button it up at Maker Faire!
May 28, 2009 at 2:34 pm | In books and mags, button it up, california, crafty events, free crafty | 2 CommentsWell, the good news is that Button It Up will be at Maker Faire this weekend! Yay!
Somewhat more of a bummer is that I won’t be there myself. I was so excited to go, and then instead of the family vacation we’d planned, things downgraded to me wrangling a lively toddler solo while flying, button-ing, and Maker Faire-ing. So I had to regretfully cancel my own plans, but lucky for me, my lovely friend (and bona fide button hairclip expert and book contributor) Diane Gilleland offered to teach my demo! So I brought over a box of buttons and a bunch of other sparkly bits
and I know it will be awesome!
I am so grateful that she is going to lead the crafty half-hour of power — and that CRAFT: will be selling copies of my book in the Maker Shed. I really appreciate the support for my book and my crafts — thank you to Diane and everyone at Maker Faire, especially Natalie, Rachel, and Dan, for making it happen with me a whole state away!
All the details for the Buttoning It Up demo are here, and it is in the Craft Demo area from 4-4:30 on Sunday afternoon. If you’re at the Faire, I hope you’ll stop by and make yourself something pretty!
I can’t believe how many amazing demos are going on , and I would love to see what you make if you stop by any of them! I’ll be glued to the CRAFT: blog and flickr to see some peeks at the awesomeness.
Diane will be teaching this cool little Maker Notebook project at the Provo Craft booth. Stop by and make a whole bunch of good things with her, Michaela, Jennifer and Jeff.
Cathy Callahan will be teaching Vintage-Inspired Paper-Mache — so cool.
I would love to know a few of Kathy Cano Murillo’s Secret Tips for Using Craft Supplies!
and I’m sure Michaela Murphy’s Kids Crafts: Story-Telling will be amazing too.
And in the world of needle arts (a personal favorite of mine), there are so many incredible workshops: Rachel Hobson’s Embroidery 101, Bonnie Burton’s Star Wars Sock Puppets, Craft Leftovers’ Mending 101, and Moxie’s Plush Monsters. Wow!
Okay, I’m already getting excited for Maker Faire 2010!
veggie burgers
May 27, 2009 at 8:02 pm | In I love to make things..., chatty, crafting with kids | 16 CommentsI love veggie burgers — and after a few too many gardenburgers at restaurants with no other vegetarian options, a good homemade one* is amazing.
So when I joined another play food swap I immediately thought of making some felt veggie burgers (since Pearl is also a fan), and after a brief and unproductive flirtation with the idea of tempeh tacos, it was on to the burger pattern-making, cutting and stitching!
I started with a tiny version of each piece (bread x 2, swiss cheese, burger, and lettuce) so I could get the proportions right and try out a few stitching and cutting ideas. Once I liked them (I really love the tiny ones),
I made my real patterns and watched basketball while I cut out 56 (I think?) felt pieces.
A quick trip upstairs to the sewing machine, a baby break, and a last round of lettuce leaves later,
I had all seven burgers finished — one for Pearl to keep, and six to swap!
I didn’t have any sandwich bags, so some pink ribbon had to do instead. (I used red ribbon for my fortune cookies a few months ago, come to think of it.)
So they’re packed up and ready to take to the post office, and I think I might try a side of sweet potato fries next. And I’ll definitely post photos when I get the rest of the play food — the sneak peeks I’ve seen look awesome!
(here’s what I got last time, in a bigger swap)
*My favorites are the one at Detour, the seasonal one at the New Seasons deli (which I had for dinner tonight) and the Chez Gourmet pecan flavor, but I really miss the Monster Burger from the long-gone Daily Grind. Anyone who used to work there want to share the recipe with a fan? Or do you have a favorite to share?
memorial day weekend (inspired by Sunset)
May 26, 2009 at 12:14 pm | In california, chatty, cooking is crafty too, oregon | 6 CommentsThis weekend was just amazing. I can’t remember the last time Andrew and I both had three days off in a row (it definitely wasn’t in 2009) and I got to do a lot of my favorite things — gardening, vintage-dress-wearing, barbecuing, visiting the farmer’s market, going out to lunch, taking a long walk, and playing with Pearl. And on Sunday, the three of us headed out to Silver Falls State Park and went for a beautiful hike, right around the curve that takes you behind the South Falls.
