"My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them" (Mitch Hedberg)

I have a window box of plants that are not only alive, but thriving! It makes me happy they are doing well.

Here is the before (about 2 months ago)...



Here is now!

Autumn Crafts

In keeping with the whole wishing for Autumn (it's freaking 90 degrees outside!) thing I've got gonig, here are the artsy thingies I got and made for my Autumn-themed artist trading card swap.


The ATC I recieved is the card on the far left with the word "Fall" across it. The rest of the stuff is just extras that people sometimes send out of the goodness of their arts and craft-y little hearts! I ended up using some of the papers she sent to make my own ATC's.

Here're the ones I made. The one on the left, "Fall is Here" is cut paper spray painted gold then placed over a red painted background. The one on the right is painted pieces of paper cut into leaf shapes and glued onto a background to create a sort of green man mask. Not very impressive, but done the night before the deadline and mailed off the very next day. :D

Autumn Notes

Hey, kids. Here's the Fall soundtrack I've been blasting the last couple of weeks as I get ready for pumpkin picking, apple cider, leaves falling, and cool winds.

Autumn Notes - Side A

Sara Bareilles - Kaleidoscope Heart
Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over
Feist - Brandy Alexander
Karen O and the Kids - Rumpus Reprise
Nickel Creek - Reasons Why
Joanna Newsom -Autumn
Rosi Golan - C'est L'amour
Ane Bruin -Such a Common Bird
Fiona Apple - Pale September
City and Colour - Waiting
Ingrid Michaelson - Lady in Spain
Iron & Wine - Boy with a Coin
Erik Hassle - Nothing Can Change This Love
Modest Mouse - Autumn Beds
Sea Wolf - Leaves in the River
Gregory and the Hawk - The People Who Raised Me
God Help the Girl - Hiding 'neath My Umbrella


Autumn Notes - Side B

Mirah - The Garden
Emmy the Great - Two Steps Forward
Autumn Defense - You Know Where I Live
Great Lake Myth Society - Days of Apple Pie
Nina Nastasia - You Can Take Your Time
Great Lake Swimmers - This Is Not Like Home
Regina Spektor - A Canon
Page France - Junkyard
Thao Nguyen & the Get Down Stay Down - Feet Asleep
Jenny Wilson - String of Grass
Melissa Laveaux - Crazy in Love
Tori Amos - Devils and Gods
Joni Mitchell - A Case of You
Nina Simone - Wild is the Wind
PJ Harvey - When Under Ether
Paper Route - The Music
Rachel Portman - Ashes to the Wind
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young - Our House
The Morning Benders - Excuses
The Jealous Girlfriends - Mother May I


Bonus Tracks

Darren Criss - Human, Don't You, Even Though

For those of you who have seen A Very Potter Musical, Darren Criss is Harry Potter. He's also the one who writes a lot of the songs. These songs are part of his non-Potter repertoire. But here's a video of the musical, anyways, just in case you haven't seen it. :D

Fanaa

Source: Pitaara.in

I was listening to my Bollywood mix, and my favorite soundtrack came up for Fanaa. The movie is about a blind Kashmiri girl who falls in love with someone who she thinks is a Indian tourist guide. He turns out to be a Kashmiri nationalist part of a larger terrorist plan. It gets even more star-crossed when she has one night with him, conceives a child, finds out he mysteriously disappeared, gets a revolutionary vision-gifting surgery, then gets a visit from her lover whom she doesn't know because she never saw his face. O__o

It's the only Bollywood movie I've ever seen in theaters, and while the ending leaves much to be desired, the cinematography and songs totally stole my heart.

Anyways, got me craving Indian food, but I'm stuck at home, and I don't really feel like calling for it (if any place around here delivers). So I made some. Chicken Tikka Masala using this recipe. It turned out uber spicy and really good, even if did I cheat with some subs.



My friend Sunyia always taught me to start with a minced ginger/garlic paste, then add sliced onions to create a fragrant base. So I did that. Plus, I didn't have tomato in a can, so I used V8. :D

For Use With a Book

I've joined this thing called Swapbot. It's an online forum where you can sign up for various crafting swaps where you draw, color, paint, knit, crochet, collect, design, bake, write, embroider or otherwise craft something, send it off to a swapping partner, and get the same type of craft in return.

I've completed a couple so far involving postcards and writing letters, made friends with some peeps in New York and Naples, and gotten some really fun stuff in the mail.

Anyways, here're some pictures of some stuff I made for my latest swap where we trade handmade bookmarks.


Bookmark #1. It was inspired by one of my favorite sites, Let Us Read and Let Us Dance.


Back of Bookmark #1. It reads, "Now is the time to Read/Dance."

Bookmark #2. Yellow lettering reads "Read." :D

Back of Bookmark #2. It says "for use with a Book!"

Bookmark #3. Not finished with this one quite yet. "This is where I fell asleep." Cuz it usually is.

Cupcakes!

Lately I've been on a quest to make the pefect s'mores cupcake...

My first attempt was very pretty, but the cake was heavy and dense, and the marshmallow frosting hardened quickly, which gave it the wrong consistency. My second attempt was way more successful though!

Instead of baking the graham cracker into the cupcake, I made a separate crust!

Milk chocolate instead of semi-sweet made it more s'mores like.

TONS of cocoa powder in the cake batter

Extra graham cracker crumbs on top

The frosting was much lighter and easier to work with this time (cream of tartar based instead of gelatin) and it stayed gooey instead of hardening up!

Toasting the marshmallow tops made a BIG difference! (I couldn't find a torch the first time)

Here they are, all ready to go in my new cupcake carrier :D Next time I'm going to add milk chocolate ganache (either as icing or as a filling), will make the crust on the bottom a little thicker, and I think that will pretty much do it. Hooray for cupcakes!

And speaking of cupcakes, meet my new bike... Cupcake!

Life is good :)

Rodrigo y Gabriela!

Ryan and I went to a Rodrigo y Gabriela concert at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley this past weekend... and it was AMAZING! Gabriela's fingers go so fast that sometimes I can't even see them anymore! And just in case being super talented wasn't enough, they're both gorgeous (SERIOUSLY) and have fantastic accents. Yep, I'm in love :)

Enjoy!

I have three of their albums so far and will definitely be getting their new one soon! Esther, if you can send me some directions for setting up the downloadable file like you did for Summer Notes, I would be happy to share :)