Goodbye, 2014

This time of year I always feel a bit sad to say goodbye to the current year and welcome to a new one.  2014 has been full of ups and downs.  Top positives include marrying the love of my life, having a fantastic honeymoon to beautiful Hawaii, and getting a new and better job.  Unfortunately, I also lost two people I love dearly:  Grandma and Georgie.  While bittersweet, 2014 contained more positives than negatives.  I'm looking forward to whatever 2015 may bring.  Wishing everyone a happy, healthy, positive, new year!

Terraria!

Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, some friends introduced Jeff and I to a computer game called Terraria.  I'm told it's similar to Minecraft, but I've never played that so I can't be sure.  I'd describe Terraria as a build your own world game with a bit of fighting monsters thrown in.  I hate fighting games, but there's something oddly pleasing about chopping up these enemies with a big, bad, fiery sword.

My favorite part of the game is exploring underground.  You can dig through the dirt/sand/silt/rock and find caves, treasure, and eventually lava.  There are also themes to the underground areas like corrupt zone(purple), glowing mushroom biome, jungle, and what I call hell at the very bottom.  At first, I was super obsessed with digging my tunnels in an orderly fashion, but my addiction is getting so strong that I dig as fast as possible to try to discover more in a shorter amount of time.  It makes finding your way around underground a bit confusing.

I created a silly looking character called Slizzy to try the game out thinking it probably wouldn't be for me, but I was wrong.  Our friends gave us some items including armor and weapons and Slizzy is now a complete bad ass.  Jeff built us a lovely home on the surface complete with chests to store all the treasures we find underground.  According to Steam, I've logged over 20 hours so far.  I'm starting to wonder who this game-addicted girl is and what happened to my crafty self.  All in all, Terraria is fun, even for casual gamers like me.  I would definitely recommend checking it out.

Thanksgiving 2014

Happy Thanksgiving!  As usual, we hosted the Seattle Transplant Thanksgiving Dinner.  Great friends were in attendance to consume the boatload of food we always have followed by board games.  Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday!

DIY T-shirt Yarn

I find so many cute things to crochet on Pinterest, but the one that's highest on my radar is this cat cave.  It's made of t-shirt yarn.  I looked all over before locating t-shirt yarn at my local Joann's.  Unfortunately, the selection is small and they don't have more than 2 rolls that match in color/design and that doesn't seem like enough to finish one nest.  In my opinion, the stuff is also fairly expensive at $9.99 per roll.

Naturally, I've decided to make my own with cheap t-shirts from Value Village.  I bought a few men's XLs in shades of gray and black to see how it goes.  I located this great tutorial on making continuous t-shirt yarn (also on Pinterest) and set to work on the first shirt.  This is how it turned out:

It was more time consuming than I expected, though my time estimates tend to always be much shorter than actual time taken.  It also made my hands a little sore from the way I pulled the strips to stretch them out.  Overall, I came out with ~53 feet.  I'm not sure whether that's a lot or a little, but we'll find out when I start crocheting!  More to come...

Creative Collaboration: Snow White & Me

My Mom recently asked if I would crochet something to go in the Silent Auction at the school I attended for 1st - 8th grades.  Many of my former classmates have been selling crocheted hats and baby photo props, so I decided to make an amigurumi to be different.  After much thought, I talked to my friend and neighbor, HK, to see if we could collaborate on a doll and dress combo since she has been making adorable little girls' princess dresses.  We decided this would be super cute and went with a Snow White theme.

HK already had her dress pattern ready to go, so it was up to me to find a Snow White pattern.  Luckily, I came upon this pattern by Duchess Gala on Ravelry.  The pattern was easy to follow, though I did make a few modifications(all notes in my project on Ravelry).  The only difficult part was attaching hair since I had no experience there.  Outside of the hair being really thick, I think she looks great and matches HK's darling dress wonderfully.  I hope the recipient of the doll and dress really enjoy them... and that HK and I can do more fun collaborations in the future!

Amigurumi Kitty

My friend, R, presented me with this lovely amigurumi kitty cat last Wednesday, which was fitting since it was National Cat Day.

She designed it herself and pointed out that Ms. Kitty can fit any holiday by changing out her hair accessory.  She's so cute I just had to share!

Halloween 2014!