We also got some unexpected inspiration for a last-minute Monday-afternoon baby-playdate-cocktail-party-barbecue with some friends in the neighborhood, which turned out to be awesome. Sunset is my favorite magazine, and I’m always happy to see the colorful new copy in my mailbox (and maybe try a new recipe, or file away another place I want to visit — this time, it was grilled corn and bay shrimp risotto, and Boise, Idaho, where Andrew and I went about nine years ago and haven’t been since).
But the timing has never been better than the June issue showing up just before the long weekend. Aside from falling madly in love with the cover (and putting “find some wooden chairs and paint them an awesome color” at the top of my backyard to-do list), I loved the luau feature, which updated a 1965 Sunset piece on the same topic with some very cool modern ideas and recipes.
We spotted a recipe for pineapple drops in the mix,
and wow, those are good.
We made them along with dark and stormys (my all-time favorite cocktail)
with a few different ginger beers to try on the drinks table.
Neither of the cocktails are supposed to have mint, but it’s so green and fresh in my herb garden right now that I couldn’t resist.
I made the shishkebobs and Andrew did all the grilling.
Our friends Mark and Mary brought quinoa salad
and amazing homemade strawberry shortcake
and Andrew found another Sunset treasure, an asparagus summer salad recipe, and made that too.
My plate was gorgeous.
I only wish I’d gotten a picture of the shortcake stacked up — it was beautiful, but with babies to wrangle, I just couldn’t pull off that one last photo before it was all gone.
There are a lot of other cool things in this issue (those fuschia chairs in that gorgeous backyard are my personal favorite), but super exciting to me is that Sunset used one of my photos for their California Road Trips insert!
They saw this picture I took at the Rose Bowl flea market a couple of summers ago in my flickr,
contacted me about using it, and here it is!
I was so excited to see it on the page. I love the Rose Bowl, and it’s such a treat to be part of their travel guide (which I really hope I’ll be using myself one of these summer months). Thank you, Sunset!
busting out your buttons with Jennifer Perkins!
May 21, 2009 at 1:29 pm | In button it up, chatty, house crafty | Leave a CommentI wanted to mention over here that the lovely and talented Jennifer Perkins has posted a book review and giveaway for Button It Up, plus an interview she did with me about button shopping, button-stash organizing, crafting with a Pearl in tow, and some of my favorite recent projects.
You can enter to win a copy of the book by next Tuesday right here… thanks so much, Jennifer!
The other big news around here is that we’ve already started eating greens out of the garden! I wish I had some good photos to show, but we always eat dinner so late that the light is scarce and nothing looks that great. Maybe this weekend I can make something cool during the day. My five-year-old self would be shocked that I am voluntarily eating (and growing!) collard greens, after the much-hated three bites I always had to have at holiday dinners, but they are so good. I really didn’t like collards at all until I was 24 years old, I still remember the amazing dinner that converted me.
Also exciting (to me at least) is that I joined Ravelry and found some button groups to hang out in! I have exactly two finished objects to my name (which is susanstars, if anyone wants to be crafty buddies over there) and maybe three more I haven’t taken photos of. Yes, I’ve been knitting for nine years, why do you ask?
four things I’m loving lately
May 20, 2009 at 12:42 pm | In chatty, oregon | 3 Comments
2. the Powell’s happy hour deal
3. hanging out in our backyard
4. and the year of t-shirts from the Sewer and the Sewist!
two things that don’t have much to do with each other
May 18, 2009 at 12:07 pm | In I love to make things..., chatty, house crafty, recycled crafty, vintage crafty | 2 Comments…except that I like both of them, I guess.
Our garden is kind of freaking out, in the best way. The combination of nice steady south-side sun, decent rain now and then, and some plain good luck has turned our formerly teeny snap peas, Red Russian kale and collard greens into giants! I took this photo on Friday right after I put in the tomatoes and peppers (at the back), exactly four weeks after I planted these little guys.
