I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

Etc.

paper

We have a friend coming to stay with us this weekend so we are in a mad dash to clean up the place. Mainly, my craft stash started to creep everywhere and after Spark all hell broke loose so I needed to spend some time pulling it all together again.

I started with ‘simply’ organizing my paper. Well, that alone is a huge chore. But it made me realize that I don’t need to so any more shopping (besides the monly Studio Calico kits I get) and that I need to scrap more to actaully use some of this stuff.

Pattterned paper, die cut paper, and textured solid carstock on the left.

Solid card stock on the right.

over 6″ of just solid 12×12 cardstock.

We’re not even gonna talk about the 8.5×11 paper I have. One could get a hernia picking up those sorters.

My name is Nicole and I have a pretty paper addiction.

 

 

PS. That’s not even all my paper. I still have patterned paper packs to add to that. And I purged just under 2″ out of it as well.

ATK: Confessions of a Cooking School Student- Dinner Recap

Last night Price and I feasted on an amazing dinner that included several recipes from the newest Cooks Illustrated Cookbook. My friend Lena is a Social Media Intern at America’s Test Kitchen so she invited us over for a dinner to show us all the skills be picked up as she documented her experiences in the online blog series called Confessions of a Cooking School Student. We joined Elina Holbrook (Healthy and Sane), Steven Klise (photographer documenting the night), John Sandala (Social Media intern at ATK), and John’s 2 sisters who were in town from Chicago.

 

Lena pan-searing the pears for the salad and cooking up the bacon for the dessert.

We started with the Pan Roasted Pear Salad with Radicchio, Blue Cheese, and Walnuts. I am surprised that the cookbook said to quarter the pears and then to cut them crosswise into 1/2-inch pieces after the searing since this made for pretty large pieces of pear. I much prefer smaller pieces of greens and add-ins in my salad.

 

Preparing dishes always reminds me how important mise en place really is. I need to pick up some prep bowls. Lena was so busy during the night using the skills she learned during the online ATK class she took, including making a pan sauce for the chicken breasts.

Watching Lena prepare the Pan-Seared Chicken with Shallot and Vermouth Sauce opened my eyes to something I never considered doing before… par-cooking chicken in the oven and then searing it to finish it. While it took a lot longer than I anticipated I think the end result was great since the chicken was tender on the inside and the outside was lightly seared. The combination of cooking techniques make for a great chicken breast dinner.

The Pan-Seared Broccoli was one of the hits of the night. We all ended up just grabbing pieces right form the dish as we chatted. A squeeze of lemon at the end really adds a lot of flavor to the simple dish.

 

Lena busy cooking the shrimp for our seafood part of the evening.

I could really see myself making the Pan-Seared Shrimp with Garlic-Lemon Butter Sauce at home. It was a quick dish to prepare and I could really see myself serving it with cous cous, rice, or pasta.

 

Only pictures of my from the night. So serious> OMG so funny!

Enjoying dinner together. We went though a lot of wine. It was fantastic!

 

My favorite prepared recipe of the night was the Pan-Roasted Inexpensive Steaks served with a Mustard Cream Pan Sauce. The steak was cooked perfectly and the sauce… oh that sauce… I think I have formed a new love for pan sauces. I never think of giving pan sauces too much thought since I always seem to be rushing to make dinner during the week but this could really be prepared in just a few minutes and made while the steaks rest. I think this sauce has converted me. The side with the steak were the Sauteed Mushrooms with Shallots and Thyme. These were tender and really flavorful.

I don’t actually like crisps because of the oat topping but I really enjoyed this Skillet Apple Crisp with Bacon. The bacon flavor was subtle but managed to provide a hint of smoke to contrast with the sweet apples. Everything is better with bacon!

We really enjoyed the dinner because of the fantastic food and getting to hang out with great people. It was such a great night that left me stuffed and in need of carving out some time to go through the Cooks Illustrated Cookbook  (that I got at the Boston Bruncher’s Birthday Brunch) to find some recipes to make.

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FOOD!- Charlotte Vacation {4}

Price and I recently went on vacation in Charlotte, North Carolina. We had a fantastic time visiting the Queen City. I will do a series of blog posts recapping some of the fun things we did while down there. I hope you enjoy!

