how to: eradicate cochineal

I love our prickly pear because it's an incredibly low maintenance plant to have here in Texas. It's fine using the occasional rainstorm as sustenance and gets plenty of sunshine sitting in a pot in the front yard.

The problem it does have from time to time is with cochineal. Cochineal is a bug that feast on the pads of prickly pears, and when the bugs cluster together they create a white, goat-cheese-esque appearance. The front of the prickly pear wasn't too bad... but check out the back...



While cochineal do have a beneficial side - they were used to make red dye for hundreds of years - they're not something the average gardener really wants on their cacti. Eradicating them is as simple as a strong spray of water and a bit of dish soap.



Spray off the cochineal with a steady stream from the hose, and then follow up with some soapy water - use a couple swigs of non-fragrant dish soap mixed a spray bottle of water.



Alllllll better! And just a tip... if you've got a black thumb like me, consider a prickly pear! Even I haven't killed it yet.

Google Reader Round Up: June 27, 2010

Sailor's Knot paperweight from Design*sponge

♥ Craft shows you how to turn an old aluminum can into a flower pot. Personally, I think if you find a can with a cool design on the front (enchilada flowers, anyone?) you could even keep in intact.

♥ Twigs get a chic hand wrapped makeover.

♥ When I was little, I would turn our foosball table into a fort for days on end. This amazing crochet blanket tent from artist Timothy Karpinkski brought me right back there.

♥ Tips on making cold brew coffee.

♥ I love this diy sailor's knot paperweight/doorstop. So cute! I've never done much knotting aside from friendship bracelets though... so I'm thinking it might be pretty difficult.

♥ Robin from A Chow Life gives her amazing frittata recipe. I love that she shares personal stories along with her recipes... it really adds an extra something to an already fantastic foodie blog.

♥ This mid century modern house makeover is so awesome. Check out the before photos if you really want to be amazed.

♥ I don't have a kindle or any sort of e-reader, but that doesn't mean I don't love the kindle notebook created by Moleskine. They should make one for iPads, don't you think? I'm surprised Moleskine hasn't made that Mac-Moleskine connection yet.

♥ Would you buy back your stuff when push came to shove? A great read for those looking to unclutter their space.

♥ I pretty much want everything featured in the Under $100 Picnic Roundup on Design*Sponge.

♥ Speaking of picnics... not only is this picnic bowl cover strap from Maya*Made super clever, it's also made from (wait for it) an old gingham shirt!!! I love it!!! Via Craft.

What about you? Any favorite links this week?

food porn: foreign & domestic

This episode of "Food Porn from Pommes Frites" is brought to you by Foreign & Domestic. This is the episode in which I knowingly became one of those people to bring you these delicious photos. I was quick with my camera and I think I only slightly mortified Tom by snapping all these pictures of my food... but when food is this pretty (and yes, it's tasty too) how can I not?

We'd been dying to try out Foreign & Domestic, which is located in the North Loop neighborhood, since we first saw the construction going up. Although I'm told it originated as a gas station, I've known this particular place as an awesome vintage store and then a skate shop, It's a pretty small space, so I was anxious to see how they'd fit a kitchen and tables and chairs and wait staff and oh yes, patrons, inside.

The solution? An open kitchen lined with bar seating and tons of little tables. I probably wouldn't recommend bringing a huge party here, but with just two or four people it's perfect. Usually, there's a line out the door but we (just two) were whisked right in.



The menu consists of straight from the farm-or-farmer's-market ingredients and vegetarians beware: although they do have a few veg options (tofu, popovers, etc), it's really all about the meat here.





We started with fried green tomatoes and gruyere popovers. I still can't believe we didn't get "That Beautiful Ass" on name alone.




For dinner, I had crispy chicken thighs (the creamed corn + green beans that came with it were awesome too) and Tom had something called "The Ripper" - the main portion of which was bacon wrapped sausage.


As if that wasn't enough meat, we also had chocolate covered bacon, for dessert, that came with a shot glass of bacon infused root beer, and super fluffy and sweet pork rinds. For me, the chocolate covered bacon was a little too much... I'm not a huge sweets person, it was more of a "I have to try that" situation.

Before I start sounding too much like a Yelp review here, let me just say that it was overall an awesome experience... and I'm excited both to see what they have to offer from season-to-season and that restaurants of this caliber are making their way up to my 'hood. They've managed to strike an intricate balance of atmosphere (that includes well designed menus and signage and super chic decor) and back it up with simple and thoughtfully prepared eats.

getting crafty with etsy austin

To celebrate Etsy's 5th birthday last Friday, the ladies of Etsy Austin put together a craft party. It was super fun and involved tons of make-and-take projects like button making with The Wondercraft, screen printing with Etsy Austin's new Yudu machine, and making shrinky dink key chains and magnets.

