2012 Week 45: This cake is pleased to mead you…

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Leigh

This week FLEW by:

Tilda training

Thrilled that Obama is able to finish what he started

Spontaneous Amanda/Stacy hang at Division Ale House

Checked out a new neighborhood store called Paperish Mess

Pre-JV dinner at Native Foods with Steph, Z, and Mark

JV opening for Crooked Fingers @ Schubas [that moment where you hear David Bazan’s liony voice behind you while you are backstage and you get strangely nervous!]

Coworker’s baby showers

Cooking up Change

Brunch with Sarah vG and co. at Wishbone

CakeFork @ Beth’s

Post-CakeFork dinner at Bite

Sold my first bottle of LAK lacquer!

Re-made my two Chicago Christmas cards and brainstormed a new and awesome Chicago Christmas card that I still need an inside message for.

For DIY Trunk Show next Saturday, November 17th, Rhymes with Twee is Booth 140, on a corner because I am a vendor sponsor. Come say hello, friends & fans!

For CakeFork this year, I made this Apple Honey Bundt Cake with Fuji apples, subbing in pumpkin for vegetable oil, leaving out walnuts, and making up a mead glaze (recipe below). I ended up winning the write-in category. People wrote in these things for my cake: “autumnal,” “honey-licious,” “best use of alcohol/medieval beverage/creative ingredients,” and “deliciously medieval”. Color me PROUD!

Mead Glaze

1/2 cup mead
1 cup powdered sugar, plus additional for serving

Whisk together mead and powdered sugar. Drizzle over still warm cake and dust with additional powdered sugar.

Films watched 45th week of the year:

PressPausePlay*
The Girlfriend Experience
The American Scream*

*documentary

2012 Week 44: This week did not LAK adventure…

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Leigh

It’s go time, folks! LAK lacquer is alive! Skipped one more day at the gym and worked on the launch of all that is LAK lacquer today. Boy, it takes a long time to build a website and social media presence from nothing. My next step is to look for someone great with social media to swatch my polishes for me. Fingers crossed, y’all.

At work this week: the tradeshow and the Halloween party both went great! Also of note this week, went to Cindy’s show opening at Inkling. Had to restrain myself from buying more prints. Her work is *so* lovely. However, the stack of prints I need to buy frames for is probably .5 inches thick. Cindy’s work is a huge inspiration to me. Seriously: look at this stuff. I ate out three times this week [Bite, Yummy Yummy, Fat Willy’s]. Need to take it easy. At least I have all of my craft fairs coming up to prep for, so I think I’ll be able to keep myself busy to not go out too much. Famous last words?

Very exciting news: Z and I have a wedding venue! It’s one that friends used and we had really liked. We went to see it on Friday and wrote in requesting dates on Saturday. We dropped off a check today. The price was the opposite of jaw-dropping; jaw-lifting even. Don’t want to jinx anything until we hear back that we are 100% confirmed on the date, but we are nearly there. I also bought the domain and put a placeholder up on our wedding website.

Films watched 44th week of the year:

Frankenweenie
Rumba
Cloud Atlas
Punching the Clown
Hit So Hard*
Fados*

*documentary

This was a stellar week for movies. I enjoyed all of them to some degree, but my winner this week was Frankenweenie tied with Rumba. I cried more than I thought I would at Frankenweenie. When I first saw the preview for it, it was when Tilda was being an absolute terror and had bitten Zachary and we thought we would have to give her back to the rescue who might then, in turn, have to put her down since she had a bite record. I could not stop crying during that preview thinking about our tiny dog dying. So glad that our patience paid off because Tilda is an excellent dog 98% of the time now. The doggie drugs have really turned things around and set her brain straight. She is totally worth it. Frankenweenie broke my heart into millions of pieces in the first 15 minutes. I am one of those people who hadn’t heard of the short Tim Burton had done of this first thing in his career. The film delivered. Loved it, but I don’t know that I can see it again anytime soon. Have to build my tears back up!

2012 Week 36: Rhymes with Tired

Posted on September 9, 2012 by Leigh

Mired.
Wired.
Tired.

Renegade Craft Fair Chicago 2012 is over. It was a very successful year. The weather during the fair was lovely. My boothmate Shawna Smith and her booth helper were lovely and we had a good time over the weekend. I saw awesome friends and met great new people, as always. I debuted LAK lacquer. Winner of the drawing for $25 worth of Rhymes with Twee goods is Eileen D. and I have contacted her via email that she has won. As for me, I am bone tired. And now….sleep!

