A Thank You card

Next week, I graduate from the the 2-year rotational program that I’ve been on at work. I made a “Thank You” card for the manager of this program and my manager for two years.
I was originally going to make this card approximately 5x7”, but certain members of this program wanted to make a “huge” card. I compromised and decided to make one that was 8.5x11” – out of a manila folder.

I cut out rectangles from magazine in a ruby color and then glued them to the front of the manila folder.

Then, I cut another manila folder into a bunch of strips and created outlines of “THANK YOU” on the ruby cutouts. (Sidenote: Today, I learned that Aluminium Oxide with a dash of Chromium turns into Ruby. Did you know that Aluminium Oxide is a ceramic?? I did.)

I surrounded the THANK YOU with quilled spirals. The “quilling tool” I was a nail. I used to use a knitting needle as my quilling tool but I lost it. The basis for this design is a quilled “IMAGINE” that I read on one of my blogs. It’s not quite as detailed or amazing, but now I’ve had Imagine stuck in my head for the past few days. You may say I’m a dreamer…but I’m not the only one.
 
On the inside of the card, I have a picture of my graduating class and our manager. I used this tutorial to create the photo corners.

I found out today that my phone-camera has ~MANUAL FOCUS~.  This thing keeps amazing me. I can’t believe I ever bad mouthed it. Yes I can. It still isn’t very good in compact fluorescent lighting. I should get make an incandescent photobooth for it.

30 Crafts in 30 Days: Day 30

It’s here! The last day of my saga. I wanted to do something epic, a very large project to commemorate my last day of this series. Of course, I instead got sidetracked by my dinner and the Internet.

When I was younger, I used to read the book The Rainbow Fish all the time. At the time, I didn’t understand that the theme was vanity and/or sharing. (I suppose I still don’t really know.) I just kept wondering why the rainbow fish gave all its beautiful scales away. It looked so dull with only one scale left!

I am devoting my day 30 craft to the rainbow fish. I have absolutely no idea if it’s illegal to sort of copy an illustration. Hmm. Help?

I sketched the fish out on that same manila folder that I’ve been using for the past few days.

Then I colored it in with colored pencil. I colored the background of the fishy part (the sea) (or the ocean? maybe even a pond) with crayon. In retrospect, I should have colored the entire thing with a crayon, but I wasn’t really thinking. Colored pencil looks pretty sweet though.

I went into the glitter section of my craft cabinet and found my silver glitter glue. (The glitter section of my craft cabinet is a little tray on top of my craft cabinet with 12 glitter glues on it. Yes, they were a set.) I smeared the glitter glue on many scales of the rainbow fish. I apparently didn’t learn anything from the book.

According to Wikipedia, “Reviewers have called this a "cautionary tale about selfishness and vanity" and a reminder that "sharing brings happiness and acceptance," but the moral of the book has become a hotly debated topic. Interpretations include rejection of individuality and promotion of Socialism.” Hahaha. Ok, yeah, I suppose if you look at it from a different angle ;)

That concludes my 30 Crafts in 30 Days. I hope you enjoyed reading my posts as much as I enjoy eating and crafting!

30 Crafts in 30 Days: Day 29

Day 29. I didn’t think I’d make it this far. (I almost didn’t.)  Today’s craft highlights the city that I live in: Cleveland. Last week, when I joined the ladies to sketch at the Natural History Museum, I got very jealous when they started doing watercolors. Thus, today’s craft is a watercolor of downtown Cleveland, as seen from the Superior Viaduct (where I used to live).
I started off using scrap graph paper that I had instead of watercolor paper. I did a very undetailed sketch of downtown using a mechanical pencil that I found in my cabinet. It’s kind of silly how terrible at drawing things with pencil I am.

I filled in the details with a permanent marker. Oh, I am such a fan of Sharpies.

Then, I filled the little drawing in with watercolors from my $3 kid’s art set from Michael’s. (I swear, everyone needs one of these. It has watercolors, oil pastels, markers, colored pencils, and crayons. Amazing!)

While that was drying I cut out (using paper edging scissors that I got at a craft stash swap a bunch of years ago) a backing out of a manila folder. Then I used tacky glue to glue the watercolor to the backing. In retrospect, I should probably have used a glue stick to glue it, since this water-based stuff makes different papers expand to different sizes. In retrospect, I also should have bought glue sticks during back to school season when 4-packs were 25 cents.

