Weekend of Birthday Fun

This weekend was Abe's 29th birthday weekend... and also a long weekend (thanks, MLK Jr.!). On Friday we went to dinner at Motorino, which was just delicious. I had pizza with brussel sprouts on it.

On Saturday we had an impromptu birthday celebration at our house before heading out to another birthday party way down in South Brooklyn. For his birthday I made about 40 cupcakes (24 of them were minis). I got the recipes from the latest Martha Stewart magazine and they were sooooo good.


Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes


One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes & Buttercream Frosting (with 6 oz chocolate chips added)


Abe with his presents.


I love seeing cupcakes in peoples' hands.


Little sandwiches served by Ben - a recipe I also got from a Martha Stewart Living magazine.


Andy proud to wear a lanyard.


Matt & Dave talking music talk.


Steve & Andy realize Brooklyn looks like a gnome wearing a hoodie (I think it looks like a Victorian kitten wearing a bonnet).

Night on the Town :: The Fabulous Entourage

Last night Colleen, Lauren, Margot and I went with Piper to the Bowery Ballroom to see her man Kyle perform with his band The Fabulous Entourage. This was the first time for all of us and even though we knew it was going to be good, I can't believe how much I loved their music and seeing them perform on stage.

Before the show we met up at Vegetarian Dim Sum House on Pell Street in Chinatown. Dim Yum is more like it! I highly recommend the mock sesame chicken & broccoli and the mock pork dumplings.



Oh hello, Colleen. Glad you could make it. Have some tea.


A cold, cold, cold walk to Bowery Ballroom.


Piper tried to start a coat pile, but we weren't having it.

Highlights of the night:

1.) Dog sweater.



2.) Two drunk teens.


At one point a huge plastic bottle of vodka fell out of one of their purses and onto the floor. They were escorted out by security shortly thereafter.

4.) Debbie Harry was there!!!!!!!



3. The Fabulous Entourage!



5.) MY Fabulous Entourage!! (minus Meredith, but we talked about her a lot)

Old Pawn Indian Jewelry

I have a serious thing for Blue Jays and Cardinals...and not the baseball teams. Growing up we used to keep a dish of cat food on our porch for our cat, Tony. The Blue Jays in the yard would always come and eat her food. For some reason that made me really like them because they seemed to have a strong personality...I liked them enough to make a bag with one:


And Cardinals just seemed like their classier cousins. My grandparents had a lot of Cardinals in their yard and my grandmother would always get excited and point them out to me. They had two paintings from Mexico - one of a Blue Jay and one of a Cardinal. When my grandparents passed away my sister and I each got one.

Anyway, I was just out e-browsing and came across this necklace at PuebloDirect.com. If $975.00 is ever an insignificant amount of money to me I am so buying this piece of jewelry. Its double-sided - if only it had a Cardinal instead of a Hummingbird!

For My Enchanted Mountain Room

Oh man, I heard from so many of you guys when I posted Angela Adams' Forest Floor Rug from her Birds and the Bees collection. Well, look what I just found....

Easton's Pond Tapestry + Munjoy Sofa from the Couture Collection by Angela Adams.

Native Species to My Enchanted Forest Room

Today I am going to post a photo series of cute animals that I want to live in my future Enchanted Forest Room.

New Found Loves: Kay Petal from Felt Alive

Last week I was poking around the Internet while watching tv and saw some cute needle-felted bowls on ETSY. I have heard so much about needle felting and finally I was like, okay so what exactly IS needle-felting...and is it something I could do because those bowls were way cute.

Needle Felted Wool Ring Bowl by juliepersons

Well, the answer to my questions were:

1.) Needle-felting is a dry felting technique that uses special barbed needles to join the fibers of wool together. So basically, you take a clump of wool and poke it with a special needle to create a shape.

2.) Yes, I could do needle-felting, but it would require buying some supplies and my New Year's resolution is to stop collecting hobbies. Isn't that a horrible resolution? Maybe I should change it to I can start new hobbies, but have to get rid of some old stuff.

I am especially gung-ho on needle felting because I learned the basic of needle-felting via a video on Youtube made by Kay Petal from Felt Alive.

Let me just say that Kay's work BLEW my mind. Seriously, she is a genius and a magical artist. I haven't been this inspired since I was a child and into Jim Henson and the Muppets.

Are you ready to have your mind blown? Below are some of the magical felted creatures & people Kay Petal has crafted:









Please visit the Felt Alive blog to see more: http://www.feltnalaska.blogspot.com/

And visit the Felt Alive website to access tutorials, instructions and more information.

Working 2009 to 5

All the credit for the headline of this post goes to Colleen Kluttz of The Poor Girl's Guide to Looking Cute. She made pins for us to wear on New Year's Eve that said that line and Bro'09.

New Year's Eve was a huge, fun blur. First a whole bunch of us went out to eat at Fornino for Brooke's birthday. Yay!







After the birthday festivities we headed over to TBD in Greenpoint for our NYE bash (a Kluttzog production). This was wonderful because not only did we have plenty of space for all our friends and friends of friends, but the bar is 1 block from my house.


Frida Kahlo does a jig




Most of my photos have Colleen in them.