My sister and I were laughing about how our parents’ eating habits have changed since they split up.  My dad eats stir-fry for almost every meal, and my mom usually eats granola.  I came to the conclusion that my mom only cooked when they were together because I couldn’t stand stir-fry and she didn’t want me to starve.  Sometimes she’d wake up early in the morning and make me breakfast, like pop-overs or German apple pancakes.  Often, I’d be a snot and tell her I didn’t have time to eat breakfast, so she’d warm it up for me when I got back from school.  Memories made go searching for a recipe online, then I modified it so it wasn’t so damn sugary.

•  2 Tbsp. butter
•  2 apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
•  2 Tbsp. maple syrup
•  1/4 tsp cinnamon
•  pink nutmeg
•  1 lemon wedge
Preheat oven to 450ºF.  Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat, then add the apples and splash the maple syrup on top.  Sauté until apples are tender, & add the cinnamon and nutmeg.  Remove from heat & add the lemon juice.

While the apples are sautéing, mix up the batter with a whisk or in the blender:
•  1/2 c. flour
•  1/2 tsp. salt
•  2 eggs
•  2/3 c. milk or half & half
•  2 Tbsp. brown sugar (optional)

Cover the bottom of a greased pie pan with the apple sliced & pour the batter on top.  Bake in preheated oven until puffy & brown on the edges, about 15-20 minutes.

Serve with maple syrup or a squirt of lemon juice sprinkled with powdered sugar.  Mmmm!

Details on me:

• Vintage 40’s oriental dress
• Fahrenheit Western heels in navy
• Vintage RW&B scarf
• Vintage necklaces
• Cheapest sunglasses I could find

Details on Drie:

• Handmade circus dress
• Fahrenheit Western heels in red
• Red thrifted 80’s belt
• Handmade feathered bracelet
• Cheapest heart glasses she could find

Today I received my weekly newsletter from ParentsConnect.com, spotlighting an article about the swine flu vaccine. I find it unbelievable that so many pregnant women are willing to get the vaccination because the media or their OB tells them to, and before they do any research themselves on the risk factor. Not only is the current vaccine considered to be in its EXPERIMENTAL phase right now, but the company who developed it will not be held liable if severe side-effects show up.

Please visit the National Vaccine Information Center online to educate yourself about vaccines, and maybe read Squalene: The Swine Flu Vaccine’s Dirty Little Secret Exposed if you’re open to it.

More pregnant dress-up! Kirsten and I went shopping at all the second-hand stores… and while she bought 3284 things for less than $100, my awful pregnant shopping judgment was of course all wrong, and I bought 3 things for $100. However, one of them was this lovely Betsey Johnson dress. Yesterday I wore…

• Betsey Johnson Dress
• Necklace, gift from Aunt D
• Grey leggings & socks- Forever21
• Harley boots
• Silk scarf, gift from Chris
• Black velvet baby-doll sweater- Free People

So, I gotta admit… I always have the raddest ghetto phone around.  I lose my phone 367 days a year and am always buying the cheapest one off eBay, but it makes me slightly depressed when my things aren’t in a beautiful physical state, so eventually I figured out how to beautify my crappy old cell phones.

The secret is that even though people think you’re very crafty and creative for doing it, it’s cake. So, I’m going to share all the steps with you on how to customize your old cell phone by gluing a unique image on it using a collage technique….

Click “read the rest of this entry” to download and print some images sets I’ve pieced together for you. They all feature the art of my favorite artist to use on my phones, Alphonse Mucha…

I’ve successfully printed my first multi-block relief print!!  I’ve been “block printing” (if that’s what you’d call screwing around with a gauge and some easy-cut rubber) since I was four years old, but the only multi-color technique I’ve ever used was doing reduction prints.  Reductions prints are where you do one session of carving, print the lightest color of the print on all the papers, then do another session of carving on the same block, and print a darker color on top of the already printed papers, and so-on until you’ve printed all the colors you want.  The Japanese used numerous blocks for each color, so I finally tested myself with the Queen and 2 colors– red & black.  I’m pretty happy with the turn-out, although I wish I’d done 3 blocks, one pink, so the flamingo didn’t look like a buzzard.  That’s still possible though.

I’m now working on the concept for my next project… reading about Lewis Carrol & such.  He was a weirdo.

The Queen’s keyblock is up and ready for use!  My sophomore portfolio review is this Thursday, so I’ll be printing a plain black & white edition, but she’s supposed to have color in the end.  I still have to print on the color block & carve that, so she’ll be fully printed & framed by Sunday.

This is my second woodcut, and I’ve already made major improvements from the White Rabbit.  The carving is much more precise, and took me twice as long, which explains the carpal tunnel in my fingers and my right elbow.

I really need to thank one of the best woodcutting bloggers on the internet for her enormous archive of postings, Annie at Woodblock Dreams.  There are numerous postings which serve as my research for my “Independent Media Research” projects, and she [unknowingly] led me in all the right directions for supplies and techniques so far.  I love her blog because she posts so regularly, records most of her carving and printing processes, explains the research that goes into each piece of work, and talks in detail about her supplies.  Not only is she an amazing artist who only started playing with moku hanga a few years ago, she’s an excellent blogger and her website is an invaluable resource.

