Wedding: What I Wore

So, it's getting on towards summer here, and even though it's still a bit cold, wedding season is upon us.  I'm heading to a wedding this weekend, in fact, so I thought I'd share a couple of aspects about my wedding, waaaay back in the day, in 2007!

There's really no rhyme or reason to the order of my posts, no pre-ceremony, ceremony, reception, etc.  It'll just be what I remember from a very busy day!  To start off, I'll be sharing what I wore that day, especially since Absolute Mommy is having a linky party to celebrate all wonderful outfits we girls have worn to and at weddings.

The most important aspect of our wedding was the food (no surprise there), so the dress was important, but not overwhelmingly so.  I did not go to Kleinfeld in the city, and I didn't even try on a lot of options.  My first dress shopping trip was to a little boutique where I found a beautiful dress for $2700.  Beautiful.  But expensive.  Then there was a feisty little number with orange accents and an orange bustle on the bum that looked...interesting.  I went home thinking about that one dress, but the enginerd in me kicked in.  I realized that I really REALLY wanted to wear (fit into) one of the dresses my mom wore when she got married - a white qipao.  Since the wedding will be approximately 8 hours, and some time will be spent in a different dress, I really couldn't justify spending that much money on my wedding dress.  I knew the anal retentive little monster in me would think about how much I was spending per minute..  Can you say DORK?! (or how about scrooge?!)  And this is only because I just didn't care as much about the dress.  Let me tell you, I wasn't calculating how much my food was costing me per minute, that was just "bring on the best"!  But I'll wax poetic about that in another post.

Ok, that was a lot of really random and probably unnecessary information for you!  Anyways, I ended up getting my dress at David's Bridal.  I considered a tight fitting dress, but since the qipao was already going to be skin tight, I thought "why not?" and went all princess-y.  Once in a lifetime, you know?  When else are you going to wear a ballgown stiff enough to stand on its own?  

Since I was on a princess kick, I chose a long veil and got it on ebay for $30.  I lent it to my friend for her wedding, then sold it back on ebay for about the same price, so that was a GREAT deal!

Now, the qipao, that was an important aspect of the wedding for me, to wear my mother's dress.  I had to have it opened slightly in the neck and arm holes (my neck is thick?), but otherwise, I wore it as is.  I'm so glad I was able to add that little bit of history into my special day, since we didn't really do any other traditional Chinese customs.  

As for accessories, I had white wedges to walk on the grass for the ceremony, silver heels for the qipao and white slippers ($1 each from Queens!) for when I gave up on the heels.  

I had my hair done at a local salon, and also did my own makeup.  The original idea was to save some money by not hiring a makeup artist, but I ended up splurging on a lot of MAC gear instead!

My "old" was the qipao.  The "new" was the wedding gown.  I borrowed a small diamond necklace and earring set from a good friend, and the blue - well, let's just say it no one saw that!

What did you, or will you, wear on your wedding day?  I'd love to hear about it!  

Hot Air Balloon Lantern

Have you entered the giveaway to win a really REALLY cute crocheted giraffe?  If not, click here!  The giveaway ends Sunday night at midnight!

When I was pregnant, I spent quite a lot of time roaming through the internets looking for nursery inspirations, not knowing there was a thing called Pinterest to suck you in like nobody's business.  I wanted J's nursery to be gender neutral but still colorful and fun, and I wanted to use what I had around the house to decorate it.  Sound familiar?

Well, the boy's been enjoying his nursery for a while now, and I haven't really updated it since I put it together. The cards I got at my baby shower are still tacked to the fabric covered corkboard I hung up....as well as the cards he got for his 1st birthday.  At this rate, his graduation cards may be going up on that corkboard!  So, I made a tiny and simple addition to his room this week - a paper basket :-)

There are maybe 10 paper lanterns hung up on the ceiling, in all different colors.  That was my concession to a mobile (actually, there's a paper crane mobile too), and I liked how it added lots of visual interest to the room.  Hanging a little brown basket off of one of them all of a sudden changes a paper lantern from a ball to a hot air balloon!

This project was FREE.  The basket is an origami open cube that I made out of a paper bag.  I couldn't find cotton string in my house, so I used a bit of baker's twine I bought for no other reason than it seemed to be the popular thing to do.  I figured it might come in handy some time, and it did!  I punched holes in the corner of the basket and strung the twine through, knotting them with an adjustable knot.  The other end is taped inside the paper lantern.  Why an adjustable knot?  Because I couldn't figure out how else to make sure the basket was hung straight.

