thou shalt do the dance

I'm back! I thought I might share some of my recent ventures in the world of crafting...

First up, Martha's Medallions-



These take about 10 minutes to make if you're neat about it. The medallion in the top right was my first attempt, and as you can see it's, on the scraggly side. I kind of forego-ed Martha's directions. For whatever reason, my medallions needed 14 cone things, not 16. My paper was rectangular, so I folded it over to make and cut out squares and then cut those diagonally once, not twice. (If you're counting, that's 7 pieces of paper). I also used Elmer's glue instead of something more heavy duty, and instead of using crazy specialized hole punches, I glued the cones down on to a circle I cut (freehand!) out of cardstock and freehanded another circle for the centers. To hang them up, I poked a thumbtack through the cardstock backs and threaded embroidery floss through it with a needle and tied the floss into a loop. The only scrapbooking paper I had at the time were these tiny little sheets left over from my sister's school project, hence the smaller medallions. The big medallion is made out of crazy-colored printer paper I had lying around.

Next up, one of the projects from this post.



This didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, but I was pleased with it, as was my mother, who it was for. The tissue paper was really difficult to work with, I kept ripping it off the canvas and throwing it out, and it looked weird wherever it accidentally overlapped.

The quote is by Sophia Loren. You can download the text from my project here. The font is Little Lord Fontleroy. The leaf is from the font Type Embellishments 1.


The white paper with the circles? Came from an Anthropologie bag. I save tissue paper from everything I buy to wrap presents with at school. Cheap and green. :)

Last of all- picture frames!





I have too too many pictures and nowhere to put them, so when I saw these three pack frames at Ikea, I grabbed several packs! (They're the 4"x6" size). I painted the backs and sides with black acrylic paint and covered the fronts with Cosmo Cricket scrapbook paper. I actually only covered 8/12 frames, I'm planning on spray-painting the last four gold. Fun!

The red paper is the Honey Pie Avery, and the greenish paper is Wanted: Buffalo Bill. You might not be able to see it, but it's covered in tiny sepia cowboys on bucking horses. I LOVE it. I also picked up this paper by Frances Meyer. It has elephants and tigers and to my delight is called "Bengali Jungle," but the print was too big for the frames and would have looked silly. All these papers and many, many more, which I could not afford, were found at my local AC Moore.

As you can see, I'm way more inclined towards paper crafts than sewing or knitting or crocheting. I don't have a sewing machine and get bored with hand sewing. I can't knit and I'm a terrible crotchet-er, but my BFF Jenny is an awesome, awesome crafter.



You can find this hat and more at her shop at http://jbarny.etsy.com. Every hat is named after a beautiful town down the Jersey shore and is handmade and 100% Vegan. Also, if you're looking for the perfect beach bag, check out her Ortley beach bags.

spriiiing

Sorry I have been absent again! I'm in my last few days of classes, and I'll be starting finals soon, so my days are jam packed with studying. It has been beautiful lately, but the past few days have been insanely hot- 90+ from Saturday-Tuesday! Today was the first day in a while I could go outside without withering, and I wanted to take pictures of some of the flowers around the yard before they disappeared.

Here are a few-



See the rest here

he'll get there eventually

These little guys are called "Tweenbots." They were built by Kacie Kinzer, a grad student at NYU. They're simple and fragile and can only move forward. Their flags tell passerby about their mission, to get from one point in New York to another, and ask for help. Basically, they depend entirely on the people who encounter them to get to their destinations.



Amazingly, this little guy travelled from the northeast corner of Washington Square Park to the southeast corner in 42 minutes and with the help of 29 strangers. Kinzer followed behind him with a camera in her purse, recording the entire journey.

According to Kinzer, not a single tweenbot has been lost or damaged and they've all reached their destinations. When they run into curbs, when they get stuck under a bench, when they head into oncoming traffic, someone always stops and helps the little guys out.

via http://tweenbots.com

sorry!

