I'm back to writing poetry.

April is National Poetry Month. I haven't written any poems in years. But for some reason, over the past few weeks, I've been sort of dipping my toes back in. I'm currently listening to the back-catalog of Poetry Off The Shelf, a podcast from the Poetry Foundation, and it's really been inspiring me. Here's one I wrote today about how strange it is to be doing again.


I'm back to writing poetry. It's been
the longest time since my brain has been stretched
in this particular way. I forgot
how weird it feels to work a muscle hard.
Or work a muscle any. Come to think
of it, I never really write at all.
I don't remember the last song I wrote.
And just don't even mention stories. I
quit those in high school. For the life of me,
I couldn't ever finish even one.
I think that I decided prose was not
the medium for me. But, honestly:
it's really hard. And I don't do hard things.
And not to say that this is easy, no;
it's just that prose is s'posed to have a point.
Whereas, a poem ends wherever I

Summer 2013 re-inVintage Fair recap

At the beginning of June, my mom and I were involved in the re-inVintage Fair in Eldon, Missouri. It's a cute little fair that happens once or twice a year, and vendors from all over the place come to display their wares. It's hosted by Janice Cielo, owner of Julia Price's Tearoom (and a good friend of my mom's).

We had a few of our regular vendors, including Rachel Ropp of ECO Rococo. Here's a just some of the BUNCHES of awesome stuff she always brings:

It's an end table AND and doggie bed!

We also had some new vendors - like Sara Windsor of The Creative Soul. All I can say is that this girl has some massive talent - I was going absolutely nuts over her stuff:

I wish I'd gotten more pictures, because she doesn't just make incredibly unique and intricate jewelry pieces - she actually started out making collages. She had all kinds of wall art and shadow boxes and decorated bottles and even a book she'd been working on; I really hope she comes back for the next fair. :) Click here to see her shop on Etsy - it's well worth it!

I, of course, slaved over cupcakes the night before and brought them along with my jewelry.

I didn't get very good pictures of them, but they were terribly pretty, if I do say so (and they didn't taste too bad, either). ;) 

On the second day, Rachel gave me some broken pieces of jewelry that she had in a jar, and before she left I managed to throw them together and gave it back to her:

Nowhere near as awesome as Sara's stuff, but I felt pretty cool afterwards. ;) Good days.

Janice has just announced that the next fair is scheduled for September. I'm excited. It's always a fun time. :D

The re-inVintage Fair

A lady in our town arranges this fair twice a year, and it's super fun! My mom is really involved, and I've helped out and sold some things in the past. Last fall I sold cupcakes, and, since it went over so well, I'm planning on doing the same this year. I've also pulled out all my beads and stuff, trying to get some things made.

Here's a couple things I've come up with:

I've been doing a LOT of experimenting with cupcakes as well the past couple weeks. I've finally decided what I'm going to make: classic chocolate, raspberry lemonade, and french toast with maple icing. Thursday night is going to be insanity. And I'm very much looking forward to it. ;D

Paper flower wreath

I follow a particular vlog on YouTube, and one of the girls made a video on how to make these adorable paper flowers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4FXWiP1jrI She used sheet music to make hers - I used the rest of the old book I made my origami stars out of.

I decided to make a wreath out of them for my mom for Mother's Day. They are extremely time consuming, but the result is so pretty, it was definitely worth it. 

I just bought a styrofoam wreath and some ribbon and hot-glued everything together after I'd assembled the flowers.

I didn't have enough flowers to cover all the styrofoam, but I think it worked out. And my mom really liked it, too. :)

French toast cupcakes

My friend had yet to see Les Miserables, so his roommate (another friend) decided to host a viewing party of the new movie at their house. My first idea was to decorate cupcakes as little French flags. Then our host sent out a message saying "Hey, we're serving breakfast for dinner before the show! Bring anything applicable, if you like!" So then I thought I was screwed, but I thought about how I could make it work. I looked up French toast cupcakes. I didn't get many results, but this recipe seemed to work really well: http://www.theyummiestblog.com/recipe/dessert/maple-french-toast-and-bacon-cupcakes

For maple-flavored buttercream, I actually used the recipe in this blog here: http://mandamcgrath.blogspot.com/2012/12/french-toast-cupcakes.html
I'd never made frosting before, and I had to alter the recipe a smidge. I was forced to add the milk and cream in early, on account of my mixer getting literally stuck in the sugary butter mess. I didn't even end up using all the sugar it called for, and I do think it could've used it (it tasted a little too buttery) - I just didn't feel like wrecking my mom's electric mixer. But I will say the consistency was perfect - I'm so used to store-bought stuff that doesn't retain itself and melts all over the place. I'll definitely be using this recipe again with different flavoring (and maybe a little less butter).
For the coup de grace, I melted some chocolate chips, covered some bacon in it, refrigerated that, then chopped it up and sprinkled it on top (not because I'm particularly fond of bacon, but because of the men I knew would be at the party [you're welcome ;) ]). And then some cinnamon sugar on top. Yeah, they were pretty amazing.

mle

 My friend Emily's birthday was this weekend, so I thought I'd make her some cupcakes (any excuse, right?). Just simple white cake. You can't really see, but I threw some little green crystals on there, since that's her favorite color.

I took them to her party on Friday, and got to see a bunch of my friends, which was awesome since I don't get a lot of chances these days. Everyone kept asking what the letters meant. Emily was the only one who realized that they spelled her name. :)

I had a few extras to play around with. These make me think of the circus.

♥

paper stars

My room has been looking very boring to me lately. After several long bouts of scrolling through pinterest (something I would not recommend to anyone), I've been thinking about adding some dimension to my room by means of ceiling decorations. While I'm still not certain what I want exactly, I've seen some cute mobiles featuring origami made out of sheet music, and I thought it'd be fun to make some stars from the pages of an old book I had.

These kinds of stars actually require a pentagon to begin with, rather than a square. This is the template I used: http://manaelf.com/projects2/pentagonset.pdf

From the template I cut one out of cardboard to do the rest with.

Here's a rough step-by-step:

For more details, here's the cute blog I found the instructions from: http://fivegoblogging.blogspot.com/2012/11/wish-upon-origami-star.html

I still need to string them and find something to hang them from, but I really liked the way they turned out. The book I used was an old copy of Silas Marner, and it was really cool to read little glimpses as I worked. I'd forgotten what an amazing story it is. If you've never read it, I would really encourage you to. If you're into that sort of thing. :) ♥