On Sundays, I drive about 45 minutes north to spend time with my family. We go to church, eat a relaxed lunch at our favorite Chinese restraunt, and hang out while I do laundry. It's especially nice as they have a large screen TV, and we rent a lot of movies.

But our new hobby (and one that even Mr. Bunny Slippers has joined in on once) is looking at model homes. My parents have been wanting to remodel their house for awhile, so they go under the pretense of looking for decorating ideas. But I've always loved open houses and house hunting even when it was just for pretend. When I was little, we used to go on walks as a family and I would beg and plead to go into any open house we came across. I would march straight to the master suite, and announce "this is going to be MY room." Now, it's more of a drag to really look for a house as everything is still SO over priced in Los Angeles. This past weekend, I saw some sad $1.6MM houses with rather scary bathrooms that hadn't been redone since the 60's. (And no, of course that isn't in my price range.)

But there is something about the model homes with their uniform exteriors, shiny new floors and appliances, and postage stamp backyards that I find really enjoyable. I even enjoy the fake family pictures they put on the mantles. And they always set up the most divine vignettes for reading. It's like an invitation to use your imagination.

There's also a certain fun to choosing your favorite model and features. "Heavens no, I'll have to take the 'Tuscany' model - I simply can't deal with that funny shaped balcony on the 'Palo Verdes.'" "We'll need to get the tile upgrades. This won't do at all." I could do this every weekend. And I don't ever feel sad that I can't really live there... there's usually something weird about the community (bad location, houses too close together, tiny yards) that makes it not entirely ideal. It comes just close enough to set the stage for some first class daydreaming.

Posted by The Little Happy Ones at 08:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Last week, as I was completely freaking out over my "to do" list, I had a sudden inexplicable urge to do some paint by numbers. A couple of people have mentioned them lately so I think the idea has been simmering for a little while:

Yarnstorm talks about how embroidery can be similar to paint by numbers. And Blair at Wise Craft found a completed paint by numbers painting for her house.

I think the idea of creating something without having to really think about it appeals to me at the moment. I have such a limited amount of time to actually create things, and millions of hours where I can think about what I'd like to make. By the time I actually have supplies and free time in front of me, I end up putting a lot of pressure on myself. After this next round of commitments, I'd like to take some time to do some "selfish sewing" and maybe some more relaxed projects. Of course, if I order a kit, I'll be completely past this idea and ready to –I don't know- design my own patterns or something. (Ok, not really. That will still be completely beyond me.)

This place has quite a collection. I have a certain fondness for "Balloon Glow" on page two. Anyone tried one of these lately? Or what about "Twilight Cottage?" I've spent the past couple of weekends looking at model homes (just for fun – more on that later), and I think I have houses on the brain. I don't know if I could seriously hang either one of these on my wall, but they look like they'd be fun to do.

If anyone's in the market for some upscale (read: pricey) paint by numbers. There are some flower prints over here at Weego Home.

Posted by The Little Happy Ones at 08:14 AM | Permalink

Squeaking in just under the deadline was my BT3 package for Moki. I had a blast reading Moki's blog and getting to know her (and her many, many hobbies). She is an incredibly talented and prolific blogger. I highly recommend reading through her archives to see some of her wonderful ideas and tutorials.

Here is the description of the bunny I made that I included in her package:

I discovered in doing Back-Tack III that I have a somewhat rebellious nature.

This bunny and his squashy little sidekick were sewn by hand. I went with a simple color palette, because I think what makes a softie really great is a nice squishy texture.

The big bunny is more of a sit-on-a-shelf-looking-cute type. Too much exercise and his head gets a little floppy. His little friend in black is a little sturdier and likes to be squeezed.

For the purposes of not getting me kicked out of Back Tack, we're going to pretend that the yellow in the center of the daisies is really a pale green.

I am certainly not going to win any prizes for most creative use of buttons. The eyes were purchased in the button aisle so we're going to go ahead and count those towards my quota. (Who knew I was such a rule bender?)

As you can see from his squashy little sidekick, I did try to use Hillary's Wee Bunny pattern. Alas, I really struggle with patterns that require symmetry. (Note the ears.) So after reading the guidelines four or five times to make sure this was really allowed, I decided to stick with what I know. The pattern is one made somewhat famous by Sewing Stars. It's from a Japanese craft book that was posted on Craftster sometime ago.

There is an embroidered "M" by his tail. Yes, I know it looks more like an "X."

