Craftypants Carol's Fancy Crafty World

More 70s Valentines for You!

2012-02-13T10:12:00.000-08:00

I'm on a freaking roll, baby! Just go with it!

MacGregor n Me. Ok not really...

2012-02-13T09:03:00.000-08:00

That looks an awful lot like MacGregor though.

And this looks an awful lot like some dude getting a bj while drinking a cuppa joe.

Oh wait, it is. That must be a gooood cuppa coffee.

70s Valentine Cards

2012-02-12T15:50:00.000-08:00

God knows how many of these babies I'm actually gonna post. V-day is only a few days away and I never know if I'm actually going to post the things I tell y'all and god that I am gonna post.

I do have quite a few full sized valentine cards and a bunch of those dinky classroom mini valentines from 1976 from my 7th grade classmates - who apparently all wanted me to be theirs. Heh. So hopefully I will actually post them.

Let's all hope together...

So here are two for you to gaze at. The one up top is obviously from my grandmother and the one down below is from one of my 7th grade classmates.

If more come then more come. That's all I'll say for now.

Editor's Note: We here at Craftypants Carol's Fancy Crafty World have severely disciplined Craftypants Carol cause she always fucks up her freaking age. It doesn't matter if she's talking about something that happened 35 years ago or just yesterday...it has been an ongoing problem for a long time now and we feel that this course of action has always been inevitable.

Here is a public apology from Craftypants Carol regarding her most recent age-related fuck-up.

Sorry folks. I was NOT in 7th grade at the age of 7 like I said up there. I was in, like first or second grade. Please don't make me do the calculations though. Please.

Coming Soon!!!

2012-02-10T13:50:00.000-08:00

Coming soon....some vintage valentines from my youth...some more vintage sc stuff...and maybe a horror movie house!

It's about time! is probably what you're screaming while holding your head in ecstatic anticipation.

And I don't blame you one bit.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T08:29:00.000-08:00

Here's to a new year full of everything you could possibly every wish for....from everyone here in the spaghetti-sex-tub at Craftypants Carol's Fancy Crafty World.

Nudie Card Deck Re-upted Just in Time for the New Year!! YOW!

2011-12-30T12:33:00.000-08:00

A while back I posted a link to a zip file of scans of a great nudie deck that could be printed out and done with whatever one might do with a bunch of naked ladies on cards.

It happened to be a very hit-upon post, but the rapidshare link expired, and I kept meaning to re-upload the zip - but alas, I suck. That is, I sucked until someone actually said something in the comments section and I kinda felt like I should try to suck less.

So it is now re-uploaded for your viewing, downloading, printing, card-making, game-playing and whatevering pleasure. The updated download link is HERE, as well as on the original post. I am hoping that I have turned over a new leaf and that my sucking will cease completely and that I will, not only re-upload this file on a more timely basis, but that I will also update my blog on a more timely basis.

I had promised sexy xmas picture from old Playboys, and I never came through. I guess that means I need to double up on the vintage soft-core porn in the future so as not to disappoint the masses of fans that I can always hear chanting my name outside my window.

Or are they saying barrel.

New Year's Eve 411

2011-12-28T16:52:00.000-08:00

If you need beverage ideas look no further...

It's Been a While...and whatever...

2011-12-05T08:08:00.000-08:00

I was hoping to post something kinda sexy and xmassy... but I have to consult my backlog of scanned Playboys and whatnot. So at least you know you have something to look forward too in the coming weeks.

This here is a pretty freaking cool photo shoot from the Feb 1976 issue of Playboy. It's this east meets west men's clothing spread that has a disco/new wave mashup kinda feel. Too cool!

Yahtzee Score Card Scan - Oh Yeah!!

2011-11-15T15:46:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd post a little something just to keep you all on your toes.

This here is a high res scan of one of those old Yahtzee score cards from the days of yore. It's yet another gift from me to you that you can use in many many ways. Many. Seriously. Like as a note pad. Or wrapping paper. You could even create your very own Yahtzee game for you to play yourself. I don't really remember how you play it, and I don't really remember liking it that much, but you might! And I wouldn't even laugh. In fact, I'm giving you something I don't particularly care one way or the other about in hopes that you might, yourself, enjoy for ever and ever and ever, etc. Actually I take that back. I like these score cards. They're cool. They even have teeny pictures of dice on them - which is a-ok by me.

Front

Back

Yay!

Home Sweet Home...Them

2011-11-04T09:41:00.000-07:00

Mmmk... this is my first blog post in well over a week, so I'm right back on track.

I'm still working on my horror quilt - but in the down times I am still thrilling myself with horror movie houses that I want to share with you.

The movie house I currently have a huge crush on is from the French movie Them (or Ils, if you're French). It's set in Romania and has both French and Romanian dialogue - which you don't really get to hear/see much. I was psyched.

I watched it for the first time this last Halloween weekend and I was pretty psyched about it. The movie is actually kinda scary and boy, oh boy is it cool to look at. This particular house might not be everybody's cup of tea - but it reminds me a lot of a house I visited a few times when I lived in Romania. It was the house of the head of the English department of the school that I taught at, and it was a very very old family home. She was always telling me how much work it needed cause it was so old and crumbling down - but holy shit it was freaking amazing. Like the Them house it was all grey and stoney looking, with an overgrown yard area surrounding it. Only the Them house is pretty isolated in the woods - which is exactly the way I like 'em!

One of my big house fantasies is a long driveway lined with deciduous trees that turn brilliant colors in the fall. That's not really what's going on here - but it's close enough - esp if you are capable of using your imagination to any degree.

The front gate is pretty nice - but it seems like it needs to be extended to the sides a bit, so as to keep out the riff raff.

Here is the front of the house. It's not super impressive from the outside, although the double staircases (both outside AND inside) are pretty freaking cool.

Right inside the front entry you can see the stairs that wind up on either side of the house to the second floor.

One of the things I love about the stairs and everything else in the house is the whole distressed, but not trashed, look. I've had enough of distressed AND trashed to last me 5 more lifetimes.

Here's the cute couple racing each other up the two sets of stairs.

Pretty damn cute!

See that wooden thing above the guy's head? We'll come back to that later.

And here is the upstairs hallway with some more good times - which will very quickly come to an end. But I'm all about the good times here at Craftypants Carol's Fancy Crafty World.

Good Times!

Before we get any further into the inside of the house I'd just like to point out a very nice feature of the Them house that has only been featured in one other Home Sweet Home - that being a humongous greenhouse.

Here's the chick walking up to the greenhouse - getting us all excited and whatnot, cause we know what's coming. And then....blammo - the full on deal.

It's kinda hard to tell from these pictures, but it's actually two separate greenhouse rooms. Too freaking cool!

Another really cool outdoor feature is this patio. It's kinda hard to tell where it is exactly, but it's there, baby!

There's also this really cool tile floor down the main floor hallway. It's like concrete tile or something - I don't know, but I totally dig it.

Ok - so since we're back inside and on the main floor I'll just take you around a little. But I'm saving the super highlights (kitchen, cellar) for last - doncha know!!

There is this really cool wall light and alcovey area in the main floor hallway.

And a really cool stairway and arch at the opposite end of the hall from the front door.

The living room is off this hallway somewheres, and here is a view from inside the living room of these great french doors that go in there.

There is also all this great furniture all over the place. I'm not super into the leather couch - but check out these chairs. Damn.

So next we take a trip upstairs to the master bedroom (there are clearly many bedrooms in this house however) and the master bath. But first we'll stop at the top of the stairs to stare at this thing.

There's actually one at the top of each of the stairways that wind up to the second floor. What is it? you may ask. I don't know, I am not afraid to tell you. As you may already know from previous home posts, I am pretty much completely and totally obsessed with little doors and windows and tunnels and so forth. So this little cupboard kinda caught my attention. It's not like majorly conveniently located or anything since it's placed right before the stairs end. I honestly don't know what you would need to stash as you are walking up the stairs - but whatever. It's cool.

So here, before we actually get into the bedroom, is more of the distressed action. I'm totally aware that it could be all done intentionally - which, in my book, makes it only slightly lamer than the real thing.

And here's the bedroom door from the inside - with the cool lock and door knob.

This is a nice daytime shot of the bedroom - with the nice paint job and nifty decor.

And this is looking from the opposite direction. Note the little platform area that leads into the closet. Cool!

And this is just a close up shot of the huge fireplace in the bedroom.

Then we go into the bathroom - which has a very nice claw foot bathtub.

And dig this groovy cabinet. I love that thing!

Here you can see more of the bathroom cabinet, and...what is this?...a teeny door into the attic! Oh yes!!!!!

Nothing better than a junk filled attic, I always say. Actually I'm not saying that anymore - but it's sure nice to look at - and imagine someone else cleaning.

So this here attic is kinda mind blowing. It just goes on forever and ever and has multiple rooms and so much antique junk you could probably take up a case of canned peaches and live up there for a very long time. Just in case of a zombie apocalypse or something similar.

There is even an additional stairway in the attic that goes up to a...what would that be...a super-attic (as opposed to a sub-basement). So, yeah - there's a SUPER-attic!

Here's where it get's even more wacky. So there's the super-attic at the top of the in-attic stairs, which leads to....you guessed it...a little window!!!!!

Which then leads to a long drop down to the regular attic level (I'm assuming) to a room that is full of hanging plastic sheets. Now it would be easy to just write this whole area off as the outside of the house that is under construction (see exterior of house shot way way up there at the top), but I don't think so. There is this wooden wall biz that looks more like an unfinished interior wall...

and the scaffolding, which appears to be on the outside of this space.

See?

Ah!

Ok - so now that we have had an orgasm in the attic, we'll finish it all off in grand style with the kitchen and cellar combo.

The kitchen is AWESOME. I will just let it speak for itself, cause it does that soooo well.

Dig that funky stove!!!!

And the cellar...

Very, very nize.

Ok, so here were are running away from the house...

cause there's one more place I wanna show you. It is pretty mind blowing too. A nearby bizarro cavernous underground set of tunnels and stuff. Holy freaking cow it's cool.

Which comes out here. So what is it? I DON'T KNOW!!!

So there you have it. I think this one takes the whole freaking cake. I love love love this house. I don't care that it's way too freaking big for me - I DON'T CARE! I love you Them house!

Especially if it comes with this TV (AND the TV show!)!

Epic Horror Quilt Attempt - Block 2

2011-10-22T14:09:00.000-07:00

Ok - I'm actually freaking myself out now. Not cause my embroidery skillz have surpassed menacing and have reached super-scary, but cause this is my 4th post in 4 days... in a row! AH!

Ok - this was another easy one. I did it in one night.

Do you dare guess what it is? Ok, if you're scared that you will fail miserably I'll tell you.

This one is called "Woman Eats Wine Glass."

See how she's eating it? I gave her special freaky-deaky teeth cause I thought anyone who ate glass should be kinda freaky looking.

I also took a photo of the Halloween print fabric that I'm gonna use with my embroidered blocks.

It's kinda hard to tell from the photo, but the black and white one with the ghosts and the owl is all covered in glittery silver, and the three on the bottom row starting on the left side all have metallicness to them. They're all pretty cute anyway.

So there you have it. If you fell off your chair out of sheer surprise at my follow-through, I don't blame you one bit.

My next one is gonna be a bit more complex, I'm hoping.

Caramel Dried Apples +++++=+++!

2011-10-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

Um, yeah, I'm excited too.

I have a few apple trees in my yard. One is a gravenstein, which means I had apples a couple months before everyone else. I wasn't really sure if I was going to get many apples this year cause last year was a whole lotta nothin, and the tree is in kinda bad shape. I didn't actually pick any of the apples cause the tree is tall and the apples were up way high. I just waited for them to fall and picked them up off the ground. Between the bruises from the falling and the scab that always plagues this tree, there was lot of cutting away that had to be done. Even so, and even with giving buckets of half rotten apples to my chickens, and even with the deer eating a good amount, I still wound up with tons of apples. I made a couple pies and a couple cakes, but then decided to dry some so I could maybe make pies and cakes with the dried apples in the winter. I read on this food drying yahoo group that some people dip their apple slices in stuff before they dry them for flavor and one of the suggestions was jello powder. As you can imagine, since you know me so well by now, I was simultaneously aghast and intrigued. But mostly intrigued. I had a box of tropical punch jello and gave it a whirl and tried them and then I COULD NOT STOP. I moved onto custard pudding powder (cause I happened to have that handy too), then butterscotch pudding powder, then cinnamon and sugar, then mixed spice and sugar, and last but not least....brown sugar and butter powder (aka butter buds). I also went ahead and did a batch of butterscotch pudding powder with brown sugar and butter powder, as well as the custard pudding powder with the aforementioned brown sugar and powdered butter. They are soooooooooooo good. See illustration below...

I dried them all under 105 degrees so they each took anywhere from 12 to 36 hours. The caramel apple ones (brown sugar and butter) took the longest cause all that brown sugar formed a super glaze on the outside. Oh mama. As you can see I left the skin on in order to preserve some semblance of healthiness in this snack item. It makes them a bit more chewy.

Oh, and I found out the hard way that if you dehydrate fruit or vegetables under 105 to keep them raw, and you intend to store them for a while, you need to freeze them for 24 hours to kill any eggs that may or may not hatch out into little teeny worms at a later date.

I now have a half gallon of each of these flavors sitting on my self. I love them.