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Thursday Night- Boston to Greenwich: Sonic

Friday- Greenwich to Charlotte: First we stopped by my favorite deli in the world for Bacon Egg and Chese Sandwiches to start our trip. For lunch, we stopped somewhere in VA for Arby’s. First time having Arby’s, might be my last. not high up on my list of doable fast food places. good fries though.

 

Friday night in Charlotte: ChowDown Uptown. (previously blogged about)

 

Friday night- Mac’s Speed Shop for BBQ! This place was suggested to us from one of the guys in the Gensler Charlotte Office. Great suggestion since the food was amazing. We loved the fried pickles and the platter we shared. I could not get enough sweet tea.

  

 

Saturday morning- There were signs on the highway indicating that the Charlotte Farmers’ Market was close by. I can’t resist a farmer’s market so we stopped by there before starting out fun filled day. I was in awe of everything I saw from the fresh produce to the vibrant flowers. We ended up getting a sweet potato pie form a very lovely vendor.

 

Saturday lunch/dinner- We went to Price’s Chicken Coop after we went to the Charlotte Motor Speedway (blogged about here). It was the first time I had hush puppies. They were very different than the ones we had on Friday, but just as good.

 

Sunday breakfast & lunch- We hopped into Starbucks on our way north out of the city to look around at different areas in and around Charlotte.  Then we came back into Charlotte and had lunch at Nix Burgers. I loved my bloody mary from there and had an a-mazing pimento burger

Sunday night- We shared left overs from Price’s Chicken Coop and a salad from California Pizza Kitchen.

 

Monday drive from Charlotte to Philly- I put mint and frozen strawberries in my unsweetened ice tea 🙂

 

Sunday- We stayed with our friend Dawn. Price wanted a cheese steak so we went to Genos. Dawn and I shared some sushi take out from Fat Salmon. The rolls were so big and the combinations were so unique.  Like the BCT had INSIDE – Bacon, Cream Cheese, Tomato, Cucumber and ON TOP – Avocado w/Spicy sauce

 

Tuesday morning: Our friend suggested Green Eggs Cafe (Northern Liberties) for breakfast. I wanted the Philly Style Eggs Benedict but we were so early that their order of pretzel rolls had not arrived yet. We ended up with red velvet pancakes and stuffed french toast. We only had half so we had the rest for dinner after our long drive back form Philly to Boston.

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Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive. 

Spark The Event: Day 2 Recap (and Giveaway!)

Our first day of Spark was jam packed of fun classes but it did not stop there since we have a whole other day of more classes, a blogger panel, and another musical performance.

 

We had missed the Dear Lizzie boutique set up at Spark the first day so we stopped by first thing the in the morning. I picked up some gifts there. 🙂

Margie gave a run down of the day’s events for us during the Welcome session. She is so hilarious that she everyone cracking up. But she is best at inspiring everyone and connecting super talented women to create a great event.

 

Our morning class that we attended was the first Mixed Media class with Donna Downey. For the “From the Heart” class, we used pan pastels on canvases to create a mixed media piece layers the pastels with stamps and tags.  I had never worked with pan pastels so i had a lot of fun using a new medium. Did you know you have to create a porous surface for it to stick to? how do you do that on canvas? Well, adhere a piece of tissue paper to it of course!

Here Donna is showing my mom and other Spark women how to create shadows on our hearts by flicking with the applicator.

We had a free hour in the morning which allowed me to catch up on my reverse applique shirt. Brioche, my traveling gnome bun, chilled out as I documented his travels.

 

There was a group of the sweetest women who came all the way from JAPAN. Yes, they came from JAPAN! They had met Margie when she went over there to teach some classes so they all stayed in touch and then came over for Spark. They took photos of everyone using Instax cameras and added our pics to mini books so we could right msgs right there.

During the process of my mom making her shirt, a little pull was created on the patterned fabric part. Instead of my mom having to redo the entire thing Amy just showed my mom how to fix it by adding a little fabric flower. Lemons… lemonade!

After lunch there was a blogging panel. April was the moderator for hour as we got to ask the 4 panelist (Allison Czarnecki, C. Jane Kendrick, April Atwater, Brittany Egbert) questions about blogging. Of course I ask the boring technical/legal questions. Whatever.. that interests me instead of asking about what to do with negative comments. (ignore them- duh!)

