The secret language of stamps, at Kottke.

moop :: handmade: Victory in a small space… What an order of 300 bags looks like. The stacks are so inviting and exhausting at the same time. Good work people of Moop!

Latin is a bit like a zombie: dead but still clamoring to get into our brains.

via Botanists agree to loosen Latin’s grip – The Washington Post. “Latin is a bit like a zombie: dead but still clamoring to get into our brains.” Via The Morning News.

20 Common Grammar Mistakes That (Almost) Everyone Makes | LitReactor. Via The Morning News.

36 hours in Vancouver, British Columbia – NYTimes.com. Via Maggi over at Pinterest.

Ask Someone Who Recently Went to Iceland | The Hairpin.

The Book Larder « Tea & Cookies. A whole store devoted to cookbooks and cooking demonstrations here in Seattle.

We had a light installed in our kitchen last week (yay for being able to see what we’re chopping) and I decided to clear away this stack of fortunes that has been collecting on our magnet board for a while. Most of the fortunes are sweet but there is one that is a little haunting: “All is not yet lost.” Somehow that just doesn’t strike me as upbeat.

• Someone is speaking well of you.
• Your road will be made smooth for you by good friends.
• Luck is coming your way.
• The current year will bring you much happiness.
• Your love life will change for the better.
• You will have a happy adventure soon.
• A television program will give you great impetus.
• You will enjoy good health, that is your form of wealth.
• You will read some information that will help you.
• You will soon be involved in many gatherings, parties and communications.
• The time is right to make new friends.
• You will receive constructive advice today.
• Your popularity will increase.
• Gain a fresh viewpoint, as such should be very helpful.
• You may have to be patient: think, listen and heed signs.
• Everything is not yet lost.

Tempaper, Self Adhesive, Repositionable, Temporary Wallpaper. Via Fab.

swissmiss | Polaboy. A giant photo in a frame, I need this.

jk jk: DIY: Nail and String Letters. I love this! Via Petite Elefant over at Pinterest.

From Candlestick to Succulent Garden: How to Make Mini Color-Dipped Planters! » Curbly.

Accenting Walls with Temporary Wallpaper and Fabric « Real Estate News & Tips.

Cleaning a Mercury Spill – TodaysMama. How to deal when you break a CFL bulb.

Little Green Notebook: Bedroom. How to hang really big artwork, via Craftzine.

Shaping Up Seven-Layer Dip | The Feed.

How To Make a Sourdough Starter « Tea & Cookies, and Part Two, with delightfully detailed photographs of how it should look at all stages.

Clove-Scented Sidecar › shutterbean. Yes please!

Milk Tea with Tapioca Pearl Ice Pops Recipe – CHOW.

Citrus Salt Recipe – 101 Cookbooks.

lasagna bolognese | smitten kitchen. Oh my goodness, I am going to make the heck out of this.

Party Popcorn | She Wears Many Hats. Colorful sprinkles on popcorn, so smart!

In addition to having me along for their party at Alt Summit earlier this year Rue La La gave me a bit of store credit to spend so that I could report on what the experience was like. Sounds like a crazy good dream right? I’m not going to lie to you, it completely was.

In case you’re not already familiar with them here are the basics: Rue La La is a curated shopping site that offers impressive discounts on goods or coupons for women, men, kids and household stuff on a daily basis and travel and local finds for a bunch of cities on a weekly basis. In addition to shops featuring single brands they have collections of things like winter boots or summer dresses or, a recent favorite of mine, things that will get you ready for Sunday brunch (they had everything from specialty coffee to electric griddles). They carry a lot of high end brands and I have to admit I was a little afraid I might not find anything for our mostly practical household but it turns out that I shouldn’t have worried, they have a great mix of both the things you need and delicious eye candy (at impressive discounts). Rue La La is one of the oldest quick sales sites, have a huge number of shoppers and, I can say with confidence, are super nice people.

One of the things I like about Rue La La is that when you buy your first item you pay $9.95 for shipping and for the next 30 days your shipping is covered. I bought a good featherbed, pictured above, which came in a ginormous heavy box and I was grateful for that shipping price. And, oh my gosh people, having a featherbed is like sleeping on a cloud that is warm but not too warm and puffy but not too puffy. When it arrived we unpacked it and laid it out on the bed to let it fluff up (I hereby heart baffles). Scott flopped down on it and refused to leave for a solid ten minutes. We love it.

It is good to keep in mind that shipping is covered when you find something you like because things get sold out very quickly. One morning I found a fantastically priced Diane Von Furstenberg dress (silk print with a twist front, I could have worn it for so many occasions) and in the time it took me to decide between two sizes they were both sold out. Urgh. I refilled my coffee cup and by the time I got back to the table all of the sizes were sold out. Poof. The site has a shopping bag but they also wisely offer a “Quick! Buy It” button that I learned to use for items I was certain about. Each of the shops stay up for 48 hours and if you spot something you wanted but is sold out there is a “Still Want It?” option you can use and the folks at Rue La La told me that about 50% of the time they are still able to get the deal for you.

Rue La La has mobile apps for iPhone and Android and I found the iPhone app was very easy to navigate. I used my phone to buy the gold flats pictured above while lying in bed, it kinda made me feel like a princess so I took a photo from the same spot. If there is one thing I learned at Alt Summit it’s that I’ll use gold flats far more often than I might have thought. (You are secretly jealous of my pink polka dot pajama pants.)

Sales go up daily and most appear at 11 a.m. East coast time, meaning they are at 8 a.m. here on the West Coast. At first I was feeling a little like “everything has to happen so early here” but then a friend pointed out that she was able to shop Rue La La on her phone while on the bus on her way to work in the mornings. Another friend chimed in to say that she browses the new arrivals while she is walking her dog in the morning. I find this completely charming. It’s like we are living in the future.

Scott’s rubber boots got a hole in them so we replaced them with this far nicer looking pair of slip on shoes. These were meant to serve as mud shoes for chores but he reports they are so comfortable they might become shoes for trekking around the city on particularly rainy days instead.

To help you stay on top of sales that you’re interested in Rue La La lets you set up notices. They show you what’s coming up in the week or so ahead and you can choose to have the site email or text you when the shop goes live, and there is a nice little checklist layout for it so it takes seconds to do. I was really impressed with how easy they made it. When you do order something your confirmation and shipping notice emails come from “the Rue La La Concierge” which made me laugh.

Rue La La surprised me with the variety of what they have. I knew they offered lots of clothing and accessories but I also found kitchen appliances and gadgets, home decor, luggage and even modern fireplaces (which I wish we had a spot for, I’d be all over that). I have to admit I was not expecting to find wine among the sales. The bottles pictured above are two single vineyard varieties and I’m sort of in love with the dramatic labels. We’re planning on having friends over to share. I feel weirdly grown up to have such an abundance of matching wine in my house.

One of the things I was most surprised by was how helpful I started to find the weekly travel sales as they introduce me to new hotels or destinations. We’re headed to New England in the fall and twice now lovely inns have been featured that would be perfect (and I swear sound like they are located right inside Stars Hollow). While the dates of the deals didn’t coincide with our trip I am still happy to have learned about a great place I didn’t know about before. Also, I have to admit, the island getaways are like travel porn in the middle of a gloomy day here. Rue La La also has a selection of local deals for the cities of Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington DC and (hooray) Seattle (we’re usually not on those sorts of lists). As with travel I’ve been introduced to spots around Seattle that I wasn’t familiar with yet.

Thanks for letting me a have a good look inside what you do, Rue La La!

Rue La La gave me credit to use to purchase the items I talk about above but all the opinions and observations are my own.

1st Annual Valentine’s Day Tea Party at Sweet Anthem, an indie perfume shop here in Seattle. Sip tea and sniff perfumes? Sounds lovely.

My Funny Valentine – Our Finds. I love all of the cards they collected here.

make grow gather – valentine’s day cookie packaging.

Hungry Happenings: A sweet Valentine’s Day dessert – Conversation Heart Cheesecakes. Cute!

Valentine’s Day Drinking Straws @Craftzine.com blog. A simple and festive idea. And I already have those red and white straws!

Ask a Clean Person: This Valentine’s Day, Say It With Jewelry Cleaner | The Hairpin. A Clean Person shares a recipe for DIY jewelry cleaner, yay!

DIY: You Blow Me Away Valentines, at Design Mom.

Easy Homemade Peppermint Candies | A Chow Life. So sweet!

Sally J Shim – Fabric Heart Valentines.

My love of traditional English Christmas Crackers (the paper sort, not the edible sort) has been well documented. Since it takes two people to open one they seem like a good choice as a way to celebrate Valentine’s Day as well. (With my apologies to traditionalists, sorry about that.)

I found the supplies I needed at a local shop and decided it was meant to be. I added a few decorative details in my instructions below that can be skipped to make it easier. All you really need are a tube (a paper towel tube will work great), some cracker snaps (a specialty crafts store should have them), some decorative paper (crepe or tissue paper) to wrap it all up in and some fun little things to put inside. I decided to go for a few handmade details:

I gathered cardboard tubes, double-sided crepe paper (red/pink), some decorative paper for the details that came in the form of a few different food treat bags, sticker paper that I drew on using colorful pens and markers, cracker snaps, candy and some wooden coin shapes that I turned into tokens.

First: the fun stuff that goes inside

I decided that some lovely IOUs in the form of tokens would be pretty sweet and redeemable when needed. I included a kiss, a hug and one set of dishes (a set for each person). There are a few other things I can think of including “come help me carry groceries in from the car when it’s pouring outside even though you’re already wearing soft pants” and “bring in the empty trash cans on Friday night even though it’s pouring outside” and “be the one to responsibly turn off all the lights in the house even though we are both so sleepy”, but hugs and kisses seemed easier to request in an area under two inches.

I used a 1 and 3/8th inch hole punch for the circles. I drew the token fronts onto sticker paper and used a roughly clipped template to create the starburst pattern.

I punched out and glued zig-zag pattern onto the back side using a regular old glue stick.

I included some candy and put it into skinny plastic sleeves. Message hearts, themed M&Ms and heart shaped candies. You might also include a small sparkler that shows how many Valentine’s days you’ve been together. (And, I responsibly add: only light it outdoors. Perhaps with glasses of bubbly in hand?)

I especially love the way these candy hearts turned out in the plastic sleeves. They are from a silly wind-up heart toy and candy tube combination. I let the wind up toy walk all the way off our dining room table.

Next: wrapping it up

I decided to use a sturdy double-sided crepe paper and decorative paper for both the center wrap and inside the ends. For me this came in the form of food treat bags I found at a packaging store. I hand decorated larger circle stickers for the label and used decorative wire twist ties to secure the ends. I used double sided tape to secure the paper when needed.

The crepe wasn’t wide enough to cover the tube so I needed to overlap two layers. Make sure the crepe will wrap around the tube once with a 1 inch overlap.

Cut the crepe to the width of the tube plus 10 inches — 2 inches on each side for the outer tube and 3 inches for the part that is gathered. If you use a narrower tube (like a paper towel tube) you might need less.

Glue the decorative paper to the inside of the wrapping paper using double sided tape.

Trim the decorative paper.

If needed trim your crepe so that the overlapping edge will fall around the middle and later be hidden by the decorative wrap and secure with a bit of double sided tape.

Wrap your tube and secure with double sided tape. (I’m having a love affair with double sided tape, can you tell?)

Use a square of said double sided tape to secure the outer corners.

Place one of the snaps inside and gather and pinch one end, secure with a twist tie or waxed cord. Make sure that one end of your snap is sticking out — overcompensate here, you can pull it back to center it out later on.

From the open end place the fun things inside!

Gather the other end and secure with twist tie or waxed cord. Double check to make sure that each end had part of the snap that can be grabbed, recenter it if needed.

Roll the tube so that the seam of the paper is in the back then wrap your decorative paper around the center and secure with a big ol’ sticker. You are done.

Orangette: I am here to tell you, at Orangette. “…that a person can never have too many granola recipes. Or, I don’t know, maybe you can, but hey, four is a totally reasonable number.”

What cookies go well with scotch? | Ask MetaFilter.

How to make bacon | Poise.cc.

Bake and Shake: How to make Really Great, Really Wonderful No-Knead Sourdough Bread.

Chocolate Royal Icing · Edible Crafts.

Mini Crepe Paper Flower Favors DIY at Oh Happy Day. So sweet.

Easy DIY: Heart-shaped Surprise Ball | Celebrate the Big & Small. You know how much I like surprise balls.

Nerds in Love: Top 10 Valentines for Geeks  | Mighty Girl.