Here are quick instructions for folding an origami open cube.  Basically, it's the same procedure as folding an origami box, except instead of folding the corners into the center, and then folding into the center again, creating fourths, you fold the structure into THIRDS, giving more height to the sides.

1. Have a square piece of paper handy.

2. Fold edge to edge both ways, and fold corner to corner both ways.  This gives you the center, as well as necessary crease lines.

3. Fold all 4 corners into the center - more crease lines.

4. Unfold 2 opposite corners.

5. Fold into THIRDS - use a ruler to measure out a third.  The middle third is the bottom of the box.  The other 2 are to become the sides 1 and 2.

6. I have no idea how to explain this next folding step, so you'll just have to look at the picture.  Use the creases you've made to help you (mountain?) fold the sides in, almost like you're wrapping a present.  Do that on both sides.

7. You should now have a flap that will very obviously want to be folded over and into the box, creating a 3rd side.  

8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 to create the 4th side of the box.

And since the basket looked a bit empty, I threw in one of J's bath toys, a friendly shark.  That's not strange, is it?  Having a pet shark in a hot air balloon?  He can squirt water too :-)

Enjoy the ride!

I Want to Start a Cooking Series

I've had this idea simmering in my head for a little while now, and to be honest, I'm not sure how it's all going to come together, so I thought I'd just share what it is, and hopefully, the goodness that is the wonderful world of bloggers will help me flesh out my idea.  

I love to eat. 

Which means, I have to cook because I can't eat out EVERY night.

Which means, I've learned how to cook, from friends, from books, from making mistakes.

Now, I want to share a little of what I know, especially with the bounty of summer coming up!

This is a little bit Ratatouille (Anyone can cook!), a little bit Good Eats with Alton Brown (the science of cooking), a little bit of America's Worst Cooks, and a little bit of my mom (just make it up!).  

This is our attempt at Ratatouille a la Ratatouille!  Did you know Thomas Keller used a paring knife for the whole thing?  Craaazy.

So, I'm thinking of doing a Kitchen Basics series, or a Kitchen Skillz or whatever the name is going to be.  That's one of the many things up in the air.  I would like this to be a series of blog posts on basic tips, tricks and skills for the kitchen, such as :

coring an apple, without one of those apple corer doodads or an apple peeler.

dicing an onion.

supreming citrus

sharpen your knives

basil chiffonade

how to properly sear a nice thick t-bone

a poached egg, a scrambled egg, a perfectly over-easy egg?

julienned vegetables

All with basic kitchen tools, no fancy infomercial tools here!  Just give me a nice sharp knife :-)

Some of these I know, some of these I don't know but want to find out.  Notice there is nothing about baking on that list.  That's because I know nothing about baking (and gasp! I'm not a huge pastry eater).  I'm TERRIBLE at baking.  I welcome lessons on baking.

You know, I'm sure this sounds like we should all just go out and buy ourselves some cookbooks, because I'm sure there are plenty out there that teach you the basics.  But that's no fun!  And sometimes, the stuff in the cookbooks just don't work!  I want to know how the average over-tired super woman does it in the kitchen, ha!

Interested?  

I'm looking for guest bloggers who would like to share a tip, trick or basic skill that helps them in the kitchen, as well as ideas and questions from anyone and everyone on what you'd like to see.  This might turn out to be a month long theme, or a weekly thing throughout the summer, or gosh, no theme at all.  Maybe we'll do a nice big potluck linky party at the end to show off what we've learned and what we've made and what we eat!  (Too bad I didn't take picture of the best meal I've ever made for myself - seared scallops with asparagus in a butter sauce.  I admit, I licked the plate.  Whatever, I was single, so only my cat saw me do it.)

I'd love to hear your thoughts!  If you would like to guest post, or have any ideas/questions/suggestions, leave a comment or email me!  Hopefully we'll get a great group of bloggers together to share some kitchen secrets :-)

Homestyle Fried Rice

Coming home from work, and having a kid who wants nothing more than playing outside in the yard, means that I don't have a lot of time to make an elaborate dinner.  You'd think I could just let the boy and the dog go at it in the fenced backyard, but nooooo, of course they want to be played with.  SO.  Thank goodness for good ol' fried rice, my favorite fallback one pot wonder!

