Giveaway #3 – Umecrafts Felt Foodies!

We are SUPER excited to be teaming up with Umecrafts to giveaway one of their very cool felt food patterns.  If you’re a bee and have drawn a bee with a food alias in the ornament exchange, then this giveaway is for you.  As you know, I’ve been working on the Dim Sum pattern for a little while.  Right now, I just need a tiny bit of orange felt and a cheap bamboo steamer (I gave up on the pattern), and I’m good to go.  I promise to post pictures before I send the set out.

Let’s see, if I could win, I’d go with the breakfast, sushi or fair/carnival set.  I am tempted to buy one now and start working on our nephew’s present for next year.

The applesauce and waffle are adorable!

I can think of a few adults I would gift some felt sushi to.

Need I say more?

The winner of the giveaway will receive the felt pattern of their choice (excluding the jumbo packs).  There are a few ways to enter (as usual):

1. Visit Umecraft’s Etsy shop and tell us which felt pattern you’d select.

2 &3. Mention (and link) the giveaway on Facebook or Twitter and let us know that you did in the comments.  Each mention is worth one entry, so don’t forget to tell us where you mentioned the giveaway in separate comments.

We’ll draw a winner on Friday!  Good luck!

Guest Blogger #2 : Anna says, “Cut It Out!”

Our second post in the guest blogger series is from Anna.  Anna and I met about 7 or 8 years ago.  In another life I lived in DC and ran a student exchange program.  Actually, it wasn’t a student exchange program, it was like Fulbright but for high school students from the former Soviet Union.  Anna was one of my 40 students and if I recall correctly, she lived with a family on the Kentucky-Ohio boarder for a school year.  Anna and I have managed to keep in touch thanks to blogging.  Anna is a talented photographer and blogs with some friends on Transatlantic Panorama.  You have to check out the blog.  Five friends from both sides of the Atlantic post pictures weekly on a theme.  My favorite one so far is Landscape. 

Anna has put together a great decoupage tutorial for everyone.  I’m thinking some nice holiday inspired decoupage may be in our future.  I’m hoping she’ll agree to come back and do a post about her hometown of Kiev, Ukraine. 

I don't know about you, but I've always felt a need to make something with my own hands, something "artsy". Nevertheless, given that my mind is more artsy than my hands, it never really worked too well, except for embroidery where you just need to follow the stitch scheme carefully to end up with a perfect picture (despite the number of times you might have to redo some parts because you started out one cross too close or too far from where it was supposed to be...). As for drawing and painting, they've always been more of an art therapy for me than anything worthy sharing with the world.

As of this week, everything has changed.

If you experience art project cravings but are not satisfied with the results, the following technique might be THE one for you - découpage.

The word "découpage" comes from French and literally means "cutting out". Découpage is decoration of various objects through gluing images on surfaces, which depending on your goals can include some extra special effects.

To write this post, I did my best to sign up for a master class on découpage to do it "right". As there was nothing available until December, I just went to the nearest shop of art supplies and bought the following: découpage glue+lacquer 2-in-1, a nice wide and flat paint brush and 3 colorful napkins. Armed with that and a few instructions from a girl working at the shop, I was all set to see if it's really as easy as everyone claims it to be.

For the simplest project you will need découpage glue, lacquer (preferably) for finish, a brush, napkins with images or designs you like, scissors and an object for decoration (in my case, an old glass I inherited from the owners of the apartment which I used as a pen holder).

Step 1 for me was washing the glass with soap in order to remove any grease or whatever else might've been on the surface (add drying to that).

Step 2: cut out the elements from the napkin(s) you'd like to use for your work (I suggest cutting out more than you need keeping in mind Step 4 you will find below).

Step 3: take off the first layer (usually there are 3 total), as this is the part you will use.

Step 4: place all the elements on the object for decoration to see whether your idea will work (this step changed everything for me, as the glass turned out to be smaller than it seemed and the elements were way too big. I ended up using only 2 leaves and 2 narrow stripes).