Update later in the day: The half gallon jars are not sitting on my self - they are on my shelf. Heh.

Mulled Blackberry Wine Syrup

2011-10-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, indeed. Another timely post by yours truly. I know that you are very excited, but calm down now so I can show you this really horrible picture.

Nice, huh? Man, my photog skillz have sunk just a notch below my menacing embroidery skillz, which are just trailing below my blog posting consistency...skillz.

Ok - so if you ignore the photo that I put there for you to look at and you skip right to this part RIGHT HERE - you will find out that I made something really freaking cool.

So last year around mulled wine times (aka xmas), I was making tons of mulled wine with the blackberry wine I had made and documented here. Somehow I got this idea that mulled wine jelly would be really good and I got all obsessed with looking it up and I think I might have even found some kind of recipe, but then promptly forgot all about it. Fast forward to the day before yesterday. I was in my kitchen telling my sister about this fermented syrup that I was about to make - and that I made it last year (I guess I didn't post the recipe then - so today's your lucky day!!) and suddenly I remembered my whole plan of mulled wine jelly and...well, you're about to find out what.

See, I made regular blackberry syrup last year, but then I took the pulpy seeds from the blackberry juice I made in that post and I fermented them with some yeast for a few days and made a syrup with the resulting juice. It's really cool cause both syrups are made with blackberries - but they taste totally different. I got the recipe from a really cool book The Good Stuff Cookbook by Helen Witty - which I highly recommend, btw. There are a couple recipes in there that follow the same technique of fermenting fruit, then adding sugar and making a syrup - and I only generally followed the recipes - so I will just go ahead and post mine. If you are rabid for the real deal then let me know and I'll see what I can do.

So, as per usual, this is going to be more of an instructional paragraph, than a real recipe.

Here's what went on...

I picked blackberries in a very nonchalant way (meaning I didn't wade through the bushes and hack away at them and bloody my hands and cry into my canner like last year) every few days and froze them until I had two gallon ziplock bags full. I took all those berries and put them in a pot and just barely covered them with water and boiled for a while.

I then put them through a food mill and used the pulpy juice for some very outstanding, virtually seedless, blackberry jam (around 9 pints maybe?) and took the resulting pulpy seeds and threw them in a bowl with some plain old bread yeast and about 2 cups of water.

The recipe in the book says to a) ferment for 3 days, but also to b) make the syrup when fermentation stops. Well, it's cold here and I was busy, so I let the fermentation go on for a week - and it was still bubbling when I strained it. You need to stir it at least once a day to make sure no mold forms on the top.

I added 2 more cups of water and mushed it all around with my hand for a while to kinda loosen the pulpy stuff from the seeds. I don't know if this is necessary since you do strain it - but it just seemed like the right thing to do.

Then you strain it. I used a tea towel (you should use one you don't care about) in a spaghetti strainer. It sat there most of the day, then i pulled up all the sides and twisted the top closed and squeezed and massaged and squeezed and massaged till I didn't feel like doing that anymore. I wound up with 4 cups juice and I added a cup of water cause it was kinda thick (this is your call - you could probably add more if you want). The whole time I was thinking "MAN this smells like wine" - cause you know what? It was. It will be kinda milky - that's the fermentation stuffs.

So then I put it all in a pot and added 5 cups of sugar, 2 cinnamon sticks, 10 cloves, 10 allspice berries, 10 cardamom pods and 2 limes, sliced. I boiled it for maybe 15 minutes (I like my syrups for beverages thin - and I cook them longer if I'm gonna use it for pancakes or something) and put it in some clean jars that had been in the oven at 200 degrees. I did not water bath can them, cause I don't do that with syrups or jellys or jams or preserves. If you have any questions, do not ask the government. Ask someone you trust, like me. Heh. But seriously, do the water bath canner thing if you want. It's also your call.

Anywho...that's it. It's really freaking good too. It totally tastes like mulled wine and what I used made almost 4 pints.

Someday I will make the jelly, but for now this is perfect.

So, the moral to this recipe-tale is this....take all that pulpy berry crap that you're about to throw away and make it into syrup y'all! You can do it with any berry. I've made blackberry, marionberry, blueberry, and the cookbook I mentioned uses raspberries and hucklberries. I'd like to try another fruit sometime - but berries really have a lot of pulpy waste that makes the self-sufficient, homesteady, waste-not-want-not, penny-pinching types cringe.

Epic Horror Quilt Attempt

2011-10-19T12:30:00.000-07:00

It's Halloweentime and even though I'm not really being super Halloweenie this year, I did start a gigantor Halloween themed project. The jist of the project is it's a quilt that incorporates Halloween themed fabrics with embroidered squares. I didn't take a photo of the fabrics cause I'm lazy - but they're all pretty contemporary patterns that I found at a vintage/used/resold crafty supply shop in Portland called Knittn' Kitten. It's all got a pretty 90s vibe. Nothing super special - but there is some funky metallic stuff and Halloween scenes and stuff. I'll post a pic of it all later when I get more into this whole thing.

The specifics are...ok, see there's this site called Best Horror Movies and it has the usual reviews and lists and forums and whatnot - but they also have this questions page where you can ask one of those movie questions like..."what's the movie with the guy and the thing and they go to the place and the lady gets killed and then...." (kinda like Kindertrauma - please don't be jealous - I still love you with all my heart) and there are tons of pages of archives. So, anyway, I get their feed in my reader and there are lots of people that post questions pretty much every day and after quite a while of seeing these headlines I realized how much I love them and look forward to them. They are usually pretty funny cause the person who writes their question is usually trying to fit as much info as possible into the headline - so it's all truncated and abbreviated but with interesting details. One of the more recent ones is "Pig Leg in Baby Stroller in 70s Film." I mean how can your attention not be caught by that? So for months I was reading them and laughing and checking to see if anyone had answered the questions, but I also kept thinking that I wanted to DO something with these funny titles. So after a lot of laying around and staring at the dusty cobwebs on the ceiling I came up with this idea of choosing titles that I really like and embroidering exactly what I was reading into a square and putting it together in a quilt. I toyed with the idea of adding the text but eventually thought it would be more fun to just have it be images. So.....here is the very first square. I chose something easy and I think it turned out pretty good.

Do you know what it is? Do you want me to tell you? Ok - but if you don't want to know then cover your eyes for a sec.

The title is "Hissing Zombie in Rocking Chair."

I have no idea what movie they are even referring to - but who cares!

I did another square that isn't actually one of the Best Horror Movie headlines - it's was sort of a practice one and I didn't finish it all the way yet - but I like it.

I'm pretty psyched about this whole endeavor. I have really been wanting to work on my menacing embroidery skillz ever since I did the Robert Blake dish towel for my friend (skip down past the pork pie part) which came out alright - but not as menacing as I had hoped.

Home Sweet Home...Dementia 13

2011-10-15T12:37:00.000-07:00

Ok, so yes, I've been laggin big time. But that's nothing too terribly new. I mean, if you are a rabid follower of this blog then you know by now that I play fast and loose with your emotions by being slow and withholding with my posts. By my calculations that makes for a very edgy, needy reader. And that the way I likes 'em.

Also, I kinda feel like I've been laggin w/ Halloween in general this year. I mean, I've been watching plenty of horror movies - but other than that it's kinda been lo pro. I have no decorations up - other than some pumpkins on my stone wall outside and a box of pumpkin/cat head shaped halloween peeps strategically placed on a windowsill above my kitchen sink - so I have a little Halloween something to look at while I wash dishes. We have had a Halloween party for a couple years now - and we're not doing that this cause cause we're in the middle of a gargantuan move - or at least it kinda seems gargantuan. Or at the very least kinda hectic. So not much in the way of Halloween paraphernalia and hype around here.

So, anyway, you may already be aware that my wee This House Possessed tribute has been posted over at Made for TV Mayhem - so go read that, as well as everything else on Amanda's amazing blog. I seriously consider myself extremely lucky to have access to her encyclopedia-like knowledge of TV-dome. And you should too, my edgy, needy reader.

Now on with some very nice views of a very nice home, sweet home and a small token of a Halloween celebration - with the castle in Dementia 13.

I had originally planned to do a whole post-spectacular on various horror movie castles because, not only are they virtually ubiquitous in horror movies, but also because they kinda all look alike. Not in a bad way at all - I mean, I could stare at castles in horror movies forever - but after a while the screen grabs all start to look alike. Then the other night I watched Dementia 13 for the first time - which is kinda odd cause I have known the name of this movie for ever. But for some reason never watched it. It's got some good atmosphere and some nifty goings on - PLUS it takes place in an Irish castle - which is a-ok by me. I'll prob still do a "best of" type of post with lots of castles anyway. Just so you don't get too sad or anxious at the thought of missing out.

As you can see it's a pretty standard castle. The one thing I would probably change is all the crosses all over the place. Who needs that.

It's a little too churchy for me. I'd probably need to hire someone to do some reconstructive action - unless I could just take that one cross on the very top and stick it in the cross shaped hole in the wall there. I think it could work.

Along with the traditional castle exterior, we can see that the inside is pretty traditional as well - with ornate carved wood chairs, fancy arched doorways and molding, plus pillars and candelabras...etc.

Not to downplay the coolness of the basic castle accouterment - but we've seen it all before, so where I really want to focus is on some of the more interesting features of this particular castle. The teeny doors.

The first one is a sort of a interior window/door that goes into the bedroom of a dead child. I don't quite understand the logistics of the whole thing. Why is there a window going from a room into the hallway. Who knows. Who cares. It's freaking cool.

My copy of this movie is pretty mediocre - and some of the grabs are very murky - even though I did my best to lighten them up.

Another teeny door is one that goes into, what appears to be, or what is used as, an artists studio.

Apparently Frances Ford Coppolla thought it wouldn't be as interesting to see men crawling through teeny doorways. I kinda agree.

Here is a shot of the studio - which would be such a freaking cool crafty space. Damn. I need one of these!

Another amazing component to this castle - but then again it could probably be in just about any castle, but it's damn cool - is this corridor. It kinda looks like it would be in a cellar or something - but since probably 50 percent of this castle could be considered a cellar - it doesn't really matter where it is.

Damn. I love that.

Ok - so now for some cool features around the grounds...

A stone barn

A stone wall with a door

A pond

A garden/cemetery right in the courtyard.

I know that usually I try to focus on (obsessed over) the kitchen in my horror homes - but these folks have a lot of help in the way of servants that take care of all that cooking drudgery - so the only scene even remotely tied to any kind of kitchen oriented action is this one with a servant lady near the table where people are eating and a guy is holding a knife.

I'm sure the facilities are more than adequate - but it would have been nice to at least catch a glimpse of some crocks or a big wood burning stove or something.

There's some other stuff hanging around that castle that makes for some nice atmosphere. Like this weird-ass axe wielding monkey toy.

And a lounging doll that gives off the vibe that says - get it on! At least to these folks.

So to sum up....

1. IRISH CASTLE - this feature alone ads like a bajillion points.
2. Massive amounts of cellar action
3. Pond
4. Stone features as far as the eye can see
5. Possibly some servants hanging around to help out
6. Teeny mother-freaking doorways

So we can see that this, as well as pretty much any other castle, ranks pretty damn high in Craftypants Carol's world. Then why, you may ask, doesn't she already live in a castle?

Good freaking question.

This House Possessed Month at Made For TV Mayhem!

2011-10-11T19:07:00.000-07:00

I just want to let you all know that, until the end of this month, Amanda over at Made for TV Mayhem is chronicling her - and a lot of other people's - love of a certain fabulous made for TV movie called This House Possessed.

She is going to be posting a variety of different folk's mini memories of this movie till Halloween - so be sure and drop by and check it out!! And yes, Craftypants Carol has contributed to the mix. (yay!)

And if you never saw it in your days of youth and feel super left out, you can watch the whole freaking thing here:

Now GO!

October!

2011-10-01T16:23:00.000-07:00

Very Good Ideas In Fall Beverages

2011-09-23T06:35:00.000-07:00

If you've never tried apply, boozy drinks then you must be really sad right now. But don't worry - you can easily wipe the sadsackery away by immediately consuming an apply, boozy beverage of your choice.

While the apple juice, or cider, are adequate mixer options, I'd like to suggest a far superior plan - HARD apple cider. Very good at wiping away all sadsackery and other associated maladies.

I'd also like to mention here that my (year round, but bestest in fall) beverage of choice is hard cider mixed with brandy. So very very good! Unfortunately there were no 70s Playboy ads with this exact mix - but when I find one I will post it - post haste!!

Goose Canning Labels Just For You!

2011-09-22T16:24:00.000-07:00

Ok - here's another freebie giveaway dealie cause Craftypants Carol is feeling soooooo incredibly generous due to her discovery that she has, in fact, hit the 100 post mark. This time around I have a treat for all the preservation nuts out there...some goose themed canning labels! Very cute and exciting. You can print out as many of these as you want onto sticky paper and label the hell out of your jars.

Pretty cool!

Funny Fingers Just For You!

2011-09-22T09:59:00.000-07:00

This is a 60s kids pop-out finger puppet book that I scanned. The images here are all 300 dpi - so you can print them out and make your very own finger puppets!!!! How cool is that?

Have fun!!!

HOLY COW! I just realized that this is my 101st post!!! And isn't it appropriate that I give you all, my adoring readers, a gift? I just keep giving and giving. Just watch me give!

