In case you find yourself twiddling your thumbs this weekend, I have an easy craft project to cure your Idlehands-itis.

I made this simple Lemon Green Tea Sugar Scrub in no time and with very little elbow grease. It smells fresh and rings in spring with citrusy goodness. Best of all, it isn’t gloopy like other sugar scrubs and is perfect as a homemade gift.

It’s adapted from Mark Montano’s Big-A** Book Of Crafts. (I don’t swear much, not even in writing! So you can just deal with the asterisks, haha!) It uses easy-to-find ingredients, most of which are probably already in your pantry. (In fact, this scrub is so natural it’s edible! If you’re stuck in your bathroom during a nuclear fallout you can probably eat this. But let’s just hope you use this for vanity’s sake, not survival!)

You’ll need:

1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons Epsom salt
10 teaspoons olive oil (I used one marked “Light” on the bottle so it wouldn’t have a strong smell)
2 teaspoons honey (the darker, the better!)
3 green tea bags
1 lemon to zest (organic preferred)

Zest your lemon and set aside.

Combine the sugar and Epsom salt in a large mixing bowl. Tear open your green tea bags and mix the now-loose tea right in. Add the olive oil, mix in, then add the honey. This is actually efficient because the sugar-salt-tea mixture is able to break down the thick honey, plus the leftover olive oil in your measuring spoon allows the honey to slide right out.

Somewhere in the middle of all this mixing and stirring, you have to laugh when you catch the honey bear and your zester exchanging pleasantries/flirting. Haha!

Add the lemon zest last.

What you get is this awesome, all-natural potion of good things that has exfoliating and moisturizing powers.

If you were to give this as a gift, take a beautiful container (mine has a matching small scoop)…

…and fill it with your homemade scrub. (By the way, I had to double the recipe above to make enough for my glass jar.)

Finish off with a handwritten label and some lovely baker’s twine. (I got mine from Odette and her pretty Etsy shop.)

Package in wrapping tissue as a sweet, homemade gift—this one went to E.’s mom for her birthday (though I liked it so much I’m making a batch for myself)!

Yay, Friday! Have a fun, crafty weekend, all.

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Further Reading Into The Art Of Sugarscrubology (or other stuff to learn because, you know, learning is sexy)

Mark Montano’s Big A** Book of Crafts (with free links to other crafty ideas)

Sugar scrubs are cool. (And good for you!)

What is Epsom salt? (Because I sure as heck didn’t know!)

Why is darker honey better?

“I want to get a flirty zester like yours to keep my whisk company.”

“That glass jar is fabulous! Where did you get it?”

Martha Stewart pre-cut tags are cute beyond words. Because she’s a genius.

You need this Baker’s Twine from the Packages & Strings Etsy shop in your life. Trust me.

Dear Person Who I Don’t Know Who’s Going To Get My Scarf,

As I packed the red scarf I made for you through Craft Hope to be sent off to The Orphan Foundation, I was hopeful. Hopeful for you, because you’re going out into the world, and with something I made to warm you through the journey. When you’re in college learning about many things in life that matter, know that a lot of love went into the double-crochet stitches that make up this scarf.

I don’t know you, but I know you’re cool. Because the scarf you’re getting is magical. With it you can be and do anything.

Now go be awesome with your cool, new, magical red scarf.

Yours In Yarn,

J.

Embroidery was the very first handicraft I learned. It was through home economics class in third grade. My first project was a handtowel with a very poorly satin-stitched watermelon and the word “Juicy!” To this day, I still can’t satin-stitch to save my life. But split stitches, whipped stitches, chain stitches, I love.

This was a pillow sham for my friend Bona’s baby, Joshua. It was for his first birthday. I thought it would be nice to make him an heirloom of sorts, one hae can keep through the years, and the vintage pattern on it was perfect.

I got the whole thing as a kit from a quilt show I went to. It included the sham, iron-on patterns by Lace Tales and embroidery floss. The pillow form was from Michael’s.