Step 5: pick an element and carefully glue it in its place. Move from the center of the element to the sides. DON'T be greedy and use enough glue not to rip the fragile piece but DO be a little fast as elements start to stretch out easily as soon as they are wet with glue. So if you glue one part of the element and and take too long to glue the rest you might either rip the piece or get wrinkles or... I don't know what else. I'm not experienced in this, remember?;)

Step 5: glue other elements (they can overlap, by the way).

Step 6: let the glue dry and finish it up with lacquer. In my case, I just covered all the clear parts with my 2-in-1 découpage glue+lacquer and let it dry (you're not supposed to cover the whole thing with lacquer - just the elements, but no one said I couldn't, right?). The instruction said to wait for 24 hours, but in reality it took no more than 15 minutes for the glass to dry and be ready for after pics: 

My "piece of art" is now multi functional and can serve not only as a pen holder but also as a candle holder.

 

The whole process didn't take long but nevertheless left me with a satisfying enough result.

You can invest as much or as little in your projects as you'd like. I went with a moderately saving approach and purchased a 2-in-1 glue instead of glue and lacquer separately, but I risked ruining the glass, as glue+lacquer solution cannot be removed unlike the regular découpage glue. If your project doesn't include anything that needs to be washed or touched often, you can simply use slightly diluted white school glue and lacquer from a construction store. For everything else there is a wide variety of supplies that will preserve your work either in your dishwasher or in your washing machine.
Also, napkins are the easiest source of images. In shops of art supplies you can find special "maps" full of thematic images or you can actually use magazine pictures or your own print outs to make your works as diverse and personal as you wish. The part about using your own print outs interests me the most, though I have not yet researched it.

Découpage can be applied working with glass, wood, carton, metal, fabrics, plastic. You can use it for making "paintings" on canvas, decorating plates, cups and glasses, furniture and clothes!

It's fun, it's easy, it's worth trying!

P.S.  Check Out our previous guest post:

Kate’s Capers: A Little Bit Of Argentina on Long Island

Giveaway #2 – Ork Posters! Winner

First off, we want to apologize for not announcing the winner on Black Friday as we had promised.  The cord for my laptop died and Micah and I share a cord.  I had to wait until I got into the office today to access my back-up cord and my docking station.  We also meant to have our second guest blogger post last week but that didn’t happen either.  Please look for two guest posts this week, the first of which will be online shortly.

OK, now for the main event.  The winner of the Ork Posters! giveaway is lucky #8, who I believe is Lisa of Written Bliss Photography. 

Please check back a little later for our 2nd guest post in the series.  Tomorrow we will have a new giveaway up and raring to go!

Black Friday Shopping on Wednesday

We aren’t really Black Friday shoppers.  The only time we’ve ever been shopping on Black Friday was last year and where did we go?  Lowes.  Yes, Lowes.  Actually we plan to do our only Black Friday in-person purchases at Lowes again this year.  I know, we’re SO exciting.

Last night/this morning I did partake in a little Black Friday–esque shopping online.  Do you know about Crestview Doors?  No?  Well they sell mid-century modern inspired window sets (doorlite kits) for doors.  Check out these before and afters I found on their site.

  

We’re loving how just a few little windows can inspire a whole new look and feeling to these houses.  We’ve been eyeing Crestview Doors for awhile and last night/this morning, we finally took the plunge.  They sent out a 50% off all clearance items so we scored this Doorlite Kit for $53.  It’s normally $125.  We wanted the reeded glass but they were sold out so we went with clear, double insolated.  What made this a Black Friday purchase was the fact I stayed up until midnight so I could make sure we got what we wanted.

Soon this will be our front door, but in a different color.  Now, of course, the question is what color to paint the door.  I like the idea of black but Micah doesn’t like it with the red entrance.  Maybe a really dark grey?  Or I was think a very, very glossy white or light grey. 

This is what it looks like right now.  Please ignore the pot with dead plant, the ice, the messy paint job (we’re not done) the sock over the faucet and door with dirty fingerprints. 

