The BEST tomato soup around

A few of us started a "craft night" that will happen once a week (or we will atleast try!) where we come together to eat, chat & work on whatever project it is we need workin on! Some of us actually do work on stuff ;) while others come just to be with friends. Which I love. Sometimes we are too busy chasing kids around at the beach we don't actually get talkin time in.

Last night I made a tomato soup that I've eaten at my mother-in-law's home plenty of times to know that I need to make this ASAP. I'm kicking myself for not making it a lot sooner. You are literally licking the bowl afterwards and having your third bowl- even if your stomach can't handle it. So here is the recipe! Super simple in my book.

Creamy Tomato Soup
Serves 4

Ingredients:
2 tbs butter (I used salted)
1 Onion
1-2 Garlic Cloves 
(1) 28 oz can of tomatoes (I used Trader Joes' PLUM Tomatoes. Yum)
1.5 cups of stock (I used chicken flavoring from TJs)
1/2 cup heavy cream
Salt & Pepper

Prepare:
Peel garlic (even though it's the biggest pain in the behind) & put in a bowl with cut the cut onions. The onion cuts don't need to be small at all because you end up blending it later. 

Method:
Melt butter in medium-large stockpot over med. heat. Add & cook onion & garlic. Add can of tomatoes  & stock. Simmer for 10 minutes. Puree (to where you see chunks but not HUGE chunks) & add the heavy cream, salt & pepper. Serve right away!

(I made the soup before everyone came over so just heated it up in the same pot right before I served. And I was surprised I actually pulled it off! Go me!)

Seamstress + Sales Associate? Who knew.

I've been putting in quite the hours in this room, sewing. Good thing it's a perfect size room for it! My sewing machine (birthday present from Drew) sits in front of the window where I get to see a LOT of Dana Point. ...and I seriously LOVE IT! (if you don't remember this post..) Yes I keep hearing from all seamstresses world wide that pillows are the easiest things to make, but lucky for me, it's what we needed for our couches. See that hideous pillow in the left side of the frame? It has nasty circles? Ya those are what came with the couches. The size is perfect and it's the exact width of the cushions, so I decided to tackle on the project of  making new covers (See the fabric in the left corner and the blue one on the floor? Those are it!) It's been quite a costly endeavor, but totally worth it in the end. Happy wife=happy life, right? :)

Life has been a little strange lately. I haven't transitioned nicely from wife/full-time student/living in Provo/crazy busy wedding photographer to wife/not so busy photographer/living in California. I can't figure out if it's because of money differences or friends or what. I just can't. Being able to do "DIY" projects was something I kept wanting to do while at school, and now that I have the time, my imagination is going INSANE. It's all I want to do. I miss being busy. It's funny. In Provo I was DYING for some down-time. I just have too much of it these days. You can only go to the beach so many times before you realize you need to shower and put make-up on and go atleast 10 miles from the ocean to change up your scenery (never thought I'd be saying this)..... so... I got a job! I am now an employee at Anthropologie! It's going to be barely part time, so not that many hours which is nice because I can still spend time with Drew and my family, while creating a home for us. It's a dream job because whenever I'd go into Anthro, I'd spend atleast 20 minutes in one section. Not kidding. I can just look through every single item they have in stock. Now I get to do it as a job and help other people get excited! I hope I don't annoy them.

A tiny bit of me feels silly for getting a retail job after I earned a degree, but why not? Photography is slow right now, I'd love a good discount (40% off baby!) and I'd love to surround myself in that enviornment a few nights a week. Just cross your fingers that I don't spend every dime of my check on their clothes. Cross em harder!

