Category Archives: Crafty

Glitter shoes!

Posted by sarah3030 in Crafty and tagged with , ,

Pinterest love is paying off.  It is officially doing what I believe it’s intention was, which is to share ideas and inspire crafty-ness.

I saw this picture:

 

I read these instructions.

I did this:

Take shoes that had been ruined by grates along the streets of Chicago.

Channel Martha Stewart with glue and glitter.

Start painting the heels while watching Top Chef.

Take a moment to congratulate yourself for picking the PERFECT color glitter.

Clean up mess before glitter cat footprints are everywhere, including this laptop.

Enjoy party shoes that have been given a new life!  Now…must find place to where the party shoes…

Sarah hosts a baby shower

Posted by sarah3030 in Crafty, dinner party; cooking, Event and tagged with , , ,

Sitting down feels nice.

I have been on my feet since 7am when I got out of bed to complete baby shower prep and then host said baby shower.  The good news is that it was a lovely shower, several groups of the mom to be’s friends were here and everyone seemed to get along, have a nice time, enjoy the food, ooh and aah at baby gifts and celebrate our friend, of course.

Angela, the mom to be, would not be into all the pastel, so we stuck to a hot pink and orange theme.  Enjoy some party pics! (If you click on them, they get bigger and much easier to see.)  I was really proud of our pink and orange food, which included: port wine cheese & crackers, carrots, red peppers and hummus with red pepper relish, a salad with grated carrots and pomegranate seeds, bagel platter with salmon and red onion, a crostini with a sweet potato spread topped with a peppered pork tenderloin and a pumpkin penne pasta.  Desserts were pumpkin cupcakes and a cake from a local bakery that Angela loves.  I also attempted cake pops for the first time.  They went okay.  I don’t think I’m in a big rush to make them again, but I am glad to be inducted into the cake pop club made so popular by Bakerella.

Halloween. A speedbump on the way to Christmas.

Posted by sarah3030 in Crafty and tagged with , , ,

I just don’t get into Halloween.  I have a cute ghost candleholder, which is the extent of my decorations, and if I’m being honest here I didn’t even get that out this year.  That’s not to say there aren’t cute decorations and in my recent pinterest and blog hopping ways I’ve found more than ever.  Here is a round up of some of the crafty ideas I may embrace next year.

I found the blog The Swell Life through Pinterest and found so many great DIY Halloween projects!

 These are her forged foil pumpkins and these could work all fall instead of just Halloween.  And this next project I found through Pinterest and that led me to the blog.

 

I think I could handle making these super cute vases and having them on the mantle for several weeks leading up to Halloween!  Some old wine bottles (of which I have plenty) and some spray paint?!  I got this.

And if you need more ideas – this post of hers will take you to 12 fun ways to decorate a pumpkin.  What I love about her ideas is that they don’t require a lot of carving.  My barrier to more pumpkin decorating is cleaning out the center of the pumpkin.  I don’t like pumpkin guts.

 

 

 

 

 

Hostess with the Mostess showcases the most elaborate Halloween parties and decorations.  I don’t think I’ll ever make it to this level, but it is awfully fun to derive inspiration from their posts.

Love adding the sanding sugar so they look sparkly!

So much to look at!

Maybe if I had a Halloween party to throw or attend I would get more into the decorating.  Maybe next year.  But for now, I’m excited that tomorrow I can start playing my Christmas music.  To me, November 1 is the official beginning of the Holiday Season, which is my favorite.  Tonight, I’ll watch Halloween (the movie), make some pumpkin pasta and drink some hot chocolate.  And start preparing for the rest of the holidays this year.

Now, I’m off to spend this Halloween at the DMV and perhaps a walk around a neighborhood I haven’t visited in a while.  I’m thinking of walking around Soulard or Main Street St. Charles.  I need to do it this afternoon before all the crazies come out tonight.

