etsy love

here are some of my purchases from etsy artisans.

L-R : the smashing earrings were actually purchased at a craft show in bay, but her work is on etsy. tilly bloom finch earrings that i love but am afraid to wear because my right ear sometimes rejects earrings - even silver ones - and these are so light that i keep finding one on the floor! i love them anyway. jacqueline knits apple jackets! blue shed crafts brown and green dachshund hat. she custom knit an awesome blue and orange one for me to give matthew for christmas! much love to all of these etsy artists!

happy saturday

the sun is shining and i am happily snapping photos of some things ive been working on. i just had a delicious cup of tea and am going to take heidi for a nice long walk. have a good weekend everyone!

notepads continued.

i made some more matchbook notepads today and they look so lovely together!

i also typed up some little messages to tuck inside some of them and many photos later, they were ready to list in the shop. i hope they find good homes!

i sent a prototype home with nicole the other day and she said her mom loved it when she showed it to her. i made up a floral printed one for her to give to her mom, and she almost didn't want to let go of it. aw! i don't know which one to feel bad for, but i guess nicole felt guilty and came off of it eventually. her mom loves it, so yay! spreading the crafty recycled love all over northeast ohio.

recycled notepads

hello hello

heidi and i saw a squirrel while out walking this bright, sunny morning, and she, of course, totally spazzed out and wanted to get it. it was pretty funny watching her run circles around the tree trunk while the squirrel just perched on his little branch and ate his snack, knowing he could not be reached. i tried taking some video, but mostly she just tangled me up in the leash.

recycled fabric pretties

i made some pin cushions! or pincushions. or soft sculptures. or paper weights. or pretty desk items. or recycled fabric pretties. or whatever you want to call them. i will probably experiment and make some more. i did a lot of cutting of fabric scraps the other day, which resulted in something like this :

i love seeing them all laid out like that! it makes me want to quilt, until i think about how totally complicated and involved quilting is, and then i just put it all away.

cleveland international film festival

I saw this today at the Cleveland International Film Festival.

Afterwards there was a short Q & A with the director and two of the three brothers. It was really good, and oddly familiar.
My mom really enjoyed it too, and even bought one of the silkscreens Davey Noble printed in Cleveland for the occasion.

dog cookies!

tonight i decided to bake some dog cookies. heidi loves them! i gave some to my neighbor and will give some to klaus. this is the recipe that i made up after looking over various recipes i saw online.

HandMade HappyDog Cookies

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup butter

1/8 cup bacon grease*

1 cup boiling water

3/4 cup cornmeal

1 tsp. sugar

1/4 cup chicken stock

1/4 cup soy milk

4 oz (1 cup) shredded cheddar cheese

1 egg, beaten

2 - 3 cups whole wheat flour

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease cookie sheets.

In large bowl, combine rolled oats, butter, bacon grease, and boiling water; let stand 10 minutes.

Stir in cornmeal, sugar, chicken stock, soy milk, cheese and egg; mix well.

Add flour 1 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition to form a stiff dough.

On floured surface, knead in remaining flour until dough is smooth and no longer sticky.

Roll or pat out dough to 1/2 inch thickness, cut with bone shaped cookie cutter. I used a heart shaped cookie cutter as well to get larger cookies, and baked them slightly longer.

Place 1 inch apart on greased cookie sheets. Feel free to lightly baste with additional chicken stock if desired, or sprinkle a little parmesan cheese on top before baking for variation.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 35 minutes or until golden brown.

Cool completely.

Store loosely covered. If they start to get moist, leave them uncovered so they get crispy.

Makes 3 1/2 dozen large dog biscuits or 8 dozen small dog biscuits.

*If you don't have bacon grease, use a total of 1/3 cup butter.

peep!

the obsession continues. i need to go to the craft or hardware store maybe and get some stuff that i can preserve these little babies with. i ate one blue bunny that had weirdo crooked eyes but only after photographing him and i sort of wish i had kept him around. i really like these guys on the lime background. yay! peewee is chirping [peeping?] happily to some world music style stuff they are playing on college radio. he is very cultured.

speaking of Peeps...

I did a little Peep photo shoot today and made some new Easter greeting cards!

I thought they would make a great new addition to my etsy shop, so I added a few tonight and will add the rest over the next day or so. Peeps are so adorable and colorful and I just couldn't resist buying a few packages. I don't even want to eat them, I just want to shellac them or something and put them in display cases. I am silly!

Marshmallow Peeps Lollipops

Marshmallow Peeps Lollipops
Originally uploaded by robothand

I have yet to see these in real life, but seeing them in someone's flickr stream made me gasp. i dont necessarily like to eat peeps but i do have a fascination with them and think theyre super cute. peeps pops, though, are kind of a weird concept. waste of plastic what?

good morning!

the sun is shining [just barely, but it's trying!] and my car is free of the 3-4 foot snow wall that was surrounding it for most of the weekend. peewee is chirping happily, and i am drinking jasmine tea and looking forward to a productive week. expect some bean bag banana photos soon!

random thoughts at midnight

it was weird seeing amy adams hosting SNL and being all famous and shiz now. i remember meeting her when i worked for XFX and she was doing an episode of smallville which required her to get all made up and into a fat suit. she was still blonde when she arrived at our special effects shop in burbank with her yoga mat in tow. hm. weird.

heidi and the snow

I'm obviously not leaving the house today... the car is trapped, and the visibility is pretty terrible. On the plus side, the snow is sparkly and pretty to look at from the warm living room I am now sitting in, drinking apricot tea.

I also put up a new listing in the ol' etsy shop :
The Rainbow Sprinkles Playset. Yay!

another snowy weekend

yet another blizzard is upon us today in northeast ohio, so i decided to make some belly warming pasta. i pretty much improvised the recipe, because it seemed easy enough to just wing it.

i had some morning star farms starter tofu crumbles in the freezer, so i put some olive oil in a pan and cooked a few pieces of onion and some garlic in it until they were nice and aromatic. i added the tofu crumbles, and "browned" it, even though it was already brown. so i guess i should say that i heated it up, and then added the leftover tomato basil marinara i had. meanwhile, i was also boiling the penne, and sliced some fresh mozarella balls that i had in the fridge in a little tub with olive oil and herbs. once my pasta was ready, i layered some sauce, then some grated parmesan, then some frozen spinach, then some pasta, then some more sauce, and the mozarella halves on top. i used my special little green dish that holds enough for 2-3 people. some of the cheese bubbled over the side. it took about twenty-five minutes or so in a 350 degree oven, and came out really well.

ice storm!

hello!

it is time for a quick update.

i made some smallish brightly colored cards that are roughly the size of moo cards, but obviously much simpler.

i love the colors and wanted something besides my moos to hand out and attach to things. i think these will work quite nicely for now.

i took heidi out for our evening walk a little while ago, and the trees were all covered with ice! the sidewalks were thick and frozen over with snow that would crunch and sink if you stomped really hard or jumped just so. it was a very interesting texture and i snapped some photos of the ice trees because they looked so pretty.

i tried taking some video of the interesting crunching noises the branches made when the wind blew, but all i could hear on the audio was the strong wind against the microphone and a man whistling in the background.