It’s hard dressing up when each day I grow out of another garmet of clothing, and each day I look more like a mom.  It’s also hard dressing up and going to a school like Fort Lewis, where hardly anyone cares what they look like.  I respect being closer to nature: not wearing shoes and not wasting time combing your hair… but I personally only have “going to class” as an occasion to dress up!  So I wore:

• Black ribbon in my hair
• Maternity shirt (all my ‘official’ maternity clothes are hand-me-downs)
• Grey skirt, 4 sizes bigger than normal, from Target
• Black lace tights, from Hollywood Hosiery
• Black lace-trimmed socks, from F21
• Harley boots

Los Angeles is lucky enough to be graced by the presence of Mother Plucker (a little feather shop packed with all the feathers you could ever want), which my best friend Drie shared with me the last time I was in town… I ended up forgetting my feather purchases at her house, so she sent them back to me for my birthday along with tons of other feathers & supplies.  This weekend I finally got the time to start plucking away and sticking things together.  I’m missing a few key elements to make headbands, and it’s hard making all the accessories I want when I don’t have every single color of feathers/boas I desire, but until my order of feathers comes in from Ostrich.com, I’ve managed to throw a few pieces together:

One of my favorite classes of all time was none other than my physical science class, which I’m pretty certain my classmates all despised… but my teacher, Mr. Ryan Haaland, chose to use a great textbook, Physics: Concepts & Connections by Art Hobson, which explained a lot to me of what we DON’T know about the universe up to date.

And obviously, with a teacher like the legendary Michael Freeman, Art History II (1250ad-present) was up there at the tip-top list of educational courses.  He sure had a way to make me nerd out over memerizing every single piece of artwork and artist, knowing every single piece of detail, and knowing every single date at which the work was created… even if I can’t remember any of that now, I felt like a badass.  Unfortunately, no one will get the pleasure of taking another art history class from Sir Freeman at Fort Lewis ever again since he’s moved on to being a genius in other parts of the world.

Over the past week I’ve been cracked out on the above drawing for my independant media art class, woodcut printing.  If it weren’t for this class, and being able to work each Mon, Wed, Fri, I may have to drop out of school.  If all goes according to plan, I’ll be completing four prints by December.  This next week I’ll begin carving, and hopefully I’ll record some key steps here.

Now this bread is actually bread, and not sweet, and not a “cake”, but every day is someone’s birthday, and I can call it cake if I want.  Just put some icecream next to it and drizzle agave ontop.  It called for regular, original flavor cultured yogurt, but I went with Horizon’s strawberry and it is just tasty as can be.

Gâteau au Yaourt

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup plain unsweetened yogurt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup agave (or honey, or just use 1 full cup sugar)
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp immitation rum flavoring

Preheat oven to 350?.  Line 10″ round cake pan with parchment paper and grease that baby up.  In a large mixing bowl combine: yogurt, eggs, sugar, vanilla, rum flavoring, and oil.  In another bowl combine flour & baking powder, mix that up, and add it to the liquid mixture.  Blend it all together, but don’t overwork the dough.  Plop the batter in the repared pan and level out.  Bake 30-35 minutes or until top is golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean.  Let stand 10 minutes and transfer to a cooling rack.

Plumping and Nesting

I’m not going to deny it… I’m probably obsessed with Design*Sponge more than ever because of this damn “Nesting” desease I’ve got.  With Baby on the way, all I can think about is how filthy the house is, how I need some of that Fabreeze washing spray stuff because everything stinks, and all the THINGS I need to create my cozy home.  It’s the DIY projects page & the “Before and After” posts that really get me.

As for the plumping of my little-mama-body, there’s Tartelette… a blog that shares all sorts of recipies for devilish sweets that I dream about.  I’ve been refraining for so long, but tonight I’m going to try making the Meyer Lemon & Sour Cream Donuts because I really just can’t resist any longer (or perhaps I’ll end up buying a lousy City Markey donut because my brain cringes at the sight of the kitchen)!!

Andy Goldsworthy

My design teacher last semester (Jay Dougan) liked showing us videos of Andy’s art based from nature during our lectures.  I forgot how happy I feel when I watch his artwork evolve until I stubled upon the Playful Learning blog (which makes me wish I had a four year-old… but I only have to wait 3.5 years for that, eh?).  Not only is Andy a sculptor of nature and found objects, but a photographer and environmentalist, and his art pieces never fail to draw out the character of their environment.

Strandbeests

While we’re still talking about art, and the artists Jay [tried to] turn his classes on to, Theo Jansen and his Strandbeests stand out amoungst them all.  Theo has been working for 16 years to create sculptures that move on their own in eerily lifelike ways, his newest creatures walk without assistance on the beaches of Holland.  The wind powers the creatures’ many plastic spindly legs, each leg articulating in such a way that the bodies remain steady and level. Theo has even given them primitive logic gates that are used to reverse the animal’s direction if it senses dangerous water or loose sand where it might get stuck.  Visit TED to view the beasts in action.