Heart Designs

A few designs from long ago...

"Josie" Heart Design	"JHB" Heart Design
"Leo" Heart Design	"Mikayla" & "Asher" Heart Design

Owl Parliament - Cherry on Tangerine

As lovely as the cherry red ink is, sometimes I wonder if I should stop printing with it all together. Why? Because the color does not exist on the computer! No matter how much I try to tweak it, I always end up with an orange-tinted mess.



I've heard others complain about the red problem as well, so it's nice to know I'm not being neurotic (at least once). It's particularly bad against the bright orange, but what can you do?

Hot & Sour Soup Recipe

We made up some Hot & Sour Soup again last week ~ that stuff is sooo good! The broth has a slightly different flavor than you find at restaurants, but not really better or worse, just different. Last time I felt like it needed to be tweaked, so I held off on typing up the recipe, but now I wonder if we just had an odd ingredient or measured something wrong that time. With no changes to make, I can finally share the deliciousness with you.



Recipe Here

I've also changed the name of my Asian Chicken & Rice Soup to the more appropriate Faux-Sizzling Rice Soup. Justin said the name was way too boring for something so tasty, and I did base the recipe on the Sizzling Rice from our favorite Chinese restaurant. It's such a popular dish there, you can hear it popping all over the restaurant when you eat there. I hate naming things!

And it is definitely soup weather around here! I can't believe it, but we still have a little snow sitting behind the apartment, hanging around since Friday. Usually everything melts the same day we get a few flakes, but several spots are lingering this time.

Ambigram Drop

"Create" Ambigram	"Pretty Bird" & "Liddie Hefa" Ambigram
"Ho Kit Yee" & "Soon Lim" Ambigram	"Patrick Ho" & "Diana Lee" Ambigram
"Abbie" & "Terry" Ambigram	"Be Patient" Ambigram "Israel Torres.org" Ambigram
"Jordie" Ambigram	"Abbey" Ambigram

No Sno'

Pfff. It was just a light dusting of snow after all. No fun.



But, since this is Georgia, that was enough to shut the schools down for the day, and to send people scrambling to the grocery stores yesterday for bread and milk.

Shake your booties

We've told family & co-workers now, so I can finally post it on my blog.
I am pregnant! Almost 15 weeks now, due July 4th.



I feel an obligation to be squealing with excitement as I tell the news, but it mostly feels surreal. I can't pull off squealing. Until I start getting kicked, I don't know if I'll really believe it. Granted, I've had plenty of symptoms, but I have never been around pregnant women, never really been around babies, never been baby-crazy, none of our close friends have kids ~ it is all very weird to me. I kept waiting for my biological clock to start ticking, but the decision was more based on the chronological clock, since we turned 29 this year.

So, umm... yeah! I am not a fan of: the (severe) acid reflux, nausea, headaches, exhaustion, and congestion... of having to look up every little thing online to see if it is o.k. or not... of women trying to remember what they were told 30 years ago, saying "I don't think you can do that" ~ only to look up yet another thing online & see that no, that is actually something they recommend for pregnancy... or of being fussed over, "How are you feeling?" (Except by Justin. He can fuss all he wants). But really, other than those things, which have not been overwhelming, it has not been too bad at all, better than I expected. But that might depend on which day you ask me! On the plus side ~ I do enjoy, for once, not having to worry if an outfit makes my belly look big, or how many calories something has (I've actually been loosing weight throughout the whole thing). It can be hard to find something I want to/can eat, though, especially finding enough to keep up with the hunger!


And, unrelated, there are snow flurries outside, with a promise of snow! I can't remember the last time we've really had snow (north Georgia). Maybe once in the last 10 years? (I do not count flurries or a light dusting that melts in an hour, the grass needs to be hidden!) I keep peeking out the window to make sure it is still falling.

Bee Furniture

Months ago, as we were admiring some pet furniture & toys, my brother-in-law asked, "Why do dogs and cats get all of the fun stuff?". He keeps a small hive of bees & joked about wanting accessories for his 'pets' too. Well, I couldn't pass up such a fun crafting opportunity (and Christmas gift), could I?

I've had a few beeswax candle kits sitting around for years; the kind where you roll colored sheets of beeswax around a wick for a simple taper candle. Most of the wax sheets had the traditional honeycomb texture, though there were a few with stripes or other textures. I grabbed an x-acto knife and set to work building tiny bee-sized pieces of furniture, just eyeballing everything. Each joint was glued together, and then the wax edge was melted to create smooth corners.













So that was a dining room table & chairs, a bookshelf with books (my favorite), a sofa with throw pillows, bed, TV, and toilet (you can barely make out the black handle on the left side). Here is something to give you an idea of the scale ~



And everything framed together in an 8 x 10 shadowbox!