I never make it the same way twice, since it's all about throwing together what I have in the fridge on any particular day, but here's one fairly normal version:

Ingredients:

Leftover rice, usually from the previous day

egg (or 2), beaten

small bowl of diced ham (from a leftover ham)

small bowl of cooked peas (from frozen)

smaller bowl of scallions

oil

salt or soy sauce

1. Start with some oil in a wok, usually a couple of tablespoons, over medium high heat.  

2. Pour in the beaten eggs.  Scramble.

Now start adding the other ingredients, while stirring and integrating it all together after each new addition.

3. Throw in diced ham.  Since the ham is already cooked, we're just warming it up. 

4. Add the leftover rice.  It's best to break it up prior to adding to the pan, so you don't have a huge frozen hunk of it in the pan with nowhere to go.

5. After the rice goes in, drizzle some extra oil over it all, to keep it mixing well and giving it a nice glossy look.

6. Add the peas.  These are also already pre-cooked.

7. I add a splash of soy sauce or a tsp of salt for seasoning.

8. Add the scallions as a garnish. 

9. Stir together, and serve!

Our trick for this dish is to have most of the ingredients pre-cooked, so it's just a matter of assembly.  Drew likes to call it compartmentalized cooking.  I call it a lot of extra pans to wash.  The other option is to cook the egg first, then take it out and set aside.  Cook everything else, except the rice, together.  Then add the egg and rice back in, with some extra oil, and season it at the end.

The fun of this dish is really in all the different ways you can whip this up. Really, it's just rice + scrambled egg + whatever else you want!  

Try some peanut oil or sesame oil instead of vegetable oil.

Add leftover rotisserie chicken instead of ham.  Or bits of sausage.  Or shrimp.  Or BACON!

Scallions can be replaced with chopped leeks, chopped onions or chopped shallots.

Mushrooms are a great addition, or maybe baby corn, or kimchi!

I've added ketchup instead of soy sauce (no seriously! it's really very good!  Sweet and tangy all at once.)

Drew likes a dollop of sriracha on his serving, but I don't add it into the general mix, you know, because of little boys.

The possibilities are endless! 

(Although, come to think of it, I've really kept to asian or neutral ingredients. I've never added Adobo or plantains or cheese or rosemary, etc.)

Have fun with it, and if you try something funky, let me know how it goes!

My First Giveaway! - Giraffe Amigurumi

I'm not really celebrating anything in particular, so this is more of a thank you to my wonderful readers, and because it's high time for a giveaway!  It truly is amazing how supportive and wonderful the blogging world can be, and in my short time "online", I've learned to love interacting with some great ladies whom I may never meet.  I wish I could though!  I bet I've got some lost best buds out there!  Someone needs to tell the Snap! people to have a conference on the East Coast, say, ohhh, New York City?

I've also found out that this is a great way for my friends to keep in touch; I've received emails from school friends who read my blog, learn what I'm up to these days, and get inspired by what I post - how awesome is that?  It completely motivates me to keep writing and crafting and sharing.  

So, on to the giveaway!  I'm giving away a little giraffe stuffie I made using a pattern from Fiber Doodles!  By little, I mean it stands over 12 inches, so not teeny tiny, but perfectly huggable by little hands.  It's crocheted using acrylic yarn and filled with polyester fiberfill.  There are some small parts and loops on its back (the mane), so please be careful when giving it to small children.  Give it as a gift or keep it for yourself!  I've still got stuffed animals, don't you?

Enter below through the Rafflecopter entry form for your chance to win a new friend!  The giveaway will end at midnight on Monday, April 30th, and I will randomly choose a winner that day, so someone is going to have a great Monday!  Oh, and make sure you have your emailed linked up to your profile, or just make sure I have a way to contact you if you win!

(I'm going to keep this to US residents for now, unless you're ok with paying for the extra shipping.)

Good luck!

Crochet Giraffe Amigurumi

It's done!  That's all I can think of right now, is that it's done!  And he is adorable!  And I'm done!  This project took me long enough, mostly because I have to be in the right mood to sit down, grab my crochet bag o' stuffs and settle in for an evening of yarn work.  And I haven't been in the mood very often.  But now that this project is done, I'm all of a sudden super motivated to make another!  Go figure.