Yay for me for making it past the 100 post mark! And so soon - you may be thinking. Actually I know you weren't.

Teeny Coffee Cup

2011-09-19T19:32:00.000-07:00

I found this on "my side" of the kitchen table the other day. I think little elfen creatures must have brought it to me. I don't know what I'll be drinking out of it. Maybe a teeny tiny little coffee drink.

Home Sweet Home....Images

2011-09-10T19:03:00.000-07:00

It's been a long, long time since I did up a horror movie house in Craftypants Carol fashion. I figured it was about time - esp since fall and Halloween are just around the corner and I'm feeling it big time.

This here selection is a really great 70s Robert Altman flick called Images. It stars super hotsy totsy Susannah York

and Clayton from Benson. Ok - that's not fair. He has been in about a thousand-million things since Benson - like Punky Brewster and Murder She Wrote. Heh. But really - he is great in this. Only slightly Benson-y. However, the big stars of this movie, as far as I'm concerned, are the apartment, the country house, and Susannah York's groovy clothes.

This is really more of a psychological thriller than straight up horror. But there's blood and stuff - and cool crazy people - which is always good.

I'll try to keep the gab to a minimum here, since there are massive amount of screen grabs. I highly recommend getting this movie (Netflix, through the mail) cause it is beautiful - and crazzayzy! It totally reminds me of another Altman film, 3 women, which is very similar in feel - but totally different in scenery.

We start off in the city apartment of the main couple - Susannah and Clayton. She's a writer and he's a photographer. The apartment,which is very fancy with it's combo antique/modern decor, is in some city somewhere. They may even say it in the movie - but I did these grabs, like, months ago. So I can't remember. I'm guessing London.

See what I mean about the decor? Antiquey...

modern...

antiquey and ornate in places, and modern in others...

and more modern lines and whatnot... plus a super freaking cool shower.

Mmmk - not much time is spent in the apt - so we will move on directly to the house in the country - where most of the action happens, and most of the dreamy love is felt - by me.

Here's some shots of the exterior - and the incredible lake and surrounding forest. Totally freaking isolated!

And surrounded by waterfalls and pastures and old trees and foggy fabulousness!

And this incredible vine covered wall. I would kill to have some secret vine covered doorway to nowhere on my property.

Not to mention partially ruined stone walls to leap over.

There are even some outbuildings out back. Maybe for farm animals or preserves or what-have-you.

I like that.

Here's a close up of a groovy little balcony with majorly cool detailing on the eves and railing.

The living room area is super cozy and dark - with a giant stone fireplace.

The kitchen is through the door next to the fireplace - but there are so many doors and passageways! Like secret rooms even! In this shot you can see 2 different staircases to the second floor, two doorways into the kitchen, and some french doors that go out into a courtyard.

And here you can see that down the hallway there is a room with some stuff in it - we'll come back to that later.

And here is a clearer view of the french - oh, I guess it's a window - but there are doors next to it - and the stairway and a nifty bench.

And here's where we turn the corner and head into the kitchen - which is freaking huge!

Oh, and we turned around real quick to see the living room again - from the kitchen.

So here, off to the right, is a sort of pantry. It looks like it's got the washer and dryer, and a cool little counter w/ a cupboard and drawers, and a shelf. But there is another little room that seems to be the actual pantry...

right next door to the right.

So, here we are, coming out of the pantry, past the staircase, and we're right in front of the french windows to the courtyard. Which has a really freaking cool wind chime. There is a kinda similar one hanging from the rearview mirror of the car that you can see in the photo of the outbuildings.

So then we go back out the doorway, into the living room area, and look back down that hallway to the room with the stuff in it, and we see more doors.

The door right behind her leads to a secret room under the stairs, which has another door on the other side of the stairway. It's hard to see what's going on in these next two pictures, but there's a mirror and Susannah and a girl and the door and it's all just too freaking cool. See the movie!

And at the very end we see a puzzle that Susannah has been putting together all throughout the movie. It's the house. I know, I probably spoiled it for you. But it's not like the house is the killer and I revealed the killer. It's just a puzzle. Kinda like the movie. And Susannah's brain.

I want a puzzle with a picture of my house on it.

Ok, so, I'm sure you're thinking "where's the root cellar? what was the upstairs like? why didn't you take more pictures of Clayton?"

Well, I do freely admit that I have no idea if this place has a cellar. I'd like to pretend that it does. But there is no concrete evidence of a cellar, so we can either just say that the outbuildings out back had some sort of food storage capabilities, or we can all just live in a completely unrealistic dream world and say that there is a cellar...even though we didn't see one. I'm fine with either option.

Second. The upstairs is cool. Take my word for it. Or better yet see the movie - cause it's kinda hard to capture coolness in one shot sometimes. Sometimes coolness comes with a panning effect and Craftypants Carol does not have the technology to show you little video snippets. Oh wouldn't that be great though! Instead of still by still - it would almost be like I was a realtor and I was showing you a video of all of the percs of the house! Only I would be the one buying the house. Don't go getting any ideas.

On imdb it says that it's filmed in Ireland. Big surprise - what with the gorgeousness and all.

So, lets rack up the points for the Images house (and apt)...

1. Groovy Apt - esp if it's included in the deal
2. Awsomely Beautiful Grounds - with lake, waterfall, pasture, fog, etc
3. Super Cool Old House
4. Gigantor Kitchen
5. Many Rooms - even secret ones!
6. Cellar! I mean come on - how could this place NOT have a cellar. It's in freaking IRELAND for crissake! Where else are the potatoes gonna go.

Well, that wraps up the latest entry. I hope the fallyness of this movie got you in the mood! And I hope it helped cool off the folks in the greater Portland Area today - cause it's a stinking 90-something degrees here.

September!

2011-09-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

Back to School 1981 Style Part 4...The Final Chapter!

2011-09-05T15:03:00.000-07:00

Enough hype already! Get ready to view the most devastating outfits of 1981 - to a 12-year-old mind anyway. I'm sure there were some gals out there who were not as into this stuff as me - but who care about them! This stuff is seriously awesome. Mix n matched or mismatched or choose your own what-have-you to the max!

Ok - this first chick isn't a very good representative. First of all she's in all white, for crying out loud. Ech. Second, she's doing some kind of looser ten-hut pose that makes her look a little too silly for my tastes.

Here's where it starts to get good. A veritable all-sheets-to-the-wind technique of dressing. Are they drunk? Poor? Blind? No! They are the height of fashion! Ok - I never saw anyone in my school dressed like this. Maybe the teens and young 20s kids in NYC dressed with this super bohemian, gypsy look - but the only place I saw this look back then was here.

And as I mentioned in one of the August 1981 posts - I made a feeble attempt at dressing like this when I was in 6th grade - but was way too concerned with what my peers had to say (why oh why do we EVER think that shit is important?!?) so I never tried that again. I have worn patterned stuffs here and there - but generally feel way too conspicuous in stuff with many clashing patterns - even though I seriously love the way it looks. I guess that's why I always make my purses in patchwork or something similar - so I can get away with it without feeling like I have a big arrow over my head, pointing at me and saying something like "look at the idiot."

Even the conservatively dressed, equestrian gal looks cool with that Fair Isle patterned cardigan, layered over a shirt and under a jacket and with argyle socks.

I'm not a big fan of the next girls sweater - but she still has that groovy look - so she's ok in my book. Plus she has a baby duck!!!! What a great accessory!

Ok - here's that stupid coon-skin hat again. What up Young Miss?!? That is just ugly! And stupid! But the rest of her outfit is really good. And I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that other chicks outfit. I love the red, I love the patterns, I love her hair. If I could look like that every day for the rest of my life (and look good) I would die happy.

Ok - that was the main event. There's more, but let's all just take a few deep breaths. I know there was a lot of tension in the build-up and a lot of excitement during the looking at the pictures, so a breather is pretty much in order here.

So this next series of photos are not exactly my favorites. There is one pair of pants that I really like - but all in all the clothes are pretty boring. But I'll post them so you can either laugh at them, or use them to come down off the high of the last set of photos.

Get out your pens and paper to take notes, cause these are apparently all the fashions that boys love.

I actually had a few pairs of earrings that were very similar to these. They were all over the place in the early 80s - brightly colored spirals and geometric shapes. Concentric circles and tri-angles within triangles. There were also solid circles and squares that were painted one color with splashes of other colors on them. Very snazzy.

These pants below are the ones I really liked. I'm not a fan of the table cloth or the white shirt - but the pants and stockings and shoes and hair would be great with one of those mix n match outfits. They would def have jazzed up that first all-white outfit.

Ok - that's it! No more 80s action - unless I decide to post some of the articles about face regimens for different skin types, or teeny bopper night-ware. Hmmmm....maybe I'll have to do that.

Back to School 1981 Style - Part 3...YES! There's More!

2011-09-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

Mmmmk...here we are again with a look at some wacko 80s fashions, and fabulous 80s ads, in the September 1981 issue of Young Miss. And, by the way, I use the term wacko in the most endearing way possible because I totally freaking loved the way they dressed these girls up!

In the last few posts we used a microscopic eye to examine the fashion choices of a variety of girls - from Young Miss models in coon-skin hats to girls on the street across the globe - all from the actual back to school issue from August 1981.

This issue, however, has no mention of back to school - but since it's the month that school starts for most folks (and because it has my favorite, favorite favorite outfits in it!) I figured I'd do a post (maybe 2) on this issue as well.

So we start off with the cover - and a pre-brat pack Ally Sheedy. As you can see there is no mention of her on the cover - so it appears that she is merely a nameless model. I forgot to check to see if there was even a small article about her in it - and sadly, I cannot remember and I don't have the mag with me. You'd think I'd be more up on these things...but no. Actually you probably knew that I wouldn't be up on it even before I said that. You were probably all..."What else is new, crafty lady."

Anyway - if they do mention her in the mag - I know it's either brief or not at all - cause there sure as hell ain't no feature article about her in it. Brooke Sheild's took that spot and ran with it. I'm not gonna post any pics of Brooke here cause I think we all know what she looked like every second of her life from 3 years old on.

So anyway - here is lovely Ally...

with "p. 44-47" scrawled across her forehead. These are the pages with the outfits I really liked. I guess I needed to remind myself what page they were on cause, what, the magazine is so huge? Clearly I have been a dork for a long, long time.

I know we already visited Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific from the August issue - but we're gonna go down that road again - cause it's soooo freaking worth it.

Next up is an ad for a product I LOVED!!!!! Man, I couldn't get enough of these things. My sister and I were just reminiscing about them - actually I was, cause I was wishing I had a travel case dealie for some double whammy coconut oil/Bag Balm action. And this popped into my head. I remember having a root beer one and a vanilla one and, if I remember correctly, those two were in the same tin. Oh, Lip Smackers, where are ye?

I never had that spray stuff though.

Here's a Cover Girl mascara ad...

with this chick, who was kinda ubiquitous in the 80s.

And a great Noxema ad with Dana Plato.

And another Noxema ad with Mariel Hemmingway.

This one's great too. An ad for these teeny bopper romance novels. I think my sister was into these. I only vaguely remember having one romance novel - which I think was a Harlequin, with some red headed lady who goes to Ireland and falls in love with the strapping young grounds worker of a castle...of course.

I think I might just go ahead and break this post up right here - cause there's still like 10 pictures to post. But don't worry! I'm gonna do it right now - cause I am so jazzed for you all to see this stuff. Plus I'm sitting in a coffee shop and I have nothing else to do on this hot day.

Back To School Special - Watching the Girls Go By

2011-08-29T20:49:00.000-07:00

Before diving into another back to school issue of Young Miss (yes, there's another one - it's actually the Sept issue, so it can wait a bit anyways), I wanted to take this opportunity to focus - with a giant magnifying eye - on this very small article in the August 1981 issue of Young Miss. A little micro-article that forever changed my 12-year-old life. I think it's possible that a lot of kids just glossed over this 2-page spread - but not me. I stared at it for hours. I stared at it so much I had every pose and item of clothing memorized. Even the stupid captions have been swimming around in my head my whole life. Ipes! Yipes! Stripes!

So, if you wish to accompany me, we will stare at these photos together. And then, if you want, you can stare at them all on your own. Or you can call me up and we can stare at them together again.

As you can see, the gist of this whole thing is just checkin' out the chicks and their clothes. It's just candids of gals wandering the streets of a few key cities. But these chicks aren't your everyday, ordinary girls that you would see at, say, my middle school. They were way, way, way different.

I mean, first of all there's this pirate person...

I guess that's a chick. And the asymmetrical shaved head action - wow. These two blew my mind! That asymmetrical hair style was actually my very first alterna-style haircut. I think I was asymmetrical throughout the second half of my freshman year and all the way through part of my sophomore years in high school.

From that photo I kinda move straight over to NYC. Most of the Milan kids look like they're trapped in the 70s and didn't do much for me back then.

This chick always just looked so cool to me...

Moving on to the second page - we still have the same set-up...Paris, London, Milan, NYC. So here we go...

Even though they aren't super crazy different looking - I always liked these two French girls cause they are so damn cute!

That one girls short pants and boots and the way she seems to have tons of layers and stuff going on. And the look on her face. Cute!

And I seriously loved these chicks from London. The mini skirt/dress and the punk chick with the funky hair.

And even though she isn't all that different looking - I just loved the tie and the oversized jacket on this Milan girl.

And the same with this NYC girl with the stripes. I just dug all her stripes and her cute haircut.

