Beautiful New Camera

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year! I've been blessed with a productive and loving year.

My father graced me this Christmas with a new and beautiful Canon Rebel! I've had a great time taking pictures of my new kittens, Maize and Cricket. They're siblings from the RISPCA, and get along beautifully with each other!

Dad's Minestrone Soup

So, the other day at work I was reminded of how much I miss my father's minestrone soup. Now, being the naive child that I was I thought that all minestrone soup should taste the same, like chicken noodle or italian wedding or tomato even, so when my was served minestrone without any meat in it I was shocked. I've also grown to appreciate the texture and flavor that kidney beans can add to a dish, I used to make a big pile on the side of my bowl, that and kidney beans. We'd have it with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese on top and cold-buttered, crunchy italian bread. To die for. 

So, although I'm low on funds at the moment and this recipe would cost pennies in the fall when the garden is in full swing, but I had a jones-ing that had to be satisfied. So, while at work the other day I ask him for his recipe and I'm more than happy to pass it along, it's that good. I was glad to hear that he does change the contents slightly depending on what veggies are available at the store, but I'll give ya his ultimate recipe. 

Dad's Minestrone Soup

• 2lb. Ground Hamburger
• 2 Med-Lg Onions, chopped
• 2 Cloves of Garlic, chopped
• 4 Beef Bouillon Cubes
• 4 c. Water
• 1 tsp Salt
• 2 Bay Leaves
• Italian Seasoning
• 1 Lg. Can Whole tomatoes
• 2 Sm. Zucchini, sliced and quartered
• 2 Sm. Yellow Squash, sliced and quartered
• 1 Butter nut squash, cubed
• 1/2 lb. Green Beans
• 1/2 lb. Wax Beans
• 4-5 Large Carrots, diced
• 3 to 4 Large Russets, chopped
• 1 Can Red Kidney Beans
• 1 Can Tomato Paste
• 1/2 Bag Frozen Corn
• 1 c. Orzo

Yields: Enough to feed a family of 4 with leftovers that'll last the rest of the week, easy!

1. Brown the hamburger, onions and garlic together over medium heat. 
2. Add the water, bouillon cubes, salt, Bay leaves, tomatoes and cover the top with italian seasoning. Simmer for an hour covered.
3. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for another hour, or until potatoes are tender, covered. 

Enjoy!

Plush Cells

I'm currently taking an instructional planning course for my teaching certificate. My professor is rather childish, great for the elementary ed students, not so much for the secondary. Although, she assures us that high schoolers love crayons too. Besides, she asked had us prepare our intro teaching portfolios with lots of old, ill-prepared, flow charts and diagrams. One of the requirements for the 2-D portfolio was a model of something. Now, one would think that, "Bam! Cell Biology model that's easy and self-explanatory!" Well, yes and no. I had already created a raised foam plant cell for my cover page, and it has to fit into a plastic sleeve to fit into a binder. (See I told you she was loopy!) So, I took my crafty side out to play and made some mitosis pillows!

I lovingly embroidered the name of the stage of mitosis on the back of each appropriate pillow and detailed the front. I used buttons for the chinetochores, the yellow thread coming from them represents the spindle fibers and the blue yarn is none other than the chromosomes! I blanket stitched them together for speed (I procrastinated) but I would much rather sew them up properly like pillows and add a trim to help represent the cell membrane. In the pictures I've placed them in the wrong order (what kind of a science teacher am !?) and I've also omitted telophase although it's my favorite, I love the cleavage furrow! The fun art about these is they can be used to help learn the order of the phases and easily associate them with their proper name. If you understand what mitosis is trying to accomplish then it is easy to put them in the right order, despite my inability to do so for the photos. Ha! Let me show you!

Wife Doll-Part 3

This past week was spring break. Although, John and I have discovered that without the structure of classes we get very little accomplished, I was able to finish the clothing on the Wife Doll! My initial design was going to include a pink chemise with a cute black jacket and a black skirt. However, I chose to leave the jacket out of the equation and in instead have her sporting a belt. I tried to show a level of quality by showing my stitching and keeping it neat and clean, as can be seen in the close up picture of the shirt.

I chose to accent her black skirt with a black belt and a black headband, each of which are accented with pink stitching. I realized that the doll would have been primarily in black, which would not have represented her well. Thankfully, I decided to leave the hair alone until it was almost done! Dom's wife just recently got a hair cut with short bangs, and not the sweeping ones she had previously. Thus the headband helped to hide the massive part that developed when I pulled the hair forward to cut it into bangs. I also had fun adding some extra details including a little diamond ring on her left hand. Next is to add the "Coraline" details to the face including some big, creepy black 4-hole buttons for eyes and perhaps a wide pink smile and thin dark eyebrows.

