Summer (class) is over

Spent the last summer jewelry class eating and finishing up some little projects. So sad, no more marathon Sunday sessions but at least I get my full weekend back. Hehe, lounging is a nice alternative to class (although not a very productive one).
Here's a ring I put together in the last few minutes of class--two former sticky wax rings plus a former sticky wax birdie. Wanted to do something non-charmy with the little bird and thought the "organic" rings would make nice branches. The rings aren't connected so when taken apart the ring with the bird kind of looks like a bird tiara.

Here's a soft focus picture of me wearing the impractical birdie ring, the chubby bird makes me smile. Soft focus rocks--reminds me of the Elizabeth Taylor commercial for Whiiiiiite Diiiiamond.

This other ring was cast (same time as the bird and other rings), also not very practical but not as uncomfortable as I thought it would be. Makes me think of the Flintstones.

Hopefully I'll start up fall classes in a week or two--fingers crossed! I haven't signed up yet and am pretty certain the class is already full. If they haven't changed their policy I can sneak in the class because I'm a returning student, if I can't sneak in--THEY SUCK! Hahaha, I keed! I'll just be really bummed.

When the schnecken beckons...*

...I come a bakin'. I went on a cinnamon bun tear this past weekend making two different cinnamon bun recipes, both from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess. The first was for Norwegian cinnamon buns (forgot to take snaps of them), the results leaning toward the dry side (dry as in not ooey and gooey) and not looking at all like the picture in the book. The cut sides of the buns didn't have the sharp, defined edges of the book's buns (hehe), my dough was very very loose and sticky, but the end bread product had a nice light texture (maybe it's not supposed to be light and fluffy but I liked it).

The book shows a picture of the Norwegian cinnamon buns but not the schneckens, I wonder if it's because seeing them all at once is a bit gross eh? Anyway, the schnecken is so deliciously gooey and UNdry thanks to the syrup that's produced when baking the buns. The presyrup is a mixture of A LOT of butter, sugar, maple syrup and corn syrup divided between 12 muffin tins. The cinnamon buns are placed, one in each muffin tin and baked--butter mixture melting, producing the syrup and overflowing onto the oven floor. Greeeeeeeeeat. Stinky burning butter. That's my own fault, I'm not so smart more often than not.
Anyhoo, I was very happy with the cinnamony, gooey result of the schnecken. I think it could have handled more kneading but I was impatient.

A fruit of my labor.

I'd write the recipes but I'm sure if it violates copyright, I live in fear of copyright violations--sort of.

*What movie was this from? It's an easy one--ah hahahahahahaha!!!

Crazy coconuts

Felt like making something tonight...something I could decorate, nothing hard. Decided to zhuzz up a box of yellow cake mix. Was thinking at first of Watergate pistacio cupcakes but went with coconut cupcakes with seven minute frosting. I wasn't sure if I liked the cupcakes better with or without the shredded coconut topping but I decided to do all of them with the flakes since they kind of looked bald without the coconut.

Hehe, I don't think all the sugar dissolved in the frosting but I didn't figure this out until I finished icing all the cupcakes and dumped out the extra frosting in the sink. Ohh, gritty. Nice, adds texture. Hahaha.

I just followed the recipe on the box--3 eggs, 1/3 c. oil and instead of 1 1/4 c. of water I substituted 3/4 c of unsweetened coconut milk and 1/2 c water. And about 1 c of sweetened shredded coconut. Bake as directed. I think it can go a little bit more coconutty, use a little more milk and less water. Since this was a test I erred on the safe side, didn't want it to taste like tanning oil. Ew. We'll see if my co-workers eat it--the boy seemed to like it, he already ate two unfrosted. (I'm afraid that the frosting will be too overwhelming but too late now!)

5 Things Meme:

5 albums on your iPod--don't have one of these new fangled devices (I don't even have my own computer, how's that?! hehe!) so I'll just put what's playing in my head:

1. Love.Music.Angel.Baby (Cool)--Gwen Stefani
2. American Idiot (Wake me up when September ends)--Green Day
3. These words--Natasha Bedingfield
4. Can't think of any other songs/albums right now...if anyone's noticed these are the videos playing on VH1 in the morning before we go to work.

5 movies you've seen recently (taken off our Netflix queue):

1. A Very Long Engagement--I liked it, it was like a bloody Amelie but I didn't catch everything, I'll have to read the book or something.
2. Million Dollar Baby--I didn't want to see this movie but what I saw of it was okay (I had already read about the ending so I skipped that part).
3. Miss Congeniality 2--eh.
4. Dear Frankie--not bad, I really liked the kid in this movie.
5. Bride and Prejudice--my first Bollywood film, I have to say I skipped over a lot of the singing.

