Beautiful Food, Travel & Design
Who says kids get to have all the fun? This year I’m handing out my own Valentines! I chose these cuties from Minted to hand out at the Children’s Hospital. I’m working in the newborn nursery on Valentine’s Day, so if you are in San Francisco and have a February 14th due date, you’re a gem! : )
Here are some other Valentine’s I’m loving!
One of the things that was high on the list for my redesign was to figure out how to make pretty index galleries to highlight my recipes and DIYs. Previously I had alternated between long links to posts with no pictures and an fairly ugly wordpress plugin that I found by googling.
I knew there had to be a better solution out there, so I started to look at some of my favorite food blogs to see what their approach was. I noticed that With Sprinkles on Top had a beautiful gallery made with the program In Linkz. I checked out their website, but for the life of me I could not figure out how to make the beautiful galleries on With Sprinkles on Top.
Not one to be defeated easily, I emailed Annie, the author of With Sprinkles on Top, to ask for advice. Annie could very well be my sister from another mister. She’s blonde, lives in Wisconsin, loves to bake, went to the same University as me and is now finishing professional (law) school. As a bonus she’s also a complete sweetheart! She emailed me a beautiful step-by-step tutorial on setting up blog index galleries, complete with screen shots.
If there is such a thing as the dog days of winter, this has to be it. When we lived in a place where winter existed, I remember that February was the worst. The days are still short and it seems like the cold will last forever. It’s as if Valentine’s Day was invented so we’d have an excuse to share body heat!
Even though we escaped the dog days of winter by moving to San Francisco; we moved to a place where it’s hot cocoa weather all year round. It’s cool enough here at night that one can justify wrapping up in a blanket with a steaming mug of cocoa all year long – if that is one’s thing.
Read more after the jump!
Happy Friday everyone! I’m coming off of working three busy 12 hour shifts in a row in the newborn nursery. It’s incredibly fun to be the first doctor for these little kiddos right after birth. I’m not going to lie, a decent part of my day is spent cooing to the babes and reassuring the parents of their cuteness!
I hope you enjoy the short movie above – it’s my first foray into filmmaking! Nothing fancy here, just some video we shot with my cell phone! I put together a few clips from a recent trip to the beach just across the bridge from San Francisco. I just love this city, which is quickly becoming my city.
I can’t wait to try these lightened up pancakes.
Amazon is going to start reading your mind.
A quick upgrade for an ugly bathroom staple.
Could you give up shampoo?
I’m making these this weekend.
Don’t forget to enter my giveaway for a Numi Artisan’s Tea Blending Kit!
Pat and I drink tea almost every day. We usually spend the hour before bed curled up on the couch talking about our day, planning our next adventure or catching up on our last minute to do’s. Part of the unwinding process involves usually involves brewing a pot of tea.
When I learned about Numi’s Artisan Tea Blending Kit, I thought it would make the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for Pat. What better way to celebrate that most important hour of our day? The kit comes with a glass tea pot, biodegradable tea bags and little packets of spices and teas that you can mix to create your own signature tea blend.
We played around and came up with our signature blend, Ginger chocolate rooibos. We used the kit and added some cocoa nibs that we had on hand. Delicious!
Enter to win after the jump!… Read More »
I was recently organizing my craft closet, which is the bottom half of my clothes closet (aka the floor), when I came across my old box of origami paper from middle school. Even though it’s been years since I’ve done any origami, I just haven’t had the heart to part with it yet. It hit me – wouldn’t origami hearts be the perfect thing for a Valentine’s day heart garland? To up the ante a little, I decided to make 3D origami hearts for this project.
Thanks to the wonders of Google, I found this amazing and easy to follow tutorial from Samuel Tsang. I did my first couple with typing paper cut into a square so that I didn’t waste any origami paper. A few tips for working with origami paper – make sure you press your folds very well and line up your corners precisely! A few edges out of line, especially early in the folding can make a big difference. It took a few times going through the tutorial before it really clicked.
My lovely bloggie friend (and now real life pal) Kia and I have started weekly craft nights and Valentine’s day heart garland was our first project. You can see her upcycled chocolate box garland DIY here.
Get the full tutorial after the jump!