1st Pillow

Can I brag for a second? Okay- well for my birthday, Drew bought me a sewing machine. A really nice one. And one that I've been able to teach myself on the past two or so days. Last night after an afternoon at fashion island and dinner at Wahoos... I hurried upstairs to try making a pillow. Well- I actually did it! And in 90 minutes. My mother-in-law made me two fabulous pillows out of fabric from my wedding reception, and I basically investigated those for 30 minutes and then just went for it. I didn't choose my favorite fabric, but a fabric that is alright, (in case I either made it really well, I would keep it (or sell it) or ruin it and hate it). Well I love it! Yay! Seriously, not one thing I hate about it. And it actually fits the pillow. Who would have thought??? Not me!

It feels really good to accomplish something, doesn't it? Drew woke me up with the pillow today before we surfed. It was really early and I was really tired. So to make me want to get up he showed it to me again. Haha!

Maybe I'll have to make some and sell them on my Etsy? It really didn't take me long and I'm already addicted...soo....

Sun Yellow

In the beginning of February, with my 18 credits and all, I threw myself into crafts. This was a pretty large craft- I'm guessing a 40 hour total craft. Would I rather have paid someone $50 for a wreath like this rather than doing it? Totally. Should I maybe have kept it natural and not spray painted it? I think so. (See below)

If you are daring enough to do it: straw wreath- LEAVE THE PLASTIC ON! (learn from other's mistakes), break pistachios in half and use the shells (then attempt to make pistachio ice cream, then don't make it because you're too busy with your craft...) and spray paint it as many times as you want (change colors with seasons and holidays!) Before this sun yellow, it was "pistachio" green, which I thought was comical because we picked it out without reading what the name on the spray can was- until I went to paint it. It was clearly hideous with my green shutters (that's why it's not up anymore)- and I should have pre-visualized what it was going to look like- so clearly, I had to paint it before I ripped it off my door and crushed the thing. 

Too bad this wreath didn't give me the craft-y bug like my book wreaths gave me. But it's a good thing. My hands were too salty from cracking open the nuts, and I was burning my finger because the hot-glue would heat up the shells very quickly. My days were gone before I knew it. So I'm done. This is my only wreath I will ever make with pistachios again!

Book Cover

I'm in a book binding class and for my last book, I wanted to make the cover. I didn't make the paper- but I thought I would decorate a rather boring paper. It's expensive paper ($10 for a sheet) too so I thought I'd make it a little more worth it then an ugly gray/purple color. I thought it turned out really well and I can't wait to cover my book with it.

Lately I've been watching every HGTV show there is (the good ones of course) while sewing my books, stamping this page, and other class projects like figure drawing. The idea of creating my own wall paper sounds really enticing. I almost just want to make tons of these pages, and put them on my wall- so it's noticable it's not wallpaper- but will trick your eye and be sorta cool. But then it could also look like a kindergarten craft. We don't want that. Then I thought it might be fun to put this exact paper into big frames. I almost don't want to put it on my book because I think it looks great against my gray walls. Maybe this will be a future project for me when I'm at home watching mindless TV or movies.

I start collecting stamps since we got married and needed them for cards and such, and I'm so glad I have because I have such a great collection to choose from. Sometimes they're expensive, but in the end, totally worth it. Do you see the baby face in the big circle ones? That's my favorite stamp purchase. I was going to decorate the book with just the baby face and make it a baby book or something- but the stamp didn't work well with the texture of the paper.

Gifts in March

During my 3-D class, our last assignment was to make either jewelry or a knife. Ugh a knife? Ya right. And then, all I could think of was copper (I'm sorta obsessed with copper as of late) and then all I could think of was initial necklaces. Being an artist, everyday you have to try and be original and creative. Well, I threw that idea out the window and just stuck with a necklace I wanted and knew of. I also made some (and one bracelet) for my sisters (not Rikki because she told me she hates necklaces or anything on her body... so sorry girlfriend). I put them in tea bags to give it an organic feel. So sisters in CA, look for them in the mail this next week. Abby- I'll have to give you yours when we see you next! xoxo

Sorry for the lack of posting. A lot has been happening and life has been throwing us many massive curve balls. So I'll play catch up soon.