I have to admit something to you, I only found these because I was attracted to the packaging which is just so European-y. I was walking down the frozen foods aisle at Trader Joe’s trying to avoid looking all the delicious cookies straight in the eye and these bright red trays just screamed, “We are imported! Come fondle our clever packaging!” But I’m glad I found them because I love this stuff. These are small frozen cubes of minced garlic or herbs which you pop out of their tray like ice cubes. So darn easy. You might not think that mincing some garlic is all that much work but my lazy self only sees a cutting board, knife and garlic press that I’ll have to wash later and on a weeknight I’d rather not. I’ll still prep fresh garlic for our slower paced weekend meals but for now I love my frozen stash. I found these at Trader Joes and, ooh, according to Dorot’s website they also have ginger, cilantro, dill and chili.

Enough of TAL, I want something else | Ask MetaFilter.

Method & Craft, Illustrator and Photoshop tutorials. Via Door Sixteen on Twitter.

DIY Surprise Lantern at Oh Happy Day. I love this simple and festive idea.

sewing 101: recycled paper basket | Design*Sponge. This is adorable and useful.

I’m doing a craft project and would like to install two red LEDs that are powered by a battery pack with an on/off switch. I would love your opinion-advice on what to buy and where to buy it. | Ask MetaFilter.

My cookbook club met last weekend and our book this time around was Gourmet Game Night: Bite-Sized, Mess-Free Eating for Board-Game Parties, Bridge Clubs, Poker Nights, Book Groups, and More by Cynthia Nims. I made pretzel sticks with three mustard dipping sauces. I lack proper serving bowls so I went with what I know, jars. Transporting dips in jars is ideal and even better is that at the end of the night you can take the dirty dishes home easily by simply putting the lid back on. You might recognize the jars above from some of my other projects: mug wraps I made for Real Simple, these held the optional cocoa mix, cobbler baked in jars and the big is from grapefruit tarragon infused vodka.

The pretzel sticks were made from scratch and while time consuming were worth it. I couldn’t find pretzel salt on short notice so I used chunky sea salt and it worked great. The mustard dips were easy as could be:

Herbed Mustard
• 1⁄2 cup Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons minced tender fresh herbs (chives, flat-leaf parsley, chervil, tarragon, and/or basil)

Roasted Garlic Mustard
• 1⁄2 cup Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons puréed roasted garlic (for me this translated into one head of roasted garlic)

Smoke and Spice Mustard (my favorite)
• 1⁄2 cup Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon smoked paprika
• 1⁄2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

You can find the full recipe for the pretzel sticks as well as the recipe for the Green Pea and Mint Spread with Crispy Pancetta over at Dishing with Cathy Casey and find a few other recipes over at the Gourmet Game Night website.

Green Pea and Mint Spread with Crispy Pancetta and Artichoke-Stuffed Mushrooms. The mint spread was surprisingly delicious.

Olive and Cheese Crakers which I couldn’t stop eating, they are savory but tender like a cookie, and Pickled Grape and Blue Cheese Skewers.

Stuffed Large Pasta Shells with Kale-Ricotta Filling and Roasted Red Potatoes with Bacon-Chive Creme Fraiche which I really loved, like itty bitty potato skins.

We also tried Aged Cheddar with Dried Cherry-Almond Chutney which was great and Polenta Squares with Spicy Sausage and Spinach. Everything was easy to eat with fingers and little fuss, which was fantastic. I didn’t try any of the desserts and I forgot to get photographs of the drinks we tried, Manhattans with Spiced Cherries, Pomegranate-Mint Fizz and Key Lime Gimlets, all of which are made in pitchers making less fuss for the host or hostess. Looking through the table of contents I think I’ll also be trying the Spicy Meatballs with Yogurt-Cucumber Dip and Mini Shepards Pies in the future.

Did we play games? Nope, our group was too large and we knew we would be have plenty to talk about. Instead we used this night as an excuse to put on our fanciest dresses and sparkliest jewelry which we all agreed we don’t get enough chances to wear. It was a huge amount of fun, thanks ladies! I highly recommend doing something similar, wearing your fancy clothes without necessarily needing to be on your best behavior is a huge amount of fun.

In the last week this game has saved my sanity. First as a late night distraction from stressing out over giving a presentation. Then as a distraction from being stuck in a plane for two hours before takeoff while the airport bumbled every step of de-icing and refueling while I was was seated a row in front of three strangers who had a particularly loud getting to know you conversation they never intended to last for hours but nobody seemed able to break. And last while I shivered through the cold I came home with. I could chart how bad my cold was based on my ability or inability to solve the puzzles. During day three I was apparently a zombie because when I was unable to solve level 2-2, a level I had done twice previously, I actually moaned “Uuuuhhhhnnng” out loud. While I was alone in the house.

Where’s My Water is a physics puzzler that involves coaxing a stream of water through pipes so that a frustrated alligator name Swampy can take a shower. The levels get more difficult, but never frustratingly so, and each section introduces a new aspect (steam! poison!). To make it more complicated each level has three rubber duckies that you can collect. Each section has a set of hidden items you can unearth, which in turn unlock a set of bonus levels containing more ducks. The game clearly displays the duck levels, it’s a completist’s dream come true. The game is Disney made and family friendly to the point that I almost skipped over trying it. I downloaded a few games that were reviewed as being similar but they barely held my interest or were quickly raised to not-worth-it levels of frustration. It has been a while since I found a game I like this much.

$.99 in the iTunes appstore or the Android Market, both offer free lite versions to test out. There are recently released additional levels for Cranky’s Story, at least for the appstore version, you can purchase in-app. (The update also finally takes down the Christmas theme my game had.)

swissmiss | DIY Snow Machine. For next year!

Unboxing of Jonathan Coulton’s Artificial Heart Level 4 Access Kit – a set on Flickr. This is so neato.

biz ladies: trade shows 101 | Design*Sponge. Such a lot of information you need if you plan to have a booth at a trade show.

38 Things I learnt at ALT Summit 2012 | Blogstar. Yay!

The Business Cards of Alt | kirtsy. Some great ideas among these!

How to Give Compliments – Style United. By Helen Jane.

How-To: Edible Gingerbread Cuckoo Clock With Internal Gears @Craftzine.com blog. Ooooooh.

play with your food – wise craft. Kale + avocado + other stuff you want = great salad.

forty-sixth at grace: a tutorial: ice cream clouds!. Gorgeous, via Swissmiss.

Creamy Avocado Pasta Recipe | Two Peas & Their Pod.

Snowman Ice Cream Cones · Edible Crafts. Very cute.

How to ensure we are purchasing from local farmers. | Ask MetaFilter. Changes to make after watching Food Inc.

Last week I had the huge pleasure of rooming with Meg Keene while we were attending the Altitude Design Conference. Meg was there to speak and she had just started on her book tour for her shiny new book, A Practical Wedding: Creative Solutions for Planning a Beautiful, Affordable, and Meaningful Celebration.

I wish this book existed when I was planning my wedding. It wish it a lot, and that is a sentiment I’ve heard from a bunch of people. Meg’s site A Practical Wedding, had just started and at that point it was just her writing and starting to figure out how to navigate this big life event that so many industries have their claws into. Her site quickly became one of my favorites as it worked as a place to go get my head straight after looking at sites and magazines that were trying to sell me perfection at a huge cost. And that is exactly what this book is, a thoughtful look at what a wedding should and can be. She works through tradition (and which things these days appear expected but aren’t actually traditional), intention for your self, intention for your family and community and how to navigate all the freaky emotional stuff that appears out of seeming nowhere. It’s like having a very cool older sister who went through all this already to help guide you on what is and what isn’t important. It doesn’t look down on weddings in general, and it doesn’t discount expensive weddings but also helps you create a rocking smaller affair. It helps you anticipate things you might not focus on and tells you that you’ll need help (you will) and how to ask for it. The book is sprinkled with essays from brides (Team Practical) telling about their own experiences, good and bad. The book is written with humor, grace and perspective and never stops feeling like she is talking right to you. If you or someone you know is getting married soon I cannot tell you enough how much you need this book. And get one for the moms involved too. And the bridesmaids. Oh heck, let’s just say all of the wedding party and everybody attending should read it too.

Meg is currently on her book tour! If you are at one of the stops you simply must go see her, she is funny and engaging and awesome. She is traveling across the country on Amtrak and reporting about the trip. It’s giving me serious train envy. Also, she’ll be interviewed on NPR’s Talk of the Nation on Thursday and she lists a few other radio appearances (including Martha Stewart Radio!).

A snowstorm hit the morning we were leaving and I got to experience a plane de-icing for the first time. By the end of the trip I was more than used to it.

The second night was a Winter Wonderland Party (Diner en Blanc) where everybody dressed in white. My rommates, Meg from A Practical Wedding and Tabitha from Glitter and Ganache looked hottt. Meg is currently on her book tour (yay!) and crossing the US by Amtrack. Go see her!

Our shoes, but of course.

The last day was busy, in the morning Susan from Freshly Picked, Ez from Creature Comforts and I got to sit down and talk with Anya from Project Runway in the HP suite. We met her briefly at the crowded and busy Project Runway Reunion Party so it was great to sit and chat. Anya was amazing, she had such a great perspective on the whirlwind that is her life at the moment and what she wants to do next. Thanks HP!

HP held a contest similar to our HP Challenge from last September and look! They used the croquis that I had found.

After that was our panel, I forgot to get a photograph showing the scary, scary microphone. I was nervous but not nearly as much as last year. Thanks to everybody who attended, you all had great questions.

This is what I wore. I was unable to get a photo where I was not making a silly face.

That night was the party with Rue La La, I attempted a self portrait in front of their photobooth backdrop. Again with the silly face making, this was the least strange looking of the bunch. When the Rue La La photos are up I’ll link to them all. I had a great time making silly faces on purpose with a bunch of people. Update: The Rue La La photobooth photos are posted here, everybody looks so cute!

Tiny grilled cheese and soup was served, love!

Drunken 2 a.m. infinity mirror pick!

And guess what? It snowed as I was leaving, more de-icing and more delays but I got home without too much trouble. Which was good because in addition to tons of great swag I also brought home a cold. Urg.

I had a wonderful few days and I only wish I’d had more time to talk to everybody instead of the brief hellos in passing. Next year lovelies!

I’m headed to the Altitude Design Summit tomorrow and I’m so excited. I’ll be speaking again this year (yay!) on a panel called Step by Step: How to Create Great DIY Tutorials with Ez from Creature Comforts (who I also had the pleasure of going to Fashion Week with!), Marie from Make and Takes (she also happens to live in Seattle) and Timothy from Charles & Hudson. I think it’s going to be a great session and I’m going to have to talk fast because I sent in way more photos for my sections than I was supposed to. Oops.

I’m also so very pleased to tell you that I’ll be co-hosting one of the Mini Parties on Friday night with Rue La La and Shelley of The House of Smiths. The party theme will be a ski chalet and we’ll be offering comforting little bites and a custom cocktail amongst sparkly wintery decor. There will also be some sweet giveaways throughout the night. If you’re going to be at Alt Summit I’d love it if you came by and said hello. If you don’t already stalk Rue La La’s daily offers I will be happy to get you two acquainted. You should also come by to see me attempt to wear actual heels for the first time, I would happily bet you money that I’ll tip over at least once.

If you have a favorite bright pink lipstick I’d love to hear about it. The one pictured above is MAC Speak Louder and I love the color but find the formula a bit too drying for me, so something a bit moisturizing focused would be a plus. I’m headed out to try on Hair Thursday‘s recommendation of Dior Addict lipstick in Dior Kiss. While I’m asking I’d also love to hear if you have a go-to brand that I should focus on. Thanks!

Golden rules to live by while traveling the world, at Kottke.

New York Shopping, Part Two – The Crafts Dept. Places I want to go!

Five Things to Taste in Chicago | Mighty Girl.

I’m still a fan of mushy grains and an egg for breakfast, so I was excited to try this new hot cereal I found in my market’s bulk section. It’s ground emmer, rye and whole flax seeds. Yummy right? Healthy and virtuous! So very Start Of The New Year Bragworthy and all that! So yesterday morning I cooked it, paused to take a photo before digging in and … rediscovered that I just don’t like flax seeds. They taste a bit fishy to me, urgh. Why do I keep trying?

Later I made up for it by making stew without a recipe. This is a milestone for me since I am not a natural cook. After following many, many recipes it seems I have managed to actually learn something. Yay! My (not so) secret: adding lots of red wine, finding nearly dessicated fresh thyme in the fridge and using twice as much Better Than Boullion as you think you’ll need. I used to be good at remembering to document what I made using my cheap-o red Dutch oven but this time I forgot to wield the camera until after all the stew was gone, so you get the aftermath photo. The stew was also an experiment to help decide if I want to keep my crock pot and I’m ready to say that I can make everything want in the dutch oven. We have a winner!

In balance I’m declaring victory. How has your new year been going?

How to Save Your iPhone 4S’ Crappy Battery. I swear my brand new iPhone 4S has worse battery power than my three year old iPhone 3G. Sorta wish I’d gone for the iPhone 4 instead.

