Green Tea Cupcakes are so cute and delicious!

I used this recipe and just cut it in half, which made 12 cupcakes. I didn't cut the icing part in half because I read some of the reviews that said they should have increased the icing amount.


The recipe told me to sift a couple times. Sift = put everything in a ziploc bag and shake. Works just as well I bet.


It was an awful green color but I gave it a taste test and I could tell immediately that these were going to be awesome!


The icing is so delicious. Tastes just like green tea, and not too sweet.

Christmastime Busytime

This was the busiest, craftiest Christmas. I attended, or hosted, 9 different Christmas events/gatherings. Lemon cookies for my aunt & uncle, dinner with my step-sister, my niece’s Holiday program & party at school, a Christmas parade, a visit with my Dad’s family, apple pie with friend Wendy, Doritos & koolaid with Jamie, Christmas Eve at my mom’s house, and Christmas day at my Grandmother’s. There was a work event too but that was during the day and I just bought salsa from the grocery store so it wasn’t a lot of work. This all happened within a week and a half. In addition to making candles, I made delicious food items like crab dip, and lasagna, for some of these gatherings. So that’s where I’ve been.

I wore some Christmastime cat eyeliner. My friends/family have to love me no matter what so if I happen to wear uneven cat eyeliner while I am perfecting my ability to apply it, they can’t judge me. Also, I can’t wear cat eyeliner at work. So Christmastime is the perfect time for cat eyeliner, right?


I'm wearing e.l.f. Studio Cream Eyeliner in Black that I applied with a slanted brush here. It's $3 at Target and pretty good to be so cheap! I just got Stila waterproof liquid eyeliner.

The parade I went to was in Bahama, which is a small town in Durham County. It was a cute parade and easily accessible- it was scheduled to start at 10 and we arrived at 10, parked, and found a spot all before it started. No traffic difficulties at all. Here are some highlights in pictures:









Christmastime also brought owl stuffs. A necklace, a statue-thing, and this cute ornament.


My homemade soy wax candles were a hit! Everyone loved them. I made lemon pound cake, pumpkin pie, red velvet with cream cheese frosting, chocolate walnut espresso, and fruit medley candles.


Ebi didn’t miss out on any excitement, either. He loved his milkbones and toys.

Glittery Sushi Ornaments are Back!

I changed them up a little bit from last year and I'm really comfortable with what I've created. I added a new one, the Temaki Roll, and took away one of the Maki (round) rolls because they just weren't that exciting. They're all sparkly and fun!


Ebi says "Ruff ruff. They're really cute. Now take me out."

This Tarheel went to a Duke game!

There’s a really funny/lucky aspect of my life in which I come into event tickets last minute. I usually drop everything and go because, duh, it’s free fun!

Last night I went to a Duke basketball game. I’ve been to Cameron Indoor Stadium before, but this was the first time I’ve been there with the Cameron Crazies!


(You can click on these bad iPhone pics to see a bigger image.)

Of course I’m a dedicated Tarheel so it was pretty convenient that our seats were right above what appeared to be the Davidson moms. In the second half Duke came back and completely dominated and dunked all over Davidson.

After the game there was a special encore presentation honoring Coach K on his accomplishment of becoming Div. 1 Coach with the most wins. The President of Duke, the President of the ACC, and the Duke Athletic Director were all there and spoke. Tom Butters, the man who hired Coach K, was also there. They revealed a new banner in the stadium.


During his acceptance speech of an honorary first game ball and the 903’d game ball, K said something that led me to ask “Did he just call himself a magician?” He pointed around the stadium to all the retired jerseys and banners and said something like “magic has happened.”

K was very appreciative of Tom Butters and spoke mostly to him. He said that they (Duke basketball) were once 38-47 and that is why they have won 903 games. That it takes being down to drive you up. He said that it is important to surround yourself with people that understand where you are going, and that Butters believed in him more than he believed in himself. He said that if you are fortunate enough to have someone believe in you like that in your life, then it is very “neat”.

