Ridiculous sleepy kitty and sneak peeks

This guy here, he's ridiculous. Seriously. The cuteness, I can't handle it! He's notoriously hard to photograph with his black fur and ninja-like moves, so I had to get all art-photo-kid with this photo of him.  He's totally knocked out and you'll have to trust me on his cuteness.  Zzzzz :)

I'm in painting mode lately, working on twelve new pieces for my 2011 calendar. I'm super-excited and having fun with them!  I'll share peeks!

Vamos!

Happy Friday!  I've had travel on the brain lately, so I was looking back over some sketches that I did while I was in Peru. Trying to "recapture the moment" or something like that!  I was inspired a whole lot there by all the bright colors and fun patterns, and it got me thinking about other inspiring places that I would want to visit in the future.

I'm all about going to India, and their BEAUTIFUL spice markets. I don't even care what the spices are, they are just so pretty to look at!

(image from Matthieu Photography) 

Brazil's Carnival is a must-go trip someday. Check out this craaaaazy float from from the School of Samba!

(image from here)

And I think Tokyo is probably the next big trip that I want to take in the next few years. Bring on the sensory overload!

(image from starrex on flickr)

Where do you want to go?? Show me pictures!

County Fair!

So Nik and I went to the county fair while we were in PA visiting his parents, this past weekend. I haven't been to a county fair in over a decade, so it was a pretty amusing and kinda mind-blowing experience. Here's to America, home of the deep-fried oreos and beer pong booths?? Haha! Ohhh, we were highly amused. 

Milk-mustachioed lady:

Break a beer bottle and win a crappy prize!

Fair food vendors have gotten more inventive over the years!

Potatoe! Hahaha

Carmel! hahahaha

Win a beer funnel?

Don't forget to pick up a souvenier!

Jesus looking for a cell phone signal??

You can't forget the demolition derby!

Nik actually ate these (BARF).

New notecards in the shop!

Hello! Happy Monday!  It's back to work time, after a lovely long weekend at Nik's parent's house. It's so nice to get out of the city from time to time! 

I have had a whole bunch of new notecards made up for my Etsy shop for awhile now and I'm just getting around to updating. I basically put everything on hold until my website was finished and lets just say that all work and no play makes me sad. I'm so excited to go back to other fun projects that I have had on the back burner the last month or so. So yes, hello new notecards!

Web Re-design!

I've been away for awhile! I do have a reason though! I have been busting a move, working on redesigning my website (um, this has been an embarrassingly long-time-coming!) Hoorah, I'm finally done! I'm sooo not a web designer and have the utmost respect for people that do have the patience and capacity to wrap their heads around it. Seriously! Anyways, I did learn some new things, so that was good, and I'm pretty happy with how it came out. Some things I want to tweak, but jeez I just wanted to be done already! Hope you like it! I have some more new things to show you this week also!

Daring Cooks-July Challenge-Make your own Nut butters

The July 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge was hosted by Margie of More Please and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make their own nut butter from scratch, and use the nut butter in a recipe. Their sources include Better with Nut Butter by Cooking Light Magazine, Asian Noodles by Nina Simonds, and Food Network online.

Woo, I was excited about this past month's challenge, since I have actually NEVER made my own nut butter before! And it's so simple and DELICIOUS! I chose to make cashew butter, since that is usually the only nut I have on stock, and whirled them around in the vitamix with a touch of olive oil and a dash of sea salt. Holy yum! We were supposed to make one of the recipes given, but I just picked one to be inspired by (and none of the choices given were vegan anyways). Since I have a gazillion veggies in my fridge, I chose to make a raw, asian-inspired salad. The original called for noodles, and I decided to make raw zucchini noodles instead. Now, I have done this before, but made the mistake of not letting the zucchini sweat out some of the water it contains, and I was left with a watery salad. This time, I was prepared! I sliced them into skinny strips and set them in the colander with a bit of sea salt sprinkled on them for about an hour. It was amazing how much the texture had changed after an hour. I rinsed the salt off and dried the "noodles" with a towel and they were good to go! Cut up any veggies you have laying around and mix in the dressing. This dressing was really simple, but bold in its nut butter awesomeness.

Cashew dressing
2 TBS Raw Cashew butter
1 TBS Apple Cider Vinegar
1 TBS Shoyu
1 TBS Olive Oil
1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 clove garlic
salt and pepper to taste

Mix together briskly with a fork and you're good to go!

I got ambitious and made a second dish, basically taking the salad and putting them into spring rolls and searing them. I love spring rolls!

New 'lil smart friend!

Hey there! Happy Friday!

I have a new print in the shop today, a cute 'lil smarty-pants! I have been trying to think of more boy-friendly prints. It's harder than you think! I've worked for 5 years designing for girls and I have all sisters! More robots?? Anyways, I think he's super-cute. :)

Happy weekend ahead!
xoxo
Michelle

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of july USA-ers! I'm having a lazy stay-in kind of 4th of july. I guess I celebrated last night anyways, at a friend's BBQ (TOTALLY jealous of her backyard.) Also, the stars are aligned I guess, because I got so many blueberries and cherries in my CSA yesterday that I HAD to make some red, white, and blue food. :)

I made an army of mini cupcakes to bring to the BBQ last night, vanilla with raspberry jam, a dab of icing, and a blueberry to top. Yummers! This morning, you KNOW I was busting out the blueberry pancakes right??

Happy long-weekend friends!