5 nice things that happened to you lately:

1. My guy making making me a thermos of tea for work (I'm cheating, he does it everyday)
2. My guy buying me Andy Capp hot fries--woo hoo! Regional junk food that has finally made its way to our lil' island (even though I had some in Maui, how'd they get it before us?!).
3. Receiving yummy biscotti and sweet card in the mail from DP--chocolate and nuts, I'm super digging it!
4. A sweet friend was willing to starve a little so that we could keep our lunch date.
   
5. All the wonderful compliments on the ring!

5 MP3s on your playlist--none so I'm going with magazines:

1. Martha Stewart
2. Food
3. ReadyMade
4. Real Simple
5. Celebrity gossip (my lil' guilty pleasure, I'm cheating, it's more a whole bunch of trashy mags but I mainly like makeover/before/after article/pictures)

A coworker asked me what my interests are...I'm still trying to figure that out. Doesn't seem to be movies or music from what I listed. I think I spend too much time watching tv, and not even good stuff--infomercials! They're hypnotic...especially that stupid alumaloy infomercial.

Tagged, I'm it!

Myra tagged me with 5 Things Meme--sweet! But now I have to reveal to the world how unhep I am. Hehe, like it's a secret...but yeah, I'm going to have to tweek the list a bit since I have no iPod and have no MP3 playlist (well, I have no updated playlist, my list is at least three years old--I haven't added to it since).

A pal today mentioned that she was waffling between getting hot dog on a stick or a won ton soup for lunch. Why the indecision?! Hot dog on a stick man! Always. I wonder if I can persuade the boy to take me to the mall to get some for dinner tomorrow night. And while we're there we can check out the pets while we're at the mall. Yay!

Whoa, I just read the Hot dog on a Stick website and they cater! Hello deep fried wedding reception! Would go well with the cotton candy machine the boy wants at the reception.

The extent of my craftiness

Slackersville, population me. I haven't been doing much crafting before and since we've been back from our vacation--a month ago! The only time I get anything done is in class and that's only jewelry. I wanted to sign up for a printmaking class for the fall semester but the only one available during the evenings is a monoprint class. I thought the point of printmaking was to be able to reproduce a piece...I'm probably wrong but for me if I put any time into an image I'd like to get more than one print out of it. End of gripe.

Made these two little bags for birthday rings, took me a lot longer than I thought it would be eh, whatever. I used little pearls for the buttons cause I don't have any cute little buttons, the ghetto button holes I have no excuse for. As you can see I need to practice sewing but I was happy with them.

The ring on the left was cast from a sticky wax mold. When I first cast it I was horrified at how ugly it came out but after hammering it into a ring shape, sanding and polishing it it grew on me and now I like it. The ring on the left right was forged and has a ruby set in it. I'm still in the really really early stages of learning to set stones in that manner.

Then I got sick of setting those stones (I'd already done four, I kind of needed a breather) so I finished this ring. I was originally going to use the pearl as an earring (I have a sort of matching pink pearl) but decided it would be better in this ring. Guess that means that I can make another ring link this...or maybe something else.

Haunted mango

Not a mango that's haunting someone but a ghost haunting a mango. I wonder if there's such a thing.

So across the street from our work parking lot is a really old church/cemetery (for Hawaii anyway, I'm guessing about late 1800's but I'm just guessing). The headstones and grave markers are laid pretty willy nilly and among the graves are a few large mango and plumeria trees. Whenever mangos are in season (they're ripening now) I drool over the fruit in the cemetery and my guy and I always laugh that if we ever picked the cemetery fruit we'd be haunted by ghosts. Plus how creepy is that? Eating fruit that could have possibly gotten its nutrients from dead people--okay, I know I'm a dingbat for thinking that there might be any nutrients left from, you know, the cemetery's residents--but just the thought...

Anyhoo the other day we couldn't believe it--a hobo bum guy was climbing a headstone to knock some mangos off the tree. Ohhhhhhhhhh....HAUNTED! I mean come on, I know the guy must be hungry but there are a lot of other places to get free mangos--like the side of the freeway for example. A few weeks ago we saw some crazies stopped on the freeway shoulder lane picking mangos from an overhanging tree! DANGER, DANGER! Saftey is obviously not a major concern of these people. But back to the hobo...I wonder if he got a stomach ache after he ate the mangos. I mean that's the least I would do if I haunted a mango someone happened to eat.