I had a blast hanging out with some of my favorite ladies, and also getting to meet some people IRL (IN REAL LIFE!!), including my twitter coworker AJ.


Action at the shrinky dink table.


Here's AJ's pre-shrunk shrinky dink - it's a drawing of the adorable huggles she makes.


I made a couple shrinky dinks myself including a heart keychain and a dog tag for Max.









This is the lovely Debbie Carroll, who manned the yudu machine. We had two screens on hand that people could screen print onto a tote or tee - one that said "I got crafty with Etsy Austin" and another that said "Etsy is Cool" and had an icecream cone with a ball of yarn in lieu of ice cream. The latter, which I sadly did not get a picture of, was included in Etsy's donated box of goodies and was made by Etsy Austin's own Craft Chi. Represent!



What about you... did you do anything for Etsy's birthday?

Google Reader Round Up: June 20, 2010

Jam Jar lights from Craft Zine

I know I usually post GRR on Fridays, but I figured better late than never! Here are some of my starred items from Google Reader this week.

♥ From the pages of Craft Volume 10, the Craft blog brought you this fantastic flash back - jam jar lanterns!

♥ I love the industrial look of these iron pipe lamps.

♥ Via Craft Zine, how to make a cookie cutter from an old tin can.

♥ My friend Beth gives some tips on making bouquets from your own garden.

♥ Organizing your jewelry using an ikea ice tray (I love this particular ice tray, too - makes the most adorable heart shaped cubes that look great in lemonade).

♥ Also from Ikea Hacker, how to make a laptop riser for watching movies and tv in bed!

♥ Wii gets crafty with Kirby's Epic Yarn.

♥ An awesome way to send cake in the mail from Post Grad Haircut.

♥ Tiny Choices wrote this article about cute girls on bikes.

♥ Our ceiling fans are in full effect now, but they're nowhere near as stylish as the ceiling fans in this Design*Sponge round up.

♥ A decomposition notebook, made from 100% recycled materials, with an awesome woodgrain cover to boot.

♥ A very useful blog about hiring interns from Design*Sponge's Biz Ladies series. I'm thinking of hiring an intern myself... so it was definitely a good read.

Did you have any favorite links this week?

diy: bridal shower favors & prizes

To finish up my bridal shower posting, here's what the Matron of honor and I made for the favors and prizes.



Lauren made these fantastic hand soaps that were wrapped in a hand stamped kraft paper box. You can't really see it in the pictures, but the soaps are actually a lovely iridescent shade and they smell awesome (green tea and ginger, I believe).




We also did a few shower games, so I made some soy candles in mason jars to give away to our winners. I added a little tag that said "Heather <3 James" to make it extra special.




And just because I wanted to share them, here are some random photos from my trip...



We picked up cheese for the shower from the Bedford Cheese Shop, which I love because instead of stuffy explanations, they describe their cheese as "awesome" and name it after Lady Gaga and the like.




Not to mention their cheese is delicious.

We got lunch one day at Five Leaves in Greenpoint, and I had this amaaaaazing drink called the "Southern Belle" - sweet tea vodka, lemon and simple syrup, mint and sparkling white wine.





That sweet tea vodka is all the rage right now; I think it's best with some lemonade - a sort of alcoholic Arnold Palmer. Have you tried it?

hollow books on film: Oz

It's a known fact I really get a kick out of seeing hollow books on TV and in movies. There's a rush of excitement that reminds me of why I love book safes in the first place... the magic and humor and cleverness behind it all. There was a hollow book in the first ten minutes of MacGruber, and I was so excited by it that I totally missed what happened in the following ten minutes, poking Tom going "did you see that hollow book?? that was awesome! there was a bomb detonator in it!!"

I've been wanting to start a series on my blog about hollow books on film, and after seeing one on Oz the other night (we're watching the whole series via Netflix) I snapped some pix to begin...



This one was made by the character Ryan O'Riley... it was an old bible and he carved it so he could get another character to smuggle drugs in it from the hospital wing. Classic! You can see he's kept the pages loose here... because, well, they don't have glue in prison! Or at least not glue you can use to hold together the pages of your book safe.