I’m Sarah, and I’m ridiculous

Posted by sarah3030 in Crafty, Crazy., growth, heavy, relationships and tagged with ,

The thing about having two part time jobs that have random schedules is that it is impossible to get into regular day to day habits.  Which also means I feel tired all the time.  That could also be because of the cats.  The cats!  But that’s a different post.

I demonstrated some of my ridiculousness last night.  I stayed up until 1am finishing a project that I should have finished a year ago.  And why?  Why now?  It’s a gesture.  Sigh.  I can’t even explain my line of reasoning right now.  Last year I said I would knit something.  I got halfway through it and then got distracted.  Last night I finished it.  I just needed to.  And to prove a point?  To try and make things right?  To say I’m sorry?  A little of all of the above.  At 1am I had several brilliant delivery options, almost all of them involved some play on a “Say Anything” / “Love Actually” montage.  You know that scene in Love Actually where the guy shows up outside of Kiera Knightley’s apartment with the music and the signs that he keeps flipping through without saying a word?  I love that scene.  It’s so tragically romantic.  And I felt I was in the same scenario.  I needed to drop this hat off and then just leave.  I wanted a more amicable ending to this story.  At 1am I had full blown plans to carry out this “bit”.  I love a “bit”.  I love big gestures and special moments and romance.  The good news, is that at 5:20am when my alarm went off to “carry out” this “bit” I came to my senses.   I did not think that intended recipient of this gesture would appreciate my point of view.  In fact, I saw doors being slammed in my face.  (Seriously, I even awoke suddenly from a dream in which the back of my car was slammed into.  I think it was symbolism.)

Which leads me to this thought – why do I think I know what’s best for other people sometimes?  Why do I think I’M what’s best for people?  Claire used to ask me that at work from time to time.  Why am I so confident I know what’s best?

Sigh.  I got a little bit more sleep.  I got a lot of coffee from downstairs.  I’ve become a bigger coffee drinker.  I think it started when Meg was here.  I continue to grow in my coffee appreciation.  Cappuccinos are expensive.  Regular coffee is only a $1 if you bring your own mug.  I’m a girl on a budget.  I got a dollar.  I’m about two weeks away from drinking straight black coffee.  Sign of growth?

Ok.  I’m off to mail a hat.

Stuck in the middle with you…

Posted by sarah3030 in Crafty

Things I am in the middle of…
1. The great chocolate chip cookie adventure.  Remaking all of these recipes to document and photograph.
2. Finishing the dining room.  I painted months ago, am about to get a new china cabinet, an old dining room set, and need to hang all the gorgeous food photos I bought from smitten kitchen. 
3. Three different knitting projects.  (I know, craft dork comments welcome.)  Two scarves, because you never know when you may need a scarf as a present come Christmas time, and another R2D2 knit hat for Adam Science.  He said he’d wear it.  I’m calling his bluff.  Will the high school kids he works with even know Star Wars? 
4. Perfecting my coaching/feedback class at work.  I just don’t know if it’s effective enough.
5. Updating my resume.  Because, you never know when you may need it.
6. Cleaning my apartment.  Ha.  This is one really pretty funny.  I’m always in the middle of cleaning my apartment.  I hate to break it to myself, but I think I’m a messy person. 
7. Becoming a person who can complete a 5K!!  I’m getting closer!  Keith (the name I’ve given my running iphone app) has me up to running a full 20 minutes.  I think Keith is crazy. 

Send me some “How about you finish something, Sarah!” thoughts please.

