crafting

I made the little whale that is on the cover of the 'softies' book in my last post, but stupidly forgot to take a picture. I made it for my roommate Coreen's birthday...so maybe I'll ask her if I can snag a picture of it.

I've got two more lil animals to make from it, and I'll try to post those too...but tonight, it's pillows. Pillows are pretty easy to make, and I got a super cute fabric from wal mart, before they started getting rid of all of their fabric.

I'm making the pillows for my room at home, which is being totally revamped between now and the time that I will be moving back home, student teaching, and finally trying to find a teaching job. I'll be living at home and paying off my loans until I can find a decently priced apartment and a permanent job at a high school (at least as permanent as jobs can be these days).

Since I have no idea how long that will be, I'm redoing my room. Even if it only ends up being a couple years, it will be worth it.

Right now, I'm thinking black and white with either a pale blue or pale yellow. I'm definitely leaning more toward yellow.

I also of course cannot wait to go to Ikea and get some new furniture for said room. Hooray for furniture!

This christmas...

This year, as Christmas comes along, my plan is to make lots of home made gifts. I got a really super cute book from the 25 cent book sale shelf at my college library. It's called 'Pretty Little Patchwork'. It's mostly for beginners, but as I consider myself to be a beginner, that was just perfect for me.

I already have a couple little things picked out from it, I just have to bring my sewing machine to school and buy the fabric. Since Wal*Mart made the decision to stop carrying fabric (very depressing as there's one right near me at home), I'll have to journey to a Jo Ann's fabric, most likely.

Another book I'll be using is:




There are some super cute ideas in there, too.

The idea, basically, is to save some money while also giving some really thoughtful gifts. I have already found gifts for my sister in both of these books, as well as for my mom.

I'm really trying to scope out the deals and keep my holiday spending to a minimum.

Everyone seems to be conscious of holiday spending this year. This is the first year in the history of ever it seems, that we have put a spending cap on the Kligerman family secret santa gifts. This year, we're to spend $30 on our gifts, and no more. I think this is a fantastic notion, as people really tend to get out of control and forget the real meaning of the holiday.

I'm not a religious person by any means. I've grown up to actually despise the Catholic religion that I was brought up to follow. However, Christmas is still a time of the year I love. I don't celebrate it because it's Jesus' birthday, and maybe that's wrong. To me, Christmas is a wonderful tradition that involves family, friends, good food and giving. These things are important to me.

So to me, the true meaning of Christmas is giving, and getting together with friends and family. Maybe I've got it wrong, but that's why I celebrate Christmas every year.

I'm sure I won't be able to make gifts for everyone, but I'm starting to compile a list of things that can be made. I've already purchased my secret santa gift, but I might also add something home made to the package.

This year I'll be painting, crafting, burning christmas cd's for some friends, or even regular mix cd's, and framing meaningful pictures.

I have a great inexpensive idea for my mom, too, that I'm very excited to get started on.

All of that said, Happy Christmas Crafting! I can't wait to get started and watch some Christmas movies while drinking hot cocoa and crafting!

Lush

I am officially in love with Lush.



For anyone who doesn't know, Lush is a cosmetics store, but all of the cosmetics are handmade, very unique, and designed with the environment in mind. Lush also has stores worldwide! From France to Croatia, to Hong Kong, Australia and Chile, they're growing and popping up everywhere!



I first heard of Lush when Bethany bought me one of their massage bars for Christmas a couple years ago. The massage bars are super cool- it's basically lotion in a solid form, you rub in in between your palms and the heat from your skin softens the outer most layer of the bar until it rubs onto your skin like lotion.



They have many products that are solid versions of things that are usually liquids- shampoos, conditioners, lotion, bubble bath, etc.



The idea is the more we use things that are solid like this, the last plastic bottles and containers we're using. Some of their products do come in plastic, but even these products are made with all natural ingredients that are environmentally responsibleThey have little reusable aluminium containters for all of the solid stuff so it doesn't just melt all over your shower.



I just bougt their Godiva Shampoo Bar last night and used it right when I got home. I was worried that it wouldn't get my hair as soapy as I would like it to, since my hair is pretty thick and it usually takes a good palmful of shampoo to get it soapy- but it worked perfectly!



