Author: TwinkieChan

Ok, we all know that I am NOT a good food/baking blogger, so my photos are of baked goods that are THREE days old. But the food still tastes good! Picture above are pumpkin pecan Mexican wedding cookies. My buddy Elysse (who has a new blog called The Vegan Sweet Beat!) came over on Saturday night for pizza, baking, and rom com (we watched Walk of Shame…. I give it a “meh” although A+++ for big giant hair). We used this recipe from Cookie and Kate. Our cookies did have more powdered sugar on them before, but, you know… THREE DAYS. The recipe calls for whole wheat flour, and we used Earth Balance instead of butter or coconut oil. I LOVE ME SOME PUMPKIN BAKED GOODS (but not the PSL or any pumpkin spice drink…), and these cookies were super yummy! They did not end up quite as dry and crumbly as the Mexican wedding cookies I am accustomed to, but Kate mentioned this would be the case when you sub out the real butter. Regardless: YUM. Elysse toasted the pecans, and my kitchen smelled AMAZE. Elysse also suggested we bake a back-up in case the pumpkin pecan cookies turned out weird. Well, actually, the brownies turned out to be weird!!! (We still ate them.) It was the first time I baked or tasted a brownie with black beans in it. I have always been really curious about them, but Elysse thought this recipe was not the best, and the brownies came out SUPER DUPER DENSE. It was almost like eating …. firm chocolate jello, or I guess, fudge. However, they were better the next day, and even better the day after that, etc etc, so I think that having some time to dry out did them some good. Anyway, I have no idea what recipe we used, but Elysse says she has a better recipe, so if I get around to make those, I will link you! Here’s us on Saturday night getting our PB on. I’m looking serious/dubious about putting on the peanut butter the right way, and Elysse is triumphantly zig-zagging through it all with a knife. I have pumpkin puree left over, so, per Elysse’s suggestion, I am going to try making a pumpkin spice smoothie next!

Hi! It’s the 15th of the month, so it’s time to launch a new blog sponsor giveaway! This is the most prizes we have ever had! Thanks so much to my generous sponsors for offering us these wonderful goodies! One lucky winner will receive:

  I haven’t done my nails in a little while, but on Friday, Manda came over, and we went on a 5 mile walk around Lake Merced, and then painted our nails and watched Coyote Ugly! I saw some mushroom nail stickers on Etsy and was inspired to try painting some toadstools on my own. Obvs, I am not the greatest nail artist in the world!! But what I did for the toadstool nails was paint the base color first (the light aqua), and then I used white acrylic paint and a tiny paint brush to paint out all the mushrooms and grass. The white background helps the colors pop on top. Then, I painted in the red toadstool tops with acrylic paint, and also some light green grass. After that layer dried (acrylic paint dries pretty quickly), I dotted on the mushroom spots and then gave the grass some dark green glitter polish to make it pop. Then the whole thing got a top coat of Seche Vite. I really like how they turned out!!! I have magical forest fingers!    

