Monday, October 22, 2012

Instagram- Week in Review


1. I had an awesome mail week! I recently won a giveaway from Pink Sith for two Butter London nail polishes and she sent an extra Hard Candy polish in addition. The nail polishes are high end and I feel so fancy. I've been wearing the taupe one all week long, it's gorgeous.
2. More felt embroidery. I made a little strawberry embroidery for a recipe book I'll put together eventually.
3. The rest of my awesome mail week. I treated myself to two yards of Japanese import fabric and this is what I got.
4. We bought 2 bags of Halloween candy "for trick or treaters". I'm sure they'll be gone long before they get here.
5. Some Halloween crafting. Making some bunting for above the window.
6. Kitty snuggles are always the best part of my week.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Vintage inspired felt embroidery





I've been a little crafting machine lately! On the trip to pick up book supplies I also picked up some felt and seed beads for embroidering. It's become popular to mix printed fabric and felt with embroidery and I wanted to give it a go, but instead I stumbled across this lovely post about vintage felt embroidery and fell in love! It was a lot of fun and actually very easy. I found this handy DIY tutorial for the dahlia, used the same petal shape just sewn on differently for the yellow flowers, and used small circles  for the small purple and blue flowers. Everything is hand sewn and took about 4 hours. I'm thinking I might combine bookbinding and embroidery and make this into a nice little cover for a book.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

First time bookbinding






Ever since a bookbinding tutorial came across my Pinterest feed  (link here)I have been obsessed with it. I watched a few YouTube videos and read a couple blogs on it until it got to the point where I felt like I just NEEDED to try it. Last night I went to a craft store to pick up the paper I needed, a bone folder, and some endpaper, and that was really all I needed. I improvised the rest of the supplies based on what I had at home. All together I think this cost me around $6 or 7 in supplies, not too shabby! Instead of PVA glue I used a combination of glue stick, Mod Podge, and E-6000. I used heavy books instead of clips or clamps to keep things together, waxed embroidery thread with a candle(it felt pretty silly but I had no snags so guess it worked. And it smelled nice!), used a sharp polymer clay tool to poke holes in the signatures, and made the cover out of the back board of the sketchpad I used for the paper. It might seem like there are a lot of specialty tools you need for bookbinding, but as you can see it's all easily improvised! It might not be the proper way, but it was a really fun project and I'm pretty happy with the results. 

Monday, October 15, 2012

Instagram: Week in Review


1. New orchids! I'm very excited for these
2. We went on a day trip to Julian, CA this weekend and this was the only picture I got of us!
3. Cinnamon roll pancakes from Saturday morning. They were so good that even the cat ate some.
4. Mom's Pie in Julian. They were all sold out of apple crumble by the time we got there, but I thought the interior was wicked cute.
5. Hot apple cider!! This was in Julian from local cider, but when we went home I had to pick up more spiced cider and I have at least two or three cups a day now.
6. My favorite Hell Bunny dress (I bought it here) has been on weekly rotation while it's still warm enough, along with my trusty Friendly Toast squirrel purse. I highly suggest you check out Hell Bunny I have a couple dresses and they're all adorable.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Julian apple pie





This week we took a day trip up to Julian, CA. It's a small gold rush town about an hour away from San Diego but these days they're known more for their apples. Every place had signs for hot apple pie or cider, there had to have been at least 10 on the small main street. We had originally planned on taking home a pie from Julian Pie Co. but unfortunately they were all sold out by the time we got there! We decided instead to pick up a small bag of local apples and make a pie instead.

Apple Crumb Pie
adapted from this recipe
  • crust for 9 in pie
  • about 6 cups of apples, sliced
  • 3/4 c white sugar
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • good pinch of salt
for crumble
  • 1/2 c white sugar
  • 1/2 c brown sugar
  • 1/2 c flour
  • 4 tbs butter
  1. Preheat the oven to 425 Fahrenheit 
  2. In a big bowl, combine sliced apples, sugar, spices and salt. Mix until slices are thoroughly covered with cinnamon sugar. Set aside.
  3. Combine white sugar, brown sugar, and flour in a bowl. Mix to combine, then cut in the butter and mix with your hands until butter is incorporated and mixture feels like damp sand.
  4. Prepare the pie dish with crust. Fill with apple mixture, then top with crumble. 
  5. Cover loosely with tin foil and bake at 425 for 20 minutes. Remove foil and decrease heat to 350 and bake an additional 35 minutes. Let cool thoroughly before slicing!

Friday, October 5, 2012

Friday Favs- Kitties everywhere!

In an ongoing quest to waste copious amounts of time, I have created a mash up of fabulous kitty finds. 
Meow or Never scarf, ModCloth
Lucky Kitty necklace, ShanaLogic
Whisker Me Away bag, ModCloth
wooden kitten brooch, Etsy
Hey Kitty Cat cardigan, CatsLikeUs

I recently bought the kitty cardigan (you can see it here). Normally I mull over decisions to buy things, most of the time ending in me deciding against it, but as soon as I saw the sweater I had to have it! And it's ADORABLE and SO worth it! ModCloth can be pretty pricey, but they currently have a special going on where you can get $20 off your order of $50 or more until October 31st by following the link. Not too shabby. I'm currently trying to figure out what I want to buy with the discount and I'm leaning towards the cat bag. All of my purses have animals on them and it makes me feel like I look like a gigantic toddler (which, let's be honest, isn't too far off) with them, but this one is more sophisticated, I think. That's what I'll tell myself, anyway, because I want to justify getting a kitty bag.