So there you have it. Probably one of the very first events in my life that sent me careening down a the wave-o/punk/goth path in high school.

The second event happened, I think, the following summer - when my mom and dad and sister and I went to San Francisco for a week. We were staying in an apartment in the Embarcadero neighborhood and wandered out one night to eat and wound up at a hamburger place called Clown Alley. I tried to find a link for it - but I guess that particular one is closed now. Anyway, we were standing in line, about to order and there were some small kids around us - maybe they were waiting for their food - I don't know. But these two guys came in and stood behind us and looked at the kids and said "Wooooaaah! Munchkins!" They were both dressed pretty freaky - one guy had John Lennon glasses and blond dreads, and the other guy had spiky hair. I was transfixed on them - and I never, ever forgot them. Or that Clown Alley place. I even went back when I moved to San Francisco years later.

And then another time around that same age, in downtown Porltand, I was walking down the street with - I think my mom and sister maybe - and these two punky chicks are walking ahead of us, carrying a boom box type thing - and one tells the other one to put in The Pretenders and for the next 10 minutes I just kept saying "Pretenders, Pretenders, Pretenders, Pretenders" over and over in my head so I wouldn't forget the name.

Ok - enough of my reminiscing about random, microscopic punk rock related events of my youth.

Back to School 1981 Style...Part II!

2011-08-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

I neglected to mention in part 1 of this epic back-to-school-post-a-thon that back to school time has always been one of my favorite times. Even now, in my 40s, when I see back to school sales on school supplies I get really really excited. I think partly it's cause it means that fall is coming - which is my fav time of year - and partly cause I like buying things - like school supplies and new, fall-colored clothes. But part of is is def due to these two issues of Young Miss - August and Sept 1981. I have always been in love with the wacky get-ups these girls are in, and the way they all look so freaking happy and confident and super jazzed about going back to school. They sure tricked me, by gum.

There is a lot of use of the layered look in these, and the previous posts, photos. Plus this mismatched pattern and fabric weight style that was so foreign to my conservativ-ish-ly brought-up eyes.

So far, so good. But here's where we start to go a little off into left field. The hat and the belt don't really scream "I'm in high school." It's more like "I'm from another country and I'd like to sell you these raccoon tails."

And what exactly was Cusi's motivation in this photo? I'd really like to know. Was it High Falutin' Yukster? Park Avenue Hillbilly? Backwoods Mountain Trust Fund Kid? No joke, if you look up "Yuk, Yuk, Yuk!" in the dictionary this photo will pop up. I actually had that sweater in burgundy.

Um, and Janet looks a bit underdressed here in her polka dot sweat-pant jammies. Kinda like the lower half of her just rolled out of bed and threw on some moccasins.

Ok - so here we get a little more abstract with just a skeletal outfit laid out on the floor. At least I hope they weren't insinuating that we pre-teens and teens should go to school dressed in nothing but tights and shirts and accessories. As far as I can tell, these outfits also utilize the layered look - which is fine by me.

And here's that groovy mismatched patterns look. Man I wanted to pull that off so bad. I remember once I went to 6th grade in this blue hued floral and mushroom patterned skirt - now that I think about it I MUST have been trying to duplicate one of the outfits in these issues. Anyway - I was also wearing a lightweight, below the hip belt-tie sweater that had a completely different pattern - sort of geometric-ish. PLUS some fake fur, lace up boot of my mom's. And I remember that one of my best friends looked at me like I came to school dressed in saran wrap. That must have been what dashed my devil-may-care fashion sense so early on. Wow - this blog post is like a freaking therapy session. Anywho...

Here's that damn coon-skin theme again. This must be the trapper-teen look. Oh, it's "Wilderness Wear." I guess any old wilderness will do - jungle, backwoods...whatever.

Ok - now THESE next two pages actually deserve a blog post all their own. In fact - I'm gonna do that. I'll leave them here for you to look at, but I'll save all my witty commentary for another post. And you'll just have to wait a sleepless night (or two) to find out what all the hubbub is.

Ok - now on with the back to school biz. Young Miss even put a calendar together for us so that we could count down the days to back to school time with as much fervor as they suggested we should. I always liked looking at this calendar - but never did anything on it. I usually just spent the month before school started watching soap operas, playing outside, and sitting around. I never took an R&R day, called ahead for Dr. appts, started a shape-up routine, started a dog-sitting business or tried to find a long-distance pen pal. Who had time for that? Sheesh. My mom did take my sister and I shopping though - and that was usually a couple hundred dollar blow-out. Or if it wasn't it sure seemed like it.

Also, who's school starts on Sept 1st?

Back To School...1981 Style!!!!

2011-08-28T13:14:00.000-07:00

In 1981 I was 12, and I was going into the 6th grade in my local middle school in Portland, OR (ignore the Milwaukie, OR label please...).

I had had a subscription to Young Miss magazine for quite a while - I remember in the beginning it was a small, Reader's Digest, size publication - then spread out to full size and full color - and then changed the name to YM - which is around the time I stopped subscribing. I really loved this magazine...but I loved this, August 1981, issue and the Sept 1981 issue the most. I loved them so much that I kept them both - and still have them both. The images within these pages were forever melted into the very fiber of my brain. The coonskin cap, the woolen tights, the gold lame hair cord, the headbands, the flouncy skirts and dresses, and finally the girls from around the world.

I present to you, my fanatical readers, a smidgen of a moment in time. It wasn't really my moment, cause I never wore any of these clothes - but I wanted to so bad. I wanted to be one of the jaunty, confident, crazy dressing girls on these pages. I wanted to throw caution to the wind and mix match my patterns and my fabric weights like nobodies business. But, alas, I was only 12. Crazy dressing didn't start for me for another year or so. And by then I didn't know how to incorporate any of these outfits into my wardrobe. I don't really know if anyone can. Did anyone really dress like this in high school in 1981? I'd like to see some pictures if you have any. Seriously.

This may have to be broken up into multiple posts - there's like 27 images.

We'll start off with some retro, girly ads. A Close-up "L.Q." - which I think I failed. I misspelled Shaun Cassidy's name (who was apparently my boyfriend), had no idea what dazzles boys, and added some extra boxes and answers which pretty much nullified any calculated results.

Next up is everyone's fondest remembered hair product name "Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific." I don't know if anyone really remembers what it smelled like though. I was actually given a second chance on this one. My sister, who knew how much I loved this stuff in my youth, found some crazy supplier who had a box of the stuff from some warehouse somewhere or something. I don't really remember the story. Anyway, she got me a bottle for my birthday about 7 years ago, and....it smelled NOTHING like I remembered! I always remembered this fruit punchy kind of super sweet smell - but in reality it smelled more like a girly old spice. Spicy and perfumy. ECH! I really preferred my made up memory of what it smelled like - and still search for fruity smells like the one I made up that "Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific" smells like. Cause I'm still convinced that, even if it's in an alternate universe, that it smelled fruity and super sweet. Sweet!

Now, Love's Baby Soft - I don't remember exactly either - but you can still get this stuff, right? I thought I saw it somewhere. Anyway - this stuff, if my incredibly horrible smell-memory serves, smelled sweet but baby powdery. And boy oh boy, the shape of that bottle!

Next up we have the Young Miss back to school fashions.

These are all girls who look pretty much like girls looked at my school (in the small, before photos), but were given makeovers to make them look like crazy teenybopper rock stars or teeny bopper rock star's girlfriends or something.

I never knew anyone who wore a sweater skirt with knee highs, pink tennis shoes and a headband. Ever.

I always remembered, and loved, this gold string thing around the end of this chic's braid. I've actually done it a few times too.

And I sooooo love this sweater, skirt, tights combo - the colors and the contrasting fabrics. This is probably one of my favorite looks of all time - but I've always been a bit too hippy to pull off a bulky

sweater and tights and a thin, wispy skirt. Oh well.

This chic is just kinda whatever. Preppy or something not very interesting. With too much makeup.

And this chic! She looks so much better in the before shot! In the afters she looks like she wearing pajamas and a nightgown or something.

I'm so not a fan of the little-lord-fauntleroy pantaloons they put her in in this one shot. I like the patterned pants, just not the ballooning bottoms. Did they pump some air into those things or something? Nice.

I guess her photo shoot is just too "Wuthering Heights" for me. Too romantic and sleepy-time-nighty-night-night for me.

Ok - I guess I will break this up. Stay tuned for part 2, and possible part 3 and 4 - with the Sept. 1981 issue!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Afraid of Baldness...and Disco Goodness

2011-08-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

These people aren't afraid of going bald - they're afraid of Baldness!!

From the Sept 1978 issue of Playboy - steppin' out in your gabrodine Angels Flight pants!! Plus matching vest and blazer - slick!

And here's a nice little article in the same Sept 1978 issue of Playboy about folks getting down and dirty at Studio 54...

Oh yeah!

Does This Count As A Blog Post?

2011-08-24T18:44:00.000-07:00

Nudie Card Deck Just For You

2011-08-14T14:56:00.000-07:00

Does a naked lady eating spaghetti get you going? Do you have a very loose interpretation of what "Nation" means? If so you may want to download this fabulous scanned card set that is one of my most prized possessions of all time - the "Models of all Nations" playing card deck - or as I like to call it - the nudie card deck.

I found this card deck in a big box of card decks that my lived-through-the-depression-and-never-threw-anything-away grandma had squirreled away, just in case there came a day that 20 decks of cards were needed. My sister and I went through the decks and took what we wanted and all I saw at first was the cartoon wolf image on the box - which is the same as the image on the backs of all the cards

I thought it looked cool so I snagged it, and lo and behold, when I took the cards out of the box, I was greeted with these lovely images (I can only assume that my grandmother never opened the box)

All naked ladies doing some sort of fanciful something with some sort of prop. Also, there is a regular joker with a cartoon wolf that is painting some abstract naked lady or something, and then there is a joker card that is a description of the deck...

"Presenting 'MODELS OF ALL NATIONS' Fifty-two modern and distinctive art studies representing outstanding types of beauty. As sparkling and refreshing as a mountain stream (I'm not joking, it really says that), each subject is the result of painstaking research (seriously, it says that on the card). These studies are acclaimed as TRULY works of art by connoisseurs the world over."

WOW. Painstaking research! Sparkling and refreshing as a mountain stream! Acclaimed by connoisseurs the world over!!! I don't know what kind of connoisseur they're talking about though. Connoisseur of awkward poses and weird faces maybe? Connoisseur of props that don't really make any sense? Connoisseur of nations that don't exist? Like the nation of people that wear weird wolf head masks. Or the nation of people who all wear sailor hats. I don't know, but count me as one of those connoisseurs anyway!

I scanned them at 600 dpi cause I was thinking of making some additional sets for friends and family - cause we're all a bunch of lecherous so-n-so's - and I thought I'd share them with you, my loyal viewers. These photos up above are lo res versions of the high res scans - but you can download the high res ones if you want - with all 54 card face images (52 naked ladies plus 2 joker cards) and the card back - and then you can make your very own deck!!

Download here

PS - Let me know if the download doesn't work - it's my first time using Rapidshare and I can't really tell what's going on over there.

Another Breadload of Bread

2011-07-30T20:35:00.000-07:00

Sometime around 2 years ago - close to when I started this blog - a neighbor of ours unloaded, seriously, a truckload of bread at our place. It was not full up the sides of the truck - but the entire bed of the huge diesel truck was one bread-loaf deep, and the whole thing was full. I like to call that event Day of the Bread, or Breadpocolips, or - as I called it back then - The Great Bread Event. As you can read for yourself in my blog entry, The Great Bread Event was actually broken up into two separate bread days that culminated into one huge bread event. Oh, and just so ya know, even though I feel compelled to direct your attention to my older posts from time to time, I wouldn't dwell there. I really just wouldn't dwell there if I were you. In and out real quick. That's my motto.

Anywho... this here pile-o-bread is the latest in the bread events - and it's like 1/8 of the bread of that bread event day. It doesn't happen all the time - in fact it's been quite a while since we experienced a bread event, but when it does happen it's sort of an off handed, sneak attack sort of thing. Our neighbor comes by or calls and says - "Oh by the way - do you want more bread than you can eat in a month...right now?" And being the weird losers that we are we always say "YES!!!!!" Actually it's more like "uh, ok." But thankfully, even though they had a minivan full of bread in their garage, we got away with just a smallish pile of bread this time. And there's actually some decent stuff - black bread, wheat nut type, sourdough, two kinds of english muffins, whole wheat bagels, hamburg buns (that's the Vermont spelling :), but then the obligatory super sweet muffins, doughnuts, french toast maple bread and some mexican pastry bread that I can't think of the name. Oh and some squashed bread for the chickens. They love that stuff. The more squashed the better. Most of it fit in the freezer, thank god - cause during the Great Bread Event of 2009 all we could do is put it in the root cellar, where it slowly got moldy. Then I threw a bunch of it in the woods - actually I threw TONS of it in the woods - day after day after day - till the stupid neighbor dogs started rooting around and eating it.

Smooth move stupid neighbor dogs.

A Maniac In The Woods

2011-07-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

Crafty Mag Pics That Will Scare You Silly

2011-07-19T20:10:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this first one's not too scary. I mean the dresses are a little unnerving...but I kinda like that lower lady's hair.

But here's where I start sweating a bit. The wig, the smock, the ornament skirt, the look on that crazy lady's face...

