Saturday, April 27, 2013

Hole-y Moley! - Patching holey jeans


Sorry for the very late update!

School has been pretty busy with midterms and various projects, so time has been tight!  Also, I was drawing a blank on what to do for my next project that wouldn't be too time consuming and would be able to be done within my apartment since the pollen this year has been HORRIFIC.  My noses keeps running and my eyes have been itching and watering like crazy. :(

When a friend suggested that I sew something, the light went off!  One of my favorite pairs of skinny jeans had developed a hole in the left knee much to my dismay, so I thought it would be a great chance to fix it!


Hole 

The idea came from Designmom.com's 4 Secrets to a Well-Mended Wardrobe via pinterest.

I did do a few things differently since I didn't have fusion paper and didn't want to spend and arm & a leg on getting some.  I'm a clearance shopper, so while digging through Joann's clearance items, I stumbled upon some Heat Set Glue for 97 cents!  What a deal! :)


Heat Set Glue 

As in the original post, I also purchased a fat quarter and some matching embroidery thread.


Fat Quarter & Embroidery Thread 

Before cutting the fat quarter, I soaked in boiling water for 5 minutes (as per my mom's instructions) to prevent it from shrinking AFTER putting on my jeans and washing it for the first time.  I let it dry overnight and ironed it flat.  My mom also suggested that if you wanted to dry it much quicker, just iron it while it's still wet.

I previously measured how big I wanted my patch, and used those measurements to cut out my patch with a rotary cutters.


Rotary set

Cut out patch

On the jeans, I cut off the excess strings and fluff, and turned the pants inside out.

Cleaned up hole

I pinned one side of the patch to the pants to make sure it stayed where I wanted it to.  I then added a thin layer of glue to all edges of the patch and ironed  the patch according to the glue's instructions.


Pinned Patch

Glue Patch

Before ironing

After ironing 

Voila! Patch! 

I then added some little hand embroidered stars for a little extra decoration and some extra security.


Embroidered for looking and support

I wore these the next day and they were FANTASTIC.  Everything stayed together and the hole didn't get bigger at all.


Patched up knee
------------------------------------------------------------------------
And a preview for the next few projects - RESIN JEWELRY EXPERIMENTS!  I'll be done with school for the summer and hopefully the pollen will die down by then, so I can head outside and get the proper ventilation for these projects. :)

Also - my mom said I could do some of these jewelry kits she got from Taiwan, so look out for those!

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Candy Sushi! - Kracie Poppin' Cookin' Sushi Review

Kracie Poppin' Cookin' Sushi 
  You heard me right - Candy sushi!

I recently got an awesome package from  a very good friend of mine (thanks Dane!).  This box included a Kracie Poppin' Cookin' sushi kit, which was something that I've been DREAMING of for a very long time!  Basically this whole thing was a dream come true!

Kracie Poppin' Cookin' Sushi Opened 


For those of you who are unfamiliar with the product, Poppin' Cookin' is a series of Japanese candy kits that allow you to create candies that look like real food!  Their kits range from making candy ramen and dumplings to candy curry.  From what I've heard, the curry kit actually tastes like curry!

For this kit, it included some foil packets, a spoon, water dropper, candy clay, and a plastic tray.  All of the instructions were in Japanese, but it's pretty easy to figure things out based on the pictures and Youtube videos demos done by other people.

Powder packets 

  Basically, the idea is to fill up the compartments up to the fill line with water, add the appropriate powder, and stir.  This created the rice, egg, tuna, and soy sauce.

Add water....
Add water to the fill line....
Add powder....
Add powder & stir....
Magical "rice"
Then rice!

The only thing that was different was the salmon roe.  For this part, the dropper was used to suck up the orange mixture (B) and drop it into the blue mixture (A).  This was like magic to me since it transformed from liquid to a solid!

First liquid....

..Then magically "roe"!
Ta-da!  Salmon roe!

After completing all the mixtures, you then assemble the sushi!

Rolling out the "nori"
Rolling out the "nori"
More forming the "rice"
Shaping the rice

Candy sushi finished!
FINISHED!

They all looked really pretty after putting them together, but now it's time to eat!

My mom and I were the only ones to eat it as my dad suddenly disappeared as soon as I suggested eating it.  The taste was ok....The overall taste was a cross between grape and bubble gum flavor.  The salmon roe was fun to eat since they popped in your mouth and had a juicy center.  However, the egg and tuna had a weird squishy texture.

Overall, it was VERY fun and I'd recommend it for the experience.  I think I'll be on the hunt for more Poppin' Cookin' kits in the future!

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Hello there! Spring has sprung!

Hello!

I'm Tiff and welcome to my blog!  I'm currently a second year vet student with an emphasis in small animal practice.  To summarize what this blog is all about, it's basically me attempting to make time for hobbies that I've set on the back burner since I started vet school.  One can only take so much studying.  


My main focus and goal for this blog is to 1) learn to set aside time to do what I enjoy, 2) improve in my hobbies, and 3) have a reason to try out different things!


To get the ball rolling, I decided to start off with some garden pictures from my parents' backyard!  This session was just to test out my new macro lens and get myself re-familiarized with my camera.  It had been QUITE a while since I picked it up, especially with this semester's core course load.


Sadly, most of my shots looked pretty gross after viewing them on my computer, but here are the few that I thought were ok!

White Camellia 1

White Camellia 2

White Camellia 3

Wheat Grass

Hopefully, this is a good place to start from!! :)