones like these guys...

Hello Kitty

Strawberry

Sketches for Wednesday - Paper Dolls

2010-08-11T08:00:00.005-04:00

My most recent illustration project that's been swirling around in my head involves making some paper dolls! These aren't going to be functioning paper dolls where you actually cut them out. But more of a collage-style piece of art. I'm thinking I'll have girls with "themes", like the cowgirl and her riding gear, or the sailor girl and her sailor outfit and yadda yadda.
So I don't know...we'll see. Right now I'm just drawing whatever cute clothing I can think of, and then I'll go back and organize it all.
I'm a super fan of the little knit hat with the pom pom. Gets me all in the mood for winter!

Dress Hunt

2010-08-10T08:00:00.000-04:00

I've been on a hunt for a cute dress to wear to a friend's upcoming wedding in September. I recently found what I thought would be THE dress. The pictures online looked adorable and the price was right up my alley. Super cheap at $45!

I've noticed at many of the weddings I attend, most people are wearing dark colors, lots of black. To me, it looks like a funeral! Aren't weddings supposed to be about celebration? I understand not wanting to upstage the bride, but really, can anyone upstage the bride when she's the one in the giant bright white GOWN?

So anyways, my dress arrived and I put it on and WOW...is it ever poofy. And froufy. And...I'm wondering if it verges on FLASHY. I'm a little self-conscious now. I've had two votes saying it's not too flashy, but I don't know. Maybe I need three votes? Four? Not sure how many I need yet until I'm fine with wearing it to the wedding.

The dress is Hell Bunny brand, which I've come to learn, makes the CUTEST dresses I've ever seen. And unfortunately, it's hard to tell from the picture, but there's a bright pink tulle petticoat underneath the dress. (which is where the super-poof is coming from). I feel like a ballerina when I twirl!

Shoes shall be my next adventure.

P.S. How cute are my white-rimmed glasses? $9.95 from Zenni Optical!

Photo Love - Glitter & Sequins

2010-08-09T08:00:00.000-04:00

I went to the store Lush for the first time last week. I picked up a really neat glittery moisturizing massage bar. It's SUPER glitter-tastic. Glitter is one of those things that gets in and on EVERYTHING, but I don't care, I love it. Sequins included. I like to think of sequins as larger versions of glitter. Actually...are they larger versions of glitter?

Here's some awesome glitter and sequins photos I came across.

concypolla
sweet distin
Michelle in Ireland
Ate-Your-Kangaroo
Inkwina
Silverdays
isewcute
alexandria lomanno

How to make your house smell like Pie.

2010-05-05T22:05:00.005-04:00

Want to fill your house with the smell of fresh baked pumpkin pie? Make these nuts!

For Mother's Day, I decided to make my mom a batch of candied pecans. I pulled from all kinds of candied nut recipes I found online and made my own concoction. They're really simple to make though, with minimal ingredients. I don't even feel like I can call this "my recipe".

These are all the ingredients you'll need. (next time I'll try a half/half ratio of brown sugar and white sugar for more of a molasses flavor)

3 cups pecans (I got salted ones. If you use unsalted, make sure to add a tsp of salt to the sugar mix)
2 egg whites
1 Tbs water
1/2 cup white sugar
1 1/2 - 2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground clove

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line a cookie sheet with foil.

In a large bow, beat the egg whites and water with a fork until a little frothy and mix with the nuts to coat.

In another bowl, stir together sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove. Stir into nuts.

Spread onto a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes. Mixing and turning the nuts with a spatula every 10 minutes.

Once cooled, they get nice and crunchy and you can break them up and put in pretty jars! Next time I'm going to try out hazelnuts and walnuts!

Simon's Cat

2010-04-27T21:41:00.002-04:00

Love. I could watch these all day.

balloons for monday

2010-04-26T18:42:00.007-04:00

I tend to go through phases of random things that interest me. Some days it's cuckoo clocks, other times it's vintage sugar bowls or animal print patterns. Lately I've been thinking about balloons.

One of my favorite movies as a kid was The Red Balloon. Maybe that's where my balloon interest started.

