Oh the Cuteness!

Happy How-Tuesday everyone! I know it's been a while since I've done one of these, but I found some cute kid-friendly tutorials this week that went together so nicely! We have sidewalk chalk, a play kitchen, and rainbow cake! These giant pieces of sidewalk chalk are super easy to make and will surely keep the kids busy for a good long time! Find the tutorial here . This play kitchen is super-duper-awesome and it's made from an old entertainment center! I can't wait to have kids so we can have the best play kitchen ever! Check out the awesome step by step transformation here . I love cakes in jars somethin' fierce right now, and this one is the brightest I've ever seen. My five year old unicorn and rainbow loving self would have freaked over this. Here's the recipe .

So in this post I told you all about how I've been helping out over at World's Smallest Post Service as a part-time job. Well, Lea had some friends in San Francisco who were looking for my kind of help, and since she hasn't had a ton of extra work for me recently she sent me their way. Best. Idea. Ever. That's Gabe and Cat, the masterminds behind one of the coolest companies I've ever worked for, Woodcut Maps . We make beautiful wooden map art for people. Gabe developed a great piece of software that lets you make custom maps on their website, then we have them laser cut and we assemble them. It's amazingly fun, and extremely gratifying. Seriously, if you go play with their website I guarantee you're going to want one. Here's one I made of Oakland that I want to buy: And this is Katie, the map-making guru who taught me the process: She's showing off how we make the maps at Maker Faire (more photos from that in the next post). Our boo...

Here in Oakland we have a monthly event downtown we all affectionately call First Friday. It's when all the galleries are open late to debut the new collections, and over the years it has become quite the place to be, especially for hipsters. We like to go for the people-watching as much as the art. Parking is a pain so we decided to ride down instead, and we were invited to my favorite local bar for happy hour beforehand by my dear friend Vanessa ... Needless to say we never made it downtown. We spent the whole evening at the Heart & Dagger Saloon , munching on goodies form the nearby restaurants and having a super goofy time. Dennis always makes me laugh so hard when he takes my photo. Actually, he always cracks me up. Anywho, this is one of my favorite outfits. I tried doing my hair up, but it just wasn't working so I let it be. The dress is old from Target, the belt was on sale at Urban Outfitters for three bucks, the scarf and sweater are from my mom, as well as...

Dennis was joking with me the other day about the way I don't like to play video games much anymore because I feel like I could be doing something more productive, yet I'll sit on Pinterest forever getting "inspiration" and not doing much of anything with it. Well, he has a point I must say, so I've decided that I'm going to try to use the tutorials and such I find via my new favorite website as much as possible. The painting above that I made this past week for my bedroom may look familiar to some of you. I found the tutorial via Pinterest , and also discovered a fantastic blog that I'm not sure how I missed called A Beautiful Mess. The basic idea is you find an old painting at a yard sale or thrift store to use as the base for your new text-based art. I found this lovely lady for two dollars at the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse  while hanging out with Dennis and my friend Carolyn . The Depot is just like a thrift store but they sell things...

I've been reading quite a few articles and/or watching video documentaries on the importance of physical play for adults. Dennis made a quip about it, saying all he does in his free time is play. But I'm not talking about video or board games. I'm talking about going outside and running, jumping, being goofy, and using your imagination. A couple posts ago I mentioned I was feeling a little blah because of my more sedentary lifestyle these days. That weekend Dennis suggested we go out of town and enjoy the beautiful weather, which was so sweet, and we ended up driving out to Bodega Bay and had such a wonderful time. The beach gets tons of driftwood washed ashore and people build it up into little forts and such, so we decided to finish one that was half-built in the sand dunes. We were playing foxtail but it was too windy, so I started rolling a giant awkward tree with a big stump still attached toward the unfinished fort. You can see how big it is in the...

In celebration of it finally feeling like spring/summer around here, I offer up my new variation on a traditional strawberry shortcake. A lot of things this week have inspired me to make this. For one, I accidentally got lemon olive oil at Whole Foods instead of regular (it's got a ton of lemon oil in it). A happy accident as it's been infusing my cooking with a bright citrus note that I just love! Also, obviously the farmer's market is bursting at the seams with strawberries, and I've been seeing recipes using balsamic vinegar with them all over the place. Lastly, the new Oaktown Spice Shop near my house has been inspiring me to use more interesting herbs and spices. This is the best strawberry shortcake I've ever made, and I hope you'll try it too! Cake ingredients: 4 large eggs 3/4 cup sugar 2/3 cup lemon olive oil 1 1/2 cups flour 1 tbsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt Filling & whipped cream ingredients: 1 lb ripe strawberries 4 tbsp lig...

Hi all! I wanted to show off a friend of mine, Julie of Vintage Inspiration ! Her work is so fun and I own quite a few pieces, including some button rings and a Mr. Spock magnet. She fashions jewelry and magnets from bottle caps and vintage pieces, and she has every theme under the sun! I met her at my first A Fair to Remember (which, by the way, I will be selling at this coming Sunday!) So amazingly yummy! Please go check out her etsy shop , which is full of vintage and handmade goodies, or stop by and say hello at A Fair to Remember. She said she's signed up to sell at every one through October!

I have to admit, lately I've been feeling a little down. Just kind of a general blah, which is unusual for me, especially in summer. I've just been sitting around too much I think, getting chubbier, so I really need to exercise more. It's amazing how much more exercise I got working a regular 9-5 retail job; I was on my feet all day. Since I made the transition to working for myself and freelancing at other creative companies I sit around all day making things now... So to get myself out of the dumps and feel special, I decided to go all out and do my hair and makeup big-time, all on my own. For those of you who know me this is no small feat. I went to the 15th anniversary show of Thrillville at our local tiki lounge, and I decided that would be the day. I did my hair up in pin curls while it was still damp, then gently blow-dried it to set them. I've never done them before, but I was sure I could do them since they're so simple, inspired by this video from ...

This is a post about your first quilt.   Yes,  you . I've had so many of my friends look at me as I'm binding a quilt and lament, "I wish I knew how to quilt." I used to say the very same thing. And while I don't claim to be any kind of expert as I've only completed  a couple of baby quilts thus far, I know that anyone who can sew a straight line can also make a quilt. My mom recently came to visit me and we were going through some of my fabrics when she fell in love with a fat quarter of a sweet Japanese cotton/linen blend printed in neat little squares to look like patchwork. She asked me to quilt it up so she could use it as a table mat. As I was about to begin I grabbed the camera and documented it all. Four hours later I had a beautiful little quilt, and a tutorial. I hope all of my readers out there who have always been too intimidated to try quilting will give this a try. Half a day and a few simple materials is all it takes, and you ca...