hot hot heat

i recently rediscovered my incredible addiction to papalote's beautiful salsa, but not being in san francisco and being mildly broke makes it hard to attain. 

so i found a knock-off recipe online! it's not quite as awesome as the original, but hey, it helps with the cravings. 

it's also a great thing to have on hand during picnic season... yum! 

i love copying things

a few months ago, i came across this fantastic purse that a blogger named artsycraftybabe made. i loved the colors of it, and the way she made the leafs out of her scrap fabrics greatly appealed to my desire to use every little bit of the materials that i buy. so i decided to try to do the same thing.

artstycraftybabe wrote a totally phenomenal tutorial on how to make the basic purse shape, that was a cinch to follow.

to make the leafs, i started by making a small stencil of the leaf shape out of cardboard, and went at hacking apart all those little pieces of fabric from old projects that i couldn't bear to part with. i rough cut the leafs, and bound the backs of the pieces to very thin, double-sided interfacing. (note: sandwich the interfacing and leafs between two pieces of parchment paper before ironing, so you don't wind up being a lame-o and ruining your roommate's iron, like some people we know.) then i just cut the leafs out, and now i have a pile of iron-on leaf bits to play with! yay!

i attached the leafs and did all the decorative stitching before assembling the front, back, and lining of the purse; it was a lot easier to work on it when it was not yet purse-shaped.

i was really pleased with how the project turned out, and so was julie. double yay!

kale is the new crack

last year on a trip to esalen, my friend hannah discovered an amazing kale salad.

not only is it supremely delicious, but it also does not require you to cook the kale. the kale losses its bitterness and stiffness as the citric acid in the dressing denatures its proteins, much like what happens in ceviche.

hannah found the recipe online, and we have all been addicted ever since. enjoy!

link!

greetings! and a clutch

hello, and welcome to my new blog.

to kick off the craftiness, and the weekend, i am using this first post to share my first sewing tutorial!

sometime last year, i made a clutch for my dear friend julie. it was a simple project that i cooked up one afternoon, and have copied a few times since. i (literally) had the design drawn on the back of an envelope, but i thought i would write it up a bit more neatly, for anyone who might want to try their hand at making it.

a pdf is posted here.

again, this is my first try at a tutorial, so any edits or comments are very much appreciated.

enjoy!