April 30, 2011
Silk Dyed Eggs
I found this tutorial for silk dying eggs two years ago, and have wanted to try it ever since. Last year Easter passed me by, but this year I was determined to have a go at it.
We went to a nearby Goodwill store and picked up five silk ties for $0.95 each, adding to the three of my dad’s that I’d snagged years ago. Instead of dying hard boiled eggs, I wanted to try blown eggs. It seemed like such a waste to do all the work and end up just throwing them out, especially since you wouldn’t even be able to eat them! I blew the first egg without any assistive air-pushing apparatus, and I completely wore out all of my cheek muscles. If I had to do them all this way the project was getting canned, but I managed to find my balloon blower (a little squeezy bulb with a pointy end that only lets air pass through one way) and that worked much better. The next day Jason totally 1-upped me with this genius idea.
With eight eggs hollowed out and eight disassembled ties, we were in business! The only failure was due to one tie which, while having claimed to be silk, was actually polyester. Check out the seven successes below! :)
Check out the full gallery for more photos!
Many thanks to Jason for his lovely photography, Our Best Bites for their awesome tutorial, and also my dad for wearing out some fun ties! :)
Arts & Crafts
easter
egg dying
eggs
kitchen crafts
silk
March 14, 2011
On Giving.
It’s mid March: the time of year when people start asking me what I’d like for my birthday. My go-to answer has typically been that I have enough ‘stuff,’ and what I really need is to somehow end up with less of it. After sharing an empathetic laugh, eventually I’ll come up some ideas for them.
This time around the sun my thoughts on the subject have refined somewhat. With all of the natural disasters in the last few months, particularly the ones in Japan last week, I’ve been feeling much more in tune with how many people there are in the world who legitimately do need things.
Instead of any gifts this year for my birthday, here is what would really mean the most to me: I would like any money that would have been spent on something for me to instead be donated to a relief effort to help people out who really do need aid right now.
Some organizations accepting donations to aid people in need are:
Today I saw a video and some satellite photographs of the destruction in Japan due to the recent earthquake and tsunami. While I knew that the devastation was bad, I had no idea just how vastly I’d underestimated it. Even if you have no idea who I am and just happened to wander onto my blog, I encourage you to contribute what you can to help these people out.
aid
birthdays
disaster relief
gifts
japan
Uncategorized
March 7, 2011
Embroidery Trial #1
After getting my new sewing machine and while going through my to-do list of projects, I remembered one that I’ve had fabric in a box for… for maybe 6 to 8 years. Eek! It’s been on hold for so long as it requires creating my own pattern, and I haven’t entirely designed said pattern yet. Excited to finally get working on it, I started thinking about the design, and suddenly had an epiphany that some small embroidery motifs would really give it that extra bit of awesome. One small problem- I didn’t know the first thing about embroidery!
I browsed around on Amazon, and ended up picking out two books:
When the books arrived, I pulled out my old embroidery thread stash (left over from masses of elementary school friendship bracelets) and some scrappy muslin, and concocted a color scheme to do a practice piece with. The “Long and Short Stitch” book is great. It has clear and easy to follow illustrations for stitches and techniques, photographs showing examples, four simple practice motifs to get you started, and beautiful patterns using all the techniques that the book teaches.
My little practice flower ended up much prettier than anticipated, so I added some script, finished off the back and edges, and am sending it over to my grandparents as a gift! :)
I’m sure those of you who know me realize how appropriate it is that buying a fancy new sewing machine would instigate me into learning hand stitching. My cats obviously got their short attention spans from me.
Arts & Crafts
crafting tangents
embroidery
sewing
so easily distracted
February 13, 2011
Chicken Mitts
In July of ’09, we rented Coraline from Netflix, and it was definitely a fun movie. When we first met Coraline’s “Other Mother,” aside her creepy button-eyes, the thing that stuck out to us the most was the pair of funny/cute chicken oven mitts she had in her kitchen. Jason thought they were great, and the gears in my head instantly started turning: I could make those!
