Idea Factory: Cigar Box Fantastic

Here's one for all you cigar lovers out there. No?

Well I'm in love with a cigar lover so I've been gifted a whole bunch of cigar boxes though in truth, I've been using cigar boxes for a long time. In fact, I can remember finding a pile of empty wooden boxes for sale at a cigar shop when I was in high school. I knew I was on to something. I loved them instantly! You can head down to your local cig shop and offer to take the boxes off their hands though shop owners will usually ask for a bit of money for them. This sucks, since they probably made a ton of money on the cigars anyways, so make sure you don't pay more for $10 for one.

Look for ones with hinges, colourful stickers holding them together, or pristine ones with brand labels burned into the wood. Take off the 'surgeon general warning stickers (they're ugly) and stuff them love letters, old photos, mementos, cash, bobbles, craft supplies, and for 'wrapping' gifts. They look great as decoration when stacked in piles too. There are so many uses for these lovely boxes!
Right now I'm dreaming of converting a stack into a box to be mounted on the back of Mark's bike. eek!

Why not use one as a docking station for your gizmos? I cut a hole in the back corner of one of mine and shoved all my cords though it. Now I've got a docking station that I can close when it's not in use.

Wintery Muffins

As of today it's been raining about two days straight. Our little culvert was redirected by our neighbour because the water pouring out was starting to pool in his garage. It comes down from across the street and through our carport and breezeway and then drains through some crush we have and out onto our lawn. So much water. At that moment I really wished we had a multi-tiered rain barrel collecting system. Last night when we came home I could hear our little Kitsuksis Creek rushing like a River. So much water. And it makes it a little inhospitable to go outside. We stay inside watching Miyazaki movies, drinking cup after cup of tea and unpacking (we moved! pictures soon!), craving breakfast when a bowl of cereal just won't do.

I've had the rebar modern food cookbook for a decade and while it's my go-to cookbook for everything, I'm constantly finding recipes I haven't yet tried (and then they knock my socks off and I wonder why I haven't been making them for the past 10 years). These pumpkin muffins are super moist, a little crumbly with the vegan change, and so good and full of delicious flavour and that warm, stick to your ribs feeling that you hope to find on rainy days.

PUMPKIN MILLET MUFFINS
adapted from the rebar modern food cookbook


Ingredients
Egg replacer for 2 eggs
1/2 cup of olive oil
1 cup almond milk
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup milet
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1 cup unbleached flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg or cloves or allspice

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Combine almond milk and vinegar in a small bowl and set aside for 5 minutes. Grease a large muffin pan (makes approx 15 muffins) and line with muffin cups if you like. Set aside. Prepare egg replacer as directed.
2. Combine egg replacer, almond milk, sugar, oil, and pumpkin in a large bowl and mix together, making sure there are no lumps of brown sugar. Stir in the oats. Toast millet in a hot dry skillet until lightly browned and fragrant. Toast the pumpkin seeds and add the millet and the seeds to the bowl. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, sift the dry ingredients together. Add the dry mix to the wet mix and gently stir to combine. Do not overmix, or the muffins will be dry and tough.
4. Fill the muffin cups generously with batter. Sprinkle tops with pumpkin seeds and bake for 25-30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Enjoy! (Yum).

Friday Faves: Docking Stations

I love these! I just made one out of a Cigar box and I love it! Here are my favorite docking stations from etsy for you to enjoy. I think they would mostly be easy to make, as long as you had the tools. Tutorials are probably not necessary for the crafty anyways. What would you make into a docking station?

 indeed.

not kidding! 

 everyone loves this!

got wood? 

Community: Living Life (and loving it!)

Recently I picked up some contract work for a community project working with youth. Sadly, not a 'youth' anymore, I've been brought on board of this project as an 'Adult Ally'; after joining the project late, I've been asked to support a group of youth (under 30) volunteers in putting on a film festival in Prince George. Northern youth (aged 13-30) have been asked to submit films about health and comments on 'Living Life Fully', and we are holding an evening full of free food and we watch the videos. Sounds great, right?
What I'm doing is be supporting, empowering, and engaging youth to make healthier choices in their lives in order to 'Live Life Fully'. As far as the work itself, there are a  few layers to this project that make it really interesting. So the work I'm really doing is supporting the youth volunteers to bring out youth to make videos to bring out youth who like to watch movies so we can all get together and talk about youth perspectives on health. I know that the film fest (video night) will be great, everyone is on board and working hard to make sure it is a success. I love this kind of work because it ends in a big party, and that's great psychologically most of the learning and teaching happens near the end where everyone is freaking out because it doesn't seem like anything is working and then, all of a sudden, there is a moment of calm where everyone says 'fuck it, it's going to be great' and then the event is a success. The debrief is super fun too, where everyone shares how much they werent sure we could pull it off, and everyone is super pumped that we pulled it off! Yay! I can't wait for that moment. eee! I love communtiy engagement work because it doesn't really feel like work to me, sure I work hard on it, but really it's fun being challenged and thinking and supporting others to become great leaders! My life's work, I think!