So again the whole reason I’m making time to clean up is to take photos for a crafty-space magazine. A lot of my stuff is in plastic bins, but those bins are not like…. cute or anything. They’re just cheap and easy to get. So I decided that curtains would be the way to go. HOWEVER, I do not sew (yet!) so that was a big road block for me. Enter: Fabric Fuse!  (This is not a sponsored post, but that is an Amazon affiliate link). It’s a double-sided tape for hemming fabric. I thought it was pretty amazing, but I could feel the eyes of all my seamstress/designer friends rolling at me. I also bought some tape that you iron-on, but the fabric I picked is some kind of weird synthetic, so I didn’t feel confident about ironing it. This Fabric Fuse has some not-s0-great reviews on Amazon, so I have no idea how long my hems will hold up, but of now, it’s pretty great! It’s not like I’m wearing my curtains around town all day long, so I think they will be fine. (P.S. I WOULD wear them, but the fabric is kinda itchy on the skin….. Yes, I was dancing around in my curtains at 2 a.m. to try them out.) I hemmed the top and the sides and just trimmed the bottom raw.  The curtains are held up with velcro. I used hot glue to glue one side of the velcro to my table, and then used hot fabric glue to get the velcro onto the curtain. Nothing has fallen down as of this moment! I was also excited to re-purpose my EAT CAKE pompom garland that I made especially for my Michaels promo video. I love how everything came together! But even with the velcro tabs, this is probably not a super practical option for me everyday, since I open the drawers behind the curtain A LOT. They hold all my office supplies and some craft supplies as well.  Plus the EAT CAKE garland is totally in the way. But at least I have a cute option now if I ever need to snap a photo for something! I still have a big work table that needs a curtain, but I ran out of fabric. I originally bought some other less crazy fabrics, but the fringey cowgirl fabric was actually the most fun and looked the least like I was hanging bedsheets. It reminds me of party decorations!!! It’s a LOT of pink to have in my room, but I guess I don’t mind pink… Here’s the yarn wall. I LOVE NOT HAVING BOXES IN MY ROOM. But are there boxes in the hallway and the living room. YES. But at least I know now what I’m getting rid of. Update soon for yarn and knickknackery sales! Sorry for the gross iPhone photos. I need to edit the good ones! Going to do that now!

I’ve been totally working on picking up my space and sorting through all the boxes. It feels really good to do this, although, it’s hard to get other work done as well! I’ve been getting obsessed with creating cute little nooks and crannies, and I really want to paint everything, like my shipping-label printer, but I have to remember to just snap some dang photos for this magazine already!!! EEEP!!! Anyhoo! My group giveaway is launching in 5 days, and it’s not too late for you bloggers and indie biz owners to pick up a medium-sized ad if you’d also like to participate in the giveaway. (You can also grab a large ad, but that spot won’t open up until Sept. 26 since there is only one large spot each month!).

It’s Celebrity Week at Michaels Stores, and I was so super duper honored to be included in this party! Like, hello, this is as close to Betsey, Isaac, and Martha as I’ll ever get! (Actually, Betsey was appearing at her old store in LA one time, and we happened to be in town, but I was not feeling cute, and I think we’d been hoofing it around all day, so decided to pass!) If you click on the “Meet the Stars” page, most of us have little promo videos! All week, there will be craft tips, new products, and special sales at Michaels. I am promoting a new crochet class that will be taught exclusively at Michaels Stores starting in October and running through December.  Please note, that I will not be personally teaching this class, but I wrote the pattern that certified instructors will be teaching you. The project is a Strawberry Cake Scarf, and it’s also a really great pattern for beginners! I am not sure if they have plans to post the pattern online or not, so you should take the class if you want it, especially in time for the holidays! I linked the above banner to the link that is from the Michaels email newsletter, but it doesn’t link directly to my class in particular. Just click onto “Knit & Crochet” classes, and then click on the “Book Your Class Now” button. Enter your zipcode, click on a local store, and check out their class listings for October. My class does not show up at my closest store, so I’m curious if it’s scheduled yet anywhere else! Also, maybe something else will happen on “my” Celebrity Day, so let’s hold tight and see what happens! I’m assuming that will be next Saturday or Sunday!

Hey, Aussie babes!! Pick up the September issue of Homespun Magazine to see my lil Radish Scarf in their “Best of the Best from Pinterest” highlights along with lots of other fun, spring projects!

