Birthday Adventures

Hello! Nik and I went on a little adventure yesterday, birthday adventures to be exact! We took the tram (!) over to Roosevelt Island, and spent a few hours wandering the island. It's mostly residential with parks, and an abandoned, kinda-spooky old smallpox hospital. Fun! Spring finally showed it's face, so it was nice soaking up some sunshine. 

Nik took me to Hangawi for dinner afterwards, and we splurged for the Emperor's Tasting Menu. Insanity! Course after course came out and it was so fun. It's not a super-fancy place, but they have so many subtle, nice touches to everything and the food was just so PRETTY (and super-delicious!) He, of course, embarrassed me by having the staff come out and sing "happy birthday" to me, complete with a big gong. My face was bright red and the whole restaurant was singing, clapping, and staring. Just wait until his birthday, I say...

Queens

Obligatory selfie on the tram crossing over to the island.

Pretty floating candles outside Hangawi

Pretty chocolate-y things from Lagusta's Luscious that Nik got me. Berry box is ceramic!

Birthday brunch. 

Berfday!

I turn 33 today, even though I still feel like I'm 22 (and prolly still act like it sometimes too!)  It's been a good year so far. Nik and I are getting married in less than a month. All of our family and friends are coming to celebrate with us, and we are getting more excited day by day to see them all. Summer is coming and we're making summertime plans. The future is good my friends!  :)

p.s. Don't forget I'm having a springtime-it's-my-bday sale in my shop! Use coupon code LIFEISGOOD33 at checkout to save 33%

p.p.s. I used the recipe from Chloe's Kitchen for the doughnuts and they were realllllly yummy. Definitely more cake-like than doughnut-like, but I'll look for a yeasted recipe next time. I subbed allspice for nutmeg in the recipe, and used a chocolate-orange bar to make the frosting. They had such a nice citrus-y chocolate taste. 

Sweet Weekend

Dying flowers, that are still pretty. 

 Happy Monday! It was a gorgeous weekend here. We celebrated Nik's birthday on Saturday (actual b-day was on Sunday,) with some friends at a local place. Friends, food, laughs, and the start of Oktoberfest, what more do you need?

Lemon Mousse Pie, for Nik's birthday. mmmm...

Nik also had a little (HUGE) surprise for me on Saturday...we went to the local park to play some games on the ipad in the pretty sunshine, and he gave me this beautiful book that he had made, and asked me to marry him. I said yes, obviously! :D 

The most beautiful book ever! :D

B-day Sale!

This is last minute, but I'm in the party-mood and it's my birthday, so hey, sale time! I may or may not be turning 32 years old, so if you use the coupon code PARTYTIME32, you can get a cool 32% off in my shop today. Sale is only for today, and ends at midnight EST.

WOO!

xo,
Michelle

VeganMoFo Day 03: Lemon Cake!

It's happy cake time! Nik's birthday was last week, and though I would have loved to make him a super rainbow layer cake, he's more of a lemon and vanilla kind of dude.  Delicious though!  I used the vanilla cupcake and lemon buttercream out of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, with lotsa extra added lemon zest and juice. 

Super-happy rainbow cake is for sale here. 

Medium: Watercolor on heavy Arches paper
Size: Approximately 8"x8" (image size is 7"x7")
Will fit in 8"x8" frame! Signed on back.

Note: I am doing a painting-a-day challenge for VeganMoFo, and will be creating a new painting of rescue animals or vegan food throughout the month of October, and placing them for sale. All proceeds (minus shipping) will be donated to For the Animals Sanctuary, because they are a pretty super-great non-profit animal rescue and sanctuary, in Blairstown NJ, and are vegan owned and operated. Feeding, housing, and taking care of these animals costs a lot of money, and as a non-profit organization, they rely entirely on donations. Hopefully (with your help!), I'll be able to make a size-able donation at the end of the month!

Happy B-day Miles and Sweet Summer Days

It was my sweet kittie cat's birthday on the 4th of July. Yep! 4th of July baby!  Miles turned 9 and spent the day celebrating kitty-style (sleeping). Nine years he has been with me...they fly!

I went outside to sketch yesterday afternoon and it was absolutely gorgeous. I need to do that more often, or at least do it while the temperature and heat is still bearable.  Nik and I are going to visit his parents in PA this weekend and I'm pretty excited to get out of the city. A change in scenery always does one good!

Happy B-day to me

ZOMG Lemon Mousse Pie, tester recipe for Isa and Terry.  Seriously, this is the best pie I have ever had.

Hello!  Life is kinda crazy lately, preparing for so many things that are coming up in May and June.  Renegade Austin, in May, and Renegade Brooklyn, in June are heavy on my prep list, so I have been printing, creating, brainstorming, and planning for both of them.  I'm super-psyched to be road-tripping down to Austin, TX from NY with my sweet Mom and two sisters.   It will also be a family reunion of sorts, staying at my two uncle's homes and meeting up with other family members and a cousin I've never met before.  We are going to drive it in two days, staying overnight in Nashville, TN the first night, and we will be gone for about two weeks total.  I've never been to Texas before, so yeah, I'm pretty excited!