And here...here is the image that will cause me to wake up screaming in the night. Who on god's green earth would not only come up with such a ridiculous hat and scarf set, but then force this poor girl to pretend to be happy wearing them, and then, against all better judgement while looking at the proofs, say "YES! Print this!!" Who? It's not even a real hat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More Photog Stuffs - NYC Snowstorm

2011-07-17T09:26:00.000-07:00

One winter when I lived in New York, there was this really cool snowstorm/blizzard that happened one afternoon and went through the night. This was probably the winter of 2001. There was like a foot and a half of accumulation and I totally dug it. One of the things I did was go out in it at night at take some photos of the neighborhood I lived in at the time - Astoria, Queens. I used super high speed black and white film to get a really contrasty, grainy image - and I totally loved the results. These are some of my favorite photographs I've ever taken. They look exactly like I wanted them to - like I pictured them in my mind - and pretty much the way I wish the world always looked. Except for the times I wished it looked like a 70s movie.

I put watermarks on these cause I figured I should. It's kinda distracting - but I'm sure you can deal.

This last one is from the Coney Island Mermaid Parade sometime around 2000/01. I thought I'd throw it in cause it's so crazy bright and contrasty and funny. Dig that devil baby!!

Random Paper Goods + God Pic

2011-07-09T11:10:00.000-07:00

Ok, I lied. It's not really a "God" pic. I didn't lay on my back and take a picture of the sky and catch God doing something. It's more a Sunday school, Santa Claus nightgown, God quote wreath thing. Or whatever.

I'll show you that first so you can start breathing again.

The thing I find most alarming about this whole contraption is that no one even bothered to trim that ugly tan construction paper off around the outside of the wreath. I mean it would actually be kinda of cute in a Sunday-school-Santa-pjs sort of way if it didn't have that dorky octagonal tan paper hanging off the sides.

The next items are the paper goods I promised a few seconds ago. Now, here I must take a moment to warn you. This may just be the turning point in our relationship. I am about to reveal to you the depths of my dorkiness (and I'm not talking tan-octagonal-paper-hanging-off-god-wreath dorkiness either). I am just warning you cause you may never wish to return to my realm again.

One of my big secrets is... I scan stupid stuff that most people would probably throw out. But, since you are here, that means that you either...

1) are exactly like me in every way or...

2) stumbled upon my realm and can't figure out how to get out (those are the only two option available).

So then that can only mean that you will want these items for your very own too (or that you don't but we won't dwell on that part)! Yay for us!!

First up is a scan of a notepad called "The Bachelor Pad." It's got all these funky doodles around the edges of the paper and a space in the middle to write your notes or what-have-yous.

All the following scans are 300 dpi - purely for your printing pleasure.

Sorry about the wonkiness of that one - I'll fix it someday.

Next is another notepad for you to print off and use as if it were your very own. It is the receipt pad for an upholstery business that my grandpa and his brother had in Regina, Saskatchewan way back in the 40s or 50s. See, you can pretend that you work at Barrie Brothers and that someone just ordered a sofa reupholstery job! Isn't that exciting?!?! What would YOU charge?

And next is an old envelope for some bank. It's not a deposit envelope, as it was clearly meant to go through the mail (or did they do that way back when?). But you could print out any size you want and trick your loved ones into thinking they are receiving some sort of official thing in the mail.

Fuck - my boyfriend just figured out what I'm doing and looked at me like I was off my rocker. I guess he's not invited back to my realm.

Ok - back to the snazzy envelope. Here it is. (In case you didn't go this far in your head - you could actually SEND a Barrie Brothers receipt to someone IN THIS ENVELOPE! How exciting is THAT?)

And last, but not least, just so you don't say I never gave you anything that wasn't really boring and stupid - here's a pretty cool canning label. Print and commence labeling!

Ok - have fun with your new toys!

Rocking Horse Records "Peter Pan"

2011-07-01T11:20:00.000-07:00

Ok kiddies, here it is. The full Peter Pan album with album art in the download (crafty!) - and 6 stories with more quotable dialogue and catchy tunes to get stuck in your head than you would ever believe possible.

I know I tricked you all into downloading that one Ali Baba track last night. Sorry - I just got so excited. You can go ahead and delete that track if you want cause the whole shebang is right here (and that track doesn't have the nifty album art).

Another Rocking Horse record is in the works - so stay tuned.

Rocking Horse Records "Peter Pan"

Track Listing
1. Peter Pan
2. Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves
3. Jack and the Beanstalk
4. Pandora
5. Tom Thumb
6. The Pied Piper of Hamelin

My First Music Download!

2011-06-30T20:51:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of fancy, crafty activity in my fancy, crafty world lately! I'm still doing the scanning and whatnot - which is cool - and I will share more of that - but, even fancier is there has been cassette tape copying!!!!! After much research and sitting and thinking and looking and more sitting and a little more thinking and some wishing that I someone else would just do it for me, I figured out how to hook a tape player (generously donated by my boyfriend, Baron) up to my computer. And all it cost me was $3.80.

So for my very first link to my very first download of my very own - I present you with a track from a children's album that my sister and I listened to WAY more than we did our grandma. The album is Peter Pan from the Rocking Horse children's record collection.

There were 6 tracks on the record and the one I am posting is Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. This was one of our absolute favorites. I will post the rest when I figure out how to post a whole album. Until then you can just listen to this track over and over and over. This copy was actually made off of a cassette tape recording of the album.

Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves

I redirected the link for this track to my post with the full album.

What Movie is This?

2011-06-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

I've had this still for quite a while. For some reason I think someone, like maybe my sister, gave it to me as a birthday present. Does anyone know what movie it's from? It looks cool. I can't even think of the name of the actress on the floor.

Flintstones Colorforms

2011-06-20T20:17:00.000-07:00

I'm so psyched. I thought I might have gotten rid of this before I got my scanner - but no! Here it is!

Man, I used to love this thing. I remember my mom bought my sister and I each a Colorforms set before we went on this train trip to visit some friends of hers. It was my first train ride ever - so that was thrilling - but I totally remember being super psyched about this set too.

Here is the board that the Colorforms go on.

And the insert that tells you what to do.

And the Flintstones!

They're kinda beat up - but they're there! Yay! I'd love to cut these out and make pictures with them and the background in Photoshop. Oh - I just noticed - it looks like I might be missing a Wilma head. Oh well. At least I have one!

Wow.

2011-06-19T10:29:00.000-07:00

I've been doing massive amounts of scanning lately. Mostly cause I just want to get rid of stuff - but also cause I want to have the stuff that I have gotten rid of (I'm in the have my cake and eat it too camp). Crazy? Maybe. I mean how many vintage ads of Dinty Moore Beef Stew does one actually need?

While you are pondering that question, and maybe even coming up with your own answer, I've provided these bizarre relics from past days for you to take a look at.

I have a pretty big collection of vintage 30s, 40s and 70s greeting cards and this one has always stood out for me. It stood out when I was little cause it has this real little bit of rabbit fur on it and I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. It stands out to me know for pretty obvious reasons.

I've divide up the scan into the 3 parts of the card so you don't have to turn your computer upside down to look at it.

And this ad is pretty much just WTF.

But wait, there's Moore. Heh. I went back on my no-pun policy. Deal with it.

Oh, Dinty.

Very 70s Greeting Card

2011-06-17T22:33:00.000-07:00

Too much.

Crafty Biz Aplenty. And a Smoothie.

2011-06-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

I call this one Spooky Smoothie. It's just frozen watermelon cubes and not frozen cantaloupe and a bit of water. I honestly don't remember what kind of sad life I had before my Vitamix and this fabulous melon smoothie. I'm crying as I write this now. Watermelon/Cantaloupe smoothie, will you marry me? Oh, wait, I'm already married to my Vitamix? Dammit. I'm sure we can figure something out.

And for the crafty end of the stick I'm just gonna post some pics of a purse I made right before my birthday back in April. I sort of considered it my bday present to myself (awwwwww). I love this purse. It's pretty much everything I want in a purse - roomy, long strap for shoulder slinging, reversible, cute, chickens, etc.

Here is one side with a blue and crazy pink red patterned corduroy fabric and a big pocket that has some chicken applique on it. And a strip of cute chick ribbon/edging stuff on the top of the pocket. Cute!

The other side is a red patterned fabric quilt of squares that I had done a long time ago and never finished. So I just used it for this purse - and sewed on a pocket from an old purse with some chicken embroidery I had done while back. And yes, that is Desmond hanging there on the side. I always have him within grabbing distance now.

So there you have it. Craftyness at it's best. And Desmond. What more could you ask for?

Watch Out!

2011-06-16T18:47:00.000-07:00

If you're easily offended by the inappropriate use of feather dusters you may not want to continue any further.

This picture is only for those that are easily amused.

I just love the look on her face. And the feather duster. Has she been on all fours so long that her back is dusty? It's from the first issue - sometime in 1969 - of Derriere magazine. Oh wait! I have that too!!

Now, it's my understanding that it's the punani, and not the butt cheeks that is offensive. So I think I might just slide right under the radar with these photos. I know I got a bit of the boobie in that one - but we've seen boobies before in Craftypants Carol's Fancy Crafty World.

The Mother of all Anniversaries.

2011-06-15T20:17:00.000-07:00

And Craftypants Carol is celebrating like a mofo.

Kinda.

See, I just noticed that this is my 75th post and it happens to coincide with the fact that this blog is 2 years old. So if you do the math that makes me an all time, super freak-out, blogging master with - ok - I just tried to do the math while I was watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and I just can't do it. Wow. But I mean, I think that you can just sort of imagine what the math would be though - kinda like I'm doing right now. I'm all "wow - that's like...not that many." But the up side of that is that you, my loyal, fanatical reader, always has something to look forward to.

But really my mofo style celebration sort of just involves me doing a blog post about stuff I've been meaning to write about for a while now. Like my little schmos: Padraig (pronounced Porrig - it's Irish, from the TV show Ballykissangel - Baron is obsessed with it) and MacGregor (pronounced MacGrrrrrrrregorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr). MacGregor is the white one, and I love them like nobodies business.

Here they are sitting on our bed in the evening. We bring them in the house pretty much every night so they can sit with us for a couple hours and watch TV. They really do watch TV - it's funny. I made a special thing for them to sit on cause they poop a LOT. It's a bunch of old towels sewed together and backed with a shower curtain. As you can see it's a bit stained. It really is clean. Seriously. I just washed it on Monday. In fact I was with Baron at the laundr-o-mat and when I took it out of the basket to fold it up I held it up and said to Baron "Oh, I washed your sheet for you." out loud. I thought it was funny.

Here is another one where you can see Padraig sleeping while standing on one foot. Her eye is open but it was closed before.

I also made another batch of soap not too long ago and thought I'd let you take a gander at that.

This brown soap is made with castor oil, coconut oil, orange essential oil and Chinese 5 spice. It's really nice. And the 5 spice gives it a sort of exfoliating action. The white chunks are the shavings and cuttings from my last batch (which I made around a year ago too! more anniversary action! and there's more to come!!!). The brown batch made 16 bars and there are still 3 bars left from the last one.

I also finally got around to racking some wine I made recently. The 5 gallon batch is a mix of gooseberry, rhubarb and kiwi that I started in December or January and the other is Dandelion wine I started about 2 months ago. The 5 gallon batch should be ready to bottle in another month. Yay!

While plotting and planning this abondanza style post I also noticed that my first encounter with the blog-love-of-my-life, Kindertrauma, was also about a year ago (you can see them mentioned in the epic last soap batch post). In commemoration of this special moment in time I will direct you to my all time favorite Kindertrauma post. It's about a short film called Silent Snow, Secret Snow and I just love everything Unkle Lancifer says about it. I can't say enough about it so I'll just say just go there and read it. The Tourist Trap post is a close runner up though. I mean any horror movie review that can sneak in a reference of Robert Goulet AND Shields and Yarnell - holy freaking crap. I actually laugh out loud all of the sudden sometimes thinking about it. The Cathy's Curse review is pretty great too. Ok - I could go on forever listing great blog posts on that site - so just go there now for crissake.

Ok - that's about it. See ya next year!!

mmmmm...cheesewiches.

2011-06-10T21:15:00.000-07:00

and instant living.

I want some instant living. Actually I wouldn't mind a cheesewich either.

The Amazing Cosmic Acquisitions of Craftypants Carol!

2011-06-07T20:29:00.000-07:00

So this last weekend I traveled to Portland (it's an hour drive from where I'm at) to sell some goods at a big garage sale and go to an Afterschool Special watching party. It was a kinda relaxing, yet exhausting coupla days cause I really didn't do much. But what I did do - sitting in the sun for a day, drinking very strong margaritas, staying up late, sleeping on a couch - all kinda turned me into a zombie by Sunday.

That's the boring synopsis. Here is the exciting particulars!!

One of my super amazing acquisitions is this Pop Shoppe Pop crate of Pop Shoppe Pop bottles!!!

I guess they're back in biz up in Canada - but I only remember drinking this stuff in the 70s. This stuff was the shizzzzzit when I was a kizzle. I actually don't even know what I just said.

