Laundry Room Decal

For Christmas I made myself a big present. I ordered a silhoutee CAMEO.

I'm still totally new to it and I need some more time to play with it. I ordered white self adhesive vinyl and finally finished my idea of a Laundry Wall Decal. 

 

Several months ago, I ordered some self adhesive vinyl, but without the CAMEO the vinyl ended up in a drawer somewhere.  

This was my first attempt. Printed and sketched papers, scissors, vinyl...

NOT GOOD

 

Now with that fabulous toy of mine it was "almost" easy. I used Garamond as font and went 9inch in width and 76 inch in length. (Speed 8, Thickness 12)

I had to cancel the job several times since my vinyl moved in the middle of the process and the letters were messed up. Not sure what I did wrong though. Finally, when everything was cut, I peeled off the negative space of  the vinyl from the backing. All that remains are the letters. Now you should use some transfer tape, which I did not have. I took a ruler made some marks on the wall and stuck one letter at a time on the wall.  

           Before: very empty wall decor        After: Laundry Decal 

                

I re-placed some of the letters to be somewhat straight. :)

 

 Now laundry will be so much more fun! LOL

I'm linking up to:

     

Strawberry Cream Cheese Cupcakes

For a going away party I was asked to bring dessert. I had cheese cake in mind, but when getting all the ingredients out, I didnt feel it and decided on the spot to go with cupcakes.

I still had a strawberry cake mix in the pantry, mixed it together, folded in some white chocolate morsels and baked all 18 cupcakes at 350 for 18minutes.

While the cupcakes kept rising, I put together cream cheese (8oz), 7 tbsp softened butter, 1 tsp vanilla extract, mixed that in my kitchen aid, sifted in 3 cups confectioners' sugar and mixed it together by hand until smooth and creamy. I used a star tip on my piping gun and completed the cupcakes with some gold shimmer sprinkles. 

Perfect cupcake for a sparkling girl! We will miss you Alex - but wish you all the Best in San Diego!!

I'm linking up to:

            

                                                                      

It's time to say good bye

..for a full week. I will be leaving this afternoon for New York for one of our textile  tradeshows, check it out! :) www.TexworldUSA.com

Internet is not complimentary in the hotel and really crappy in the convention center, so I assume I will be offline for the week.

Wish me luck that I will survive the cold temperatures New York has to offer right now (30F during the day, 19F during the night) but also that our exhibitors and attendees stay happy and won't give me a hard time.

I can't wait to come back next Thursday with a hopefully full weekend of REST.

Stay warm.

Carina

Meat Love

This post is only for meat lovers.

While searching for a butcher shop yesterday, we stumbled into the most incredible international farmers market, which is actually right around the corner from us.

I haven't seen that many veggies, fruits and international goodies in a long time. That store is awesome and for sure  The meat and fish department is amazing. They have everything you can even think of cutting up from an amimal. I wouldn't eat most of it, but my interest in seeing all of those weird things, was stronger than anything.

We bought thinly sliced short ribs (which we were not able to find in any grocery stores around here)

Brian's mom introduced me to Korean BBQ - Kal-Bi, it is so delicious, you need to try it! Very easy to make too.

KALBI are short ribs, cut on the cross-section. They are thin 1/2″ slices of ribs that are marinated in soy sauce, brown sugar, pear juice, garlic, ginger and sesame oil, but you can also use the marinade that comes in a jar.

Buy 2.2lbs of thinly sliced short ribs and marinade them in 0.45lbs Korean BBQ sauce for couple hours.

                Don't you love raw meat pictures? :)

 Put the ribs in a pan and fry each side for 4-5 min. We put ours into the oven to keep warm until all of them were done.

Besides the meat, we made baked potatoes as a side, with cheese and bacon/herb topping and sour cream.

The potatoes were washed, poked with a fork, oiled and salted and then baked in the oven 60min at 375°F.

Korean BBQ - KAL-BI

YUMMY

Black and Brown Ruffled Pillows

Lazy Sunday, what not better than relaxing and sewing some pillows.

Some people have cats - we have pillows! :) I'm still working with my New York fabric swatches. I cut 32 black and 32 brown 5" squares and laid them out in one big square. Not really sure what to do with those first, but there was a leftover pillow sitting on the floor... Decision made! The pillow is a 18"x18" (You will only need 32 squares total, if you sew one pillow!)

 

One row at a time, I sewed four squares together

Put right sides together, sew along the side, attach one more square to it, until there are four.

I ruffled black and brown leftover fabric into 5.5" stripes. Depending on the thickness of the fabric, it will shrink quite a bit. My initial stripes were 18" long and after everything was ruffled up they were about 6".

I laid the ruffled fabric over the square fabric and sewed in a straight line over both. 

When all squares were sewed together in fours, I put right sides together and pinned them together

Sewed each row to the next, with alternating the colors.

TADA.. A new decorative Pillow for the bed.

One side has brown ruffles

the other one has black ones.

One pillow done, one to go... Maybe tonight!?

            

First Vacation of the year

Our first vacation of the year 2012.

On December 30, after work we drove 4 hours to Montreat NC, were our friends Susan and Josef have an incredible house in the mountains.

On Saturday we toured Montreat and walked around Lake Susan, where apparently they throw fish in, in the spring time for people to fish.

 

We drove to Asheville which is about 30min by car. 

We spent our lunch at The Bier Garden

went to a chocolaterie were I had a date with Santa.

From downtown Asheville we walked all the way to the arts disctrict were we had some beer at the Wedge Brewing Company and enjoyed beautiful weather.

On our way back we passed a lot of really cool buildings and arts.

The New Years eve we spent at home with home made pizza, lots to drink and a nap before 10pm.

Hunter joined us

New Years day we decided on a hike up the mountain.

My new years resolution - MORE CARDIO

We walked all the way from the house, downhill to downtown Montreat, then up the roads. I was done, not even close to the beginning of the trail. I tried to get the thoughts of "I just wait here, till they come down again" out of my head and kept walking.

Had to rest a little on the way up

and some more

But finally on top of the mountain - the view was worth coming all the way up. 

 

After some rest, we headed down hill.

(Unfortunately the hike was so intense that there was no way on taking pictures. Climbing rocks, steps which were higher then my knees..) So the pictures taken are from the more easier part of the trail. Still not that easy - Let me tell you.

 

EXHAUSTED - but very happy! :)

Happy New Year 2012