Late Valentine's Day

So this past Valentine's day I made a cute card for my boyfriend. I've been having a lot of fun lately with embossing, so much so that I've been buying up stamps, ink pads and embossing powder like crazy! I was inspired to replicate this cute card I saw through, I think Craft: Blog but now I can't find for the life of me! It was two clams kissing with a cute heart above them. I took the color scheme and used an adorable owl stamp that I had. Super Cute! The Owl is embossed with light blue ink and a light blue embossing powder. It created this mottled blue/clear effect that was really charming! I don't think the second picture does it enough justice, but it gets the point across. 

Strawberry Crochet

This past week I bought a 250GB external hard drive, the kind that can fit in your pocket, in bright red! All of the reviews on NewEgg said that it was a great hard drive and the enclosures were beautiful, except some of the users

commented, "It looks good, until you take it out of the packaging and set it on the table. Then it magically gets scratched." or "If you look at it funny it will scratch the outer surface." So, I took it upon myself to make an enclosure that would be pretty and functional!

With some crazy crocheting abilities I made a strawberry that matched my hard drive's exterior perfectly! I also tried to make a pattern so people could try to reproduce it, but despite my best efforts I did not keep count well enough. I'll try to figure it out at a later time and post it up here. As can be seen in the picture, it's composed of a red body with separate green fronds and yellow french knot seeds.

I was looking for a more cartoon like feel with this piece, less about realism more about fun! Also, I needed to have access to the hollow strawberry that holds the hard drive with some consistency, so I attached the fronds with some adorable light green buttons. I didn't make any special button holes for the buttons, I instead just slipped them through two triple stitches that were placed next to each other. I also started the frond in a round, leaving a great hole in the middle for the hard drive's USB cord. When I was stitching the body of the strawberry, I created a warped effect toward the lobes near the top, and it worked surprisingly well when I decreased from there to create a realistic strawberry charm.

I stuffed the empty space around the hard drive with polyfill, so it keeps it's shape. I know what you're saying, "But doesn't the cause the hard drive to over heat with all of that insulation?" No! It's doesn't because it's not a mechanical hard drive it's flash memory so, no moving parts. While I was making the strawberry at one point it looked very much like a cute red top hat.

And boy is my cat a ham for the camera!

Coastal Maps

I'm giddy with excitement. A door that I've walked past time and time again, probably 50+ times at the University library holds a sign. A magnificent sign, written in plain hand writing, "FREE". 

*Gasp!* Free what, you may ask. 

Free expired coastal maps of Massachusetts! HUGE ones! I'm cursing the rain that's preventing me from getting them home intact and dreaming of all the fun to be had with full color coastal maps. I could decoupage a wall, I could frame them, layer them to make a neat lamp shade, the possibilities are thrilling! My mother has a sea theme bathroom with coastal maps, I'm sure she'd love a few more. Now, class is calling but what I'm really thinking about is obvious.

Wife Doll-Part 2

So, I took this past Sunday to work on the Wife doll, over finishing up some homework. I'd gone to A.C. Moore the day before to find an accurate color of yarn for her hair and pick up some felt sheets for her clothes. I finished crocheting the arms at work on Saturday and attached all of the limbs and threaded all of the hair onto the head on Sunday. The hair threading is not stable, I took a touch-but-don't-yank approach to the hair. To thread it I pulled loops of yarn through diagonal holes in the stitching and cut the loops to produce locks of hair. So, if you pull on a string another will give somewhere else on the head, I suppose that if there ever was a need to re-thread the hair the method I chose would be easy to take out and replace. Although it's not child proof, I don't picture Dom's wife walking about the apartment with her thumb in her mouth and dangling her dolly by the hair beside her. 

Next is to work up on her outfit. I've decided on a baby pink tank top with a black, buttoned-down, puffy sleeve shirt over it with a matching black pencil skirt. I picked up the Depending on how it looks, I may add a colorful belt too. I'm also debating on how much detail I'd like to put into the clothes Buttons? Embroidery? Lace? Beads? I suppose it'll be decided when the bits are all together on her. 

 

Amigurumi - The wife

The other night I received an interesting phone call from my friend Dom at around 9:30. Dom has the habit of calling people while he is driving home from Law school. As much as I may complain or playfully gripe, I do enjoy the consistency of his calls. He opened the conversation requesting a favor, very unlike Dom. He requested that I make him a doll of his wife, matching details as best that I could from Facebook pictures, including her *new* hot pink glasses. The whole point of this doll creation was sinister, which made it all the easier to accomplish. This past Saturday they watched the Coraline matinee, and the movie rightfully creeped his wife out! Buttons for eyes... How could I turn down such an interesting request! 

So, I took to making the doll with Amigurumi crochet techniques. I'm relatively new to amigurumi, I've made some Lion Brand patterns for Christmas presents and some simple trinkets of my own design. So, with some help from CRAFT: Vol. 1 I was able to piece together the torso with attached legs, a technique I find fantastic! So, far only the head and the body are completed. I intend to apply yarn hair, but felt clothing for eases sake. We'll see how my first human doll turns out!