This year's carving party was a huge success.  Several of us carved designs from Zombie Pumpkins and a few carved designs of their own.  We even learned that while white pumpkins look really cool, they are extremely difficult to carve and smell like cucumbers on the inside.

I chose to do two themed pumpkins:  Snow White and Doctor Who (all designs from ZP).  Here are the results:

Here are our friends pumpkins(L-R, top - bottom):  C. & B.'s Doge, S.C.'s Bat Boy(from ZP), S.M's Totoro, and Z.'s skeletal hand.

I love throwing crafty/creative parties and seeing the results!  I'm already excited for next year's party!

Amigurumi Reveal: Alton Brown Good Eats Inspired Chicken

A few weeks ago I showed off this giant sphere I crocheted and said it was going to be the base of an amigurumi for Jeff.  Well, here is the finished product.  It's a jumbo size chicken!

Black Light Painting and More

I'm happy to say I'm back to participating in ladies' painting night after taking some time out due to wedding planning.  I figured it was time to share since my last Palettes and Pairings post was over a year and a half ago.  My most recent painting was done by black light with neon paints.  They call it Van Glow and our inspiration painting was Starry Night.  The two pictures on the left were taken in the studio with the black lights.  The third picture is the painting in normal light.  Clearly, it is way cooler in black light just like the whole experience.

Seahawks Teddy Bear

I had yet another little neighbor birthday this week.  Julia's parents call her Juliabear, so I thought it would be adorable to make her a Seahawks Twelfth Fan teddy bear.

This teddy bear is based on the Buttercup Bear pattern by Janet McMahon.  I modified it with numbers from this pattern by Creative Crochet Workshop and followed another Ravelry user's Hello Kitty project notes to make the skirt ripple.  All the notes for this bear are in my project on Ravelry.

King's Forge

Our friend, Z, recently introduced us to a game he ordered from Kickstarter called King's Forge.  It's a dice rolling game where up to four players compete to become the king's new blacksmith.  The goal is to be the first to craft four items on the king's list.  This is what the set up looks like:

Giant Crocheted Sphere

I have officially completed this giant sphere (85 row) that will be the base for an amigurumi for Jeff.  Who can guess what it's going to be?  I can't wait to share it when I complete it!

Crocheted Elmo

My other little neighbor, Olivia, has a birthday the day after TJ.  She loves Elmo, so I made her one from this pattern by Maggie Vassie that I found on Ravelry.  I was beyond pleased with how he turned out!

I had to do a little editing of this pattern in Word since I find it easier to crochet when patterns are in a certain notation.  I also made a few adjustments suggested by others on Ravelry(mostly for the mouth).  All my notes can be found in my Elmo project there.

Hello Kitty!

Get ready folks, I'm heading back off into crochet land!  My most recent creation is a Hello Kitty for my little neighbor TJ's birthday.  I think she turned out adorably.

I found the English translation of this Spanish pattern by Esperanza Rosas on Ravelry, though the English translation has a few mistakes.  I figured everything out by watching the Youtube videos accompanying the pattern on the website.  They're great even if you don't speak Spanish!

Honeymoon Part 2: Oahu

As I said in my last post, Oahu was like a whole different world.  Things didn't feel as relaxed.  Instead, it felt more like a slower version of the hustle and bustle of a city.  Maybe it's because we stayed in Waikiki.  There were a ton of shopping options everywhere and it felt like there were a lot more tourists as well.  We spent most of our time eating since we had such a long list of places we wanted to try.

Day 5:

We arrived in Oahu in the afternoon and went to pick up our rental car from the airport rentals area(which seemed extremely outdated and way too small for the number of visitors).  We immediately headed to our hotel, Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach.  It was a very nice hotel, but it was no Andaz.  Perhaps we did ourselves a disservice by staying at such a fancy place first.

Honeymoon Part 1: Maui

After taking the last year and a half to prepare for the wedding, it's weird to be back to normal life without anything to plan.  Everything came off as close to perfectly as possible and the honeymoon was exactly the relaxing time we needed.  We started off with a weekend road trip to Portland with a few friends who were in town for the wedding.  To sum that up:  we ate a lot of food(surprise!), visited the Tillamook factory, and took a drive up the coast.

Next, Jeff and I were off to Hawaii for a week and a half.  We started out the trip with 4 nights in Maui followed by 5 nights in Oahu.  It was an amazing trip, to say the least.

