flowery ear warmers

 Made loopy felt flowers in homage to the beautiful Chrysanthemum we have in honor of Chinese New Year!  Yes that's a pommelo wearing a headband, deal with it.   Stopped by Jo-Anns for some t-shirts to screen print Brian's Dragon drawing onto and saw the ear-warmers. 

 Grabbed three and stitched the flowers onto them and voila!

  fun gifties for the little girl cutie patooties.  

The shirts are drying, but he did a nice job, more soon!

and how great are these?

From Santa... who serged the edges and stamped the kids initials on the corners, a set, of a lot... a dozen maybe for each kiddo, we use them daily.  I am so a hankerchief person, and my kids are getting there too. To answer myself... these are very great.

mmmmmmm

 mmmmm for Momofuku's bo ssam.  We don't have a lot of days where we just hang out for six or more hours at home, but with the long weekend, the cold, drizzly weather, we took advantage of our dull, quiet weekend to toss a hunk of pork in the oven and roast the dickens out of it.  Oh my.  Oh my.  oh my..... so very very good.

We (as advised by the recipe) had some nice butter lettuce,ginger scallion sauce (good on everything I think), ssam jam sauce,  fresh pickles (we did beets, cucumbers and apples, the apples with the pork were my fav), our friends came with their homemade kimchee (seriously, perfect for the topping, and can't say that I like kimchee, until now) and some korean beers. We omitted the oysters, mostly out of laziness, I am sure they are good, but I'm not sure how much better this could get.   I really don't know what to say, it was very pleasant.  We have the cookbook, but it is also printed in the NYtimes and elsewhere.

NOT difficult, just requires a chilly cool afternoon at home, some friends who will bring their appetites, the perfect accouterments and awesome and fun company because you WILL need friends to share it with, even if you are crazy hungry,...that's a lot of (tasty, tender, perfectly done falling apart) meat.

Made-it!

Many handmades this Christmas.  I was a good elf and got going on these a bit at a time... a wee bit over the summer, but really slug through a lot of them during stolen moments through the fall.  Its tough to really see when I did it.  I haven’t been staying up late, I guess just more effective use of the weekend evenings, and easier projects (hullo pillowcases! Silk-screens!).  It was a little embarrassing that so many of my gifties were stored on pinterest, therefore not a surprise to one follower at least (I don’t have that many who I really know).  On the other hand, I am pretty pleased that I actually did so many of the things I had planned on doing... can’t say that always happens (without too much craziness).  We decorated a handful (ha) of mugs this year. 

This one for G'ma. 

 

With Owen and Grace's hands cradling the cup. 

  Owen also did one for his teacher that he was so pleased with.  

Lets see... girlfriends.  These dears always bear the brunt of my crafting attempts, but this year was decorated mugs, hex bracelet, t-shirt cowl, and some sculpty dishes and a little embroidered heart.

Brian got a YUDU and printed a bunch of awesomeness this year. 

 Starting with his cheap beer label from his homebrewing (That’s the Two Bit Bomber by black-box brewing).  Some great veggie (artichoke and asparagus) tea-towels for Auntie Gigi (his draw this year), and cute dinos designed by Owen for local kids.

 

 Actually the dino was a self portrait:  “Well, I looked in the mirror and just drew what I saw”, I guess he saw awesomeness.

Did I mention the pillowcases?

 Lots of pillow cases for cousins and some friends.  

These were so much fun, such a great way to appreciate the cutie fabric that I see but don’t have a good plan for.... my  plan is now... pillowcases!  I must have made 10 or more.  Grace picked out her fabric right away and carried it around the store for a long time herself (shoot can't find the picture now, but its with mushrooms and polka dots... cute).

Whales for a few cute little boys.

What has become a traditional gift of Jam pulled together from summer harvests and kitchen efforts.  I am still into soap making too and added soap to the jam give aways for the second year now.  I forgot to give away much of the solid lotion bars (but I love them and will use them myself, hopefully Ry likes it too).  Let me think... that’s probably the bulk of it.  It was so much fun... much more fun than mall shopping and done at my own pace and time. 

Made a few cute felt flower headbands for Grace, she actually, kinda keeps them on... amazing 

We also had our first big crab dinner just before leaving for Fresno.  

YUM, chili crab a la Auntie Gigi.

Finally, I made myself another skirt.  I'm not sure this turned out the best.  Its wearable... I used the one-yard wonders skirt pattern again... good.  I loved the fabric, but in reality its a little light-weight for a skirt, but I just really liked the fabric.  I also in lieu of an elastic waist band went with the yoga band out of a t-shirt... it stays up just fine, but gets a little stretched out.  Not snug enough.  

In other news... Owen has started loosing teeth, so I put together this little tooth pillow with a pocket in the lower jaw.  He loves it!