Finishing the hat

Posted by sarah3030 in Crafty, Crazy.
From Sorkin to Sondheim – the post subject refers to the Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park with George, which is the story of Georges Seurat. During this song Georges girlfriend is leaving him because he is engrossed in his work, and not enough in her. As she is talking about why she is leaving, he is focused on this painting and ends the song:
“Finishing a hat…
Starting on a hat..
Finishing a hat…
Look, I made a hat…
Where there never was a hat”
While I’m certainly not comparing myself to Georges Seurat and his art in any way, I have been engrossed in a hat of my own recently. I’ve mentioned previously that I’m working on an R2D2 knit hat for a friend. Just a little over a year ago, I said casually in passing that I think I would like to learn to knit and the next day received a link to instruction on how to knit a hat that looks like the top of R2D2′s head. I’m not sure I had any real intention of following up on learning to knit, but now I had a reason to. I was unemployed at the time and anyone who motivated me to fill the time (in a way that wasn’t sitting around and watching Gilmore Girls – not that there’s anything wrong with that) I thought deserved what they asked for. I took a 4 week knitting class and started on the hat.
This hat has brought me nothing but pain and suffering. Sure, several good lessons were learned the hard way. That doesn’t make it okay that I’ve had to start this thing 3 times. Here’s a picture of all three (all three and my cat who was poking around them) :


Let me take you on a little tour of hats. On your far left is the first one I tried. The idea of stitching all the blue boxes on after it was knitted didn’t sound like much fun, so I tried a more advanced knitting technique called stranded knitting where you carry both colors around the hat. (Do I sound like the giantest craft dork right now?) That was complicated, and I’m fairly sure I was doing it incorrectly, but I got through it. Now, when it came to starting to shape the dome there was a stitch I hadn’t learned. I watched some You Tube videos, thought I had a hand on it and started the decreases. After two rows, I realized I had read the pattern incorrectly and had done way too many of the new stitch. I was supposed to do one of those stitches every 12 or something and I had done it continuously. I thought perhaps I could just pull out the two rows and re-insert my needles and pick right back up where I had left off, but I’m just not that good. Dang it. Starting over.

Using the same pattern, I start again (see middle hat), this time not using the stranded method and resigned to having to double stitch all the blue boxes. I get to the dome part and follow the directions, for the most part. I think I lost count somewhere, but it all came together. Except, when I looked at it, there were funny points in strange places and kind of a hole where it didn’t all come together at the top. I just didn’t feel it was acceptable.

I start again. Why I’m so determined to do this so well, I’m not really sure. The friend this is for is, much like this hat has been, kind of a pain in my ass. But, now, this is for me. I just want to do it. I go back to the internet and search for a different pattern. I decide it’s the pattern that’s cursed, not me and my skill, or lack thereof. I find this one and decide this is the one that will make it happen. Thanks to Megan for posting this pattern with lots of great pictures. I finish the actual hat in just a couple of days and now have to start the double stitching, adding the main detail around the middle of the hat. I pull the hat out of my knitting bag and go to it. After about three boxes I think, “Man, this one came out lumpier than I thought.” And then in a flash of pure idiocy where you have no one to blame but yourself, I realize I had pulled hat #2 out of the bag and started stitching the detail on the wrong hat. Double Dang It.

I sigh. I pull the correct hat out. I start the stitching. I think to myself again how much this hat, and now the friend who requested it, are becoming more and more similar.

Double stitching takes longer than I would like it to. I finish. Just this morning actually.


(please ignore my totally messy hair)

And so it is complete. With the exception of four stitches I have to add in red. But I don’t have any red yarn at this time.

The Crackpots and These Women

Posted by sarah3030 in Crafty, Happy
Wednesday night is Knitting and Tea night at my new favorite cozy place – the London Tea Room on Washington Avenue. You should go read their website – read through the menu and the tea information – not only to get information – but because some of the cheekiest humor is woven throughout the site. It made the place even more attractive to me. (I was first attracted because they have scones and tea – enough said.)

Once a month they’ve stayed open a little later and invited knitters into the shop to sit and knit and sip. I went last month and it was a really lovely night. I’m currently working on a project that requires some helpful hints from more experienced knitters than I.

If you’re just not sure what that is – it’s the start of an R2D2 knit hat. Yes, I know. It’s pretty dorky. It was a request and since there’s really not a lot of knitted projects that I want to take on (I never want to knit myself a poncho or a purse – I am not Ugly Betty) I say yes to anyone who asks for a scarf or a hat. And I like the challenge that this hat is providing – knitting with two colors of yarn is tricky.

So, tomorrow I will sit, sip, knit and ask questions of some strangers doing the same.