I had this thought that the pillow would be perfect as a bedtime-reading pillow, so I gave it to Joshua with one of my favorite childhood bedtime storybooks. Goodnight Moon was the best choice because the pillow had a smiley moon on it, too!

Hope your weekend is filled with sweet slumber!

Look at a picture of today’s weather in Los Angeles:

Why don’t we replace it with this?

Yum! Did that make you smile? (Or hungry?)

I’m sitting here warming up with thoughts of the wonderful B4D (Breakfast For Dinner) Party we had with friends last weekend.

This kind of party is easy to put together and is a cinch to host. I thought maybe if I could think of breakfast fare that can all go into one oven and cook together, it would make hosting that much easier. So on the menu for the evening was: Spinach Cheese Frittata, Baked Chicken Sausages, Homemade Waffles and fresh fruit. And oh, Mimosas! Because who doesn’t like champagne + orange juice on a Saturday night?

The Baked Chicken Sausages were a healthier alternative to pork ones, picked up from Trader Joe’s. The dish was actually an experiment. I tossed some halved fingerling potatoes (no peeling, so easy!) with some sliced onions and green peppers with some olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder.

Laid those in a pan around the sausages that had little diagonal incisions on top. Baked at 375 degrees covered for 20 minutes (so the steam thoroughly cooks the sausages) and another 30 minutes or so uncovered (for browning). They came out full-flavored from the browning, with the peppers nice and soft, the onions caramelized and the potatoes thoroughly seasoned. I’ll be making this several times from now on.

As for the Spinach Cheese Frittata, would you like the recipe? Fancy a Frittata for your Friday? Here ‘tis!

Spinach Cheese Frittata
8 large eggs
4 large egg whites
2 cups spinach, fresh, baby leaves, chopped
4 Tbsp scallion(s), finely chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 cup shredded fat-free or lite cheddar cheese

Spray an 8×8 baking pan with cooking spray. In a large bowl, beat together eggs and egg whites; stir in spinach, scallion, salt and pepper. Pour mixture into pan, top with cheese. Bake at 375-degree oven. Mine took a while, maybe 30-40 minutes, because the eggs had to set and the cheese had to turn a golden brown. You can probably test at 20 minutes to see how “behaved” your egg mixture is. Let stand for a bit before cutting into wedges. The next time I make this I plan to throw in some red peppers and mushrooms, too! Another one for the recipe box.

The waffles were fun to make with this home-use, personalized waffle maker, the Presto Flipside (lots of great reviews on Amazon). You wait for it to heat up, pour in the waffle mix, flip it over to the other side and a beep goes off telling you your waffle is done.

Hello, Waffles. I believe it’s time you met my tummy!

We topped ours with peanut butter and real maple syrup. Yes, peanut butter. It’s an oddly awesome combination that E. introduced me to—he grew up with peanut butter + syrup on his pancakes and waffles. You should give it a try the next time you have these breakfast treats. It’s uncommonly yummy.

We finished the evening with more Mimosas and rounds of Super Mario Wii—which I’m bad at, but it’s ok. In the kitchen, I’m good. Avoiding poisonous mushrooms and snapping monster plants, not so much!

I hope you get to throw an omnommnomy B4D party of your own, too!

In a perfect world, I would have the chance to cook (and eat) every imaginable pasta shape out there. I’ve been thinking about pasta a lot recently, and this may be because I’m trying not to eat too much of it. Last night, in fact, I dreamt about making rigatoni with sausage and peppers. With homemade marinara sauce from ripe, plump Roma tomatoes, made bold with healthy servings of garlic, fresh basil and thyme, finished off with a hunk of warm, crusty bread.

In my hankering for all things pasta, I’ve unearthed these photos from one of the more memorable pasta meals I’ve made. It’s a no-holds-barred Chicken Alfredo (modified from this recipe), the kind you only make once every two years or so for fear that you’ll keel over after the last bite. The kind of pasta dish you hold in your memory—for the joy in making it as much as the joy in eating it!