 

Group A headed back up after the blogger panel for the 2nd mixed media class. Christy Tomlinson taught this class which was a take off form her She Art class that she offers online. We used paints, paper, inks, rub-ons, on canvas to create a unique piece of artwork. Ofrouse I decided that I did not want to have a girl on it so I put a big heart that I stitched together with rub-ons. Different but fun. Still a work in progress at this point.

I don’t think I could get tired of that view…

Our last class of the day, and of Spark(!), was about felting. Emily Falconbridge, hails from Australia, but now resides in NH- so need to hang with her in New England!- and she is a fibers maven. She taught us how to felt soap using some wool, soup, water, a felting needing, and our hands. It my seem weird to cover soap with wool but wool is naturally anti-bacterial so it is a great soap cover.

Our closing dinner was fantastic but shall also be known as the cupcake incident… you had to be there.

 

 

After the dinner we settled in for closing announcements where Margie thanked everyone involved who helped pull off such a great event. Of course tears were shed, esp when Margie thanked her daughter Megan for all her help.

 

Ending out Spark, we enjoyed a performance from Sarah Sample. I had beenlistening to her music at work since I heard that she would be at Spark. It was so great getting to have such a fantastic, intimate performance. Best was that we sat with Sarah on Friday during lunch and got to chat with her about her music, recent move, and family. She is so sweet, funny, and talented.

Said bye to Amy!

 

Mom and I headed to Dear Lizzie for the after party. We hung around there for a bit, got lost going back to the hotel because of a detour, then had a ‘midnight’ snack at Sonic!’

Check out a quick video I did from the performances we had in the main hall. This brought back memories, as well as reminded me to record much more! I think I was just lost in taking it all in!

And last but not least… A Giveaway!!!

Well I have 2 giveaways in fact!

Between my mom and me, we sorted out some great goodies to part with since we have SOOOO much stuff. We have some scrapbooking paper, chipboard pieces, a mini book, rub-ons, and other embellishments to giveaway. Since there are 2 giveaways and we did not exactly have 2 over everything to spare, there will be some differences in the kit. But this is the general idea of it. Plus I’m sure I’ll be able to sort through my person stash some more and add to it prior to shipping.

 

To win…

1) Leave a comment telling me how you are creative, how you keep you spark lit.

2) Tweet “I’d love to stay creative by winning some great @sparktheevent swag from @iamahoneybee http://wp.me/pzEAP-1BB” about the giveaway. And come back and leave a separate comment!

Contest Ends midnight on Friday 10/4/11

UPDATE: 

winners are Jamie and Sierra!

 

Spark the Event: Day 1 Recap

I had the pleasure of attending Spark : The Event this year. This was the 3rd Spark, so I will often affectionately refer to it as Spark #3. Every since I learned about Spark from Liz Kartchner’s blog from the first event I knew that I would have to make it out to Utah and get to get my creative juices flowing and have a lot of fun.

I will save you all the horrendice details about my trip to Utah. In summary it involved  a cab ride, tears, lots of photo calls, texting (which I hate), stress, running, and 2 plane rides. We arrived in Salt Lake City 3.30 east coast time so my mom and I were very tired but VERY relieved to be there. We were able to enjoy our Thursday in SLC, Park City, and to have a great photo session with the super talented (and funny) Collin Kartchner– to be shared later.

So that brings up to Friday- the first day of Spark….

Registration started at 8 but we were up bright and early!

Noah’s Event Center was the facility that housed Spark. Margie and Team did a lot of hard work decorating entire building. Out first glimpse at Noah’s was this entry with the book paper lights and vintage luggage.

 

Welcoming decor greeting all the attendants.

The Main Hall was  elaboratly decorated with ribbons, yarn, pom poms. fabric wrapped hoops, and sewn paper garlands.

Margie explained how all the decor has been reused from her own stash or old from second hand stores. She also said that when they break down the event the pieces will get a new life when it is transformed for another Spark.

Each table had a center piece, which had been used and transformed previously! Giving something old a new life makes that piece so much more special. Each setting had a box and note book for us to use during and after attending Spark.

 

After checking out the Main Hall, we went back to the 2 vendor halls to check out the shopping we could do. Each vendor was special in their own way from specializing in handmade shirts, vintage clothes, baked goods, an

 

At one of the tables I found this amazing vintage pink metal cake carrier. Such an amazing find for jsut $12!!!

