doe eyed

I've had a linoleum block sitting in my room for the past three years and haven't done a thing with it. Charlie had it leftover from a class and didn't it want so I took it! I was sure I'd find some amazing project for it. Three years later I decided to just cut a chunk off and start a small project.

This is just a little thing I thought of for cards/gift cards, hell even a cd would fit in here. I was thinking about my wrapping inspiration and tried to think of something quick I could make with what I had.

I started by making these simple origami envelopes from this tutorial using old paper grocery bags.



And after a bit of folding you have this!


I then measured the little diamond on the front and cut out the same size piece of linoleum. I drew a picture of a little doe eyed deer, thinking I was actually going to carve out all the finite details on its face. One cut up finger and stiff neck later I decided I was happy with the silhouette :).


I actually had a lot of fun doing this, despite the fact that I couldn't keep my finger out of the way. I'm looking forward to trying this again.

When I was done carving, I got out my trusty brayer and some red printing ink.


This round showed me parts of the stamp I needed to carve down a bit so that they wouldn't print. I also have to get my inking skills back up to par. It's so hard being away from all the facilities at school that make these things so much easier. The printmaking floor was always my favorite. I loved the smell of the ink and how there were drying racks just full of projects. Any supply you could ever need was available and there were giant presses everywhere. It's really hard to make an adequate home printing area when you're tight on space.



So when you're done dreaming of a proper printing shop, press the linoleum stamp on your paper and use something like a spoon to press the paper down and rub it across the surface to make sure you include all of the details.



I then wrapped all the envelopes in twine for a little extra security and cuteness. ;)



Beats the poo out of your traditional white envelopes!



Happy Friday!! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Now I have to get ready for an ironic Christmas sweater party. How do you ask your mom to borrow a Christmas sweater that you need to wear as a joke without being insulting? :D

beef (or steak au poivre) and broccoli

This recipe is one of my favorite finds. Mainly because it can be made almost entirely of leftovers. Like any college student, when I went home on the weekends, I would return to my apartment with an armful of food and leftovers so I wouldn't "starve". On one of these occasions, I came back with leftover steak. I wanted to try something besides just steak and a side so I browsed through some recipes and decided to try this one.

I already had the steak and ingredients for the sauce, along with a container of white rice from a previous Chinese food order. I just ran across the street to the corner market and grabbed a head of broccoli. Charlie and I ate it up, it was so good!

I found myself in a similar situation this past week so I pulled out this recipe again. Remember that steak dinner in Atlantic City? Well I got steak au poivre that was roughly the size of my head (I'm really bad at understanding what ounces are.. 18oz sounded small to me! :/ ) so I had a decent amount of leftovers. The day after I got back, we ordered Chinese food and got two extra cartons of white rice for some reason (not complaining). You can certainly make this without pre-made ingredients, it's just even easier if you have half the steps done already.

Start by mixing your sauce ingredients in a bowl and set aside.




Brown your steak. Either heat up some precooked steak in a pan or brown uncooked steak to your liking.



Remove the steak and set aside. Steam broccoli in the pan until it's tender. Add the steak back into the pan and pour the sauce mixture in.




Simmer and stir until sauce thickens.




Place over a bed of white rice.


So easy and much better than take out. The meat in take out is always questionable. Here, you know exactly what you're getting!


Beef and Broccoli
adapted from Dine and Dish

2 lbs of steak of your choice, sliced 1/4 in. thick
2 cups cut broccoli
2 tbsp olive oil, divided

sauce..
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp packed brown sugar
1 garlic clove minced
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/8 tsp ground ginger


In a bowl, combine soy sauce, lemon juice, cornstarch, brown sugar, garlic, pepper, and ginger. Set aside. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil and brown beef until almost cooked through. Set beef aside and add the rest of the olive oil to the pan. Cook broccoli until tender. Add steak and sauce mixture to the pan and simmer until sauce is thickened. Serve over white rice.


I added more broccoli to compensate for the fact that I didn't have all the steak required since I was using leftovers.




Today I'm attempting to carve linoleum for the first time for a project I'm trying out. It's inspired by my list from yesterday's collection of gift wrap. I also found out about Knot and Bow via twitter which has all the stuff I love too. Check it out! And hopefully I'll have something to show for my carving efforts tomorrow. :)

christmas packages

As a new blogger, I'm constantly trying to think of things to do that will add to my content and make things interesting for readers. Taking a cue from my favorite blogs, I decided to add some features that I will do either weekly, monthly, or maybe whenever the mood strikes me.

The first one I'm going to try out is a sort of collection of things I like that deals with a certain topic. I decided to do this yesterday when looking for a specific type of Christmas packaging to get ideas for my own wrapping. The things I found for inspiration all happen to be pieces from etsy sellers which I love, but I don't know if it will (or can) always be that way.

Since I have the need to organize and categorize, I decided to give this whole thing a name and a little banner to sit under! I'm calling it "a splendid curation". Splendid is strictly dealing with the namesake of my blog here, not because I think my collection is super awesome or anything. It's just little things that I found inspiring and would like to share with you in case you need a little inspiration too. So without further ado, here is my collection of Christmas packaging..

Some Christmas packaging that inspires me that I hope will inspire you too!
Think kraft paper, twine, and ink for some old fashioned gifting..


