Craft and Bake

I know I've stated it in the past but~craft nights are really my favorite kind of nights. Crafting + wine + good food = perfection. With hand ground cornmeal and ingredients already in my pantry I decided to make zaletti-Italian cornmeal cookies.When I was in NY last month, I saw Mario Batali on the streets in soho and spoke very elementary Italian with him. I found the recipe for this Venetian cookie on his website.

Ingredients

• 3 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup sugar, plus a little more for sprinkling
• 3/4 cup cornmeal
• 3/4 cup tipo 00 flour or cake flour
• 1 lemon, zested
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch salt
• 1/4 cup butter, melted and kept hot
• 1/4 cup raisins, rehydrated in warm red wine
• Serving suggestion: wine for dipping or fruit jam
  

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine the yolks and sugar and whisk well until the mixture is yellow and creamy, about 1 minute.

In a separate bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, lemon zest, baking powder, and salt and mix well. Briefly stir in the butter, then fold in the egg yolk mixture and raisins until the dough just comes together. Put the dough out onto a floured board briefly knead to form a rectangle, do not overwork the dough or it will get tough. Roll the dough out to 1/4-inch thick and cut it into 2-inch diamonds. Butter a cookie sheet and place the cookies on the sheet. Bake for 12 minutes, or until golden brown and firm. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Crafting Nights

Crafting nights are the best nights. A successful crafting session puts me in the best mood.

Moleskine! Almost complete

The Filipino Paper Lady

Everyday when I walk out of my apartment, I pass a variety of small artisan shops. The flower shop, handmade paper store, fabric store, and small puppet store. Two days ago I walked into the handmade paper store and met the owner. She told me of how only 20 years ago Perugia was full of craftspeople. It was a town swarming with artists. She is closing her store in December, this town is rapidly changing. 

Crafting a Cloud

Wow have my posts been lacking in craft lately. This is my rendition of an idea I got from Camilla Engman's room. Of course I felt compelled to use doilies and old book pages to construct mine.

My cloud.

Camilla's cloud.

Mothers Day Gift

Happy mothers day to all whom it may apply. My mom is one of my best friends so naturally I crafted her her gift.

I hope everyone enjoyed the beautiful day (:

Design culture

Once again I'm awake and resort to crafting, this time for my design culture in context class. I get to do something I enjoy, but I also get a grade for it. Isn't this what my entire semester was supposed to be like? The assignment was to create a book that showed your thought process on what "An expanding picture of design in context" was. I'll post the final product once the book is complete. 

Also, I'm going to start selling switch plates on etsy. Do you think it's a good idea?

First Weekend in April

I am incredibly excited for this weekend. Tonight is studio collective and first friday! It's also my sister's sweet sixteen, she's the girl on the swing in the post below, so she's spending the weekend with me. I'm going to expose her to the Raleigh art scene and well as design parties.  I have a postcard up in 

a gallery for auction and my flower chair from studio is up. It's gonna be good...

Michaela's packaged gifts

Brute model of my "Linear" flower chair made of wire and string

What a sleepless night will bring you

Unable to sleep, I begin to craft...

and play with poladroid. Kind of a cheesy name but I enjoy the effects.

First Sale

I sold a vintage cameo I listed on etsy. Just thought I'd share the packaging and card.

Oh craft

I had a pretty incredible Friday night that consisted of crafting into the wee hours of the night, conversations with old friends,  and Emiliana Torrini.

This morning I attended the Downtown Market craft show in Raleigh.. I came out of it with some treasures...

Business Card

So last night I couldn't sleep and decided to, instead of wasting my time lying in bed, create my "business card". 

I plan on photo-transferring it onto handmade paper but that's still to come...

My Etsy Store!

After much crafting and preparation, I finally set up my Etsy store, something I've been meaning to do for months now. My need for funds became very crucial. 

Gift Wrapping

This past Sunday was my friend Amanda's birthday, (the friend I craft with), so naturally I seized the opportunity to avoid studio work and do some handmade work of my own. I made her envelope out of old book pages and wrapped her present (vintage novels with beautiful covers) with an old bag. I embellished it with some stamps and tags from clothing. Happy Birthday!

Evening for Tea

Yesterday was beautiful. After doing homework in the daytime, I had an incredible evening filled with crafting. Its perfection was only mirrored by the delicious pot of white blueberry peach tea I shared with a friend. Crafting tea and friendship go hand in hand. 

This is a metal piece I was given for free from Hello Betty, a vintage store in downtown Winston Salem.

I hope this doesn't look to sloppy, I've never worked with wire before but I'm pretty satisfied with the result.

Just a few examples of what I accomplished yesterday

Crafting this season

Since I quit my little part time ice cream scooping job in the fall, I've been searching for ways to pay off all the "oh it's just one cup of coffee's" I've had. Because time doesn't allow for a scheduled job, my friend suggested turning my crafts into an Etsy store. I spent a good majority of my break crafting in the evenings. Here is a bit of what I came up with...

Vintage lace made into earrings..

A necklace made from the same lace and a metal piece I found at the Raleigh flea market..

This one's a leaf from an earring who lost its mate and some gel-medium-ed shakespeare pages..

Some dove barrettes..

Just a collection of my both made and found jewelry

 

Here are a few things I picked up at the flea market a couple weekends ago, soon to be turned into jewelry...