Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Feeling TOTES Crafty

So I had to make a birthday card for one of my managers at my internship. Of course I was the intern to volunteer (truly, I wanted to make the card. I'm founder and president of the Knitting and Crochet Craft Club, do not doubt me.).

Anyway, I just went to look around on the lovely world of pinterest and find a card that is just crafty enough.


Just a nice, simple front.


And then a BEAUTIFUL, but I truly simple and easy inside =).

Very proud and happy I got to make this. I will totally be making this card again. There are so many variations and yarn worked so well! As you all know I have quite an abundance of it, Haha. I suggest this project to anyone. Just some scissors, different colors of paper, tape and a pen.

Until next time, dive into the crafty side of things ;-)

<3 Carly

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Halloween & Such

My oh my how quickly the months pass by. It's really incredible how half of my senior year is almost over. It's exciting, it's scary, I don't know what to think of it at times but I just look around and am loving every minute of it.


A couple weeks back I got to do my friend Banana's hair for her dance class and in a result she called me after, thanking me for the best hair-do ever to have the best class. I love doing my friends hair and truly makes me happy when they have awesome reactions =)


Now I haven't forgotten about my wonderful baking, but definitely have not been taking as many pictures of it as I use to. These rollo turtles are truly an easy sweet to do though.

ROLLO TURTLES
What you'll need;
pretzels
rollos
pecans

Preheat the oven to 350, then you'll need a cookie sheet, lay the pretzels out, then put a rollo on each pretzel. Pop the cookie sheet in the oven and stand watch. This shouldn't take but 5 minutes. Once the rollos are shinny, you take them out and press a pecan on each one. VIOLA! Homemade turtles that usually get eaten as soon as people realize you have just made them. My friends and roommmates got home right after I took this picture and I swear there were only a few left once we got sick of them (which is truly impossible ;-) ).

I made a bunch of baked goods and things for my man's Halloween party as well. My famous homemade rice krispies I dyed orange and then I made those pumpkin chocolate chip brownies that I found on pinterest. Both were hits. Sadly I did not take pictures, but here's me and my man =)


If you can't tell, I was Ginny Weasley and he was Harry Potter. I think we pulled it off very well =).

Now last weekend was packed. The night before my man's Halloween party, I went to the ballet with a wonderful friend of mine. The lighting was so bad but this really was the best picture from the evening. It had been so long since we seen each other.


THEN the next morning I got to take my Knitting & Crochet Craft Club to the Pittsburgh Glass Center to blow glass pumpkins =)


I will definitely have to have a picture of all the finished pumpkins. They all looked so awesome even before they were cooled. Must pick those up as well, haha.

Now last night we had a wonderful time celebrating a dear friends birthday, and just LOOK at how many people came out to celebrate with her!

Alright, I must go off to work. Hope I got to update you just enough. Class and work and interning makes me very busy. Trying to keep up. Got my laundry done today! That's a start =)

Until next time,
<3 Carly

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Beach Bum Love'n

Back at school again and busy as a bee, but I have to tell you about my beach weekend! Let's just say my man is the best and he just wanted to take me on a vacation, anywhere I wanted. I chose Virginia Beach because it HAD to be a beach and I haven't been in so long.

Now I've already started this post a week or two ago and want to start out with, CRAP I GET TOO BUSY TOO FAST. I've started my internship and 18 credits still rolling. Oh yeah, I still work the country club on the weekends. Then there is driving back and forth between all of these places, AHH!!! But it's ok. This time next year, it'll all be over. That's even crazier to think about.

To get back to the BEACH BUM story, it all started with an 8 and 1/2 hour drive to Virginia Beach, specifically THE CUTTY SARK!


Look how cute it is!! Well me being the beach bum lover that I am, we had to go to the beach immediately after arriving.


Look how legit we look. Sunglasses and swimsuits just after an 8 1/2 hour drive ;-) Hahaha. My handsome man took right to sand sculpting after we dove in the water and felt the rough waves and taste how salty the water was. Not all on purpose, the ocean just wants to let us know it's really there.


I have learned this already, but eagles are really his favorite thing to sculpt. Ice especially but he called the sand, snow. Haha, didn't matter how many days we sculpted with the sand, it was always "this snow is so soft!" <3 So we had our first dinner date at The 14th Pier place. Read the reviews. We were just very hungry and needed to eat.


We're kinda cute ;-). So anyway, we were kind of tired and went to bed pretty fast. We basically walked the entire way back from dinner, ok no, we walked all the way back. Our hotel was on 36 or 37. That's a far walk. Exhaustion. The next day we went out to breakfast at Pocahontas Pancakes and they WEREN'T busy! It is usually a very happening place during the summer. I actually had eggs benedict, I just couldn't resist. We then, you know, went to THE BEACH!