So what color would you go with?

p.s. If you want one of the doorlite kits, today you can get the clearance ones for 50% off the lowest price.  The code is HOLIDAY and only good until midnight today.

p.s.s.

Izzy really likes the snow

Sunday Suppers : A Failure, The Save and A Winning Cookie

We haven’t done one of these posts in a while and I’m not exactly sure why.  We’ve been having Sunday Suppers but I think the recipes just weren’t blog worthy.

Yesterday it started to snow in Seattle (and it’s still coming down) but wasn’t sticking.  Despite that, it was really cold.  I was craving something warm and stew-ish.  At first I was thinking of making Bigos.  It’s a Polish hunter stew I was first introduced to during the summer of 2001.  I was spent the summer working at summer camps in Poland.  The family I stayed with in-between camp sessions insisted I try Bigos and I loved it.  They also insisted I try Gołąbki (stuffed cabbage) which I also loved.  Anywho, we didn’t have everything for Bigos but we did have everything for Golabki.

I went with the Smitten Kitchen recipe because it was straight forward, I had all the ingredients and everything she posts is delicious.  So, it turns out that I had the wrong cabbage and after many failed attempts at getting a whole, not torn cabbage leaf off, I gave up and just did a cabbage chiffonade.  I turned stuffed cabbage into what I' call cabbage lasagna.  Basically I layered the cabbage and stuffing and then poured the tomato sauce on top.  It turned out to be delicious and I salvaged the dish.  Yay me!

For dessert I made a Eggnog cookies.  The recipe came from an unlikely place – Lauren Conrad (yes, of the Hills) via the back of People Style Watch magazine.  Yes, seriously.  Micah loves eggnog so I thought I’d give it a shot.  You know what?  They are really good.  I think I’m adding them to my holiday cookie list for this year.  Here’s the recipe:

LC’s Eggnog Cookies:

• 2 1/4 cups of flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp + 1 tbsp ground nutmeg
• 1 1/4 cups sugar (I did half splenda/sugar so Dadtractor could enjoy them)
• 3/4 cup salted butter
• 1/2 cup eggnog (I did the lighter Holiday Nog)
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 large egg yolks

Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.  In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon and 1/2 a tsp of nutmeg.  Whisk it together and set aside.  Cream the butter and sugar together with a mixer to form a grainy paste.  Add (not ass) eggnog, vanilla and egg yolks.  Beat at medium speed until smooth.  Add the flour mixture to the eggnog mixture and beat on the lowest speed until just combined.  Don’t overmix.  Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets, 1 inch apart.  Sprinkle lightly with 1 tbsp of nutmeg.  bake for 23-25 minutes or until bottoms turn light brown. 

These are really good.  Mine came out perfect -- a crunchy outside and soft, cakey inside.  I think next time I make these, I’ll make them less round and a little flatter.  There are definitely holiday winners.

Do make cookies particularly for the holiday? 

Giveaway #2 – Ork Posters!

If you read the blog then you know how much we love Ork Posters!.  We have the Seattle and Brooklyn prints and have purchased the DC, Boston and San Francisco ones for friends and family.  We really want a DC one for ourselves.  But this isn’t about us, this is about you.

Jenny at Ork Posters! has graciously agreed to give the winner the poster of their choice.  There are so many to choose from.  We’re loving the heart print right now. Thump Thump is right.  We think any one of the posters would make an AWESOME Christmas gift.  There are 4 ways to win:

1. Visit Ork Posters! and tell us which poster you’d pick.

2, 3 & 4. Mention (and link) the giveaway on Facebook, Twitter or your personal blog and let us know that you did in the comments.  Each mention is worth one entry, so don’t forget to tell us where you mentioned the giveaway in separate comments.

We’ll draw a winner on Black Friday!  Good luck!

CSN Gift Certificate : The Winner!

Thanks for entering everyone!  We’re pleased to announce that the winner is comment #3 which belongs to Amy.  Amy, we hope your doggie likes her new bed! 

Come back tomorrow to enter Giveaway #2!