Anyway, when you wanted to buy Pop Shoppe Pop you had to go to a gas station or auto garage or something. I'm exaggerating a little cause I didn't even know where we were when we bought it when I was a kid - it just seemed like it was an auto garage. I'm sure it was a perfectly respectable way to do business though. Plus you had to buy it by the case, I think. But you could mix a bunch of flavors into the case (or crate) and they had a ton. We would only get it when we went to my cool grandma's house. She was cool cause she let us drink Pop Shoppe Pop and watch horror movies.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm gonna do with these - and I'm sure you're thinking - "Weren't you trying to get RID of stuff crafty lady?" And you would be right. I couldn't pass up a major blast from my past though. I was thinking about maybe even bottling some of my kefir soda in the bottles. That would be kinda cool.

Another olde timey piece of Portland retro paraphernalia that I picked up at the garage sale where I was SUPPOSED to be unloading my crap is this...

It's an old printing press plate thing for Sunshine milk - a local Portland biz that has a revolving Sunshine milk carton on top of their building. It's a total landmark - and I'm pretty sure it's still there. I really don't know what I'm gonna do with this - but it's freaking cool.

So later that night...

my sister and I went to a party at the house of a friend of her's to watch an Afterschool Special called The Amazing Cosmic Awareness of Duffy Moon.

It is virtually the only Afterschool Special that I remember - even though I know I saw a bunch of them. But for some reason it really stuck with me. It stars Ike Eisenmann (Escape To Witch Mountain - don't tell me you haven't seen it) as Duffy Moon and Lance Kerwin (James at 15/16, Salem's Lot) as his best friend.

There's a book about cosmic awareness that was written by Dr. Flamel (Jim Backus)

a bunch of street toughs

and a character called Boots McAfee.

Boots McAfee (spoiler) turns out to be a chick - Alexa Kenin

who was, for me, most memorably in Little Darlings. Actually, everything about Little Darlings was memorable for me. I love summer camp movies of any type - and it is one of my faves. She also played one of Annie Potts friends at the bar in Pretty in Pink. She's also listed as being in Facts of Life but I totally don't remember her in that. I'll have to check that out from the library again and see if I can find her.

So, the show ends in classic feel-good TV show fashion with everyone, including the street toughs, laughing for a very long time.

Ah, the carefree days of standing under a sprinkler and laughing.

If you want to get in on the action you can start with the first part here.

That's about all the retro excitement I can manage to insert into one blog post. For now, anyways.

Rhubarb Syrup Again

2011-06-03T21:47:00.000-07:00

After a year of using my batch of rhubarb syrup in soda water, mixed drinks, kefir soda, and on ice cream, I ran out. Actually I had a batch of rhubarb syurp and 2 separate batches of blackberry syrup that I did last summer that lasted the year here and here.

I picked last year's rhubarb at the end of the summer and what I got was mostly the green stalks so the color was more of a green tinged light pink than what came out of this year's batch. Man that stuff looks cool. I went over to my neighbor's and picked a big bucket of stalks that ranged from very deep red to mostly red with some green. I looked at last years recipes and did about the same thing - maybe a bit less sugar - but it just looks so much more spectacular.

Rhubarb Syrup 2011

12 cups rhubarb stalks cut into 1/2 inch chunks

4 1/2 cups water

3 cups sugar

Simmer 15 minutes then strain through fine sieve or cloth.

You can scale it back and keep a jar in the fridge for quite a while - or you can put this large batch up in jars and keep it in the pantry for future use.

I also made a mint syrup (the light green one) out of, what I think is, chocolate mint from my garden. I've had it so long that I don't remember what kind it is. This is a close up photo of it - the leaf has rounded and purplish edges and purple on the undersides.

The mint that I picked completely filled this bucket and it came out to about 6, very packed, cups.

For some reason the combo of the light I have in my kitchen and my flash turns the color on my walls a weird yellowy-green color. It really isn't that yellow. Please don't think I'm a lunatic.

Mint Syrup

6 cups packed mint - crumpled up and bruised

6 cups water

5 cups sugar

Simmer 5 minutes, strain.

I used 5 cups of sugar cause I ran out - but it definitely turned out sweet enough.

In other news... I got a Vitamix.

For those of you out-of-the-know, a Vitamix is a super duper high powered blender that completely pulverizes everything in it's path. I am in love with it. And I am in the midst of devising a plan where I run away to Vegas with my Vitamix and get married by an Elvis Impersonator.

I could name all the things I've made with it - but I'm sure you'd get bored (too late), so I will skip to the coolest thing I've made so far, which is a 1 1/2 pint jar (that's the tall skinny one that holds less than a quart but more than a pint - see below) of coconut butter. As you may or may not know that shit is expensive and really good and I took a little over $4 worth (around 2 pounds) of unsweetened coconut flakes and turned it into this.

It's very hard at room temp cause it has still been pretty damn cold here in the morning. But that looks like it is finally changing.

I've been experimenting with coconut oil in healthy candies - but this seems like it will be better cause it has more substance.

Well, that's it. I'm tired and I've got two geese on the bed that keep trying to eat my computer.]

Old Country Kitchen

2011-05-30T21:17:00.000-07:00

There is a restaurant in Portland, Or that was like the most special place to go eat all while I was growing up. That restaurant is a steak and seafood house called Sayler's Old Country Kitchen. Our family just called it Old Country Kitchen though. In fact, I went to grade school with one of the Sayler sons and didn't ever make the connection till probably my 20s or something cause I was totally ignorant to the Sayler part of the name of my favorite restaurant. This SE Portland steakhouse was all the rage in the 50s and 60s and probably 70s and 80s and raged on into the 90s and the 00s and, I'm guessing is still raging on - cause the last time I was there the parking lot was packed, as per usual.

What I loved most when I was a kid was this relish plate that they always put right in the middle of the table right after you ordered, so you never had to spend a single moment without some form of food in either your hand or your mouth for the duration of the evening. The relish plate had carrot sticks (yay) and celery (ew) and black olives (super yay) and mini corn cobs (super yay!) and there was also this chivey sour cream for dip. That's the part I remember most from my childhood, but since I've been there many times as an adult I can also tell you that they pretty much stuff you to the gullet with bread and garlic oil (it comes in it's own bowl so you can spoon it onto your bread or whatever), salad or soup, the main steaky or seafood thing, baked potato (with more sour cream and butter and chives and bacon if you're up for it) and then ice cream for dessert. I always had spumoni.

One thing they are famous for is this 72 oz steak deal where if you eat the whole thing (that's 4 1/2 pounds) plus some relish plate, salad, potato, veg, and dessert within an hour (I think) then you don't have to pay (in dollars, that is). Oh, and you get your picture put in the lobby.

These are some scans I did of one of their menus that I got when I was a kid. The menu is approx the size of the 72oz steak you would get if you were crazy enough to go that route. As you can see, my scanner (which fits and 8 x 10 piece of paper with like an additional inch of space around) cut a bit off the ends. So that mother is big. And as you can also see, I was very territorial about my Old Country Kitchen Menu. My first and last name is all over it - just in case someone outside my family happened to find it somewhere - I wanted them to know it was mine. Another thing you can clearly see - the prices are so insanely low - but we're talking the 70s here. A 72 oz steak meal for $16? Oh and add on a lobster tail for $4.45! And I love the warning for the well done steak request.

Alright, already.

2011-05-27T11:30:00.000-07:00

Enough of the shirking, and the skulking, and the gadding about town. I have put this blog post off so long that I built it up to some kind of unattainable event in my mind with thrills, spills and chills coming at you, my patient reader, from every possible angle in the universe. I had ideas for recipe posts, crafty goings on, horror movie houses, geese candid shots, garden updates, new appliance updates...the list goes on and on. Instead I am just gonna show you these...

Some photos I took in NYC when I lived there and was studying photography. I had a big obsession with run down stuffs, oh and bathrooms, and rotten food. I'll just post a few for now - and maybe do another post like this again soon. These are all scans of prints that I had done and am kind of weeding through. I can't bring myself to get rid of the negatives though - hundreds if not thousands of them.

The photo above is the old Cyclone roller-coaster at Coney Island. I'm pretty sure they tore it down by now. In this photo it is surrounded by a fence and a field - so you can't get up close to it. You can actually see it in the movie Requiem For A Dream. I couldn't remember the name of that movie (cause I'm getting old and my pea brain is constantly shriveling) and I found this site online. Pretty cool.

This photo I took when a friend of mine and I snuck into the Chelsea Hotel (the desk guy said we couldn't go up unless we knew someone in the hotel so we waited till he was distracted and ran up the stairs - heh). We just wandered around the halls and took random photos. Here's another one I took to add to my bathroom series.

Pretty clean community bathroom.

This next one is a shot of an apt/storefront at night on 14th Street. I used super high speed film at night to get really grainy, contrasty images. Actually I used the super high speed film on pretty much everything.

And this one was taken some morning on the Lower East Side.

Same high speed film action.

This next one is color. I got really into doing this thing where you take color slide film and, if I remember right, overexpose it, then have it processed like negative film and what it does is make all the natural sunlight in the image appear blue - and the images are super contrasty and grainy too. I don't remember exactly how it's done but it doesn't really matter now since everyone uses photoshoppe.

I like in this photo you can see the difference between the blue lighted area - which is the natural light - and the inside area - which is probably fluorescent light and is more yellowy-green. This was in Chinatown.

OK. I finally got that monkey off my back - and I hope you all liked looking at these photos.

Lacto Fermented Dips/Spreads/Mayos/Whathaveyous

2011-03-06T19:16:00.000-08:00

So here is another chapter in the fermented nut cheeze story of my lacto fermentation quest.

Or is it another chapter in my lactic fermented nut cheeze quest story.

Whatever.

I'm actually watching Bored to Death right now and am having a really hard time focusing on this post. And I bet you thought you always had all of my attention. Um...nope. This show is really funny. I don't know how I heard of it cause I'm kinda out of the loop on most TV - but I put in on hold at the library and just started watching it.

Anywho...a week or so ago I made a modified version of this Almonnaise (vegan gluten free mayo) as a dip and it was really freaking good. I used way less oil (like 1/4 c) and ate it with some of my crackers and on some sandwich things. Instead of grinding the almonds in the recipe myself I used almond meal/flour. I wanted to make some more this week and I didn't happen to have any more almond flour, so I improvised - and man oh man did it work!!! I used the remaining cup of fermented nut cheeze I had in the fridge and it turned out grand! Grand, I tell you! I also made another dip/spread thing that I would like to share as well.

Carol's Fancy-Ass Fermented Nut Cheeze Spread/Dip

1 cup fermented nut cheese
approx 1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp dried herbs (I used thyme and sage)
1 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup (or more if you prefer) safflower oil
1-3 Tbls lemon juice

Put nut cheese and water in a blender and blend and add more water till it's creamy and the blender seems happy with the whole arrangement. Add all the seasonings and blend a little more. Then, with the oil you will be making mayo - and if you have never done that then you will now. You put the amount of oil that you want to use (less makes it more dippy, more makes it more mayonaissey) into a measuring cup and take that center part out of the blender lid and trickle the oil into the blender while it is going and it will slowly make an emulsion that will then be a dippy/mayo. Then blend in the lemon juice. It will be pretty runny at this point - whether you make it with the almond meal or with the nut cheese - but after it's been in the fridge a while it will thicken up a lot.

The other spread thing I made is this stuff that I used to make a long time ago. I used to own this book called The Book of Miso and the one thing I remember from it that I LOVED was this miso spread thing that they had a bunch of variations in there. It was basically miso mixed with whatever you want and then spread on bread or put on rice. The main one that I made was mixed with peanut butter and honey. Trust me it was GOOD - sweet and salty and peanutty and so freaking good. But you could also do tahini or some other nut butter and no honey and add just about anything like orange juice or garlic (probably without the honey) or other herbs or seasonings. Anyway - it is just really good. So what I did was substitute the fermented nut cheese for the peanut butter - so here is a vague version of my recipe for that.

Miso Spread

1/4 cup miso
1/4-1/2 cup fermented nut cheese
2 Tbls honey - more or less

Mix all together according to your tastes.

So, one morning this last week I was trying to put together a travel breakfast cause I was leaving early and was gonna be gone all day and I came up with this sandwich thing. I used kamut bread cause I had it - but normally I would use regular bread or a raw wrap thing. I put the mayo spread on both pieces of bread (mostly cause the kamut bread is really dry) and then a layer of the miso spread and then a whole bunch of sprouts and it was actually really good. I know I keep saying that - I guess you'll just have to try it for yourself.

So anywho...those are the dippy recipes and the other stuff on the plate in the photos is the fermented nut cheese crackers I posted last time as well as some zucchini crackers I made that are really good too and some cheezy kale chips.

There are a bunch of recipes for kale chips out there that you can find on youtube or on raw food websites so I won't post it here unless I get a barrage of comments begging me for my recipe. Or unless I feel like it.

Raw Fermented Cheeze Cracka! Gooood Cracka!

2011-03-02T20:14:00.000-08:00

The other day I posted a big ole thing about fermented nut cheese/cheeze/cheece/sheese and immediately I was barraged with an email from my sister with a novel suggestion. She had somehow come into possession of a recipe for cheese crackers with almond flour and thought it would be tasty to use my aged, fermented nut cheese. This is the original recipe - I don't know the source so please don't sue me if this is your recipe. Just tell me who you are and I will give you your blessed due.

2 1/2 cups almond meal

1/4 teas sea salt

1/2 teas baking soda

1 cup freshly grated cheddar cheese

3 tablespoons grapeseed oil

2 large eggs

My plan was to dehydrate them in my food dryer - and I'm not too familiar with how eggs do in that sitch - so I did a switcheroo and substituted chia glob for eggs. I'll tell you all about it in a minute!