The second day's subject for sand sculpting was a sea turtle.


This was probably my favorite because of the reactions he got. A little girls' was the most precious. She came up to him sculpting it and literally went "I love sea turtles!" It was adorable. We did some scooping throughout the day for which place we should go to for dinner that night. In the mean time, I CAN SAND SCULPT TOO!


Mine did not get the same amount of love as my mans' did, but still pretty proud. I even took some of his advice to improve my pumpkin =). So we said goodbye to the beach and decided to get ready to explore the area.


Handsome is a beer lover and we got to check out the local brewery, Beach Brewing Company. I loved it. He was not impressed at all, but I loved it. He was expecting a tour and a true tasting, but not just a bar atmosphere tasting, a tasting room. Haha, I thought it was adorable. A little tiki bar type layout and you could peer into the room the beer was being brewed. We each bought some beer. He got a nice growler, and me a little thing that I don't know what's called. I don't want to call it the wrong thing so I'll just say a little thing, haha.


This is probably my favorite picture, or at least one of them. It's just us in front of the brewery. We then went to the best place for dinner, Tautogs. If you are going to Virginia Beach, you MUST go here. It is truly delicious. We even went to the place next door for breakfast the next day, Doc Taylor's. Seriously, these places are the best.


You guessed right if you thought we went to the beach again after breakfast. Haha, this day we decided to do sculptures yet again!


I made this starfish and I am very proud of it. Didn't change a thing, handsome was impressed as well. I got the compliment, "It's very proportional" =) Handsome went to make a trident. Now I think it's right and it's very well done. This one probably took him the longest. He was very particular, but when is he not?


It looks great and he's crazy for not thinking it isn't. We decided to go to a place for dinner that night that I used to go to all the time when I was little and went to Virginia Beach, Rudee's on the Inlet. It was good to go again, but we found the real good places the day before ;-).


We actually went to The Yard House for drinks before dinner. Now this was a real neat place. It had over 130 beers on draft! That's crazy. naturally handsome was in heaven.


SO MANY BEERS!


We took it easy that night and just had some tea and beer while on the porch =)


The last day was just us trying to go out and enjoy the beach but it was so windy.


This is handsome with the face of 'Are you really going to make me stay here in this freezing wind?' Haha, we stayed out there just a little and I even got a few pictures taken =)


Well until next time, enjoy all these beautiful beach pictures =)

<3 Carly

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

SENIOR YEAR, back at school

Well hello my trustee blog readers. As you well know I am very awful at getting my blogging done when I'm at school, so here goes an update.

I did the COLOR ME RAD run right before school started =). It was AWESOME!



Just a few friends and I running a 5k on a Saturday morning. Very proud of ourselves.



After bomb'n color run, school started. . . I have a schedule of all night classes, and online classes. My days are quite boring right now and I try to get work done but I am distracted by things like Pinterest, Tumblr, Ravelry and Gilmore Girls. I also live in a cave. My apartment is on the second floor of an eight floor building and we see no sunlight because we are in the inside apartment that looks over nothing. We can hear and see rain if it's raining, but sunlight forget it. We're taking Vitamin D to ensure our intake of happiness.

Labor Day happened after the first week of classes and the whole gang got together to celebrate at a friends and picnic it out as the last summer hoopla.



We played football, BBQ'd, ate fruit, did it all up. Even had the famous home made slip'n slide. Great way to finish off the summer officially, sadly.

Now I've just been powering through the weeks and I get to go on vacation in just a few days! AH! My man is taking me to Virginia Beach and I cannot wait! I am clearly trying to get all my work done before we go, but I have decided to update my blog. I am also trying to finish up my sweater while I'm there because it is quickly approaching cold weather and I so want to wear my sweater as soon as possible =).

I'll post beach pictures when I get back. Until then, I'm working on my checklist of things to get done, as well as laundry I've built up. . . Haha

<3 Carly

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Olympic Knitting, More Summer

I am sad to say that I have not finished my sweater in the span of the Olympics. The sweater moved so fast the first few days, then I got distracted and wanted to knit a baby hat for a baby that was born on August 5th. I am also so sorry for not keeping you all updated on my knitting and baking from the last 2 weeks. Has it really been that long?



Last weekend we got to celebrate my friends birthday. Going to dinner on the North Shore and then dancing in Station Square. The evenings theme was classy, so the boys dressed up (girls are so much better at getting dressed up for any going out night). My man loves to wear a suit so he was all in for this night out ;-).

That same week I knit up a baby hat for my man's cousin's first child =). How's that for family confusion? It's technically his second cousin (the baby). He's Italian and we'll just put it at that. LOTS of family.