I remember making this after discovering the pasta Shapes Library (yes, there is such a thing) over at the National Pasta Association website. I was looking through all the shapes and realized I’d never worked with Cavatappi before, so I promptly set about to remedy the situation by declaring dinner as an excuse to test-run this particular pasta shape.

There’s so much more out there to try! How about these interesting-looking ones for your next meal? I think learning to pair which pasta shape to what sauce is an unexplored culinary art form, and I’m hoping to get several chances this year to uhm, “enrich my studies” (read: Cook and eat more of these things!). Look, there’s even a pasta shape for a curlyhead like me!

If YOU dreamt of pasta, what kind of dish would it be?

Making headway today on my red scarf for The Orphan Foundation while watching the US Figure Skating Championships–can’t wait for the Winter Olympics. (That’s Belbin and Agosto on screen!) And I’m loving my very useful cupcake tote. It was a Christmas gift from E.’s mom T. and I now use it for my portable projects. Hope this Saturday finds you loved and warm and crafty!

Pardon me.

Contrary to what you may be thinking, I’m not flipping you off!

I burned three fingers on my right hand yesterday. And what you see above is my hand with burn cream on it. The stuff was supposed to sit in a thick layer on the burns for a good half hour. Which resulted in my weird (and kind of obscene) crab hand. If I wasn’t careful, I’d get the cream on everything, so I had to hold up my hand and fingers like that. Fun times.

Well, not really. I burned my fingers on a bowl from a microwave, out of all things. I heated up some food, the bowl got super heated and I picked it up without thinking. I couldn’t imagine a supposedly microwavable bowl would get that hot, but it did. It got SEARING hot, and it gave me the NASTIEST burns I’ve ever had (and I’ve been burned in the kitchen A LOT). They were so painful I had to focus all my energy into not going into shock. My brother’s girlfriend said that it probably hurt that much because fingers have a lot of nerve endings, because we use them to touch and feel surfaces, temperatures, etc.

I had to grip a bag of fake ice as we half-frantically dashed in the rain to the nearest pharmacy where I found this Burn Jel stuff. There was a whole bunch of other burn remedies on the shelf, but between you and me I picked this one out because it has a picture of a baking lady on it. Hee.

I didn’t get it on the burn immediately, so it took about an hour to really work. It has lidocaine in it and some aloe vera.  I had to use it for a long time before it finally worked—some cushy gauze helped. I had to wince my way through a stirfry and the simplest things, like turning the key in a lock or zipping up my jeans.

Today my fingers are doing better, but I had to wrap them for  a good part of the day because I kept hitting the sore parts. But the Burn Jel has really helped—as I write this I have no blisters and the pain is almost all gone.

I’m writing about this because I realized last night if I had damaged my fingers beyond repair, I wouldn’t be able to cook or craft. It’s my cautionary tale to you—PLEASE don’t be a klutz like me in the kitchen (well, anywhere for that matter)! Believe me—you need your fingers!

Just a quick post to let you know that Craft Hope Project 6 is underway. The deadline is February 14, 2010.

Craft Hope is a collective crafting movement. The site sets up projects that anyone can make handcrafted gifts for. In the past year, they’ve sent dresses to little girls in Mexico, dolls to children in Nicaragua and quilts for homeless children in Michigan (among others). Each one of those projects were loving gifts, handcrafted in a unique, special way. I haven’t had the chance to jump in and join in all the craftgoodness, but this time I’m going to join Project 6. How timely it is—it’s a crochet (or knitting) project, and I had just written about the grandma who taught me how to crochet.

Project 6 will be in partnership with The Orphan Foundation’s Red Scarf Project.

The Orphan Foundation serves thousands of foster teens throughout the U.S. They provide college scholarships, connect them with mentors and internships, send them care packages, and testify for them before Congress. Each year 25,000 students ‘age out’ of the foster care system and the Orphan Foundation is committed to helping them become tomorrow’s successful citizens. They launched the Red Scarf program in 2005 to send red scarves to warm the hearts (and necks) of college-bound youth. They began taking these donations to include in their Valentines Day care packages.