Tiny Tiger app : All & Sundry. Recommendation for an app for kids that is made right here in Seattle!

swissmiss | unroll.me. From Swissmiss: “an email unsubscribe engine that crawls through your inbox and pulls up a list of your subscriptions allowing you to choose which one to keep and which ones to unsubscribe from.” But, it doesn’t work for Google App hosted email accounts.

Great camera buying guide, at Kottke.

The internet’s Go Daddy issues at Kottke.

DIY Striped Camera Strap at Dismount Creative. I like.

DIY Modern Typography Art @Craftzine.com blog.

Paint Pail Mittens – the purl bee. Love the neon with beige.

make grow gather – dip-dyed filter garlands. Simple and so pretty!

Sequin Photobooth DIY at Oh Happy Day. Love!

A Femme’s Guide to Improvement: Solid Perfume | The Hairpin. Love the talk about American Girl lockets.

It’s long past due for a listing of the podcasts that fill my dish washing/laundry folding/email answering middle spaces. Here is my current list:

• Bullseye with Jesse Thorn This was up until this week called The Sound of Young America and it’s expanded to a include more segments and I love it. And I hope my Sound of Young America membership card is not completely worthless. Also, hugs to Ask Metafilter for being a sponsor.
• APM’s The Dinner Party (nee The Dinner Party Download, which I cannot stop calling it) It’s snappy, it’s witty, it’s done by Marketplace alums, and it always includes a cocktail recipe linked to a history lesson. Awesome.
• Slate’s Culture Gabfest A group of culture journalists discuss what went on in the past week. I deeply appreciate the Endorsements segment that they end the show with. It reminds me of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour.
• NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour A group of culture journalists discuss what went on in the past week. I deeply appreciate the What’s Making Me Happy segment that they end the show with. It reminds me of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, I mean, Slate’s Culture Gabfest.
• The Moth Podcast True stories told both by people who are performers and those that aren’t. Always compelling.
• TED Talks These are short and very informative and though it’s really difficult to make it sound not terribly dry if you haven’t already listened (and I know you have, dear reader), it’s not.
• WTF with Marc Maron Interviews with comedians who are willing to open up and talk about the business and life and it’s fascinating.
• The Tobolowsky Files That character actor that you know from that thing has quite the way with storytelling.
• This American Life True story, the first time I hear This American Life on my car’s radio I sat in a parking lot for a very long time listening until the end just so I could find out what I was listening to. That was in 1998. I was crushed when Ira Glass got married.
• Nerdist I am smooth-baby-skin-new to this and the first one I chose to listen to (David Tenant, obviously) completely charmed me with Chris’ utter delight to be where he was talking to who he was talking to.

What podcasts do you love?

If you live in Seattle I recommend you head out to visit the Curio Confections bake sale this Thursday and Friday evenings. This bake sale is put on by Maria Friedman who previously owned the (very missed) Curio Confections and she is providing a whole lot of goodies from her own kitchen so expect the offerings to be outstanding.

If you’d like to contribute something you can get in touch with Maria at curioconfections@gmail.com or 206-979-2442. More info can also be found on Facebook both here and here. See you there?

The best pie crust you’ve ever made – Petit Elefant. From start to finish with lots of ever so helpful photographs!

Marimekko Unikko Poppy Cookie Cutter | Crate&Barrel. I want this just because, a Marimekko cookie cutter!

Cookie Sheet Cookies · Edible Crafts. I saw these too late for Christmas but I had to make a note, the’re so cute.

Christopher Kimball’s Mostly Practical 2011 Holiday Gift List | The Feed. So, I didn’t see this until after the holiday. But everybody needs presents, right?

the UGC: Gluten-Free Breakfast Casserole. As she kindly points out here, gluten-free doesn’t mean carb-free.

In January I was lucky enough to get to speak at the Altitude Design Summit and though I didn’t get to see Karen Walrond there she came through Seattle on her book tour for The Beauty of Different so I got to give her a hug anyhow.

In February we had a relaxing visit to Guemes Island and I got to have a spend lots of time visiting both a hot tub and a fireplace.

In March I made a Leprechaun Trap cake with a secret rainbow, I got to see how the Flying Hippo Brewing Company does it’s thing and I met with a group of really wonderful bloggers here in Seattle.

In April I made Easter Surprise Eggs and Stars In Jars for a bake sale at Cakespy. Somewhere in there was a weekend trip to Portland.

May held a month of giveaways to celebrate the 10th anniversary of this site, thanks again to everybody who participated.

June held an amazing trip to see the Wilton headquarters and Posterous sent Scott and I on a road trip. I also made red velvet cupcakes in jars for a few bake sales and I was taught the secret of peanut butter cup s’mores.

In July I met Marie from Make and Takes for the first time, I got to visit with Kelly and do a little podcast about Summer, I made lots of grapefruit tarragon infused vodka but got no photos of the finished product. We went on lots of bike rides and saw this giant jenga game at a street fair. I also got into a minor car accident (other party’s fault and thankfully the insurance people agreed) and spent a few weeks driving a rather large car around and missing my little Golf.

In August I went on lots of picnics and HP invited me to play along with Project Runway and I got to show Whitney from Ugly Green Chair and her mother some of my favorite Seattle spots.

In September I took an incredible trip to NYC to see the Project Runway finale taping (thanks again, HP!) I spoke at the Schoolhouse Craft conference with Molly from Orangette and Blair from Wise Craft, I got my nails done for the first time, I went apple picking, I made pie crust lattice cookies meant to sit over a mug of cider, attended the Design*Sponge book tour crafting event (so much fun) and my house had a major water leak leading to a new water heater, new furnace and new flooring.

In October I made Zombie Head Cheese, got to meet Jack Bishop from Cook’s Illustrated and America’s Test Kitchen (what a thrill!), I visited an Alpaca farm, got to see a bunch of local bloggers at a dinner sponsored by West Elm to celebrate the opening of the Seattle store (hi everybody!) and thanks to Yolo Colorhouse I had the opportunity to redesign my bedroom. It’s still my very favorite room in our house.

November was all about visiting family and learning about boiled omelets, visiting new and old friends at Camp Mighty, and visiting other websites to offer a few projects.

In December I made 3D Gingerbread Trees, created a cocoa customization kit, got to hang with some fabulous Seattle bloggers and got to see Debbie Stoller while she was in town on the book tour for Bust DIY Guide to Life, I got to show Whitney a Seattle that was considerably gloomier than her last visit, and the amazing oil painting arrived from The Commission Project which made for a wonderful Christmas.

My mascots for this year include Portal 2, Biscoff spread, Pliny the Elder, the Mia, Glitch, many, many hours of podcasts and the comfy new padded dining room chairs where my butt is currently planted.

Happy New Year everybody!

Earlier I posted about how to turn a tree shaped cookie cutter into one that is interlocking and standing (shown above). I wrote about the way to interlock three cookies but I wanted to say that I started this project by using the same 8 inch tall cookie cutter and much thinner dough to make trees that used six layers that slotted together. I made them in the same year I showed the gingerbread houses that perch on the edge of a mug. Here are some photos that I took waaaay back in 2009:

I made small ones that used three cookies, and large ones that used six cookies:

Trouble was that the larger trees curled, the layers of dough wouldn’t cool flat no matter how careful I was, leading to them looking like this:

It had a nice geometric look but just lacked a certain amount of charm and, dare I say it?, looked like beef jerky. Also, it required rolling dough out to a point where it was unreasonably thin. Still, at that point in time I was a bit caught up with interlocking as many cookies as I could.

The smaller trees were flat and looked fine but I’m happier with my current version using thicker dough that allows you to decorate the edges. My lesson? More isn’t always better. Um, less is more? That sounds better. Ok, Happy Holidays everybody I’ll see you in the near year!

I made 3D Christmas Tree Gingerbread Cookies for Christmas. They slot together and don’t require icing to hold them up. Below I explain how to 3Dize your own cookie cutters and I also provide printable templates in case you don’t have a tree cookie cutter you like.

Click through for a how-to.

Things you can do up to a whole day before, aka the stuff you might consider doing ahead of time if you are hoping the cookie making will be a fun group project:

Make a batch or two of Simply Recipes Gingerbread House gingerbread. I divide it into thirds (since you’ll want at least three cookie pieces). Fair warning: one batch of that recipe will nearly overfill a 4.5 quart Kitchenaid mixer. But in that good, yay we’re baking sort of way.

Make a simple syrup glue – two parts sugar to one part water. Combine these in a small saucepan and heat until the sugar is dissolved. Let this cool and pour into an airtight container, store at room temperature. Or, you can use this right from the saucepan once it’s cooled enough to not be dangerous.

Prepare your cookie templates. If you have an awesome tree cookie cutter you’d like to use see my instructions below. If you don’t you can print out and use the templates I’ve provided at the end of this post. My favorite tree cutter is the one shown here and it comes in 8 inch, 5 inch and 3.5 inch heights. I use the 8 inch and 3.5 inch ones here.

To 3D-ize your cookie cutter follow these directions:

All right! What we are doing now is creating three slots for your cookie cutter so that three flat cookies can fit together.

Gather your cookie cutter, a pencil, ruler, and stiff paper that is easy to cut out, I used cardstock. You’ll also need a rolling cutter like a pizza wheel or a pattern tracing wheel from your sewing supplies. Also something narrow and flat to cut detail, I’ve used an itty bitty metal ruler here but a flat head screwdriver would work as well. If you have nothing else a knife will do just fine. A small inexpensive craft paintbrush and plenty of parchment paper will also be needed.

Trace your cookie cutter onto your cardstock.

Draw a center line through your cookie cutter shape.

Now, measure two lines 3/8ths of a inch on either side of your center line (for a total width of 3/4ths of an inch).

And here is the kicker – do this again twice for a total of three cookie cutter outlines.

Measure the height of your cookie cutter to get X and forget about the trunk if there is one. Your final tree will have a much better chance of not falling over if you eliminate it.

Take X and divide it by 3, then multiply that by 2. Now add 1/4th of an inch to get Y. Divide Y in half to get Z. Write down Y and Z before you forget what they are. What we are doing here is getting thirds of the total height plus just a little bit so that when we slot the cookies together one of them won’t be hanging up higher than the others. In this way all three will be resting on the surface (plate or decorative paper or otherwise) and will be more stable.

Now mark your first cookie outline with Y from the top down, your second cookie outline with Z from the top down and the bottom up, and your third cookie outline with Y from the bottom up.

Trim your cookie outlines leaving enough detail so that you can line them up with a cut out cookie, in my case I made sure the bottom branches were cut out.

Roll out your dough to 1/4 inch thick. No thicker and no thinner. Thinner and the cookies will sort of lean instead of stand, thicker and they won’t fit together at all. Roll the dough out between two layers of parchment paper and, leaving the top parchment on, slide this onto a cutting board or cookie sheet and chill this in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Chilling the dough will help the top parchment come off cleanly and will help keep the cardstock templates from sticking.

Take off the top layer of parchment and use your cookie cutter.

Then dust a wee amount of flour on the surface of your dough and on the back of your cardstock template and line up the template with your cookie outline. Using whatever tool you can cut out the slot. If you’re feeling particularly meticulous you can use a clean paintbrush to brush away excess flour once you’re done with the paper templates.

Use your tiny ruler, flathead screwdriver or knife to cut the corners of the slot.

Ta da! You’ve created a 3D cookie.

Don’t forget to cut away the trunk of your tree if you have one. Here I’ve added three of my smaller sized tree.

Don’t move the dough from the parchment, instead pull away the dough from around your cut out shapes.

Use your small ruler or screwdriver as a spatula to pry up dough without disturbing your cookies.

Slide your cookies back onto the cutting board and chill in the freezer for another 10 minutes.

Then slide the parchment onto a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes depending on the size of your cookie. You want the dough to be darker and almost overdone so that it has a lot of strength. When you bring them out of the oven don’t remove them from the cookie sheet, let them all cool together. This will keep your cookies as flat as possible and will help the slots from becoming distorted. If you discover the cookie is a little flexible after it’s cooled you can stick it back in a 350 degree oven for a few minutes, I did this with success on one of the trees in the photos above.

I decorated the branches of my cookies with nonpareils, which roll and bounce everywhere. To combat this I lined a 8X12 baking pan with paper towels to catch my sprinkled nonpareils. I shook the nonpareils from a small condiment cup, which was faster than using my fingers.

Use your small paintbrush to brush simple syrup along the top edges of the branches, then sprinkle your decorations over the glue.

Let your decorated cookies dry for about a half an hour before setting them up. And we’re done!

A few notes:

– I chose a pattern tracing wheel over a similar fondant cutter because the pattern tracing wheel is larger and will clear the 1/4 height of the dough here. Also, the fondant cutter is wider and v-shaped whereas the pattern tracing wheel acts more like a pizza wheel.

