The Beginning of Katharine's Top (Not So) Secret Database of Everything!

One of the reasons I started a blog was because I wanted a central place to put things that I found awesome, whether it is recipes, projects, photos, tutorials, tidbits of information, clothes, videos, and the list goes on, and on, and on....and on. A central place where everything I wanted to always remember would always be. And of course I would like to give credit to all the fantastic creative individuals who have inspired me to create this database and also to create in real life.

I have so many different interests and no place to see it all, whether it is coming up with the perfect crock pot recipe, or designing my own fabric. (Yes, I have "go-to" sites for each.)

I can't tell you how many times I have remembered a recipe, or a project that I liked but couldn't remember where I found it, resulting in many hours looking through the internet history/my email to see if I could find that place again. My inbox is FILLED with links that I've sent to myself to remember certain things. Many of which, get filed away into various subfolders, never to be seen again. Hopefully, the visuals on my blog will inspire me to actually complete some of these projects.

Here's a tutorial I found at The Purl Bee via a blog I already follow, Say Yes To Hoboken, to make these sweet felt flower pillows. And as en extra bonus, the tutorial doesn't look too hard.

I love the look of big fluffy pillows with extra-large patterns and bold prints. I love that the folds in this pillow give it an extra 3-dimensionality.

Photos from http://www.purlbee.com/

Click for Tutorial

Photo-Montage-Marathon

A coworker of mine asked me to do a simple rendering for him of a home renovation he is doing to the front facade of his house. Little did I know that this would be a 3-night marathon of photoshopping. Coming home from work just to begin more work. Brings me back to my college days. But other than 3d modeling, photo montaging is one of my favorite things about architecture. I just love being able to take a vision, or in this case a sketch, and make someone else be able to understand said vision. I like (love) to Design!

Anyway, enough words, here's the goods...

Oh yah, and I finally figured out how to attach larger images. Thanks to my flickr account, there will be no more uploading small and/or pixelated images. Let there be full-bleeds! (If such a thing existed on the internet...)

Happy Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July! (Belated of course.)

I brought these Berry Cheesecake Squares to a Fourth of July/Retirement Party and they were gobbled up in minutes! I found the recipe from this sweet new website I found, Tablespoon.com. Since they're made of pre-made pie crust, they were super easy to make! Recipe can be found here.

Bugs and Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for my friend for her birthday last week. It all started when I wanted to get a cupcake late at night.

We drove around town hoping that one of the many cupcake shops in our town might still magically be open. No dice. Dejectedly, we came home and I whipped up a batch of these. Nothing complicated, just store-bought strawberry cupcake mix and cream cheese frosting. I did however make the effort to try and make them look pretty by making my own piping bag by cutting a hole in the end of frosting-filled plastic bag.

I took some inspiration from these bug cakes my family and I made for my niece's 1st birthday a couple months ago. We stayed up until 2am to make and decorate 32 bug cakes!

We definitely got better as the night of bug-cake-decorating progressed and learned which icings were easier to use. Some words of advice: don't use gel icing unless it is atop a solid layer of actual frosting....otherwise it sinks into the cake and makes it spongey. Lesson learned.

Some of my favorites.

The 32 bug cakes live to see another day...until they all got eaten by ravaging humans the next day.

This one is one of my favorites...I call him "Enraged Deer-tick!" Because that's not gross at all, right?.