handmade escape

I'm hoping most of you survived Black Friday by curling up at home and avoiding the malls, but for those of you adventurous enough to grab some 4am doorbusters, Godspeed.

You may have noticed the "Buy Handmade" button on my sidebar. Buy handmade this holiday season. Not exclusively and not excessively, but take the time to explore some local and not-so-local artisans and their craft. I'm betting most of us will be cutting back our holiday spending this year, whether because of troubles with investments and 401Ks, growing costs and expenses, underemployment and paycuts or the sudden onslaught of student loan payments. Sounds grim, but I think we are being presented with an opportunity to reconfigure our holiday traditions. Instead of piles of presents under the tree, maybe there will be just one, thoughtful and well-crafted treat. We are being forced to reevaluate our spending-- where we shop, how we shop, why we shop.

Many people have said this better than me-- Buy Handmade, The Gentle Art of Domesticity, Handmade Nation, folks at Etsy and all over the web.

(BTW, this was supposed to be my party skirt-- before things went terribly wrong. Oh well, it was just an old skirt from high school that I hacked up for fun. C'est la vie.)

november surprise

We had a hardy herb garden perched outside of our third story window this summer. Basil, parsley, mint, rosemary, sage, marjoram and even two little jalapeno pepper plants that did quite well. Over to the side was a science experiment. We had very belatedly planted the cheapest, most unlikely tomato seeds-- the type you pick up from the dollar section at Target when you are feeling kinda crappy and maybe the weather is bad so you go shopping but you really shouldn't spend any money so you buy a few pieces of cheap crap at Target... you know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, we threw these in some dirt and to our amazement a healthy-looking plant actually sprung up. Like I said, we didn't start the seeds until way too late. And we didn't do much except make sure they never got too thirsty.

Then the chilly weather came, as it tends to do in NY, and we brought our little garden inside. Some have survived, others sadly did not. Our tomato plant had unleashed a few small green bulbous things that we assumed would shortly drop dead.

Imagine our surprise in NOVEMBER when we took a look at our plant and found actual TOMATOES on it!

Why hello there, wee tomatoes.

Prescription for Brightening a Dreary Month, aka

Avoiding the Realization that Winter Hasn't Even Officially Started Yet It's Definitely Dark and Cold, aka
Who Even Wants to Go on a Tropical Vacation, anyway?

• your landlord finally turned your heat to a consistent, reliable temperature and schedule
• is there anything better in the world than when the afghan your making is finally big enough to keep you both warm and contentedly entertained on the couch?
• spending lotsa time in your tiny kitchen because you can't play outside anymore, resulting in an oven-warmed apartment and continuous feasting
• early nights
• knowing that there is a silver lining to the economic hullabaloo
  
• sam adams winter ale
• martha stewart's holiday issue
• giftmaking, cardmaking and pie-eating
• trying to forget what is next on your netflix queue so every delivery feels like a surprise
• i'll say it again, tights + scarves
  

1. Only Shallow 2. Sam Adams 3. Apple Crumb Pie by Me 4. The Market Bag by Moop 5. The Sartorialist 6. Plum Coat by Little Houses 7. Martha 8. Only Shallow 9. Butternut Squash Manicotti 10. Raw Brown Warmer by Yokoo 11. Martha 12. Chunky n' Cozy in White by Spratters and Jayne

does "neck cozy" sound gross?

Yeah, I think it does. I don't know... sounds like "necking" and then also maybe a warm, sweaty neck. I'm probably keeping the name anyway, just for fun.


Regardless, this neck cozy (it's just a scarf I guess) is on sale in The Market and it is also the last product of the Floral Retrograde collection. Bright flowers just weren't enough to trick my psyche into pretending it's not dreary November.

Neat thing about these are the buttons... much debate and thought and drawing and a bit of math went into their placement. I didn't want the scarf to actually be just a big tube around your neck, but actually wanted it to be COZY (get it? like the name) with no room for icy air to invade and rush into your coat. I haven't seen a button placement quite like this one-- you'll have to check it out for yourself.

More "neck cozies" (gross) coming real soon.

lunch break fashion

This green bag has been made for awhile, originally as a contest submission this past summer. The contest didn't work out, but I now have a brand new lunch tote for myself. My original model has seen better days and is being quietly retired to the archives.

Have snacks, will travel.

hey cheapos, it's a giveaway

Scoot on over to Paper and Stitch for a MEGA GIVEAWAY and a chance to win a set of 2 Rockport Coasters! And also a chance to win a ton of other incredible goodies (total retail of $400+).

Photos by Paper and Stitch

ugly plastic drawers, upgrade

Ugly plastic drawers.

Who decided that we should use Tupperware as furniture?

This one is supposed to hold miscellaneous hair, makeup and accessories and it's fugly. Tried to paint it this past summer. Fail. Paint just chips and peels right off, duh.

Four months later...

I measured and cut up some leftover fabric scraps from a floor pillow project, slapped a layer of Mod Podge on the drawers, stuck fabric on and put 3 or 4 more layers of Mod Podge on each drawer as a finish, waiting about 10-15 minutes between each coat. Sanded quickly with super fine grain sandpaper and that was that. Still a little ugly, but at least it's been crafted upon.

! ! !

if you don't do anything else today...

score some free ice cream.

(And fine, vote if you must.)



Starbucks is also handing out some free coffee, but I think we can all agree that Starbucks' coffee tastes like battery acid. So I'll be skipping that.

(I tried to make delicious Election Day Pumpkin Cheesecake Swirled Brownies that I was pretty sure would turn out awesome. Alas, they did not. So you normally bake brownies for like 30 minutes. These shits were in the oven for well over an hour and they are all gooey and gross-looking and completely undercooked. I mean, I'll still scrape the pan clean and get sick off them, but they really aren't presentable as any sort of legitimate treat. Frick.)