ice cream love: salt & straw

during my usual daily internet browsing i came across an unusual ice cream shop located in portland for the second time, so i decided to check it out and to my surprise and pleasure... ahhh-mazing! salt & straw is where it's at.

the ice cream shop features local ingredients and by teaming up with local farms, businesses, and breweries that are unique to portland. their handmade ice cream flavors not only showcase the freshest, local ingredients but they also offer some strange and interesting flavor combinations that will definitely make curious eaters dyeing for a bite.

and not to mention their "bone marrow with smoked bing cherries" flavor.

 i am dyeing for a bite .... looks like i'll have to make a special trip to portland!

reminds me a bit of pilly's own franklin fountain.

d.i.y. leather bracelet from a beautiful mess

i was browsing one of my favorite blogs and i saw this lovely little diy idea from elsie at a beautiful mess. it not only includes leather *which i love* (natural leather that is) but hand painted customizable uniqueness. its so easy, i can't wait to do it myself! check out the original post here.

light love

just absolutely love these lamps!

birthday week: indian food + spinning

thursday december 8

food: indian buffet

got take out from a really good indian buffet called karma, right next to where i ate the other day - han dynasty. the buffet was $10 and i loaded as much as i could in my container, had left overs for today. soooo good, very pleased :)

craft: spinning!

after loosing my drop spindle for two years my boyfriend gave me a new bottom whorl drop spindle for my birthday (ain't he the best? :) happily, i spent most of the night spinning skeins of roving that i had lying around for a number of years and glad to get back to them finally. i plan on doing a post of how to spin soon!

such a beautiful dye job. i bought this from a seller on etsy years ago and sadly can't remember them. oh well, isn't it lovely though?! it reminds me of a peacock.

also i wanted to share this really cool website/blog about iceland, it's called every single place in iceland. they do posts on somewhere in iceland each day, whether its a major area or the small lake in reykjavik. amazing photography and cute posts. i have to say, iceland is doing a teriffic job with tourism advertising this year. it goes to show the importance of social media these days... i only wish i knew about this blog before i went! check it out!

(from the blog, which is brand-spanking new... this is tjornin, the small lake in the center of reykjavik. there really are soo many birds there, it's insane but cool)

Birthday Week: Food + Crafts Galore

ok so i meant to post everyday this week, but obviously that didn't quite work out. but here is what i did do:

tuesday december 6

food: han dynasty (front and chestnut) - spicy cucumbers + shrimp fried rice
         wawa hot turkey in gravy sandwich + english toffee late

 i treated myself to han dynasty, which i kept hearing from random people how good and how spicy it was so i decided to get that for my lunch. i heard that the dan dan noodles were exceptional, but it was a lot more pricey than i anticipated for chinese. so i ended up ordering the spicy cucumber appetizer and the shrimp fried rice. the spicy cucumbers were incredibly surprising; crunchy, crisp, fresh, garlicy, spicy, and savory. everyone at my work keep eating them. the shrimp fried rice was...well, shrimp fried rice. but i highly recommend the cucumbers. definitely glad i finally ended up going here.

i was supposed to be taken to the tortilla press in collingswood, nj for dinner after a doctor's appointment by my mom. it didn't work out, but she ended up taking me food shopping and treating me to my favorite wawa sandwich - the hot turkey. it's a shame this sublime sandwich is only seasonal, so i try to get it as often as i can before it's gone. i also got the english toffee latte, which is great. it is somewhat special because it is sorta nostalgic for me. my dad used to take us with him to wawa all the time and get us an english toffee, so for me the warm toffee aroma in my hands reminds me of yesteryear.

craft: holiday banner

unfortunately didn't finish it so i don't have a picture of it. but i started to make a festive, glittery holiday banner for my window... details to follow :)

wednesday *my birthday*


food: ate my left overs from han dynasty for lunch and got a wonderful surprise peanut butter chocolate mousse pie for my birthday cake....it was heaven!

CHIMA brazilian steakhouse for my birthday dinner.

oh. my. god. my boyfriend and i ate sooo much! perhaps one of the best birthday dinners to date, chima really was something special. definitely a "very special occassion" restaurant, this $60 a head all-you-can-eat gorge fest is not something i will be able to do again for a long time (just because it is so pricey). i ordered one of my favorite drinks - a white russian - and headed off to the salad bar, which had everything from gorgonzola mousse to artichokes. exceptional salad bar.

then the meat.

baby sirloin with garlic. butterfly lamb. sirloin. swordfish. salmon. bbq prok ribs. beef ribs (basically brisket). sausage. chicken. chicken wrapped in bacon. filet mignon. and a few more that i can't remember. my favorite was definitely the lamb and the sirloin, followed closely by the beef brisket/ribs. WOW dan and i kept saying "i've never had meat like this!"

i gave myself the night off with crafting last night. tonight i will be doing something very special to make up for it :) stay posted!

