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Want something to do this Saturday? Even better — want to learn something new this Saturday?

Sign up for my class at Reiman Gardens in Ames.  I’m going to be teaching how to create fun and pretty mugs from old unloved ceramics.  Added bonus: I’m curating a playlist for this specific event.  Not only will you learn something new, you’ll get to listen to some new and (hopefully) exciting artists while you do it.

What do you get out of the class besides a new skill?  You get the tools to continue painting up your own ceramics, ideas for how to implement this skill beyond just mugs, and a creative spin to your Saturday morning. Mugs will also be provided.

Not an artist?  No drawing skills?  No problem!  Doodles and text are great accents to unloved dishes.  And I will also be teaching a transfer technique for those of us who are really uncomfortable with drawing anything freehand — even a doodle.

Today is the LAST day to sign up for the class.  Click here to sign up.  There is a discount for Iowa State Students.  If you and a friend sign up, tweet @chimes about it and receive an awesome prize from my Etsy shop.

Here are a few examples of mugs you’ll be able to create after taking this class.

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Hello bloglings. Tomorrow is my first Market Day of the season.  They’ve been going on since May, but I’ve not had a chance to do much crafting until this last month.

For those of you who don’t know and are around Central Iowa, you should come check it out.  It’s pretty awesome.

Actually, for you newbies, here’s a description from their website:  Market Day is an indie craft market: their vendors craft — but they don’t make your grandma’s crafts. At Market Day, shoppers find screenprinted posters and tees, postcards of monsters, stenciled paintings of mermaids, kawaii earrings, macabre pottery, and more. And? They’ve got their share of vintage housewares, clothing and jewelry, too.

Find Market Day at the Des Moines Social Club in the Kirkwood Theater — at 400 Walnut Street in downtown Des Moines, IA. Click here to get directions.

What am I selling? Why dishes of course. But actually, since I moved twice since the last craft show I did, I don’t have any new dishes.  I do, however, have a metric butt-ton of new zippy pouches because these are super easy to transport and are reallllly fun to make.

Zippy pouches are $10 (at Market Day, $12+shipping on etsy). Dishes range from $5-15 for single items and $35-75 for sets (again, 10% more expensive on etsy + shipping).

Also, did I mention that Market Day is from 9 AM-2 PM? COME ON DOWN.

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Chobani!

Wait, Chobani?

Yes. Chobani.  Greek yogurt.  Of the frozen variety.

I’ve been toying with the idea of buying an ice cream maker for a VERY long time.  But I realized it would be a very bad idea.  That was until I saw a blog post about one-step frozen yogurt — ie. freezing Greek yogurt.

So I bought an ice cream maker.  And we’ve been experimenting with frozen yogurt.

Just so you know, if you put vanilla Chobani in the ice cream maker, it doesn’t miraculously turn into what you think frozen yogurt should taste like.  It tastes like vanilla Chobani.  However, that gives you an excuse to eat frozen yogurt for breakfast and impress your friends and coworkers.

After two tries, we came up with a recipe we like.

Vanilla Bean Frozen Yogurt

1 large container plain 0% Chobani yogurt
1/8 t vanilla bean
2 T honey
1 T vanilla extract
1/4 c sugar (or brown sugar for a carmely taste)

Mix yogurt, vanilla bean (the stuff inside the pod), vanilla and sugar vigorously until well-combined.  Turn on ice cream maker and pour in.  Ice cream maker will stop when yogurt is too thick for the bowl to turn anymore.  Freeze if the consistency isn’t hard enough for you. Top with whatever you please (we had chocolate chips handy!)

So after hearing about me making a couple batches of Chobani frozen yogurt, my coworker, Brianne, saw that Chobani was having a promotion on twitter and started a conversation with them.  After a few tweets back and forth, we ended up getting some frozen yogurt shipped to us.

It’s yet to come, but I promised the office frozen yogurt.  So I better deliver!  I can’t wait!

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I volunteered at the fair last week and I’m sad to say I didn’t have much time to walk around and do anything there but volunteer. But, on my way out I found the Fair Square booth.

A Fair Square is apparently a giant rice krispie treat on a stick. For only $2 — which is a crazy deal in the world of $7 corn dogs and fried foods on a stick. Also — not fried!

So I got one for lunch. Not my best decision, but much better than a corn dog!

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it’s been a month and a handful of days, and my friend Steph and her beau are still happily married.

and my friend Kelly finally posted her amazing photos.

That means it’s finally time for a recap!

We started off the day before the wedding with a fabulous bridal tea thrown by Steph’s future sister and mother-in-law at their home. Here’s Steph with the teacup and saucer I made her for the occasion.

The bridal party

AMAZING sangria. I *need* this recipe.

After tea we went and got our nails did. Which was rather entertaining because I broke off half my thumbnail two days before (yes HALF of it) and I run (in case you forgot) so I told the lady to leave my calluses alone.  She was pretty put off by that request even AFTER I explained that if she shaved off my calluses that it would make my feet worse. And it would hurt my training. (ha. training!)

She managed to paint my thumb so it looked like there was a real nail on it.

We went and rehearsed and after rehearsal we went to 801 Chop House for the rehearsal dinner and our significant others joined us.

Mark looks dead sexy in a suit. Just sayin.

Then came the wedding day! The ceremony was outside at Sticks in Des Moines and the reception was inside the warehouse.

I was in love with the flowers — even though Steph said they were definitely NOT what she’d ordered.  They were gorgeous.

and so was the cake. also delicious for the record (kelly and I snagged 2 pieces)

the bridal party — ready to rock — glittered up!

After the wedding the bride and groom were showered with white rose petals and left to get some pix taken.