And then we began! Margie came up and talked to us about what Spark really means and how we get to become Spark Sisters from the event. We get to make special connections with other creative women who each bring a different skill and perspective to the table.

Mindy Gledhill took us on an activity that had us writing down goals, people we admire, and things that make us happy in our new Spark journals. She also serenaded us with some songs. I really love her music so you should check it out too! Love the song Anchor.

We all broke up into our groups to attend the morning classes. My favorite morning class was the jewelry making class taught by Cathe Holden. We made nest necklaces. We used shimmery beads to represent eggs and wrapped around them with wire to create the nest. I used to different colored wires for an extra level of detail. Lastly, I stamped on a metal tag to complete the necklace.

Group A also took the stamp carving class in the morning taught by April Meeker. This class was a bit more difficult but still rewarding because it was something completely new for me. Knowing how the pressure of the carving tool, as well as what you carve out, allows you to create a unique handmade stamp.

 

Then all the groups broke for lunch. Mom and I grabbed our lunches and immediately headed outside to enjoy the beautiful view.

We had a post lunch update where Margie introduced Amy Tan. In addition to having her own business of designing handmade shirts, she has her own scrapbooking line with American Crafts.

I loved the 2 hour long junk journal class where we took an old book and began to transform it to create an album for a scrapbook. I had altered a book previously for a Liz Kartchner class but this was very different and fun. I love how you can start with an old book and apply various techniques to alter it to get such different effect and finished product. I am going to complete my junk journal and use it as the scrapbook for the long weekend in Utah.

After the junk journal class we had our session with Amy to make hour reverse applique shirts. I love the process and I can really see myself making more shirts for gifts and myself. I love hand sewing so the process was fun and relaxing. The best part of the class was hearing about Amy’s vast experiences as a small business owner of a fashion line called Amy Tangerine, who creates specialty reverse applique tops. She explained how she was discovered, she started the shirt alteration business with a vendor market fair in NYC and how the rest became history.

 

After dinner we particiapted in make and takes from 7-9pm. There were several stations throughout the building that had different designers and product manucturers set up having us do quick crafts. My favorite was the earring station on the roof because I liked the pace of the craft and the look of the earrings. Friskar’s set up was also really fun because we made Halloween flags. I’m so predictable and boring that I only used orange and black to design my flag. Of course mom used all the color possibilities on her flag.

And that was DAy 1 of Spark the Event #3.

Stay tuned for my Day 2 recap!

Charlotte Motor Speedway- Charlotte Vacation {3}

Price and I recently went on vacation in Charlotte, North Carolina. We had a fantastic time visiting the Queen City. I will do a series of blog posts recapping some of the fun things we did while down there. I hope you enjoy!

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While we were visiting Charlotte, we decided to head over to The Charlotte Motor Speedway. The speedway is located in Concord, NC, which is not that far from the city of Charlotte. A quick ride on I-85 and we were there to check out the track and the gift shop.

 

I was really under dressed for the day since it was a lot cooler than I anticipated. The wind was pretty strong so we only hung around on the grandstands for the bit. We watched one of the many race schools/driving experiences that are offered at the speedway.

 

After a bit of watching the racing school drivers on the track we signed up for the Speedway Tour. For just $9 a person, we had a 45 minute tour that started from the main building and took us around the track while our guide told us various things about the track. The best part of the tour is when you go out on the track to experience the feeling of the banking. Going 85 miles an hour in a van is no where near as fast as a NASCAR stock car, but it still is a lot of fun

Check out the angle in the photo!

We took a video while we were going around the track!

 

While going around the speedway and the track we learned history of the speedway, starting with when it was built in 1959 by O. Bruton Smith and Curtis Turner. From there the track has had an interesting history as it has hosted countless races at its track and been the setting for movies, including Talladega Nights.

 

The tour guide explained  how the world’s largest high definition television debuted during the May race at the track. The 32-and-a-half-ton TV is 200 foot-wide, 80 foot-tall and created by Panasonic. The face of the TV is made of 158 and is illuminated by nine million LED lamps. Pretty impressive!