Rug Lust

We are not in the market for a rug per se but I want this rug!

image

I’m not sure where it would go, but I’m sure I can make it work.  I think I’d take either one but prefer the bottom one.  **sigh**

The Palm Springs Anniversary: Joshua Tree

As you all well know, we went to Palm Springs for our little later than normal Anniversary.  One big part of the trip was visiting here:

We’ve wanted to go to Joshua Tree for a long time, but never were really in the area.  On our first stop, we were amazed:

On a short walk we saw the rocks above, these below, and on them a rock climber:

Our next stop, a longer hike we saw this:

And this:

And this:

I just kept saying over and over again “It’s like Mars or someplace!  So weird!”

We stopped on our way out at the cactus garden, home to more alien plants:

Even more weird cacti:

If you haven’t been to Joshua Tree, you definitely need to go.  It’s a great day trip from Palm Springs, the weather was beautiful and it’s some of the best hiking we’ve ever done in our lives.  Plus…it’s like Mars or a movie set!

Giveaway #1 : CSN Gift Certificate

Did you know that CSN is made up of 200 different stores?  That pretty much means you can buy just about anything from the new counter stools we’ve been contemplating since we moved in, to the garage organizer we picked up a few months back.  We didn’t realize how much we had purchased for the house from CSN until we started browsing their main site.

If we could win the gift certificate, I think we’d go with a new floor lamp for the living room.  Something like this maybe?

image

Anywho, the lovely people at CSN are letting us giveaway a $45 gift certificate that can be used at any one of their stores.  You could use the $45 to check someone of your Christmas list or maybe score something on Black Friday for yourself.  We hear they are going to have some awesome deals up for grabs.

There are 3 ways to win:

1. Check out CSN’s main site and let us know which store you’d shop at.

2.  Follow 4024 publically and let us know in the comments.

3. Tweet the following: I just entered the CSN Gift Certificate giveaway at http://tinyurl.com/23b4cm7

We will pick the winner on Sunday, November 21st.  Good luck everyone!!

p.s. Don’t forget to check out our first guest post by Kate.

Kate’s Capers : A Little Bit of Argentina on Long Island

Spanish night, Mexican night, French night… I can go on. My favorite way to spend a weekend evening is to have a “night.” Free Saturday nights have been few and far between this summer and fall as my boyfriend and I have navigated our way through a gauntlet of weddings; so I was thrilled to find us without plans on Saturday. We always have a backlog of ideas on what type of night to have next. This time we were up to Argentinean night and it may now be my go to.

In the morning I made a Chimichurri so it would have time to marry before dinner. I grated a few cloves of garlic on the microplane, chopped a small onion, seeded tomato, and a good sized bunch of parsley and poured over some good olive oil and red wine vinegar. A pinch of hot pepper flakes, paprika, and salt and it was ready to hang out until dinner.

We rode our bikes along the boardwalk in Long Beach, NY to the butcher shop where we picked up a lovely, marbled piece of steak, fresh mozzarella, prosciutto, and a few tiny lamb chops. Yes, that was the line up of meat for 2.

We hurried home to marinate the steak. I don’t over think marinades – a little acid, a little seasoning, and a little oil and I am usually done. This time I used lime juice, garlic, olive oil, oregano, hot pepper flakes, and a dash of worcheshire and just let it do its thing over the salt and pepper I already used to season the meat. For the lamb chops I rubbed them with a garlic and rosemary paste.

While the steak marinated I made the easiest panna cotta recipe from The Sweet Life in Paris blog. I cut the recipe in half, used splenda and unsweetened cocoa in addition to the vanilla and let it set. For an appetizer I rolled up fresh mozzarella and sharp provolone in prosciutto and my boyfriend grilled them until the mozzarella began to melt and the provolone ones get grill marks. We split one to test that they were done and it was all we could do not to shove the rest right into our mouths. Such an easy and delicious appetizer. I am thinking they will make an appearance for Thanksgiving.

