Churros

In Spanish class, for a belated Cinco de Mayo celebration, we made churros! I made the masa, or dough, as shown in the following pictures:

melting butter

butter and water

mixing flour and salt with the butter and water

beating an egg into the mixture

completed dough!

frying churros

ready to eat - with sugar and cinnamon toppings

These were soooo yummy! I ate about three platefuls. Now that I know the recipe, I can't wait to make more!

<3 Mandy

Flower Crown of Love

For Bard Day at school on Friday (May 18), we celebrated Shakespeare's birthday. Students and teachers dressed up in Shakespearean clothing or as characters from plays. To go with my princess outfit -a lavender dress with lace- I made a flower crown headband!

Here are some photos of the process of making the crown:

laying out my flowers

sewing on the flowers

 

completed headband!

Daisy chains are also really fun to make!

While I love making both types of these flower crowns, they both have their pros and cons. It does not take much time to make a daisy chain, but the flowers wilt very quickly. For a more long-lasting crown, I recommend using artificial flowers (as long as you don't mind the fakeness). Because I sewed on my flowers, as well as made some of my own out of felt, this type of crown takes a lot longer to make. You could also use superglue to reinforce your flowers, but I just sewed mine on securely so I could still remove or rearrange the flowers later.

I recommend you listen to The Arcade Fire's "Crown of Love" on repeat while making your own flower crown headband.

<3 Mandy

Making Crepes

Crepes are the ultimate dessert. Here are some photos of how I made mine!

heating on the stove

spread with nutella

add banana slices and two scoops of vanilla ice cream

fold... and eat!

These are so delicious, just seeing the pictures again makes me want to eat some more. Next time I might add some strawberries! Enjoy!

<3 Mandy

DIY Bird Nest Pendant

A few of posts ago I mentioned having found some copper wire and decided to make some love rings.

Inspired by Sincerely Kinsey's Bird Nest Necklace, I made my own pendant!

To make, I started with about one foot of wire and strung on 3 round silver beads (which I painted with a thin coat of pale pink nail polish for more of an egg color, yet still with some silver shimmering through) and simply twisted the wire around and around itself. I added more pieces of wire of similar length and continued to wrap the wire around the nest, tucking in the sharp wire ends as I went. The reason I didn't use one piece of wire for the project, and instead used many pieces, is that I wanted to make the nest like a bird's nest in nature would actually be: with many pieces put together. I felt this process would remind me of the steps birds must perform to make a necessity; this necklace is a symbol of the hard work, individual steps, and little details I like to put in my work.

I hope you like this cute project! And always remember the little things in life - they are often the most important, as well as what I enjoy the most.
<3 Mandy