Thanks so much to the folks who came out to visit at Crafty Bastards in Washington DC last weekend! It was my first time vending at this fair, and I’d have to say that it lives up to its reputation for being really busy and really amazing. The event itself is run really well, and we got free snacks and drinks, and even got to put in a sandwich order for lunch. Kind of amazing!! The fair was also in the parking lot of Union Market which housed a ton of great food, not to mention all the food trucks that were outside, too.

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I have three more days to finish, tag, and pack all my crochet goodies and display stuff into suitcases because we leave for Washington DC on Thursday morning!! AHHHH. I am so NOT anywhere near being finished with ANYTHING!!!! I’m also trying to keep up with store orders!!! Not complaining, though, because I so appreciate the support. Just got a lot to juggle at the moment! 🙂

I can’t remember if I ever posted a picture of this (and sorry it’s so low quality…it’s really gloomy here today and none of my photos were turning out) but I designed this Cricus Elephant Cookie scarf for Renegade a few months ago, and I’ll be bringing him to Crafty Bastards on Saturday, too!!! Only two of them! Please come visit my booth, DC!! I’ll be at Crafty Bastards for Saturday only! The tickets are at a lower price if you buy them in advance. It’s $5 per day, $8 for both days, and free for kids. If you use this special code when you purchase tickets online, VENDOR14, you can get both days for $6! What a steal!

Okay, I’m going back into my craft-hole. Don’t forget to enter my September giveaway, too. You have one more day before I choose a winner! 🙂

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:

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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!