Here is the event website and on Fb. 

psst! If you would like some money...We are still looking for submissions; the deadline is Sunday Night. And if one more person says that's not enough time to make a video, check out this one I found today.
I think that people are getting hung up on the word 'film' and are worried about video quality. (MEH!). I say if you've got a camera or a phone that can take video and something to say about health, then you should be able to say it.

Oh, and Robyn Ocean will be there facilitating a group discussion after we show the videos. Yeah!

Wednesday WIPs

Community: The Living Life Fully Film Fest is coming to Prince George! We are still looking for a few more submissions and the deadline has been extended! Here is the poster, you should come to the event. It is free and there is food and lots of excited people talking about being healthy and watching some movies. Come and see what the youth of Northern B.C are saying about health! More tomorrow...

 Kitchen: Yum! Pizza!! Sometime after you become an adult and maybe have kids, all of a sudden you realize that you get to start traditions for you family. Taking Diandra's cue, I've re-enstated Friday Pizza Night around my place. It's exciting! All week I get to think about what I want on my pizza that Friday. I like to use leftovers for pizza toppings, actually. I wish that my pulled pork LOs from two nights ago would last so I could use them this week. Because that would be delicious to me.
Using leftovers is a new thing for me  because I HATE LEFTOVERS and will usually leave them in the fridge to rot before using them. why? because I would feel guilty for throwing out food that wasn't rotten. So, if I wait a week or so and there is no guilt when it hits the trash. So now I'm working on a) having better (i.e. usable) leftovers, and b) using leftovers for lunches and as dinner supplements. For example, extra roasted potatoes and yams can be diced and fried for a hashbrown and egg breakfast the next day. Not hard, I know but this is all new for me.

On a recent trip, we had Pho for breakfast a couple times has inspired a bunch of Asian food recipes and cooking. I'm focusing on soups right now and am waiting for a shipment of kaffir limes leaves to come so I can make some Thai soups. 

 Me making PB&J soup for dinner last night. It was fantastic! I started with a pumpkin puree from last year's 'Puree Week' and just kept adding stuff until I had a Thai-peanut sauce inspired soup. Mark said it was one of his top 5 ever favorite soups! Woop! So I'm working on remembering what I put in there. 

 Craft: I'm working at Top Drawer Yarn Studio on Saturdays and loving it! It isn't like work at all, i get to talk to people about yarn and knitting all day long. Right now for knitting I'm working on my vest, socks for mark, this scarf, and am always looking for a vintage 4ply cardigan to make our of HOT HOT pink yarn. Crafts on the go are a bunch of randoms for the craft fair, repurposed window/coffee table, and a cigar box docking station.

Other things I'm working on are taking it easy, growing my hair into a huge mane, not watching any movies or tv shows, reading books, knitting, and hanging out with the family.

Idea Factory: Measuring Tape Fantastic

Here's one for all the stitchers out there! 

Thrift a measuring tape, they can usually be found for $0.25-0.50. 

Measure the distance from your needle to your machine's arm base. Cut measuring tape. 

Using clear packing tape that is wider than the measuring tape, lay it sticky side up then center your measuring tape on this tape with your favorite measuring system (Imperial: Inches or Metric: Centimetres) facing down.

Afix to your sewing machine. Voila! 

The BEST Soup Ever

I apologize for this photo. I came off a long weekend traveling on the road.  And I got a cold. Those two things paired with just the emotional stress of moving, trying to find good episodes of Gossip Girl to download and our upcoming derby bout (our first one here! eeeps!) means that I haven't been the best at blogging and cooking. Sucking, really. But the other night I threw together a potato leek soup that was just incredible. And now I must share it with you, sans food porn.

I'm not a fan of potato leek soup. I mean, cream=bleck in soup. And chalky potatoes, double bleck. But two weeks back at the farmer's market I bought every leek one of the local booths had, about all of the potatoes another farmer had, and decided then and there...I was going to make potato leek soup for the second time in my life (the first time was a flop).

This "recipe" is just that, a short guide on how to put this together for yourself.  What I did was that I took a large yellow onion and diced it. I fried it in about 3 tbsp of olive oil over medium heat in a heavy duty soup pot and let it begin to fry. Once getting glossy I added 6 chopped up cloves of garlic, let that fry for a few minutes and then literally added 4 cups of chopped up leeks (the white parts only) and about 1/2 a cup of vegan margarine. I stirred that up and let it fry for about 6 minutes, making sure it wasn't burning or sticking. THEN, I added about 8-9 cups of diced, skin on, red potatoes and fried those in the butter for five minutes, deglazing the pan with a smidge of water whenever something was sticking. Then, I added boiling water to the pan almost to the top of the potatoes, threw in two boullion cubes, put a lid on it, left it just below medium and returned to it every 6-7 minutes to stir it around. After 1/2 hour or so (when the potatoes are literally falling apart) I started to hear it splatter. It was super thick and yummy looking. I then added about 2 cups of almond milk and a handful of fresh dill, stirred it up and tasted it and died. So Good.

