West Coast Crafty

Nancy Flynn of belleepoque just announced a very generous giveaway: she’s made a new version of her Beachy Duo Earrings from Bead Simple and is offering them up to one of her readers to celebrate the book’s release on Tuesday! Just stop by her lovely blog and leave a comment on the post and you’re automatically entered to win them — she will draw a winner on the 25th. I love the original earrings she designed, but the new ones are just gorgeous — and so spring-y, too…

Thanks so much, Nancy! I can’t wait to see who wins next week.

p.s. If you make something inspired by the book, I’d love it if you’d add a photo of your project to the Bead Simple flickr pool! Seeing what everyone makes is definitely the most exciting part of the whole thing. Six more days… I’m so excited!

While I was out and about in New York this week, I spotted some beautiful neon sewing machine signs, so of course I had to take a bunch of pictures. Here are four of my favorites:

I wasn’t really shopping for fabric this trip, mostly buttons and jewelry supplies, so it was nice to get a little sewing fix via my camera at least. I miss my sewing machine back in Los Angeles so much! I can’t wait to work on my coin quilt next month — I’ve already cut out all the pieces, so now I’m looking forward to the fun part: piecing it and seeing all 77 of the patterns together. I’ve been saving scraps from all my projects since I started sewing six years ago, and of course I had to mix in some of the new Denyse Schmidt prints too…

It’s my first quilt so I’m a little nervous I’ll screw it up somehow, but I’m really excited. Hopefully I’ll have lots of pictures in January — that would be a nice birthday present to myself!

I celebrate Day of the Dead every year, but today was really amazing — I spent most of the day on Olvera Street here in Los Angeles, looking at beautiful shrines and colorful Dia de los Muertos trinkets of all kinds, and took lots of pictures. I put them all in a flickr set here, but one of my favorites is this one…

I came home so excited to make my own altar after seeing so many incredible things, and choosing a few new pieces to add to my own mementos. I built my altar on my work table in what seemed like no time at all, and dedicated it mostly to my dad this year. I added my two favorite pictures of him from way long ago:

This is just a little peek at my shrine — the whole thing is about three times as big — but I really love that center part of the altar. I have more pictures of everything here if you’d like to see them!

I’ve just started writing for the Adorn magazine blog too, and my first post (earlier this week) was also on how to make your own Day of the Dead shrines — with links to craft projects to make, traditional food and drink recipes, folk art, photos, and all kinds of inspiring ideas. I’d love to hear what you think!

And last, in the spirit of recognizing the sweetness of life mingled with the sadness of losing someone you treasure, I made up a new Mexican-style hot chocolate with a spicy heat that has been my treat of choice this week. If you’d like to try it, here’s the basic recipe:

1-1/2 cups of milk or soymilk
3 heaping spoonfuls of sweetened cocoa powder (I used Ghiradelli)
a generous shake of chipotle powder
a generous shake of cinnamon

Warm the milk in a pan and stir the cocoa powder into it until it’s dissolved nicely. As the cocoa heats, lightly sprinkle chipotle and cinnamon into it and keep stirring, tasting it as you go to so it’s just spicy enough for you (I like it strong but I know everyone doesn’t!). Take it off the heat when it’s steaming and pour it into your favorite cup.

You can also mix it half-and-half with black coffee to make a delicious mocha-cafe con leche drink with a spiky, spicy heat underneath.

p.s. I’ll be posting my usual first-of-the-month getcrafty column tomorrow instead of today — a review of five amazing new craft books! Stay tuned.