a day in the life

farmers market explorations

a day in the life, photos, stories

A group of friends and I  trekked downtown on our city’s public transportation, and we explored the farmers market! The last time I had been was years ago -and I remember it as wonderful and magical, so I was hoping it would live up to my expectations. It did! But I will begin at the start of our journey. We met at the DART rail station around 8am, bought the passes, and hopped on the train. My sister and I had made scones to share as we rode. Oops, we forgot about the no food and drinks rule. Riding the Green Line through the trees and neighborhoods, the view out our window transitioned to the downtown city. We passed a few corner coffee shops and cafes and rode through a few stations before departing at the St. Paul Station. We then walked down about a mile to the farmers market.
dallas farmers market


dallas farmers market produce

The color, the fragrance, the noise of all the shoppers…
dallas farmers market : berries


railway birds

I came home with a bag full of fresh local produce, yum.

this year’s garden

a day in the life, food, photos

We have lots of things growing. Herbs, beans, swiss chard, radishes, red cabbage, cantaloupes, and TOMATOES. My word, do we have tomatoes. We probably pick almost a pint each day!

cherry tomatoes

one day's harvest

These homegrown tomatoes… they are the ones that I ate and enjoyed. That moment when I ate a tomato and enjoyed it… radical and life changing. (To properly understand this, you must realize that for all of my life I’ve despised eating raw tomatoes. No longer!)

morning glories

I always grow morning glories in my herb garden.

morning glory vines

Just a few days ago we cut up and ate this cantaloupe.

homegrown cantaloupe

The taste of homegrown food… there’s nothing better.

of chocolate cake

a day in the life, recipes, stories, words

So: this is mostly for my future reference. Or just to get this out of my head.

It’s ridiculous how many links I follow to find crazy things on the web… and I can never remember how I find things!

Like, I almost went through 16 pages of chocolate cake recipes on Bon Appetit because I thought that’s where I found the recipe for my chocolate birthday cake back in February…. and then I realized where the recipe actually was. On the recipe blog of this cool girl who lives in NYC and shoots all her food photos WITH FILM. So impressive. They’re beautiful photos. But, that’s where the chocolate cake recipe was from. The enormous, three layer, batter too big for the bowl cake. Right here. And the tinier vanilla three layer cake I made that for that party also was from that blog. My cake was small because I think I 2/3rds the recipe or something. (I am aware that the above sentence is not proper grammar.)

It was a great party, by the way. My 18th birthday, it had to be good. Go stalk my celebrations here.

And since I’m talking recipes: these are the best brownies ever, and this pie is amazing. And my Mom made a granola recipe from the Bon Appetit magazine today, and it made me so happy. Surfers Granola, accompanied by Surfin’ USA by the Beach Boys.

My goodness this post is quilted with links. Did you know that all of the fireworks in San Diego went off at once? HAH

Happy July, enjoy your summer, and don’t forget to wear your sunscreen! (Today was Safety Day at the pool… I’m a swim instructor. It’s great.)

handpainted canvas shoes :: coral ombre

a day in the life, how-to, photos, words

I love the ombre trend. And coral too! So I combined these two beautiful things in a pair of handpainted shoes that I made for a friend.

coral ombre canvas shoes

It was extraordinarily easy. I basically did a coral base coat, then while it was still wet (so the paint could mix a little) I layered the white paint. At the local craft store I got the brush-on permanent, washable fabric paint that I used(Tulip brand soft paint, in Velveteen Red and Matte White.) Then I just touched up the areas that needed it.

I didn’t even tape anything off, I just freehanded everything. For clean up, I used nail polish remover and a Q-tip to wipe off the paint that had migrated onto the rubber sole and the holes for the shoe laces.

Coral shoes! I need to make some for me now.

my leetle terranium

a day in the life, how-to, photos, words

Succulents always seemed so tiny and cute – and terraniums were so lovely and charming.

Then last week or so I stayed up late researching them, and I decided that I needed to make one. I work at a local farmers market, so I picked up a succulent and some moss there. Then a few days later I got a round glass vase and a cork coaster to go underneath, and then another succulent.

Today I assembled it! First I added rocks, then some charcoal, then a small layer of moss, then soil, and then my succulents! And lastly some decorative moss. And if I find some dinosaurs or small people to live there too, I’ll add them.

I read a very helpful how-to about terraniums at Apartment Therapy.

The cluster of three succulents is called a Hen and Chicks plant (Echeveria spp.) The taller green green one is an Elephant Bush (Portulacaria afra).

This was what I started with.

And my finished terranium! I hope it lives and thrives.

 

…

party party!

a day in the life, photos

my 18th birthday was on february 21st… and i had a very fun birthday party. some photos!

i had two cakes – a vanilla pound cake (3-layer, but small) with vanilla icing, and a chocolate cake with chocolate icing.

that one was big. so big, in fact, that the batter did not fit in the mixing bowl.

I made a fabric backdrop to hang on the bookshelf in our dining room. and amy gave me flowers!

I made a paper table runner (polka dots cut from the anthropologie catalog and various other places), and grouped some colorful stick candy in a mason jar.

food! (don’t you like the reoccurring circles of the items on the table?)

and more food.

we had homemade pizzas for dinner.

and a place where people could type up a message to the birthday girl

I made these paper stars (using a snowflake pattern) and hung them from the ceiling. (the paper for these was also from the anthropologie catalog)

see this record wall? well, it was the backdrop for the photobooth! a few weeks ago i ran across the idea of a DIY photobooth. the more i thought about it, the more i wanted to do it. and we made it work!

with a macbook, a borrowed photo printer, a homemade record wall, an old trunk to sit on, some garage lights… we made a photobooth! the brains behind it, however, was an automater workflow created by a genius. basically, all of the actions (taking photos, putting the images together, printing them, etc.) are batched together in one easy to use workflow.

it was immensely fun to use, and i’m so so glad it worked out. (we did go through some software wrestling – with another program that didn’t work.) and, it created a fun party favor for people to take home.

i sketched the chevron border that i used on the photostrips, and had some fun props, like mustaches and fluffy pink bows.

my sister clara gave me this crazy huge bag. it’s fabulous.

birthday cake!

me blowing out the candles. i’m glad i maintained an appearance of sophistication and didn’t awkwardly puff out my cheeks as i blew.

and that’s the recap of the party!

…

crown braid

a day in the life, hair, how-to, photos

french braid all the way around my head! and then some. my hair actually goes around one and a half times. (it’s not exactly a french braid, more of a dutch braid, because i weave the strands underneath rather than over each other.)

i start the braid right at the bottom of my hairline. also, i part my hair going diagonally across the back of my head. and i bend over so that my hair is kind of evenly distributed. then i french braid (or dutch braid), putting the strands underneath each other rather than over. i direct the braid up the side of my head and go around my whole head french braiding like this. its kinda tricky, and you’ll have to work with how your hair likes to go. i finish with all of my hair by just braiding down normally, and then pinning it into the other braid.

i don’t think that makes sense. i’m writing it late at night, and i’m more of a “show-you” explainer.

 

photos by clara