Rich's dinner

I just have to share this. The evening got away from us and by the time we got home from the store it was 8pm and a bit too late to cook up the veggie stir-fry we were going to make. So I had some left over Red Lentil and Barley Stew and some baked tofu. Rich decided to go with every kids dream dinner, ice cream, pound cake, and chocolate syrup. Here are some picture of him making his dinner.

I don't know why but I could not get the last image to load rotated correctly, but still you get the idea. Also I finished off the rest of the pound cake for dessert to help me deal with Tommy Robredo losing first round at the Australian Open, it didn't help.

My new bag, I made it myself!

I have had my Mom's sewing machine since the summer and I have dabbled here and there with very minor things and was kinda getting the hang of basic sewing. I thought I was at the point to actually attempt to make myself a new bag.

I have wanted a nice simple shoulder bag to carry my things in that fit in with my daily life a bit more than my leather Coach purse. Not that I don't love my Coach purse but it just really doesn't fit my daily life any more, I felt a bit hypocritical buying all natural, organic, healthy foods and things with my coach purse, it just didn't fit. I had been using a little cloth handbag I found in my Mom's closet, it was a bit small for all my stuff, it didn't have a shoulder strap, and it had sequins on it that always scratched and scraped my leg/arm/side when I was carrying it. I thought about buying something from Etsy but couldn't find something I loved available in a pattern I loved. So I looked around on the internet and found a tutorial for a bag I liked and the tutorial seemed simple and easy. It's from Tiny Happy and the tutorial can be found here.

For Christmas a friend got me a gift card to Jo-Ann's, I went and picked up some fabric (I really love the fabric I picked for the inside lining), a button, and some tailors chalk. That night I sat down and made my bag. Here is the finished product I made on my 1st attempt all by myself and I LOVE IT!

I have since added a lot of craft and sewing blogs to my reader so time and money permitting I should be able to make a lot more cool things utilizing my new love for making things, teehee.

My mostly handmade Christmas

Note: If you happen to be reading this Mom, stop until we have exchanged gifts, you'll spoil the surprise!

My Christmas was mostly homemade, on my part at least. My brother, M-I-L and her twin sister came over Christmas morning for pancakes. I decided I wanted to display my holiday cards, didn't get many, mostly because I stopped sending them out to everyone because I just couldn't justify the paper use. I had some rope which I believe is jute, I cut a piece to a good size tied a knot on each end put a thumbtack inside the knot and hung or clipped cards onto the rope. Instant holiday card display.

I made some gift tags to go along with the pretty boxes I made from tea boxes. There was a box that had an add/coupon on the inside and one that I ripped too much for it to be considered pretty. I took parts of those boxes and glued the pieces to another piece of cardboard and made pretty matching tags.

I used the boxes for cookie, mmmmmmm cookies. I made Sandtarts for everyone, my favorite holiday cookie. A bit of foil and a stack of Sandtarts who wouldn't want those.

I made boxes for my Mom to take on her flight to Seattle tied with some hemp twine and my gift tags.

I put the boxes in a paper bag and found some Christmas stamps in my desk drawer and had some fun.
I used this same principle to wrap a calender and cd for Rich's Aunt. Cut up a paper bag for wrapping paper and used my Christmas stamps to decorate.

For my M-I-L and my husbands Grandma we got them a framed picture of the two of us and I added a card I decorated with stamps all tied together with hemp twine and a gift tag.
My mom got a framed picture too, an eye pillow I made, and a bookmark I made (more about those in a bit), wrapped in a t-shirt we bought her.
I bought my husband a new pair of headphones he desperately needed and quickly sewed a bag to put them in and added some tissue paper we had lying around.
Here are my cloth bookmarks I made. I used an old pair of jeans, cut off one of the legs, cut that into strips, sewed along the edges so they wouldn't completely fray and added a cute charm on the top. Quite easy and very useful and everyone seemed to really like them.

I also made a few lavender eye pillows from scraps I had lying around, I took my Mom's sewing machine earlier this year and never did anything with it and recently started teaching myself to sew, the bookmarks were one of my first attempts at doing something. I then found a box of scraps, a lot I recognized from Halloween costumes or pillows we had on the couch as kids. With some of the scraps I made lavender eye pillows. They are filled with flax seeds and dried lavender flowers, they smell delicious and are oh so relaxing.