I’m excited to work on my first project for a cause this year! I’ll keep you posted (and you can keep me accountable!) of my progress.

I’m missing the holidays, even if they DID drive me mad. I decided to make most of my Christmas gifts, and my hands were busy all the time. Sometimes, I’d even fall asleep with bits of thread and cloth in my hair. But all in all, I really DO love making gifts for friends and family, no matter how chaotic it all gets.

I’m sitting here thinking about all the lavender sachets I made for friends (so easy because I used precut charm packs from Moda):

And the all tha packaging fun as I made this version of Bake It Pretty’s Russian Friendship Tea (lemonade+orange drink+instant tea=yum!):

After all that craftmadness, I’m kind of itching to make something again, and soon. Oh, wait. Isn’t Valentine’s coming up?

I’m writing this post today because it’s my grandaunt’s birthday.

Ma. Luz Pura Ykalina Fuentes was simply Lola Luz to me. Having never married, she lived with us up until her death several years ago. I had other talented grandmothers who introduced me to the crafts I’ve grown to love and practice today. But it was only Lola Luz who taught me ganchillo, which is the Spanish word for crochet.

She was a schoolteacher and so had the skill and patience to teach an overly anxious, impatient little kid like me how to sit still and be quiet with some thread and a crochet hook. My first attempts at it were disastrous. Angsty even at eight years old, my first projects were granny squares so tight they curled up into tight little wads of jumbled thread. And I was a perfectionist even then, so I would throw my projects on the floor with a frustrated wail and with hot, fat tears rolling down my cheeks, I’d dramatically declare: “I’m NEVEEEERRR going to be good at this!”

Lola Luz loved us with her own brand of stern. So when my would-be doilies ended up on the floor, she didn’t coax me back to them with a gentle voice. She would knit her brows, purse her lips and with a harrumph say something she often repeated to me as I faced the challenges of growing up, “Indi ka mag siling indi! Kabalo ka gid lang pro!” (“Don’t say ‘never!’ You KNOW how to do it!”) The confidence in her voice often snapped me back to my own. And I would somehow sniffle my way to a semblance of calm as she sat there quietly working on her own project, patiently waiting for me to come around. I would eventually, though pouting the whole time, reach for the yarn to try again. It took several tries, I actually think it even took years, before I really learned to do it correctly—with the right thread tension, the right way to hold the hook, the right way to crochet, just like Lola Luz.

This is one of my own crochet projects from last year.

It’s going to be a Babette Blanket, a crocheted throw made of different-sized granny squares joined together. (Like the one you see below, from The Purl Bee. If you’re interested in the pattern, you can purchase and download it from the Interweave online store, HERE.)

I had to abandon it because I still tend to be much like the impatient little kid when I was eight. It’s somewhat of a large undertaking. I have to crochet more than 60 granny squares, some of them very large, some of them tiny. I was off to a good start, as you’ll see. But I was soon overwhelmed by the enormity of it. And the longer I spent away from it, the more I couldn’t bring myself to go back to it. (If you crochet, you’ll understand that your tension changes when you’re not working on a specific project anymore.)

But I’m looking at these pictures, all my beautiful thread colors and remembering Lola Luz, I HAVE to go back to it, don’t I? If I said I’m going back to it to honor my grandma’s memory, I don’t think she’d like that very much. That was her way. I think if she were alive she would say, “Do it because I KNOW you can.” Her confidence in me then is something that I have, in the dregs of crafting or through the anxieties of everyday life, learned to unlock from the rooms of my mind.

And so maybe this weekend, in a little spot of sun somewhere, in a tiny patch of quiet, I’ll loop yarn through my fingers the way she taught me and crochet again. With confidence.

Happy birthday, Lola Luz. Thank you for everything you taught me. And like you always used to tell me, ten cuidado, wherever you are.

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Thank you to Tito Boy and Tita Edwina for all those awesome, old-school Fuentes photos from days of yore.