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

I'm really feeling the packagey, string and kraft paper look this year so I went searching for some inspiration. I love everything from the stamped, letterpress-looking tags, to the graphic animal illustrations. Everything feels so handmade and old fashioned. As much as I loved bright, patterned wrapping paper with gingerbread men or candy printed all over when I was younger, I would love nothing more than to see dozens of brown packages under the tree this year, wrapped in baker's twine and stamped with an identifying tag.

I hope this has given you a little inspiration for some old fashioned gifting and that this curation idea is something you would like to see more of. I had fun doing it so I think I'll keep it up, even if just for me :).

Hope everyone's having a good and productive week! Christmas is getting surprisingly close! If you have anything to add to this list feel free to leave a link and let me know! I'm always open to suggestions :).

roasted apples

I wanted to make a sort of healthy snack last night since cookie time is coming up soon. I scrolled through my arsenal of bookmarked recipes to see what I could find that agreed with the ingredients I had.

Roasted apples caught my attention since we had a bunch in and it wasn't all heavy in sugar and stuff. You can also modify this recipe to add any sort of ingredients that you like. I'm not an almond fan so I opted to put sea salt peanuts in the mix instead. You could also switch out any dried fruit for the raisins.

Now grab your granny smiths and lets go!




Peel the skin and chop up the apples into small pieces. I tried to slice them no thicker than 1/4 inch. Dump them in a medium mixing bowl.




Add cinnamon, nutmeg, honey, a little butter, raisins, and nuts.




You know what goes next. Mix! Try to get the spices all evenly dispersed on the apples.




Spread the mixture into a pan and slide it in the oven. Serve it warm either by itself or maybe over some vanilla ice cream. Or just plop some light whipped cream on top so you can still say it's healthy ;).





Roasted Apples
adapted from iVillage

4 granny smith apples, peeled and sliced
3 tbsp honey
2 tbsp butter, melted
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup salted peanuts
1/4 cup raisins


Preheat oven to 300F. Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and stir until apples are evenly coated. Line a baking pan with foil and spread apple mix evenly. Bake for 30 minutes or until apples are tender. Serve warm.




This is a really good snack on a cold night. And one you don't have to feel too guilty about! I have a few crafty projects planned for the weeks coming up, I just need to get out to the stores and get some supplies. I'm trying to even out my food to craft ratio a little, I just haven't had time to get to the stores lately. So if you're interested in some crafty things stick around!

christmastime

This weekend I was away in Atlantic City, and apparently the elves were busy at work while I was gone. When I came home, all the decorations were in place and the every window was outlined in a rainbow of bulbs. I'm actually glad to be home for Christmas for the first time in four years. In the past, I was only home on the weekends, if that, and I felt like I really missed out on things. I usually didn't even come home from school until the 23rd of December because finals always had me at my wit's end. Which is why it never failed that I always came home with some illness due to lack of sleep, improper nutrition, and plenty of stress.




I'm glad to be here for it all this year, and have decided to share photos of just a few things for now. Things that have been around for longer than I can remember. Things that were passed down from grandparents and have a permanent fixture in my memory.

Some of my favorite decorations are my family's Christmas stockings. My great-aunt knitted them for the entire family, so all of my cousins, aunts, and uncles, have the exact same stockings. They are all personalized with everyone's names and are added as new members are married or born into the family.




One thing about traditions though is that people have to keep them going or they just fade out. Concerned about this, I asked my grandmom if anyone was planning on carrying out the family stocking business. She talked to her sister-in-law and found out that none of her children or grandchildren had been interested in taking this on. She was very excited that I was interested in keeping it going and offered me the pattern she used. I gladly accepted and have made it my mission to perfect it so I can take over since she can't knit so much anymore due to arthritis.




Unfortunately, they are knitted. And if you've been with me for a while, you know how I feel about knitting. I do know how to knit, I just don't prefer it. So I added this to my 101 things in 1001 days list in hopes of practicing before the next family member is added.




The next thing on the list of Christmas fun is marathon cookie baking. I picked up Martha Stewart's Holiday Cookie magazine and found a few new ones to add to the list of things to try. I have very high baking ambitions this year. :)



I hope everyone had a great weekend. I had a great time celebrating a friend's birthday on friday and going to Atlantic City on Saturday. We kicked off Charlie's mom's birthday by going shopping at this mall on the boardwalk. They had a lot of crazy expensive stores in there which made for fun window shopping but not too much buying.

His mom bought me this really nice sweater in White House Black Market. Having two sons, I think she likes to be able to do girly things with someone, like having a daughter. I'm happy to fill that position :). It's always good when you get along well with your SO's parents.




The sweater is black and white with cute little silver buttons down the side. It's got a little sparkle woven into it which would make it perfect for a holiday event.




After shopping and lunch, Charlie and I checked into our room and took a nap until dinner. We are old. We all met up later for dinner and ate at this really nice restaurant inside the Borgata, where we stayed. We celebrated with champagne and steaks and good conversation. Afterward, we went into the casino for a little bit. I'm a noob at casino-going so I kept it simple and played video poker. I won $70 so I was happy :). We then went to the Water Club lounge which was so pretty. The atmosphere in there was just so relaxing. We had more drinks accompanied by a lot of funny stories.

On Sunday, we came back home and I decorated the Christmas tree with my family while Elf played in the background. Then I went to Charlie's to watch the season finale of Boardwalk Empire (so good). I'm gonna miss it until season 2 starts. That's the first show I've actually made it a point to keep up with in a while. Seriously, if you haven't seen it, watch it.

I hope everyone else had a great weekend! How's your Christmas prep going?