Thankful

I'm thankful for all my amazing friends and family who have encouraged me to take risks and stick to it when things were tough.

I'm thankful for Tea Time with the PDX Etsy crew, since nothing is better than getting out of the house once in a while to chat and snack with friends. Tea Time has helped keep me sane when life was really stressful!

I'm thankful for my cat, Rupert, who is such an awesome guy to have around. Even when he's knocking things on the floor or head-butting me at 3am because he felt like snuggling. I love spending time with him, and letting him distract me from work once in a while.

I'm thankful to anyone who's ever shared food with us, whether it was dinner at our house or theirs. What is life without good people to eat with?

I'm thankful for my husband, Sean, who not only puts up with my crazy ideas and lofty goals, but he also helps me achieve them.

I'm thankful for our great home and friendly neighbors.

I'm thankful for all the opportunities we've had in the past year, business-wise and personally.

I'm thankful for Cooks Illustrated for putting out amazing cookbooks that have taught me how to cook better food. And for our 7-gallon stock pot that we use for brewing beer and brining turkeys.

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Bottling Mead

You may recall that I started brewing a batch of mead way back at the beginning of August, using local honey from one of the organic farms on Sauvie Island. I finally had time to bottle it this weekend, even though it's been done fermenting for about a month.

Bottling is even easier than brewing the mead. You just gather up 10 or so large liquor bottles (I like handles of Seagrams, so that's mostly what I used) or 9 2-liter soda bottles. Sanitize all the bottles and caps with bleach, plus a plastic hose and racking cane. Our hose has a fancy shut-off valve that only opens when it's depressed on the bottom of a bottle, so the flow stops whenever you need to switch bottles.

It was a super-fast process, and now we have 10 big bottles of mead! It needs to age for about a year, but a couple always get consumed before then. ;)

I can't wait to share this at Thanksgiving, and to trade Leah for a bottle of her hard cider!

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Brining is the new Frying

I've recently started eating meat again, after 15 years of strict vegetarianism. This is going to be my first Thanksgiving as an adult where I'll be eating the turkey! Sean and I are celebrating the holiday with another couple who lives in our apartment complex, since none of us have relatives close by. There will be so much food, since we all love to cook, and I have the honor of cooking the turkey.

The New Best Recipe cookbook has a great section on roasting turkeys, and I plan on following their advice to the letter. The first step is to brine the turkey, which sounds daunting, but is apparently essential. We've brined almost all the meat we've been cooking, and I gotta say, it's totally worth the salt and the planning ahead.

[This sexy turkey hat and tea cozy are available as a knitting pattern from angelacatirina.etsy.com. Check out the legs that double as a chin-strap! There's also a crochet version.]

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Eye Candy

I went from being sick this week, straight to being overwhelmed with pint glass orders, and my head is still spinning! Sean's been an amazing helper through all this, and I can honestly say I couldn't have done it without him (and the sandblaster)!

Since I spent yesterday in a post-illness-fog, staring at pretty pictures on the internet when I wasn't organizing the order roster, I thought I'd share some with you!

Creepy new designer pets

Weird public art sculptures around the world

Keith Thompson's Fantasy artwork

[These all came from Sean, via a planted aquarium forum.]

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Toxic

I seem to have caught some kind of super-nasty illness that poses as food poisoning. It's been a rough couple of days, but I'm recovering pretty quickly. I've been feeling really behind on a lot of things, but I think they'll get back on track real soon. Just as soon as I can eat solid food and my sleep schedule stops resembling that of a cat.

[This is a photo of Rupert sneezing, from a few weeks ago when he was suffering from some kind of kitty-cold. He's completely better now, but he looks kind of like how I feel.]

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Almost Ready!

I got to test out my new glass decals yesterday! The results were a little less than stellar, since the designs got kind of mangled inside the glass, but they're pretty exciting anyway. The up-side is that I love the glass colors I have, and I can't wait to make more samples tomorrow!

(Special thanks to Erin of Atomic Glassworks for letting me come over and use her kiln!)

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Trillium Artisans Holiday Sale

Trillium Artisans is having a trunk show for its artists this Saturday, the 15th! I have some one-of-a-kind upcycled items for sale with them, and you can use this 10% off coupon in the store or in their Etsy shop.

Make sure to check out the other local products made from recycled or reclaimed materials!

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Sandblasting: Day One

Newsflash: my husband, Sean, is now the first full-time employee of Bread and Badger (besides myself), and he's been helping me make our new sandblasting gear operational. Today was our first day of blasting (ever!!), and we had some great results!

We'll be switching over to mostly sandblasted products from now on, with hand-engraving options for one-of-a-kind pieces. There's a lot to do before the transition is complete, but we're working lots of overtime to make it happen.

Check out my Flickr photo set of the day's activities to see more of what went down. It was exciting!

On a side note, I got paid by Urban Outfitters today, so my glasses will be appearing in their stores very soon, if they haven't made it there already. Let me know if you spot them first!

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Rick Rolling with Cakes

Holy bejeebus! I just discovered a new way to Rick Roll someone: with a cake! This website has a small gallery with instructions for achieving the feat.

Basically, you decorate a cake with Rick Roll on it. Then, you take a round box (just larger than your real cake) and decorate that to look completely unassuming. After your victim blows out the candles on the fake cake, you get to Rick Roll them by removing the box! How awesome is that?!?

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Vintage Ads

I know I just shared the 50 Polish Film Posters website, but I just couldn't resist their 50 Inspiring Vintage Ads list! This mustachioed rum bottle caught my eye (I wonder why), but there are a lot more inspiring ads to see! Be sure to check out the poodle with a cigarette, and some great scooter ads.

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