He/she doesn't have a name yet.  Bubs is curious about it, but not in love.  Iz is not curious about it at all.  So poor nameless giraffe just sits on a shelf, looking down on us like some out-of-season Elf on a Shelf.  I think he will be the subject of my first giveaway, once I figure out how to host one of those.

Want one of your own?  I used a pattern from Fiber Doodles, who is also available on Etsy.  The instructions for the pieces are all very straightforward.  The assembly was a bit tricky, as there weren't a whole lot of detailed pictures, but really, you can pretty much figure out where everything goes.  The cuteness pretty much outweighs any difficulties, wouldn't you agree?  I made the mane on my own, using a neat little loop stitch I found on Pinterest.

OR.  

You can come back here tomorrow (Monday) for my very first giveaway, and try to WIN this baby!  I'm giving myself one day to figure everything out - it can't possibly be that hard, right?  

Have a great week everyone!

A Wine Tasting Party

Happy Friday!  A lot of bloggers are enjoying themselves at Snap! Conference this weekend, but I'm here, on the other side of the country, looking forward to a quiet and possibly rainy weekend.  Mmm, it's a perfect opportunity for some serious cooking and crocheting, I think.  I'm almost done with my amigurumi giraffe that I've been working on for FOREVER, and I'm not sure what to do with it....I'm kind of afraid that if I leave it in the care of a certain little toddler, it may get destroyed before the week is out.

In other news, I'm guest posting today at The Gunny Sack!  I whipped (ooh, Family Guy reference...) together a couple of cute and simple projects for a friend's bachelorette party last weekend, but I think the ideas can be used for any old get-together, so go check it out!

Speaking of party, we did this little wine thing at the same party that turned out to be quite fun.  First off, I have to admit, it wasn't my idea - I stole the idea from a friend who does this for her annual holiday parties.  My brain was mushy mush mush after a long week so I had to ask her for specifics on the logistics of a wine tasting, with prizes.  I know, it shouldn't have been difficult, but I could barely think.  So here it is:

Ask everyone to bring TWO (2) bottles of the SAME wine to the party.

One bottle will be for drinking (duh) and the second bottle will be part of the prize!

Cover the labels of the first bottles, and remove the tops and corks to make it completely unidentifiable.  

Number each wine.

Each person gets a ballot, and after tasting all the wines, 3 favorites in order of preference.  I made a wine tasting notes form, in case we got fancy and wanted to talk about the lingering mouth feel of black currants, but mostly, we just wrote "white", "red", "not so good", "yum!".

Once everyone has "voted", collect up the ballots.

Give each ballot's 1st place wine on the a ballot 3 points, the 2nd place wine 2 points, and the 3rd place wine 1 point.  After every ballot has been counted, hopefully you will see a most popular wine, a 2nd most popular wine and a 3rd most popular wine.

Now comes the winning.  The person who brought the 1st, 2nd and 3rd popular wines get to take wines home from the prize pool!  The number of wines each person gets would depend on how many you started with.  Say there's 9 wines, so 1st place takes home 4, 2nd place takes home 3, 3rd place takes home 2 bottles.  

We didn't figure out how to choose which wines each person gets, since our bachelorette took home all of them!  But I'm sure you can figure that out.

What do you think?  Are you going to try this at your next party?  Or heck, throw a party to do just this!  It's fun to see what people bring.  Other twists are to have people guess what kind of wine it is - a Pinot Noir, a Riesling, a big red Cab?  Or keep the price down to $10 per bottle and find some new cheap favorites!

Gan Bei!  (or Bottoms Up!)

A Quiet but Productive Weekend

What a great weekend!  I am done with parties and crafting-related deadlines and I feel completely liberated!  Now I can start on all the other projects I've wanted to do - the ones sitting on a list that never seems to shrink.

We started off the weekend with Drew getting groceries with the baby, leaving me at home to finish up some quick projects I needed for a bachelorette party.  Then came the party itself - a relaxing spa get-together with good friends, good wine, good sushi, a semi-decent movie, and a boatload of nail colors to choose from.  The evening found the baby sleeping, the husband out to watch hockey, and me relaxing in a silent house with a movie after completing a latin dance exercise video, feeling full of endorphins, liberated and loving the world.  Does that sound too sedate?  My idea of a perfect day, or a perfect evening, IS pretty sedate these days.  

