Project Pillows

I finally put the money into investing into a sewing machine. I didn’t put much research into it, I knew I wanted it inexpensive and nothing to complicated. I bought a basic Singer at Target for $89.95. Since they only had 4  Singers,  it made by decision much easier (and the Martha Stewart seal of approval on the box helped by decision too =D).

I bought a few yards of fabric at Nancy’s Sewing Basket in Queen Anne. It was a really good fabric store, with a variety of things and good quality fabrics. I thought of it as a much smaller Britex. Did I mention they have a ribbon room. A WHOLE ROOM OF RIBBONS. I will definietly have to make it back there some time. I then went to JoAnn’s  to get some nice button closures as well as all the solid colored fabrics that I would need to use for the backs of the pillows

These three pillow covers were my secret Santa gift. I did go over the $20 budget slightly – but I could  not think of anything better to make for her. This was my first project on a sewing machine -  Project pillowcase was a success! I even made button holes!

A Singer and it’s soundtrack

While at Goodwill this past weekend I stumbled upon an amazing beautiful Singer sewing machine. I didn’t go there to buy a sewing machine, but it just look so amazing I had to get it. It’s all metal, with a wood base, wood cover case, and gold painted floral design. And did I mention it’s made in Great Britiain!!!!  However, what I thought was only a missing bobbin which could easily be replaced- turned out to be $300 something of repairs, as I guess there were very interal parts missing said the sewing machine repairman. So now my dreams of crafting and sewing on a very cool antique machine – I can only just polish it and dust to add to my collection of cool things to display that just collect dust. I still love it though.

To add to my collection of Goodwill finds – I also left with 4 mint record albums in mint condition. I bought, John Denver’s “Windsong”, Barbara Streisand’s Greatest Hits v. 2 (it has “The Way We Were” and “You Don’t Buy Me Flowers!!), Peter, Paul and Mary’s “In the Wind” and Crosby, Nash and Still’s “Deja Vu.”  It was going to be the soundtrack for me to listen to as I sewed on my vintage/antique sewing machine. But I guess they will hold as the soundtrack for me as I do nothing.

feather and fun

After many months of drooling over gorgeous hair pieces I can’t afford – I decided to make my own. I made this with a bag of white feathers, a gold leaf designed button, and navy blue tulle all bought a Joann’s. They must know me as the Tulle lady – cause I also bought 18 yards of tulle to make my Halloween costume (loofah, loofah) this year.

It wasn’t terribly hard to make at all. Just bunch up the tulle in some circular pattern almost rose like pattern (seriously…think like a loofah) and sew all the “petals” together in the middle so that it keeps it’s form. I sewed the button also right in the middle so that the tulle would puff out, and the center would lay flat. I sewed the hair clip onto the back of piece of twill and used a hot glue gun to glue the feathers on to the opposite side of the twill.

Hopefully there’s more crafts to come, as I also bought about 1 yard of bright grosgrain ribbon in a bunch of colors, same tan suede trimmings as well, and will return to Joann’s sometime to buy some more tulle. In addition I bought a lot of felt, and hope ton finally cracked that Japanese crafts book I bought almost year ago on felt art.  I And hopefully I can expand my DIY accessories collection.

blast to the past — refreshing the present

After about a 1.5 year of not really using my laptop – about 6 months of that I thought it had died on me – I finally decided to give my laptop and it’s functions some love. So to begin with I started with Itunes. What better way to make it feel new and good again than to clear out, clean up and organize.

Five hours of reminiscing on old songs, deleting songs I can absolutely not listen to any more, and importing cds that I am too lazy to put into the cd changer in the car (it’s in the truck- not convenient) – I have to say it’s look pretty spiffy – and I seem to have matured quite a bit.  It no longer seems to look like it belongs to teeny bopper/emo/punk rock teenager (can you even be all things at one time?)  Anyways, it was nice to get nostalgic over certain songs, as I would turn to H and say “oOh I dance to this at prom” or “this would be my getting ready to hit the town song!” and more so along those lines). I even still had one of my favorite cds that I made, which to me detriment has succumbed to water damage. It was on repeat by accident for 8 hours at a friend’s bday party.  And for the first 4 months I got my car, it was the only cd I would play. It really was the best mix ever I thought – I might just have to remake it.