Here's some flickr faves of mine.

amy mortimer* / jaded*mystery / beth retro / Jim Skea / Andreza Pinheiro / Cass D. / Jen Bekman

A little bit of what I'm working on.

a quick DIY butterfly wreath

2010-04-24T16:16:00.003-04:00

In honor of Spring and my nana's love for butterflies (she passed away on Monday..), I made a quick butterfly wreath for my front door.
I took a medium-sized grapevine wreath and attached feather butterflies with hot glue all around. I love hot glue! It makes everything easier. My total cost was $9 ($5 for the pack of butterflies and $3 for the wreath) and the project only took me about a half hour at most to finish.
I bought all of my supplies at Michael's craft store. They have a lot of butterflies in all different colors and styles to choose from too! It was really hard deciding on a color theme. I considered making multiple wreaths in different colors. Do I sense a new gift idea possibility??? Mother's Day is just around the corner after all!

p.s. don't you just love how my pukey olive green apartment door matches my wreath? It was meant to be!

A trip to the MoMA

2010-04-19T22:24:00.007-04:00

This past weekend a big group of us ventured to NY to catch the Tim Burton exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art.

waiting for the rest of our party. DS is a must

I was really excited to take lots of pictures and be able to blog about it later with an array of Tim Burton eye candy. I should have known that the exhibit wouldn't allow photography. The only photo I was able to take was of a giant blow-up creature in the lobby area.

There was a lot of Tim Burton's drawings on display, but it was hard to see them all. The place was PACKED. His 3D stuff was my favorite to look at. There was a glass case with all of the different Jack Skellington expression heads. And another with all of the Corpse Bride figures. I didn't realize how big they were. There was a display of some of the Willy Wonka dolls from the beginning of the movie that sing and creepily catch on fire. Do they have a name? I have no idea. There was also a giant Edward Scissorhands statue, a few Batman masks and the Penguin's baby carriage on display, amongst some other things. Like a few Planet of the Apes helmets (which didn't really interest me...).

We also took a peek at a few other artists before we got too hungry and left. I forgot how much I love walking around museums and recognizing works of art. It's nice to be reminded "hey, I DO know a thing or two about some things!"

Lady, get outta my picture!

boobies. of course.

It's hard to tell in this photo because I couldn't use the flash, but my lovely mature friend here is picking that guy's nose. This is moments before the security guard came over and finally yelled at us for acting like 12 year olds.

Paper Flower Template/Tutorial

2010-04-16T17:54:00.006-04:00

Where I work, we acquire a lot of scrap paper. I thought a great "eco-friendly" thing to do with some of it and to also pretty up my desk area a bit was to make some paper flowers.
The flowers are three layers of paper - the large flower, then the small flower, then the circle. Any colorful paper will do. I used glue dots to stick them together, but tape or another glue would work too. Glue dots are just so easy!
Then I slightly folded the small flower's petals up a little to give it a little dimension.
Really simple, but fun to make. And just in time for Spring!

Click on the template to enlarge the image, then print it out, cut out the shapes and trace them on any scraps of paper you can find and you're all set!

my favorite blue chair.

2010-04-14T19:31:00.004-04:00

Once upon a time, there was a super cool & funky vintage teal swivel chair. Then one day, my boyfriend's butt broke through the vinyl seat. ugh.

I don't really know anything about fixing ripped vinyl. Is it even possible with a tear the size of a MAC truck? I should probably just reupholster the whole chair seeing as the color is starting to fade anyways. It looks a lot dirtier in this photo than it actually is. Don't exactly know the first thing about reupholstering either. I DO remember when my mom got her vintage kitchen chairs reupholstered, and I DO remember her saying it cost a lot. If anything, I remember her reminding me of that in a threatening manner every time I accidentally dropped a Sharpie marker (or a fork or some other pointy object) on the yellow vinyl.

Speaking of mom...she got me the greatest Easter basket in the history of Easter baskets! It's chock full of spices! Now all I need next is a spice rack of some sort.

Here's a few sketches and illustrations I've been working on. I have about half a sketchbook's worth of drawings that I need to scan in, but my computer has been giving me the skull and crossbones lately, threatening hard drive failure. Scary! So I don't want to stress it out with too much digital illustrating and coloring. I have to start searching for a new computer! I was thinking of getting a Mac this time. But I'm flying blind. Don't know where to start or what to get. Budget is limited of course.

new earrings!

2010-04-13T19:48:00.006-04:00

I finally have some new earrings in my shop! There's a few different styles and colors available. I have lots and lots more sketches and doodles ready to be made into jewelry. Just have to find the time, as usual.