I am changing my Olympic knitting to this hat. It was done and completed in less than the span of the Olympics (same with most small projects like this). I know that was not the point of my Olympic knitting, but that doesn't mean I am quitting my sweater swoncho. I have started the decreasing of the side, which is big progress for the sweater. I will hopefully finish the front (or back piece. They are the same two pieces), by tomorrow. That is ideal, but I'll keep you posted. I truly had no idea how long it would take to knit 86 stitches to 27 inches. It takes longer than one would think.

I am also sad to report I barely watched the closing ceremonies of the Olympics. Opening ceremonies were easier to watch for me because they were later and I got off work still late, but early enough to watch. The closing ceremonies were an ok time, just harder for me to get home to watch.

More of summer is hard to get right now. I am moving back into school THIS Saturday! How crazy is that?! I am happy to report that my handsome man and I got to double date a Sandcastle day and Kennywood night rider day that made my summer complete. My man and I have gone to Sandcastle a few times, and me with friends a good amount of times (BUY THE SEASON PASS! IT IS SO WORTH IT!), but going to both in one day is a total summer day dream come true. Water park and amusement park combo is the way to go. It's a Disney day in Pittsburgh, hahaha. Not really, but for us Burgh lovers, it surely does the trick ;-). I will go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter someday (a true summer trip :) ).



Can't believe how fast the summer has gone. I am so excited to go back to school, but will have to remember to do another date day with the Sandcastle/Kennywood combo for next year ;-)

Until next time,

<3 Carly

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Macaron fail & Olympic knitting

I was at work Saturday night and we were going to get out early, so I thought what better than to bake! I grabbed 2 great gal pals from work and we set out to make Macarons. We made it from THIS BOOK, and thought we were so legit because everything was going to plan! Just look at our baking skills.



Attempting to have the peaks with the egg whites.



Letting the food processor get our crushed almonds and flour and hazelnuts all mix together. We actually doubled our batches because we wanted to feed everyone at work our fabulous macroons.



So much so that we needed so many bowls.



This is where we think we might went wrong. Or at least partially. This is our version of sifting the dry ingredients. I must say that this morning, my handsome man of mine, has gotten me a sifter =). I am very excited to try some of the ingredients that have failed because of this damn sifting necessity.



Piping the macarons are not too hard, but we think we had runny batter. . . This doesn't keep shape of a proper macaron. We were also piping onto wax paper, which I think is the same thing as parchment paper, just cheaper.



After piping, you have to let the macrons sit for 20 to 30 minutes. We let them set for 25 minutes. Then we put them in the oven and baked them for 10 minutes. You then have to let them cool for 10 to 15 minutes. After all this waiting you can attempt to take them off the parchment paper. Let me just confess that this is way harder than you think.

1. We were very anxious.
2. After confessing our epic fail to the pastry chef at my work, we should have put the cookie pans in the freezer for a few minutes so the cookies could peel off the wax paper easy.
3. Apparently French Macarons are IMPOSSIBLE to make.



We made a double batch, which should have given us 32 sandwich macarons. We got 8. It was super sad, but we each had 1, and my mother snacked on the rest because I forgot to take them to work. We were proud with what we accomplished, and will try these again, but they took 2 hours to get all the ingredients, prep the batter, wait for them to sit, bake, cool and put together. These Hazelnut Chocolate Macarons are hard to make, but what we did, were good.

The girls were very happy they helped me. They said it would've been nuts to try these on my own, and I agree.

Now onto my knitting =)



I started this exactly when the opening ceremonies began in London. I am very proud of my progress but still know I have to keep moving. I'll be knitting everyday and I have to. I'm excited to have a sweater :)



Lastly I wanted to show off some flowers I got for my room =). Just wanted a little bit of pink flowers to brighten my room up.

Until next time, I'll be knitting ;-)

<3 Carly

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Cookies & SHOPPING!

First I'll show you my finished pillow =)



Just a quick pin and I decided to put in the stitches as a decorative fashion.



Can't wait to put it in my new apartment. I think I'll do a few more but need some more fabric. I want one that has a big "BEAUTIFUL" on it. If you know me, you know that is my favorite word. I'm waiting to hear back from my roomies if they have any requests, so definitely stay tuned for more pillow projects :).

Now onto the cookies. I asked what I could make my wonderfully handsome boyfriend for his road trip to the Lumberjack World Championships! He simply wanted some chewy chocolate chip cookies. He gave me a foodnetwork magazine and HERE you can check out the recipe. The magazine had a basic guide to how to make cookies crispy, chewy, and cakey.



On the right track with the butter and sugars, the batter looked fine. I got fresh dark brown sugar and unsalted butter just for this occasion.



Adding the dry ingredients it still looks like it's right on track. Just put the chocolate chips in and it'll be good to start baking right? NOPE!