I am a BIG fan of terry cloth and other fuzzy fabrics that hide sketchy stitch-work. I'm not the best hand-sewer so I like to use my own techniques which are, like, totally wrong. Terry cloth is just fuzzy enough that it hides the fact that you skipped stitches and had to back track and such. You just keep stitching away until it seems that the whole thing will stay together. (Moki, I hope you're not reading this. If you are, keep the bunnies away from any pets.) I'm going to stop outing myself now. I should just pretend that I'm a model participant - ha!

On Moki's blog you can see some of the extras I sent (including some goodies from Mitsuwa, the Japanese grocery store). All in all, I'd say Back Tack was a big success (and I hope Moki feels the same way) -- although I won't pretend I wasn't cutting it VERY close there at the end. Very.

It feels so good to look at my To Do list for the week and see some things crossed off the list!

Posted by The Little Happy Ones at 08:29 AM | Permalink

The birthday and the triple chocolate mousse cakes were a success! Unfortunately, the birthday guy had to step in and help me in a couple of places which is certainly not ideal. I think not having a stand alone mixer can make a difference in these recipes since a couple of things needed to happen all at the same time. Any recipe that uses the phrase “meanwhile” more than once is probably above my skill level. However, we had a pretty good time making it, and I finally had a chance to use my sieve. Next time, I’ve promised him that we’ll take a break between rounds of mousse making. We did the milk chocolate and bittersweet mousses back to back, and I was a little bit of a task master there at the end.

I also would like to get bigger pastry bag tips like Martha suggested. I grabbed the All-Purpose Disposable Decorating Bag & Tips Set from Wilton while I was stocking up on extra ramekins. I loved the fact that I could just throw away the pastry bags at the end (my other set is not like that), but the tips still could have been bigger. I ended up using the star tip, and there’s a noticeable ridged pattern in the sides of the mousse cakes.

Everyone was pretty stuffed from dinner, and our favorite waitress brought us extra desserts since it was Mr. Slippers’ birthday. By the time we all got back to our mousse cakes, we could barely move let alone eat another dessert. Everyone stuffed in as many bites as they could handle, and let’s just say there were plenty of left over mousse cakes waiting in the fridge. They really are yummy. The mousses are very creamy and smooth with just the right blend of flavors.

Posted by The Little Happy Ones at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Does anyone else subscribe to this magazine? This is a freebie from Kraft Foods, and yes, sometimes it does read like one big advertisement for Cool Whip. But they also have some clever presentation ideas and recipes. And did you see the part where I mentioned that it was free? I'm not a great cook. When I was a kid, my mom told me that the oven could burn me. Well, I took her very literally and have always had a healthy fear of cooking. I'm pretty good at desserts now. I think the lure of the sweet stuff is enough for me to get over my apprehensions. That and I just adore really cute looking desserts. But with actual cooking, I only know how to make –oh- maybe five dinners. It's kind of odd, but they're all pretty good (except the spaghetti – I mean, it's good, but I can't really call boiling pasta and warming up some Paul Newman's sauce real cooking, can I?)

Anyway, I really enjoy Food and Family because it's very seasonal. They always have a nice one at Christmas with lots of cookie recipes and packaging ideas. Here in Los Angeles, it's hard to remember seasons. Except for a couple of weeks where it's very, very hot, I can completely forget about summer. I'd like to plan ahead and, you know, sit around drinking watermelon juice and making sun tea. I'm a real fanatic for seasonal beverages. Sometimes I'll just drink them year round because they're that good.

Coming soon: pictures of the triple chocolate mousse cakes with details!

Posted by The Little Happy Ones at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Happy Birthday, Mr. Bunny Slippers!

I love you even though you didn't want me to make you a cake.

Posted by The Little Happy Ones at 10:01 AM | Permalink

Well, we’ve had a change in plans. Now, I will definitely be making the triple chocolate mousse cake as we’re going to have a small get together at my apartment on Saturday. Some extra ramekins have been purchased, and I’ve located the never before used parchment paper that’s been sitting in the back of the pantry. Wish me luck! I promise to post pictures no matter what the outcome. I’m pretty bad about editing out all of my less successful cooking/crafting endeavors, so this time I’m going to come clean.

This past weekend, it was unbearably hot in my apartment so we escaped to Ikea. [Have you seen Ikea's Dream Kitchen web-site? I’m not in the market for kitchen cabinets, but this site is really fun to look at.] Ikea never feels like real shopping to me. It's more like being inside an air conditioned adult theme park. And there inside the magic kingdom of Ikea shopping, we found these very cool napkin ring/place card holders.

