current mood:

elf-like...

mom called last night at 10:30 and greeted me with "hi helen, are you up late tonight being an elf again?"

wow, am i that predictable? hehe

les sports

oh don't laugh. les sports really is translated as sports in french! (just drop the t and s in your pronunciation.) and this, my friends, is the theme for ryan's and long's christmas gifts this year! doesn't everything sound fancier and more festive in french?

the boys are at the age where they start to specialize in a sport, as opposed to doing just general p.e. all the time: ryan has joined the cross country team and will continue to do track and field in the spring, while long has joined swimming! note: i didn't say that long joined the swim "team" because he refuses to compete! that's alright, we'll be having a little talkie talkie soon. since kids wouldn't be happy with just handmade gifts (sorry, but it's true! been there!), i got long a spiffy speedo deluxe sports towel (think shamwow, but towel sized) and ryan a pedometer. i remember desperately wanting one of those speedo sports towels when i did swimming as a kid, but my mom never got it for me because she had no clue to what i was referring! sigh. and a pedometer?? so cool! always wanted one when i was on the track team! (ok maybe i'm living vicariously through them. hopefully they'll be better at both sports than i was!)

for the homemade part of their gifts, i made ryan a sports bag for his sneakers (he's very particular about keeping his school shoes and running shoes separate) and long got a sports bag for his new speedo towel and swim trunks. on the fronts, i freezer paper stenciled a sports icon, their names (r. "last name" and l. "last name"! how french, non?) and their sports in le français. i blotted out their last names so you'll never be able to kidnap them (they are insanely cute)! the interior of the bag is made from the blue parachute fabric i got at the scrap exchange in durham, nc!! thus, it is relatively waterproof and just that much cooler! the straps of both bags are braided from this natural cotton string of which i had oodles. it was from my attempts in high school to weave myself a macramé belt (that failed!). i must say, creating a long strand of braiding is difficult because i had to wind the ends around spools and then braid by manipulating the spools rather than just the ends of the string (since they were sooo long). the grommets were leftover from when i made a new slipcover for my futon. i hammered my thumb while grommetting long's bag!! the fabric for the exterior of ryan's bag is actually from jimmy's high school graduation gown! here is ryan's bag, cinched: joyeux noël, mes amis!!

more baking and a buffet/sideboard

so the spiced chocolate raspberry and nut cupcakes were not a hit with anyone. since i was meeting up with avé last friday for her bday and wanted to give her some, i had to make some alterations and quick. since everyone loves a good batch of cream cheese frosting, i knew that it would be the remedy here. thus, the cupcakes became spiced chocolate and nut cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. hehe, or how about spicy chocolate nuts cupcakes? since mom and dad were coming to town this weekend to help me grout my shower, i saved them some of these improved cupcakes as well. dad's is the unfrosted one since he "HATES frosting" (note the rare usage of caps for emphasis)!mom and dad arrived with 2 apples in tow, to add to my other 2 aging apples, so i had to bake something to use them up. apple almond crisp! not sure why some of the sugar did not get moist, but it was tasty despite how it looks. but the coolest feature of the weekend was this sweet buffet/sideboard that i scored from craigslist for 75 bones. it's currently chilling under the mirror in the dining room that has the black wrought iron trim. should i paint or not? i was thinking of painting it black and sanding some of the edges of the whole thing and of the square details in order to highlight the details and lines. yes? no?

christmas birdies!

finally! the birdy post! so when thinking back to my childhood, i always remember our sad christmas tree. all the ornaments were the same and were store bought in bulk, and the tree just looked blah. then as my mom started working at my school, she started getting ornaments each year from her coworkers. to this day, whenever i go home and help put up the tree, i love to think back to when we got each ornament and what was the story behind them.

so, i decided that i would put matters into my own hands and i would make different ornaments for my friends and family each year. it would be a way for them to remember me, and and and and, slowly but surely i would have total domination over their tree! muhahahhaah! this year's ornament: a christmas birdy! i decided each would have a patterned back and a coordinating solid colored belly. i got the pattern from the spool sewing blog and shrank it to 75% so that each ornament would not drag down the branch. total birdies made: 27! yes, i do have more than 27 friends. however, i decided that couples had to share an ornament, so that i wasn't making 40 or more of these suckers. here are the 6 different kinds:bottoms up!i made a gift tag for each with the gift tag craft punch i scored from joann's during thanksgiving break! the little angel is from another craft punch i got a while back at the dollar store. and the tags themselves are made from sample paint chips from hardware stores. hehe. i was helping my parents select colors for their bedroom and dining room and helped myself to many many extras in a wide variety of colors!and last night, in keeping with the holiday spirit, i made spiced chocolate raspberry and nut cupcakes! they were way more spiced than anticipated (cloves will do that to ya), but i like the chocolatey flavor. here they are frosted (sorry, still suck at spreading the frosting)...