This photo is beyond gorgeous (Amanda does AMAAAAAZING work).

While they were out, we waited for our official photos. Somewhat impatiently …

for the record, the above two shots are probably 2 of my favorite photos of myself ever.

Mark held my flowers so I could take a pee break from the ridiculousness that was ensuing.

oh, and my other BFF Adria was there.  Holla!

And our friend Jen made it with her hubby and her month-old baby, Adoree.  She had to break Chinese tradition of 30 days of house arrest to attend (BY ONE WHOLE DAY). They are the cutest little family ever!

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Dinner and drinks were served.  Cake was nommed.  Dancing ensued.

One thing I must note — the music, the food — everything — was so significant to the couple.  They spent hours and hours on the perfect playlist and even had their string quartet play “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure for the processional and they played “Today” by Smashing Pumpkins as the recessional.  I *loved* it.  And I know they were hoping that everybody loved the food and music because they put so much of themselves in the selection of both.

take one

take two

take three

WINNING

because we’re classy.

And yes, I had got drunk enough to show off the fact that I worked my butt off the previous week and a hafl to lose the last 5 pounds to fit in that dress.

Note: always get the bigger size if you’re between sizes.  I didn’t even THINK about the fact that my hips are hugetastic (11 inches larger than my waist) and that even if I weighed 10 pounds less the dress STILL would have been tight because my hips aren’t going to be any smaller. You can’t shrink bone people!

However, you just got a free pass to the gun show.  Enjoy.

all photos are from Kelly, Amanda or Candace unless otherwise noted. Photos without credits are mine.

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It’s been a VERY long time since I’ve done a giveaway.  (In case you’re curious, I did one at the beginning of June of 2009, another in the middle of June 2009, one at the beginning of July 2009, one in the middle of July 2009, one in July 2010, one in August of 2010 and one in September 2010).

//EDIT// I posted this giveaway and realized that today is also Giveaway Day on Sew Mama Sew. I’m featured on the handcrafted items page.

Last time I did one, I had a trivia question. But I’m going to make this one really easy.

First — the prize?

A teeny tiny wallet of your choice — one of these two:

What do you have to do to win, you ask?  Simple.  Just comment on this post with which one of these you prefer if you win. Make sure your e-mail address is correct when you fill out the comment box or I will have no way of contacting you if you win.  Want another entry?  Tweet or facebook about the contest, and leave a comment on this post with a link to the tweet or post.  Want yet ANOTHER entry?  Follow me on Networked Blogs (check out the sidebar over here on the right).

Contest ends on Memorial Day (Monday, May 30). I will randomly choose a winner by using random.org’s generator. Good luck!

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I was out of the office a few days last week so I didn’t receive this lovely package from Amy Palanjian (the editor of ReadyMade magazine for those who aren’t familiar) until today.

Amy follows me on Pinterest and noticed that I had pinned this amazing book, “World of Geek Crafts” and promptly messaged me asking if I wanted her copy that was sitting on her desk.

Why, yes. Yes I do!

So she stuck it in snail mail, and I got it TODAY.

Guess what the first thing I’m going to make is? Betcha can’t guess …

It’s a Buffy portrait. Made from beads. Can’t decide if I want to anty up time or money — because this would make a GREAT x-stitch, but I feel that would take up too much time. But it would be awesome.

Also, I didn’t realize this until now, but I was featured on the Geek Craft blog a LONG time ago (2009) — when it first started. My lovely rubiks cube that I made for my then-BF, Kasey, was featured.

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It’s a week late, but last Saturday we went out for my friend Steph‘s bachelorette party.  Not the typical bachelorette. That’s not how we roll. No giant plastic penises (peni??) or beads or leis or whatever else.

The plan was to eat sushi, have some lovely homemade desserts at her place and head to a really douchey bar for some dancing.

Sushi at Appare started out the evening. Then we went to Steph’s place for some oreo truffles and amaretto cupcakes with baileys irish cream frosting (Steph and I baked the Thursday before … note the cream cheese frosting was from the Guinness cupcakes I made for my birthday).  Then we went to Uncle Bucks in West Des Moines for some douchery.

All in all, fun was had.  And the douchey guys by us at the bar were actually quite entertaining — they kept hopping up on the stripper pole and making fun of the slutty girls that were actually using the stripper pole. Hilarious.

Also, I would like to point out that I was wearing a dress owned by Steph and it FIT. AND I wasn’t wearing the miraculous bra (yes that cleavage is TRULY miraculous).

I didn’t text Mark all night …

Oh, and I forgot to mention, I made these ultra-gaudy flower pins for everybody to wear as a headband or pin. Here’s Kelly modeling hers.

The bridal party!

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It’s Drake Relays time!

That means … I’m really busy.

But seriously. It means streetpainting, Beautiful Bulldogs and lots of races. I’m not running in the Drake Half Marathon this year — no way am I going to top shaving off 20 minutes from my PR —  but I am going to go check out some of the fun events this week. And you should too!

Here are some of my favorite photos from Drake’s flickr galleries.

The winner of the Beautiful Bulldog Contest was Lucy Brown! (the ! is part of her  name) and she is suuuuuper adorable. And probably pretty slobbery.

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Weeeeee!

Here are the latest iterations of pretty pretty dishes. They are for sale on my etsy and, more importantly, will be for sale at Craft Saturday from 12-6 PM THIS SATURDASY (the 30th) at the 4th St. Theatre in Des Moines.

There are 4 new springtime flowers stoneware plates — slightly different versions of a floral pattern (sans music by popular request). Also, I have 8 of the little birdies cup and saucer sets on cute pastel dinnerware.

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