a hunt for the perfect coaster = failure

Sooo... our old coasters for our living room coffee table are looking a bit... erm... under the weather.

[photo of our forlorn coasters coming soon]

While I love the letterpressed coasters from Sesame Press-- I'm ready for something new. While looking around, I found the perfect coasters for my boyfriend's new home studio/office-- but nothing that I really wanted for the living room. (Okay, I'm lying: I found thee most awesome coasters ever... only to discover that they were a limited edition run--and not for sale.) ::sigh::

I've decided to screenprint my own!! mwa-ha-ha!! Now I just need to find plain heavy-stock coasters... any ideas?

holiday dessert party countdown: 6 days

For the past few years now I have thrown a black-tie holiday dessert party for my friends and family. It's something that my Auntie used to do--and it has always stuck out in my mind as one of the best parts of the holiday season. And if there's one thing I can do in this world: it's bake!

As much as I love throwing this party, the stress does get to me a bit. I'm always worried I will run out of time, or burn something, or make something too terrible to be consumed. I know that these fears are (so far) unfounded--but it doesn't stop me from being a nervous wreck for the entire week leading up to the party.

Here's the menu thus far:

Raspberry Almond & Rose Tart
Chocolate Ganache Tart
Chocolate Peppermint Cake
Lavender Shortbread
Hawaiian Pineapple & Coconut Tartlets
Raspberry Linzer Cookies
Spice Roll-Out Cookies
Mexican Wedding Cookies
Snickerdoodles
Meringue Stars (Vanilla, Chocolate, and Coffee flavored)
Homemade Chocolate & Pistachio Dipped Marshmallows
Earl Grey Chocolate Truffles
Cinnamon Vanilla Toasted Almonds


I am toying with the idea of a white chocolate and cranberry biscotti... but still haven't found a decent recipe. We'll see what else makes the cut in the following days.

Wish me luck!

PS: Do you know the story behind Cream of Tartar? I didn't until I looked it up tonight--it's pretty interesting, actually-- you should read this page!

baby steps...

It's been way too long since I've done anything creative... so I'm thinking baby steps. I will start by making a table cloth for our kitchen table out of this new Ikea fabric that D. has had her eye on.



What's your latest project?

**schmo-tech**

Trying to think of ways to get myself to create something more than just once in a blue moon when I happen to have a spare second and actually feel like creating something... I keep coming back to the miniature format... (I've always been fascinated by portrait miniatures.)

I had a professor at CCAC, right before I left, that had us do pieces on flash cards everyday, as a kind of exercise... I eventually moved to the ATC format size-- just because I liked the ratio better--but then I discovered that I didn't really care for 99% of what I got in return from the ATC trades I was involved in...

But who knows-- maybe I'll get back into it... see if there's anything out there that I want to trade for... in the meantime: here are a set of three (rather rushed) ATCs for the last trade I did (like, two years ago!).

illustrator

Been playing around in Illustrator for the last month or so... actually had someone come by to show me a couple of tricks of the trade... (Since I know virtually nothing about Illustrator... despite knowing my way around Photoshop just fine.) ...Talk about totally different animal... it's been a challenge to wrap my head around working in this program-- but I am determined to get used to it and use it to my advantage. We shall see... ... ... more on this later.

For now: I just learned that Muxtape is dead, but viva 8tracks!

Also: you all should send snail mail love to a random stranger. (I miss postcardX...)