I love place card holders and have absolutely no reason to own them. I've only had one dinner party in the last 4 years, I believe. And that was only a few months ago, so I will probably need to wait another 4 years to have a second one. Sometimes I'm tempted to whip them out just for me and Mr. Slippers. I've confessed my obsession to him, so I think he'd understand although we both know where to sit. Place card holders are enough to make me want to find more friends and invite them all over to dinner.

To top it all off, earlier this week I stumbled across the Papayalicious site (via Pam Garrison). Look at the amazing enclosure cards! I love these and think they would be perfect for place cards (not sure exactly how big they are). I guess they would be sort of expensive ($2/each) if you were ordering up enough for a large dinner party. I just placed a small order to start. I also love the happy place cards and place card holders at Plum Party. I’ve been slightly obsessed over the squirrel place card holders for a while now.). I'm not going over there to look right now. I can't bear it.

Posted by The Little Happy Ones at 08:54 AM | Permalink

I am a birthday fanatic. I'm not saying I don't occasionally mess up, but typically I'm a pretty big celebrator of other people's birthdays. At least I try to be. I think really hard (perhaps too hard) about gift giving. I have certainly had presents fall flat, but it is not for lack of effort.

I really love birthday themes, and this will sometimes get me into trouble. For my friend Kristen's birthday (I showed a sneak peak of her package here), I went with a Sewing/Irish theme. (I don't recall saying that my themes MAKE SENSE, so just stay calm. "Sewing/Irish" is perfectly legit. In addition to some quilting supplies and pincushion, I sent her these Irish items as we have long been fascinated with Ireland and Irish accents. Ok, truthfully, we love ALL accents. This hilarious Irish Accent breath spray came from Patina.)

With Mr. Bunny Slippers' birthday fast approaching, I am in full scale birthday melt down. I secretly wanted to go with a Pirate theme, but then remembered that he has no real interest in pirates. (Yes, sometimes my themes are purely selfish. I just wanted to put all of the packages in a treasure chest and use treasure map wrapping paper.) He is incredibly challenging to buy for, and I have had to resort to begging for hints. Irritatingly, my dad is like this too. Even when you KNOW what you want to get him, he will undoubtedly want to choose it himself because invariably you will have purchased the wrong size or model or worse yet have gotten the thing at the wrong price.

He is also insisting that he doesn't want a cake which is a huge blow for me as I love to make desserts and really want him to feel celebrated. I had plans this year to attempt a Martha cake (the famous triple chocolate mousse – see more “real life shots” at the Year of Cakes Flickr Pool), but I don't see how I'll have time to make it in secret. And if you're going to spend all day baking an illegal and supremely complicated dessert, you better not do it when the recipient is there muttering about how he didn't want a birthday cake anyway.

And please don't get me started on how totally unfair it is that my mother's birthday coincides with Father's day weekend. Her hints are horrible. She frequently asks for completely dreadful and unselfish presents like a shoe rack or a laundry hamper. As if.

Posted by The Little Happy Ones at 08:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I have been in a frenzy over here trying to make up for my laziness last week. This Saturday is Mr. Bunny Slippers' birthday, and on top of that, I have had to scramble a bit to make sure my Back-Tack project gets to my partner Moki on time. (And while I'm talking about Moki, you should go sign up for her recipe card stamp swap.)

Last Friday, my lovely Back-Tack III package from Ann arrived. I am a little late with my post and pictures, so hopefully she'll forgive me. (There are some great photos on her blog along with her notes on how she made it.) Look at how clever she was with the little bunny cheeks!

The construction is amazing -- there are so many little touches and details which make it special. And the bunny came tucked into this bag with a little window to peer out of... Did you go over to her site and read about how she sewed a rounded soap inside? Ann should win an award for best smelling softie. He smells so good!


[Click on photos to see larger versions...]

She also generously gifted me with a tissue cover, embroidery supplies, and some chocolates which I'm looking forward to trying out (I mean the embroidery, not the chocolates... I already tried out the chocolates.) I’ve been wanting to do embroidery for awhile now; I go over to Yarnstorm's blog and just drool over her work. Ann picked out this wonderful leaf stencil (which if you'll look around just happens to be a favorite motif of mine), a cute set of “days of the week” transfers, and some lovely pink, green, and orange pearl cotton skeins. Thank you Ann!

Posted by The Little Happy Ones at 08:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)