It got my hair nice and soapy, and it smells fantastic- definitely more of a natural smell than you may be used to, but it smells great. I'm in love.

Here's what my new shampoo looks like:



All of the ingredients in this shampoo bar are natural, and most of them are even organic. This bar is not one of the vegan bars as it contains cocoa butter for smooth hair...but, there are many vegan selections, too.


Pretty strange, huh? It works though! Try it out sometime.


Don't be scared about the prices at Lush. Yes, this shampoo bar ran me $9.95 ... but, that's to be expected when buying cosmetics from a smallish company that uses all natural and many organic ingredients.


ALAS! We'll see how it works...but this shampoo bar is supposed to last as long as 3 bottles of shampoo! I'll put it to the test!

I am currently packing to spend a weekend in Bar Harbor. Trying so hard not to overpack.

I can't wait to post some cool pictures on here once I get back!

For now: off to do some more packing while watching Season 8 of Seinfeld. It's time to buy a new season though- I'm on disc 4 already :(. Now I'm only missing seasons 7 and 9.

Ae revoir!

A fall painting

I'm trying to paint something new every week.

Look what I painted this week!

Yayyyy me! I'm giving it to my mom tonight. I think we're probably going to want to go to Michael's to get it framed, though.

Next week I'm going to paint something for my Dad, but I'm not sure what yet...

Bloggity Blog

Time to start blogging again!

I am sitting here watching Glee, eating a delicious salad. Marinated steak tips, red onion, iceberg and romaine hearts, green peppers, edamame, cucumbers, chick peas, carrots and fresh parmesan cheese.

I've been trying really hard to lose some weight since I've been back at school, and lost 4 pounds on my first week back! I start my exercise routine next week, now that I'm all familiarized with where my classes are.

For now, I'm posting a recipe I just made the other day!

Low Fat but still yummy cupcakes

1 Box of whatever cake mix you want

1 can of whatever diet soda you want

(I used French vanilla cake mix and a can of diet cream soda)

1 tub of cool whip light

1/2 block of neufchatel cheese (reduced fat cream cheese)- room temp

1/2 tsp vanilla

Mix them together, and fill your cupcake cups in your muffin tin. Cook according to the box's instructions.

Icing:

Blend together 1 tub of cool whip light with the 1/2 block of cream cheese, and add the vanilla.

Simple, right? They're delicious, though! I topped mine with sprinkles.

So after a somewhat extensive hiatus, I'm back. It's been a while, but I finally felt up to updating my blog again.

So I'm putting serious thought into becoming vegetarian. Well, technically flexitarian. So as the wiki page states, a flexitarian is someone who is mainly vegetarian, but occasionally eats meat.

I want to switch to a mainly vegetarian diet for several reasons, but the main reason is the healthy benefits that will come from mainly eating vegetables. Our meat industry in this country is really scary to me, and I think I will feel better once I cut it out of my diet.

However, I don't have a problem eating meat occasionally, as a treat. Once I do my research and start, I will try to limit my meat eating slowly, like maybe having meat ever other day, then eventually once a week, then once every two weeks, etc.

It will be nice to be able to eat meat every once in a while, but to mainly delete it from my diet.
I'm not sure when I'll start this process, it may wait until I get back to school and have the help of my vegetarian roommate Coreen, or I may start sooner than that, I'm not sure yet.

I already eat lots of vegetarian foods, like almost every morningstar farms product I can get my hands on, and I'm excited to start cooking with their vegetarian 'meat' crumbles, which will allow me to still make things like tacos and casseroles that contain ground beef.

I had a vegetarian chili last year around Christmas time at Elyse's house that had the Morningstar Farms faux steak strips, and I was totally fooled! Products like these will make it somewhat easy for me to mostly give up meat.

The only concern I have is eating dinner with my family. I don't want my family to feel like they need to cook me something special myself just because they're eating meat. We generally will have some sort of vegetable and side pasta or potato, and as long as that's the case, I would be totally fine just eating the vegetable and side, I definitely don't need a special meal cooked just for me.

We'll see how it goes. I'm trying to compile a list of recipes I can make for myself (and Coreen) once I get back to school, at this point. Wish me luck!