Could it be?  Sunday was even better?  We worked on the backyard, ripping out some Rose of Sharons, transplanted a rose and a hydrangea, and now the yard looks 15000x better without that big eyesore of a plant oasis sitting in the middle of the yard.  I'm totally pysched to put down grass seed, get started on building the other raised bed, destroying the remaining ugly island of wild plants and growing some serious Asian vegetable goodness!

Oh, yeah, I made a quiche or two, and enjoyed a quiet evening out in the yard with the family.  Then, as big J didn't quite go to sleep very well, I snuck in some coveted cuddle time with my little squirmer, while reflecting on the fact that my baby is growing up way too fast.  

Also, thanks to a very hardworking husband, the house is vacuumed, the lawn is mowed and the clean laundry is now in a big pile on my bed.  It's a pretty good way to start the week!

Ultimate Blog Party

I don't really do a lot of bar-hopping these days anymore, but blog-hopping, well, that's a perfect activity for those of us who like to curl up on a couch!  So, here I am, participating in the Ultimate Blog Party, hosted over at 5 Minutes for Mom.

If you're visiting, stay a while, browse, make yourself comfortable.  I'd offer you some thai iced tea with tapioca pearls, but we're a little virtual today, so you'll have to make do with the thought of some super caffeinated, super sweet drinky goodness.

Who am I?  

My answers to 11 questions here, and here.

Some eye candy and fun projects:

Crochet and Braid Scarf

Diaper Trike Tutorial

 Pretty self-explanatory - Fabric Easter Eggs

Spring Birthday Party

Enjoy!

Birthday Party Snacks: Sparkling Strawberry Lemonade

Today I'm sharing a very pink drink that we used at the birthday party my sister and I threw for our mom.  It was inspired off Pinterest (of course!), but I'm terrible at following recipes, so I made up the quantities and just made sure that it tasted sweet and delicious!

Let's see.  I had a gallon ziploc bag about 3/4 full of frozen strawberries left over from last summer.  I had frozen it thinking it would be great with ice cream and nutella in the winter, but that didn't really pan out.  The strawberries were a bit mushy once thawed, and I really prefer the fresh berry more.  But that made this drink the perfect vehicle in which to use the mushy thawed bits of summer!  

So, the ingredients were:

frozen strawberries - 3/4 gallon ziploc bag

13 lemons, give or take - it came out to about 2 cups of juice

simple syrup

club soda

I made the simple syrup by dissolving maybe 1 1/2 cups of sugar in 2 cups of hot water, then letting it cool.  Puree the strawberries.  Feel free to filter out the seeds and pulp if you'd like, and add extra sugar into the puree - also optional.  Then mix the strawberry puree with the lemon juice and the simple syrup to make a thick sweet gooey fruity concentrate.  To be honest, this drink was heavy on the strawberries and light on the lemonade!  I had my 4 Home Goods carafes, so I split the concentrate into 4 portions, added them to the carafes, and filled the carafes with club soda.

Ok, TIP:  Do the pouring of the club soda in a sink, because the bubbles + the strawberry mixture created a pink volcano.  It worked better when I poured the seltzer into the bottle first, then added the strawberry mixture slowly through a funnel.  It still bubbled like crazy, so go SLOWLY!

You can dilute the concentrate with as much or as little seltzer as you want.  Our version was quite sweet, and I think it still would have tasted great with more seltzer, if we had another bottle to pour it in.

I think I will be using this concept again.  Make a juice concentrate (or be lazy and buy the Goya fruit nectars) and add seltzer/club soda for a quick fancy looking party drink.  Oh, and I imagine a bit of vodka or gin or white rum wouldn't hurt either!  mmm...Hendricks Gin with a grape concentrate plus seltzer.  Or Bacardi coconut rum with a pineapple and peach nectar plus seltzer!  Yowza, so many possibilities!

WW: Bowtie and Suspenders

I posted some instructions to make a little boy's bowtie last week in preparation for a party, and for Easter.  It was a little dull, since it was just photos of fabric and my sewing machine.  So now, see the bowtie on my little model.  

Oh yeah, I did get some suspenders made as well, from a tutorial online, but I can no longer remember where.  I was short on time and a bit distracted.  Whatever, a cutie pie like him makes everything look good.

He may be looking for Yo Gabba Gabba on my phone there, but really, who knows?