And thanks to wonders that is Iphone applications – Shazam let me finally know titles, artists and albums that have been listed as track whatever number ever since I got Itunes. And now I know that Paperboyz “Ditty” is spelled with 2 Ts and not Ds and the female cover of “Leaving on a Jet Plane” which for so long I thought was Bjork has now been resolved – it’s not Bjork.

As hard as it was for me to delete songs that made me nauseous, reminded me too much of the past that I wanted to forget and so on…i feel almost lighter that they are no longer there for me to stumble upon (although – I still couldn’t let go of my plethora BSB songs =P).  Next I guess would be to clean up my pictures…however, I think I’m much better at erasing hard evidence of my past – especially if it deals not so flattering pictures of myself – thanks digital cameras =D

the domestication of laulau

after 7 loads of laundry, 3 hours of cleaning the bedroom and reorganizing the closet, shredding about 2 months of old mail, a trip to target to buy more storage stuff and cleaning supplies, vacumming the upstairs and stairs, and another 30 minutes of tilexing and cleaning the bath room – i’m totally exhausted. And tomorow, there is still more cleaning to do!  Ooh how I miss the luxury of living at home with the parentals.

Cooking Moon and Harvest Mama

My recent obsession on the DS has been Harvest Moon or Cooking Mama. Two very different games but both equally as frustrating, and  both  kind of about food.

I started playing Harvest Moon during for H at Pax. Between him waiting in line to play the new Halo maps and connecting to random people to Mario Kart while laying on the giant sumo bags – I had about 6 hours to kill. 6 hours was enough of doing nothing on a semi sunny day – PAX is spent all in doors, and most of it is in the dark.  So I called it quits, saved the game and stopped playing. I picked up the game a few days later and found out that I didn’t save the game properly!! Does anyone understand how annoying that is? That’s almost 3 different fields cleared and tilled, 8 different crops planted, picked and shipped AND having to go through the entire 15 minute introduction that you can’t skip!

After this catastrophe, I decided to pick up a less frustrating game – Cooking Mama. “TERRIFIC EVEN BETTER THAN MAMA” is the comment you want to get. Does anyone also understand that this is not such an easy task. Virtually making pizza, corn chowder, mama cookies, grilled eel or peanut butter is a lot harder than you would think. My achilles heel on this game turned out to be t-bone steak. After what seemed to be hours and hours on end, I could only get the silver medal in T-bone steak. GOLD IS WHAT I WANT! GOLD IN T-BONE STEAK!!! Frustration and me almost breaking the touch pad I forgot which task – I also kept burning my hands unpeeling potatos, lead to H helping me out -but of course he’s a real chef – Cooking Mama shouldn’t have been a problem. And it wasn’t – after 1 try, t-bone steak SUCCESS! – the GOLD WAS WON!!!

Yays, I wins, but not really. I think I have about a zillion more hours to go before I actually get anywhere in Harvest Moon – apparently I’m suppose to be able to raise animals, get Roman married and train Stan to win competitions. And I also need to win the gold in t-bone steak all by myself!!! A rematch is in the works – I just need to practice more.

welcome home!!!

Herschell added some roommates to our household. Since we don’t agree on getting a dog and it’s not that easy to find a cat that thinks and acts like a dog – so we adopted these guys. Saved them directly straight from the sale pile at Macy’s. So please meet Worthog-Gribbet and Pepperoni. Can you guess who is who?

WG is on the left and Pepperoni is on the right. We picked them over who looks most like each us! Pepperoni is mine, and WG feels a little lonely when Herschell’s working late (I don’t give WG enough love…i guess).

WELCOME HOME KIDDIES!!!

it’s a cornfed life

A recent watching of the movie “King Corn” has brought me to realize again the food that I consume. I like to think that I am “organic” and “natural” foods eater – or I try as hard as I can to be. But honestly, it’s quite hard and not to mention expensive.