Films watched 36th week of the year:

Tiny Furniture
Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles*
Jane Eyre (2011)

*documentary

Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles was excellent. If you like documentaries, this was a neat one addressing a very mysterious subject matter.

2012 Week 34: “a rainy day and she might come down for awhile and watch the raindrops fall.”

Posted on August 26, 2012 by Leigh

I have been ticking off more things on my crafty To Do list. Now it’s all about making a few more items and packaging them. This is the most prepared I have felt for a Renegade in years! I went to an Etsy Craft Party on Friday night at Chicago Weaving School and caught up with some crafty pals I hadn’t seen in awhile. Very fun event and it got me thinking about taking a weaving class at the space. Really neat and I had no idea that Chicago had a weaving school before the event was announced. This week I also caught up with a few friends I hadn’t seen in awhile; grabbing drinks at Scofflaw, going to dinner at Handlebar, and going to the last Panic for at least awhile while they figure stuff out. So sad to say goodbye to an era. I really missed dancing, so it was a treat! On Sunday, I went to a wedding event in Rosemont called Windy City Wedding. It was mostly a bust, but I did see a photobooth vendor I liked. Then Annie and I went to IKEA and Sushi Station. A successful suburb trip if there ever were one.

Before heading to the ‘burbs, I made a new polish, pictured with Katniss above. I am calling it ‘Favorite Beatnik Star’ after a song on ‘Alaska Days’ by Poole. This is my favorite polish yet! Poole were one of my favorite local bands and the were the first band I interviewed. I did the interview and photo shoot with them at the playground of my elementary for my zine ‘cixelysd ton era ew’ that I made in high school with my friend LeeAnne. Only made one issue of that zine, but it was a fun one. That album’s grooves are deeply etched into my heart, so I am happy to name a polish in ode to Poole!

Films watched 34th week of the year:

Jeff, Who Lives at Home
Two in the Wave*
The Debt
Labor Day, East Chicago* [short doc by Tom Palazzolo]
I Married a Munchkin* [short doc by Tom Palazzolo]
Down Clark Street* [short doc by Tom Palazzolo]
Innerspace

The Debt and I Married a Munchkin were my two faves this week. We’ve been watching a lot of Community as well. Also, I have been trying to get Z hooked on Downton Abbey, but it not sucking him in. This is saddening to me. Same thing happened with Lost. Sad face.

2012 Week 33: The Master of Making.

Posted on August 19, 2012 by Leigh

I crafted more in the past two weeks than I have in 2012 up through August. This may be a true statement. I made two new greeting cards and heat set the tea towels I printed last week at Art Factory. I made a ton of grab bags of awesome because it is a good way to get rid of slight misprints, things that have been sitting around awhile, or things I made way too many of. Each grab bag of awesome contains at least 3 cards and assorted other fun things. Will totally be a bargain for $4.

On Friday night LCB made amazing enchiladas and we made a nail polish. Yes, that is the secret thing that I have been holding under my hat. I am developing a line that I will be selling under the name LAK lacquer as a subset of Rhymes with Twee. It is an incredible amount of fun, dudes. About as fun as FAZZ was in the 80’s, which is really funny because that is the last time I remember being this excited about make-up. Who else remembers FAZZ?

Saturday I got to see my friend Beth for the first time since she returned from her long Italy trip. We took a lovely stroll around the neighborhood and popped into all kinds of shops. Sunday was all about clean-up and packaging. Tilda even got a bath. I am feeling accomplished, but I always feel like there is more I could have when Sunday comes to a close. That’s why I will likely get up early tomorrow to do something crafty related as well. One of these days Z and I will get around to doing some kind of wedding planning.

Films watched 33rd week of the year:

Dark Knight Rises [again]
The Change-Up
Harlan County USA*
The Master
Rid of Me
Creative Nonfiction
Belfast, Maine*

*documentary

The Change-Up was the worst. Wow. How do movies like that get made? Let’s leave that subject. I went in almost totally blind and The Master was still a letdown, but that’s okay. You can’t always make winners, P.T. Faves this week were Belfast, Maine [all 4.5 hours of it] and Rid of Me. Rid of Me is streaming on Netflix and I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Also, I did not mention here on the La De Blog that Shut Up, Little Man was one of the best docs I have seen in ages. Totally worth your time.