To round out the meal we split a grilled yam and some broccolini that was cooked in a foil pouch with a little wine, rice vinegar, and seasoning. I didn’t have the wherewithal to take a shot of the final plated meal due to my overexcitement at eating but I did somehow manage to photograph the tasty beer we found – Cristal (not from Argentina but Peru – the beer distributor wasn’t on board with Argentinean night!)

A little music, a few candles and we had a fun, delicious meal without so much as having to get in the car to shop for ingredients! Beats a shelp into the city for a pricey meal anytime.

Do you have a favorite night or a specific dish you like to focus your evening around?

P.S.

Come by tomorrow and enter the 1st of 7 giveaways leading up to 2011!

Holiday Series and A New Regular

Yay! So we are SUPER excited to start a new series that will go on until New Years. Every week, starting tomorrow and Thursday, we are going to have one guest blogger and one giveaway. Yes, that’s 7 giveaways and 6 or 7 new people to hear from.  Don’t ask me how this came about but it should be fun.

We are also really excited to have a regularly (we’re still deciding on frequency) occurring guest blogger, Kate.  Look for her intro and first post tomorrow.  Yay! I’ve never been so excited for a Wednesday!

The Palm Springs Anniversary

That’s right, right?  The first wedding anniversary is the Palm Springs anniversary?  Way back in August I booked a mini getaway since Micah was in Alabama for our anniversary.  Palm Springs in November sounded good though a little far off.  With the help of Priceline and a few vouchers from Alaska Airlines, the trip seemed doable.  Let me just say that Palm Springs in November was perfect.  It was 35-40 degrees warmer than Seattle.

We have to apologize upfront.  We forgot our gorilla pod which means that there aren’t any pictures of us together.  If you don’t have one, you should totally get a gorilla pod.  We love ours.  Either no one is around to take a picture of us or everyone looks to busy to stop and snap a shot.  Anyway, yes, no gorilla pod = no pictures of us.

We got in on Friday afternoon to beautiful blue skies and warm temperatures.  We checked in at the Riviera Palm Springs.  The place was so cool.  We loved all the glam decor.  Here’s Micah reading about the hotel’s amenities. 

After a walk down the main street, we returned to the hotel to grab a drink and a snack.  I loved the cutout wall with the orange lights in the background.

You can sort of get a sense of the bar in this picture of Micah doing his best color impression of George Hamilton.

We ended the night with dinner, another walk and lounging around the hotel.  Things in Palm Springs close early.

Saturday we headed out to Joshua Tree which was so cool.  Joshua Tree was the main reason we headed down to Palm Springs.  You know, tree = paper = 1st traditional anniversary gift?  I know, stretching.  I think we’re going to do a separate post on Joshua Tree, so you’ll have to wait on the pictures.  On the way there, I saw wind turbines for the first time.  We don’t have these in Washington (I think).

I think Oregon had these on the ballot in the recent election.  I can see how people would not want them because they change the scenery (read can be ugly) and are probably very expensive to put up but on the other hand, those babies were spinning away on what seemed not be a windy day.  I don’t know the details of wind power but if the wind is going to blow, why not use it?

After a day of hiking at Joshua Tree and a delicious no frills late lunch at Mexicali Cafe in Indio (go here if you are in town!), we showered and hung out by the pool at the hotel.

We stayed awhile and had the obligatory drink by the pool. Sorry, I took the picture below with my iphone.

After sleeping in a bit, we headed to breakfast and eventually ended up on a driving tours of Palm Springs Mid Century Modern architecture.  The Edris House was one of our favorites.

We’d also be happy to live in any of the following houses:

We ended our tour with a stop at Frank Sinatra’s house:

We were hoping to get a good look in but the gate was closed and you couldn’t see too much.  This is what the other side of the wall is suppose to look like:

 image

We ended the day browsing antique stores and window shopping.  We did manage to continue our tradition and pick up an ornament for the tree.  I grabbed one of these mod inspired beauties.

We had a good time in Palm Springs.  We felt like 2.5 days was the perfect amount of time to spend there.  We also felt like celebrating our anniversary a few months later (ie not in August) in a warmer climate might happen again.  Any suggestions for next year?