I picked up some colored paper today (5 for a dollar at Joanne's!), to re-do a few product pictures in my Etsy shop. I've realized that the veils on my cake topper figurines are a little hard to see, so I'm going to play around with some darker backgrounds. I'm also sick of my white background I have for most of my figurines. ugh. I'm so indecisive. I spend more time changing around my photos, than anything else.

Next payday I think I'm going to go on a "things I don't need, but are oh so super cute I can't stand it, and must have it" shopping spree.

In the runnings....

cotton candy by scrumptiousdelight

happy sloth necklace by marymaryhandmade

bunting teapot by ninainvorm

mini geisha pillow at shanalogic

bonbon baller bag at loyal army

a GREEN!! jackalope by girlsavage

boyfriend proofing my craft table

2010-03-30T22:53:00.006-04:00

This is a little old [2 weeks or so!], but I still wanted to write about it. I take forever to upload my photos.

I really need to boyfriend-proof my craft table. I mean I guess it's partially my own fault for leaving one of my containers of figurines so close to the edge of the table. Lou and is oaf-like monster hands swinging wildly while he walks, managed to knock my box onto the floor, flinging it open, causing all of the figurines to tumble all over the place. Part of his clumsiness was most likely due to the 4 or so beers he'd already had by this time. All but two, survived the fall. I'm very sad.
Sure, I could glue their parts back on, but I just wouldn't be happy with selling something that was broken and I fixed. I'll still fix these guys, but they'll live on my bookshelf now with my other toys.
I'm REALLY disappointed about the Totoro! Their ears take foreverrr to sculpt out perfectly. Oh well....Stupid Boys!!

I'll be having some new earrings in the shop soon! Shrink plastic with my illustrations on them! I've been taking my personal pair on a test run for a few months now, for durability. They've held up perfectly well and show no sign of wear!
I have a few different colors and styles to offer, and they all come on sterling silver posts. I made a few pins too [cuz why not!]. I might expand to pendants too if I have the time and if people like my designs!

And one more thing in the works...greeting cards! I'll have those listed soon as well.

I wish I was a kid again.

2010-03-28T22:38:00.008-04:00

Why is it that kids get to have the cutest clothing and adults are stuck with boring crap? This is especially true for shoes! I've tried unsuccessfully to jam my feet into quite an number of kid's shoes. Why can't I too have light-up, pink glittered high tops with rhinestone and candy cane accents? I can't be the only adult in the world who feels the same way. If I could just chop my toes off, I could fit comfortably in a kid's size 5. It's that simple!
Tonight I was on a cupcake shoe mission. Not that I even need any more shoes. I have tons that I don't wear as it is. But I found some of the CUTEST must-have shoes and OF COURSE the majority of them are for kids.
Here's what I'm talking about...

sprinkles...on FLIP-FLOPS! summer is coming...c'mon, I NEED THESE!

via zappos

via 6pm

via Journeys

via Journeys

via Zazzle

I did come across these rain boots for adults though! Thanks Target!

via Target

joining social networks

2010-03-03T22:47:00.005-05:00

I end up joining more social networks than I can keep track of. Mainly to secure my magicbeanbuyer name. There's a few places where that name belongs to someone else and I'm not gonna lie, it's annoying as crap when Google Alerts notifies me that magicbeanbuyer is talking about their infant's reflux disease or magicbeanbuyer is buying magical kidney beans from china. (don't ask. I have no idea)
So I joined the formspring bandwagon and now the world can ask me questions! I only have one question answered so far and I look like a kid with no friends. Ask away people! http://www.formspring.me/magicbeanbuyer . There's also a little box along the side of my blog where you can type the questions right into all fancy schmancy like.

I finished editing my wedding topper set pictures. Four more are ready to go. I'm trying to decide if I should wait until the weekend to list them. I want to list all of my new creations at once in a big, spectacular shop update (because those are always fun times), and I still have a few things I'm finishing up.

Whales on the horizon too!
And greeting cards (already printed and ready to go)! And art prints! ...Oh my!
I mean it this time. This entire upcoming weekend will be dedicated entirely to listing figurines and making art prints. I have all of my supplies. No excuses!

adventures in cooking and other things

2010-02-22T21:31:00.003-05:00

When the fridge is looking barren, I usually end up throwing anything I have left together and melting cheese on top of it, or mixing it with pasta. Instant....something!

