In 2013, I vowed to be craftier. I started with my first zipper pouch and now I’m moving on to sewing on Disorderly Goods’ awesome merit badges! I’m a big fan of Jane’s work and since I would never be in a position to earn my own merit badges, I love the creativity and humor behind each of her badges. In fact, I love these badges so much that this is actually the second time I’ve purchased the same badges (my first set are ironed on to one of my bags).

I thought my denim jacket needed a bit of color, so I decided to try and iron/sew on my merit badge.  Before I get started, I just wanted to show off Disorderly Goods merit badge collection:

PURCHASE HERE!

Like all projects I’d like to start, something (or rather, someone) is ready to distract me!

Step, step, step!!

All right, FINALLY ready to begin!

NAH, JUST KIDDING. And the West Wing is playing in the background. See you in five hours.

So many good badges to choose from.
First up, the pleasure badge: dopamine molecule, for being in love.

The Big Dipper: for Dreaming Big.

Finally…The Heart: For Giving a Shit.

Okay, I ironed on the merit badge first (not pictured) and then decided I would sew it to make 230984832032% sure it wouldn’t fall off since denim is a very thick material. As the instructions suggest, choose a thread that is same color (or at least close) as the merit badge’s border.

credit: Disorderly Goods

You will be using an overhand stitch to secure your merit badge (show above).  Ideally, you would stitch sort of underneath the border, so the stitches aren’t visible.

The hardest part was pushing the needle through the denim (and badge) in the right location. I didn’t have a thimble, so I used my desk to align the need and then push it through. Silly, I know, but it worked! I’d recommend to others sewing on heavier material to use a thimble. Your fingers will appreciate it.

The finished product!

This past week Kimi and I were lucky to rock our Pride Socks! Not only are they super cute and vintage looking, but we both love the positive message behind these products. Pride Socks is all about being proud of who you are so you have the confidence to achieve your dreams. We took a bunch of different pictures for them, and while we didn’t get to post them all, I thought I’d include them all here!

For more information about Pride Socks, check out my entries on Craft in the City [here] and [here].

Our original activity was to visit the San Diego Zoo, but it didn’t quite work out that way. A few weeks ago, I purchased what I thought was a Living Social deal for the San Diego Zoo. Unfortunately, I was unaware that there are technically TWO San Diego Zoo parks. If anything, I thought it was like Disneyland and California Adventure Park–you know, two parks right next to each other.

Early on a Saturday morning, Kimi and I excitedly made the three hour drive to San Diego. We arrived at the San Diego Zoo around lunch time and the parking lot was already packed with cars.  It took another 20 minutes to figure out how to redeem the Living Social deal, only to find out that it did not include admission to the San Diego Zoo, only its not-so-popular cousin the Safari Park. We thought about just paying full price for admission to the zoo since we were  there, but eventually decided we’d check out the San Diego Zoo Safari Park since we already had tickets.

Okay here’s the crappy part. The San Diego Zoo Safari Park is located a good 30 minutes away from the San Diego Zoo! I’m guessing it’s smaller than the San Diego Zoo, but its selling point is that the animals there are in more “natural surroundings.”  Translation: less scary looking cages.

Kimi’s main complaint about the Safari Park: too many birds. Every time she’d see an area with birds, she’d zip right past to the next area. Still, we both had lots of fun! I  think I’ll keep San Diego Zoo on our Project365 list, but I think the Safari Park deserves to be added and crossed off too!

 You show the lights that stop me turn to stone
You shine it when I’m alone
And so I tell myself that I’ll be strong
And dreaming when they’re gone
-Ellie Goulding

The Project365 continues on and with some really fun activities! Last night Kimi and I made a trip down to Sweet! Candy Shop in Hollywood.  I heard about this place last year on LAist and it certainly lived up to its hype.

This activity was close to the top of my list, mainly because I thought we’d see oompa loompas (sadly, we did not). In addition to checking the place out, we decided to try out their chocolate bar and make our own candy! Two activities crossed off easily!

Here’s where you can create your own candy bar! We took a good 10 minutes trying to figure out what we wanted, then we had to fill out a sheet with our choices. 20 minutes later–BOOM! CANDYYYYY!

We spent equal time goofing off and buying candy.

Here’s mine: dark Chocolate, milk chocolate fudge filling, corn flakes, and baco-bits.

