We’re off to Santa Barbara today because my friends Sara and Ross are getting married!

I finished the cross-stitched wedding announcement in time and E. helped me find a mat for it and frame it. (I suck at framing things.) So happy with the way it turned out.

On to the next xxx-in!

Have a lovely weekend, all.

We were up at Lake Arrowhead at S.’ family’s house this weekend. It rained all of Saturday, so we spent the afternoon indoors making a big, glorious mess out of powdered sugar, starlight mints, cinnamon bears and all manner, shape and size of candy imaginable to build a wintry gingerbread village. All this while getting sloshed. We spent a good bit of time cleaning up after and STILL kept finding renegade candy hidden in different nooks of the house the rest of our say there. All in all, my first attempt at making a gingerbread house was smashing fun.

More pics from the construction site:

We had so much fun, even Johnny Depp stopped by!

Ahhhh, Christmas. I love you so.

Having so much fun learning how make a Coin-Stack Baby Quilt at The Urban Craft Center with Alissa of Handmade By Alissa. More to come in future posts!

Thank you so much to Noel and W. for working on the new design for GWAC. I’m so blessed to have your pearly and flowery artistic muscles behind all this. Thank God I have you guys. For all the crafts I do, I can’t draw to save my life. Take, for example, my attempt to draw the two of you:

See?!?

Salamat guid sa tanan tanan! Thank you for everything!

I owe you cookies.

For the longest time, I’ve had a master wishlist of things to bake/cook. Like anyone interested in baking and cooking, I have an ever-evolving, gargantuan list of all of my want-to-bakes: French macarrons, Sans Rival, Buche De Noel, petit fours, panettone, panna cotta, a proper English trifle, buko pie like the ones they used to sell in El Ideal in Silay City…the list is as long as my memories of food (and those are historically plentiful.)

But, there’s a Special List. I’ve started calling it the Dandelion List, because when I get the chance to wish on a dandelion, more often than not, I will wish for the gumption to start making the things on this list. It’s been in my head since I was 12 years old, when I first made a cake all by myself (an all-together-too-rich butter cake with buttercream frosting from Let’s Cook With Nora). I realized then that maybe if I gave baking a chance it would do me the same favor, so I’ve been baking (and wishing) ever since.

The Dandelion List is different because it’s made up of dishes from the wonderful cooks in my family – on both Mama’s and Papa’s sides. These are the legendary recipes that I’ve had to think twice about recreating. Why? Because there are delicious standards to live up to! And I often feel that a successful dish doesn’t just depend on a tried-and-true recipe, but on the person wielding the wooden spoon. If it’s your signature dish, no one can quite make it like you. Cooking is a science, yes, but it’s partly magic as well. As the cook, you impart your own brand of sorcery to any dish you make.

But I DO want to try, even if these talented cooks set the bar pretty high. Because I often think about how the hands that made those dishes were fashioned from the same genetic cloth as my own. The attempt is my way of honoring not just the culinary history that’s so much a part of my family names, but the potential in me to bake as well as they can.

So, here is the GWAC’s Dandelion List Of Deliciousness. One that I hope to tackle, one cup of flour (or rice!) at a time.

       The GWAC’s Dandelion List Of Deliciousness

Lola Pin’s Daffodil Cake

Tia Minda’s Parker House Rolls

Auntie Betty’s White Chocolate Raspberry Cake

Manang Cynthia’s Empanadas

Lola Pin’s Sago Pudding with Meringue

Mama’s Hopia

Tia Minda’s Orange Chiffon Cake

Manang Flo-Flo’s Siakoy

Mama’s Callos

Tito Boy’s Tuna Ceviche

Tito Boy’s Paella

Lola Pin’s Fresh Pineapple Candy

P.S. The yellow dandelion image you see above is actually beautiful fabric that the UK company St Jude’s carries. They have the prettiest fabric with eclectic designs made by their own roster of artists. Another great craftster resource is the St Jude blog All Things Considered, with art news and design ideas from that country across the way, one I hope to visit some day.

There’s this TVC for HP Printers with Gwen Stefani that’s grown on me. It was released last year but I’ve been catching it on TV a lot these past few days. Makes the craftster in me say, “I know what she means.”

Official website HERE.

The site has many fun things to do, like custom-make your own greeting cards, CD covers and mini posters with designs by Gwen. So much to do with all these do-it-yourself printables. Not only are they free, but the possibilities are endless.

Just imagine this on an apron (through the wonders of photo transfer paper):

Or this on an oversized tote bag (a chica way to lug groceries?):

On the site, you can even make a Harajuku-inspired paper doll version of yourself.

This is me. Teehee.

Happy Harajuku days to you!

There may be many dinnerware companies and brands out there (just browse through these dizzying collections from Martha Stewart, Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel,) but Corelle holds top spot in my heart.

Growing up, I ate the best meals on Corelle plates. Mama had (and still has) an almost pious devotion to the brand and sent them whenever she could from the US. She believed that only Corelle could withstand the rigorous cross-continental trek in a Balikbayan Box from Los Angeles, CA to Victorias, Negros Occidental. And she was right. Through all those years, we never received a broken plate, cup, saucer or bowl as we unearthed the treasures from those brown boxes. That was good, and not just because nothing was wasted — broken plates were believed to be a sign of ill luck. I don’t know if the superstition is specifically an Illonggo one, but I have strong memories of it growing up. I remember always being somehow relieved whenever there were no broken plates hiding between the Spam and the Betty Crocker Devil’s Food Cake Mix in those boxes!

We ate a lot so we wore those plates out. These days, we still have Corelle in the house, but I have a sentimental attachement to the Corelle pattern of my childhood, Old Town Blue, which is the image above. They don’t manufacture it anymore and whenever I see it in flea markets, it always tugs at my memories like a child at her mother’s apron strings.

The company now makes many new, hip designs and in more modern shapes, too. Whole new sets to fall in love with! My favorites:

Vintage Lace

Whimsical Dots

Kitu

Here’s hoping your plates remain whole — and brimming with good memories.