Kinda makes me miss downtown living, when this was the view from my picture window, but not enough to actually move back there. :)

30 Crafts in 30 Days: Day 28

Slow roasted tomatoes! Not going to lie, it took me maybe 5 tries to figure out how to spell tomato pluralized. I got something called “grape tomatoes” in my CSA, and since I think grape tomatoes are pretty much bland, I decided to slow-roast them. 
I chopped each of them in half, and drizzled in olive oil.

I then placed them in my toaster oven for ~3 hours at 250F. Look at the apparent temperature gradient of my toaster oven! The ones that are super dry looking were near the front of the oven and the soggy looking ones were at the back. Hmm. Sounds like I need to use a convection oven.

I tried to take a picture of the tomatoes while they were being roasted, but it ended up being a time when the heating element was not on and producing light. Oh well. Next time.

30 Crafts in 30 Days: Day 27

I hadn’t done any quilling recently, so since it was my friend’s birthday recently, I decided to make a simple card for her. I started with an old manila folder that was going to be thrown away at work! From the looks of it, it looked as though it had never been used.

I cut out a third of it and made a bunch of paper strips.

I started quilling. Quilling is soo easy. These things called “quilling tools” are general used to curl the paper, but I used a nail. I used to use a really thin knitting needle, but I lost it in the great clean-up of 2011.

Ta-Dah! Love the manila on manila.

I used fancy scissors to cut the right edge of the card into a pattern. Then, I rolled it up into a little rose at the bottom right.

Cute, huh? :)

30 Crafts in 30 Days: Day 26

I got something called “collard greens” in my CSA this week, and I have heard that they are a. gross, b. bitter and c. irony (but not ironic).  I really wanted lentil soup today as dinner, so I decided to make lentil soup with collard greens and feta.
Ingredients

• 1 cup lentils (I used green)
• 2.5 cups water
• 1/2 can tomato paste that has been sitting in your freezer improperly stored so now has freezer burn
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 4 collard green leaves, chopped
• 1 tbsp turmeric
• As much feta as you want (I used approximately 1/2 cup crumbled)

1. Mix together the tomato paste, onions, garlic and water in a pot. Bring to a boil.

2. Cook, covered, on low heat until the lentils are cooked, about 20-30 minutes.

3. Add your chopped collard greens, turmeric, and chili powder. Cover and cook for 10 minutes on low heat.

4. Pour your crumbled feta into the soup.

5. Mix it all together and place in a bowl. Eat it and taste the rainbow.

When in doubt, add feta.

30 Crafts in 30 Days: Day 25

Today I lead you through a fantastic before and after. Welcome to my living room, aka craft studio. You may recognize many of the colors of my living room as the backdrop for some of my smaller projects. You also may not recognize these colors, since I ‘shop the hell out of these pictures since they’re phone camera and I want them to look as beautiful as possible. This was my living room before tonight. It is terribly messy. There are magazines, yarn, canvasses, paint etc EVERYWHERE. I don’t know what I’m doing with my life that it gets so messy. Oh yeah. I’m doing crafts. Duh :)

Since my friend Lindsay is coming into town this weekend to hang out, I thought that I should probably clean it for her. So I spent about 2 hours cleaning it and also did laundry tonight - what an accomplishment!

I feel like this post has turned into one of those “Can you spot the difference?!” game photos. It’s not. Though there is one large decor difference. Can you spot it? You might get a prize. Probably not, though.

While cleaning, I watched Glee, The Daily Show, Colbert Report, and Modern Family. My favorite part was on Glee, when Emma Pillsbury told us, “My parents are ginger supremacists.”

30 Crafts in 30 Days: Day 24

I went to my pottery studio on Monday to pick up some stuff that I had made during the last class. Some ladies in that timeslot go to the Museum of Natural History on Wednesdays to draw stuff! It’s called the Guild of Nature artists. Anyway, they invited me this week to go with them and draw birds!
I picked the Common Merganser (m.) as my subject. Did you know that the salmon-pink tinge shown variably by males is probably diet related, obtained by the carotenoid pigments present in some crustaceans and fish? Me neither. I also just learned that this bird exists today. And you can totally pick up the salmon-pink tinge from my amazing phone camera. (I swear, it exists.)

