P r e t t y S k e t c h y

So far this week...

I have done a few things other than watching 30 Rock on the internet over the last while. One of those things being the finishing up of the vintage mirror wall in our living room. Jill & I have been collecting vintage mirrors from thrift shops this fall and we finally had enough of them to hang them up.

  A lot of them were gold when we bought them but there were a few we had to spray paint. They're all different colors of gold and it looks pretty fabulous. The photo on the bottom is my great grandparents and besides it being super adorable (she's wearing a really cute flapper dress) it has domed glass on it it, yess. I love domed glass.

 

  Here's a photo from a weekend walk to The Dutchess with my roommate Jill. It was a lot warmer than usual this weekend so we made sure to get outside.

  I've also been working on a commission piece which involves me making about a million little paper birdhouses. Here's four, I need to step it up, ha.

My messed up workspace on the drafting table, best purchase ever, seriously. I use it so much.

I also made cupcakes yesterday with one of my little youth peeps. For some reason she decided to shove something in her mouth in every picture I took so that's what you get, ha.

  Icing the cupcakes with the beater she was licking still in her mouth.

  Enjoying the finished cupcakes while watching some Glee. They were vanilla coconut cupcakes and were super amazing. Rachel & I ate them for dinner and the rest of them went to the sketch-booking group I have here every Tuesday. The were a huge hit and I had to wrestle one of them away from them to save for Jill.

   A lonely little cupcake for Jill.

Happy week. I'm off from work today, slacking off and watching The Office, good times.

Hey, Thanks

Due to looming deadlines I decided not to go to Airdrie to hang out with my family this Thanksgiving. Instead I drew trees, hung out with a few peeps and spent the weekend alone in my house feeling just a bit sorry for myself, ha.

Meg and I decided to make crepes for Thanksgiving dinner, I am kind of a crepe pro, no big deal. I've never been too into spending an entire day cooking a meal for a holiday so I decided crepes was a good call. I've also done homemade pizza for Christmas before, yesss. Some batter mixing photos...

 

 

 

 

Meg and her super excited crepe batter face. You have to mix it up beforehand and then let it sit in the fridge for an hour or so. In case any of you want to try them out sometime here's the recipe. Beth wrote it out for me from a recipe she got off the internet and the called them crepes a la Bethany cause she likes to take credit for things she shouldn't, ha.

After we mixed them up we took a break to sit in the living room, watch the snow fall and wallow in self-pity. Meg wanted me to play guitar for her so I did that too. She took some pictures of me while I was playing and I realized that I don't think I have any pictures of me playing guitar. I can't take them of myself cause my hands are otherwise occupied, ha.

 

 

I've been really digging playing super-beautiful/super-depressing songs these days.

Okay, back to the crepes... it's cook time.

 

 

They look pretty amazing right? Well, they were. Nay-Nay came over and joined us for dinner.

 

 

Raspberries, Nutella and whipped cream, killer combo, seriously. Last time we had crepes we discovered the Nutella and bacon combo but last night was a bacon-free night. So sad.


Nathan kept telling on Megan for improperly eating her crepes, I felt like I was teaching grade two, ha.

After dinner we watched a terrible, terrible movie in the studio. Meg and I fell asleep on Nathan and he had to sit through the entire movie, alone and wide awake, ha. After it was over and we had woken up, we saved the night and watched The Office. Good times.

Okay, no more procrastinating; I need to draw trees now. Happy day peeps.

Mennonite good times

My Mom and Aunt are in Edmonton visiting me for Easter.

We spent yesterday walking around Whyte Ave drinking Starbucks and shopping. Then my aunt made soft pretzels for us. I have been craving soft pretzels ever since watching the 'Pretzel Day' episode of The Office while I was biking a few weeks ago. My Mom and I tried making some last weekend but they turned out more like pretzel shaped biscuits than soft pretzels. Last night we tried this one and it was pretty great.

You have to make the dough, let it rise, shape them and then boil them in a mixture of baking soda and water. Unfortunately the first few we made didn't keep their shape, they were all slimy and gross looking.

We did get better at shaping them though.

I ate many pretzels, so good.

After the pretzel making we sat around the table and my aunt highlighted my Moms hair while we watched old episodes of The Office. I took a lot of pictures...

Me and Connie...

Cutting Mom's hair

Playing with the strings from the blind. It was kind of a ridiculous night...

On a completely unrelated topic I've really been enjoying my room. I love that I can walk in there and feel happy and at peace. I try to keep most of my work stuff in the studio so my room is just a lovely place where I can read and relax and sleep.

It's nice to see sun in there again.

Okay, it's paska making tonight.

When I was younger and would go to visit my Grandma in Seattle she would always buy me Reese's Peanut Butter Puffs cereal. Every time I see them in the cereal aisle it reminds me of her. I blame those feelings of nostalgia for my purchasing a box and eating a huge bowl for breakfast today. They were just as fabulous/disgusting as I remembered them to be.

The roof of my mouth is burning now...

This year I gave up eating out for Lent. I never even knew about Lent growing up and I think it's a catholic thing or something but a few years back I gave up sugar for Lent just for kicks and decided to try again this year. The idea behind this year's choice was that I would save a bit of money and be a lot less lazy about cooking for myself. It's been really good so far but for the past while I have been having killer cravings for a cheeseburger, Agh. I love meat a lot but I hardly ever cook beef at home. As soon as Lent is over I'm going to be in Red Robin chowing down.

Does that not look amazing?

It's giveaway time peeps.

I spent last night making candied orange peels. I'd seen it on a few blogs and decided to try it out. I got the recipe from here and decided to photo document the process.

1. Blanching the peels... you have to cut them into little slices and remove as much of the pith as possible before blanching. The pith removal is super important.

2. Then I had to boil them in an obscene amount of sugar until they started to look translucent. It took quite a while, over an hour.

Before and after...

The orange peels photographed really well and I got a bit picture crazy, ha.

3. After the peels cooled in the syrup I laid them all out to dry on a cookie rack with waxed paper underneath. It was my favorite part for sure because there were a million little peels and I had to take them out with a fork one at a time and line them up.

They looked like weird little minnows all slippery orange and lined up.

4. I let them dry for a while and then sugared them which also took forever.

I liked the sugaring.

After I finished with the peels the waxed paper was covered in glistening syrupy drops which begged another photo.

I told Nathan on the phone after I'd finished what I'd spent my night doing and he said it was a super weird thing to have done with my night. I didn't think it was that weird but there you go. I did realize a bit later that I'm not a big gummy candy fan so it was a strange thing to make for myself. They taste good and I was pleased with how they turned out but I don't really want to eat a ton, I'm more of a chocolate gal myself. Ooh, maybe I should chocolate dip them, mmm, diabetes, bad idea. Anyways on that note I've decided to give some away.

I packaged 4 little bags today and will send them off to the lucky four names I will draw at the end of this weekend.

Cool? Comment away.