This lovely grouping of chopped onion, spinach, jalapeno and pepperoni made what I'd like to call french fry slop. Curly fries with mozzarella cheese. Don't get me wrong. It tasted awesome..especially with marinara sauce on the side, but the presentation left something to be desired.

A couple of weeks ago I finally got around to restocking my shipping supplies. It was like shipping supply Christmas! I ordered from a few different places and everything basically showed up on the same day. The UPS and Fedex men probably high-fived going up and down my stairs. It was cardboard box chaos! Lou was not entertained. There's more that you can't even see in this photo! I need a shipping supply room.

I'm really excited though because I finally found a "gift box" that I'm happy with that fits my little wedding couples perfectly. I like to make sure all of my figurines come in little gift boxes that way they can be easily and safely stored if needed. And now I have ten million of them, since it's a money saver to buy in bulk!

And a handsome kitty picture of Spike enjoying the new table and chairs set I bought from Ikea this past weekend. $80 for a table and four chairs! Score! It's a great size for my teeny apartment, and I'm in love with the glass top. (perfect for clay crafting). The chairs are a little flimsy (no rough-housing boys allowed!), but they look cute and a little retro, so I'll deal. Don't you just love the disgusting beige rug that's always standard in apartment buildings? Who thought that was a good idea? The only upside? It sort of matches my leopard (or is it cheetah?) throw rug.

sketches for wednesday

2010-02-17T22:10:00.004-05:00

Pat on the back for me, I've been drawing every day! It's amazing how focused I am on my lunch break at work. For some reason I have unicorns on the brain. Unicorn ladies. Creepy? Not creepy?
I tried my hardest to not cover my pencil sketches in ink this time. I always always end up going over everything in ink. Hey, it lasts longer. I don't want to forget my ideas, do I?

I'm also working on four more wedding topper sets. It's so hard to settle on colors for everyone. And pairing of hair shades. Two brunettes together? One blonde and one black? I have to use my psychic powers to determine the most realistic and popular couple pairing. And then wedding accent colors? Don't get me started.

I really shouldn't put my yogurt next to my water cup by the way. I'll never learn...

keeping organized

2010-02-14T20:53:00.006-05:00

It's a good day! Valentine's Day? Yes, ok, blah blah blah. But it's also the day I FINALLY organized my email inbox. I had literally hundreds of emails sitting around doing nothing, but me, being the pack rat I am, I couldn't even bear to throw away an electronic piece of mail. So I made folders, and I organzied and everything's nice and put away. This successful sorting gave me the bravery to attempt to sort through my bookmarks. Nightmare situation. I bookmark everything. I know there's better ways to organize and remember web pages, pictures, and other crap. But I don't like change. So shush.

The good news, I'm rediscovering all these great tidbits I had forgotten about. I thought I'd write about a few of them.

I understand this is for an aquarium, but I feel like it would look really cool on my bedside table. Maybe in green!
via Wrapables.com

I decided a while back that I want to start a teapot collection. I only have two. But one day when my kitchen has more than 5 inches of counter space, I'll keep the collecting going.
via Ice Cream Drops Shop

Fascinators might be totally trendy now, but I still think they look really cool. I could never see myself wearing one to work, but I'd love to be going somewhere fun and dressy where I could have an excuse to wear it. I'm especially partial to the vibrant colored ones. If this was in kelly green I'd be in LOVE. But bright blue will do. I feel like this is the type of accessory that looks pretty on the model, but then when I get it home and try it on I look like a doof.
via ban.do

Plasticland is this incredibly awesome website that has vintage-inspired...everything! I especially love their home decor section. I could highlight ALL of the pages of items they have. These are just a few of my faves. I tried to hold back.
Another one of my "collections" I've yet to collect much of is the cuckoo clock! I have one miniature one, but I'd love to own vintage and modern ones. A whole wall of colorful cuckoo clocks...how great would that be!
via Plasticland

My dream kitchen will be chock full of colorful glassware and dishes. I picture window pane cabinets so you can see inside a few of them to highlight the really colorful & interesting stuff.
via Plasticland

A little something to get me started with organizing letters and cards.
via Plasticland

I am a sucker for anything miniaturized. I was so excited to have come across the CUTEST wedding cake pops on the bakerella website. And she shows you how to make them! Her whole website is great, but these are definitely one of my faves. I have to remember these for when I get married.
via Bakerella