Bring it on.

Friday Favourites

It's been a while since I've done one of these! Here's some of my most wanted craft tutorials (if only I had the time)!!

Mustache Mug Tutorial! Link Here.

Paint Chip Art!! Link Here.

Cat Quilt How-To. Link Here.

Love this Doily Lamp DIY. Link Here.

Toilet Roll Bird Feeders!!! So cool. Link Here.

Derby in My Community!

Tonight my local league, the Alberni Valley Roller Girls, volunteered at Alberni Community and Women's Services Society to help tie ribbons into bows. The bows, some purple and some white, will be stapled to hydro poles on Friday November 25th. The 25th is the first day of the start of the 16 days of Activism Against Gendered Violence. That day, myself and an outreach worker (and big derby enthusiast) from ACAWS and I will be speaking on the radio (this town is radio crazy) about the 25th and about violence in our community. Then we'll be walking around town posting these purple ribbons (represent a year of domestic assault reports at the RCMP) and the white ribbons (represents sex assaults reported to the RCMP) on hydro poles to send a graphic message to our community that there were 130 odd assaults in our community in the last year and considering less than 1 out of 10 assaults get reported, for a town of only 17,000 that's a lot of assaults.

What I love about roller derby, and our league (and Rated PG) in general is that we're feminist-y organizations focused on building empowerment and community capacity through sport. Not just sport for sport, you know? While some of the skaters were probably confused why we were going to ACAWS (only our second volunteer opportunity), it was a great time and we powered through those ribbons in just half hour! wahoo!

Tutorial: Knitting Needle Case

Anyone who has been knitting for a while knows that needles accumulate quickly, use this needle case to keep them organized and easy to find when you need them. I've been making these cases for friends and also to sell in a couple yarn shops over the years and I've finally nailed the dimensions for both a larger case that accommodates 12" straight needles and a smaller version that accommodates up to 8" double pointed needles. 

I adapted the pattern from the first Stitch & Bitch (by Debbie Stoller) after I found that it wan't quite large enough and the construction was limiting for slightly longer than 12" straight needles and what I really needed was a smaller case for my various double pointed needles. My pattern features an angled needle holder front to hold all the different lengths of double points: 8", 6", and 5". 

This tutorial features a straight up and easy version for you to try out. I often add ric rac, buttons, or ribbons to make them extra special or to personalize them for friends. This needle case is easy to make but you may find that most knitters would rather spend their time knitting than sewing one for themselves, so a set of these cases would be the perfect gift for that knitter on your list. When choosing material for this project, I like to choose coordinating materials or more specifically: 1 solid, 1 geometric pattern, and 1 non-geometric pattern. By alternate inside, outside, and holder materials, you can easily make up a set of coordinating but not identical cases. That's great!

 You will need: 
3 pieces of light to medium weight cotton material 
      LARGE CASE:  2x (16x24") inside/outside panels 
                             AND 1x (16x8") for front panel/holder 
      SMALL CASE: 2x (8x14") inside/outside panels 
                             AND 1x (8x6") for front panel/holder
scissors
pins
sewing machine
thread
measuring tape or ruler
1' ribbon, bias tape, or lacing
iron and ironing board
chopstick, pencil, or another blunt ended tool for turning corners

1. Cut out pieces and iron out all the chaos.
2. Fold the top edge of the smaller piece (front panel) so that it has a hem of about 1". If you are making the smaller case, fold and press the top edge of the front panel so it has an angle with the smaller end measuring 4" tall, and the larger end measuring 5" tall.
3. Place your smaller piece for the front panel/holder and place wrong side down on one of the larger pieces that you want as the inside panel. Pin in place.
4. Sew the front panel to the inside panel (as above) leaving 1/2"-1" in between each sewn section.

 5. Place the two pieces (outside panel & new inside panel with front panel) right sides together. Pin and sew along long edges and along bottom edge leaving a 1/4" selvedge edge. Leave the top (opposite front panel!) open.
5. Press flat, cut corners off, and turn right sides out. Press.

6. Fold top opening down to for a 1/4"-1/2" hem and press. Pin and sew with a zig zag or other fancy st or other fancy stitch.

