Archive for charlotte

Tree Hugger

March 5, 2012 charlotte, dolls No comments
It’s just barely March and I’ve fulfilled two of my New Year’s resolutions, yay me! This weekend I checked off “get some of my stuff in local stores” when I dropped off some cuddly and eco-friendly Saplings at Eco-Licious in Charlotte, NC.

These little Saplings are 18″ tall with jointed arms and a head that can turn. They all have cute leaf hair and each doll features three leaves in a unique combination of fabrics. My favorite part is making their little “branch” noses from felt, so cute!
Ready for the enviornmentally friendly part? The body, stuffing, and felt are all made from recycled plastic water bottles! Plastic water bottles can be melted down, made into thread, and used to make fabrics that would otherwise be made from new plastics. How cool is that?

If you’re in the area and would like to grab one, Eco-Licious is located in the Plaza Midwood neighborhood at 1916 Commonwealth Ave. There’s additional information on their Facebook page. If you do stop in, I highly recommend the Raz-dillos (vegan twinkie-style treats covered in raspberry and shredded coconut).

February Make Out – Let’s Pollinate!

March 1, 2012 charlotte, crafting, Crown Town Handmade, Make Out No comments

No, it’s not what you’re thinking. Get your mind out of the gutter! This Make Out is a free monthly craft session organized by Crown Town Handmade, Charlotte’s group of crafty entrepreneurs. (Of which I am a proud member.) Make Outs are the last Thursday of every month and are open to all ages. Crafty fellas are welcome too!

For the February Make Out we brought a little color and cheer to the cold, gray winter with fabric flowers. Tsunami kanzashi flowers are made by folding small squares of fabric into petals and then joining five or more together to make a flower. The flower can then be attached to a pin, hair clip, or sewn directly onto another surface. Or just carry it around to demonstrate your awe inspiring ability to turn little squares of fabric into pretty flowers. Only really cool people can do that.

The flowers are pretty easy to fold, but do take a little dexterity. It helps to starch the fabric or iron on a lightweight interfacing, but we used untreated fabric and they came out fine. It does take a little finagling to get those petals positioned. Luckily the center gets covered with beads, buttons, or a bit of fabric so any imperfections are pretty easy to hide.

We all worked dilligently, by which I mean we mostly screwed around and chatted and got distracted by all the pretty beads around us and made inappropriate jokes. Getting to visit with other crafty people is one of my favorite things about the Make Out and we always have a total blast.

Here’s everyone with their creations.

If you want to make your own, feel free to print out or save the instruction sheet below. We used 3″ and 4″ squares of quilters cottons to make our flowers.
A big thank you to Beadlush for hosting us at the last minute and to Rachel for taking pictures!

Fourth of July

July 6, 2009 charlotte, july 4th No comments

We had an awesome July 4th. Bats spent most of the day making pasta sauce from scratch. Our house smelled so delicious. I helped make vegan baked ziti. Bats found a recipe for a vegan ricotta cheese substitute that uses macadamia nuts. (I’m going to use some of the leftover miso paste to make tofu miso soup next week, hooray!) It turned out really yummy, although there was some grittiness that probably would have been better if we had an actual food processor and not a $15 blender. It was still freaking delicious though. We also made garlic knots with premade pizza dough from Trader Joe’s. Just make fat little dough ropes and bake. Then they get rolled in a mixture of olive oil, minced garlic, and herbs and finished with a big glob of garlic. I almost died they were so yummy.

Once we were sufficiently stuffed with food, we scooted off to the Mecklenberg County Courthouse parking garage to watch the fireworks.


One of the people in jail was waving out the window, so I was waving back. At least they had a good view of the fireworks.


Here’s the view down from where we were standing at the top of the parking garage. There aren’t any in this photo, but people were pulling over beside the on ramp to watch fireworks! Bats and I were totally amazed that people would be so careless with their own safety and that of people driving, especially since there were 4 or 5 parking decks they could have gone to. It’s incredible there wasn’t an accident, especially since someone stopped and BACKED UP to get in front of the other cars so they could see through the trees.

But now for the good part. I got some really great pictures of the fireworks! There are more on my Flickr photstream.