I'm really sorry I haven't updated in the past few days. My grandfather passed away last week, so my life has been a little hectic.

Anyway, I quick post-

About two weeks ago, my brother and I decided to test out a recipe from smitten kitchen because we were craving ice cream sandwiches...

They turned out pretty excellently, I must say.







So the cookies, are amazing by themselves, but I feel like half the reason the sandwiches were so delicious was the ice cream my brother chose... Also, my resident dairy expert (ie: Nora who's from Wisconsin) says that the ice cream is partially so delicious because it uses eggs and is therefore technically a frozen custard, not ice cream.

the recipe from smitten kitchen

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup lightly salted butter, softened (Deb note: I don’t really see “lightly salted” much these days, so I used one stick salted, one stick unsalted)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

Preheat oven at 350 degrees. Whisk dry flour, salt and baking powder in bowl and set aside. Mix butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and cocoa in mixer. Gradually add flour mixture, and mix until smooth. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least one hour.

Roll out cookie dough on floured counter. Cut into desired shapes, brushing extra deposits of flour off the top. (It does disappear once baked, though, so don’t overly fret if they go into the oven looking white.) Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 8 to 11 minutes (the former for 1/8-inch thick cookies, the latter for 1/4-inch cookies) until the edges are firm and the centers are slightly soft and puffed.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

*not from esha: we actually halved everything and used one stick of unsalted margarine since a) we're not picky and b) we didn't feel like going to the grocery store... and we didn't have any problems

waves of the indian sea

My parents are trying to plan a trip to India for next Christmas. They want to show my siblings and me as much of India as they can while we're still young. Well, as you can imagine, I'm pretty excited for this trip. I've been to India several times, but I've only been outside of Calcutta, where my mother grew up and where most of my extended family lives, twice: once when I was three and once when I was sixteen.

My dad just got back from India and because he went to several cities that I've never been to, I immediately stole his camera to look through his photos. I thought I'd share a few because a) they're beautiful b) I'm immensely proud of my heritage and c) I'm immensely proud of my completely technologically inept father for being able to take some semi-decent photos.

My dad started out in Mumbai, formerly Bombay. Then he went to Bangalore and also went on a day trip to the city of Mysore. Then he ended up in Calcutta, visiting his mother and sister.
If you'd like to see any of these full sized, just click on them and the link will take you to my flickr.



The view from my dad's room at the Oberoi hotel in Mumbai


The Gateway to India in Mumbai. It was built to honor King George V's visit to India and the top of the monument reads: ERECTED TO COMMEMORATE THE LANDING IN INDIA OF THEIR IMPERIAL MAJESTIES KING GEORGE V AND QUEEN MARY ON THE SECOND OF DECEMBER MCMXI


my dad posing (or reposing) near the Gateway of India (and wearing the shirt I got him for Father's Day)


sunset over Juhu Beach in Mumbai


the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Mumbai (formerly the Prince of Wales Museum). I won't lie, I prefer the old name.


The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai. If the hotel looks familiar to you, it was one of the sites of the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai.


a flock of birds at the bird sanctuary in Bangalore


I feel like this bird hates me. At the same sanctuary in Bangalore


a crocodile at the bird sanctuary


a sliver of a crocodile


the Chamundeshwari temple in Mysore, India


a statue of a cow at the Chamundeshwari temple in Mysore


a line of women selling flower garlands to visitors, outside the Chamundeshwari temple in Mysore


a real cow! and more women selling garlands outside the temple. sidenote: in India, you need an umbrella rain or shine


my grandma and her nurse on the roof of my grandma's apartment building in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India


The view from the roof of my grandma's apartment building

I think my next post will be some old photos, from my trip to Italy. I'm in a photo-y mood.

ps: If you were wondering what happened with my shoe dilemma, I chose the Adidas. Also, because I am so resourceful, I found a free shipping promotion at Alloy. AND because I'm so nice, I'll share it- for free shipping on all orders $25+ type AKEAFF in the promotions box at checkout.