– If you make the dough thinner you should make the slots narrower, otherwise your trees will lean a bit. Likewise if you want a thicker dough your slots will need to be wider. I’m afraid I don’t have helpful tables on what is what yet, so it’ll be up to your own trial and error.

– Can you make trees with four, five or six cookies? Yes! You just have to adjust the slots to fit all together and use a fairly thin dough. I’ll show some of my early creations tomorrow. I like the plumper cookies I’ve used here and I’ll show you why.

– Before I used a sugar syrup to adhere the nonpariels I tried using clear piping gel. The gel worked ok and dries to a gummy consistency but it required being smoothed down by a finger. In the end brushing on the sugar syrup was faster and tidier. Of course, if you are using something that doesn’t need the glue to be clear some royal icing will work just great. White icing and glittery sanding sugar would look great.

– Fun fact! Right after I finished taking these photos I broke my favorite camera lens. Happily it wasn’t terribly expensive and, oh look at that, Christmas is nearly here. I hope you have wonderful holidays!

If you don’t have a tree cookie cutter handy you can use the templates I’ve created below to make the tree shown above. It’s not fancy but I kept all the lines straight in the hopes that it would be easy to cut out. To use the templates click on each thumbnail to view a larger picture and print that out, each is about 8 inches tall. You can print the trees smaller to make smaller cookies, but if you do make sure to widen the slots to 3/4ths of an inch.

Have very happy holidays everybody, I hope there is gingerbread in your plans!

p.s. If you like this you also might be interested in my Tiny Gingerbread Houses That Perch on the Edge of a Mug or my 3D Partridge in a (Gingerbread) Pear Tree:

Penhaligon’s Juniper Sling | Lovely Package. I have got to sniff this perfume sometime, I love gin.

The 2011 Good Gift Games – The Morning News and defective yeti — Good Gift Games Greatest Hits.

The Cadillac of eyeglasses? | Ask MetaFilter. From the question: “I have $1000 in a health savings account and three weeks to spend it or lose it. I’ve decided to buy the world’s awesomest pair of glasses.” I giggled at the suggestion of getting ten pairs of Warby Parker glasses. Lots of suggestions for NYC options here.

12 Days of Christmas Gifts | Mighty Girl. Love!

MinuteFrame: Order a framed photo in less than one minute. This one is the service of a friend of a friend, and I have not tried it but it looks so darn handy. Very simply you upload a photo to have printed at the 5×7 size, they do the printing and framing and ship it to your giftee.

mirrormirror: Christmas Cupcake Decorating at Trophy Cupcake. Paola includes tip numbers and notes on technique for some fancy cupcakes. They look great Paola!

Calvin and Hobbes Snowmen Truffles · Edible Crafts.

Festive Topped Jars at You Are My Fave. Simple and very impressive! Via Edible Crafts.

Felted Bell Ornaments – the purl bee. So sweet.

This is The Bust DIY Guide to Life and I desperately wish I had this book when I was around high school age. They’ve collected things from the magazine and included a whole bunch of new stuff on everything from decorating to beauty to savings and lay it all out in clear way that makes me feel like I could take on the world. The book is thick, over 360 pages, and is like a nice heavy textbook. I appreciate that the projects include real life needs like how to lower the front of a waistband of an a-line skirt and how to cut your bangs so that you won’t regret it. There is information on sewing, cooking, gardening, financing a small business and even a nude paint-by-numbers. Debbie and Laurie, I love the book!

Advice for dying hair silver | Ask MetaFilter. I myself don’t have any additional silver haired needs but there are lots of good links to advice and techniques in this thread.

The Guide to Bold Lipsticks | The Hairpin. Good advice on how to prep yourself to shop for bright lipsticks. Note: video.

exfoliation 101: the face | Ask MetaFilter. This is a question from somebody with very sensitive skin and while the responses cover the whole spectrum there is a lot of good information here.

How to carrot facial at Petite Elefant. Simple and fresh as can be.

Have you seen this amazing Gingerbread Brownstone made by Kitchen Table Scraps? Even better, she shows how to make it including shaping the rounded front windows, adding all the detail and lighting it from the inside. Super greatness.

Marie of the fabulous site Make and Takes recently came out with her first book (yay Marie!) called Make and Takes for Kids. It covers 50 weeks of seasonal projects easy enough for kids, and you too, to take on. Each is clearly explained and photographed and they all have a bit of cleverness that makes me want to make them myself. This would make a great gift for any crafty family and would give them a year full of activities while reflecting on holidays and seasons. If you’d like to read more about it go visit the Make and Takes for Kids book page.

Are you near Portland (the one in Oregon) next weekend? I highly recommend heading to The Portland Bazaar. It’s filled with excellent handmade goods from makers curated by Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge. The sneak peaks are enough to make me weak in the knees. And I hear that West Elm is serving breakfast to the first 100 people in the doors, nice. There are also DIY classes, book signings and demos including chocolate tasting and terrarium making. If I didn’t have something to be at up here in Seattle I’d be making my way to Portland to join you lucky things.

Peppermint Rice Krispies Treats · Edible Crafts. I love the candy cane hook so they can hang on the mug, so clever!

Christmas Tree Meringue Cookies | Bakers Royale. Reminds me of the Christmas tree Duchess potatoes.

Gingerbread Playdough Homemade Gift for Kids · Edible Crafts. I want some of this.

DIY Holiday Gifts Advent Calendar – CHOW.

Sprinkle Bakes: Christmas Coal Candy. Via Edible Crafts.

The 2011 Good Gift Games and Good Gift Games Greatest Hits – The Morning News.

I contributed a project to DIY Stocking Stuffers. There are 12 projects in all and each one is pretty darn great. Thanks to Kirtsy and Blogstar for having me!

Why Beer Growlers are Bad for your Brew: The Bon Appetit Foodist.

Edible shot glasses | Luxirare. So nice, as always.

Soda: The Dubious History (And Great Flavor) of Vernors Ginger Ale | Serious Eats: Drinks. When I was a kid I thought Vernors was terrible, I should try it again and see how I feel about it now.

Buttered Rosemary Rolls | The Pioneer Woman Cooks | Ree Drummond. Using frozen rolls, easy. Via Sundry Mourning.

While I was away for Thanksgiving visiting family one of the breakfasts we made were these boiled omelets. We set out things to add (chopped peppers, onions, cheese, crumbled bacon or sausage) so that each person could construct their own. The recipe was originally shared as a way to make breakfast aboard a boat so that there were fewer large items to wash. Since the recipe says you can make up to eight at a time it means everybody can get omelets at the same time. They even came out looking scrumptious!

Here is the recipe shared with me, the origin has been long lost I’m afraid:

ZIP LOCK OMELET

This works great when you have a group of people together. No one has to wait for their omelet, everyone gets involved in the process and it’s a great conversation piece.

Have guests write their name on a quart-size Ziploc freezer bag with permanent marker.

Crack no more than two eggs (large or x-large) into each bag and shake to combine.

Put out a variety of ingredients such as cheeses, ham, onion, green pepper, tomato, hash browns, salsa, etc as selection.

Each guest adds prepared ingredients of their choice to their bag. Shake, carefully press air out of bag and zip it up.

Place the bags into rolling, boiling water for exactly 13 minutes. (We suspect that if you only make fewer at a time you might not need to cook them for that long.)

You can cook 6-8 omelets (bags) in a large pot. For more bags, make another pot of boiling water or cook in shifts.

Open the bags and the omelet will roll out easily. Be prepared for everyone to be amazed.

I got a copy of The Colette Sewing Handbook by Sarai Mitnick and I think I swooned a little. I’ve been a fan of Colette Patterns and her tutorials for a long time. The book contains five principles (a thoughtful plan, a precise pattern, a fantastic fit, a beautiful fabric, and a fine finish) and five patterns (a scalloped-hem skirt, flutter-sleeve blouse, sweetheart neck sheath dress, asymmetrical flounce dress, and a lined dress with gathered sleeves). Each section of the book takes you through creating each garment, teaching you techniques as you work.

The book has my favorite spiral binding so it will stay open while you work, as well as a set of patterns in the back.

The book takes you through the basics, showing tools and techniques very clearly explaining the benefits and uses for each kind.

Each section of the book uses one of the patterns in the back and acts as a complete lesson in sewing a garment from start to finish. This is how I learn, I need a real project to work all the way through, so I adored how this book was arranged. You build your knowledge with each project.

She gives very basic and practical tips so you don’t have to struggle. Every step is clearly displayed and explained.

And of course all the items in the book are things you definitely want to wear. Easy enough to take on, with just enough clean detail to be super cool. Just look at this top, gorgeous. If you want to learn to sew your own clothes and need a set of lessons to start you off this book is perfect.

I’m away all week visiting family back in the good old Midwest so I won’t have any Thanksgiving updates unless I manage to find some wi-fi. So, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and I wanted to remind you of this very smart tip on brining a turkey in your fridge without taking up all the space in your fridge that I learned over at Savory Sweet Life — brine it in a turkey sized oven bag and keep it in one of the crisper drawers. Awesome right? Here’s a not very lovely photograph of mine last year:

A Whole Lotta Nothing: SendTab: a great simple app for managing screens.

Google Kills Its Other Plus, and How to Bring It Back – Waxy.org.

Arcade Improv: Humans Pretending to Be Videogames – Waxy.org.

Last weekend I had the very distinct pleasure of attending Camp Mighty. Maggie Mason (Mighty Girl) and Laura Mayes (The Queso) are seriously awesome. I spent the weekend meeting new friends, chatting with old friends, discovering refreshing things and spending a lot of time in a bathing suit. I even danced. And got a massage. It was entirely unlike me.

There were boozy slushy things that changed every day.

The camp was set up so that we had plenty of time to find each other and chat and I was delighted that most everybody could be found hanging out by the pool. Even when it was raining cold, cold rain the place to be was in the steaming hot tub. It reminded me of the summer in college that I spent in a small town in Italy, there were no phones so if you needed to find people you just went to the piazza and either found them or somebody who knew what they were up to. Our weekend at the Ace was like that, but with a hot tub.

Early in the days we attended talks that made me feel like humanity was going to be OK after all.

Brian Piotrowicz who had an amazing resume and came to tell us about working on Oprah’s show and how intention drives what she and all of the people who work for the company do. I wonder what I could do if I manage to keep that in mind. I wonder what we all could do if we kept that in mind.

Evany Thomas gave a funny and engaging talk about what happens when you face things that you’re a little afraid of and embrace things that might have gone wrong and let yourself turn in a different direction when you need to. I kept this in mind when I very narrowly missed a connecting flight. It took a few hours hanging out in the airport but I learned that if you stop pouting and get to know your fellow standby passengers you might just witness game show like applause as your names get called to get on board at the last second.

Buster Benson (who also lives in Seattle!) talked about brain chemistry and habit and how to use technology to share and shape who we are. I have a few not-so-productive habits I need to be shaken out of so I was listening closely. (For the record, campers, I managed to resist the peanut butter cup and even left it behind. Meaning I’ll be enjoying that anticipation forever.)

Kenna told us the touching details about how Summit on the Summit got started and invited Maggie to climb Mount Kilimanjaro while onstage. Stay tuned, lovelies, it’s going to be fun.

Lisa Congdon talked about how she transitioned from leading a non-profit to becoming a very prolific and talented artist in the last few years. Guess what? It involves a lot of hard work and a lot of pressing forward through fear and results in a lot of reward.

Palm trees, mountains, shade, an outdoor bar and nearby pool. There was nothing missing.

The afternoons were filled with a refreshingly non-imperative collection of skill building events that included learning to saber open a bottle of champagne, throw a punch, make champagne punch, make a mix tape, meditate, make a balloon animal, have personal swim instruction, or learn to use one of those heavy duty fire extinguishers. Sadly a freak rainy day (apparently it broke a 13 year old record) meant that the champagne sabering was canceled but we still got to make punch (and later raid the champagne reserves). The non-imperativeness of everything made me motivated to attend everything I could. Oh Camp Mighty, how well you know me.

You can’t tell by this photo but The Tontons all have great hair going on.

The evenings were filled with cocktail events. Night one had us sampling wine and listening to The Tontons which Laura Mayes insisted were the band that would be discovered at SXSW next year and we would all get to say that we heard them way back. She wasn’t wrong, they are amazing.

Night two included a space themed costume party. Tang cocktails, freeze dried ice cream and a rocket created by the Ace Hotel were included. The DJ was dressed as Spock. There was a dance off. It was huge fun.

My room at the Ace had a lot of the usual things you could buy, like robes and booze. But it also had this walking stick. And some 3D glasses that were cheap. Neat.