I only had 1 3/4 c almond flour yesterday, and all I had for fermented nut cheese was one that had been going for 4 days - so it wasn't really super cheezy - but it was still quite good. So, anywho... I reduced the amount of some stuff and threw some other stuff in and low and behold came up with these really very good crackers.

So here is my adapted recipe:

Raw Fermented Cheeze Crackers

1 3/4 c almond flour

1/2 c fermented nut cheese

2 T chia seeds

1/4 c water

1 t lemon juice

1t sea salt

The first thing you want to do is get your chia going. Chia seeds are this like super miracle food that people are in love with and want to marry. Google it if you want to weep with joy along with everyone else. You can use them as the binder for raw crackers, as a thickener for puddings and sauces, and as an egg replacer in baking - so I figured this could replace the eggs AND be the binder of my crackers. So what you do to get the binder action going (or to use them as an egg replacer in a baking recipe) is put around 1T of seeds in a bowl with about 1/4 c of water and let it sit for 5-10 min. I used 1/4 c water total at this point cause I wasn't sure how it was all going to play out in the end, if you know what I mean. I put everything in a food processor and wound up needing to add quite a bit of water - like 1/2 c or more. I smeared it around on a fruit roll tray in my food dryer - around 1/8 inch thick - and let it go to town. I took almost 24 hours to dry - mostly cause I had it down at 105 degrees for most of the time. So - these are great but I would do a few things differently next time around...

I would really like to try these with a much longer fermented nut cheese - so there's that. But also I think I would up the chia amount - to like maybe 1/4 c or more of chia seeds and maybe a cup of water cause they came out a bit thicker than I wanted and more on the crumbly side than I was expecting. That's not bad at all - neither the thickness or the crumblyness - I'd just like to see what I could do with these. Also I think I'd use more lemon juice. You can never have too much lemon juice in anything as far as I'm concerned.

Baron keeps calling these Soylent Green.

Aged Fermented Nut Cheese - Everything You Ever Wanted To Know

2011-02-27T18:53:00.000-08:00

Ok - so after typing out the directions twice in two days for my aged, fermented nut cheese, I decided to tell the world about it, which also includes a long winded story of the trials and tribulations of my query and the final result of all of my deductions and suppositions.

Unfortunately I have no pics as this is a rush job. Ok - I'll give you a pic so you have something visual to anchor yourself with

Ok - so for a year or so now I have been gathering information from various sources about lacto fermentation. It is quite the rage now-a-days, and I won't go into all the particulars here cause all you have to do it google it and you will be spoon fed much info from blogs and books and whatnot. My family has been lacto fermenting pickles for generations (old world eastern European style), so I had some background, which helped with the fear of death that I think a lot of people who are new to this experience. I mean there's all the botulism fear and the USDA who scares the CRAP out of people with all their rules, but I digress - cause if you want to know about that you can google that too.

Between Wild Fermentation, a book where rampant experimentation is king; Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning, a fabulous collection of old world French lacto preservation methods ; and Nourishing Traditions, probably the most referenced lacto preservation book out there (due in part to the salsa recipe, which I have not yet tried), I became fascinated with what people are fermenting and wondered - is there anything you can't ferment? Plus, if you've ever watched Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, you are well aware of the fermented products he tries on a very regular basis. A lot are dug up out of the ground and most are said to have a cheesy quality. Yes, cheesy.

So between reading these books and checking out many-a-blog, I have seen comments or recipes that made reference to things such as fermented mashed sweet potato, potato cheese, fermented tahini, forgotten nut cheese at the back of the fridge, dehydrated lacto fermented veg made into chips, etc.

I also recently got into reading some raw food forums and there is quite a bit of talk about this Russell guy who has an ebook and does classes on fermented nut cheese and the Dr. Cow vegan nut cheese that apparently kicks ass - but is very expensive.

So as a result of all this random information, even though I am not vegan or raw, I became obsessed with making aged, fermented nut cheese. I mean, it's super healthy and you can do cool stuff with it, and I just get obsessed with things like this - cause that's the way I am. So I just did it. I made nut cheese - the way you do in any one of a million recipes that you can find online or in a vegan or raw food book, added an inoculant to get the fermentation going, aged it and ate it and I didn't die. In fact, I almost had a heart attack cause it was so freaking good. Like super sharp spreadable cheese. No joke. And it makes sense. I am, in essence, making cheese. Or fermented fish paste, or fermented African yam, or tempe or black bean paste or whatever pasty, proteiny thing that is out there that people ferment, then eat. And a lot of it is described as cheesy.

So here is my recipe - with some further explanations here and there - so it's gonna look more like another paragraph than a recipe. But if you're interested in this for any reason I highly recommend that you read on and try it yourself!

Aged, Fermented Nut Cheese

Organic Raw Nuts (I usually use cashews but i've heard macadamias and pine nuts are very good)
water
inoculant (whey, or miso, or lacto veg brine, or rejuvelac)
salt

It really is best to use organic and very important to use raw nuts. Use whatever amount of nuts you want. I usually go with about 2 cups. Soak the nuts in twice the amount of water for 12-24 hours. They become very soft and rubbery when soaked and will blend much easier. Drained soaked nuts and then rinse a few times until water runs clear. I usually soak them in a quart mason jar so after I drain them I put them back into the jar and then cover then over again with clean water. This all goes into a blender. I have not used a food processor for this but have read that you can. Into the blender you also add your inoculant and about a teaspoon of salt. So here is some more lacto info. Old world lacto fermentation is actually done without the addition of any inoculant. Everything in the world is covered with the lacto bacteria that does the fermentation (including your hands), so whatever veg you are using is usually not washed (ideally it came from your own garden) and so the bacteria is there and just takes off. Salt is added to keep other, undesirable microbes at bay until the lacto bacteria gets a foothold - which is usually a couple days. At that point the acid level of the product rises (it is a bi-product of the lacto bacteria), which prevents virtually all other undesirable microbes from growing - including botulinum. Some people use an inoculant - which is some product that already has lots of lacto bacteria in it so that lacto fermentation is assured. In something like this nut cheese I would say that it is pretty important. You really do want to make sure that everything is going in the right direction. I use milk kefir whey as my inoculant. It is the clear liquid that is left behind when you strain kefir - or yogurt. You can also use miso or you can make your own rejuvelac - but I've never done that so I can't comment.

So....in your blender is...nuts, water, inoculant, salt. Blend for a minute or so - long enough for everything to liquify. I've read that some cottage cheese like chunks are ok - but I make mine smooth. Then I take a large mesh strainer and line it with a cotton dish towel. I put it over a bowl that it can rest in without touching the bottom and pour the liquid in. Immediately liquid will come out the bottom of the strainer into the bowl. Just let it sit like this (cover it over with part of the towel so that dust or whatever doesn't get into it) in a warm spot for one or two days. I put mine either next to my food dehydrator (when it is turned on) or next to the wood stove. Like with yogurt making, I have heard of other places people use - on top of the fridge, on a radiator, in a gas stove with the pilot light on, in a crock pot set on warm. You need to find your own warm place. Somewhere in the 70-90 degree range. Some recipes I've seen have it sit out one day. Some say two. I do two days just cause I know that with other lacto veg items you let those sit out for as many as 4 or 5 days to make sure the fermentation is really going - then move it to a cooler spot. In this case the cooler spot is the fridge. At this point the strained nut cheese (which can be eaten at any point along the way) will be sort of fluffy and kind of dry on the surface. This is good. So scoop it out of the dish towel contraption and into a storage vessel. I use a pint mason jar. I press down as I am filling so that the large air pockets are forced out and then I use another old world technique. I pour a thin layer of olive oil on the top to cover it completely. The function of this is to keep an air tight seal on your lacto fermentation...station. Lacto fermentation is an anaerobic activity - it works in an environment without air. The oil provides a perfect air tight barrier. Yay!

So you can let it sit, in the fridge, for a few days and try it - or a week - or a month. One very good thing to have under your belt is having smelled lacto fermented veg at some point in your life. It is a distinctive smell and you will know that you have done it right because of the smell. For a long time I read comments from people on fermentation forums and yahoo groups that would say - you will know if the jar has gone bad and you shouldn't eat it by the smell. You will know. And I always wondered what that knowing smell was. I like descriptions. Give me info. I want to know what the hell you are talking about. Then, lo and behold one day I opened a jar of green beans that had gone very very wrong. Boy oh boy did I know that there was no way in hell that there was anything good in that jar. Do you know what it smelled like? Shit. Literally it smelled like I was holding a jar of shit in my hand. Looked like green beans, smelled like shit. So now you know. You will know. Lacto fermentation smell on the other hand is (no joke) like a breeze of fresh air, and slightly acidic. I'm totally being serious. WhenEVER I open a jar of anything lacto fermented I immediately smell it and it gives me the feeling of fresh, breezy, tangy air. There's a big difference between that and shit.

The thing that I have found is, the longer it sits the more like sharp cheese it is. Now - I have only been doing this for a month or so - so I have not experimented into the months of fermentation. But I would - if I could stop eating it. I don't know how the first cheese makers stopped themselves from eating the cheeses long enough to get 12 year aged cheddar. I guess if you've got a lot of cows and a lot of milk...

Anywho...that's my story. Feel free to blast me out of the water with your doubting looks and scowling disposition. I don't really care. I'm just so psyched it works!

Home Sweet Home...A Tale of Two Sisters

2011-02-20T10:57:00.000-08:00

Ok - since I actually had someone not related to me leave a comment recently I made up my mind to do some actual, real posting action (but also so as not to appear like the laziest blogger that ever was - oh, too late).

Besides that I have started to hear chanting outside my bedroom window coming from the throngs of readers that have gathered around my house, begging me to thrill them, even just a little bit, with my vegetable-soup-like-mix of bad grammar, spelling errors, chapter-long sentences and edgy, razor-sharp wit that could shave the hairs right off the legs of the tiny spider that is crawling up your leg. HA! Anyway - this here is one more addition to my horror dream house theme - one of the many I still have back logged on my computer. So if you wish real hard and say some sort of weird incantation - who knows?!? - I may start doing all this on a more regular basis again. So without further bla bla bla.....

The house that is featured in A Tale of Two Sister is just stunning. It has a weathered, beach-mansion feel on the outside and a super elegantly creepy atmosphere on the inside - and is tastefully decorated to boot!

We'll start off with the fabulous entry of this really interesting house. I absolutely love the dark wood trims and whatnot that occupy almost every square inch of this house. From the outside, the house looks very nice and beachy and homey (albeit mansion-like), but on the inside you are immediately transported to creepytown. With the combo of dark trims and low lighting this house just screams Ah! - but in a really beautiful sort of way.

AH!

AHHH!

I won't be going to the bathroom in the middle of the night in this house, thank you very much. But that's not much of a price to pay when you consider this absolutely gorgeous kitchen/dining room combo.

Once again we see the dark wood trim and french doors, but there are also lots of other cool colors and patterns and textures going on here.

The details throughout the house are amazing - like that cool chandelier and the patterned rice paper french doors.

In every room there are tons of cool antiques and knick-knacks and the wallpaper is amazing - but especially in wallpaper in the dining room (which also happens to the the background in the title sequence).

The blue metal kitchen unit is too freaking cool for words

and the mother flippin red tile floor - OMG!

I think we all know what happens here - so we'll just swiftly move right along...

The incredible patterns and textures throughout the house are just amazing.

Everything has a heavily layered antique look and all of the fabric from the rugs to the bed spreads are either brocade or patterned in some way- so cool!

Even in the inky darkness you can see the details

and the color combinations

and the interesting accessories and fixtures.

Even on the exterior of the house there is so much going on when you look real close.

Check out the combo of weathered wood and finished wood and white tile and ornate bench and funky old switch-plates and the delicate but ornate curtains. The amount of stuff going on in this house is mesmerizing.

There is also an ornate gate that will probably only serve to look gorgeous and keep out anyone who might be trying to help you escape from the truly creepy ghosts. Oh well.

I know what you're thinking, and before you start whining or pointing your boney little finger at anything I'll say it out loud...there is no cellar in the Two Sisters house. :( Yes, that does make Craftypants Carol kinda sad. I mean there could be a cellar that they just don't show in the movie - one that is so cool and nifty that they just had to keep it to themselves - like a really cool, dark, damp secret. But when taking into consideration that many Koreans bury their kimchi in the ground I think we can probably assume that this little outdoor area is where Craftypants Carol would be storing her canned goods.

BUT...this house does have a feature that sort of makes up for the lack of cellar space...

A really really big greenhouse! How cool is that? I mean if one were to just focus on growing ones greens - napa cabbage and bok choy for example - in this monstrous greenhouse and then one were to bury the resulting mix in the ground and waited a good while - what more would one really need? I mean this could essentially be the more health-conscious "spa" version of all of the Home, Sweet Homes because you not only have a place to grow your leafy greens - but you also have fields of wheat or something in which to prance around in.

Actually, there are not only the fields of wheat and such - but the house is surrounded by rolling wooded hills and sits right on a freaking lake.

So you could get in a good hike and swim and maybe even catch a fish or two to add to your healthy meal before retiring for a sleepless, creeped-out night.

You know that's what I'd be doing all night, anyway.

So, to recap the super ultra pros of this house we find...