sniff sniff

bunks, up to no good as usual. thanks, julia, for the pic!

do you hear what i hear?

said the night wind to the little lamb. do you see what i see?

christmas is in the air! last night, julia (my new roommate! welcome to dc, julia!) and i put up the christmas tree! it's but 1 foot shorter than me. however, we used the hallway mini table as a tree stand so that bunkins could not get to it. so, in the end, the tree towers over me like most trees do. the base of the tree was rather sketchy-looking because we couldn't get the stump to reach the bottom of its metal foot. instead of a tree skirt, julia cleverly used an old cloth christmas present bag that i had to wrap around the base of the tree! it looks like santa brought us a christmas tree in his sack of presents!!! i still crack up whenever i walk by the tree. hehehe even though we only have 4 ornaments on it so far, the tree does have a cute glass angel as a tree topper. i snagged it from my fav dollar store next to h mart, the korean store i frequent. growing up, our trees at home always were topped by angels who my mom believed would protect us. this little angel is a little risque- her dress is transparent! gasp!

here's one of our 4 ornaments: it's the birdie ornament i made for julia and marcus, her bf. so i lied earlier when i said that the birdies post would be next because i still haven't finished my last batch of them... so i'm going to wait until then (hopefully tonight!) before i take pics of the whole set.i finished the first of my christmas presents last night. mommy has the most ridiculous flannel pj sets from hong kong, so a while back she asked me to make her a summery pair. i found this really pretty raspberry and light blue striped thin cotton cloth from g street fabrics in the clearance section (!!!), and using the pj bottoms pattern from the weekend sewing book, i conjured up these:

the shirt was actually this $1.99 target sequined christmas tree tshirt that i found from a discount store in ct during thanksgiving break. the material was nice and the fit was femininely trim, so i snagged 3 to make summery pj tops. i ripped off the sequins and cut off the embroidery that was the tree stump and made a little faux button placket to cover up the residual glue from the sequins. the extra bold raspberry stripe was actually this ribbon that i found at home that mommy had bought in a big packet of ribbons. it was just what i needed for a background so that the buttons stood out more and were not lost in the light blue of the cloth. mommy tends to forget her belongings all over the house, so i made a kangaroo pocket to store her goods. and for the collar, i made my own bias tape from the leftover fabric. i hear there's this little tool that helps you fold bias tape easily. it looks quite like a seam ripper. everyone keep your eyes out for it for me, because it would make my life so much easier. bias tape is such a pain to make on your own. and for the bottoms, even though there was an elastic, i wanted to add a drawstring just in case the pants didn't fit mommy quite right. so, i made my own drawstring from leftover fabric and used the raspberry ribbon to cover up the seams. i love how well the ribbon goes with the fabric!as mentioned earlier, mommy gets my blog updates in her email, so i'm sure you're all wondering how i could be posting this! i was so thrilled with the results of the project that i temporarily took her off the email list just so i could make this blog post! yes, call me a dork, but i know you're wishing you had a pair of these pjs!

happy thanksgiving!

and it sure was a happy thanksgiving indeed! last tuesday night, i drove bunkins to pittsburgh to pick up the jimster because he was just recovering from the flu and no one wanted to give his sickness a ride to nyc. so, as his big sister and as his bunny nephew (jimmy calls himself uncle jimmy to bunks! hahhahaha), bunks and i volunteered to haul him back to ct. well, turns out jimmy was swimmingly fine by the time we got to pitt. bunks spent the night in jimmy's room and had a field day playing in his boxsprings. unfortunately, no one got any sleep that night.the next morning, with jimmy and bunks in tow, i continued our travels home to ct. (in just one week, bunks has driven to durham, pittsburgh, and ct! poor bunny!) one of us always sat in the back seat to keep him company and he was much more calm. at home, bunkins would spend the days in the kitchen with us and the nights in my bedroom. his favorite place to keep warm (my rents keep the house fairly cold) is behind jimmy's butt at the kitchen table!mom cooked up a feast every night! we had turkey, ham, lobster, and steamed fish! for dessert, i made pumpkin pie squares! mom had made a pie with half a can of pumpkin, so i used the rest to make pie squares since we didn't have crisco to make a proper pie crust (i don't approve of frozen crusts like she does, sorry). and since i was home, i took the opportunity to take some pics of this baby animal series of cross-stitching that i made my parents to help them decorate their bare walls. (i grew up in a very white house. not white as in caucasian, but white as in all white walls!) this series lines the long wall leading to the kitchen door. the first that i made was a pair of baby tigers because dad loves tigers. the 2nd was a pair of baby brown bears because i went to brown university! go brown bears! (actually what i liked most about the bears was the little dab of purple in the violets next to the left bear!)