And of course a huge part of the camp weekend was focusing on our Life Lists, 100 things we want to do in our lifetime. I’m a little wary of the woo woo factor of things like this but it somehow manages to be all around good stuff that all my trepidation was easy to shed. We shared the five things we want to focus on this upcoming year with our groups (about 25 people each) and a lot of emotion ran through the room. I kinda wanted to go around the room again. Part of sharing our things was including one thing we wanted to get help with and I swear every person in our group had an answer or a connection to get started on before we were done. It was pretty darn inspiring. And it reminded me that I need to get over my shyness and just talk to people no matter where I am. Once you get past that awkward phase there is often so much you have in common.

The tent where the talks were held had this enormous light which I wanted to bring home with me.

Know what? Camp Mighty was raising money for Charity Water and with the help of all of you (you!) that helped us (thank you!) we surpassed our goal of $20K before the camp started and made so much more while we were there that Laura managed to figure out that we helped 1,111 people on 11/11/11 before 11:11 a.m. Which is super awesome. Yay for focusing on helping others. I learned a lesson there.

The windows of the ladies locker room at the hotel included this application of window film? contact paper? that made it private and cool looking at the same time. I have a thing about window film so I snapped a picture hoping that nobody would walk in right at that moment. Which, standing in a locker room, might have been awkward.

Huge shout out to the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs and all the sponsors of Camp Mighty for creating an awesome weekend. Wow.

Josh Millard . com » Overthanking a plate of injokes. I play Glitch and I’m the proud owner of one of these plates of beans. It’s neato.

Supercut: Anatomy of a Meme – Waxy.org. This reminded me that I once upon a time used my very fancy double cassette tape player to make a recording of every time New Kids on the Block sang “girl” in an album. 134, if I remember correctly.

string art – wise craft. I’ve been lucky enough to see this in person and it’s stunning!

Plantgasm – Ideal Office Plants 2: Spathiphyllum ‘Domino’. I need me a Peace Lily.

Pendant Light Cord :: NUD. Hey, nice cords.

Yay! The book tour for Kelly Wilkinson’s book Weekend Handmade is coming to Seattle on Thursday, November 17th. The party will be at Dry Soda and it’s free. I’ll be there, you should come too!

the Ugly Green Chair: Grand Central Station of the past A photo from before buildings were built that shaded it and prevented the sun from shining in the huge windows like this. Wow. Also, while I was in New York (way back) Grand Central Station was being cleaned and was largely closed off so I must remember to revisit it to see it in all it’s glory.

Lifelist: Go Scuba diving? Check. | Mighty Girl. This inspires me to learn scuba diving, and it’s a good recommendation for a resort.

First I offered a few recipes for jelly shots (for adults!) made in citrus wedges. It’s part of this fabulous Pretty Party Projects round up by Sarah Bryden-Brown, Blogstar, and it’s shown off over at Kirtsy.

Second I have a recipe for mini cinnamon roll pancakes at Simply Modern Mom. I love the crunchy cinnamon sugar effect that cinnamon roll pancakes produces but love it too much (falling asleep just after breakfast is not so good), so smaller portions were called for.

Third I showed a peek at some of our indoor and outdoor plants over at Garden Design. Go see how dramatically our rubber plant, named Robert, has grown.

Tricked-Out Caramel Apples – CHOW.

apple pie cookies | smitten kitchen. Cool.

How to Fold Dumplings – CHOW.

Caramel Pears, Design Mom. So pretty!

Making the Grade: Why the Cheapest Maple Syrup Tastes Best – The Atlantic. Trader Joe’s sells a nice B grade. Via Girlhacker.

update: Well that was fast. I’m all sold out of Dahlia pins for the moment. Thanks so much to everybody who is helping me raise money!

In less than two weeks I’m headed to Camp Mighty and part of what we’re doing is raising money for Charity:Water. I’ve decided to stick with something I know and sell a few of the Dahlia pins which I wrote a tutorial for a few years ago.

These were originally created to be a Mother’s Day gift but I think they’d work equally well as a Christmas gift or perhaps as a hostess gift for Thanksgiving.

Want one? I do hope so! Please visit my Etsy shop called clove+clover for Dahlia Pins in many colors. I have red, dark red, plum, pink, bright pink, yellow, lavender, light gray and dark gray. These are made from my favorite all-wool felt which is lovely, thick and does not have any of the shine that most craft felts display. I have a limited supply of felt, but I’ll be re-listing colors that I still have in stock.

Each pin will also have the secret pocket in the back where you can store a small photograph or message. I’ll be adding more specific photographs to the Etsy listings as they are created. Go visit clove+clover if you’d like one, and thanks.

Here is what some of our other members are doing to raise money for Charity:Water:

• Lisa Congdon is selling gorgeous prints.
• Amy is selling virtual raffle tickets for a goody bag.
• Erica is bakign banana bread. Yum.
• Leslie is selling fine art prints for $25.

I’ll update with more as our team continues to roll out awesome fundraising ideas. If you’d like to read more about Charity:Water and what we’re all up to please see the excellent post at Just a Titch. Thanks to you all!

The Sexy Zombie Vampire Halloween Makeup Tutorial | The Hairpin.

Martha Stewart’s Haunted House! – The Crafts Dept. Love.

Spooky & Playful: The Best Halloween Treats for 2011 | Apartment Therapy The Kitchn. And, hooray, they included my Tentacle Pot Pies!

Wrapping Up a Night of WitchCRAFT | Make and Takes. Full of good Halloween projects. (Wish I could have joined you ladies!)

Eyeball Cookies · Edible Crafts. Very simple and wonderful.

Phobias on the IPAD – The Crafts Dept. Do you see those ghosts? They’re amazing, and simple.

Sprinkle Bakes: Pumpkin Cheesecake with Sugared Pumpkin Seeds, at Sprinkle Bakes. The pumpkin seed decorations here are sorta spooky.

These are photos of the test Zombie Head Cheese we created, thus the poor lighting and the two kinds of cheese. But I wanted to show you the idea for a tongue that I decided to skip.

I carved the tongue from a block of Spam I had coaxed out of the can as a whole rectangular chunk. Know what? Spam is surprisingly easy to carve. It’s also very slippery.

The tongue was ghastly. And since the skull wasn’t secure in order to keep the jaw open it tilted to one side when we attempted to scoop some cheese off. Eeek.

In the end I decided to drop the tongue made of Spam in part because it was slippery and in part because it smelled too strongly for me to recommend. But, if you want to have a go at making a Spam tongue it is really effective.

I made you something for Halloween. You can serve it a party. Or maybe make it as a snack for your viewing party of The Walking Dead.

These are both made of soft cheese spread on a plastic skull. Easy. Creepy. Delicious. That is, if you can get people to dig in.

Version 1

You know that old trick of unwrapping a block of cream cheese and topping it with soy sauce and some sesame seeds? Yum right? I added some food coloring and a life sized plastic skull and called it Halloween worthy.

(This is version #1, a slightly easier version is just below.)

First get a life sized plastic skull (wash it really well), some soy sauce, one 12 ounce tub of cream cheese spread and some food coloring. Tint the cream cheese to a fleshy color, I used about 15 drops of red and 10 drops of yellow here.

I found a plastic skull like this one at a local party supplies store, but I really wish I’d managed to find a plastic skull where the top of the head is removable. Something really frightening could be made with that. Spinach dip brains anybody?

Then add just one drop of blue food coloring and stir only a few times until the blue appears streaky. Less is more here, it will further streak as you spread it. Now, frost your skull like a cake. Start with the tricky bits around the face first. If you can’t hold the crown of the head to stabilize the skull it makes it much more complicated. Try to keep the teeth clean.

A detail of the blue-streaked cream cheese.

I used a small flexible spatula to spread this. There is no need to be tidy here, the messier the grossier. Grosser? Grossest? You know what I mean.

You can also stick a few rectangles of parchment paper surrounding the head so you can be a bit messy while frosting and then pull them out after you are done, a trick I learned about frosting cakes. If you can putting the head on a smaller plate on top of a larger plate will be useful to catch the fake blood, and it will be easy to artfully arrange the crackers. Saltines are the traditional cracker for this but these more artisanal crackers I found looked like creepy bandages and still have that bland and salty taste you want. You can frost your head a few hours early and refrigerate. It’s amusing to sit nearby and observe as unsuspecting people open the fridge.

Cocktail onions create nice dead eyes.

Just before serving mix a bit of soy sauce with some drops of red food coloring and drizzle it over the head so that is streams down. I used a pipette but if you don’t have one handy a small measuring cup with a pour spout or a carefully wielded spoon will work just as well. If you can get the soy sauce to pool around the onion eyes, it looks extra creepy that way. Also sprinkle on some bugs, I mean, toasted sesame seeds.

It’s even scarier after it’s been eaten. Yikes.

Version #2

This is version #2, it’s slightly less involved. You just need spreadable cheese, cocktail onions and a plastic skull. Let’s face it, just about any pink or orange tinted spreadable cheese will look suitably disgusting.

I used this cheese that has reddish port wine streaks in it. I didn’t manage to capture the reddish colors in these pictures as well as I hoped but I promise it was pretty gross looking.

I’m smitten. What should I name it?

Guess what? I get to interview Jack Bishop tomorrow! You know, from Cook’s Illustrated and America’s Test Kitchen:

He’s in town talking about the Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook, 2,000 Recipes from 20 Years of America’s most Trusted Food Magazine. I’m totally geeking out over this. So, do you have any you’ve always wanted to know? I’m your girl. Post questions here and I’ll bring back answers.

I’ve just put up a Not Martha page on Facebook and in a completely undisguised attempt to get you to become a fan (aka, click the Like button) I’m giving away some handy baking items. Remember my trip to Wilton? I picked up a few good things while I was there and now I’m going to give them to six lucky people.

If you’d like to win click the Like button on the Not Martha page. Everybody who does so between now and Tuesday evening will automatically be entered to win. Three people chosen at random will win an amazing Skull Cake Pan (my very favorite), Master 56-Piece Tip Set (all the tips!) or Alphabet and Number fondant cutter set (I’ve always wanted one of these) respectively.

The Not Martha page will show when I’ve posted something new here and I’ll share anything extra cool I come across.

Don’t use Facebook? I’m not going to forget about you. Leave a comment here and I’ll be giving out the same three items. For the comments here the fine print applies.

Anybody anywhere in the world can enter. Cut-off is 5pm PST on Tuesday, Oct. 25th. I’ll do my best to get the stuff to you before Halloween (where did October go again?) but I’m afraid I cannot promise. Sorry about that. Ok, good luck!

(p.s. This is the cake that the Skull Pan makes. It’s awesome. You want this.)

update: Big oops, the Facebook page is now actually up and running. Sorry about that! And thanks to everybody for letting me know. Gosh I’m embarrassed.

Closed! Thanks for entering!

I’m petite and struggle to find jeans I like. It seemed like I had a stretch of (long) years there where I just couldn’t find any that fit correctly. (Does everybody in the world have skinny thighs except for me?) But! I’ve recently found two kinds that make me very happy, it’s a high/low situation here:

The first are Joe’s Provocateur in a bootcut fit, I believe the pair I bought were petite. (Updated to add: I’ve just learned Provocateur are always petite. Thanks SR!) I found them at Nordstrom, $172. Now, I don’t normally spend that much on a single piece of clothing but these have been so very perfect to dress up or down that I find it was very worth it. These are bootcut with a high enough rise to eliminate the worst of the muffin top effect without making them feel like Mom Jeans. They are a nice dark blue without any fading or whiskering and a tidy fold ironed into the center front and back of the leg (which will fall out after a few washes if you’d rather not have it).

The second are Old Navy jeans in Sweetheart petite fit, again bootleg. I bought these on sale ($17.50!) but it looks like they are regularly closer to $30. The rise is similarly high but-not-too-high and the darkest wash isn’t too faded or treated looking. I think I might need backup pairs of both styles.

Everything You Need to Know About Carving a Pumpkin | Serious Eats.

How-To: Brains in a Jar Cake @Craftzine.com blog.

Halloween Panna Cotta · Edible Crafts. Eyeball!

Cupcake Ghosts · Edible Crafts. Cute, and they look easy to create.

How to Make a Delicious Glow-in-the-Dark Punch for Halloween – CHOW.

A question about zombies. Specifically, Zombie Stories. Extra specifically, Zombie Stories that Don’t Suck. | Ask MetaFilter. Zombie book recommendations.

You know what is incredibly satisfying in the midst of dealing with a messy house due to a water leak needing repair? Redoing a room that is completely under your own control. We recently finished getting our bedroom in order (it took us, um, a long time). And know what? I think I finally understand what people mean when they refer to a room as a sanctuary. I keep wandering into the bedroom to take one last peek. Yay for new and more organized things.

While the room might be my sanctuary now it’s a very small sanctuary. The room barely fits our king sized bed (which I refuse to give up, don’t even suggest it) and because the window faces a neighbor’s house which sits higher on the hill above us it can also feel very dark even when the sun is shining brightly.

And before you say it let me say it, I know we need art above the bed. But we are struggling to find something big that we like and that won’t potentially fall on our heads. Did you know we have earthquakes here? We have earthquakes here. I’m afraid of earthquakes. Or, rather, big heavy things falling on my head while I’m sleeping because of earthquakes.