For the people that I gave a bookmark and a eye pillow to I wrapped them together with hemp twine. They go together so well, don't you think.

One of Rich's other Aunt's got a framed photo (that I think has probably had mustaches and other things added to it already by Rich's uncle, hehe) and an eye pillow and I wrapped those two things together.

Everything is so simple yet still festive and pretty.

Picture post

Here are some pictures I have taken of animals at work and home recently. I keep meaning to post some of these as a Wordless Wednesday post but can never remember so I am posting them now or I may never get to them.

Lots of baby snakes.

Baby Eurydactylodes, such cute little geckos.

Atticus curled up on a big but tiny to him bed.

Sweet Maya girl waiting for me to finish up so we can play

My kingsnake

My red eared slider Sam relaxing

and his tank mate Ella relaxing

My cat Otsego relaxing on my brother, yes she is relaxed...she's odd like that

My brothers cat, Anubis

His other cat, Ramesses

Play in mud to stop allergies?

From Care2: Play in the mud to stop allergies?

This is just too perfect for me and my blog. Guess we know why I don't have allergies, I use to play in the mud and dirt and sad and manure piles looking for worms and other creepy crawlies for HOURS on end as a kid. I wonder why it took until my mid twenties for me to get the nick name mudnessa, before that it was just Nessa, guess it took an outsider to dub me with the really perfect nickname. It was just the way Nessa was to my family, hehe.

Old pants to cat bed

I have quite a few old pair of pants that I will NEVER fit into again or are ripped and not worth repairing. I had some of them folded on a chest in the bedroom and Harley Quinn loved sleeping there. So to make it look better I decided to sew an actual bed from two pairs of corduroy pants I had. I was inspired by Pants Pillow on The Greenist, there was also a post about Make Your Own Dog Bed, I kinda put the two ideas together. My sewing skills are very very minimal, I have my moms machine and I am teaching myself, there are a few basic things I can't figure out but I do it my own way. The bed looks pretty good but it no where near square but it's a cat bed so they don't care. I made the bed two months ago and Harley is no longer sleeping on that chest, I moved the bed the other morning to in front of the glass door and she is using it now, so is Otsego. Success! I am so excited they are using it. I made it a bit more soft and fluffy feeling by putting two old sheets in it, they were both fitted sheets that had ripped.

Here is Harley Quinn on it

And here it is with them both ignoring it.

I have a lot more pairs of pants that I don't/can't wear any more, mostly jeans and some other nice cotton blends, I also have a lot of other clothes I am no longer able to wear and hope to find something to do with them. (I am reusing a pair of jeans for Christmas presents but I don't wanna give away what people are getting so I can't discuss it.)

Pretty boxes

I re-arranged the furniture in the apartment a few weeks ago, I ended up putting my desk in our extra room along with a lot of other stuff, with the idea to make a sort of craft area for me, since I would like to start sewing. I've made a cat bed that my cats apparently don't like but that's the way it goes with things you make specifically for cats.

I finally got around to arranging and cleaning that room today and I started making a bunch of piles or random things I don't use very often, if ever, but didn't want to get rid of. One pile had things like a pencil sharpener, an OLD pretty little stapler with lady bugs on it, a single hole puncher that punches in the shape of a bunny, some 2 inch colored pencils that use to be full size.

Earlier in the day I emptied another box of tea, I drink A LOT of tea, and put it up on one of the top cabinets in the kitchen. I keep the boxes because the insides are really pretty and I knew I could do something with them. I had often thought of turning them inside out and re-using them as gift boxes or something. Today I finally got to it and instead used them as boxes for storing not often used desk items.

I started with three boxes of Yogi Tea, I have many more in the cabinet.

Aren't the insides pretty, how could I throw these away, well recycle them technically.

I carefully opened up the box, it was only held together at the flap openings on the top and bottom and a tab on the side.

Once opened I made sure to bend the creases in the opposite direction they were in so the box folds together and lays more square when re-folded. I then re-folded the center pieces in opposite direction and secured the one side tab with tape, the only thing I had on hand, will probably need to go back and use some glue too at some point.

REMINDER *Need to remember to pick up some glue.*

Pretty box all put together.

There are little obvious glue tabs left but they can be covered with a ribbon or gift tag if using as a gift box, I just oriented the box so that side is not in view.

