          
Archive for the ‘Celebrations’ Category
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
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3/22/12: My tornado memoir – “Twisted” is now available for pre-order! click here for more details, or to purchase!
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So, I know it’s not EXACTLY food related… but tiling an awesome back splash is KITCHEN related, and tutorials are *almost* recipes, right? I swear this is actually a food blog…!
Remember back when I debuted the photos of our finished bathroom renovation, with Fibonacci sequence tiled into the main wall, and a few digits of pi tiled behind the toilet? It was a last minute design idea, and it was to be a subtle, small nod to our nerdiness.
| Well, one thing led to another… and now we have 159 digits of pi tiled into our kitchen backsplash. If you follow me on Twitter, you’re probably sick of hearing about it by now… but I not only have the final photos, I have a tutorial on how to do it yourself!
Now, I know we went sort of nuts with the pi day celebrations last year… but this really takes it to a whole new level. We’re happy to have this in place in time for this year’s party, but… damn. No idea how we’ll top this for Pi day 2013. Or, you know, 2015, when we should really go all out! (3/14/15!)
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I guess the one good thing about getting your house destroyed by a tornado is that it forces you to get off your butt, make a bunch of design decisions and actually DO renovations on the house, rather than just talk about “someday, it would be cool if…”.
We still have quite a ways to go, but the house really is looking great. We won’t have cabinet faces and doors for a WHILE – still waiting for the lumber we had milled to be properly dried, so we can build all that. Oh well. I think the fact that the black walnut that destroyed our kitchen is being used to rebuild it is badass enough to be worth the wait! Anyway…
Now, I realize that the odds of anyone else tiling pi into their kitchen is fairly slim… but this tutorial is also good for anyone who wants to put in a new backsplash, but with a personal twist. The photos and specifics here are for pi, but the principles can apply to any design you can think up, with 2″ x 2″ tiles.
For instance..
- Using two favorite colors to create a custom checkerboard design, should you not be happy with the small amount of pre-fab options out there.
- If you look at the tiles as “pixels”, you can do pretty much anything you can come up with that is 9-10 squares tall, by however long you want.
- Tetris!
- Music fans or musicians could make an amazing “equalizer” type design!
I can’t tell you how rewarding it is to look at a finished, completely custom backsplash, and know that it is YOURS… and it wasn’t the difficult! On to the tutorial….
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Posted in Home Life, Pi Day, Renovations, The Geek Life, Tutorials | 30 Comments »
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
Fell out of bed this morning, checked my email – and there was a brightly colored bit from an industry publication.
Now, I may not be directly in the wedding industry anymore, but I’m still on a lot of mailing lists – too lazy to get myself removed. Plus, sometimes there are nuggets of entertainment in there. The wedding industry, when watched as a former member, is probably something akin to the sleeziest reality show out there. You know it’s gross, lowest-common-denominator at times, and that a lot of the characters are just loathesome… but it appeals to some twisted voyeuristic (schadenfreude?) section of the brain. I do enjoy when friends behind those “enemy lines” keep me up to date on the current gossip in the local industry, LOL.
Anyway.
This particular publication was loudly declaring that “vintage big-top circus” is going to be HUGE as a wedding theme this year. I wish I could include the photo that’s attached to the article, but I’d rather not get DMCA’d over it. Let me describe: (more…)
Posted in Celebrations, Decor, Rants, Weddings | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
This time of year kind of stings a bit, this time around.
My third cookbook should have been coming out right about now… but it was backburnered when we were hit by the tornado just over 8 months ago. Given that I still don’t have a functional kitchen (1 week to go!)… it was a good decision.
Anyway, given the subject matter of the book – greasy, cheesy, deep fried, baconny “Guy Food”… all of this talk about Superbowl Party food has me a little sad for what could have been, you know? Ah well.. next year!
I’m not one to wallow, so I went through all of my past blog posts and culled the absolute best recipes for sporting event parties – all linked here (click on the photos)! Appetizers, Main Dishes, and Sweet Treats.
Hope you all find some great inspiration here, and have a fun party!
PS: Be sure to take a photo of anything that you make from our recipes, and post it to our Facebook page! We love seeing what you come up with!
Now, on to the recipes… (more…)
Posted in Celebrations, Entertaining Ideas, Sports Parties | 1 Comment »
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
Still without an at-all functional kitchen (not so much as a sink hooked up, at this point!), let’s go for something completely different today!
This weekend marked a first for me – attending a baby shower. I tend to meet friends after they’ve finished spawning, and my younger friends tend to be happily childfree. The opportunity to attend such a shindig just hasn’t come around.
Not that I really minded, btw. From what I’ve heard (Games involving melting chocolate bars into diapers and “identifying the poopie”, for instance)… they sound sort of horrible. I’m not a huge fan of anklebiters in general (though I’m sure yours are awesome, dear readers!), and I’m not the type whose uterus shudders with delight at the idea of teeny tiny socks.
Yep, sometimes I just fail at being a girl! Haha!
Jenni, however, is awesome. Awesome person (I mean, she’s a librarian… I’ve yet to meet a less-than-awesome one of THOSE), total geek… one of the very first friends I met through Convergence. Love her!
Still, I was super stressed out about attending. After looking up her registry, the idea of shopping at “Babies R Us” terrified me. I don’t know what ANY of that stuff was for, but it mostly looked… tremendously unsettling. LOL. Yep, I was gonna have to wing it, and make something. Besides, making something meant no risk of duplication of gifts, right? 
| In honor of the geeked-out beginning of our friendship (and the guest list for the shower!), I decided that I would crochet some baby hats based on “random fandom” – 4 hats in total. This one – for a Super Mario Brothers inspired baby beret – was my favorite of the lot. I’d like to show you how I made it! (more…) |
Posted in Baby Showers, Celebrations, Crafts, Geeks Celebrate, Gift Ideas, The Geek Life | No Comments »
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