30 Crafts in 30 Days: Day 5

For those of you that have been asking me what my Day 5 craft is, I have been telling you to google Robert Indiana. YES, I IN FACT DID MAKE LOVE TODAY! I had a large 2x2’ piece of cardboard on which I sketched out the LOVE type.

Then I cut it out using scissors. It’s very difficult to cut out cardboard with scissors for some reason. Are my scissors ruined? Yes. I’m ok with that.

There’s my LOVE, sitting in its naked glory on my couch. Too bad it didn’t have a guitar humming and serenading me with Heart of Gold. But it’s not the couch where we made LOVE the first time and you said to me… (ok, too many Yoü and I references, apologies.) (But I wish it were.)

I then put a corrugated lining around the LOVE, which you totally can’t see in this picture. I promise you, it gives the structure a nice 3D appeal.

I covered the LOVE in (surprise!) encyclopædia pages! and my LOVE is leaning against the wall (just the way I like it).
 
Too much? Never enough.

30 Crafts in 30 Days: Day 4

In honor of Michigan winning 72% of their season opening football game, I decided to do a Michigan Football themed craft. I made a little poster of Desmond Howard in the Heisman pose. Did you know if you google “Michigan Heisman pose” you get a bunch of pictures of Desmond Howard?

If you turn page over and backlight it, you get the reverse image! Magic! :)

 

This craft was done on an encyclopædia page…particularly the one for football. Unfortunately, this page is describing Notre Lame football or something silly. 
  
Go Blue!

30 Crafts in 30 Days: Day 3

When we order pizza at work, Papa John’s gives us about 90 magnets with their contact information. Of course, no one wants 90 magnets (besides me).

I decided to turn these magnets into delightful words for my refrigerator. I also decided to remove the zebra print from my fridge. It totally doesn’t fit in with my glamorous new image. I cut out letters using these magnets, and painted them blue. Then I glitter glued them up like I was Ke$ha.

Don’t they look lovely, splendid, and marvelous?

Here they are, chilling on my fridge (pun intended).

I really want to quote E.T. by Katy Perry right now but I feel like you might judge me. Oh well, I’m doing it anyway. “Your touch, magnetizing, feels like I am floating, leaves my body glowing.” I love that song. 

30 Crafts in 30 Days: Day 2

For my second day, I decided to dabble in drawing. And by drawing, I mean I sort of outlined a picture of the Eiffel Tower I found on the Internet and then filled in some more lines using a permanent marker.

I “watercolored” the background of this drawing. By watercolored, I mean I mixed acrylic paint with water and then it sort of turned blue. I think I mixed too much water because the paint I used was navy blue. WHAT PAINT, YOU THINK YOU’RE TOO GOOD FOR ME TO REACH YOUR FULL POTENTIAL ENERGY?

I love line drawings. I pinned this one to my cubicle wall.

Hold the line [drawing], Love isn’t always on time.

30 Crafts in 30 Days: Day 1

I think I might have tried this before…but for the month of September, I am going to try to do one craft a day. I consider food a craft. :)

To start off, I did a mini poster of Keep Calm and Carry On, a “morale raising” poster distributed in Britain in case of invasion. Ok, honestly, who would invade Britain? Oh! I know! A mass of Twitter-phone yielding looting teenagers.

I painted this on a paper from an encyclopædia article about cheese. Cheese always calms me down when things are going crazy, so I thought it was a fitting background. Especially goat cheese, if any of you are thinking of getting me cheese as a present for no particular reason.

Close up of the crown yields an informative account of certain types of cheeses, should you choose to read it.

 

What’s going on in the world today? I wish I knew.

Hello World

There is a moment when you say to yourself, 'Oh, there you are. I've been looking for you forever.’

Hello again.

Garlic Scape Pesto

I decided to do a CSA this summer, just so that I would get a bunch of random food and learn to cook new things. Well, last week, I got something called “garlic scapes” and I had not ever heard of these before. Aren’t they pretty? I love the curliness.

After searching on the Internet, I got a bunch of recipes for a pesto made from garlic scapes. I thought, “Hmm. I got Ohio City Pasta and Garlic Scapes; it would be incredibly prudent to make a garlic scape pesto FOR the pasta!” I chopped up the garlic scapes into bite size pieces, then I also took a bite.

I threw it in my Magic Bullet with a bunch of olive oil and blended it until it was creamy chunky. I then added ground peanuts and parmesan cheese. The peanuts look very much like coffee grounds. Ew. I think I sort of burnt them when I re-toasted them. They were sitting in my cabinet and I thought they might be sort of stale, but I bet it would have been ok if I hadn’t toasted them :(

After mixing up the pesto, it looks incredibly like a guacamole. I assure you, it does not taste like guacamole. It, in fact, tastes strongly of garlic. I loved it, but I should have added more peanuts to tone down the strength of the garlic flavor. Oh well, I’ll do that the next time I make garlic scape pesto.

The garlic scape pesto fraternized with the whole wheat pasta. Then I ate it.

Garlic Scape Pesto
1 bunch garlic scapes
3/4 block of parmesan cheese (or really, however much you want), finely shredded
1/2 cup of peanuts, shelled and ground
a whole bunch of olive oil, however much you need to make sure your scapes blend smoothly
sea salt, to taste

Blend your scapes with the olive oil, then add your parmesan and peanuts. mix well. eat!

Finally Airing my Dirty Laundry in Public.

This is my bedroom.

This isn’t even laundry.

Unresolved issues?!

I just spent way too much time doing this.

 

I’m gonna be famous.

Initially

I wanted some way to display my beautiful initials in my cubicle. I decided to use stash cardboard and fabric to create a beautiful insignia for myself.

I used this cardboard packaging from something I apparently bought from Amazon, and this lovely fabric I acquired in a stash swap at the Etsy Craft Party last year.

I think I used Garamond font blown up to trace my initials from my computer on to paper. I love serif fonts more than sans serif. It’s my firm belief that every resume should use serif fonts.

I glued the fabric to the cardboard, and to better create the spline, I cut the cardboard into triangles. Remember integration, guys??
 

My beautiful initials, the backside. They are so pointy.  

I love them. Some people would say that making crafts with my initials would imply that I’m self-obsessed, but hey, I write a blog. Is there anything more self-indulgent?

If it makes any difference, I’m currently updating my blog from a bar at CAK. I’m drinking Lake Erie Monster. It’s like 10% abv. xoxo