Friday, April 10, 2009

Attack of the Tasty, Tasty Aliens

This is actually sort of old but I had to frog my new knitting project TWICE! (Gauge and I are frenemies) so I thought I'd post this until I work things out with my needles. This was my first attempt at more than a simple frosted cupcake. I got the idea from Martha Stewart. The cupcake was a simple but super tasty chocolate cupcake and the frosting is peanut butter flavored but dyed green. Martha Stewart suggests making the tentacles out of green taffy but my neighborhood has one very small grocery store and a bunch of bodegas, none of which had taffy, so I used what I could find which was green gumdrops. I think it turned out looking pretty cute but, man, trying to roll out gumdrops into tentacles sucks and I would strongly advise against it.

So then it was a weekend morning, I had a bunch of adorable aliens looking at me and my husband was still asleep so I decided to build a little photo set. I started with ahomemade light box, then I punched holes into a piece of black cardstock and put that in the back with a lamp behind it to be a starry night. Next I grabbed some packets of instant oatmeal that had been sitting in the cabinet for way too long. That became the sandy ground. Then I took some wheat thins, chiseled them down to tombstone shapes and colored them over with silver and black markers. I'm not really sure why the alien is in a graveyard but it was around Halloween so, I guess, the spookier the better. Lastly, I got a clove of garlic, wrapped it in aluminum foil, poked a hole in it and hung it from the top of the box with string. And then I ate the adorable little alien and he was totally delicious.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Spruce Tree Seedling





















Last month I was in Target picking up some stuff to add to my nephew's giant birthday grab-bag gift box monster that I was creating. When I was browsing around the $1 section at the front of the store they had little "grow your own tree" things with tiny little pots, some soil and norway spruce seeds. I have a history of wanting to grow plants that are way too big for my tiny Brooklyn apartment. This blog began when I tried to grow a pumpkin in a small pot on my terrace. The pumpkin vine eventually grew like 8 feet, started wrapping around and climbing up my hanging ivy plant and giving my roommates nightmares that our apartment was turning into the movie Troll. Clearly, I have not learned my lessoned. I planted a couple of seeds a few weeks ago and now I have a little Norway Spruce seedling popping up. I'm pretty sure that this will grow slowly enough that I can manage it in the apartment for a year or so. Hopefully, by then Chris and I will be moving on to greener pastures in the mythical land of homeowning.

Make Something Cool Everyday in April

When I was reading the domestic scientist she linked to this awesome idea on Dabbled to make something cool everyday in April. I'm sure, like everyone, I always want to do way more then I ever actually end up accomplishing so I thought it would be great to join in with this as motivation to stop watching bad CSI: Miami reruns with my freetime and start making the things that are in my head to make.

I don't think I can keep up with the everyday pace so I'm shooting for three cool things each week. So, here's thing one. I knit a hat from a pattern in Holiday Knits. It's a stocking cap in white and seafoam green Lion Brand cotton. It's not a very warm hat but it's super cute and good for April when the weather's fickle and a little extra warmth is just enough. I'm thinking about making baby sized versions for my nephews for Christmas. It knit up very fast in just one day. It was also my first attempt at a pom-pom which came out alright. It probably still needs a little bit more shaping but overall I'm happy with it.


Thursday, April 2, 2009