It's Spring Break, all my friends have real jobs, & Ethan's visiting his parents, so to stave off loneliness, I've been super crafty. Because I wanted to challenge myself, I decided to make my second ~*real*~ sewing project, which is a ginormous grocery bag. It's sewn so sloppily (think *seam of allowance of anywhere from 1/8" to 1/2"*, seriously), but I love it. :) It's so goddamn huge, ha ha. Ethan promised to go to the Farmer's Market with me next weekend, so we'll put her to the test & see how much kale she can hold!
It's lined with the same pink gingham fabric that I used on my owl apron.
This space puzzle of Ethan's has been hogging the "craft table" for several months, so I decided to finish it & reclaim my rightful surface. He did about 85% of it, then petered out when there were tons of black pieces left over. It was fun to listen to Car Talk & wrap this up. Then I Mod Podged it, so Eth can hang it in his room. It glows in the dark!
We had this rickety, nondescript shelf lying around, so I tipped it over, pounded about 10 nails into it, then decided it needed to have a more glamorous look. I used this awesome Etsy creation by pixlpshr as inspiration, but changed it up a bit.
I think it's much cuter & works perfectly for my old NES & N64 games. 
Lastly, my obsession with kitchen towels led me to start this cute towel, but I botched the pattern I was working on, so I'm just making a mutation of several towel patterns together...
Inspired by several cool, Perler bead-bedecked trees out there, I decorated our tree this year with NES ornaments.
There are some from Super Mario I, II, & III, plus Duck Hunt. I had to work with what I had on hand, but I plan on adding more, once my Perler bead order gets here. It goes pretty well with my Mario table too, ha ha. :)
I finished this garland this morning, using my handy dandy paper punch, some glue, & white thread. 
It's so festive in here! Even my grapefruit tree is ready for the holidays! We're having a really simple, homemade Christmas this year, so I've got to get crafting!
Lastly...I've really been into making Mind Maps, ever since my meditation teacher taught us about them. They're a great way to illustrate information, as well as memorize important facts. And they're fun to make! This one was for my Meditation for Global Healing class---it's for "Ethics for a New Millenium" by His Holiness The Dalai Lama.
It's sort of difficult for me to transition from the quiet, nature-filled camping scene, back into the obnoxious (at least where we live, ha ha!) city environment. One cool thing was going to the Farmer's Market though. I got a rainbow bouquet of flowers, a bunch of fresh lavender, & an armful of phallic veggies: regular & yellow zucchini, plus a few cucumbers.
Pretty flowers:
I decided to make roasted zucchini, since roasting is super easy & always brings about great results. Here they are on an olive oiled sheet, after slicing into 3/4" rounds.
And here they are after being tossed with a mixture of olive oil, the juice of a lemon, a teensy bit of sugar (like 1/4 tsp.), & salt & pepper. Roast away in the hottest oven temp. possible, turning halfway through, for about 16-20 minutes. Try to hold out for the browning.
Can you see all those glorious browned bits? I wish I would have let them go longer, but I was too hungry, plus my pasta was ready to eat. The ones on the edge were the best.
At work, I made some cinnamon-raisin & cranberry-orange scones, along with a batch of orange-nutmeg cookies...
The recipe is from The Grand Central Baking Book, but I vegan-ized it for work.
I also found comfort in Mario. Ethan & I had a video game night & it was a blast. My old NES is still kickin'!
I feel better now...I'm outta here!