He also said that he owes everything to his wife and 3 daughters and that they are “the starting five.” It was pretty special to be able to attend the game and ceremony at Cameron. I’m not even talkin’ junk.

Spring temps 'n Fall leaves

This week has been pretty uneventful. It feels like Springtime here in the middle of November. I have a laundry basket full of socks that I am neglecting to match up because that's the most boring household duty ever. And I'm anxiously awaiting Thanksgiving for all the wrong reasons... days off from work! Here's some pretty sights, though.

Soy Wax Candles! Yum!

Since a lot of my crafts have been sushi related, I am always thinking of new creative sushi ideas. I knew that I wanted to somehow create a sushi-inspired candle. I'm really excited with what I came up with..


True Ginger and Cucumber Wasabi Cilantro travel tins! They're colored to look like ginger and wasabi. The ginger one smells really good. Just like a ginger root. The wasabi one smells pretty fresh and vibrant.

Eleven Eleven Eleven = Craft Craft Craft

As if I didn't already have enough little projects going on (stuff I want to make, paint, create, cover), my Pinterest-loving co-worker told me about an easy-to-make tomato cage christmas tree she saw and it got me all excited and cruising the internet for homemade decoration ideas. Here's what I found:


You can wrap the extra trimmings from your tree around the wires or just use lights. Martha Stewart did this too.


I'm going to make these candles I saw on this vintage-inspired blog.


I'm really excited about this! Coffee-scented candles in coffee mugs. Some family members are getting this for Christmas.

It's a good thing I'm off work today because my crafting ambition is in overdrive!

It really was a dream come true

Meeting Jessica Simpson today was so spur of the moment! I woke up later than usual and saw her tweet about meeting everyone at Crabtree Valley Mall. At first I thought "wow, there's 2 crabtree's?" Then "omg! Jessica Simpson is here! I have to go!" I quickly got dressed and arrived around 11:30. I found out that I had to buy a $50 JS brand item for a wrist band that would guarantee meeting her, an autographed photo, and a special gift. Totally worth it!


I bought some leopard print ballet flats. I couldn't really focus. I saw that the line was already getting kind of long so I just wanted to get something in a hurry. I started to get a bag but I needed to stay as close to $50 as possible and her bags can be kind of pricey for me. I knew I didn't want to mess with clothes because that required too much time/focus. I went straight to the shoes and picked out these cute leopard flats. They were a great decision considering the pressure I felt I was under. I had the urgency of a woman in labor.


My spot in line was behind some girls that talked about everything they were going to get her to sign- their wristband, the tag on their shirt they bought, some notebook paper. And how she might have a real halo over her head (that part I don't disagree with). I stood in line for 2 hours but it went by pretty fast. She was a full hour late. People kept walking by asking what we were standing in line for because all the signage, announcements and music didn't provide enough clues apparently.


I'm really glad I went. I wish I would have been able to get a picture with her but I knew better than to ask. The girls in front of me had a friend standing outside the rope with a camera so she took a picture with them, but I was alone and it would have been really annoying to everyone for me to try to work that out. I had to wait for her to drink some water and apply more lipgloss before it was my turn. She said "hiiiiiii" just like you would expect and smiled and asked me how I was doing! This all made me so happy after that Britney fiasco. I told her I was doing great at that I saw her tweet about the event. Ashlee asked her "your what?" and she said "Oh, I tweeted about this." And I told her "yeah, I didn't see it until this morning so I, like, ran here." I don't know what I said. I was nervous. She was like "Well, you look pretty!" Then I had to help her spell my name. She was really smiley and happy and nice and thanked me for coming. My favorite thing about Jessica Simpson is how she is able to just laugh at herself. And, of course, how pretty, funny, and stylish she is.


The free gift was a denim cosmetic bag with JS woven on it with an I Fancy You perfume sample and earbuds with rhinestones. I love it all. I love this day.

