Made a friend

Next Iron Chef

Greg was just complaining that I never mention him here, so I'm devoting an entire post to the Wok Master himself and the amazing dinner he made for us Sunday night. He's a big asian foods kind of guy - can't get enough sushi, loves any kind of stir fry, dreams about dim sum, etc. so he picked out a healthy-ish sweet and sour stir fry recipe to try from my Cooking Light cookbook (love that thing!). The sauce may look a little strange, but I swear it was delicious. I swoon every time he offers to cook dinner for me but usually end up trying to direct him around the kitchen which he doesn't like (imagine that). So this time I kept my mouth shut and instead offered to be his kitchen assistant and make scallion pancakes from scratch to go with his meal. Perfect evening!

(So honey when do you feel like cooking next?)

SPT - Bruised eye

My bruised eye, courtesy of Bella. Lately she seems to be going through some separation anxiety with me even though she's almost four years old. When I come home from work she practically attacks me by jumping up (making her as tall as I am) trying to reach my face to give me kisses. While it's sweet and I love to feel loved, it's also dangerous! Last week she got me good right in the eye with her paw, but of course when I started crying she spent the next 5 minutes showering me with kisses and being so gentle. So her intentions are good at least.

SPT site here (with October's theme).

Oh deer!

Cute plant decorator spike I found today while shopping around 9th and Irving. We had lunch at the Canvas Gallery and bought handmade jewelry from a friend's friend who was in a crafts show there.

Sweet felt

Sweet felties inspired by my Japanese craft books - here for the elephant (I loved his shape and decided to try and make him into a 3-D stuffed guy), and here (I'll upload this link later) for the bird.

For a little size perspective. (With a sad felt christmas tree on the left waiting to be stuffed and sealed! And the start of my Halloween decorations - best holiday ever!)

SPT and a Heartbreaker

My Self Portrait Tuesday shot is here. SPT website where you can read about the group and see some amazing self portraits here.

So, last night I had some more fun with my new iron-on transfer computer paper and made these little rompers for a coworker of mine who's expecting. I'm seeing her tonight for dinner and I hope she'll get a laugh out of these. I figure she probably has more baby blue onesies with little puppy dogs or teddy bears on them than she knows what to do with, so it's high time for some slightly different baby attire.



Pretty cute I think. I'm guessing her favorite is going to be "My mom's a fox!".

Birthday gifts

I spent this weekend mostly down in San Jose celebrating a friend's birthday. Here were my homemade gifts to her:

A batch of her favorite cookies

Drawstring bag (my second using this pattern and it's so EASY I love it!)

Including two rabbits label!

First iron-on computer paper transfer experience - I was happy with the results and how simple it is to do, and the birthday girl was happy with her t-shirts!


Happy Birthday Amy - I had a great time (especially while swimming and kicking your ass at Pictionary) and it was wonderful to see you!

Pet to blog day

I think Friday is the pet blog day isn't it? I know this photo has been in my Flickr stream all week, but I couldn't resist sharing it here too. Bella always takes naps in this position and it never fails to make us laugh every time. Sometimes when she's like this she'll even put a paw right in her mouth and sleep with it there! I've been trying to get a pic of that for months.

Nooks and crannies

Welcome to my craft corner.

Before - A few months ago we created this little space to help contain some of my craft junk that was spilling out of my big crafts hutch (pictured here) and also so I'd have an actual flat space in the house that's all my own.


Now - Starting to feel a little lived in.

Fallen beauty

SPT plus

Pumpkin chocolate-chip muffins - Inspired by the ones I spotted recently on someone's crafty blog but for the life of me I haven't been able to relocate the post. And also the faded blue vanilla cookies I had the urge to bake on Sunday.




My self portrait Tuesday photo is here. I liked it until I had Greg look at it and his response was "nice pic of your crappy sun tattoo". The sun is far from the first detail I notice when I see the photo but I'm sure that's mostly because I'm so used to the art on my body it's just not that noticable to me, but it still frustrated me that he didn't see what I thought the photo was about.

Sweet things

I let Uno chill with Bella for a while today and they are so cute together I had to do a little photo shoot!





What are you looking at?


Uno sheds a lot. . .

Pretty bag

Here's my first creation inspired by a Japanese craft book.

I started with this. And used this book for ideas - this page and this page in particular. My goal was a bag with soft colors, lots of textures, little details and with a bit of a rustic feel. Also to recycle one of the boring logo tote bags we have so many of.



Oh! Naturally another goal was to incorporate grommets.

Self portrait Tuesday plus

There is an amazing hiking trail right near our house and Greg and I finally found the start of it this weekend and went hiking both Sunday and Monday. It's gorgeous (it's actually the old Highway 1 route from forever ago - runs from Pacifica to Montara) and we can walk to it. Yay!



In the next day or two I'll be sharing my weekend sewing project which started with this bag. Greg has loads of these boring tote bags from conventions he goes to fairly often and after how much I like what I did with this one, I think I may start ripping them all apart and creating new and better little bags with them.

Before (after pic to come soon)


Lastly, here's what I'm using as my self portrait this Tuesday. It's from the set I pulled from a few weeks ago. I still just love the sepia coloring, and I saw that Kath posted a sort of theme for SPT which is body parts. Hopefully I'll get more creative for the next few weeks of the month, this was just a self-timer using mishap, but I thought it worked all the same.

Honey Bob

Had an amazing morning riding horses on the beach with my mom. Horses! On the beach! It was beautiful and fun and relaxing and I hope I'll be going again with Greg in the next few weeks. I rode a little when we lived in Monterey and loved it, and after today's ride I am itching to start doing it more often up here.



My horse was named Honey Bob, my mom's was Cruiser. Other names were Clown, Sweet Pea, and Ginger. When I got home and was telling Greg about the morning we started joking that they should name the horses things like Crusher, Killer, Wild Thing, Kicker, Thrasher, etc. just to scare people. Haha! (Ok, so that may only be funny to us.)

Shop Handmade Equals Aid

For Hurricane Katrina victims that is. Hopefully this will reach at least one person who didn't already know about it. Buy handmade items from a special shop at Etsy and all proceeds go to Red Cross. More information and participating shops here. I just made my first purchase and am eyeing a few other things as well. I am so impressed with the online crafting community for donating so many items and organizing this aid project and for spending too! The initial goal has already been surpassed by more than twice the amount.