I'm in such a gooood mood! The sun is shining, and I haven't had much sleep. Yesterday I picked up a friend from the airport (after waiting 3 hours) and headed over the border to Seattle to watch The Killers.

The concert certainly didn't disappoint. I'm not a fan of the new album - a bit too samey and mellow, but when the old stuff started playing everyone was jumping around. Crashed at a crappy dive hotel and were on the road for 6:30am. Picked up my icecream maker (!!!) and made it to work.

Now while the icecream maker is prepping, I'm looking for recipes for argentinian helado de dulce de leche granizado, my favourite when I go home to Argentina. I cannot describe how much I miss it! So while hunting around, I discovered this blog: http://www.fromargentinawithlove.typepad.com/from_argentina_with_love/

It's lovely - every recipe from my childhood, all right there in plain english! Fantastic!

And now, to make my favourite icecream - pictures will follow.

Icecream Makers and Dreams

So I posted a dream gift on DreamBank a while back around my birthday time. Low and behold, today I got a little notification email saying someone had contributed the final amount to my Dream Gift! It's been fulfilled!

My Dream Gift was an icecream maker.. nothing too expensive, but an $80 icecream maker seemed to be a good bday present to ask for, since I absoltutely LOVE all things icecream. My nostalgia for argentinian gelato has left me wishing I could try and replicate it here in Canada.. ergo my IceCream Maker Dream.

I've gone on Amazon and ordered the CuisineArt ICE-25BC after reading the reviews.. Look at it!

It's so cute! I can't wait till it arrives so I can start icecreaming! M first attempt will be chocolate-peanut-butter me-thinks!

All in all, I have to say the whole DreamBank experience has been nice. I would have been super happy if people had contributed to my dream gift in time for my birthday (Oct. 13), but I like the surprise of being told my dream has been fulfilled in the middle of April.. Just in time for the hot summer weather!

Anyone have any good gelato/icecream recipes they want to share?

Weekend Missions and Taxes

I had a lot of plans for this last weekend. I was going to look for happy eggs. I was going to do my taxes. I was going to do the laundry. I was going to find an armoire for all our junk. I was going to.

But I didn't. And I blame it mainly on starting out on Saturday morning by trying to do my taxes. Needless to say - they aren't done. And it put the whole mission-filled-weekend into a spin. So I didn't make it out to the farms to find happy eggs. I did manage a dinner with my mom at "Le Bistro Chez Michel", which we've wanted to try out since it opened 9 years ago (but never got around to). Lovely food- though the creme  brullee was so bad that we left it. Ick.

But I earnestly attempted to find the armoire. I went to Ikea, United Furniture Warehouse, even walmart - but nothing. They had the right pieces in the wrong colour and the right colour in the wrong pieces. Finding a dark brown (espresson, dark cherry, mahogany) wood armoire seemed to be the hardest task of all. And so that ended up being abandoned.

It made no sense in light of all that to do the laundry - did it?

Augie March, the Hunt for Happy Eggs, and Blog Stress

It's occured to me that what keeps me from writing is the worry that without pretty pictures, there's not a whole lot to keep someone reading.. but that's assuming I'm writing for others, rather than for myself. So I'm scrapping my earlier resolution to write more, and replacing it with writing more for myself. Now with that said and done, hopefully I can ramble to my heart's content - pictures or no pictures.

While blasting Augie March's "One Crowded Hour" through my newly aquired iPhone, I'm taking a quick break from writing for work to write a little about the world of Moi. After reading an article on GranvilleOnline.ca, "Understanding Cruelty Free Eggs" I decided to go on a little bit of an "Egg Hunt". It broke my heart to read that delicous eggs were such conflict items. Not only that all males of the species were killed off inhumanely as useless, but also that after the initial period of 2 years of optimum egg laying had passed, the hens were also killed off. Not to mention that the conditions in which they live involves having their beaks and feet cut off, and being crammed into tiny spaces - and this is the "free range" ones! So I'm now on a mission to find local farms that provide happier eggs. I hope to come out of this with success rather than failure, as I'm contemplating giving eggs up altogether if I can't find ones that don't suffer to give me an omelette every once in a while. In May the city will pass a law allowing us to have backyard chickens here in the city - now to convince the cat that chicken doesn't taste as good as catfood..

Wire Jewellery and T-Shirts

I've made a lot of things lately - I just haven't stopped to take their pictures. I did quickly photograph some of my newest things, updates on the other stuff will come soon!

I have a broken wrist - thanks to an attempt at converting my skiing self into a snowboarder.. so I did this with a broken right wrist in a cast (and I'm right handed). Excuse the sloppyness!

Wire ring and Birds Nest pendant..


Closeup of wire ring

I also designed a graphic that I wanted on a T-Shirt. I put it on threadless.com, but it didn't get printed, so I took matters into my own hands and had it printed anyway - so it's the only one in existance..

It's the lion rampant, with a wax seal of the lion rampant on top of it. I designed this on photoshop, using an awesome pshero tutorial on how to make a wax seal.

more pieces of opulence

So I told myself I'd be more dedicated, I'd really crack down and blog more, and here I am again neglecting you.

So, to make up for it.. jewellery porn from my newest hobby - making pieces of opulence :)

These are Isabel, the pendant and earrings..

Andrea (crystals sitting on hand curled wires)





Heather (with crystals hand wrapped in wire to look like dew drops)

And one of my favourites:

Gaya
Beautifully detailed, I absolutely love this - a damask resin piece that sits on the collarbone, and then two birds on a pendant dipping down.

Hope you likey!

Pieces of Time and Opulence

so amidst the sewing and the baking and the cleaning and the working, my creative itch started.. well.. itching.. and I had some sort of urge to make some jewellery. So I decided to make some out of recycled watch parts..

this one is called freebird


couldn't think of a name for this one though :(