Wee Cherokee

Unique Los Angeles show pictures

Last weekend was the Unique Los Angeles show downtown at the market center. It was a HUGE success for Sonja, it was absolutely inspiring to see all of the vendor creations and the clientele were wonderful. Jennifer from Palm Sprout and I had a great time setting up the booth and talking to all of the people who came by.

I was hoping to put a few more things on etsy before the holidays...but it is just not going to happen this year. Oh well. 
Some highlights of the show:
1.  Penny Marshall loved my tutu's 

2. Wood Burning signs at midnight

3. All the love for Brookside Original's knitting cases & yoga bags. ( the site is not up so I can't link to it right now)

4. My beautiful necklace from Julia Bristow. She had the booth across from me and is just such a sweet person. 

All in all it was fantastic. You can click on the photo above to take a look at a few pictures from our booth.

Missing

Hey there,

You probably wondered where I went for the last month. I had to go to Texas because my Grandmother fell ill. Unfortunately we lost her on November 16th. I am so grateful that I was able to go home and spend a full week with her before she passed. I wound up staying in Texas to help my family out for a few weeks. It was really nice being home and almost felt like I lived there again. I got back a week ago to the sunny 70 degree weather of Los Angeles and dove into making things for the Unique show this past weekend. I will post a full report later today. Meanwhile, here are a few of my favorite pictures of my grandmother,"Honey".

We voted for change and hope you will too!!!!

Love Bread

I spent all of last night baking. I found out some sad news about my Grandmother, Honey, and on the eve of an election that could change the world that we live in...I chose to throw my compassion and heart into food. I baked Challa Bread, a loaf of beginners white bread that I found on Hillbilly Housewife and a batch of chocolate and peanut butter chip cookies. These loaves were my 1st attempt at real bread...EVER. I've made zucchini bread or banana bread but never actual plain old bread. The beginners white bread was so easy to make, albeit it took 3 hours total. 1/2 hour to mix and knead, rise for 1 hour, knead again, rise for another hour and then bake for 1/2 an hour. Voila, Bread! 

The Challa was a bit more challenging. It was stickier than the other bread dough and took a bit longer to rise. I tried a "quick rise" method.  From the look of other recipes, this dough should rise overnight. I didn't have the patience, so quick rise it was.  I also made the mistake of moving the loaves when they had risen to a nice fluffy height. The recipe told me to make sure that the 2 loaves were at least 5 inches apart. I put them on the same cookie sheet and came back an hour later to 2 HUGE fluffy mounds that were sticking together. I panicked and slid the 2nd loaf over to another baking sheet and in doing so, they fell. Boo. So I let them attempt to rise again for another 45 minutes and decided to go ahead and bake anyway. They taste wonderful despite their somewhat flattened appearance. I think I shall try again because this bread would make excellent french toast! 

And finally the cookies. I made these for Kevin which is pretty funny when you see the picture because I didn't realize what was on the fridge behind them. 

Mad Men

We dressed up as AMC's Mad Men for Halloween. Mr. Draper, Mr. Sterling and Miss Halloway...our friend Jason dressed up as the set. We thought he wasn't dressing up at all and when he showed up we all died laughing. We went to the West Hollywood parade and I was really surprised that we were the only Mad Men characters there? Hmm, I guess I better start promoting the show so that more people start watching, it's only the BEST show on TV right now. The costumes...the set design...love it! 

Happy Halloween

This is my friend Gram, he helped me carve pumpkins on Sunday night. Check out the photos HERE. You might see someone from UNIQUE LOS ANGELES that you may know.......

Home cookin' last night

Pioneer Woman is a blog run by Ree Drummond, who I might say is just cuter than a bug in a rug. Something happens when I talk about people from the country ( she's in Oklahoma)  that makes me revert to "Texas-Talk".  I got hooked on her site for the recipes, but she really hooked me with her on-going love saga on how she meet her husband! Woo-wee, now that's some good reading. She posted a recipe for Acorn Squash a few days ago and I made it last night for dinner. It was super easy , soooo delicious and I hope she doesn't mind me showing my progress as I followed her recipe. Please see her page HERE for instructions.

First I cut and scooped the squash:

Do you see the butter at the bottom of the page? Mmmm....

3 weeks?

Has it really been almost three weeks since the Plush You show??? The trip to Seattle was great. We "did" the city in our typical style, canvassing many miles in 3 days. We arrived Thursday evening and I was happy to see that the Moore Hotel where we were staying on 2nd street was actually where Schmancy, Nancy and Fancy were all located. Friday we got up bright and early and headed to Pikes Market, we walked to Pioneer Square, the Fisherman's Wharf, hit the Space Needle for some viewing and hot chocolate and then rode the mono-rail back to the hotel to get ready for the show. 

Angelinos...I heart Wendy

I made a diaper cake!

"So what is a diaper cake? " I asked my sister on the phone. " Only the best baby shower gift ever" she replied. " Ever"??? Well, we'll see about that. I looked online, and sure enough she was right, these diaper cake thingies are very popular right now and there are tutorials all over YouTube. "I can make one of these" I said to myself...and so I did.