I’ve been waiting for years for a local farm to offer a CSA / farm share with a pickup location in our city, and I finally hit the jackpot because Farmer Dave’s has come to town. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been feeling rather guilty lately, and it’s all because of juice. See, I’ve started making my own homemade veggie juice on a regular basis, but the problem is the leftover pulp. I’d love to compost but 1) we live in a high rise apartment building, and though we have a balcony, there’s not a whole lot of room to do composting, and 2) I have no idea what I’d use the compost for because I don’t actually grow anything (brown thumb). So, I end up having to throw out the leftover pulp, which really bums me out.

Read the rest of this entry »

Has it really been four months since I last posted here? Wow, time sure does fly, and an insanely busy work schedule certainly helps the weeks and months wiz by. Even though I haven’t been posting here (due to the aforementioned insane work schedule), I’ve been very busy in the kitchen and have been experimenting up a storm over the past several months.

Read the rest of this entry »

Printable Files:

Pink Holiday Gift Tags

Candy Stripe Paper

Chevron Paper

Christmas Trees Paper

Mod Poinsettia Paper

Candy Canes Paper

You will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to download and use these files. Download the reader for free here. These templates are for personal, non-commercial use only.

I’ve been working on a pretty ambitious felt tree skirt project this year, and it’s left me with a bunch of leftover ivory felt, so I’ve been trying to come up with some small projects that make use of the felt leftovers. These little ornaments aren’t at all difficult to make, even for beginners at embroidery, and even though they make extensive use of the fancy (and intimidating, so I’ve read) French knot. Trust me, the French knot isn’t difficult at all once you get a few practice knots in, and here’s a a video that takes you through it in real time, so if you’re a visual learner like me you’ll be a French knot pro in no time and will want to use this stitch anywhere that you possibly can.

Read the rest of this entry »

I had so much fun designing this year’s set of printable holiday gift tags, but I have to admit that I had some trouble finalizing a color scheme because I had about ten different color palettes that I wanted to use. I wanted something sort of retro, subdued, but still festive, and I finally decided on a palette of candy apple red, icy teal blue, mint green, and silvery taupe. Download the free printable gift tags (161Kb PDF).

If you’re looking for more holiday tags, please check out 2009’s wintry holiday gift tags and the colorful, patterned gift tags over at Paper Crave.

You will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to download and use this file. Download the reader for free here. These templates are for personal, non-commercial use only.