Collage Paper Doll

Collage paper doll made from various paper bits and brads, 2/20/2012. This format has different freedoms than other collages I've work with, one being the size - at 14 inches tall she's larger than any of my normal collage books.  I feel like I should give her a name. I kinda want to make a whole legion of these and put them in random places.....

Completely unrelated, my cousin was much better about posting the baby items I've been working on than I was. She put together an awesome post with pictures of everything that should have been in the Baby Items.. part 3 post! I've never really made baby items before and she and her baby were super inspiring. I learned a lot about the world of babies in the process :)

mask #1

 

After visiting the surrealist exhibit at the LACMA, I was inspired to finally make a mask (it's been on my to-do list for a while!) There are things I would tweak for future masks, but overall I really like it! The material for the mask was a random scrap I got in a thrift store fabric bag and the lace was from a random bag of lace I picked up in the LA downtown fashion district. I go back and forth between wanting to do something to the lace on the outer most lace scallops to make them stick up vs. flopping over like it does now. I sometimes think I am more inspired by using pre-cut scrap type stuff than a nice, full piece that I hand selected.

10 on 10, february 2012

Last month I came across the 10 for 10 monthly project at a bit of sunshine... right after the 10th. So I put it on my calender this month and was ready to take pictures today! I kinda fudged the rules a little to help account for work (pics at beginning and end of lunch vs. sitting in the office all afternoon.) Even for someone like me that takes pictures daily, this was a challenge because of work and the requirement for consecutive hours. Next time this falls on a workday, I might fudge the rules a little more, making it 10 consecutive non-work filled hours, maybe? We shall see.


One picture an hour for 10 consecutive hours, from 12 noon until 9pm, February 10, 2012

 

Veggie filled savory crepe

One day I decided I wanted to make green onion pancakes, but didn't want to wait a while for the dough to set as it probably should... I needed something faster. So using the basic savory crepe recipe from here and stuff I had in my kitchen, this is what I ended up with.

I also wanted to make the crepes into a more substantial meal, so I added sauteed veggies. What's included is what I had on hand and used. You can easily substitute some or all of the veggies. If you haven't had delicata squash, I definitely recommend it! It's harder like a winter squash and stays good for a while, but you can eat the skin, they are smaller than many other squashes and it cooks fairly quickly. You could easily substitute butternut squash or sweet potato for it.


Savory Green Onion Crepe with Sauteed Veggies (~ 3 servings)



filling
vegetable oil
1 portabella mushrooms/ handfull of mushrooms
1-2 delicata squash
1/2 onion
light flavored cheese (I used a tasty soft cheddar cheese with chives and green onions from Trader Joe's)

pancakes
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 tsp salt
~1 1/2 cup water
1 egg
vegetable oil
2-3 green onions, whole, and cut into small pieces

Put a small amount of oil in a pan. Wash and thinly slice mushrooms. Wash, deseed and cut the delicata squash into small moons and cut onions into moons. Put all veggies into the pan and cook until all items are soft and light golden in color.

 When the vegetables are getting close to being done, mix all pancake ingredients and cook in a warmed frying pan coated with a light layer of oil. These don't need to cook very long - just enough to get a tiny bit of color on each side.

Fill crepes with the vegetable filling and add a little bit of cheese if desired. Super delicious!

baby sewing part 2.. and other

A couple of soft stuffed balls for child toys (although, they seem to be equally appealing to non-child humans.) I used this pattern from purlbee.com for the larger ball (I didn't print it out though - I just kinda reproduced the shape in a random size) and this pattern from rustsunshine.blogspot.com for the smaller ball. My seams were a little... not so perfect on the small ball and I suddenly realized a great functional reason for those little patches of color on the ends of beach balls. They hide mistakes well.



These balls actually aren't from the last week. This week I've been working on lots of little projects, like these bird heads and some more sewing. I also went to see the "In Wonderland" , exhibit at the LACMA yesterday instead of watching the Super Bowl, which was super awesome and deserving of it's own post. I'm huge fan of surrealist art, and seeing so many pieces from both artists I had heard of like Dorothea Tanning and Frida Kahlo and new to me artists was so energizing and exciting. I can't get it out of my head!