Jeff and his Birthday Cake

Jeff had been wanting a fruit cake from a local Asian bakery for quite a while, so he finally got one for his birthday this week.  Unfortunately, he didn't want his picture taken so he made every silly face in the book.

The cake was pretty, but just ok in taste in my opinion(I'm generally a less fruit more chocolate person).  Jeff said it was pretty good, but I bet he would have preferred something lemon.  Maybe I'll try for that next year.

We're Married!

Photo by JennyGG Photography

I'm so excited to announce Jeff and I are officially married!  We had a beautiful ceremony and reception surrounded by our awesome family and friends(and vendors).  It was everything we ever dreamed of and much more!  Lots of pictures coming soon...

Wedding DIY Part 2: Table Luminaries and a Card Box

I'm back for another installment of wedding DIYs featuring table luminaries and a card box.

As I stated in my last post, I like things that light up.  I made light up initials and my centerpieces will have water beads with glowing LEDs in them.  Why shouldn't my table numbers match?  This whole idea started when bridesmaid HK found a slew of table number luminaries on Pinterest.  They totally sparked my interest and I decided I had to make my own.

Wedding DIY Part 1: Light Up Letters

With less than two weeks until the wedding, I thought I'd share one of the DIY projects I've been working on:  light up letters/initials.

I admit, I love things that light up or glow.  It's just a me thing.  When I saw all kinds of giant light up letters at my local Ben Franklin, I was inspired.  I bought a giant S and J and got down to business.  Here's how I did it:

Keto Red Velvet Cake

My wonderful Jeffrey made me a keto red velvet cake for my birthday this week!  The recipe is a healthified version of red velvet found on one of my favorite keto blogs, Maria Mind Body Health.

Jeff probably won't be very happy with me for posting the first picture since he ran out of icing and only got to do a crumb layer, but I don't care.  It was one of the most amazing keto desserts I've ever had.  The cake itself was moist and had a great crumb.  I was worried the flavor would be off as some keto recreations are, but this one wasn't.  I'd almost say it had a richer flavor than a normal red velvet cake!  We will definitely be making this one again!

Kitty Art

Jeff and I have the best friends in the world.  No, seriously.  They have been extra wonderful in our time of mourning for dear George.  Our friend, neighbor, and bridesmaid HK painted this picture of George and Cali in his memory.  It put the biggest smile on my face and made my heart so happy.

Thank you, HK, for being your awesome self.  You always know exactly what I need. <3

More Mohops!

Earlier this year Mohop did a Kickstarter campaign that I was incredibly excited to help fund.  I am happy to say my Moped flats arrived last week!  They came with a hand printed bag, lacing instruction cards, some ring hardware, and 6 sets of ribbons.  I also ordered a set of Jhoole sari ties.  I ordered the shoes in white to wear under my wedding dress.  Let's just say I can't wait to wear them!

Boston Trip

A few weekends ago we visited Boston for the wedding of one of Jeff's high school friends.  It was a fantastic time filled with food and catching up.  We may have lost our minds, but we took the red eye out.  Thankfully, we had Dunkin Donuts as soon as we got off the plane.  We were lucky enough to check into our hotel ridiculously early for a nap and followed it up with lunch at one of Jeff's favorite high school lunch spots, Anna's Taqueria.

In Loving Memory of George

We lost our beautiful fluffy boy to lymphoma last week.  In time, the words will come.  For now, pictures of the best, most loving fur baby we could've ever asked for.

Love and miss you always, Georgie.

Mobile Food Rodeo

We slipped and went off keto again today for the Mobile Food Rodeo in Fremont.  There's just something about having 45 food trucks all in one spot that I simply can't resist.  We arrived to find the trucks lining both sides of the street and a huge crowd.  We walked all the way through the trucks to see what was there before making our decisions on what to eat.  Eventually we chose these:

Wedding Menu Tasting

Today we visited Novelty Hill - Januik with two of our closest friends to have our wedding menu tasting.  As I'm sure you can guess, this is where the venue prepares a sampling of the catering menu to help plan the wedding menu.  When we arrived, the dining room was set up with a table for each party of four(couple plus two guests).  Each person also received a sheet outlining what was being served with room for notes and a rating.  The kitchen staff quickly set out a buffet of salads, sides, and several main dishes that we could go up and serve ourselves.  We also received a few dishes served to the table family style as well as wine pairings.