Here’s the situation. I do NOT like clutter, and clutter makes me very anxious, but also taking the time to find places for all the clutter gives me more anxiety, so I end up with a craft room like this most of the time. (Also this is just one wall, but this is probably the worst of it.) I hate the look of paper bags and cardboard boxes, but I think I’m running out of shelf space. Where does everyone else keep their button-maker!? Don’t say “the garage,” because that’s another place I don’t want to talk about. Anyway, when I get contacted by a magazine or blog to send photos of my work space (like now), I FREAK OUT!!!! FFFFFREEEAAK OUTTTT!!!! It’s an excellent opportunity to make myself get rid of boxes and cull out the yarn I don’t use and etc etc etc but it just makes my heart race and my blood pressure go up. I am not one of those people/bloggers who lives in a picture-perfect home everyday. I don’t know if those people really exist in reality, but they seem to exist that way in their blogs, and I have extreme envy of that, but will probably never reach that level of refinement! So this is what I’m doing today. Trying to make this hole picture-perfect! And trying really hard not to take a short-cut and just shove everything into aforementioned garage…which is what I have done before….!!! I think I really want a rolling panel of baskets that I can put more yarn in (the yarn that’s in those cardboard boxes, among other things), and just wheel it in and out of the way. Is that dangerous thinking, rather than getting rid of stuff?

Hope you guys are having a great long weekend! We are running a  YummyYou.com sale! Just use code BACK2SCHOOL when you checkout for 20% off your entire purchase! I also uploaded 3 new items: a tshirt, a tank top, and handmade Bibi plush! All are really limited runs. Check it out! PupShake crop tank and Bibi Sundae mini plush! Yummy You-niverse tee! Also don’t forget to check out our Giant Carrot Scarf!

Etsy sent me a message today that my Pepperoni Pizza Scarf was getting a more hits than usual, so I went to look at the stats, and BuzzFeed posted a list for “17 Essential Products Every Pizza Lover Needs in Their Life.” Don’t forget that you can also pick up a ready-to-ship Pizza Scarf from the Yummy You! shop! AND a fun, delicious-looking PFF Necklace to share with your best PizzaFriendForever!

I’m going to admit right this moment that I am not a hardcore Sailor Moon fan. I don’t have anything against it. I just really have not watched ONE SINGLE EPISODE in my whole life. Sailor Moon was always Manda’s thing, and I was never really curious. I have pretty much not watched any anime at all, which is oftentimes disappointing to random strangers who come up to me and want to talk about anime…. I am, however, a fan of my pal Miss Kika, who drew this artwork for a Sailor Moon art show, which is now available on this gloriously comfy and beautimous tshirt from JapanLA Clothing. I pre-ordered this bad girl for me and my bestie because I knew it would go fast! I think there are a few more here and there, and only size Large available left at the JapanLA site. I paired this tee with a Tarina Tarantino necklace and a little rainbow hair bow that I crocheted. I’m just wearing dark denim shorts underneath. No big. I haven’t really figured out how to style this yet, but I wanted to show you guys ASAP!

This is from my buddy Kristen from Schmancy: Call to Crocheters, Knitters and Sewers! My friend Gretchen is currently in the works to build the very first children’s museum in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is not only the first children’s museum in S. Africa but the first in Africa. The museum is to open on June 16th, 2016, 40 years after numerous children were brutally killed after protesting against the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974. It’s an absolutely amazing project and I am so proud of her. Not long ago she was filmed in my apartment for a documentary about this undertaking. So much of her conversation was so inspiring, while also heartbreaking and sad. She described one woman having a hard time balancing life as a single mother saying she “just wanted more time for love”. Seeing as South Africa prides itself on being a Rainbow Nation, an idea came to me while she was talking. I thought how amazing would it be if I could get people from around the globe to mail her hearts. 3″- 4″ hearts, in all the colors of the rainbow, that could be hung from the ceiling of the museum in garlands. After the installation they could be sold in the gift store to help raise money for the museum OR be given to the children that visit. My goal is to get at least one thousand hearts made and sent to them from around the globe and I am asking YOU to help! It’s an amazing cause and could be a beautiful, inspiring result. If you would be willing to send one to 25 hearts please send at any time between now and May 15th 2016 to the address below: Play Africa Planning Office, Metropolitan Building B, 1st Floor, 8 Hillside Road, Parktown 2193, Johannesburg, South Africa PLEASE include a note as we will be cataloging the results as we go.  This is a surprise for my friend however I have been in communication with her assistant so she knows what to do 🙂   And if you need a pattern or inspiration look no further: Adorable knitted hearts from pattern on Mochimochiland! A nice round up of a bunch of crochet heart patterns! Sewn hearts tutorial on Design Sponge Hearts, Kristen   You can crochet the hearts from the garland pictured above with my free pattern here , and I also have a pattern for a more 3D heart here.    