I didn't read the entire recipe before starting the cookies. I had to refrigerate for "at least 1 hour, preferably overnight". And I wanted to make these before dinner with my man. So I packed up my batter that had been chilling for an hour already and put it on ice in a cooler and set way to his house. Once I got there and put the batter in the fridge to chill a little more. After chilling the dough and preheating the oven, I started the cookies.

Each batch took about 10-12 minutes. I set my timer for 12 because I was using chilled dough. I checked on it after 10 minutes and they looked good. Nice and fluffy, yet probably chewy. I waited until my timer went off and went to the oven to take out my perfectly chewy cookies. FALSE! These cookies were flat flat flat. I was making them when my man was distracted, so I altered the oven to 25 degrees lower and set my time for a minute less. At 10 minutes on 375 they looked perfect! This had to work. NOPE. They were still coming out flat. I tired other alterations that were all slight and still nothing really stuck.



My man wasn't distracted long once he could smell freshly baked cookies, and who would be? Well we tried troubleshooting together and still nothing would work. I finally went over the recipe again and noticed a tip up in the corner. You are supposed to SIFT the dry ingredients in order to let air get more into the batter. I felt very bad but handsome assured me they were good. I made many many cookies for him and he shared with everyone on their 15 hour drive to Wisconsin. He even sent me a text when they were a few hours away with the message "cookie love" and one of his friends at the wheel and chomping on a cookie =)

Next is my shopping trip. Oh how Tanger Outlets are fabulous. I also had a bunch of coupons for the Tanger Outlets that let me have 20% off a single item at certain stores. Well here's my loot.



Up in the corner are some lovely NINE WEST boots with a little heel. They were on super sale and just $22 and very cute for fall.

Next and right underneath is a pair of shorts and jeans with the holes from PACSUN. They are both a great fit for my tiny bum, haha.

Underneath is that lacey white top and it's lovely with the orange shorts right next to it, which are from GAP OUTLET. So are the jeans right next to the orange shorts. Again, all great fits and great prices.

Now this plaid shirt right here that is an actual button down that fits me great is from JCREW. I can't explain to you how long I've looked for a button down, and one that fits all aspects of me.

Lastly I got a romper, my true addition in clothes for the summer, from GUESS.



Didn't mean to have my head cut off but I can't take a picture of myself that well, even with a timer- haha. Rompers are such an addiction. I can't not get them. Haha-

Well I'm off to enjoy the rest of my baklava from the farmers market, until next time,

<3 Carly =)

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Craft Day & Pirates

Monday was great. My banana friend and I got to craft ALL day =)

First off, we went to DORSTOP for breakfast. It's in Dormont, right on Potomac off of West Liberty. They've been on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives! We both had Bob's Specialty, which includes 2 eggs, toast, German potato pancakes and it's SO GOOD!
It's also important for my breakfast, if I'm going out to get it, is to have eggs. =)

Anyway, we've been working on our T-shirt blankets, but it is a lot of work and when it's raining out, quote pillows just seemed like the ideal project.



My pillow has "NEVER REGRET anything because at one time it was exactly what you wanted."



Banana's says, "Hope does not disappoint" and the reverse has "the ONLY thing that counts is FAITH expressing itself in LOVE."



We had to try out the letters between each word. "T" is such a common letter and there was only 1 in the stencil sets (we got a small, medium and large set). So just take the time to look at my second and third line and how time consuming that was, haha. TOTALLY worth it though!



My pillow is stuffed and just waiting to be sewn up the edge. I wanted the stuffing to set a little before sewing it up, just to also admire an unfinished, but beautiful pillow =)

Now I haven't forgotten about my knitting either. My socks are actually coming along quite quickly.



And I've knit even more since this picture =)

I also want to show off the project I will be knitting during the Olympics. Now first I must direct you to this article, but understand, I am just knitting a project during the same amount of time that the Olympics are going on. It's quite crazy how the article is so against knitters & crocheters doing projects and having teams along with the Olympics. They say things such as, it's insulting to the athletics - it distracts from the real Olympics. All in while, they are donating money to the Special Olympics. . . . Some people just want to be rude I guess.



This is the "Weekend Swoncho" from the magazine, The Love of Knitting. I don't know when I started getting this magazine but I'm glad I did. Now the yarn in the photo is from my favorite yarn stores big summer sale, Bloomin' Yarns. It is so soft and I just can't wait to knit it up. The needles are also from the summer sale and they are beautiful lantern moons. =)

After banana and I crafted all day, I dropped her off back at school and went to dinner with my handsome man. We went to the Double Wide Grill in South Side before going to the Pirates game. I had free tickets from work and I love an evening with my man ;-). I completely enjoyed the pulled pork from dinner and then we got to enjoy dipp'n dots from PNC Park.

The whole day was great. Crafting, great food, great company, great summer =)

Until next time,

<3 Carly