both of these flank a pair of baby elephants. this was the biggest project in my book of baby animals cross-stitching, and we all know i love "big guns" projects, so of course i had to do the most complex one!too bad you can't always zoom on the pics by clicking them. i don't know how to make that work more consistently on this page. trust that the details are intricate (i'm a fiend for detail)!

craft-wise my weekend was very productive as well! i finished applying hem glue to the unfinished edge of the pink ruffle on my refashioned sweater so that the silk would not shread to bits. i finished another batch of holiday birdie ornaments (the post on this will be next, so stay tuned!). i hit up joann fabrics on black friday (i can't buy clothes because of the pledge, so how else am i to spend my money?!) and scored tons of cute flannel for christmas presents (!!), a whole new set of bobbins (lan graciously gifted me her extra sewing machine so i gave mom back hers this weekend and of course i needed my own gear!), tons of elastic for $0.89 per yard (!!!), a set of make your own fabric covered buttons (!!!!!!!), and an amazing gift tag craft punch (!!!!!!!!!!). i "borrowed" some paint chips from the hardware store and made over 50 gift tags just to "test it out." hehehe. it's amazing. i've always wanted one, and it was 40% off at joann's! joann's is probs my new fav store and they have one in falls church, va too!!

hope you all had a great thanksgiving! bunks is certainly glad to be home and spent the night hopping around the condo in glee!

durham, nc!

i'll be adding durham to my list of "must repeat-visit" cities! bunkins and i made the journey down friday morning and it only took 4 hours, with minimal traffic! bunks was less than thrilled. here he was at the start of the journey, terrified, huddling in his litterbox (gross, man!):and here he is after the journey. notice he didn't touch his beloved veggies at all. or move!but no worries, because we set up a home for him in erin and henry's guest bedroom (complete with his zebra doormat!)and he had a blast exploring the room all night (including pouncing on the bed to hop around while i slept). oh, my bunks...while bunks explored, erin and i checked out the local thrift craft store, the scrap exchange! it had more than just fabric and knitting notions and was stocked by distributors of random industrial leftover goods, store closings, and donations. heaven!!!the front of the store had tons of blue bins filled with these random industrial notions. you could fill one of these plastic bedsheet packaging bags with all the stuff you could jam in it for $3.75! erin and i scored some really interesting fabric scraps (one i will mat and frame for art in the dining room!), canvas (to make tote bags!), and parachute fabric to make lan's boys their christmas presents!in the back of the store was the fabric and "notions" section. they had tons of fabric, ribbons, buttons, beads, sequins (!!!!! i bought a ton because i have never successfully found loose sequins on sale for cheap and here i found 700-900 for just $0.75!), bias trim (so i don't have to laboriously make my own!). eeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!! so exciting!here's all the stuff i scored for less than $30! the yellow fabric actually has metallic stars on it. jimmy ended up stealing the space jam pj shorts before i could give it to nathan, so i'm going to make nathan another pair. it's so ridiculous!we went to a really authentic thai restaurant for dinner friday night. henry and erin belong to a csa for seafood and we had the freshest fried flounder sandwiches for lunch (erin's cooking!) and shrimp scampi for dinner (henry's cooking!) on saturday!!! and on sunday for brunch, we went to dimsum and the dimsum was fresher than the dimsum in the dc area!!!!! erin and i created a crafting storm saturday night where she sewed baggies with which she was planning to wrap holiday presents while i worked on a christmas present for mommy. (pics will not be posted until after christmas, since she gets my blog updates as well!) i had so much fun and it was great to be able to go somewhere without having to find someone to watch bunkins! i will most certainly be back!!!

if you want to destroy my sweater, pull this thread as i walk away...

so after signing my "no shopping" pledge, seeing my huge pile of donate-able clothes, and unsuccessfully spending my gift card at anthro (no money was going to be exchanged so it's not considered cheating! and anyway, nothing fit), i realized i had to resort to refashioning some of my old clothes if i was to plan on staying clothed throughout the day. you laugh, but at 5', nothing fits right.