Birthday Week: Confetti Cake + Salt Bagels + Soap

over past two years i've been doing a lot of self reflection, figuring out who i am as a person, doing a lot of discovery and exploration - now the time has finally come where i will be at the end of an era. since i will be turning 24 on wednesday, it will be the last year where i can be considered a young adult, and next year will reluctantly be added to the 25-30 age group. i'm not ready for this, time moves too fast.  no longer will i be a care free college student, but rather a working class/student loan debtor/starving artist who has other responsibilities. these i am ready for, and thank my parents for raising me to be responsible and independent, but it i think it is the age itself that scares me, and all the experiences i feel i missed out on. instead of feeling sad about what i missed so far, i decided to start working towards those experiences and opportunities, do what i always wanted to do, and work on my character and my flaws from here on out. not only do i want to catch up, but i want to work on being a better person.

so having said all that i have decided that since this is my week, i am going to spend it the best way i know how, striving for daily goals, and spending any minute i can savoring and enjoying the day. i am calling it my week of discovery and expanding my horizons. each day i will explore the things that i love : food and crafts. my goal for the entire week is to have a very fulfilling birthday before my 25th birthday...so why not start a year ahead?!

monday december 5:

 first of all gorgeous, warm day!

food that made me think of this in the first place: 

strolled into South Street Philly Bagels, while going to drop off a rent check on this gorgeous day. ordered the turkey club on a salt bagel....thought i died and went to heaven. i almost didn't want to eat anything for the rest of the day to not loose the taste in my mouth, but realized that was kinda gross and got some gum....nonetheless it was this huge bagel sandwhich -while drooling over it - made me come the conclusion that i started my birthday week off the right way and should do this for the rest of the week (that is eating at all the places where i've always wanted to, or discovering a new spot for awesome food).

for dinner i stopped at Grindcore House, (mainly because i had no food in the house) and decided to keep my birthday week alive my treating myself to a big mug filled with a chai latte and ordered a new sandwhich that i had not tried there yet. the treehugger salad on sourdough bread (mixed greens, olives, cucumber, avocado, tomato, and shitake vinagrette) was great. to top it all off, i got a big slice of vegan confetti cake.

the craft: 

i finally made a curtain to hide my messy clothes in my closet! this is fabric i had designed junior year in print class, hand screen printed by yours truly. :)

my work space, my painting, my fabric....my closet :)

i also made a test batch of soap tonight! i decided for christmas to make everyone handmade soap. every year i make people gifts for the holidays, however this year i am broke even more and decided to make a big gift and give a little of it to everyone i care enough to share it with. this year i decided to make handmade soap. it has been a "quite" passion of mine for years, and it something i find really fascinating and enjoyable. i got my supplies in the mail today so i made a test batch with ingredients i had ready...

Eucalyptus + Clove+Coffee Soap

since i do not have the luxury of spending time with hand processed soaps from scratch (which i have done before and is quite a process) i decided to just got with microwavable soap bases :\ i know i know, not the most ideal, but they do the trick. it was super easy and only took me about 15 minutes tops! i bought shea butter and goat's milk bases to try and experiment with.

combine equal parts of shea butter + goat's milk base. 

microwave until fully melted (for the amount i used, about 3-4 mins)

add desired amount of avocado oil, ground cloves, eucalyptus essential oil and hazelnut ground coffee

stir and pour into mold

let sit for about an hour or less depending on how much

remove from mold and cut

 soap!

it smells like oatmeal surprisingly....

the team at work will be happy to be my first testers i'm sure!

that wraps it up for monday of my awesome birthday week. i'd say it was pretty successful, wouldn't you?

Thread Love: 365 Lucky Days

i was searching through my daily dose of blogs and i stumbled upon A Beautiful Mess newest post which featured 365 Lucky Days, a creative project by Lucky Jackson an embroidery artist, to create an embroidery piece everyday for a year. she stitched the owner of a beautiful mess, elsie along with other bloggers, experiences, famous people, etc. i love that each week she does a theme, one of my favorite being "i think i love you but i'm a preteen and my mom says it's just hormones," which holds the likeness of a matt dillon, rob lowe, charlie sheen, and emilio estavez along with some others. here are a few amazing examples of her work.

amy sedaris 

Miss Modish

Miss James of Bleubird Vintage