Because the room is so small I thought it was very important to avoid filling the room with unnatural materials whenever possible to keep the air quality in the space as good as I could. When we moved into our house we painted all the walls and ceilings with zero-VOC paint. We we decided our all white walls were good for keeping the room bright, but we really needed some color to make the room seem more intentional? Grown up? Yolo Colorhouse to the rescue. They make great colors.

Know what I’m not so good at? Making decisions. Going through the colors of Yolo Colorhouse paint options was so much fun I kept hanging more and more swatches on the wall, as you can see above. Scott and I went back and forth on what color to paint the wall. I originally wanted something dark and dramatic but he pointed out that the winters here are so dark that a dark wall might appear darker than I intended. Then we thought maybe a bright blue? But we just aren’t blue people. We wove our way through yellows, back to red for a moment, then Scott suggested we go with a gray that we could easily accent with different colors as we wished. Good thinking, sir. The paint is a cool gray and it looks richer than you might think of when you envision “gray”. We used Water .03 which is actually a blue but in our room it appears gray. I was so glad to get a few of Yolo’s painted posters that we hung on the wall, it showed us exactly how the paint color was going to act under the different light conditions throughout the day.

We tried to be conscious of the environment when we were painting. We bravely decided to skip the plastic tarp and use a canvas one instead, though we did put down a layer of cardboard underneath and used another bit of cardboard to hold the can of paint because, well, I’m clumsy. We gathered rollers from previous paint jobs, my favorite short handled edging brush and a smaller craft paint brush that I use to neaten up my atrociously crooked edges.

We managed not to spill anything! We also used a paint roller tray made from recycled plastic and bought some waste paint hardener. Waist paint hardener is like magic, it soaks up your leftover paint making it into solid so when you dispose of it it won’t leak. Just a note, Yolo paint is available at some Lowe’s stores. They offer all the colors that Yolo makes, we bought ours at the Renton store here in the Seattle area.

When we were ready to open the can of paint we found we didn’t have a stir stick, so we ended up using this old wooden fork we had in the kitchen.

I was all ready to buy the lowest profile bed frame I could find and DIY a headboard and some floating bedside tables in the little space that remained on either side of the bed. We have about 16 inches on either side of the bed and even the bedside tables I could find that are meant for tiny spaces were about 20 inches wide. Even if we could have found one I felt like it would have taken up a bit more visual space than I wanted to give up. That and I’m awfully clumsy so avoiding having yet one more thing I could stub my toe on made sense. I had plans for installing picture ledges on either side of the bed that would be just enough to hold a glass of water, a book and an iPhone and charger. I was pretty excited about it. But then we found a bed frame that has a built in shelf behind the headboard. Problem solved! Additionally it sits fairly low to the ground meaning that the room doesn’t feel filled with a tall bed.

I put these soft woven felt baskets next to the bed to hold extra pillows and iPhone cords. I cannot stub my toe on these no matter how hard I try. It’s basket love.

We have this Muppet-like shag rug at the foot of the bed. It makes my toes warm in the morning as well as reminding me to take my shoes off before I enter the room (a bad habit of mine). I find wool itchy (sad!) so I was happy to find this one made of cotton jersey strips. I’m honestly surprised at how well the rug seems to anchor the room and make it seem more welcoming. I see many more area rugs in my future.

To make this yellow and gray pillow that is out of focus in the photo above (sorry, apparently I didn’t take a better shot) I used silhouettes of our profiles cut out of wool felt. I was hoping it would look like that faces/vase optical illusion but instead it looks like we are about to kiss. This wasn’t my intention but I think it’s sort of cute.

The room is too small to hold a dresser with a top so I had to find some way to store my jewelry where it was organized and I could find it. I used these large cork tiles and t-pins from an office supply store to separate and hold everything. If I get more I can simply add some pins.

It’s great to be able to grab a pair of earrings and not have to spent a few moments untangling them. It’s also great to have a spot where I can put my wedding ring and do a quick check to make sure it’s there. Did I mention I lose things easily? I lose things easily.

What else? We have simple white cotton bedding and curtains to keep the space bright and calm and easy to accessorize should I find myself getting tired of yellow. We added a larger mirror and it makes a huge difference when I’m heading out and need to get a glance at my outfit. I’ve noticed that the sound in the room is softer, I think with the addition of longer curtains, a very dense rug and maybe even the yarn around the lamp sound is deadened a bit. It makes for a very “ahh” sort of feeling when you enter the room.

And last, the overhead light. I really want one of those Random string lamps but cannot afford one. I’ve seen them DIYed and figured this was the perfect time to try it out. And let’s just say I learned some lessons in the course of not getting this one right at all. It mostly fell apart when I deflated the small yoga ball I used as a form, there wasn’t nearly as much yarn in the skein I bought as I thought there would be, and I think my idea of setting it over a light fixture that is set in the ceiling is entirely the wrong way to go. You can’t tell from the photos but this ball is seriously lopsided. But, I did learn that as long as the light fixture is airy like this it doesn’t crowd the room as much as I’d feared, and it softens the room a bit, distracting you from the boxy shape that it is.

You will be hearing more about the string light fixture, at least once I have conquered it.

Huge thanks to Yolo Colorhouse for helping to transform my bedroom!

Today I’m happy to be a stop on the blog book tour for CakeSpy‘s new book: CakeSpyPresents Sweet Treats for a Sugar-Filled Life. Yay Jessie! I live in Seattle and feel very lucky to know Jessie and see how she has grown her business into a real life shop how she manages to spread bits of joy wherever she goes. The book is filled with her sometimes silly and always awesome baked goods reflect her certain style. Cadbury Creme Eggs Benedict? S’moreos? Cupcake stuffed cupcakes? Deep-fried cupcakes on a stick? All these wonders can be found inside along with her illustrations. It’s more awesome in one place than you could hope for.

I do okay when it comes to doing my makeup and hair, but I pale in comparison to the girls at my university who are able to come to class fully dolled up. What am I missing? | Ask MetaFilter. Lots of great pointers in the thread on where to learn girl skills.

Are there any skin care products that have actually been proven to be effective in the “battle against aging skin”? | Ask MetaFilter.

travel face wash | Petit Elefant. Brilliant! Dry face cloths don’t need to count as one of your liquids in carry-on. So simple yet something that I didn’t think of.

Anybody have tips on where to look when you just need a little bit of matching laminate flooring? We could use the help.

Remember the water leak I had last month? We’re on our way to getting it fixed. In the mean time our house with all of it’s stuff moved out of some rooms and into others means we look half hoarder and half squatter around here. It’s been so long that we have come to refer to it as This Is How We Live Now.

Unfortunately the water leak destroyed some of our laminate flooring. Said laminate flooring covers most of the upstairs and kitchen, the stairs down to the front door landing and the landing. It ties our tiny house together very nicely. The water only ruined about 12 boards and we could just replace those if only we could find matching laminate boards. We’ve been told by our very awesome contractors that there is a chance we could find old stock (apparently flooring companies change the colors every year or so, maybe so people like us have to buy all new floors?) but that we shouldn’t hold out hope. The thing is, if we do manage to find a box or two of our old color we could potentially avoid having half of the house ripped up. And I like our current flooring, more than the replacement colors we’ve gone to see so far. We’ve called the store that we know it came from (big box place, little they could do), we’ve Googled to death and have had no luck. I feel like this is a whole other world I know nothing about. So, anybody know of a fantastic old stock or remnants flooring warehouse we might try? By any chance? Oh-I-hope-so please?

The Vicious Trademark Battle Over ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ | The Awl.

Finance 101: Debit Cards, Weddings, and Peaceful New Careers | The Hairpin.

The other weekend I got to visit an alpaca farm with friends.

Alpacas have very soft necks. And they like apples.

There were chickens there too. Chicken butt!

We took a walk on the beach at low tide and found lots of things, including a sea cucumber, some tiny crabs, some truly horrifying looking seaweed, the shell above and one very startled heron.

These rocks looked decorated.

Miss you already sweet things!

I recently got a manicure and a pedicure for the first time ever. It was pretty darn exciting. After I found myself walking back through the mall to my car wearing the disposable flip flops you see above since I didn’t wear the right shoes. It felt like doing a sort of walk of shame. Has this ever happened to anybody else? Or just me? Why do these things seem to happen to me? I got a regular pedicure and managed to smudge it later that day. Still, the pedicure is still going strong a month or so later.

Here is the manicure shortly after I got it. Shiny!

Since I know how clumsy I am I got a shellac manicure (they didn’t offer it for a pedicure, but I would have done that too). Shellac is awesome. I left the nail place with it shiny and set and two and a half weeks later it was still just as shiny. I only had it taken off because it had grown out to the point that a lot of my nail beds were showing and my nails were longer than they had been since high school. Know what? My shellac manicure lasted through the flooded basement incident and all the moving of furniture and fabric and books and stuff that that entailed, all without my then freakishly long nails breaking. If I could constantly have a shellac manicure I would but I’ve read too many accounts of frequent application and, more likely, removal destroying the health of your nails. So I’ll keep it for special occasions when I know I’ll need my nails to look great for a long stretch of time.

Here is the shellac manicure that is two and a half weeks old. Still shiny! But pretty dramatically grown out.

One note about the shellac manicure: After they have applied the color and the top coat and your nails have been in and out of the UV lights between each step there is one last thing they need to do, which is wipe away the tacky top layer to reveal the very shiny and hard finished manicure. Of course when I was getting my nails did I didn’t know that so I sat though the whole thing and when I thought it was done I was admiring the finish and, oh horror, smudged a nail. I nearly cried until the nice nail lady came back and showed me that they just weren’t quite done yet. My drama might have inspired the “please take these flip flops and get out of here as quickly as possible thanks” thing that happened.

Image taken by Vellumblue, as seen over at Flickr. Thanks for letting me borrow it!

And last weekend I tried those nail polish sticker things. I had my doubts but they’re great so far. Pretty easy to apply and none of that carefully waiting for it to dry stuff that I’m so bad at. These were Halloween themed Sally Hansen Nail Polish Strips. The mini bottle of whiskey that I’m clutching here is a different story altogether.

Spider Cake in a Jar · Edible Crafts | CraftGossip.com. I love how they topped this jar!

Modern Parents Messy Kids: Handmade Halloween: Make Spider Sack Decor with the Kids. A very clever take on the string wrapped balloon thing.

Modern Parents Messy Kids: Handmade Halloween: Etsy Costume Roundup.

Take This Halloween Costume Idea … Please | The Hairpin. Scott and I have dressed up as ceiling fans before. All it took was a trip to Joanns for some t-shirts and iron on lettering. Silly but easy.

How to Make a Spooky Halloween Mirror | The New Home Ec.

diy project: leather envelope phone case | Design*Sponge.

make grow gather – why, hello etsy!. A review of the event in SF that I wish I could have been at!

Freshly Picked: How to Sew a Basting Stitch, How to Machine Baste. When I sew I over-use basting stitches, it’s my secret super power.

adventures in home-making: The world’s best sewing tutorials in no particular order..

All About the Packaging: Candy Button Punch Box Tutorial | Celebrate the Big & Small. Really great and colorful idea for a party game.

I’m so happy to let you know that my friend Kelly Wilkinson, Make Grow Gather has a new book out! Congratulations! It’s called Weekend Handmade it’s it’s full of useful and fun projects. Congratulations Kelly! And with her book tour stop here today she is sharing some thoughts on Saturday afternoons, enjoy:

Hi everyone! I’m so thrilled to be here at with Not Martha as part of the
blog tour for Weekend Handmade. Over the course of the tour, I¹m breaking my
ideal weekend into its different parts, and posting about each part on a
favorite blog of mine. I’ve been lucky enough to spend a leisurely weekend
afternoon with Megan so it only feels natural to be here for the tour ­
thanks Megan!

Saturday Afternoons

An ideal Saturday afternoon for me is equal parts action and leisure. And
nothing embodies that more than being in the garden. There are plenty of
weekends that require errands or full days of work, but if I can being
completely indulgent and moving at my own pace, you¹ll find me in our little
vegetable patch in the fresh air, with dirt under my fingernails, planting
or weeding or harvesting.

I created a whole chapter of projects inspired by the outdoors, including
decorated planters and a tea towel apron that¹s equally at home in the
backyard as the kitchen. If I feel particularly ambitious, I¹ll even set up
some sunprint cloth to ³print² while I¹m out back. But inevitably, I get
thirsty. Megan and I both love a good shandy ­ and I happen to think they
taste best sipped out of a big Mason jar. This requires some planning ahead
for me, because I live in a San Francisco apartment. Our garden access is
out the kitchen door, down two flights of stairs, and through a little
alley. My husband and I like to mix half ginger ale (or lemonade), half
beer, and a lot of freshly-squeezed lime while we¹re up in the kitchen, and
bring it downstairs. But if you ­ like me ­ don¹t regularly keep lemonade or
ginger ale, here¹s a quick little trick so you¹re never without shandy
fixings:

Quick Shandy:
Squeeze 1-2 lemons or limes into a Mason jar
Add a couple tablespoons of sugar, fill halfway with water, screw the lid
closed and shake to dissolve the sugar. Open back up, fill the rest of the
way with beer and you have yourself a homemade shady!