“King Corn” is about two guys who go to the great corn belt of Iowa, and learn to discover how the small and tiny kernel grew to be our greatest most substantial item in our diet. It’s hard to believe that Iowa is the greatest producers of corn, and none of it is for our direct consumption.  All the corn grown in Iowa is not even edible to us. It’s all grown for either the production of high fructose corn syrup or for feed stock. So if you think about, everything that we eat is CORN!! Everything consume is either corn feed or corn based. Our diet is a corn diet – which is a VERY unhealthy diet.

It’s hard, yet very easy to believe that something as simple as corn has grown and evolved to be something we depend on so much – and not even in it’s most purest form. After reading books as “The Botany of Desire” and “The Omnivores Dilemna” (both by Michael Pollan) one can only wonder, why we chose to eat what we eat, and how it came to be.  How has our culture and our consumption changed so that our dietary needs have grown from what we cannot even grow from our own hands?

I’m not really sure how I’m going to change my eating habits yet- more so than what I have already done, other becoming vegetarian. But, it’s certainly food for thought.

spam and alphabet pasta, the cure for everything

It’s day #2 of really bad hang over. 1 bacherlorette, 3 bottles of champagne pre-party, 4 patented “hallucinegenic” at dinner (they only allowed 1 per person), and 3 bars, and who knows how many drinks later, I found myself still drunk at a 8 am the next morning. Although it was probably one of the most fun nights i’ve had in seattle, I must say, it’s rough to be still recovering 2 days after.

But there’s one thing that makes me always, usually feel better, no matter the sickness – macaroni (shell shaped is the best), chicken broth and spam. It’s the BEST comfort food ever!!! Ok so this time i switched it up a bit a used alphabet pasta, but none the less it has the same feel, and maybe better. The nasuea is almost gone, as I lay on our terribly comfy couch for the past 48 hours.

i’m a lazy bones i must say =\

one with nature…uhh not so much

So an out of the ordinary “vacation” led me to Yosemite National Park in El Portal, CA.

I like to think of myself as the outdoor-sy type , you know one with nature. However, there comes a time, where one just has to admit that I just can’t be into everything – you know, exercising, nature, food, shopping, crafts, art, dancing, baseball etc. I mean, how much can a person say they like everything- from hip hop to country, to buffalo tartar and a good garden burger? But back to the point of this post – my innate fondness of hiking.

So half dome – a 8.3 mile hike one way just to the bottom of the big rock. Then about 980 feet of vertical climbing to to the top. Did we make? I would say almost but not really. We turned back about 2miles before the cables. Herschell says I would have gone the whole way if he wasn’t there, but I’m not sure, as fear was kicking into me just eating merely eating my very melted pb&j sandwich and looking up at the ant like chain of people on the dome.

So Herschell and I threw in the towel and we dragged our feet 6.5 miles back down. Shuttled our butt back to Curry Village, some what disappointed in ourselves that we didn’t train harder, and thought our 1 hike in Seattle would do us justice. However, we did what we could, and learned that no matter where we go, we do what we do best, chill out, relax, ask each other random out of context questions (such as…hey do you think in 20 years we’ll say beyonce is one of the greatest female singers of all times? or why is “i can has cheezeburger such an internet phenom?) and just have a good time. So after all our life long questions were answered but each other (yes i think boiled peanuts taste good, and yes my cousin of age 9 really did think that crab was spelled with a “K” because that’s how the imitation crab is spelled and that’s all he knew of)-we finally made it to the bottom, and what did we end up finidng?? A COCKTAIL LOUNGE. I must say it was the best pint of Blue Moon, hawaiian pizza and hot dog that I have ever had.

So would I do it again? Uhh…I don’t think so. The accomplishment you feel when hiking is great, but it’s the return that wears on my patience. The thing about hiking is that every step you take further is another  step you have to take back in return. As simple as it sounds, I didn’t think about the return trip. And it dawned on me about 6 miles into our hike to half dome, that I would have to walk the exact distance back.

I did have fun, and I met some great people, which is very rare, as I have come to realize that meeting new people and making friends is quite a hard thing to do at my old age of 24! (But that’s a post for another time). CONGRATS to those who did make it, it’s quite a feat.

Jade – next trip to should be relaxing at a beach …where we can find ham and pineapple spinning on a stick w/ melted cheese in the back streets of Mexico =D yays!