One of the really cool things we learned was that there are condos at the track. People thought it was foolish for Smith to build forty condos over turn 1 in 1984. However, they were so popular that another 12 luxury ones were built in 1991. Over the years there have been families that lived there and as a result school buses would have to stop at the track to pick up the kids.

The tour took a stop at the Winner’s Circle for some photos.

 

We had a great time at the tour. It was a fun way of learning about the race track and the history behind it. And of course I had to go back and watch clips of Talladega Nights to see the track in it. ha!

If you like NASCAR and are in the Charlotte area I suggest you swing by the Charlotte Motor Speedway so you can have a quick tour of the track to learn some cool facts about the track while you take a spin around in a van. You won’t soon forget those 24 degree turns!

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Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive. 

IIDA NE ‘Ashion Show Videos

A follow-up to my previous post about the IIDA NE 2011 Fashion Show, I have completed 2 videos recapping the night. Check them out!

I made this using a Magic Movie feature thing with my flip software that grabs 4 seconds of each video segment  creating a mash-up. This shows our set up backstage and then the show itself. It’s a fun way of getting to see what we did for 4 hours in under 2 minutes!

When it was our turn to walk I gave my coworker my flipcam while I ran down to the end of the stage and  took photos. She accidentally turned the camera near the end so just turn your head and go with the flow… do it! Our moon man won the crowd over with his moonwalk at the end. 🙂

It was such a great night!

Apple Picking at Mack’s Apples

I love apple picking. I really do. I remember this one time when my mom took my dad brand new WHITE Acura and took us apple picking. Well it got suck in the mud. Ruh-Roh! Even with a car wash there was still evidence that car was filthy from our muddy shoes. Needless to say that my dad was less than excited when we got home. Ha!

 

Well, thankfully my recent apple picking trip did not involve any stuck cars or really messy shoes. Instead we had a great time at Mack’s Apples in Londonderry, NH. I had sent out a tweet asking for some suggestions for places to go to that is a quick drive from Boston. Rachel (Baked by Rachel) responded by telling me about the great time she just had at Mack’s Apples. Then she posted a blog post about it and I was hooked.

 

Outside of the Farm Market, they had wooden bins of pumpkins and squash, as well as pallets of autumnal flowers.

This “Know Your Apples” chart was very helpful. I took a photo of it just so that I could remember which were the best apples to get for baking pies.

 

The Farm Market is opened a bit earlier than the U-Pick fields so we wandered around the store looking at all the different books, plates, jams, fruit butters, pickles, and decorations that were available for purchase.

 

While Mack’s doesn’t make their own cider donuts WITH sugar, they have donuts on hand that they have some brought in from the Chichester Country Store. We picked up a pack of them because cider donuts without sugar are just plain old boring.

The Honeycrisp… it seems to be the ‘it’ apple in recent years. Look how big these beauties are!

 

Breakfast of champions… splitting a chocolate and a pumpkin whoopie pie that we picked up from a school fundraising table.

The directory outside the store explaining which U-Pick field had which apples directed us to U-Pick Field #3. We went there because we wanted to focus on getting baking apples and this field had a large variety of apples that suited our needs.

 

U-Pick Field #3 is really 2 fields on either side of a road. We parked on one side and headed over to the farm stand that was set up. We wandered around that field for a while with little success since most of the apples had been picked over and the remaining ones were too high, even for Price to reach. Thankfully, when I went over to ask the woman working there a question about squash blossoms I overheard her telling another family that the field across the street had JUST opened so there would be a lot of apples there. So I hurried back to Price and told him the good news.

The other field was PACKED with apples. We were able to wander around while having a lot of options at our finger tips. I really appreciated that they stagger the opening of fields so that fields are not picked clean so early in the season.

The only real criticism we had of Mack’s was that the steaks at the end of the aisles indicating the type of apples were not really labeled. There were plenty of markers but not all of them were actually labeled. We wanted only baking/pie apples so we did not want to pick anything that was more for sauce or salads so the selection was very important to us. We would have to walk to the front of the orchard to see what each aisle was labeled and then to continue back down them looking for apples. I think that if they were to improve their signage it would make for a much easier apple picking experience.

 

We sampled some of the different varieties of apples that in U-Pick field #3. All here delicious and sooo fresh. You can’t beat an apple that you just pull off the tree and then bite into.

I’m not always such a smirky jerk… the sun was in my face.