Two weekends ago, Hairy, Manda, Renee and I drove north to the redwoods to go hiking. The neat thing about hiking on the California coast is that you can see big tall redwood trees and also go to the ocean. I uploaded a video/vlog to my YouTube channel, which you can check out here:   Most of Saturday was spent driving up there, so we ended up just checking out the ocean before dinner. I saw this log on the beach and had to Costanza on it. Then I insisted that Renee and Manda pose saucily on the same log. You will not ever be catching Hairy posing on any log, but we did ask him to take photos of the 3 of us, just being… us. Anyway, after wandering around the beach and watching the waves and the tide come in, we started to drive back to 0ur hotel, and found some neat wildlife on the way! We pulled over to check out this herd of elk chillin’ in a meadow. We would also later have a very close encounter with a big ol’ daddy elk near the beach, and he was just munchin’ away on some grass and didn’t seem to mind us very much at all. We decided to drive away from the elk meadow when we discovered we were under heavy banana slug attack (you have to watch the YouTube video if you want to see the banana slug tshirt that Renee made me buy). The next day, we had a big ol’ breakfast and then went on a short hike and then a long hike. In one of the groves, we saw an old “save the trees” photo with a bunch of serious people holding hands around a tree, so we attempted to re-create this ourselves. Pretty much what you’re learning here is that the trees need to be saved FROM US. Our second hike involved a waterfall, and I don’t think I got very many photos of it, just video, but here are Manda and Hairy looking very adventurous. After this hike, we drove to a different beach, where we saw two sea lions pretty close to the shore, ducking in and out of the water. It was really cute! I unfortunately could never time my video correctly to catch one for you guys! There are some other hiking stories that I talk about in my video that I didn’t get photos of to post here, like the other animal encounter we had, and why we eat kipper snacks on long hikes!

Hi guys! Some of you have been writing to me and asking if everthing is ok after last night’s earthquake, and one of you suggested that I maybe just write a quick blog entry :). All is good! Nothing even fell over. It wasn’t the strongest earthquake I’ve ever experienced, but it was definitely longer than the average rumble. This one was a 6.0 (I think? I didn’t check again today) out of Napa, which is a little bit north of us here in San Francisco. The dogs were a bit scared apparently, but everything is 100% a-ok! Love you guys! I’ve been working on a fun re-cap of our trip to the Redwoods last weekend, and I’m also going to launch a new giveaway this week (hopefully) for a handful of crocheted baby Groots, because I don’t intend to sell finished ones, and a lot of you keep asking if I will be, but I do not have permission or a license to do so. Stay tuned!

Cindy, from A Little Geeky, who is one of my blog sponsors this month, sent me this really cute cheeseburger apron to show you guys! She designed the yummy burger print and sewed up this lil half apron nice and sturdy. It has 3 big pockets, and as you can see, I can fit my iPad Mini in it to run my credit cards at craft fairs! I can also stick pens in there, or, you know, a real corn dog for when I get snacky. These are really handy for craft fair of flea market vendors, cuz table-space can be limited and get squishy, and you don’t have a lot of room to spread out all your doodads and gizmos! Now you can just have everything on you, and it’s super convenient! It ties in the back with grosgrain ribbon. I snapped a photo of that, but it turned out super blurry! Sorry!! We are currently offering a matryoshka apron in our August blog sponsor giveaway, but the apron also comes in lots of different prints, so you should check out her shop, too! (p.s. this sweatshirt is by Lazy Oaf from a few years ago. I don’t wear it because it makes me too hot, and it also fits me really weird ((why did I buy a small?!!??))  but I just can’t let go of it yet! It would be a pretty simple hoodie DIY tho, so, I should get on that…)