7. Press one last time, because you are done. 

8. Repeat as necessary.

Young Feminist Wire Blogathon

Have you heard of the Young Feminist Wire? It's a space where young feminists can build networks and work together to address the oppressive patriarch and connect, learn, and share information in their global commitment to fight for better rights for women.  They also run a young activist program which provides online training (often on EST time, so a little inaccessible for us west coasties) but it's free and the training is oriented for young feminists, and is free! They really focus on women younger than 30, so I'm almost over that hump, and it's not my time to make room for a younger generation of feminists to (hopefully) take over the world!

Right now they're doing a call out for guest bloggers for the month of November. The deadline's November 27th so get your posts in as soon as possible!

The Young Feminist Wire is calling young women writers, bloggers and activists to submit blogs and/or videos on TWO themes this month. The first theme is Use of Social Media for Social Change and the other theme is Young Women on the Girl Effect. You can choose to submit your blogs/videos to ONE or BOTH themes by answering the questions provided. Please click on the following link for descriptions on both themes including guiding questions and guidelines for submissions: http://awid.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=62240467910215e4de8efcf3a&id=d28673578b&e=d7c1f1a8e7

DEADLINE for receiving submissions is November 27th, 2011!

Also, check out the collection of submissions that we got from our first round of blogathon submissions on stories of young feminist activists - how they became feminists and what prompted them to organize around women's rights issues. You can find the complete collection of blogs here: http://awid.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=62240467910215e4de8efcf3a&id=2d6455e25b&e=d7c1f1a8e7


PS: AWID is also offering FREE institutional and individual membership for young women members of the Wire until the end of 2011. If you are a young woman and are interested in becoming an AWID member, hurray and sign up now! Click here for more information: http://awid.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=62240467910215e4de8efcf3a&id=24a0998ab8&e=d7c1f1a8e7

Wednesday WIPs

Diandra and I are always working on a whole bunch of stuff. It's kind of embarrassing how may projects I have on the go at any one moment so the ones I tend to share here on Wednesdays are the most active or the most interesting at the moment. Lately I've been piling stuff on and adding more and more to my to do list (now I have to have a physical list or I'll forget a few things) so now I have multiple lists. I actually separate them into Craft, Community, and Kitchen. I count derby and work as Community except for custom knitting work and the yarn shop which fits into Craft. Kitchen ends up being mostly homemaking stuff.

Craft: I'm working on making lots of adult toques, baby toques, needle cases, notions bags, and other knitting novelties to sell at the yarn shop.

I'm also putting together a renegade craft fair for December so that means that I'm working on lots of holiday ornaments and gifts with my friends Jennifer and Robyn. I'm doing these ornaments (8/$.50 at thrift store) and adding strips of stitched holiday greetings and messages.

Kitchen: Mark bought a pig (it's name was 'Delicious') and since he doesn't have a freezer and I do, it will be coming to my place on Sunday. That means lots of locally raised and organically fed 'happy' pork for us to eat all winter long. Remember how much I love bacon? So I'm defrosting the freezer and cleaning it out to make space for the pig. This also means that I'm using up the leftover winter supplies from last year's preserving. I've got tomatoes to turn into sauce and some pears for some jam maybe?!
Community: The most exciting! I'm working on this great project PHAC and the Canadian Cancer Society with some local youth. We are starting up a conversation about health and wellness. Looking at current messages directed at youth and how youth can lead healthy lives. We'll be hosting a film festival  on Decemebr 3rd and are looking for submissions from youth aged 13-29 living in the norther region. There are lots of cash prizes to be won, the grand prize is $500! The deadline to submit your video is November 15th. Check out the website for more details: http://llf-filmfest.com/
We are also wrapping up SK8FEST here is PG, we raised $1700 for the Canadian Cancer Society and had a blast teaching, learning, and playing derby! WOOP!

Tutorial: Flower Brooch

supplies

You will need: 

jersey material

needle for hand sewing

thread

clothing button (2 if you want to stack them)

scissors

button ('flare')

bias tape 

hot glue and gun

1. Hand sew across the centre of the first oval

2. Pull your thread through the first petal 

3. Knot the end but don't cut ends.

5. Scrunch your first oval.

6. Hand sew the other two ovals just like the first one. 

7. Scrunch everything together and arrange the petals, sew the flower
in the middle with a couple stitches.

8. Thread buttons and sew them onto the middle of the flower.

9. Tie off ends and trim the thread tails off. Lovely!

10. Take your button and run a bead of hot glue 1/2 way around it.  

11. Attach a length of bias tape along glue and stretch it so it hugs the edge.  

12. Glue the rest of the bias tape along the button edge in the same way, attach end. 

13. Place button on a dime sized spot of glue in the middle of you button. 

14. Hold petals up and run a bead of glue around the edge of the button.

15. Press petals down gently into the glue making sure than the button image is covered. 

16. Be happy, you're done. 

17. Make a red poppie for Remembrance Day!
A Peace poppie (white with black center) would also be awesome. 

18. Make more!