Snoopy

My Grandma really likes Charlie Brown and Peanuts, so anytime I send her a card for a holiday I make sure it's Peanuts or Snoopy related.  I came across Bethany Scofield's pattern for this adorable Snoopy on Ravelry and had to make it.

I boxed him up and shipped him to Grandma this morning along with a matching Easter card.  I can't wait to hear what she thinks about him!

Invitation Design

Confession:  I've had a secret wedding ideas board on Pinterest since before we got engaged.  On that board, I had several things that I was already sure I wanted and one of them was pocketfold invitations.  I initially decided I was going to make them myself since my inspiration invitations were made with materials from Cards & Pockets.  The sample pocketfolds I ordered were already in the mail when we met a potential invitation designer at Weddings in Woodinville.  We went ahead and had a consultation with her and liked what we saw, but realized that we had severely underbugeted paper goods.  In my calculations for DIY I had completely forgotten to include actual graphic design of the invitation, how we would get it printed, and the fact that I needed more than just invitations(programs, etc).  I'm no graphic designer and a little research about printing options just overwhelmed me.  I felt like my DIY project was or quickly would snowball out of control, so we decided to alter the budget and go with the designer.

She had a physical proof worked up for us in no time and after a few iterations, we came up with the final version(bottom left).  I could not be more pleased with how they turned out.  We ended up assembling them ourselves to save a bit, but had the envelopes printed with our return address as well as guest addresses since we agreed that it was worth the money to avoid the headache(more like hand ache).  We also received a discount for ordering invitations, programs, place cards, and thank you cards all at one time.  We're planning to have all of them match our invitation, so future design iterations should be minimal.  I'm so happy we decided to go this route to avoid the last minute get things done rush.

Bofur Style Hat

Ever since seeing Bofur in the Hobbit movies, I have wanted his hat.  I didn't really dig any I found online, so I decided to try crocheting one with leftover yarn from my ear flap hat.  I found a Bofur inspired hat pattern by Shaina Dyson on Ravelry and got to work.  My first try using H and I hooks turned out teddy bear sized, so I sized up to K and L hooks.

Either I have a huge head or I crochet way too tightly because the hat was still too small.  I ended up having to add five rows to the length of the hat and two rows to the length of the front flap.  If I made the hat again I would also add some length to the ear flaps.  It's almost guaranteed I'll make this again and make sure it fits this time... it's just too cute to pass up.

Sansaire!

Jeff Kickstartered the Sansaire sous vide machine last fall and we're so excited that it showed up on our doorstep this week!  It came in an uber cool package that had a picture of the machine in water(though it took us a bit to figure that out).  Jeff immediately opened it, allowed me a few minutes to admire its beauty, put it in a tub of water, and tossed in some eggs to test it out.

They came out splendidly and Jeff can't wait to make some meat with it.  There will definitely be more to come on the Sansaire!

Valentines and Jello

Just wanted to pop in and wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day!  Jeff cooked for me... sous vide steak with a side of jalapeno poppers.  He also surprised me with this creation:

Mmm jello heart with whipped cream.  In my opinion, nothing says love like his cooking.

Pikachu!

I guess I'm officially crocheting a series of Pokemon.  I wanted to make a pikachu as a belated birthday gift for a friend, so I found this pikachu pattern by Linda Potts on Ravelry.  She is the same designer who made the raichu design I featured last June.

This pattern was as easy to follow as the one for raichu and definitely turned out well, though the sewing together part was not very enjoyable(to be fair, it hasn't been for any amigurumi I've made yet).  My friend thought this little guy was awesome!

Seahawk Spirit

Well, I admit there's not much going on around here to share except lots of wedding planning emails.  I am definitely enamored with the Seahawk Spirit taking over the greater Seattle area, though.

It's so neat to see places like Bing and Expedia HQs lit up in support.  I also dig that I was able to get a (slightly squished) 12th Man cookie from Mrs. Fields and that somebody shared a giant bowl of Skittles in the kitchenette at work.  While I'm not really into football, I definitely find myself jumping on the bandwagon hoping the Hawks will get a win tomorrow.  On the bright side, I'll be at a Super Bowl party with lots of delicious food even if they don't win. :)

Weddings in Woodinville

Today's post is intentionally a day behind so I could recap my visit to a local wedding show/wine tour, Weddings in Woodinville.  The tour was recommended by my venue coordinator and I'm so glad we attended since it was tons of fun!  Unfortunately, I only snagged pics at Novelty Hill - Januik so use your imagination for the others!

