I < 3 π

March 14 is pi day, and at school we had various contests, including a pie eating contest, for the Math Honor Society, of which I am a part. The teachers had a pie baking competition, and my favorite (also the winner) was an artichoke pie! The apple and chocolate pies were also tasty, but I didn't dare to taste the avocado pie, even if some people said it was good.

I participated in the pi memorization contest, and here are the digits I know so far!

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058

I was a little nervous to recite it in front of everyone, but all in all, it was fun. Whenever I get bored, I have decided that I am going to practice learning more digits. Not for any particular reason, though apparently it helps to exercise your brain and improve your memory. My goal is to reach 300!

 I hope you all had a lovely pi day and ate some delicious pie!
<3 Mandy

Banana Bread

Today was one of my friends's birthdays! So I made some banana bread with these cute molds - insects and hearts.

the ingredients

insect mold

heart-shaped banana bread with pecans

insect-shaped banana bread

snail, bee, ladybug, butterfly, and dragonfly

Yum! I love eating banana bread. My friends helped us finish these off in about 3 minutes.

Enjoy your weekend!

<3 Mandy

Hidden Treasures on a Lazy Sunday Afternoon

I've been craving some cookies lately but have also been in a healthy mood. What to do? Make oatmeal raisin cookies!

If you were to ask everyone what their favorite type of cookie was, most people would probably say chocolate chip (or some variation of it). It seems that a lot of people I know don't really like oatmeal raisin, but I think they're missing out because these cookies are so delicious! I don't feel bad about eating a few of these at a time, either, because they are healthy, yet delicious. Here are some photos of me making some oatmeal raisin cookies.

ingredients

oatmeal and raisin mixture

eggs, white sugar, brown sugar, vanilla extract mixture

mixtures side by side

mixing together

I tasted a bit of the dough,and it just melted in my mouth. So delicious.

baking in the oven

 

Cookies are especially good to share. My mom, dad, and I each took a first bite at the same time, but I ate a few more cookies afterward because I just couldn't help myself. Luckily for them, they weren't in the kitchen and weren't tempted as easily. At least I don't feel bad because they're pretty healthy! I plan to bring a dozen or two to school tomorrow to share with some of my friends.

<3 Mandy

Carry a Little Love With You Everywhere You Go

I've been liking wearing rings lately, and when I found some wire, I was inspired to make some of my own! These are made with copper wire, and they are adjustable to fit any size.

LOVE and 2 hearts

<3 Mandy

Friendship is the Sweetest Gift

If you were to look at my wrist, you would never fail to see every single color carefully knotted into friendship bracelets. I try to wear at least one of each pattern - chevron, stripes, Chinese staircase, waves&loops, etc. - because they are all so beautiful. Each reminds me of the friend that made them, and people always comment on how I always wear them and sometimes ask for me to make one for them as well.

After making hundreds of bracelets in the same patterns over and over again, I was quite excited to have come across instructions for a completely different kind of friendship bracelet in this woven friendship bracelet tutorial. It is really easy to make but ends up looking a lot thinner and rounder than any other friendship bracelet I have seen. It actually looks pretty similar to the Chinese staircase design but can be a lot more colorful, as it uses up to 7 colors!

I made my bracelet about twice as long as usual so that I could wrap it around my wrist twice and give my variety of bracelets a little bit of a different look.

the setup - I recycled a small circle of cardboard and used 7 colors of embroidery floss

the completed bracelet, wrapped around twice

the bracelet laid out

Here are some links to tutorials for other bracelets I am wearing (in order from easiest to more difficult, but they are all not that difficult once you get the hang of it), though I only used the one for the waves&loops design. My neighbor taught me how to make the striped and chevron patterns about 10 years ago, and I still love to make them!

Chinese Staircase 

Striped

Chevron

Waves & Loops

Also, I taught myself how to do a double-chevron and made it long enough to wear as a headband! Beware, it took about a week to make (probably around 50 hours), but I think it was well worth it. I also added some gold beads for a little shimmery detail, and I braided the ends so that it ties on easily and prettily. (By the way, I counted the knots for some reason while making it, and it has 5401!)

the completed headband

gold bead (round and tubular) detail

I hope you enjoy looking at these and making some for yourself and for your friends!

Happy Leap Year!

 

<3 Mandy

Shirt Design

Today, I went to my friend's house to design and paint shirts for our school's animal club/ green team. She cut out animal-shaped stencils, and we also used store-bought animal print and letter stencils. I made a recycling symbol and star. We used spray paint to paint our shirts, but each bottle only lasted for two shirts at most. I really liked using the sparkly paint, though, and it lasted a lot longer!

The shirts took about an hour to do for each side, plus drying time, so in five hours the seven of us completed 3 double-sided shirts and one side of 9 others. We are planning on setting aside time on another day to finish the rest of the 30 shirts!

Here are some of our shirts drying (with the front-side shown) - I made the one on the top left corner (zebra print) and the one on the center right (ECO in red-white gradient on zebra print)

our work station

our painted hands (clockwise from top: KT, B, A, D)
I washed my hands 4 times (even with sugar scrub) and the paint did not budge! Nail polish remover did the trick.

Since we didn't finish all the shirts last time (February 20), we continued our project on March 3. This shirt has a quote from Dr. Seuss's The Lorax. We laid out these stencils after seeing the movie on opening day, March 2.

Have you ever designed or painted a shirt? I also love doing tie-dye!

<3 Mandy

Love Lace

I have been absolutely infatuated with lace lately. I love love love it. For the long President's Day weekend, I have four days off (lucky me!) and wanted to make some crafts with my extra time. While searching around the house for something to do, I came across some crochet hooks. A couple of weeks ago I found a crochet doily that I had made in 3rd grade, and when I found the crochet hooks, I knew exactly what I wanted to make for my next project.

So have you tied it all together yet?

Yes, that's right, I am crocheting flower doilies!

15 doilies at 15 minutes each

♥♥♥

 DIY Lace Earrings

While looking up various projects that use lace, I found instructions for these DIY Lace Earrings. Since I didn't have any lace and also wanted to make my own, I made my own DIY project inspired by Honestly WTF and Dolce and Gabbana's Spring '11 Collection (yes I know it's a bit old, especially in the fashion world, but I still love lace! (in case you haven't noticed)).

For this project I made two flower doilies of the same size, soaked them in a 1:1 mixture of Elmer's glue and water in order to harden them, let them dry (I let them air dry for about 24 hours but got impatient when they still weren't dry, so I used a hairdryer to finish them off), and attached earring hooks! Aren't they pretty? I am obsessed with making them.

 

Soaking doilies in glue-water mixture

crochet doilies

 

earrings after attaching hooks

♥♥♥

DIY Lace Bracelet

I also made doilies of a smaller size and different design, which I sewed together to make a bracelet. After sewing them, I soaked them in the glue-water mixture and let them dry before attaching a lobster clasp.

♥♥♥

These doilies only take about 15 minutes each to crochet, so I have been making tons of these while "watching" TV and movies. After making so many of them, I got a lot faster at crocheting, too! I am planning on possibly dyeing some doilies - I think a gradient would look nice, perhaps in pastel colors? Let me know what you think, and please comment below!

Also, I have been having so much fun making doilies that I have thought up another project, but it's going to take a loooong time to make. Keep this in mind and expect to see another lace post in another few months... any ideas on what it might be?

Thanks for your input, and have fun making your own DIYs!

<3 Mandy