I decided these would be an awesome home-made Christmas present, and I would sneak over to my Mom’s place to mooch her sewing machine and work on them now and then. Nearing my December deadline, I realized that if I hurried up a ton I could probably finish them in time, but in doing so I would be forced to sacrifice some major quality — something I couldn’t bring myself to resort to. Christmas came and went, and the chicken-mitts sat in limbo for much longer than they should have. But last November, when I finally got my own sewing machine, the project was able to resurface! I just finished the tail end of them this morning and they’re all ready to go. Merry Christmas 2009 Jason! Sorry they’re so super late!! :)
Arts & Crafts
coraline
sewing
January 3, 2011
Hello 2011!
I’ve never been a big ‘New Year’s Resolution’ participant, but last year I did have a goal which I achieved successfully, so I figured I’d have another go with some other things this time around. :)
My 2010 resolution was to overcome my intimidation of putting on and wearing makeup (don’t laugh!), but this year I’ve got several things I’ll be working on…
- No more skipping meals and keep my weight stable at where it is right now.
- Be able to go down and back up all 15 flights of stairs in our building without getting tired. This needs to happen bare minimum by November, but ideally much sooner!
- Finish scanning the documents in my filing box, and keep up to date with all incoming documents.
- Get the piles of stuff on my side of the bed cleaned up and keep it that way.
- Have at least two things in my Storenvy store.
- Have at least one app in the webOS app catalog.
I’ll have to work on my self discipline, but it’s definitely all doable! Wish me luck!
What are your goals for 2011?
goals
Random Tangents
December 14, 2010
Farewell but not Goodbye
I’ve been getting ready for this for practically a year, it’s what I wanted to do and made the most logical sense, but it was still difficult when it came right down to it. Last Saturday, I sold my MINI.
Initially, the motivation to sell one of the cars was that we only had one parking space. We can use the light rail to get to work and a lot of our shopping is within walking distance, so we probably didn’t need two cars except for the occasional day we head out of San Jose in different directions. At some point, after we got used to the idea of selling one of the cars, this idea morphed into swapping one for a new 2011 Clubman. I’m not entirely sure how this happened now that I think back on it, but it probably had something to do with how neat MINI Connected sounded, and what suckers we are for new gadgets and toys. It also made sense to have one car be a little longer as there have been a few — not many, but a few — times that something we needed to transport didn’t fit in the boot of either Cooper. My ’07 was younger, had fewer modifications, and had an abnormally low odometer reading, so it made sense to be the one up for sale. I loved my little Cooper, and it broke my heart to think of him sitting on the lot at a dealer, so I was thrilled when I found out that a close family friend was interested in being the buyer. Not only would he go to a good and loving home, but I’d even still get to see him now and then!
Last week was a little tough. I got really reminiscent and kept thinking of fun and significant moments: when Jason and I went over to the dealer together to pick him up, parallel parking in the driveway entrance to dodge the street sweeper, hitting the end of the break-in period, the neighbors looking at me like I’m a loon as I washed him in the rain, and lots of others. My MINI was the only one to ever hear me ‘sing like no one was listening,’ and is also the only car I’ve ever driven that made me want to sing for no reason beyond how much fun I was having.
Giving him up felt a lot like I was moving somewhere far away and had to give up a pet for adoption. It felt like there was an endless amount of things I had to remember to tell his new owner, some legitimately important, and others maybe not so much. Instead of “he loves to be scratched behind the ears and this is his favorite toy,” it was “his favorite gas is Chevron Supreme, and he loves to listen to Imogen Heap’s instrumental version of Tidal while motoring down long stretches of freeway at 90 mph.” It wasn’t all sad though. MINI’s new mom was so excited to be a MINI owner it reminded me a lot of when I first got him. She was grinning ear to ear from test driving to paperwork to getting handed the keys. It’s hard to be sad when you know you’re making someone else so happy. :)
MINI