so, i took this crewneck sweater from zara's whose crewneck was too high and made me look like a boy, and hacked it off!i then resewed the edge of the collar so that it wouldn't fray, and together with this striped scrap fabric and an old pink silk scarf...i made this collar!here's a closeup:essentially i made a long 1.5" wide ribbon with the stripey fabric and added 1" pleats all along it (i put my perfectionism to good use!) and then added a ruffled strip of the scarf. i wisely cut the scarf along the side hem so that at least one side wouldn't fray, but allowed the other side to fray so it would be less feminine. the collar gaped open initially until i made tucks at select places throughout it. the middle of the collar had an ugly seam on the pink ruffle from me having to join 2 shorter pieces together, so i put a pearly button in the middle to hide it. here's the back.my favorite part about this sweater is the juxtaposition of the manly striped fabric with the girly pink silk and also the architectural-ness of the pleats versus the flowy ruffles! i love intricate and minute details (hence why i also love math), so of course i made coordinating faux button plackets! also with pleating and ruffles of course.and the dressform was sooo useful! i was able to pin things to it and finish the product without having to constantly try it on to see how things lay. it saved me from getting stabbed all the time.

bunks and i are packing up for a trip to visit erin in durham, nc this weekend! i hear there's a thrift fabric store that's similar to "knittin' kitten" of portland, or!! and yes, you read that right, bunkins is coming with, but not to the fabric store of course!!

senior field hockey shirts and a dressform

last night the field hockey team got together for an end of the season team dinner. the kids were cute and made presentations about the seniors and the coaches. then, the coaches made some speeches about the seniors and standout performers. we put together a gift bag for each senior and my contribution, of course, was personalized sparkly tshirts! the front had "(name of school) hockey 2010" because the seniors are the class of 2010. i used the freezer paper stencil method which worked amazingly well despite the tiny font and i used pearly white fabric paint. the white blob is where the initials of the school were. trust that it looked cute and neat!and on back, i handstitched their last name on top in white jersey and machine sewed jersey sticks and an ball, both of which were beaded! this girl's shirt had her nickname because her last name is so long. with 6 seniors, i had to speed up the process as much as possible!
the last piece of fantastic news- perhaps the most fantastic news- is that this weekend i scored a "tiny grasshopper"-sized dressform for $50 from craigslist! i say tiny grasshopper because most dressforms go down to a size small, which is too big for me, my mom and sarah, the 3 more frequent benefactors of my crafting frenzies. actually, i rarely craft for myself, but i might as well start sometime. usually dressforms are $229 regular priced and rarely go on sale cheaper than $100. after holiday presents, i am going to start putting it to use while i test out my "twinkle sews" book! (yes, i bought it for myself. blush. i couldn't wait until christmas.)

lemon poppyseed pound cake + cute bundt tin - poppyseed = cute lemon pound cakes

this saturday lan invited me to a family dinner with her in-laws and we had a true vietnamese feast. naturally, my contribution was dessert. since ryan was going to be in attendance at this dinner, he was the limiting reagent and thus i had to make some sort of pound cake. (yes, i'm very proud of my chemistry reference in that sentence!!!) i used the lemon poppyseed pound cake recipe from the joy of cooking, but of course, the boys were weirded out by the poppyseeds so i left that part out. lan had this tin with super cute mini bundt molds that i just had to test out. here they are fresh out of the oven:unfortunately the mini bundt molds were so small and had so many angles and corners that the cakes got stuck!!! robert, lan's husband who is a brilliant engineer, froze the cakes so they would shrink. then, following the advice from the joy of cooking, we had to bang the bundt tin against the countertop until finally they all popped out. isn't that great advice? bang and dent the counters until the cakes are unmolded! hahaha. it was worth it though because aren't they cute?!?!?!? robert's family is not big on dessert, but everyone asked for seconds (we served each cake in quarters)!lan shared the pictures she took of the boys on their birthdays in the dart gun jerseys that i made! naturally long is the one who is aiming the gun AT the camera. hehehe. and that's the limiting reagent himself on the far right!

why, tonya harding, why???

last monday, my knees were seriously bruised from an fc ceviche soccer game. i had joked that if the injuries held up, i could easily be nancy kerrigan for halloween. and without fail, i was still bruised by halloween so nancy kerrigan i was! i added panels of taffeta to a short flared skirt i used to wear back in college to resemble a mini ice skating skirt and paired it with a sequined clubbing top i bought in miami with sarah during one of our spring break outings. i also made a sash that said "why, tonya harding, why???" and cut out ice skates from some cardstock and slung it over my shoulder attached to a shoelace. of course i forgot to take pics while i was out, so here are pics from when i got home. i had colored on my bruises with a marker to accentuate the bruising but washed it off before i got home, so imagine my right knee as being blue and purple.

bunks found all this halloween hullabaloo to be absolute nonsense, so he napped while i got ready. and last night i was intending to make brownies for the last jv field hockey practice of today, but didn't make enough, so alas, more for me! these are cheesecake-less and still decadent!