Anyway. I started sketching this bird. I didn’t own any sketchbooks, so I took some nice graph paper from work that was goign to be thrown out. Also, the only pencil I had at work was a red colored pencil. As soon as I took it out, one of the women whipped it out of my hand and handed me a 2B drawing pencil as well as an art gum eraser.

After I finished drawing the bird, I found a feather close by so I drew that as if it had fallen off this bird. I think it was actually a feather from the Canadian goose that was hovering about 2 feet away.

I added some cattail-y looking plants that were hanging out behind the bird. I don’t know how to draw cattails. I haven’t drawn since I was 13! And you can’t even tell!!

And see the salmon tone in the bird now? I’m just kidding. I totally made that last picture black and white due to the picture turning out sort of yellow splotchy (not sure how).   

30 Crafts in 30 Days: Day 23

My friend Ali went apple-picking last weekend, and she gchatted me today with, “do you know how to make caramel apples? i need ideas to do with apples.” And I have never made caramel in my life, but ever since my 10th grade Chemistry teacher told me that it was just cooked sugar and water, I’ve wanted to try it.
Ali came over today bearing approximately 20 apples. I placed them on my countertop in one of the first bowls I made in my pottery class. (It’s so fitting, because I met her in pottery class on a day that we were both not taking the class, but making up a class that we had missed. Kismet!)

Anyway. The caramel! After searching for a bunch of tutorials online, including one who told us to brush the sides of a pot with a ‘pastry brush’ and another who told us that we needed a candy thermometer, we settled on the wikiHow tutorial, which required the least number of ingredients.
This recipe started off with 0.5 cup sugar and 0.25 cup cold water mixed in a sauce pan.

Stir the mixture until it starts bubbling.

Then wait…

Until you have this beautiful brown colored caramel! Yeah, it either took 15 minutes to get to this point or I was being very impatient.

Then we tried to find out how to make this into a sauce so that we could dip the apples into it. All these stupid recipes called for something called ‘heavy whipping cream’. Why would anyone keep heavy whipping cream in their abode? It’s not like I have a grocery store half a mile away from me. So instead of using heavy whipping cream, I turned the burner off and poured in half a cup of warm milk and started stirring like mad. The caramel starts bubbling up when the milk is added for reasons unbeknownst to me.

Once the milk is stirred in, I also stirred in about a pat of salted butter.

Next, I dipped my sliced apple into the sauce. This is literally awesome sauce. I also think that this was the point in the night that my dad called me asking me if I had a AAA card. I said no, why? and he told me that he was watching a television show called Last Man Standing and the daughter on the show apparently went out somewhere and got a flat tire. So then he called me.

The apples that Ali brought over were comically small, so I said, ‘OMG can you take a twilight picture of me?’ and her response was, ‘I don’t even know what that means.’ Then I gimped it. These apples are sooo cute. Oh hey – check out the sweet mani that I got over the weekend. My first mani! (That should be the title of a book. But not the one shown below.)(Yes, I think twilight is one of the dumber series out there, but I enjoy making fun of the movies all the same.)
   
I suppose that since I didn’t use ‘heavy whipping cream’ to saucify my caramel and used 1/2% milk instead, this could be considered a healthy caramel sauce! Right? Michelle Obama, if you could see me now!

30 Crafts in 30 Days: Day 22

Today I made a noodle-y dish.
I chopped up half a cabbage. Some might say that it was a lot of cabbage, and I would tend to agree; however, I made 3 servings of this dish so it’s ok that I chopped up that much cabbage.

I fried half a chopped onion and chili pepper flakes in chili oil. I was feeling in a spicy mood.

I added the cabbage to the frying onions and added 4 eggs. I cooked them until they were scrambley.

I poured cooked soba noodles, soy sauce, white vinegar (I know, so lame, but I sorta ran out of rice vinegar, /pretention), and Sriracha sauce (best everrrr) onto the cabbage egg mixture.

Dinner! Double whammy: I get to do a craft AND have dinner, all in one. I also have lunch and dinner for tomorrow yayy.

My apartment smells like Sriracha and cabbage. I suppose it could smell worse.