1. Decor so cool, it kinda hurts
2. Kitchen and dining room that you would never want to leave
3. Huge greenhouse...um hello! Does anyone else have that to claim?
4. Wood, lake, isolation - oh and a fancy, sturdy gate to keep all the ghosts in.
5. Kimchi buried in your back yard

So, with some minor lifestyle adjustments with learning how to preserve in the tried and true Korean below ground method and the never sleeping again thing, I think this house is a definite contender.

All Imdb says about the filming location is some really long Korean name in South Korea - which is fine by me. I'm not super picky when it comes to beautiful places in far off lands. Ok - maybe I am a little.

Momma's Got A Brand New Mug!

2011-02-05T09:04:00.000-08:00

Am I one lucky lady or what?!?! Because of my fancy guessing footwork and unmatched skills in passing on recipes, I won my very own Kindertrauma mug!!! You can go back in time and follow along with the edge-of-your-seat madness to witness how this feat was pulled off HERE. I absolutely LOVE how appropriate it is that I won this mug in a horror kitchen themed Funhouse.

Here is a shot of my beloved mug and the Kindertrauma website - just so you can see how aesthetically pleasing it is for me each morning while I drink my hot beverage and gander at the days kinder-viewings.

So, anyway. You're probably asking "Why no crafty posts lately, Craftypants Lady?" "What gives?"

I dunno. I keep thinking of things to post - like the dehydrated crackers I've been making lately, or the other Valentine gift toppers I put in my Etsy store, or the nifty xmas dish towel I have been embroidering for myself. And do I tell you, my loyal readers about these crafty goings on? No. I blather on and on about some mug I won because I guessed the name of a horror movie.

You may have already figured this out - I think I just did this very second - that my blog has big a crush on Kindertrauma. Oh no! If Kindertrauma finds out do you think they'll make fun of me in the hall and pass notes to the other horror websites about what a dork my blog is? I hope not. Best to lay low for a while and quietly sip from my Kindertrauma mug in a dark closet.

Pork Pie Cap...To The Year

2010-12-31T18:59:00.000-08:00

And I'm not talking about a hat.

Earlier this year - like around Septemberish - I became obsessed with pork pies. They were something I had come across in my obsessive food oriented readings before, but this time it was serious. I follow this blog called The Obscure Hollow - they do multi screen-grab posts of movies that are super atmospheric. I highly recommend it. Anywho, they did this here post on Great Expectations - the 1946 Charles Dickens adaptation - and it just looked so freaking cool. So I put it on hold at ye olde library and in a couple weeks I was watching it. What caught my eye was the kid - whatever his name is - snatching a big, round, pie thing from a cupboard and sharing it with some scruffy guy who called the big round thing a pork pie. My mind and fingers flew as I read as much as I could about these pies, and thus became obsessed. I finally decided to give it a go - and since I had plenty of ham left over from my sad sack/everyone including me was sick xmas feast - I used this recipe from a website that I freaking love, Historical Foods. It includes boiled eggs, which I did not use - mostly cause I didn't feel like it. It was very easy, just a bit time consuming - but totally mother freaking worth it.

So, as you can see here it is basically meat and pie. That's it. A big ole glob of meat...and greasy ass pie crust - and boy oh boy is that not a bad thing.

Oh, if there are any actual English people reading this you may want to skip over the next part - or you may start to cry.

One aspect of the pork pie that is a bit odd for the likes of an American is that it is served cold. It also has a bunch of gelatiny meat stock added to it so that when it is cold, in between the glob of meat and the crust, is a thick layer of gelatin. Hmmm. Not something that exactly makes me jump for joy. I mean, I've had my fair share of gelled up meaty stuffs - having graduated from a culinary institute many many moons ago - and I don't hate it, but it's never been something on my A#1 list. The recipe that I used from Historical Foods said that the gelatin action was optional - so I opted out. Plus, when I took the pie out of the oven all this juice was bubbling out the hole in the top crust and all I could think of was all the fat that had rendered off that pork and sausage, so I sort of tipped the whole thing over and let it drain off (did I just hear a scream with an English accent off in the distance?). THEN, I waited till the temp had dropped from 170 degrees to about 100 and I took it out of the baking dish and cut it open - and a whole bunch more juice ran out. Now before any of you start rolling on the floor all red faced and tear stained I am telling you now that I do plan on making it the proper way at some point - but all that grease and meat jell-o was a bit much for me to take all at once up front and all. So please refrain from leaving a comment that says something like "You barmy git!" or some such slanderous thing.

I really couldn't fathom my boyfriend eating a cold pork meatloaf inside of a pie crust - and that, my friends, is why I cut into it before bringing it down to the proper - refrigerated - temperature. I ate my portion at roomish temp - and he nuked his in the microwave (please stop crying - I told you not to read this part). But tonight - New Year's Eve - I have sliced it up cold and have it sitting on a snack platter for us to enjoy while we watch - well, at the moment it's the last disc of the third season of Tales from the Darkside.

So here is a close-up photo - so if you are English you can look back now, and if you are a non-meat eater you should probably avert your eyes. The flash kept going off so I lazed out and photoshopped it - and it looks a little freakier in the photo than it does in real life.

By the way - IT IS AWESOME!!!!!!!!

So...all of you all, my legions of loyal readers, by now I'm guessing in the hundreds of thousands, you all must be wondering why I have abandoned you for so very, very long. I don't even know when my last post was. Some time in November maybe? Who knows. I guess when the shinola hits the fanola the whole blogging thing moves lower and lower on my priority list. But actually - I truly did try to do a post a few weeks ago - but my photos wouldn't load - so I gave up. It was about these really really cute santa fingerless gloves I was knitting (and finished! while neglecting all my other gift projects and my blog - ha HA!).

Are they cute or are they cute! I actually used two separate sources. The Santa pattern I adapted from a sock pattern from this site - but for the life of me I can't find the pattern on the site now! Freaking freak. And the glove pattern came from this pattern - only instead of making the fingers I just knit straight up until I feel like stopping. I have used this exact same pattern to make about 5 pairs of fingerless gloves now - even one pair with the same plaid pattern of the original gloves. Some of them have the half fingers and some are just mitten-style. These Santa ones are super freaking warm too cause I used this mohair that I've had for years and never seem to be able to use up.

I thought I'd post some pics of the xmas presents I made too - just so you can see all the ways in which I whiled away my time whilst neglecting my blog.

First off I made this scarf for a friend of mine. It doesn't look so hot in the photo - but it's nice and soft and fluffy.

It's just a basic knit-forever-and-ever stitch - which is nice when you are watching TV.

These next two items are embroidery things I did for a friend of mine who also happens to have her birthday on xmas day. I did this cute little owl that is shopping on a shopping style bag for her b-day.

Once again, blogger is freaking out on me with the photos so I can't show you the whole bag - just the owl part - but that's cute enough all by itself.

I really like the way it turned out. Snazzy.

Then I made her this dish towel with Robert Blake from Lost Highway. She had commented on my This House Possessed dish towel that I had made for my sister a while back and I told her that I would make her a Robert Blake one - and I actually did it! I was amazed too. I didn't want her to be too scared when she went into her kitchen, so I gave him a santa hat with a jingle bell sewed on.

He looks a bit too happy - he's supposed to look a little more menacing. I guess I am just going to have to work at my menacing embroidery skillz.

I also made my sister another embroidered dish towel - with little xmas pictures on it - but I forgot to take a picture of it.

I still have many horror houses I want to share with you, and lots and lots of weird old magazine ads, and more crafty goings on and foodstuffs to ponder - so don't run away. Come back....come back....

Shhhhhhhhhh....It's a secret...

2010-11-30T18:35:00.000-08:00

Don't say anything, but I think I know what I'm making everyone for xmas this year!!!!

Alls I need is your kleenex box measurements and I'm good to go!

One of my favorite things...

2010-11-20T08:24:00.000-08:00

At night, when I'm scared of the lightning or the bedbugs or the creepy person I know is standing at the end of the hall, I just lay in bed and think about my favorite things...such as

Nummy num num.

I'm Doin' a Holiday Market in December!!!!

2010-11-15T18:28:00.000-08:00

Being crafty in December! Can't wait!!!

More later.....

Home, Sweet Home-Extreme Makeover Edition...A Name For Evil

2010-11-06T17:47:00.000-07:00

I know you're all looking at this ramshackle hut and thinking - what ev' Craftypants more like Crazypants Carol. What's up with the shack? Well, what if I took you around to the other side and you saw this...

And what if I put you in a boat and rowed you out in the lake and you saw this...

You wouldn't be so sassy then, would you? And what if I showed you the cool tower thingy

and the really neat stone wall area

and the super cool iron gate that would keep you all safe and snuggly.

You may be saying "maybe I was wrong about that Craftypants lady," but you haven't even been inside yet!

Now, you may want to disregard images like this

or this

if you are squeamish at all about anything having to do with hard labor. But don't forget that there are people you can hire to do your dirty work...

and you know that's what I'd be doing!

But let's just take a step back and talk about what's really important. Boobie hallucinations.

Sorry, to those of you who find the naked body something to be shunned and covered over like so much rust on an old clunker to be sold to a hapless would be motorist. If it bothers you that much then just look away, by gum. Just look away.

But for those nudie enthusiasts out there, I tell you it can be found in this bizarro little movie. There's the previously mentioned boobie hallucinations that are rife with nudie boobies, there's plain old sex, and there's and orgy. Yes, an orgy. A romping, rollicking, moonlit, gad about good time filled with full frontal, backal, sideal and every other view of a bunch of naked people. Including a 40-something Robert Culp.

There's a hint of Let's Scare Jessica to Death here - with "You crazy!" looks being cast at poor Robert by his wife - and voices in the shadows; and there's lots of time in between the moments of action to go to the bathroom or get a snack or smoke a cig, if you wish, cause this baby's a bit slow. But oh what a grand house this will be after it's fixed up and Robert can move in and ditch the trailer.

This moment actually brought a tear to my eye, because those of you that know Craftypants Carol well know that she and her bf lived in a trailer for almost a year while their house was uninhabitable. I feel your pain, Robert!

So, the time has come to see how this house stacks up in comparison to other dream homes, and I have to say...holy crapola! This place just rocks my world!

I'm a bit confused about the kitchen cause in a pic I already posted up there a ways, but will post again to ease up on the confusion potential, it looks like there is a gargantuan kitchen.

I mean that looks like it could be a huge old industrial style stove and vent and the walls are tiled - but it's really hard to tell. And on top of it, in a later scene, we see the lady of the house standing in what looks like a much smaller, and more obvious, kitchen.

Could it be that they are the same room? There is white tile on the wall in the second photo. Who knows.

And now, for the best, the ultimate, the coolest part...we go down into the cellar.

Very nice, and dark, with all sorts of accouterment to play around with - jars and lanterns and pitchers and hunks of old timey metal, AND....

Whaddya think she's pointing at? Huh? You'll never guess. I was blown away. A tunnel!

They don't even know where it goes. That's just so freaking cool! I would love to have a tunnel to explore right under my house. I would need someone to come with me and hold my hand, of course - but still...a tunnel! Wow.

Before I let you go I have to give you just one more thrill. Dig Robert as he is about to board the Starship Enterprise...

He looks so sad, like he's going on a long trip, far far away. Oh, just beam me up already, Scotty - is what he's thinking - cause he's too crazy for this world.

So what have we got here:

1. Gorgeous huge house on a lake, with a dock and a tower thingy
2. Kitchen of unknown proportions - but very promising nonetheless
3. Cellar. With. A. Mother. Freaking. Tunnel.
4. Oh, and a fondu pot!

Imdb has no specifics, but says that it was filmed in Canada, My Canada.

I think I love you A Name For Evil house.

Queasy is as Queasy Does...or My Foray Into 127 Hours

2010-11-05T09:45:00.000-07:00

Last night I heard about the movie 127 hours for the first time. You see, I live in the country with no TV service and I rarely listen to the radio. So I basically have to rely on sheer luck as a way to come across news or popular culture info and whatnot. Of course the thing that caught my attention was all the hoopla about the fainting and seizures, so I had to look into it to see what was what. I read a bit and watched some trailers - which are a whole lotta nothin' much - and then wound up watching this TLC clip of the real guy describing what it was like to amputate his hand - or lower arm - or whatever.

Before I watched this clip I was saying to Baron that the only thing in movies that has ever moved me in the direction of queasy is seeing or hearing vomit or oozing puss filled grossness. Too much torture gore can make me unhappy - but blood just never makes me queasy. After I watched this clip I was queasy - and there isn't even a smattering of blood to be seen - btw. Just hearing him describe what he did was enough to send me over the edge. I felt all limp and lifeless...and then I looked over at my boyfriends laptop and saw this.

My boyfriend was looking at a slide show of cross sections of sandwiches. And even through all my queasiness I laughed at the sheer irony. We were both laughing actually...and then Baron started narrating each sandwich cross section as it streamed across the screen.

In this one he was showing me the muscle tissue and the tendons and blood vessles.

And then came his favorite one that had a cross section of bone. He loved this one so much that he insisted that I add it to my blog so you can all see it and enjoy his bizarre sense of humor...like me.

The whole slideshow can be found here, if you are interested. Feel free to combine the TLC vid with the slideshow - it's an experience like no other.

Just 'Coz...

2010-11-03T21:27:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!!!

2010-10-30T09:14:00.000-07:00