freshly harvested purls

The purl necklaces are almost ready for sale... at least the first run for the launch of my etsy store. Here is your official sneak peek at the variety of beauties soon to be available for purchase... just in time for V-day!

this isn't winter...

it's permanent november! my least favourite month of the year on the west coast. we just had two days of sort of sunshine, like really weak partly cloudy sunshine and it has been awfully mild... but when bracketed by weeks of uninterrupted rain it hardly makes up for it!

i miss my bicycle

consolation prize

microbrew root beer + vanilla hagan daaz = ultimate indulgence float

(and perfect self consolation for a poorly delivered interview)

do you have a favourite "cheer myself up" treat?

famous skull

check it out - my Red Velvet Skull Cake i baked for my day-of-the-dead-born friend got featured on a blog i follow!

(but since i'm inconsistent at actually reading my RSS feeds i didn't notice 'til just now)

Fun!

victorian style

necklaces that tie up with a bow...



















is it just me? i'm absolutely in love with the look.

cook's kitchen: truffles!

mmm, melt in your mouth, sinfully rich, eyes lolling back in you head from pure pleasure... the essence of a chocolate truffle. Mind you it would be impossible for anything combining chocolate, butter and whipping cream not to be delicious... so what better reason to make them at home!


































After having spent hours painstakingly forming balls of chocolate with my hands for Christmas gifts, as directed by Joy of Baking, I happened to see Jamie Oliver doing a more freeform version on a holiday marathon that look like a much simpler way to go (basically just dropping spoonfuls of the cocoa/butter/cream mixture into the coatings rather than rolling and forming each one).

The ingredients and method don't change much across recipes - what makes truffles special is starting with a really high quality chocolate, the liqueurs you add (though I had some issues with the liquor trying seep back out...) and the coatings you choose (icing sugar, cocoa powder, crushed nuts, hundreds-of-thousands...). Truffles will keep for a few weeks in the fridge or a few months in the freezer.

Enjoy!

existence verified by mail!

Very exciting... the fledgling "yours truly" design studio received it's first piece of mail today. !!!















i know i am feeling absurdly excited about this (ignoring the misspelling of "Vancouver"), but i'm am comfortable with my level of nerdiness.

Also: here's your chance to weigh in. My design company - "yours truly" has over time naturally come to embody my branding (it all started with coining a new email handle when switching to gmail)... but the exact wording?

Yours Truly Studio
as in "this is a Yours Truly Studio design..."

Yours Truly Design / Yours Truly, Design
as in "this is a yours truly design..."

Yours Truly
as in... {a design by} Yours Truly ... {handmade frou frou by} Yours Truly

Dear mythical readers, what do you think?


P.S.
What i think about "yours truly"...

It makes me think of sitting down to write a letter by hand: the thought and weight that that act carries, instead of just writing an email; the emotion and personality that can be expressed in the turn of a pen, the specific forming of the characters on the page; how when you read someone's handwritten words on paper you can almost hear their voice in your ear, you can almost see the way their mouth forms the words were they beside you right now to have this conversation with you in real time... and then that thoughtfulness transposed into the act of hand-making jewelry. The thought of these handmade goods going through the mail like letters to arrive, "Gasp", and transform your week. As if those jewels were love letters to be worn about in your day to day.

This I hope to make the essence of designs by yours truly.