A great tutorial on making FAKE cupcakes! I loosely referenced this tutorial when making my own fake cupcakes for my craft fair.
via sugar & meringue

Another awesome tutorial. I haven't tried it yet. But my very own sweater boots..heck yes, they look adorable.
via Craftster

Yet another tutorial...! I have a hard time keeping plants alive. I would love to make a pretend bonsai tree for my desk at work!
via PlanetJune

And a tissue paper lampshade! I have such poor lighting in my apartment. I think making a few of these would really warm the corners of the room. I wonder if the light strands of mini paper lamps would work also.
via ikea hacker

That's all for now!

pushing myself

2010-02-08T19:09:00.004-05:00

I went on a supplies shopping spree a few days ago. It had to be done. There was no more avoiding it. If I was ever going to get prints of my artwork finally made, step one would be deciding on a paper to use. Now I have no more excuses besides my own laziness or "lack of time", as I prefer to call it! I'm also making some greeting cards too, which I've already printed and packed in cute little clear sleeves. They look precious! Pictures to come of those soon.

This is an illustration that I've been working on that will be one of the first I turn into a print to sell. ...whenever I decide she's actually finished. That's my biggest problem..deciding something is done.

Tomorrow I have four wedding cake topper sets to list. Photos are all ready and waiting for me. So I should be able to get those in the shop tomorrow [evening].

I'll also be listing a pile of my "very teeny" Plini's and a handful of TEENY tiny Totoro figurines. Some have leaves on their heads too! Only an inch tall. I love them! So small!

boo Sunday

2010-01-31T20:59:00.006-05:00

There's something about Sundays that will forever make me feel like I have school tomorrow and didn't finish my book report. I guess work has the same effect... Minus the book report.

Good news! I finished two custom orders and am thisclose to finishing another. I love productive weekends! It's so hard to keep myself motivated. Even though it's the best days for me to work, I always find myself wanting to slack off and play video games all day. It's the weekend, gosh darnit! Luckily my "work" is fun, so I think that's what keeps me at it.

I also found time to make some spinach and ricotta stuffed chicken! It came out pretty good. Except...lesson for next time...don't use "maple" bacon. The apartment ~~smells~~ reeks like breakfast, and my dinner kind of tasted like breakfast too. I forgot that "maple" and "hickory" aren't one in the same when it comes to bacon. my bad. I wasn't thinking.

I basically followed this recipe. Next time I'd like to flatten my chicken a little thinner. It wasn't until I wanted to make this, that I realized that I don't own a mallet. So I'm banging on the chicken with a frying pan. (it was the only flat heavy thing I could find!) It's making the loudest sound imaginable. Glasses are jingling. The coffee maker is shimmying down the counter. Upstairs neighbors are banging on the floor. It served it's purpose though!
I have a ton of ricotta left over now though. I'd like to think of something tasty to make with it. All I've ever used ricotta for is lasagna, but I'd like to think of something different. OH..cannolis? Yeah, those won't be exhausing and difficult to make.

Last night I snapped a few pictures of Ein "helping" me edit photos. She's so cute. A total beotch, but she loves to cuddle.

And today Lou and I stopped in the Christmas Tree Shop and oh my gosh I forgot how much cute and cheap dish and glassware they have! I found so many cute things that I thought would look great as displays for my Plinis at craft shows and whatnot. Like this freakin adorable polka dot plate. Two dollars. Are you kidding me?? I also picked up THE most awesome cake stand for four dollars! I've decided that I'm not allowed in there unsupervised because only bad money blowing things can come about when I'm left to roam.

sketches

2010-01-26T23:26:00.001-05:00

I've been trying my best to draw every day. For some reason I have the hardest time when I'm at home, but when I'm at work it's all I can think about. I end up drawing for all of my lunch break. I've manged to fill three sketchbooks over the past few months, whereas it can usually take me much longer. Most of my sketches end up on post-its and lined paper scraps. It's nice to actually have them all organized in one place.
Here's a little bit of what I did the past few days in my fresh new sketchbook.

Could make a cute Valentine's card I think.

When I drew this I was thinking about skating parties. Am I too old for a roller skating party? Would my friends come? Do they think they're too old? I think it would be fun!