My favorite tattoo

People ask me what my favorite tattoo is. I can't pick one, they are all special to me, that's why I got them. The eye of horus on my ankle is special because it was my first (besides the obvious meaning of the symbol itself), the ankh on my left wrist is also special because it was my second and reflamed my addiction (also besides the obvious meaning of the symbol). The scales, as in reptile, on my right leg are just pure awesome and they hurt like hell and my work life is all about reptiles right now. The mermaid on my left upper arm is downright beautiful, it is adapted from a piece by the artist Erte, Bettie Page on my right upper arm is Bettie Page nothing more needs to be said, I love that woman. Finally the black and grey flames on my lower right arm are just awesome, they are flames and I am very fond of flames!

I can't even pick a favorite of my husbands, but I can narrow it down to two. First goes to the interpretation of the cover of the band Unmerciful's Unmercifully Beaten Album, choosen by yours truly. Saw them in concert and love the cover art, fits perfectly on the back of Rich's right arm.

The second is this evil devil thing ripping it's face open, he found the original art on the internet, not sure of its origin.

I like all his tattoos, although sometimes waking up in the morning and seeing one of the above or the viking skeleton warrior that is between these two staring at me is kinda freaky. I know they are kinda dark and evil and probably not for everyone, or most but I love them and perhaps one day I will have something dark and evil on me. That's just the kinda girl I am, I guess.

Carpet stain remover

1 little squirt of dish soap

an ounce or 2 of white vinegar

an ounce or 2 of water, hot if you want (I've used cold and hot and works well both ways)

I use an old toothbrush to mix and apply the mixture. I know everywhere tells you not to scrub, rub, or do anything but blot stains but how many of us really sit there and blot our little hearts out. So I scrub scrub scrub and it works great. I usually just use a clean cloth and blot/wipe dry. Sometimes I use a damp cloth followed by a dry one but either way I get the same results.

My carpets are the typical too light beige that apartments like to use for whatever reason so I don't really need to worry about taking color out but it always a good idea to do a color test before using a spot cleaner.

I am not big on cleaning but I also kinda am. I don't keep my place clean on a daily basis, if you were to just drop by you might find a quite clean and "normal" looking place or you could find a place that looks like a tornado has hit. I get into cleaning moods and EVERYTHING gets cleaned then. Every part gets a good clean every one or two months and it's usually that often that I get to spot cleaning the carpet.

Most of the stains on my carpet are pet related. Spots of cat puke and other gooey bits of cat messes, dropped bits of canned food that get left unseen for a while. There are also some husband food spots, hehe. I had some good photos to go with this post from months ago but when my computer crashed I lost them. At that point I had a lot of big nasty black stains all over my carpet. They were from cat medicine, one of the cat's was having slight hairball blockage issues so she was on a stool softener and it was very sticky liquid and so some would get on the floors. She was on it for about a week and after 2 days I gave up on cleaning the spots right away so a few weeks later when I finally went to clean them all they had attracted A LOT of dirt and grime. There was one spot where she spit the whole dosage back onto the carpet and I did blot it right away with a damp cloth but that stuff is REALLY sticky so it did little. This cleaner worked wonders and my carpet is all bright and shiny now.

Soap dish

My liquid hand soap ran out in one of the bathrooms about a week ago and instead of buyinganother bottle of liquid soap in another plastic bottle I decided to actually use one of the many bar soaps I have lying around. I have about half a dozen lying around and have had them for many many years and never used one. The only problem is I don't have a soap dish and whatever end of the soap ended on the edge of the sink would get all soggy.

I own one soap dish that I found lying around, that one has been used for my bar face soap. Earlier in the year I went to bar soap in the shower and my husband uses a shampoo bar, both of those are in little rice bowls, I used them because I had broken one and glued it back together so it couldn't be used for food anymore and I have a pair so when we got the shampoo bar I used the matching one, which I later broke and had to glue back together so now they really match, two broken rice bowls for our soap.

