forgot my head.

For my cousin and her two friends that stayed with us for Christmas.  

For the lovely Emma, though I should have fixed it a bit for this photo.  Actually, it was a bit wonked anyway (sorry! :S)  Christmas is stressful.  I made a matching one for the wonderful Becky but with different letters :)  

I attempted to make this better with fun things in Picnik.  Well, you can see creepy Mynnion the cat staring out at you, maybe it just adds to it.  I finished this owl pillow for G’s Uncle’s girlfriend on Christmas eve around midnight :S  

Speaking of cats, here’s a stuff on my cat version of one of the camera bags on Sugar

Hope everyone’s back-to-school hasn’t been too stressful!  I already had my first outfit from my collection due last Thursday O.o  Lovin’ life.

Today was such a beautiful, warm day…albeit a little bit cloudy but still nice and bright.  Which, of course, meant that everyone decided to go out and enjoy the weather, as they should, but it also meant that pretty Unionville Main Street was completely congested.  We ended up at a park with a pond, and really, I think it was better.  While I wish it was summer and everything was green, I couldn’t be happier with the way these photos turned out!  Emma!  Thank you so much for taking these photos.  You are amazing.

These photos I speak of are for my portfolio, and I am having trouble picking my favourites. I had hoped to think of someone to model for me, so I didn’t have to, but the clothes are so specifically industrial size 10 that everyone I could think of was entirely too tiny.  Is it weird to be in your own portfolio? 

This is my suit from last semester…I guess I never got around to posting photos!  I am tentatively calling it “Palla” after Palladio, because part of my inspiration was Chiswick House, a neo-Palladian villa which I someday wish to visit.  I wish I had paid more attention to Palladian proportion, which I had thought of and then promptly forgot while I drafted my pattern.  

This top was a drape from class, I designed it to be versatile and comfy and…drape-y.  It’s pretty simple, but I think simple clothes with lots of fabric to play with are fun.  

I made this dress yesterday!  Please ignore the top of that zipper up there, it’s (poorly) standing in because I couldn’t find an invisible one anywhere in my or my mom’s stash and nothing was open today!  It’s sort of Rococo-inspired, I wanted it to look pretty and happy and carefree.  

I’m flying! 

This week has been so hectic I have barely been able to sleep, but I’m still in a pretty good mood!  Though, I’m glad that I don’t have school tomorrow because I am burning out.  My eveningwear dress for school was due on Tuesday, so of course I didn’t sleep very much over the weekend in an attempt to get everything done.  I like how it turned out, though I didn’t manage my time well enough to get all the beading done that I had planned, but it’s still alright.  I didn’t have a chance to get a picture of it on a body yet, but here’s a little taste!  

Oh!  If you’re in Toronto you should come to Serpentinata!  It’s the second and third year Ryerson fashion show, put on by the really hardworking fashion event planning class.  April 9th!  

I have an illustration project due today too, I like most of them…I’d like you to meet Monsieur Fish (do you see his moustache?)!

…ah actually all these images except for the figure are from the internet…I should find those sources.  So!  This isn’t technically original I guess, but it’s okay for school.

Happy almost weekend!

So, yesterday was my birthday, and I kind of half-forgot that people sometimes do things on their birthdays, so I invited people over two days before (for a Friday night!  What was I thinking?!).  Needless to say, no one could come (except my good friend Tala and her boy! Thanks for coming!), but I made cake anyway.  Baking is fun!

But first, I will show you the tiny sandwich cottages Gaelen made (we saw these on epicute first):

Anyway, cake.

and inside…

ah, weird lighting.  But, yes, my own owl birthday tea party.  The cake is supposed to be sort of rainbow (the icing outside is a light pink raspberry whipped cream).   The orange and yellow layers are lemon sponge cake, the green one is a matcha sponge cake and the purple and blue icings are buttercream.  The M birdies (the other ones were eaten/are hiding) etc are just scrap pieces of cake cut into shapes with raspberry filling.  

I mostly followed this recipe for both, but added a bit of cream of tartar to the egg whites (about 1/4 tsp) from another recipe, and for the lemon cake, instead of the matcha I threw in some lemon and orange rind and instead of the milk I added lemon juice.   

I also got to be a princess for most of the day :)

Happy weekend everyone!

I spent entirely too much time this weekend playing games (Cake Mania…The Sims 2…why am I telling you this?  Cake Mania is a horrible game, but so addictive, that’s why.  And The Sims, I really needn’t say any more.) but I did get a some cleaning done!  I finally got some hooks up and cleaned off my drafting table so I have room to work.  But I’m most excited about my garlands!  I’ve been thinking we needed something in the giant blank space above our bed (the ceiling is extra tall too, so it was just a vast expanse of pale blue paint).  If you don’t look too closely it just looks like circles of colour, but really, we’re just nerdy.  Most of them are cut from Nintendo Power magazine.  Also, I love kittens.

I think there are about 12 kitten faces in there somewhere.