I turn 31 today, which has turned into a non-event really.  It's kinda a shame that birthdays turn into no  big deal as a grown up, but I'll prolly bake myself a pie later for some sort of hurrah.  Nik took me out to Blossom last saturday for some amazing early birthday food and wine. He's the best, really!

I mentioned my pattern-making marathon I had going on last week in my last post, and I thought I would show a few of them that I had finished.  I don't really show this side of my work that often, because it is so different, and really isn't my favorite part of what I do. But, nonetheless! I hope a company buys them and turns them into pajamas or something.   This is basically what I used to do at my old day job (which it has been almost a YEAR since I quit! crazy-pants!), and I still do on a freelance basis for design studios.   I could prolly make these in my sleep, hehe.

Beanball-falafel, German b-day dinner, and CAKE.

Beanball dressed up like falafel: made with chickpeas and covered with a dill-yogurt sauce.

It was Nik's b-day today, so I made spätzle and currywurst! Pushing that dough through a colander is a MESS and not really recommended, but it turned out yummy! Currywurst is made from mini-seitan 'o greatness' with lots of spicy spices in it.

Lemon-Macadamia cupcakes from VCTOTW, turned into a cake. Super-yum!

It's all gonna break

I forgot to post this earlier in the week, but I went to Dr. Sketchy's last saturday, for the first time in a few months (busy!). The theme this time was Absinthe, or The green Fairy. It was sponsored by Le Tourment Vert, an absinthe company. Anyways, it was a fun session. I won one of the contests (incorporate Moulin Rouge or the style of Toulouse Lautrec, into your drawing) and won a bottle of absinthe.


My little sister turns 16 this week! Gah! I got her some super-fun presents and sent them to her. I found this awesome pencil case at this japanese bookstore in midtown. So darn cute! Super-cute panda stickers, an origami booklet with pretty paper, and a poo/pee notepad were also found there. I also got her a necklace with sprinkles encased in resin from a fabulous Etsy artist, Stoopidgirl And finally, I painted her some falling raindrops on a blank sketchbook pad (I'm probably going to be making some more of these for my shop).











Yesterday was the Siren Music Festival at Coney Island. A friend and I got there in the late afternoon, with enough time to catch the last three songs of Parts and Labor. D'oh. I missed These are Powers also. We both weren't too interested in any of the other bands until later that evening, so we decided to just spend the day laying out on the beach. So great! We soaked ourselves under the palm tree sprinkler (my friend braved the ocean...) and then layed on a blanket and chatted the rest of the afternoon. It felt SO nice. It was a disgustingly hot day out, but we were cool the whole time, with the nice breeze coming off the ocean. We went and listened (couldn't really see) Islands in the evening and then made our way over to the main event, Broken Social Scene. It was impossible to find a good space in the crowd to see the band, so we decided to go over on the sidelines, where you could actually see the band. Security wasn't really into people standing on the sidelines and kept telling us we had to keep walking, so we ended up with a small cluster of other people on the side of the stage, where they let us stand. It was kinda like we were backstage, ha. Amazing show; lots of my favorite songs were played, and it was hilarious to watch families coming in from a day on the beach and rocking out, even if they didn't know who they were. The little kids were the funniest, dancing all over the place. The sun really drained me and I slept amazingly well last night.





And finally, it was a blueberry pancake breakfast kind of day today. Yum!

Happy Birthday Miles! (and nation)

Happy Birthday today to Miles!! He turns SIX. Aww, my little boy is growing up! *sniff* And his claws come out when he's happy (I'm petting him while taking the picture). Cuuuuute.


Gallery-hopping yesterday was awesome. Super-humid outside, but I walked over to Chelsea after work and went straight to the Philip Pearlstein exhibit to be blown away, just the way I had anticipated. I popped in a few more galleries that caught my eye walking by and happened upon some other awesome works. Scott King had some fluorescent printed posters and wall paintings in the Bortolami gallery on W. 25th st., called "The Trial Continues." I inconspicuously tried to snap a few photos. Ha, I was aiming while not looking, as the room is small and the people working there were eyeing me.




I happened upon a group show that had this painting (painted on a plastic fence! with some super-plastic-like paint) that I really was taken by. I thought I grabbed a flier with the artist's name on it, but I didn't. d'oh.


Buckminster Fuller exhibit! It was geo-tastic!


I curated another treasury yesterday for the Vegan Etsy team that I belong to. Check it out here for the next few days (and this image here for posterity).

Happy 4th everyone. I have a bowl of cherries and pancakes and my doodles to work on all day. I love holidays! I might or might not watch the Macy's display tonight. Rain looks imminent anyways...