Photo credit: Photos by Thayer Allyson Gowdy.

Cultural Faux Pas: What are some cultural faux pas in New York? – Quora. Via Kottke.

a n h – m i n h . c o m: When in Carmel.

How to Survive a 10-Hour Flight Like a Lady | The Hairpin.

Geek’s Guide to Portland 2011 – Waxy.org.

New York Shopping – The Crafts Dept. A little candy with your craft supplies shopping, perfect.

10 Make-Ahead Breakfasts to Start Your Day Off Right | Apartment Therapy The Kitchn.

Homebrewing: Getting the Most Out of Hops | Serious Eats: Drinks.

Crispy Penne | Luxirare.

Roasted Tomato and Caramelized Onion Farro Salad — Joy the Baker.

Cardamom Honey Caramel Pears | Not Without Salt.

Han Solo, R2D2 Gummies and Hand Gummies from a Frosting Mold · Edible Crafts | CraftGossip.com.

in the kitchen with: luisa weiss’ berliner pfannkuchen | Design*Sponge.

A Bookstore Dedicated to Cookbooks: Book Larder – Voracious.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Pancakes | RecipeGirl.com.

Pancake Secrets | Luxirare.

Links to Cool Craft and Party Supplies · Edible Crafts | CraftGossip.com.

The Viking-Sized Donuts of Poulsbo – Voracious.

swissmiss | Split Decision Pie Pan. I love the idea of a neatly formed perfect half of a pie!

FREEZE: Cinnamon buns in 20 minutes. | King Arthur Flour – Baking Banter. A detailed description with lots of photos on exactly when and how to freeze cinnamon rolls to bake later on.

I bought the Clarisonic Mia last spring after reading about it on a few sites of people I trust. I read the hype from the company (your pores will be smaller! your wrinkles will be fewer! you will glow from within!) but I didn’t really believe it. I’ve been using it all summer and last week I realized that despite faithfully applying SPF 30 I’ve had way fewer breakouts than I normally would. In fact I’ve stopped worrying that I’m going to get an inconvenient pimple (is there any other kind?) before an event where I need to look halfway decent. Which is so, so nice.

I have noticed that my pores seem less horrible than they used to. I think this is the result of a consistent cleaning routine rather than the Mia working magic. But that consistency turns out to be what I needed. I never skip thoroughly washing my face because it’s convenient and quick and right within reach (no more running out of fresh wash cloths). It did seem like a lot of money to plunk down for an oversized toothbrush but I’m hereby declaring it worth it.

I briefly looked at the larger model, the Clarisonic Plus, because it can also be used as a body brush (it holds larger body brushes as well as the smaller face brushes). But I read reviews that the larger one is bulky enough that it is awkward to use on your face. I also considered the Clarisonic Classic, which is as small as the Mia but has two speeds. For the added cost I didn’t think I’d miss that feature. You can easily compare the models over at the Clarisonic site.

One thing I don’t like? The Mia is all smooth rounded lines, which actually makes it difficult to store in or near the shower. I could use a flat end so it could stand up, or at least a little loop so I could hang it. As it is you put it down and it sort of rocks or slides one way or the other.

It comes in a bunch of colors. Most of the colors are in the pastel range, and there are a few patterns that might be exclusive to specific retailers but I bought the basic white one. Since I bought mine they came out with a poppy red model and a fetching Kelly green color that would have been my choice. My other pick is the charcoal gray. You can also buy replacement brush heads, sensitive brush heads or deep pore cleaning brush heads (which I’m going to try next). I’ve seen the Mia at Sephora, Nordstrom and Ulta stores, which all have great return policies. As I type this the basic white one is being sold on Amazon for only $105.

swissmiss | Codecademy. Coding for beginners.

Go ahead, make a circle. « Door Sixteen. A Photoshop Tutorial on how to put an image inside a circle.

SEO for Non-dicks – Matt Legend Gemmell. Via Matt.

What lens for low-light food photography? | Ask MetaFilter.

oh meaghan: a new outfit. Some great sources for a blog facelift.

This Is Not How You Should Handle E-Book Corrections | Slog. “Whispersync™ giveth, and Whispersync™ taketh away.” I bought Reamde on my Kindle for iPhone so I’ve been following this story, turns out the missing content is likely just small corrections.

Last night Grace was here in Seattle on the Design*Sponge at Home book tour and I was lucky enough to get to attend the crafting class that she’s holding as part of book tour.

Here is Grace demonstrating stamping our designs into wax. Hi Grace!

Know what we did? We wood burned our own wax seals. And then we got to practice stamping them into the hot wax.

In retrospect it seems incredibly dangerous. I mean, we were sitting in a store with wood floors that was filled with clothing and hanging paper decorations. Our tables were cluttered with exacto knives, hot pokers, matches and flammable wax. It was incredibly fun.

I managed to not accidentally set fire to myself or Melanie, whose hands you see here demonstrating how to do some wood burning. I’m very clumsy so reporting I didn’t burn Seattle to the ground comes as a great relief as well as a point of pride.

If you’re headed to one of the book tour events all I can advise is that you get there early, the line for her book signing wound through the store, down the stairs, out the front door and down the block. Congratulations Grace!

Also in the store that night was this installation by Matthew Parker. These were all hand folded geometric paper shapes and it was, there is no better way to say this, really cool. His business card says “stay rad” on it. Awesome.

Cheap, Cheerful Flowers For Your Next Party | The Awl. How to juj grocery store flowers.

swissmiss | BuckyCubes. Cubes! I think I have just found my go-to Christmas gift.

Splurge vs steal! « Door Sixteen. The iHurst DIY kit for a make your own diamond encrusted replica human skull.

The Crazy Target Experience :: Missing Missoni. – Modern Kiddo. The Missoni stuff was so gone from my Target as well. I got there so late that they’d even taken down the displays indicating where the stuff used to be.

Cool Tools: Coby CV198 Noise Cancelling Headphones. Noise cancelling headphones are an absolute must have for air travel. Must.

The Cat Ball. I don’t have cats (allergic) but I suspect they’d get a big obsessed over this. It’s made by a local Seattlite! I’m thinking presents for your feline pets, yes?

Cool Tools: Fels-Naptha.

Last weekend was the annual apple picking trip I take with a group of friends.

I’ve decided I’d like to work part time as an apple polisher and part time as a four leaf clover finder.

We were at Jones Creek Farm, which has looong rows of apple trees that are labeled. My favorite find was the Pink Pearl apple which is green on the outside and pink on the inside. Sadly they weren’t quite ripe so we didn’t bring any home. (That picture above aren’t Pink Pearls, by the way.)

And I found this accidental face in a poor fallen apple.

As you read this I’m probably speaking at School House Craft (it’s three whole days, you can still join us!) with Blair of Wise Craft and Molly of Orangette. Among the perks of getting to do this was a great lunch at Blair’s very awesome and welcoming home, getting to see her amazing string art and being gifted the new flavors of Komforte Chockolates bars. The Apple Pie + Graham is deliciously comforting and the Savory Ramen is challenging in the best way. I liked it, a lot.

How old is your globe? At Kottke.

How to Start a Cookbook Club « Tea & Cookies. This is the cookbook club I belong to, and it’s as easygoing as they say.

Cool Tools: Maglite/Niteize LED Upgrade.

Another Argument for the Oxford Comma | Slog. “… highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector.” Exactly.

Pamie » Confessions of a Mighty Summit Convert. I was at the Broad Summit (two years ago) and the same awesome experience. Maggie and Laura know what they are doing and they like you. (Thanks again awesome ladies!)

PAX Primer – The Morning News. Someday I will attend PAX, I mean it’s right here.

Innovation Starvation | World Policy Institute. By Neal Stephenson.

This Pig Wants To Party: Maurice Sendak’s Latest : NPR. A touching interview.

Last weekend we escaped from our poor beaten up house and had a mid afternoon meal at the Skillet Street Food diner. They make bacon jam and started the business in an Airstream. I found a new favorite beer, Port Brewing Wipeout IPA. This also marks the first time I had been served beer in a jar.

This is a Fried Chicken Sandwich with “fennel seed crust, pickled and charred jalapeño aioli, kale, potato bread”. It’s even better than it sounds. And there is kale so it is good for you. No, it is. Be quiet.

That day we lucked into the booth in the corner and among our views of hipsters walking adorable dogs was this view of a hipster talking on the phone while perched on a fire hydrant. As Scott said, it was like we were in Portland.

The School House Craft conference is this weekend! I’m lucky to be on a panel with Molly from Orangette and Blair from Wise Craft. We’re speaking on Friday on Blogging 101. Will I see you at the conference?

Tiny Animal Origami at Design For Mankind and Giant Origami at Design Mom.

How to Print DIY Patterned Fabric » Man Made DIY | Crafts for Men.

Crepe Paper Source at Oh Happy Day, including where she buys crepe in San Francisco and Paris.

Ballet Flats Tutorial @Craftzine.com.

MegAllanColeCrafts’s Channel – YouTube. I love Meg Allan Cole and her entire channel is great. Right now I especially love this video for Neon Colorblock Heels.

Modern Parents Messy Kids: Book Week: Preparing for Preschool with a Personalized Photo Book. This is so sweet! A book of what the new school room will look like to make it familiar place for your child.

A new Kraftwerk-inspired LED tie kit? – Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. “Now, if you’re anything like us, the most important question going through your head at this point is something along the lines of ‘why am I not wearing a tie like that right now?’” Exactly.

Butterfly Shrimp and Other Fun With Laser-Cut Nori – Seattle Restaurants and Dining – Voracious.

About 24 hours after I got back from my trip to New York I was standing under streams of water coming from the ceiling of my sewing studio. The water was there because our hot water heater had failed rather dramatically, and the water was in streams because the flood control guy had poked a few dozen holes in the ceiling to let the water out. Our poor house with it’s surprisingly watertight foundation had been flooded from the inside. (Dramatic music queue here.) I got to make a phone call to a plumbing service where I actually opened by saying “Hello, I am having a plumbing emergency!” Happily the guy on the other end was way more in control than I was and talked me through the process of turning off the water to where it was leaking from.

As I type this all of our stuff is has been migrated into areas of the house that managed to avoid the deluge. I cannot get to my television or the computer that holds most of my files, or to the window for that reason. Our bathroom sink is on the back porch. Startlingly large portions of our Pergo is in a trash dump somewhere. The picture above is the view over my laptop looking at the contents of my office closet that are currently in hoarder-like piles in the dining room. Industrial strength dehumidifiers, blowers (they look like giant hair dryers) and heaters are chugging away for three to seven days to dry out all the soaked bits of wood and drywall that I now know what look like from the inside. Our living room carpet ripples like water when you walk over it since it’s lifted by a cushion of hot air. Our office and bathroom are currently 125 degrees to dry out the layers of wood beneath the flooring. We have these many yellow tubes delivering hot dry air into the space above the ceiling and it looks incredibly creepy. If I could keep this around through Halloween I’d totally throw a party in this room.

But you know what? It could have been so much worse and we’ve kept in perspective. Drinking has certainly been involved. So far we’ve paired initial shock with tequila, waiting for the asbestos test with beers and the presence of giant heaters with chilled white wine on the deck. I’ve slept really well because we have white noise machines running on both floors of our house. It’s surprisingly exhausting having work people tinker around your house all day, waiting for this company to do X so that they can do Y. The other night we decided it was very late and we started getting ready for bed only to find it was 9:30 at night.

Here are a few things I’ve learned, or at least think I’ve learned, from this experience:

• Tradespeople will try to help you if they can since they’ve seen this many times before, but there are limits to what they’re allowed to outright tell you. If they seem to be speaking carefully or in a code it’s because they are, so listen closely. One of our guys actually had to ask me the same question three times with his straight man comedy timing intact before I figured out what he was trying to communicate. (He was also a ringer for Paul Blackthorne and I expected he would pull out a hockey stock/wizard staff at any moment.)
• Your homeowners insurance might cover the extra electricity used by all the machines that are drying out your house. Both our flood guy and our insurance lady let us know about this. Which is good because it’s taking a lot of power. As in, we turned on a fan the other day and our lights dipped. We had to unplug the stove (yay for the excuse to get take out!) to allow access to our only 220 outlet for the big heaters.
• Don’t be afraid to push for more aesthetically pleasing solutions. Because I insisted that an overflow pipe run through the back wall of a closet instead of through the closet itself the flood guy was able to have a good view of what was going on with the flooring under our tub, and as a result we might not have to rip up a large portion of our bathroom floor to see under there. Also, resale value is a very legit argument. Also, nothing the previous homeowners had done will make any sense, brace yourselves.
• You will suddenly become unsentimental. I have so much stuff! Where did this stuff come from? I think if I had a removal company come take it all away I wouldn’t miss it. Or much of it. I am seriously considering a move to minimalist after this. Or maybe just ruthless. We’ll see.