Day 1:
Day 28:
kale:
collards:
Yay! We’re really happy about it. I’ve had a gray thumb (that’s a charitable description, actually) for years and it’s really fun to see the garden come along after last year’s in the back yard didn’t really like us much (probably something to do with the late planting, unexpectedly crappy soil, over-shadiness, and total amateur approach in general). We’re going to pick some greens for the first time today!
On a totally different front, I just did a jewelry project for CraftStylish that I wanted to share over here.
I haven’t had time to make much jewelry lately (nor wear any, with my quick-grabbing toddler on the case) so this was fun — I took apart an old necklace I never wore and turned it into a necklace and earrings set.
Maybe I’ll wear it while we’re eating our fresh greens…
p.s. thanks for the nice comments and emails, I am going to whip up some teeny terrarium kits and offer them up later this week!
a little fabric shopping
May 15, 2009 at 1:09 pm | In california, crafty to buy, vintage crafty | 1 CommentWhen I saw a peek at this in Jenny’s flickr, I couldn’t resist zipping over to Home Ec to do a little fabric shopping… what an awesome idea!
You can find your own set of 10 vintage-sheet fat quarters right here. No two packs are exactly alike, and I can assure you that Jenny has the cutest prints ever in her collection! Just look at the super-sweet projects she’s made with them for Sew Darn Cute.
Home Ec also has lovely new fabric (Liberty and beyond), kits and patterns, and books extraordinaire. I just can’t wait to get to Los Angeles and see the new ReForm School in person…
Oh, and the classes are completely rad too.
more terrariums
May 13, 2009 at 11:47 am | In I love to make things..., chatty, crafting with kids | 7 CommentsOne of the things I didn’t get a picture of was all twenty of my finished party-favor terrariums together before they went to their new homes (darn!), but thanks to Caitlin, here are two of them living in harmony together.
I found the little bunnies and dinosaurs at the Decorette Shop, rounded up some moss from my neighbor’s yard, got my buddies to save empty baby-food jars for a few weeks, showed my ID and signed all sorts of forms in triplicate to buy a can of spray paint, and spotlighted some of my favorite vintage pearl buttons from the Kitten as a little topper for each one.
I love how they turned out! This is an easy and fun little project that you could add your own favorite elements to, and it would be perfect to do with older kids (ie, not Pearl). If you’d like to make some of your own, I wrote a tutorial here which is based on Jenny Ryan’s excellent Mason Jar Terrarium tutorial for CRAFT:.
Speaking of making them, I have some of everything left over and I’m thinking of offering up some kits as prizes to my blog readers. Would anyone out there be interested in a build-your-own-terrarium set? If it seems like fun, I’ll write up a post in the next day or two with a chance to win some pearl-button terrarium kits!
cupcakes and cookbooks
May 11, 2009 at 2:42 pm | In chatty, cooking is crafty too, crafting with kids, holidays | 3 CommentsPearl’s birthday party was so much fun! I finished all my craft projects in time (even with a very cool surprise side trip to Astoria in the mix Friday night), our dear friends came over to celebrate with us on a sunny Saturday afternoon, and she loved it all. Well, she didn’t like the cupcake icing so much, but I didn’t take it personally, she is more of a savory type and she did enjoy waving the carrot cupcake pieces in the air. Regardless, they were cute!
More on all that later…
Speaking of cupcakes, I made our family a gift for Mother’s Day this month: a family cookbook with all of our favorite recipes collected into one place.
I used an awesome blank book by Ex Libris Anonymous, found at the wonderful Q is for Choir, and I’ve been filling it with my most treasured recipes — plus lots of notes and pictures and additions in the sidelines.
The button it up chocolate cupcakes and shortbread cookies had to go in, of course!
The how-to, which is super simple, is here on CraftStylish. Next, I’ll be adding our Mother’s Day French toast and Pearl’s first birthday carrot cupcakes recipes (and of course mentioning that the cream-cheese icing could go easier on the sugar next time!).
p.s. if you are in the mood to talk buttons, I wrote up our visit to the fabulous Oregon State Button Society show over at my book site today.
pearl (button) crafting
May 8, 2009 at 1:40 pm | In I love to make things..., button it up, chatty, crafting with kids, holidays | 3 Comments
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