Hi! It’s the 16th of the month, so it’s time to launch a new blog sponsor giveaway! I know I usually launch these on the 15th, but let’s blame my friend Renee who is staying with me, and we ended up going to lunch and hanging out in Japantown and then running other errands all day/night! Thanks so much to my generous sponsors for offering us these wonderful goodies! One lucky winner will receive:

(You have to watch this .gif while listening to Awesome Mix Vol.1) I saw Guardians of the Galaxy last weekend because Manda and our friend Ehren both wanted to see it.  A lot of my friends have been over the moon about it, but I’m really not a comic book person, and the trailer wasn’t really catching my attention. I said I would see it if someone bought my ticket :P. My takeaway from the movie was that WE ALL NEED A BABY Groot, so here is your free crochet GROOTORIAL! If you haven’t seen the movie, Groot is this tree-like alien who is really big and strong and can grow stuff off his body and is basically like the Giving Tree on steroids. I don’t want to spoil why there is a baby Groot and why people are going crazy about him if you haven’t seen the movie yet, so go see it and then it will all make sense! I put pipe cleaners in his arms so that he could “dance.” I tried wiring his body, too, but was running into complications with figuring out how to put stuffing in him AND a wire….plus the pipe cleaner wasn’t really strong enough to support his head and body and pipe cleaner was all I had in the house… so I need to play with that more at some point! Anyway, now you all can have your own baby Groot! And I am sure you guys will each put your own little spin on him!! I used online images of the Funko bobble head as my inspiration, cuz I think it’s super adorable! Also, here is a step by step video tutorial on YouTube to accompany the written pattern below. P.S. Thank you for all your kind and excited inquiries about whether I will be selling finished baby Groots. I’m really so happy that you guys like him so much! I will not be doing so, since I currently do not have permission or a license from Marvel. I do plan to have a giveaway soon, though, so stay tuned! (And no, I will not be doing a giveaway directly to you only, which is something someone asked!)

I have been smoothie-curious for a while and keep talking about how I’m gonna make smoothies all the time. I like eating veggies, and I like eating kale. My go-to breakfast is a toasted PB&J sandwich, cuz it’s fast and easy, but eating a PB&J a day is probably not that great for you. I will look at people’s smoothie photos on Instagram and think Hey, that looks healthy and delicious and fresh! BUT …. if you know me at all, or if you have read my blog for some time, you know that I am NO WIZ in the kitchen, and lots of food-prep-related things are really not my forte. There are things I can do, and things I can’t do, and preparing food is kinda on the “can’t do very well” list. Luckily, I’m not a super-picky eater, so even if I make something that’s 75% nasty, I’ll probably still eat it anyway. My mom got me a small/personal blender/smoothie-maker thing for my birthday, and this really sent me over the “you must try to make smoothies” precipice. Part of my anxiety about smoothie-making was Will I get the right consistency? Will I make something that tastes nastier than nasty? Will I break the smoothie-maker? Is it too annoying to wash all those dishes? Here’s what I put into my very first inaugural smoothie: frozen strawberries, rolled oats, half a banana, 1 big kale leaf with the ribs torn out, chia seeds, and vanilla coconut drink. I zapped this concoction around in my blender, playing with low and high speeds and the pulse function, and like, nothing was blending. I went to Instagram to ask for help, and as it turned out, I simply didn’t have enough liquid in there, so I poured in more coconut drink and also like half a cup of plain water. Things really started to whizz around at that point! Ok ok ok. I know it looks like barf. It had sort of a light brown color and LOTS of green bits in it. Further google-searching has led me to believe that my blender may not be high powered or fancy enough to blend green bits perfectly smooth. Luckily, this falls under the “75% nasty” umbrella, and I can handle chewing through my smoothie a little bit. The flavor was fine, but maybe just a smidge too tart because of all the berries and no sweetener aside from the banana and the sweetener in my coconut milk/drink. The smoothie did end up runnier than I imagined in my head, and I repeated the same mistake the next day. Oh well! This was today’s smoothie: some ice cubes, a banana, rolled oats, 2 TSP of PB2, 2 TSP of cocoa powder, chia seeds, a handful of frozen blueberries, coconut drank, and water. As I mentioned above, it ended up runnier than I would want, but maybe this is just what smoothies are like!? I dunno. I’ll try to add less water, but I know if I don’t […]