We started our day at Woodhouse Wine Estates to register.  I love that they provided me with a nice tote to carry around brochures/magazines/cards/etc.  We went inside and looked around, picked up some delicious small plates, and visited a bakery to taste some cake(super delicious).

Next we headed to DeLille Cellars.  We picked up some uber tasty mini baked goods and met a potential invitation designer before heading out to see the table set up.  It was grand and green... perhaps to match the amazing green pea soup shooter stand next to it.

We traveled on to Willows Lodge where I once again admired the beautiful gazebo space for an outdoor ceremony(again, 1st runner up in our wedding venue race) before heading inside for more delicious mini desserts, amazing fried cauliflower by Barking Frog Mobile, and finding a really neat arch made of books.

Next up was Columbia Winery and it had a theme that I adored:  geometric dreams.  It was bright and beautiful and oh so me.  They had draped the space with white and used uplighting of all kinds.  The tables were covered in eye-catching colors and they offered fruity cocktails that were delicious.  There was even a fully dressed bride and groom on site!

For our fifth stop, we were off to JM Cellars.  It had a secluded and woodsy feel.  They offered a ton of delicious food inside and had a beautiful table set up in shades of orange outside.  My favorite part of this venue was the s'mores bar outside.  It was basically a simple fire pit with roasting sticks and jars of graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate bars.  I definitely wouldn't think of something like this for a wedding(mostly because I'm a klutz and would probably light my dress on fire), but it was super fun!

We finished off our tour at our venue, Novelty Hill - Januik Winery.  I was very excited to see the color scheme was similar to mine(orange/navy vs aqua/coral).  The tables inside were decked out to the nines!  We sampled some super tasty mini tiramisu and other desserts from a potential vendor before heading downstairs.  Here I found one of the most delightful things I saw all day:  a Seahawks Minion cake by Midori Bakery.  I was so pleased to see our venue all decked out... it gave me quite a bit of inspiration!

All in all, it was a fun and informative day.  I would definitely recommend the tour to other brides looking for venues, vendors, or wedding ideas in general.

Ear Flap Hat

Jeff and I carpool since we work in buildings that are very close to each other.  I have been in deep need of a hat to keep me warm on my walk between buildings.  I found this ear flap hat pattern by DreamerOnCloud9 on Ravelry and decided to venture out of my amigurumi comfort zone to make it because I thought it was really cute.  Unfortunately, the pattern turned out to be more of a guideline and it took me quite a while to figure out what was going to work.  I probably used a smaller hook(H) than I should have, but I like that there aren't big holes to let cold air in.

I ended up increasing to round 6 instead of 5 as the pattern suggests and it barely fits my head(but it clearly too big for Sydney Bear).  If I try this pattern again, I'll use a larger hook and try to crochet more loosely.  I'm still pleased that it turned out nicely and may give it to a friend with a smaller head.

Save the Dates

There are a little over seven months until the big day and I'm happy to report Save the Dates are out!  It took me forever to figure out what I wanted to do.  I scoured Pinterest as well as many of the sites with templates where you add your own picture and write your own blurb and couldn't find anything that I loved.  In the end, a dear friend mocked up some designs from which to choose.  Here they are:

After much debate, we chose the option on the right.  I love that it has my favorite font (Calamity Jane) and my favorite engagement picture(photo by JennyGG Photography).  We found a deal on Vistaprint and had them made up.  It didn't take long for them to arrive and they looked great.  All in all, I'm very pleased with how they turned out.  And now, back to the life of a busy bride!

African Grey Parrot Amigurumi

After I gave my friend the amigurumi raichu, another friend decided he wanted an amigurumi too.  We scoured Ravelry for something he might like, but couldn't find anything.  He has an African Grey parrot, so I decided to make one.  After looking around on Ravelry, no such parrot pattern exists.  The only patterns I found looked way too cartoony, so I decided to make my own.  That was at the end of June.  It took me six months, lots of iterations, and lots of "frustration breaks" to finish this bird.  I'm happy to announce she is complete and I'm going to share my first ever crochet pattern so others can make less cartoony parrots.  Here she is: