Dragon Age Plushie - Queen Anora

So I've mentioned I'm really involved with the fandom of that game. In the fandom, I am best known for being the biggest Anora apologist out there. Queen Anora is the bitchy conniving queen of Ferelden who double crosses you every chance she gets, and I love her.

I made this for my friend mutive, who also loves her and actually cosplayed as her at Comic Con.

I used this great tutorial: Baby London Star. The doll is a little small, if I did it again, I would make her a bit bigger, as it was too small to do on a sewing machine, and very hard to turn inside out.

The Most Decadent Cookie Ever

I just made these for a work holiday treat exchange: Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies. They are rich chocolate on the outside and sweet peanut butter on the inside and they are as big as my fist.

I don't know what the question was, but the answer is fuck yes.

Halloween Ahoy

Hello all! I have Halloween pictures.

We had a whole other plan for Charlie, where he was going to be Captain Kirk and Geoff was going to be Spock and I was going to be, I don't know, one of those green chicks, but I could not find a gold colored baby shirt. Or gold dye. Or anything, it was so frustrating. So at the last minute I took one of his t-shirts, stuck some grommets in it, got some black string and gold rope, and a bandana, and called him a pirate.


He's a very cute pirate. He has a parrot too (okay I know it's an owl). Look at him just eating it, I mean, wow. This pirate is out of his mind!


"Hey, mom, are we done taking pictures now? Because-"


"-I really hate this stupid bandana!"


Charlie also "helped" with the pumpkin.


The pumpkin was supposed to be angry!Jack Skellington, but the eyes came out more like giant tear drops. I still think it looks pretty sweet. Geoff did the actual carving, although I'm sure Charlie feels very proud of what he accomplished with that big spoon.

Watercolor Ponies and Fan Art

So, I'm still doing Dragon Age. Sorry guys! That game is sooo good! I kind of got into the fandom. And by kind of, I mean I got really involved in it and wrote a bunch of fan fiction and did fan art. Here's some of it. I love watercolor so much you guys. And ponies. I also love ponies.

My Definition of Soon is Rather Off

Me and a lovely fellow Swooper in Warden Commander Armor. Swoopers is the online name for Alistair fans, because the first sign of how completely amazing he is comes when he says, "Swooping is... bad." And that would make sense if you had played the game.


Me and Urthemicharlie. I will post a Tut of these wings soon. And by soon I mean... sometime.



Okay, one more special effect. I still remember how to comp, you guys, please someone hire me. Also, I like the back of the costume a lot.

Back from the Con

More pics soon!

This Post is g33ky - Morrigan Skirt

Since I've lost all the baby weight and then some, I decided to go to Comic-Con in costume this year! Possibly with Charlie! And since I'm still obsessed with that game, I'm going as Morrigan (my top is slighty less boobtastic).

Here's the skirt.


This is possibly the most well-constructed piece of clothing I have ever made. The invisible zipper is vaguely invisible!! I kind of want to wear it around my normal life. But don't worry... I won't. Probably.


It's made of ultrasuede and is patchworky. I got the studs from Tandy Leather in North Hollywood, and the fake leather and suede fabric are from Fabric.com


The pleather flaps are flippy and fun to walk in.

Tour of the Living Room, Part 3: This Time It's Personal

Charlie loves to take things out of things. He also loves DVDs.


He is truly his father's son. I am truly not enamored of a pile of DVDs strewn all over the floor.

Solution: the bottom shelf of our DVD storage shelf is now devoted to shiny toys, for him to pull down with impunity.


This bookshelf was originally a white crappy bookshelf, but now it's a white crappy bookshelf that I painted dark and light blue. Don't worry, by the way, this really tall and heavy piece of furniture is anchored firmly to the wall with earthquake straps.


Speaking of resurfacing living room furniture, I got bored of my coffee table and decoupaged the bottom of it. I love it now.


This was surprisingly easy -- I just lay down three sheets of nepalese Lokti paper (from Continental Art Supply, they have a huge selection of decorative paper and awesome service, my favorite local art store), stuck it on with Mod Podge, and then sealed it with polyurethane.


Isn't this paper beautiful? Happy accident, it also matches my coasters.

Tour of the Living Room, Part 2

Time for more living room crafts, with host Charlie the flying baby.


Geoff took this photo, that's why it's all artsy.

If your monitor is really bright, you might be able to see to the left of the adorable cherub, behind the TV, there's a fun wall hanging.


I bought one of those college dorm room "tapestries" at Bed Bath & Beyond one time for a film shoot. I decided I liked the fabric but I'm a little too old for pinning trippy fabric to the wall, so I mounted it on canvas stretchers like in this tutorial. Enormous, 48" canvas stretchers are from Dick Blick.

This is a great way to cover a lot of white wall, and cuts down the glare behind the TV.

I had some extra from the borders, so I turned them into bolster covers (see here) and also added some trim to my curtains.



Main curtain material is Liz Claiborne Lilly Meadow, and the the curtains are installed with grommets, just like the ones in the nursery.

Everything's Coming Up Ultrasuede

Sorry! I've been bad again! Don't forget I have this adorable excuse.


I've actually been doing a surprising amount of crafting, just not much that's blog-worthy or geeky. But hey, I'm going to post some of them anyway. Here's Charlie's favorite:


I made a new cover for my memory-foam-not-bean bag. I bought this chair from a company that doesn't exist any more, and my cats went to town on the original twill cover, so it needed to be replaced by something more durable.

I made the cover by tearing apart the seams from the old cover and using it as a pattern. I even re-used the original zipper.

It is the most comfortable chair you can imagine, and as you can see here, Charlie loves it.

Look, it matches my futon!


I actually wrote a letter to the company that made this futon cover and asked them if I could buy some fabric off them. They sold it to me, at cost!

Since I had a little extra, I made some straps to help keep the futon cover from slipping down. Because I hate when futons do that.


They attach with buttons, in case you want to try to hold up a futon mattress of your own.

Fluffy Bunny Basket

I think this may be the last of the polar bear fur, finally. I made Charlie an Easter basket that he will surely think is too cute in a couple of years. I mean, seriously, it has a tail.



Don't worry, we won't be giving Charlie any age inappropriate food (e.g., candy). We have a joke about giving Charlie candy; I eat candy, and claim that it's for him. Does this breast milk taste like Cadbury cream eggs Charlie??

This bag is inspired by this bag on Disdressed. She used a pattern from Zakka Sewing; that book had a long wait list at the library, so I just sewed together a few fabric squares and called it a day. I changed the ears a bit also.

Fabulous Star Lemon Cake

Modified from a Bon Apetit recipe. This cake has a satisfying texture and surprising flavor.

Cake:
1 cup plus 1 tbsp flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp ground star anise (about 1 star)
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp lemon (zest of one lemon)
2/3 cup buttermilk

Frosting:
1 package cream cheese or Neufchâtel cheese
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1-3 cups powdered sugar (to taste)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a round cake pan, placing a round of parchment paper in the bottom and greasing the sides.

Mix together first 9 ingredients in a medium bowl. In another bowl, cream together butter and sugar, then beat in eggs one at a time. Add vanilla and lemon zest. Mix in flour mixture and buttermilk, alternating. Mix until fully combined, scraping down the sides.

Pour batter into prepared pan, and bake on top rung until top starts to brown and toothpick comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Allow to cool completely.

While cake is baking, prepare frosting: Whip cream cheese and butter together, then beat in powdered sugar until frosting is the desired consistency and sweetness. When cake is fully cooled, frost as desired.

Q: Where Have I Been?

A: Exiled from my computer, since it was parked in Charlie's room. But now I've moved it to my bedroom so I can use it while he sleeps. His room is now totally his.


And he owns it.


"What's going on??"


I can't hang anything on the closet doors as they are plastic, so I attached a Doctors Without Borders free map to them with bright blue painters tape.

The plates on the wall are printed with Norman Rockwell images; they are antiques from Geoff's grandmother. The night light is Ikea.




Geoff's quilt from when he was a baby, my mobile, and a beautiful Baby Mod crib from Walmart.


There is a whole lot of Totoro in this room.


Even hiding under the telephone.




I need to get a basket or something for his cloth books that don't fit in the sling - does anyone have a good storage solution for these?


The image on the left is from Etsy vendor mere designs, the wood blocks in the middle came from Finland via Geoff's same worldly grandmother. And the numbers on the right are my own design.

Yummy Cashmere Pillows

Pillows from old sweaters made the blog rounds a while ago, and they seemed so cozy they've stayed on my mind. I found the softest cashmere sweater at the Salvation Army for $3; it had some small holes so it was begging to be repurposed. Since I wanted two, I decided to make the back of the pillow from fabric in my stash. Here's how.

Supplies:
1 14" pillow form
1 large sweater
2 square of coordinating fabric, 14" (seam allowance included)*
1 rectangle of coordinating fabric, 14" x 7"
2 1" buttons

*a tip from House on Hill Road: pillow cases look better if they are slightly smaller than their pillow forms.

Placing one 14" square on your sweater as a rough guide, cut a square out of your sweater larger than 14".


To keep the sweater from warping, sew the sweater to one square of fabric, then cut to size. You can keep this step if your sweater is fairly sturdy.

Fold over hem at the top of the other fabric square and sew down. Cut triangles out of the corner of the rectangle, 3" from the corners, and discard. Hem edges.


Evenly from the edges, add two buttonholes to the corners of the formerly rectangular piece. Pin this piece on top of the hemmed square so that it forms a new 14" square.


Sew the buttonhole side to the sweater side, right sides together, turn right side out, add buttons, and presto, you have a ridiculously cheap cashmere pillow. It's hard to capture how delightfully cozy and soft these pillows are... just look at this pile.



Mmmm... cashmere.

What a Mug

I ordered some photo mugs from an online photo site; they didn't come out very well. So I made my own.



Using my light tracer, possible the most useful tool in my craft arsenal, I turned Charlie's portrait into line art. Then I taped the line art inside the glass mug and traced it with Vitrea 160, a dish washer resistant glass paint.

I added a message to the other side in the same way, using a print out of Apple Chancery.



I made one for each of my parents, who are now grandparents. Which is a concept they are surprisingly comfortable with; it still blows my mind (oh my God, I'm a parent).