There's a Halloween party to be had

I made rice krispie pumpkins to take to my cousin's Halloween party tomorrow. I forgot what a pain in the ass making rice krispie treats are. I got the idea from a recipe on a coupon for the cereal. The orange color comes from adding orange food coloring to the butter/marshmallow mixture and then adding that to the rice. I don't have orange food coloring so I used red and yellow. I also used the little hole-in-the-side-of-the-plastic-bag trick to accomplish the vines.


Gum drops for the stem!


I finished the owl wings this weekend. I didn’t really have a plan going into this. I just thought “make some wings and add some feathers.” I didn’t plan out how I would attach the feathers, or what the end result would look like. I just got started.

What I used:
Black fabric
Gray fabric
Feathers
Hot Glue
Scissors

First I cut a strip of black fabric the length of my arm and tied a knot at the end with a finger loop. Smart! I'm most proud of the finger loop idea!


Next I cut long rectangular strips and shaped them into feathers. It was neat, but boring-looking. I needed to add some real feathers.


I attached them to the fabric by gluing them to the strip and folding it over. It's pretty secure.

I cut smaller rectangular pieces of the gray fabric, wrapped and glued them, and then glued feathers underneath. I started feeling like I had ran/walked for miles and realized I went too far…. That I still had to turn around and go back. IOW, I had another wing to do. This wasn’t supposed to take so much time! There’s other stuff I wanted/needed to do!


I finished it up and I'm pretty proud of the end result even though I should have made the gray stripes more even. This is just the left wing. It's so big I had to take a picture from overhead. I'm excited to wear these!

I had a lot of feathers left over so I have some pieces for my hair or something. And since I'm an ever-resourceful crafter I even have pieces that will be Christmas tree ornaments. Feathers on the Christmas tree!

Peanut butter candy eyeballs- The messiest ever!

I'm convinced that these are meant to be made, sampled, and then taken to a party or something. You can't eat more than one because they're SO rich and sweet.


That's because they're just peanut butter, powdered sugar, and butter rolled into little balls. So bad!


..And then dipped in melted white chocolate. The chocolate is hot and messy and it's hard to make these look perfectly smooth. My advice- just drop 'em in one at a time, pull them out with 2 forks, and sit them on a rack. And move fast! The chocolate gets cold quickly.


We didn't have fancy decorating tools for the red parts. We just had a tub of red icing, which, of course, posed a big challenge in making thin red lines. So my mom showed me a neat little trick. She poked a tiny hole in the corner of the bottom of a plastic ziplock bag, put some icing in, and then squeezed it through the small hole. Perfect!


Brown squeezable icing or an upside down M&M for the pupil. I think we made some a little too big. If I made these again, I would make them no larger than the size of a quarter. This was messy, but fun and easy!

NC State Fair, Feathers, and Sweet Potato Fries!

Last week I went to the NC State Fair with my mom and niece. I didn't eat anything outrageous. I saw the deep fried bubble gum, deep fried koolaid (Yikes! Gross!), Krispy Kreme Bacon Cheeseburger (WHHAAAA???!), deep fried Oreos/Twinkies/Snickers, turkey legs, fried cheese, and so much fried dough! We stuck to the pretty traditional fair food- a funnel cake with powdered sugar and some cotton candy.

I liked the prized fruits/vegetables, huge pumpkins, and craftiness.


Check this cute Hello Kitty Pumpkin!


And mom on the ferris wheel..


I'm using these feathers for my owl costume.


It's actually a feather garland for Christmas decorating. I knew I needed a boa or something similar for a bunch of pretty feathers. And Michael's always shows me so much appreciation in the form of 40% off coupons! As always, I'm trying to be as resourceful as possible when it comes to crafting my costume.


I also made/burnt sweet potato fries. I just cut the potato into quarter inch fries, tossed them in olive oil and then in brown sugar, salt, and pepper, and baked them for about 35-40 minutes at 425 degrees. Yum!