I had seen this Chopstick Soap Dish on UncommonGoods.com and really liked it but I have $0 money to spend, especially after Fridays $300 vet trip for the crazy cats. I went walking around the apartment looking for something to use as a soap dish or to make into a soap dish, I found two pairs of wooden disposable chopsticks and my glue gun. I decided to try and make a chopstick soap dish of my own. Of course it looks nothing like the one on uncommon goods and it definitely isn't as pretty but it was free and functional. I just cut each chopstick in half and then glued them together in a grid pattern. After I made one with the disposable chopsticks I decided to use two pairs of some nicer chopsticks and make another for the other bathroom, I have a lotof chopsticks and these I don't use often because their ends are too pointy to cook with, I like chopsticks with blunter ends.

Here is what I ended up with, lighter one is the disposable and darker is the nicer chopsticks:

More on my hair treatments

Since my last update on my hair on April 10th (read it here) where I was at war with my scalp but loving my hair I have been in love with both amazingly. I think the hot coconut oil treatment I did really helped even everything out and let me basically start fresh. The conditioner/treatment thing we put on our shower seems to help with the soap scum issues I was having with baking soda washes. My routine since then has basically been a once or twice weekly baking soda wash with an apple cider vinegar with rosemary essential oil rinse. (read about my no poo start and recipe I use here) I think the rosemary helped some too with my scalp. Things have been going great and no real issues.

I used up my coconut oil last week and was really not wanting to buy more (for the reasons I discuss in my last post about hair, link is above). I read around and apparently shea butter is pretty good to use on hair too and I have been wanting to get some to use on my skin as well so I decided to go that way. My hair has been really dry recently and the idea of a thicker moisturizer really appealed to me. I bought a glass jar (yay for glass jars I love reusing them for other things) of handcrafted shea butter with lavender and mint essential oils from Alaffia. It is not organic but it is fair trade, the organic option was in a heavy plastic jar so I was leaning towards the glass. Shea butter is a lot thicker than coconut oil and it is a bit harder to work through my hair than oil but it is not difficult, it also seems to moisturize a bit better.

Last week I noticed my head was getting flaky again and yesterday after I showered it was HORRIBLY flaky and it hurt. It felt tight and cracked and sore, not very itchy though. So last night I gave myself another scalp oil treatment, this time I opted for grapeseed oil. After I applied it I tied up my hair and slept on it to let it soak in. I also looked around for some other treatments I could use and made myself a thyme tea to use on my scalp. I used 1 tablespoon of thyme in 1/2 a cup of hot water, it smelt great. I let it cool and covered it and put it in the fridge.

I then thought about making some sort deep conditioner or something for the length of my hair since it has been so dry and the season is changing and it is only going to get worse with the cold dry winter weather. I remembered how much my hair seemed to like the flaxseed wash I tried a couple times (read it about here and here) and decided to make a batch and use it just on the length of my hair since it doesn't do so good with the scalp and I didn't want to end up with a weird greasy patch like before. I made a batch, 1 table spoon of whole flaxseeds in 1 cup of water brought to a boil and then simmered for at least 5 mins. To this I also added a bit of clove and a 1/4 stick of cinnamon. It smelled so good, I strained the mixture into a heat safe container that I had a chamomile tea bag in and another tea bag of lavender. I let them steep for a bit and then took them out, let the mixture cool and covered it and put it in the fridge to be used in the morning.

This flaxseed wash is AMAZING as a once in a while wash for you hair. It makes my hair dry so quickly and it makes my natural waves come out in full force. It also seems to brighten up my hair a bit too, clove is suppose to highlight red so that could be a factor too but I didn't use cloves last time and it looked bright then too. The grapeseed oil and thyme tea rinse also seemed to help my scalp a lot. When I showered in the morning I massaged my scalp thoroughly then continued massaging while I used my normal baking soda wash. Followed that with the thyme tea rinse and more massaging and rinsing. That was followed by using the flaxseed wash on the length of my hair and a thorough rinse. As it was drying I worked in some shea butter to the length and then just left it alone.

The color and texture and look and EVERYTHING of my hair is amazing today.

Just look at it:

It took very little effort, the only effort was making the mixtures, which was not difficult at all.

I am definitely going to add a flaxseed wash back into my routine, maybe once or twice a month, I am also thinking of buying some shikakai and trying that as a wash instead of baking soda. The baking soda works but I would like to try and find something different. I read about shikakai on the no poo livejournal page I always fall back on for loads of information on no pooing. Apparently it is used just like baking soda to make a wash, it is also rather cheap like baking soda is, I found it available on amazon. Hopefully I can keep the love going and have trouble free scalp and hair.