My first week back at school is over!  Yaaay.  Okay, fine, I only had two days of classes because my school is weird and we started on Wednesday.  But still, it was tiring putting all those due dates in my calendar and starting to see my weeks fill up with homework homework homework.  Somehow I swung Fridays off!

But anyway, I really should be cleaning my house but I’d much rather show you something silly Gaelen and I made way back at the beginning of December.  My extended family has been getting together early for Christmas for the past couple years because my cousins (I’m the baby…well, I was) have children so it’s a lot easier to get everyone out the first weekend of December.  This year my Aunt decided that us adults would play pass the present (don’t even get me started) so we were required to bring a small unisex present valued around $10.

So I decided that we’d make some dessert sushi!  I actually got this idea somewhere off the internet, I saw someone else had made them out of cake and it was actually quite cute.  Instead I made rice krispies and shaped them into the small rice shapes for the sushi and we flattened out some into “sheets” for the maki.  The “nori” is fruit roll-up, (it was a pain in the butt trying to find green ones! I was hoping to find those striated green ones, watermelon flavoured or something if I recall correctly, but no luck.  It ended up being the half and half ones in red/yellow and green/blue but it actually worked out okay) and the insides are various gummies.  The two dark-ish sushi toppings are fruit-to-go strips, they were a pain to stick down so Gaelen put some fruit roll-up underneath and brushed them with a little water and let dry slightly to make them more tacky.  The “salmon” one is fruit roll-up.

And for this one I guess you can see for yourself the silly gummies we put on top, my favourite is the octopus.  For the “roe” we used jelly beans cut in half.  The chopsticks are pocky sticks!  They were exactly long enough though, if we hadn’t been making these the night before I would have folded some smaller wrappers.

Were we to make them again I probably would have made the wasabi out of icing…actually I tried but we apparently had no green food colouring so I melted some green gummies in the microwave and added icing sugar (disgusting blobby mess!).  And for the “ginger,” I have no idea, maybe a pinker version…done nicer…Gaelen made that.  :)  oh!  The soy sauce is chocolate sauce but made from hazelnut hot chocolate powder so I could make it a little runnier like soy sauce, it was actually really tasty!

Okay, clearly we went a little overboard, and I probably spent $10 on the candy alone, but it was well worth it to see my family fighting over it!

So, I’ve beaten my Christmas present (The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks) so I am off of my train and back into the world (…yeah).  I hope you, whoever’s out there, are having a wonderful holiday season and all that happy fun.

Here’s some cake I made!

Gaelen got my Martha Stewart’s Encyclopedia of Crafts for Christmas, so I got the crepe paper snowdrops from there.

I’m ringing in the new year by cleaning my kitchen!  :)  I am a messy baker.

Well, hello out there.  I have been my absentee self, as usual…Not much going on, except for exams (3 more to go!) and enjoying my week off, not having to worry about my job…thing.  Let’s not even talk about that lest my brain explode with annoyance.

Last night, instead of studying I made a dress!  I like it.

It had a sweetheart neckline, dirndl skirt, button and zipper closure on the left side…I didn’t have a long enough zipper…whoops!  I love this fabric!  I got it on sale at fabric land of all places.  It’s a Jersey Girls print (I don’t even know) called belgian lace.  I just love the colours.  My mom told me what quilting pattern it is but I can’t remember.

I also made Gaelen go through his (giant!) t-shirt drawer and get rid of some of the rattier ones, and to make him feel better about it I said I would make him a blanket so they aren’t going away, he just can’t wear them anymore :)

Also, we saw Monsters vs. Aliens in 3D two days ago, it was hilarious!  I highly recommend it.  In 3D of course!

So, holy crap, school is almost over.  I am kind of burnt out, but I’m hoping summer will fix that.  I’m nearly finished my dress, I just need to put the flowers on…and I would leave it but it’s kind of the tie in with my theme (the secret garden).  I dunno, I think it will be nice.

So far:

And (for you Becky), here is a positively decent ink sketch from class a couple weeks ago:

Well, I’m 19.  Whooo, I can now legally buy cigarettes and alcohol, neither of which I really plan on doing but y’know.  I guess it’s nice to know I have the option?  Actually, I don’t really care.

Gaelen made me a birthday cake:

We only had two candles, otherwise it would have had better ears.  (It’s supposed to be a sad cat).

And he made me tacos (favourite food!), after which I proceeded to spend the rest of my night writing the worst essay I have ever written and finishing my muslin…

which turned out pretty good.  The sleeves are uneven (gathering when you can’t keep your eyes open is difficult) and I really don’t know what happened on the left side at the princess seam, probably a result of carelessly topstitching the dress to its lining.  But overall, I’m okay with it.  We had to incorporate a collar, two functional pockets, buttons from neck to hem line, two set in sleeves, and a waist seam, so at least it doesn’t look like a nurses dress (something I struggled with)!

The thing I am most excited about, about this dress is that it’s the first thing I have ever totally made by myself, pattern and all.  And it turned out pretty good, the real thing will be better, but I’m happy with this sample.