Obviously the most classic book safe from a prison movie would have to be the one in Shawshank Redemption. Will hopefully get some pics of that, too, as I continue this journey of hollow books on film.

diy: bridal shower invites

Before I get into the Bridal Shower invitation DIY, I'd like to note that this is my 300th post! And in the hubbub of things, I totally blew past by 3-year blog-iversary. I started this blog unofficially back in June '07, while I was an intern at Adorn magazine. Now, I say unofficially because I actually started this blog in early '07. However, in June of '07 I accidentally deleted all my content and hard to start over. Classic. So Happy Anniversary, blog!




Here are the Bridal Shower invitations that I made! I wanted to have a mixture of different fonts and sizes, but since I have very rudimentary design skills, I achieved this by using fonts downloaded for free from da font (the fonts are Champagne & Limousines, Old Script, and Rosewood Std Regular) and playing around quite a bit on OpenOffice (same as Word). Using a pack of A2 cards that had been cut in half, I printed out the design and then fancied it up a bit.





I used a Martha Stewart punch to add a lacy edge to all the invites, which I was absolutely pleased with. However, this DIY comes with a warning! After making about 35 invitations, my hand was completely cramped up and had pins-and-needles in it for a couple days. I also broke the punch. Hah!




The invitations were mailed in a simple kraft paper envelope (I flipped the color code for the Bachelorette invites, as you can see in the previous post).

diy: bachelorette party invites

Here are the promised bachelorette party invites! We spent most of the night at mad46, which is the rooftop lounge at the Roosevelt Hotel located in the heart of Manhattan. Inspired by the skyline views they offered on their site, I whipped up these simple and classy bachelorette party invites.



I wanted them to reflect the mood of the evening... there were definitely no screaming girls, tiaras or penises at this bachelorette party! But there definitely was a fascinator hair piece. More on that later.




I knew it was a little risky, making invites with the NYC skyline on them and sending them to a bunch of New Yorkers (heaven forbid they say something like "she's been living in TX too long", my ego may never recover), but everyone really seemed to like them!



To create these, I purchased two 50-pack of blank envelopes and cards - one in an ivory color and one in kraft paper. I cut the cards in half and rounded the corners, then designed a simple invite on OpenOffice. The fonts were downloaded for free from da font, and I also snagged the skyline image online (although I edited a little with my photo editing software).

It was a blast hanging with my ladies, but one of the highlights that sticks out in my mind, probably the only time we got all "hayy! bachelorette partay!!!", was when they started playing a mix-up of Miley Cyrus's Party in the USA. It's embarassing, but I cannot help singing along to that song. And apparently neither could anyone else in our little group, except for my friend Tori who is pictured here shutting me up by clasping her hand firmly over my mouth.



Heather (the bride!) is in the peach dress, with the aforementioned fascinator piece that I made for her.

Tomorrow I'll post the Bridal Shower invites. xo!

back to life, back to reality

First off, I'd like to welcome any new readers! So happy to have you! Second off, I'd like to say "I did it!!!" All of the orders placed during the featured seller time have been shipped, and some of them have even arrived already. USPS really blows my mind sometimes. I worked like a maniac from the wee hours until 2 am every night to pull it off, and after sleeping a solid 10 hours two nights in a row, I'm finally feeling like myself again. I don't normally sleep ten hours, but sometimes it's gotta be done!

Once I've had time to digest it all and clean up the label backings from the work room floor, I'll post a blog about my experience... but for right now, I'm going to offer you some "lite reading" in the form of a house make over. Specifically...ours.

We live in a teensy house in Austin that we affectionately call "the ugly house". Why? Take a look...



Unfortunately, this house is not ugly enough to fall into the "so-ugly-it's-cute" category, but the rent was cheap enough that we were willing to overlook its ramshackle wood shutters and lack of landscaping. On the plus side, there's a huge backyard (even by Austin standards) that we've outfitted with a garden, patio area, hammock and grill zone.

My parents visited recently, so we thought it was high time we gave our little house a make over. See, our landlord has been promising since we moved in to paint the house, but to no avail. When you live in a rented house, you don't want to put too much money into it... it's not really an investment for you after all, right? But we decided the quickest and cheapest way to remedy this was paint the shutters with some complementary stripes.




We were lucky to already own the white paint, and the green paint was picked up for $1 (!!!) at the Home Depot. Apparently, they sell the cast offs for dirt cheap when they aren't the right shade. It was so close to matching our green trim, that we just had to get it.

Now here's an "after" shot of our house... I know the lawn is a little unruly, but it just rained and we haven't had time to get out there and mow it.



We also added some flower boxes and some flower beds in the front, with cute cottage-style trim. We have rosemary and lavender growing in the front patches. Rosemary grows like crazy here in TX, so in no time they'll be full grown plants.





I think it really gives our house a cute cottage vibe, no? It's amazing what a difference a dollar makes.