Creative Upload

Well, more like creative overload.

I've been keeping busy with creative endeavors. This post is just a jumble of everything I've been doing the last couple of weeks. 

1. I've started an inspiration notebook, where I keep track of things I find beautiful or interesting. Here are a couple of pages:

 2. Our kitchen is in the corner of the main room, and when I stand in front of the sink to wash dishes, my body blocks most of the light from the window and/or from the ceiling light. I got sick of always trying to wash my dishes in shadow and decided to see if I could create a light. We can't alter our apartment at all (no nail holes, paint, etc...) unless we're willing to pay extra, which we're not. I found two small nails under the cupboard above the sink, and decided to see what I could come up with using that and a few things on hand.

 I found this tutorial  for string lanterns while browsing on Pinterest: http://veryirie.blogspot.com/2010/08/diy-string-lanterns-string-lighting.html

I decided to give it a try and this is what I came up with:

Before

 After

It didn't turn out exactly how I had envisioned (which was much cuter/classy/awesome), but it works.
I didn't have any wallpaper glue or fabric stiffener or tapioca starch, and didn't have room in our budget to go buy any, so I made up my own mix of glue with Modge Podge, cornstarch, a little hot water, and Elmer's glue. It worked great, as far as I can tell, though I think that fabric stiffener or wallpaper glue might have had a better finished effect.
I wrapped saran wrap around the balloons to try and keep the string from sticking to them since I didn't have any Vaseline, but I think next time it would be worth it to go buy some. The saran made it look more messy and less professional than I wanted. It kept shifting, making it hard to wrap the string tightly and neatly. It also helped the glue crystallize in the gaps between the strings, which made it hard to clean out. Moral of the story: don't use saran wrap.

3. I went on a quote making spree a little while ago. I wrote some inspirational quotes on index cards and stuck them around the house.

 This hot air balloon was something I made for one of my sister's wedding decorations in June. I hadn't posted it yet, and thought this was a good place.

4. I made Brandon a case for his wireless keyboard. He was taking it to school in the box it came in, which was starting to get really hammered. I made a basic pouch and padded it with minky and felt and then used Heat n' Bond to add a little stiffness. I was pleased with how it turned out, though next time I think I would add a little more padding.

5. I have been dabbling in culinary artistry and food preservation. Brandon and I have been trying to really stick to a budget now that we are in medical school. We had a budget before, but we were a little less stringent about following it.  Potatoes were on sale, so we bought 2 10 lb bags for .98 each and then I washed, peeled, cut and froze them. I love having them in the freezer all ready to go. I'm getting creative in using them since they should be used up within the next couple of months. Hence, potato pizza!

I know what you're thinking:
Tillamook ice cream is not a necessity...cheaper varieties are available.
It was on a really good sale, and
Brandon needed it for moral support to get through his exam.

Potato Pizza "Recipe":
I just made it up, so I don’t have a specific recipe for it, but here's what I did.

I made cilantro-garlic sauce, which can be found at http://www.thyhandhathprovided.com/2011/05/preserving-cilantroin-april.html
We add extra cilantro and only do about 2 T of lemon juice, instead of 3-4. This sauce is SO good by the way. Totally worth making, and really good on burritos, spaghetti, bread, chicken tikka marsala, etc...

I took the potatoes from the freezer and fried them in butter, like I would hash browns, and added spices: garlic powder, salt, sage, seasoned salt, and Herbs Provence (which I think has rosemary and oregano in it, among other things).

I cooked about half a sausage and ground it up.


 I took my homemade pizza dough and rolled it out to the desired size (frying pan size in this case).
I put a little bit of butter on the pan, and baked it until lightly brown on that side, then flipped it. While the other side was browning, I quickly put on the sauce, sour cream, and other toppings and let it cook until the cheese had melted. I sprinkled it with a little bit of Parmesan and ta-da!

 It was a huge hit with the hubby. As you can see...
He wanted me to take the pictures. Just saying.

We had a pizza buffet for conference Sunday lunch. The other pizza pictured is just cheese with pesto and alfredo sauce, and then I made cinnamon sticks. It was all really good, and SUPER filling. Probably because it had so many calories. I had two small slices of each (about a quarter) and I was completely full for the rest of the day. Couldn't even eat dinner that night.

6. I made some earrings! I really like them.

                 

 7. Halloween season is here! I wanted to decorate, but I'm not generally big on most Halloween decorations.  I like them to be subtle. So I found some nice dead branches, cut out some paper bats and stars, and voila!

I'm thinking of maybe putting up a banner that says Happy Halloween or something, but I haven't decided yet.

8. That is all. At least, that is all I have pictures of. Thanks for reading!

Hello Everyone!

Hello everyone!

Life has been relatively good. I am enjoying school but I am so glad that it is Friday! I’m not going to have a very relaxing weekend, but it is still the weekend nonetheless. Tonight I am going to an Institute dance with my roommates. I have no idea what I am going to wear, since the theme is pirates and I have no dress-up clothes and I am too cheap to go to DI and try to find something. Oh well, I will figure something out and hopefully it will be fun and worth the time that I could have spent on homework.
Tomorrow I have a work training meeting starting at 9 O’clock in the morning, and goes till 3. Ick. Ah well. At least they are feeding us. Isn’t strange that just the prospect of food makes everything worthwhile? Well, at least for me it does. I decided that I love food and I can’t understand how people can starve themselves. For example, my friend and fellow co-worker, Adam, eats nothing. I’m not exaggerating! The other day as we were sitting in the Writing Center, I pulled out my sandwich and apple (and I think I had crackers but anyway) I pulled out my lunch, and he pulled out his. Guess what it was. A Kudos Bar. A Kudos Bar! A couple of days later I came across him and his lunch again he had a sandwich bag of CHEZZITS! That was his lunch! I told him that he needed to start eating more. He laughed and agreed with me, and said he then joked that he was watching his figure. Ha. The boy is a stick. I could break him in two. Later that day I was talking to another friend and co-worker of mine, Chelsea, about Adam’s eating habits and we both decided that it would be nice if we could eat such small portions and call them meals, but we both love food to much to do so.
Wow, that was a random tangent. Anyway, continuing on with my weekend. Sunday, I have Mckay’s farwell to go to. Russell, Amanda, Kate and I are going to leave around 7:00 in the morning and drive down to Cannonville (which is about an hour and a half away from Cedar). We think that his ward starts at 10. (Long story.) In any case, I am excited for that. On top of all these wonderful activities, I have to do a whole ton of homework and we have to deep clean our apartment tomorrow too (because it really needs to be cleaned. And for those of you that want pictures of the apartment and my lovely roommates, I will get those up as soon as we finish decorating the front room. We need to cover the couches still because they are the UGLIEST couches that you ever did see. They are green, blue and creamish color plaid. Ew. So as soon as we coordinate those with the theme that we have going, I will take pictures and post them on the blog.) So basically, that is what has been going on, or will be going on, in my life. I will write soon and tell a little bit more about my classes and what else I have been up to, but I have to go now and send in my grades for Basic Writing by five. Love you all! Adios!
~Sam


P.S. Just so you know, I need to use this account for a class of mine (namely Intro. to Creative Writing) so I will be posting a plethora of my sad attempts at writing in this blog. You are more than welcome to comment, in fact I would love it if you would give me suggestions and ideas. Comment away!