Kimi’s chocolate bar: dark chocolate, nutella filling, almonds, blueberries.

A close up of my delicious chocolate bar!

If anyone is interested,  here are more pictures of Sweet! in Hollywood:

This past weekend was the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC!  This is my second time attending and it was crowded, crowded, crowded! Of course that was to be expected, but thankfully Kimi and I went on Saturday around lunch time and missed the big crowds that probably flooded USC later in the day. We didn’t attend any of the author panels, but instead just kind of wandered the campus and did a bunch of people watching.  After seeing other people’s pictures, I realized that I must have missed a big section of the event! Next year I think I should better utilize a map. And wear cooler clothes. It was so damn hot, I felt like a dog with its tongue out and wandering the USC campus.

I spy Molly Ringwald. I totally didn’t recognize her at first!

Here’s what some people are reading. Some people just said Happy 4/20 lol

Trojan Man.

Flowers USC style.

Our Project365 continues with something mellow today: reading The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings. This book has been on my to-read list for quite some time, but I’ve only recently had time to sit down and enjoy a book. I’m glad Hemming’s work was my reintroduction back into pleasure reading.

I whizzed through “The Descendants” in three sittings.  Not a light read by any means, but still pretty quick.

After finishing the book, I decided to watch the movie and see how it compared.  Overall, I think the movie was well cast and I understood the reasoning behind most of the changes made in the movie.  There were a few changes, however, that I found quite interesting. Protagonist Matt King’s youngest daughter, Scottie, is more foul mouthed in the book than in the movie. She still has that same spunk that Hemmings described, but her movie character was packaged a bit more neatly. Speaking of which, I think Matt King’s character comes across as more likable in the movie than in the book. I remember reading a discussion about the book online and someone commented about how she couldn’t understand why these characters would do and say such terrible things to each other. That point resonated with me and it was something that I also considered, although I guess there could be many explanations of why Hemmings wrote her characters the way she did. Perhaps to make the characters more complex and three dimensional or maybe their behavior is symptomatic of the emotional chaos they’re all living in?  I don’t know, now I’m rambling. I would be terrible in book club. My comments would most likely make everyone tune out and start doing mental grocery lists in their head.

What books are you folks reading? Any books you’d recommend?

For the next week or so, I will be continuing the Project365 on my own as Kimi is back home right now visiting family. First off my list, I re-attempted to sew a zipper pouch.  Let me preface this entry by saying, I don’t know how to sew. I’ve always wanted to learn so I could hem my own jeans and avoid bringing 23230940238 pairs of jeans for my mom to hem every time I see her, but alas,  my sewing experience is pretty limited. I once made a pillow (which I feel like is one of the first projects you tackle when learning how to sew) and it was really hideous and lopsided.

Every time I’m on Etsy now, I get craft envy. People are so insanely talented and I always feel inspired to make my own things after seeing their amazing work. Instead of mastering the pillow like a smart person, however, I decided to jump ahead and sew a zipper pouch to hold my laptop cables when traveling. That was probably not the smartest idea, given the fact that I didn’t even know how to use a sewing machine.  I was surprised that I figured out how to thread the bobbin, insert it in the machine, thread the machine, and kind of use the machine, but my first zipper pouch came out hideous and lopsided (just like that pillow I once sewed)! I decided that I probably wasn’t ready for a project like that and I spent my time since then trying to figure out where the hell I went wrong.

Well, with Kimi’s trip home this week, I thought it would be a great opportunity to re-attempt my zipper pouch project so she could use it to carry her own electronics’ cables.  She already had picked out her fabric months ago when I made my pouch, so the rest was on me to complete.

I found that these tutorials from Design Mom and Niesz Vintage Home helped me figure out in which order to piece together the lining and outside fabric. It’s important to piece together the fabric in the right order and right side up or else you’ll be pissed off later.

Things I learned: Even with that stupid pizza rotary cutter (pictured below),  I still couldn’t cut my fabric exactly straight (I think I need to get a ruler to help guide me). Also,  make sure to add interfacing to lighter fabrics like cotton so that the pouch looks neatly pressed and has shape, and finally,  your zipper doesn’t have to be exactly sized to the fabric–if your zipper is longer you can trim it and sew over it and it’ll work just fine.