Would it kill me to draw wheels in the shape of an actual circle instead of lumpy ovals? Yes. I think it would.

The other day I was telling my mom how one day I'd like to get a tattoo of one of my Plini figurines. A cupcake girly with a green hood and white polka dots. That's what I envision. Does it need a little banner? Eh....I don't know. I wouldn't even know what to put in the banner. {Green is my nickname by the way}

my first craft show

2010-01-24T12:46:00.005-05:00

Well I've been putting off this post for a while now. The show was in the beginning of December! But I knew I'd get to it eventually.

My first craft show. Ever since I started selling my things on Etsy way back in 2006, I've always wanted to try out craft shows too. I'm not really sure what took me so long and how/why I finally got my shit together and made it happen this past December. Either way..it was quite the experience!
I recruited two of my friends to help, and also a third friend and her boyfriend who stopped by for a little while, but couldn't stay the whole time since they don't live very close. The two friends who live near me were a lot of help. We brainstormed, made my banner, made pretend cupcakes. Lots of fun. At the craft show, I had one of them handing me packing supplies and the other taking the money. I can't imagine how people do this alone!

The show was in Philly, which I think was great for people traffic. But it was also snowing that day..pretty hard, so I don't think as many people that would have showed up did. Either way, I had a nice flow of traffic the entire day!
It was really interesting to be face to face with the customers too. A lot of my customers were moms and young women. That's who I've always focused on marketing to, so it was nice to see that it's working.
It was also interesting to see what got the most attention. Out of everything on my table I was surprised to see my bird earrings sold the best. And I was also disappointed that barely anyone noticed my Plini candle holders. I think I just need a better display for them. I'm learning!

The pocket kitties also sold really well. I think they made good little extra add-ons for gifts or "stocking stuffers". I made more for the shop as well.

I was on my feet all day. We had one chair, but I was just so pumped. It was great to meet the other sellers there too. I recognized a few of them from etsy and other places online, which I thought was pretty cool. And my other friend Maria was there selling her artwork with the gallery she helps run. Some other friends stopped by to support and say hello too. I thought that was really sweet of them.

Some things I've learned...

-people prefer pendants WITH necklaces
-getting up and rearranging the table when there's a lull makes people come over
-always at the least say hello to people
-'2 for..' deals work!
-accepting credit cards is a good idea
-talking to too many friends hanging near the table makes the customers leave
-no matter how hard you try to fold your table cover to keep it from getting wrinkly, it'll still be wrinkly as hell

Ok, that's all I have for now. The craft show went exactly as I had hoped overall. It was successful, fun, stressful and it went by really quickly! I can't wait until I do another. I actually had a few customers ask me when/where my next show was. To which I replied, "uh...er, umm...uhhh". I hadn't been prepared for that type of question! I was living in the moment of my first craft show. Hadn't really thought about the future. But now that I know this is something I'd like to do again, it's time to seek out more shows!
I can't imagine doing this without my "helpers" though!

wedding season

2010-01-23T23:15:00.005-05:00

Wedding season is approaching! So I've been busily filling custom wedding topper orders and also making some basic sets for the shop. My craft area is a complete mess since I'm working on everything at once. Kind of assembly line style. I think I waste the least amount of paint that way. I'm trying to decide what the best accent color for my basic wedding sets would be to use, that would appeal to the most amount of people. Is there a most popular color? I'm thinking blue, red, and then just a black and white set. At least to start. Or maybe green? Coral? Burgundy? Sunflower?? Ok...enough of that.

I listed a WHOLE bunch of things a few days ago as well. Lots of kitty things. Pocket kitties galore and a handful of "lucky" golden kittehs. I'm hoping to get more of a color assortment with the pocket kitties soon. Just have to find the time!

Recently I finished up an "Easter" custom order and three of the Plinis in the group I made with little decorated eggs on top of their heads. I can't get over how cute they turned out! I'm excited to make more of these lil ones. Along with more "Peeps" and bunny Plinis too.

And finally, the other day I found the cutest wooden "house" at Michael's that I thought would be the perfect tiny display for my Plinis! I later saw on the label that it's actually a CD holder. But it's going to be even cuter when I paint it up like a dollhouse and use it for my figurines!
This photo really shows just how crazy cluttered my craft table is at the moment too! I can assure you that the whole table looks like this...

cupcakes, more cupcakes and totoros

2010-01-10T19:37:00.005-05:00

One day when I have a kitchen in a real-life house instead of this pitiful excuse for one that I have now in my apartment, I'd like it to have a cupcake theme. The other day someone on my twitter feed mentioned how she was sick of seeing cupcakes and people on Etsy making cupcake things and we should all grow up. But that's her opinion, and I'm okay with never growing up.