And so, wise and experienced people, have you had a big and inconvenient house disaster? What did you learn from it? School the rest of us so that we will be prepared!

Quick! Outdoor NYC spot for beer | Ask MetaFilter.

9 Portland Doughnuts We Love | Serious Eats: Sweets.

Put it on Your List: Washoe House | Mighty Girl. The suggestions from commenters are also fantastic.

mirrormirror: Fancy Hotel of the Week Hotel Monaco, San Francisco. And a recommendation for a great PNW trip planner.

[Contest] Where to Eat at Pike Place Market: A Local’s Perspective | The GastroGnome.

As you might know the Missoni for Target stuff was briefly in stores earlier this week. I say briefly most reports it was all gone about an hour after the stores opened. Modern Kiddo has a great report from the scene, complete with a spy picture from Shutterbean showing some shopper taking four whole carts of stuff.

When I saw the Missoni line I saw something familiar. The picture above shows a skirt I bought from Erin MacLeod. I think the skirt was made from a vintage fabric and is similar enough that when I put a picture on Twitter last Thursday Natalie asked if I was sitting in the Missoni for Target pop-up shop that was going on that evening. Sadly, no, I didn’t make it to the pop-up shop.

By the time I made it to a Target the day it was released the shelves that formerly help Missoni items were bare. I encountered one other Missoni hopeful and by the time I left she’d only found one child’s sweater. So, do you think Target will do another run of the Missoni stuff? Should we all brace ourselves for round two?

What’s going on here? HP invited me to play along with the current season of Project Runway and sent me a TouchSmart computer to create my own designs. Along with creating designs I decided to write myself into the show. I am not doing well.

This episode was the one where the designers create their own fabric design, get it printed and then use that to create a look. And this one was where they used HP computers like the TouchSmart I have! My design is above and my swatch is here:

Here is what I had to say about what inspired my swatch: “In high school I was a bit of a misfit geek and loved the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series of books by Douglas Adams (I even had the set of original radio show recordings!). The number 42 plays an important role in the stories and I still note when it pops up around me. I wanted to use it as a symbol but didn’t want to slap 42 all over my fabric so I translated it into binary, cranked the kerning really tight so the numbers overlapped and then used that as a stripe. The sexy librarian look was inspired by my high school job as a page at my local library.”

And here are the accessories from the Piper Lime accessories wall that I chose:

Those shoes are almost exactly like the ones I wore to my very first job interview. That was the place where I ended up learning how to build websites. Ah, memories.

I’m going to have to skip the storytelling today my lovelies, we are dealing with this situation. I went from Fashion Week to a flooded basement in less than 24 hours! It could have been far worse though, knock on wood (or Ikea particle board).

FRÄCK Hack « Manhattan Nest. An adjustable bedside light, such a great idea.

Shift Space Design – Philadelphia, PA. I love these modern planters and yard accessories. They are expensive but so nice and clean looking.

Refreshing Vintage Wood The Brick House. A nice how-to with favorite products.

There are more pictures on Flickr and even a video!

update: I’ve written a recap of the whole trip in case you’d like to know what I got up to.

The second issue of Styled magazine is out today! (Styled is an online magazine and it’s free.) I’m so excited to tell you that I have an Autumn project in it! I made pie dough lattice cookies that are meant to sit on top of a mug of hot apple cider. I cannot wait to see the rest of the issue. And this time it’s also available in print through MagCloud.

I took a set of photos showing how to create the lattice that couldn’t fit into the spread so I’m including them here. (Typical, when asked for three photos I send two dozen!) This is something I learned while watching the old Martha Stewart show (memories!), and you can see it on the Martha Stewart site right here. Also a tip for my cookies: once these are cut it’s easier to remove the dough around them than to try to move them one by one onto a cookie sheet. Instead lift up the parchment they are on and slide it onto your baking sheet, I used a cutting board as a sort of peel.

I’m sad to see summer gone, but I’m also looking forward to sweaters and hot cider!

Click through to see the complete pie lattice how-to.

Roll out two rounds of dough, rolling each between two layers of parchment will make this super easy. Cut into strips.

Move the strips apart carefully.

Fold back every other slice.

Lay down one strip of dough from the other section of dough.

Fold the strips back.

Now fold the other strips of down back over the one you just laid down.

Put down another strip of dough from the other set.

Fold the strips back flat.

Continue on like that until you’ve got a full lattice.

Cut out the cookies, and…

… remove the excess dough from around them instead of trying to move them. Ta da! (They are also dabbed with butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar before baking.)

moop :: handmade: Basil tarragon mojitos with friends.

Turning $2 into a $20 dessert | Luxirare. I love that she uses mini cake pans from the childrens section of Ikea to bake these.

What makes sour cream “Canadian-style”? | Ask MetaFilter. Wow, there are very real answers to this question. I had no idea.

Seasonal Spotlight: Pink Pearl Apples | Apartment Therapy The Kitchn. Such a nice pink!

The Food Lab, Drinks Edition: Is Mexican Coke Better? | Serious Eats: Drinks. “The Tasters pick out American Coke as superior to Mexican Coke a full 7 times out of 8.”

What’s going on here? HP invited me to play along with the current season of Project Runway and sent me a TouchSmart computer to create my own designs. Along with creating designs I decided to write myself into the show. I am not doing well.

This week the challenge was to design a look that could be worn with Heidi’s sneaker design for New Balance. Everybody woke up to find running shoes, t-shirts and shorts and told to get themselves to a running track. This would be a team challenge (yikes) and the first three people to complete a lap would get to be team leader. Things got dramatic quickly in our fantasy Project Runway, once we got to the track Scott announced that he was going to voluntarily leave the competition*. He had been hired as a head designer by Dior and struggled with the decision to leave but ultimately decided leaving the show was the best move for his career. Later I snarkily told the cameras he would do anything to get out of having to exercise.

Here is my design:

Here is how I imagine this going down:

The design needed to incorporate suede so I ran around Mood trying to find the suede only to discover all the other designers had raided it. Oh no! I ended up only finding a tiny bit that hadn’t already been purchased. I also bought a bunch of sports mesh fabrics and some stretchy matte black something. I originally created a sort of dress using the sports mesh but as I was pinning in to my form I found it was hideously shiny. When Heidi and Tim came around to see the progress Heidi said “It looks awful, like it should be with the outfits from the pet store challenge.” Later in my workroom interview in front of the cameras I lamented “Heidi haaaaaates it!” I tossed all my mesh and was left with stretchy matte black stuff and stretchy but not too shiny red stuff, but not much of it. I spent too much time doing anything but sewing and later I would get one of those edits where the producers showed me fiddling with something and lots of cuts to other designers appearing to sideways-glance me. Luckily I didn’t get the lazy-person music along with it. I created short yoga pants with suede strips wrapping around at different places. The top I created looked like a cropped tent tank from the front and has a drape back with more suede as y-shaped straps. I didn’t have time to finish the hem of the shirt and between the time the model put it on and the time she walked down the runway the fabric began to curl and was a bit shorter than I meant.

I was in the bottom three again. I was beginning to suspect that I’m only being kept around because I’m so willing to freak out on camera. I was told that I missed the mark with this challenge, that it looked too much like workout clothes. Nina liked the strips of suede, Michael Kors said the red and black together was a travesty and Heidi said it wasn’t something she would wear. In the end I was kept because I displayed the ability to take direction and edit my look. Yay! I’m not off my (fake) show yet.

Ok, back to my real life. I would just like to say that apparently when I am nervous about what to wear in a new situation I feel like trying on every single dress that exists in the Seattle area will somehow fix the problem, even though I already have a wardrobe for my trip to New York. Do you overshop when anxious?

Previously: we took on episode one, the one with the bed sheets, episode two, the one with the dog toys, episode three, the one with stilts, and episode four, the one with Nina.

* In reality Scott has too much going on to continue in my little PR sweatshop. He’s doing all the normal busy work-life stuff as well as practicing to play in the wedding band of a friend. I’m a humanitarian so I let him go, but I didn’t give him his last week of wages. Spoiler: Also in reality, well, the actual Project Runway show, one of the contestants announced they no longer wanted to continue right at the start of this episode so it seemed like an obvious place to write Scott off of my version of the show.

What’s going on here? HP invited me to play along with the current season of Project Runway and sent me a TouchSmart computer to create my own designs. Along with creating designs I decided to write myself into the show. I am not doing well.

And now on to something that is rather late, my design for Project Runway episode 3! This episode’s challenge was to design an outfit for Nina Garcia that could transition from a working day into attending events in the evening. The operative words there were for Nina Garcia. You could almost smell the fear through the television screen.

Here is my design:

Here is how I think this would have gone down:

I stared blankly at the wall during the sketching period, completely without ideas. At the last moment I made a dress and jacket combo, which seems so very obvious, and took it in to talk with Nina. She was bored. (Does anybody else have Tim’s advice from so long ago echoing through your head? “Don’t bore Nina!”) At Mood I couldn’t find the fabric in the colors I wanted, a dark rich eggplant, and instead had to settle on three shades of purple. They color was even worse when I got back to the work room. When Tim and Nina came around I was frantic, I spent so long fretting I barely had any time to get anything together to show. “I don’t,” Nina said, “like it.” I spend my interview to the camera only staring straight ahead and whispering “oh no, oh no, oh no.” I didn’t have enough fabric or time to start over, so I went ahead with what I had. I simplified my jacket in order to get it done, and traded detail for good construction. I grabbed these accessories from the Piper-Lime Accessories wall and sort of threw them at my model as she was headed off to the runway:

Here is Scott’s design:

Scott chose a looser silhouette, which intrigued Nina. He chose a lovely plum silk for the pants, a similarly nice one for the top, and a heavier silk for the jacket. On the walk through the workroom Nina liked the muted colors and loved the way the silks felt, but was a bit afraid the combinations could become a bit pajama-like. Scott worked calmly, gave a balanced interview, and chose accessories well.

After the runway show Scott was in the top three and I was in the bottom three. Again. Scott was praised for the way his fabrics moved, and when came down the runway Nina gave that interested little look over the score cards. Heidi didn’t like my look at all saying “I mean, she sent a purple suit down the runway, who does that?”. Nina was bored again and while Michaels Kors decided the look wasn’t what it could have been he came to my defense to point out that it was well made and well fitted and that the skirt length was decent. (Thanks Michael Kors!) Back on the runway for judging I was told my design looked dated, but it was well made. When I tried to explain I couldn’t find the color fabrics I’d hoped to I was told I could have dyed my fabrics. (But come on, we all know that would have ended horribly! Right?)

Scott was voted the winner! And I was second to last. When the loser came into the waiting room I hugged them in that way that indicates I’m sad to see them go but I’m so, so happy it isn’t me. Yikes people! I need to get back into this game!

Ok, fantasy over. I’m seriously frightened over what the challenge for episode 5, which I’ll post tomorrow later this week in my futile attempt to catch up.

Previously: we took on episode one, the one with the bed sheets, episode two, the one with the dog toys and episode three, the one with stilts.

Just so you know: HP didn’t pay me cash money for this post or for my opinions.

Last weekend Scott and I rode our bicycles, Wheatley and GLaDOS respectively, along a few trails. We do not recommend the “Green to Cedar River Trail” as it is loose gravel and very difficult to bike on and especially because it’s all uphill on the way back. Whew. But we did pass this sign. Wait, I’ll get it in more detail for you:

Pit park! We found an actual pit being turned into a park! It made the whole ride worth it.

Eat, Pray, Tube: Adrift on the Delaware River | The Awl. This writer’s experience mostly makes me shudder, but then I found myself charting a experience in my own state (Washington) so I could either bitch or praise the experience.

Things to do in New Mexico when you’re working? | Ask MetaFilter.

Design*Sponge guides to Harlem, Queens, and Brooklyn.

WHolman Design by wholman on Etsy. Bowls made from old road sights. I want to display my fruit in one of the blue arrow bowls.

Cool Tools: Kryptonite Evolution U-Lock. What to use to keep your bicycle safe.

Shopping for Men: The Stores (NOTCOT). Where do men find all those good clothes? These places.

Back to School Supplies (for Adults!) | Family Style. Great sources here.

Fallen Princess: Costco. No go. While I myself have a fondness for Costco because it’s local (Cotco #1 Kirkland holla!) I have to admit there hasn’t been many memorable Costco purchases other than my many flats of canned foods for our emergency kit.