Archive for the ‘Stuff I Make’ Category

Yay! I had some time to get crafty, so I wanted to share it with you in the form of a tutorial! :D

The hectic holidays are over, so I had a little time to dust off Winifred (my trusty sewing machine) and get to work on a few projects. One of them was this super easy patchwork infinity (or circle) scarf that I’ve been wanting to make.

It just so happened that I had three scraps of fabric the perfect size for this (not that there’s any size requirements, this one is so easy, you can pretty much make it up as you go), and WHAT??!! They matched? DANG. Triple win!

This is a great project for using up a lot of tiny scraps too, if you have more time/patience on your hands. Wouldn’t it be fun with a bunch of tiny squares of fabric of equal size that were all different (or you could even go with alternating squares or rectangles or two different types for a striped effect)? Or you can definitely go neutral or vibrant with a solid color, too. See! The possibilities are endless…

Here’s what you need:

• sewing machine
• scissors or rolling cutter blade thingy and a cutting mat (i’m good at technical terms, can you tell?)
• ruler or other length/width measuring device
• thread
• hand-sewing needle
• iron and ironing board
• pins
• fabric scraps/strips/yardage depending on the look you’re going for

Once you’ve got all that it’s simple! I made my scarf kinda skinny (because the width of my scraps limited me a bit), so I made sure to make it extra long so that it could still look full when I twist it around to wear it. Once I cut them all to the same width, this is what my pieces measured:

1. 45 inches by 13 inches
2. 31 inches by 13 inches
3. 49.5 inches by 13 inches

Hope your holidays were grand and you had some time to relax! I know I was happy to take a deep breath and sleep a lot! If you make one (or many!) of these (because they’re so addicting, I want to use up all of my scraps this way now!), let me know in the comments! I’d love to see them!

Sleep tight, lovies! It’s early (read: late? you can tell by my overuse of exclamation points and parenthetical comments…), so I’m off to bed!

hey guys!

had these little babies sitting out on my desk last week, drying, and i couldn’t just let them sit without taking a photo, so i thought i’d share a bit of the behind the scenes with you.

all of these are in their loving new homes by now, but i just got around to getting them up here too. :)

have quite a few new things to list this weekend/early next week as well, if i can finish them all, so i’ll probably send the updates in the april newsletter by the end of next week at the latest (have you signed up yet?) :D

hope you’re having a good week!

just dropping by quick to let you know that i’m still here, and i still love you, but i will be a bit sporadic this week. i’m busy busy busy busy working on something that i will be able to tell you next week, but for now it’s lots of preparing, fine-tuning, assembling, designing, and lots of crazed late nights doing everything i possibly can to keep myself on track and convince myself i’m ready for it! :D

i bought myself a white board to hang in the studio, with nice bright markers and a big school-sized eraser (i thought about posting a pic of it hanging on the wall here, but it’s full of all the things i need to do right now, and i can’t show you that quite yet because it’ll give away my big surprise!) it’s really helped me visualize the things i need to accomplish, and gives me more motivation now that i have something physical to erase when it’s been completed. though at this rate, every time i cross something off, it’s just made room for more, so the board’s going to stay pretty full for a while i’m afraid… lol.

this got me thinking, what do you do to keep yourself on track? how do you organize your thoughts when you know you have a lot to get done? i’m telling you, this white board is keeping me sane right now, and i’m not afraid to say it!

so anyway, sorry to keep you waiting! i miss you, and i promise i’ll be back to normal soon! :D

been working feverishly this week on some brand new pieces!

getting pretty excited about the amount of new jewelry ideas coming out of my head lately, and i wanted to share a quick sneak peek of the beautiful cameos i’ve been putting together the last few days. so addicted to these gorgeous things. get ready to see lots more of them in the shop soon!

we ran some errands today and picked up our life jackets so we can kayak this summer! i also bought a pair of jeans, that i can’t tell you how excited i am about (but that’s a post for another day). basically i’m excited that i found a pair that fit. jean shopping is probably my least favorite thing in the world to do, and i seem to always require new jeans…. UGH. anyway, i have jeans now! my first pair in over 6 months. YAY. (been wearing nothing but dresses and tights since Oct. 12, 2010. it started out as a challenge to see how long i could go without wearing jeans and then it turned into having to wear only dresses and tights because none of my jeans fit anymore. :’( but now we’re good. i got some new tops to go with my new jeans and i am one happy girl!)

so, it’s been a productive week so far, and i’m hoping that motivation continues through the weekend, since R and i don’t have to go anywhere tomorrow…the plan is to sit at home and make these delicious things again, and get stuff done! :D

what are your plans this weekend?

it’s R’s bday today, so i wanted to make him something super special to celebrate.

when i found a recipe for chocolate coconut ganache cupcakes this summer, i bookmarked it but didn’t really think i’d actually make them for a while (i hate coconut, but it’s probably R’s favorite thing in the world besides me ;D), but i knew if i didn’t save the recipe i’d be looking for it again later.

so with his BIG THREE-OH upon us, i decided that this was the perfect occasion to make said cupcakes.

…and they turned out AMAZING (according solely to R, who may be slightly biased. i really can’t tell you what they taste like, because i wouldn’t eat one if you paid me).

anyway, with this much fuss over them, i figured i’d share the recipe because they’re actually pretty easy to make. and they look incredibly fancy so they’re great to impress guests too. ;)

CHOCOLATE COCONUT GANACHE CUPCAKES

Ingredients:

-chocolate fudge cake mix (yes, i used box cake mix cause i’m lazy)
-1 bag mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
-1 cup sweetened condensed milk
-2 cups shredded coconut
-1/2 cup powdered sugar
-1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Cupcake Directions:

Preheat oven according to cake mix directions. Prepare cake mix per box instructions. Add half of the bag of mini chocolate chips (trust me, these are entirely necessary) to the cake mix, and stir to evenly distribute.

Spoon batter into lined cupcake pan, making the cups about 2/3 full each. Bake according to box.

While cupcakes are baking, prepare filling (you can’t tell from the photos, but the coconut is inside the cupcakes as well as on top!).

Filling Directions:

In medium bowl, mix coconut and powdered sugar. Warm the sweetened condensed milk slightly and pour over coconut/powdered sugar mixture.

After cupcakes are out of the oven, cut an X on the top of each one. Fill piping bag (or Ziploc bag with one of the bottom corners snipped off) with half of the filling mixture. Squirt filling into the X of each cupcake. Frost cupcakes with remaining half of the filling mixture. Prepare ganache.

Ganache Directions:

Using a double boiler, or a smaller pot nested in a larger one that’s full of boiling water like I used, heat heavy whipping cream and 3/4 cup mini chocolate chips, stirring constantly until chips are melted and ganache is smooth. A wisk works best for this.

Dip the top of each cupcake into the ganache and set aside. Once each cupcake has been dipped once, go back and dip each one a second time. Next, get a spoon and scoop remaining ganache directly into your mouth. Try not to make yourself sick! ;D

Let ganache cool (or not if you’re impatient) and serve (probably on a plate, with a fork).

Makes 24 cupcakes.

adapted from this recipe.

if you try these, let me know how they turned out! i’d love to hear your results, i’m sure they will not disappoint! :D