One of my Christmas gifts from my friend Yesenia was this super cute cupcake mug, which will go perfectly in my cupcake kitchen! She also got me a cupcake shaped plate, which I failed to get a picture of before my camera battery died.

Then at Target yesterday I picked up the CUTEST ceramic cupcake trinket box from their Valentine's section. So slowly the cupcake collection grows!

And of course with cupcakes on the brain, I had to make a few too. I'll be listing them in the shop sometime this week, along with a couple of other things.

Aside from cupcakes, I finished up a super cute custom order. A "romantic" Totoro set. How cute are they? The umbrella is removable (for ease of shipping and storage), and the figures are separate. But when you put them together, they look like they're holding hands!

dessert girl

2010-01-03T19:32:00.005-05:00

Just a little something I'm in the middle of working on...my new Wacom tablet is making it a lot more fun than usual!

updates for the new year!

2010-01-02T17:23:00.007-05:00

Well a million things have happened since my last post. I wanted to dedicate an entire clutter-free post to my first craft show experience, but I still have yet to go through and organize the photos. So that can be for next time.

For Christmas, I tried to make most of my gifts this year. I think it went pretty well. I always feel a little funny giving people things I've made. I don't know why.
For the men in the family, who are terribly impossible to shop for, I made some mixed nut concoctions. They were SO good and really easy to make with basic ingredients like brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc etc. And look how pretty they pack up!

I also found time to bake some cookies. I made some cinnamon chocolate cookies. They tasted AWESOME right from the oven because they had a chewy inside and a crunchy outside. The best. They're kind of all crunchy now, but the flavor is still tasty.

For my nana I drew a caricature picture of her. I also drew one of my mom but I forgot to take a picture of it. She mentioned she'd blog about it, so I'll link to it when she does.

My sister and my friend Yesenia got these little trinket boxes that I painted and attached all kinds of clay goodies on top of. The first picture is the one for my sister and the second for my friend.

Thankfully the holidays are all over and done with and now I can get back to work! I have a mountain of things I'd like to list and another mountain of things I'm in the middle of working on. And lest we not forget I have a mountain of sketches I'd like to turn into finished pieces. One of these days I'll get prints made. I finally ordered some more printer ink, so maybe that's not too far off!

Sundays are for stuffing my face

2009-11-29T16:45:00.005-05:00

One of my favorite things to do is use the ingredient search function at allrecipes.com to use up the random stuff in the kitchen. I happened to have a stray jalapeno, half a container of cream cheese, a plain bagel and some mexican blend shredded cheese. Even though I didn't really follow any of the recipes I came across on allrecipes, I did get some inspiration.

I toasted the two bagel halves in the oven (because Lou set fire to our toaster oven when he unsuccessfully tried to toast some bread, ugh...boys). Then I layered a generous helping of cream cheese, diced jalapeno and a mountain of the shredded cheese on top. Might I recommend NOT scratching your nose after chopping the jalapeno. You'd think I'd learn to remember that by now. But instead, my entire nose is on FIRE. Anyways, I left it in a 350 degree oven until the cheese got nice and melty on top. And wow, it tasted just like a jalapeno popper, except it was easier to eat! Am I the only one that takes one bite of the popper and the whole jalapeno slides out and burns my bottom lip? Or I take a bite and all of the cheese squirts out the back and burns my hand? Yeah, those little poppers are live hand grenades if I've ever seen it.

They might not look award winning, but trust me, freakin delicious.

Aside from food experimentations, I managed to finish up most of my craft show table display. Everything is tagged, bagged, mostly packed, organized, printed, blah blah blah, etc etc. I just have a few loose ends to tie up, a few more supplies I need to buy, and everything will be ready to go! I can't believe it's only a week away. Will I be ready???? I hope I don't forget anything.

Spike was more than willing to help with the table cover fitting, which I think came out pretty good! Folding it was a nightmare though. I hope it stays wrinkle free in time for the show! I hate wrinkly tablecloths.