New Digs

I have my VERY OWN STUDIO in my house Yep! My hubby and I rearranged rooms and instead of sharing an office and having a guest room, we put the guest bed in his office (which is bigger and doesn't contain a guest-frightening reptile) and I got the guest room as my own office! I moved in my bookshelves and computer desk, then I got a sewing table AND a glass drafting table! And some other goodies, but I don't want to brag...

...ok, I totally do want to brag! On top of a new drafting table, I got a Bamboo Create and a set of Copic Sketch Markers!!! Set 72A babay!!! WOOO!!! I've been using them and LOVING them! The only complaint I have is that there aren't very many skin tones to work with :\ Oh dear, that just means I'll have to buy more, I guess

Here are some pics of my new digs:

Anyway, I've definitely been drawing more now that I have my own little space. It's been awesome! I'm really excited about this next year!! Bring it.

Summer Fun!

My my, it has been quite a long time since I've blogged! Now that's a familiar phrase. If you go back through my older posts, you'll find that I say that, or something similar, an awful lot. I...I think I'm a binge-blogger. I have a problem...

Anyway, I am currently working on quite a few projects. I recently opened an Etsy account with the intentions of selling crafty things, hoping that will offset the money I'm not making while taking classes. It won't completely catch us up, but it's a more fun way to make money anyway, even if it is less :) I've got a bunch of milk rings ready to be made into earrings, some sculpey waiting to go in the oven, and some recycled bottle cap earrings ready to be posted!

On top of earrings, I'm thinking about indulging my inner snark with some "crapestry" projects and some re-designed paintings. Crapestry is a type of needlepoint that takes the cutesy, kitsch craft and adds a bit of humor (sometimes quite dark), making it more relevant to those of us with an ironic taste in home decor. I don't know if I'll go so far as to depict grotesque scenes of mass murder in a Thomas Kinkade vista, but I may add some superfluous facial hair and top hats to a couple of unsuspecting bunnies. Re-designed paintings are old thrift store paintings or prints that have been tweaked to add humor or interest. The ones I've seen tend to be sarcastic as well, but less irreverent than the crapestries. My favorites are ones that add giant monsters to landscapes! Time to get my garage sale bargaining on!

Lastly, something I'm working on just for me :) As some of you already know, I am a bit of a fan of My Little Pony, especially the most recent TV series, Friendship Is Magic. One of my groups on Ravelry is doing a Pony craft-a-long for this month of June, which entails going to the Pony Creator, making your own pony, and then MAKING your own pony! This is what "I" look like :)

She's so cute. Her cutie mark is a light bulb with butterfly wings to represent creativity. I did have a pencil and a paintbrush as antennae in my sketch, but I couldn't get them to look right when I Frankenstein'd it in Photoshop, so I left them out. I think the point stands anyway. Now that I made her in the Pony Creator, I'm going to physically make her using yarn and a crochet hook. Without an actual pattern... Well, I'm *kind of* basing it off of another pattern, but I'm changing so many things, it's going to be a completely different animal  (pun somewhat intended) when I'm done. Should be fun! Right?

Of course it will be :)

Adventures in Probiotics

Well, it's been a couple of months since I got my water kefir grains and my SCOBY for kombucha. I must say, I am pleasantly surprised by the kombucha! It really does look gross when it's sitting on the counter fermenting, but it tastes pretty darn good! By itself, it smells strongly of vinegar. I haven't tried drinking it plain, but I've mixed it with grape juice and let it ferment a second time in the fridge. It gets so fizzy and delicious, you could replace pop if you wanted to!

If you want to know how to make the kombucha or the kefir water, watch the tutorials on this website: www.culturesforhealth.com

And here's the photographic evidence:

This is the baby SCOBY that formed on top of my kombucha. A new one of these grows with every batch!


Closeup of the baby.


The mother SCOBY in fresh tea.


Closeup of "Big Mama."


My bottled kombucha! The airtight seal is essential for prime fizziness.


Closeup of my water kefir. Look at the bubbles!!


The kefir water is harvested every two days, but the kombucha takes much longer to ferment. I give it ~10 days, but you could go up to a month. So, if anyone wants a baby SCOBY in a couple of weeks, give me a holla! ;)

Not About Snakes

I decided to post a crafty entry to make up for the slithery one from last night (I have more readers than I thought! And I was right: normal people don't like snakes! ^_^).

SO! Here are some pictures of the scarf I made my sister for Christmas!:



She really likes Pokemon, so I made her a Pokeball scarf. There was going to be a hat, but I ran out of time. There's always her birthday, I guess!



And here she is modeling it her lovely self. Those are my grandparents in the background. Photobomb'd!

So, Mom, friends, lady from church, I hope you still love me even though my interests occasionally venture beyond the crafty and include the reptilian ;) Thanks for reading!

Snakes

Some of you may not know this about me, but I like snakes. I used to catch garter snakes with my dad when I was a kid, and I always wanted to keep one as a pet, but my mom wouldn't have it. She's straight up TERRIFIED of snakes. I can't say I blame her. Snakes aren't exactly the most popular pets because most people are scared of them, or at least look at you funny when you tell them you want *ahem* five. And, I will admit, I still get a rush of adrenaline when I hold one, thinking in the back of my mind that it just might bite me...at any second.

Anyway, freshman year I met a Brazilian Rainbow boa, and have been lovestruck since. In the sunlight, they have an iridescent sheen on their already gorgeously patterned scales. Look at the pretty:



Right?? Can I get an amen??