Things I still can’t figure out: WHY DOES THREAD KEEP BUNCHING UP IN THE STUPID BOBBIN! I read somewhere it might have to do with the tension being used, but UGH. How do people sew straight? Seriously. I don’t think my machine has a guide so I was eyeballing it and let me tell you, I’m cross-eyed or something because I did not sew in a straight line. One more thing, there must be a nicer (less visible) stitch to use to close the pouch at the end than a regular back stitch, right?

If you’re at all familiar with sewing or other crafty things, sound off in the comments. I need all the help I can get!

Kimi picked her fabric a while back. The rotary cutter and measuring board were great investments.

After cutting the fabric, I was forced to take a break.

She was very persuasive.

It took me a good 20 minutes to properly set up my stupid bobbin and thread the machine. I wanted to kick the machine.

The finished product! I hate you, zipper!

This may seem like an random addition to our list, but Kimi really wanted to try a blood orange so we were in search of one when we went to the Studio City farmers’ market a few weeks ago. I think she got the idea from Pitfire Pizza’s delicious Blood Orange Lemonade and I was really excited when she suggested we try and make our own too.

So the verdict: Blood oranges look just like how you’d expect…bloody. It’s kind of crazy how dark they are on the inside. Totally wasn’t expecting that, but they tasted like regular good ol’ oranges to me.

For those interested, here’s the recipe we used for our blood orange lemonade:

Ingredients:

-8 cups water

-1 cup orange blossom honey (you can also use sugar instead, if you prefer)

-juice from 4 small/medium sized meyer lemons

-juice from 2-3 small/medium sized blood oranges

Directions:

1. In a pitcher, blend water and honey until honey is completed dissolved.

2. Add blood orange juice and lemon juice. Stir.

3. Add ice to pitcher or let chill for 30 minutes.

Fresh lemons and blood oranges from the farmers’ market.  The lemonades were kind of puny, so we ended up using like four lemons instead of two.

Got a pitcher and juicer! Flex those muscles.

Bought orange blossom honey at the farmers’ market. We used it to sweeten the lemonade instead of using sugar.

Get ready to stir that honey in!

Ta-Da!

]]> http://slowdancingwithstrangers.com/2013/my-life/3365-eat-a-blood-orange-make-blood-orange-lemonade/feed/ 0 http://slowdancingwithstrangers.com/2013/my-life/2365-dye-easter-eggs/ http://slowdancingwithstrangers.com/2013/my-life/2365-dye-easter-eggs/#comments Tue, 02 Apr 2013 02:40:43 +0000 kristel http://slowdancingwithstrangers.com/?p=1745

Happy belated Easter, friends! As part of our Project 365, Kimi and I decided we’d relive our childhoods and dye eggs together. We went to Target and bought a few cheap egg dyeing kits, one dozen eggs, and some completely necessary Easter candy for our festivities. By the way, did you know they have all kinds of fancy kits these days? Tie dye, pastel, glitter–you name it. When I was a kid, I feel like egg dye came in four colors and you had to use your own crayons if you wanted your eggs  to look fancy. I remember my sister and cousins all being very talented in the egg dyeing department, while my creations all looked…well…not like the egg you wanted to find hiding in the yard.

After a nice brunch on Easter morning, Kimi boiled a dozen eggs for us to decorate. We didn’t buy more eggs because I actually don’t like eggs (I think they taste like the smell of a fart), so Kimi had to buy the number of eggs she could eat. Surprisingly, we did not think ahead for this activity and had to cut up Trader Joe’s paper bags to cover the table (since we don’t have spare newspapers lying around). We also didn’t have those fancy egg dyeing cups that I remember using as a kid, but Kimi bought paper bowls instead. And you know that crappy wire ladle thing use to hold the egg while you dip it in the bowl of dye? Yeah, that thing STILL sucks even after all these years.

Anyway, egg dyeing was just as fun as we had remembered and were actually bummed when we ran outta blank eggs to color (at which point, Kimi decided to dunk poor Buster’s tail in pink dye).  By the way, how do other people make their eggs so fancy and intricately designed?  My eggs looked like they were decorated by a toddler.

Chompers was very interested in dyeing eggs too!  And by interested, I mean she was grumpy and all she wanted to do was walk across the table and block our way.