It was my birthday on Wednesday, and it seemed like a really great time to share my cupcake/mini-cake hair clip pattern with you guys! I designed these little cakes to be somewhat short and low profile, so that they look good as a hair accessory. The best part of all is that you can use real cupcake toppers to decorate your mini cakes, which gives you tons of options for gifts and holiday outfits! The video tutorial is also up  on my YouTube channel! The typed-out pattern is below. For a printer-friendly PDF with more how-to photos, please check out the pattern in my Etsy shop!

(Previously posted at Michaels.com) My Halloween memories are filled with carving jack-o-lanterns and creating DIY costumes, but my number one most favorite part about Halloween is the candy! Now you can make and trade these fun candy-bar inspired crochet clutch purses. Pick your favorite candy-wrapper colors and personalize your clutch with felt lettering. Stash your keys, phone, and small items when you go out, or put your clutch in a larger bag to keep your makeup, snacks, pencils, or crochet hooks safe. This project is so easy, you’ll have a delicious collection of candy bar clutches in no time!

(Previously posted at Michaels.com)  Some of my favorite back-to-school memories involve decorating and organizing my binders. Now you can take your old, beat-up binders and give them a creative, colorful makeover with this crocheted Strawberry Cake Binder Cozy. I used my favorite color: pink! But you can choose your own favorite colors and flavors, too. The binder I cover in this project is 1 inch thick, but you can easily add extra stitches to your rows for thicker binders. The cozy is removable as well, so you can wash it!

There’s no rest for the wicked! I’ll be vending at Crafty Bastards in Washington DC at Union Market! The fair is two days, September 27 and 28, and I will be there ONLY Saturday. JUST SATURDAY!!! So if you East Coasters want to say hi, and I hope you do, please remember I’ll only be there for one day. I wanted to have another day to be a touron! Tickets are on sale now for a reduced price, $5 for one day and $8 for 2 days. See you there!!!!! What do you think the weather will be like? What do you think I should bring to sell at my booth? I haven’t been to DC since 6th grade!! (omg I wish I had a photo to post here, but they are all at my parents’ house, if they exist!)

Last Saturday night, I took Yummy You! to San Francisco’s first Kawaii Land , a cute shopping event and fashion show, at Ruby Skye. I debuted our new Bibi character in the form of t-shirts, tank tops, and a plushy pillow!

Can we please talk about the new items in Knickerocker‘s Etsy shop for a second? I can’t even handle how perfect all the pieces are and how amazing this photoshoot is! I first heard about Knickerocker at Renegade Craft Fair, on one of the rare occasions that I was not vending. She had come from LA to sell undies, and while I normally would not have bought special undies, I was definitely won over by a cute pink pair with candies on them (sorry there’s no photo, as she no longer offers these on her site!). Nichola, the owner/designer, is as sweet as her undies, and she also has Basset Hounds, so she is automagically my favorite. Also pictured in this shoot are my ice cream hair clips and Fatally Feminine‘s jewelry. I am for sure feeling one of the pocket dresses, but I don’t know which color would work best on me. I LOVE the lime green, and think it would be a fun contrast with my hair, but I wonder if I have the wrong skin tone for lime green? Should I get the purple instead!?