Unfortunately, I have zero experience with reptiles, and these babies are intermediate-level pets, at least. Basically, I need to start off with a beginner-level snake (or two...) and build up experience and resources from there. Some good starter snakes are corn snakes and ball pythons.

Here are some more pretties:

Snow Corn Snake:



Ball Python:


Aaaand, someday, I'd like one of these. An Albino Red-Tailed Boa. They only get, psh, ten feet long. But they're sooooooo pretty!:





So, anyway, Mom, I hope you'll still come visit me and my house full of snakes.

Recent Exploits

It's been a busy week! I've been doing some major cleaning and organizing and it's been great :) Hectic, but great.

Remember those kefir grains I bought the other day? Turns out I didn't need them since someone in my area had extra! Now I have a nice little packet as backup :) My first batch finished culturing yesterday morning, and it tastes wonderful! A little yeasty with a zippy tartness, and it tastes great blended with frozen black cherries and a bit of honey. Yummmm...

I also made some homemade sour cream that finished culturing last night. This is, hands down, the best sour cream I've ever tasted. I was dying for a baked potato last night!





All I did was pour 2 cups of heavy whipping cream, 1 cup of half&half, and 1/4 cup cultured buttermilk into a sterilized mason jar. Then I put a sterilized plastic lid on and shook it all together. Put it in a warm area and 24 hours later you'll have the yummiest sour cream ever!

I also worked on something I haven't done in years: embroidery! It was incredibly simple, but a lot of fun! A friend wanted me to add a little decal to a shirt for him. It measured out about 1/2" x 1&1/2":



Also, here are the hats I promised you:





I've got some more projects on the way, so more pics to come!

Careful, It's a Big'un

It's been quite a while since I updated this! Quite a few things have happened since then. Let the updating commence (in no particular order)!:

1) I had to re-home dear Neville :( He was starting to bite people and and refused to be groomed. I couldn't have that going on in the house. If he were an outdoor rabbit, I would have kept him, but being an indoor pet, he needed to be friendly. I miss that little guy :( I might try again with a new bunny, but we'll see. We didn't have much room for Neville when he was here, so unless we can find a better space for a different bunny, I'm guessing it's a no-go. Someday, I'll have angoras again. It just might be a while.

2) I am officially signed up to take art classes in the spring! :) I have it arranged where I can still work mostly full-time (35 hours a week) and take two classes: Color Theory and Human Anatomy and Design. Guys. I am so happy :D This current plan I'm on has me taking two classes per semester for 4-ish semesters, so I should be done by spring 2014, or fall 2013 if I move things around. We'll see what happens :)

3) I've also started a 365 Days of Art project where I draw something every day :) I've got it going over on deviantART and it's going rather well so far. Here's the link to my profile: http://jayropedawg.deviantart.com/. If you go to "Gallery," there should be a link to my "Scrapbook," and that's where most of the doodles will be. The better ones will be posted to my actual gallery on there, and I'll post some of the better ones on here, too.

4) I haven't been doing much baking with cakes and such, but I've been learning a lot about better eating habits and better food over at Nourished Kitchen. It's pretty interesting, and I'm hoping the techniques I'm learning will help me and the hubs eat and feel better :) I bought some kefir grains online for morning smoothies. I'm thinking about trying kombucha, but to be honest, it freaks me out a little. I might look around to see if someone around here makes it and would be willing to let me try it first, and maybe even share a SCOBY with me.

On top of that, I found an egg lady! Now I get to eat farm fresh eggs from pastured chickens like I did when I was little :) I'm a little embarrassed to say this, but when I took my first bite out of my eggs over easy made with those eggs, I cried. True story.

Anyway, back to cakes: most of my baking is going to be bread and such, but I'm still doing cakes for birthdays, etc :) I'm wanting to make some Christmas cookies soon, so keep an eye out for those!

5) I've also been striving to be more green. I grew up recycling and buying second-hand and conserving electricity, but that's because we were poor and not necessarily overly eco-conscious (though, to be honest, we were still rather concerned with the environment). Now that I'm all grown up and actually have money and am married to someone who has never had to experience being poor, it's harder to stay focused on being economical and environmentally friendly. I like impulse-buying. I like buying new things. I like buying expensive new things. I almost even jumped on the Keurig bandwagon because of my lust for good, easy coffee (and tea, and hot chocolate...this was hard to turn down, my friends!). But, I've slowly been taking steps to revert back to my simpler way of living, and it's been great :) I'm definitely not as dedicated as some (a pretty hard-core green blogger), but what I do helps, even if only a little, and that's good enough for me :)

6) I've done a few neat crochet projects. I can't believe I haven't posted those! :\ I did post them on Ravelry, though. I'll get right on posting those here, too.

This is slightly unrelated to crochet projects, but on the subject of posting to other websites, I think that's why I never post on here anymore. For day-to-day stuff, I've got Facebook. For art stuff, there's deviantART. For needlework, there's Ravelry. (Oh yeah, and I discovered Pinterest yesterday...this could get ugly.) I find it hard to balance it all on here sometimes because, frankly, nobody reads this blog. Lol, I actually post this to Facebook if I want people to read it! But, I guess that's the nice thing about the internet. It's all linked together.

7) Speaking of Pinterest, I found some neat Christmas decoration ideas on there, on top of the stuff I found using good ol' Google, so keep an eye out for posts of those too.

I can't really think of anything else, but that was a lot anyway! Hope you enjoyed it (Mom and whoever else reads this blog)! ;)