 

We highly suggest going to Mack’s if you are around Boston or the border of New Hampshire. It was a large beautiful place that was very affordable. The selection of apples allows for the opportinuty to be able to pick ones that will use your needs.

Mack’s Apples

603-434-7619

230 Mammoth Road
Londonderry, NH 03053

Boston Brunchers 1 Year Birthday Bash at ICOB

Having the opportunity to attend the Boston Brunchers 1 year Birthday Brunch was a little dream come true. Getting to eat an amazing brunch with new bruncher friends I have met over the year while celebrating the success of the group that the very talented Renee (Eat.Live.Blog) started… Sign me up! I can’t lie… I really did set an alarm so that I could grab one of the 20 tickets released at first. I ran over to the computer to get to sign up while Pricer was looking at me like I was crazy. “but it’s the birthday brunch!!!!”

This brunch at Island Creek Oyster Bar live up to the hype. Great company, -amazing food, and a fun filled swag bag.

I was so tempted to only post the above photo because I could have written an entire blog post just about that lobster roll. When Renee released the menu options prior to the event I was really excited because everything sounded amazing. I don’t even like smoked salmon but the dish including the homemade bagels even intrigued me. But the obvious choice for me was the Lobster Roll ($19). I’m glad that I made that choice! The lobster roll was so jam packed that I needed to eat some of the lobster out with a fork before I could attempt to pick it up. The sweet lobster meat was lightly dressed and served on a buttery, toasted rosemary roll. As you can see, the lobster roll was served with a side of creamy coleslaw and super crunchy potato chips.

As a thank you to Renee for all the hard work she puts into the group, Katy (RecipeCan) organized donations to get some gifts. Renee quickly put on the apron while continuing to open the rest of the goodies, including some mini Le Creuset pots

The photo on the right shows what food bloggers do at every chance… Snap photos. Even Tom (BostonTweet) had to snap some pics.

Each table was greeted with a basket of pastries ($11) that included some scones, cinnamon rolls, and muffins. I selected the donut muffin, which reminded me of the ones I’ve made before.

My runner up choice for entree was the French Toast, which Sean (BostonMo) picked. The generous serving looked decadent with its large slices of bread that were soaked in a sweet egg mixture and the topped with caramelized bananas and crunchy almonds.

While I have really enjoyed the various brunches I have attended, this brunch at ICOB stands out for it’s fabulous food, attentive service, and heat packing Bloody Mary. Pricer and I have been on the search for the best Bloody Mary in Boston ever since we took a trip to NOLA and had incredible ones at The Absinthe House. While the Bloody Mary I had was very different than those infamous ones in NOLA, I can say this was one of the best I have ever had. I know I need to come back with Price so he can try the ICOB Bloody Mary’s an weigh in.

A HUGE thank you to Renee, Island Creek Oyster Bar, and all out of fantastic sponsors:

America’s Test Kitchen
Barefoot Wine
Biba
Biltmore Bar & Grill
Boston Ballet
Boston Center for Adult Education
Boston Food Finds
Cow and Crumb
Cumberland Farms
Dorado Tacos & Cemitas
Dore Creperie
Doves and Figs Kitchen
Eversave Boston
Foodies of New England
The Four Seasons Boston
Haircuttery
Harvard Common Press
iParty
Klout
KO Catering & Pies
Langham Hotel Boston
Phillips Candy House
Pinkberry
Pretzel Crisps
Popchips
Stages of Beauty
Stonyfield
USA Pears

IIDA Boston 2011 Fashion Show

Last Thursday’s IIDA* New England 2011 Fashion Show was a big success. It was a lot of hard work but worth it in the end.

It was my first year involved in the fashion show as I had previously been busy with school commitments. It was great to start with this year since it had a great theme of ‘Iconography’. We had to select something iconic to create costumes based upon. We selected this image of Buzz Aldrin on the moon. We focused on creating a male costume that was similar to the typical astronaut suite. For the 2 other costumes we created 2 female costumes that were a bit more fun with a focus on future space fashion. A little different than Zenon fashion, no?

Besides the great theme, we had great products to work with. Part of the fashion show is to creatively use products that we use in our design projects. This year we partnered up with Stone Source for tile and store, Spinneybek for leather, and Cambridge Architectural for metal mesh. They ended up working so well for our theme.

Here is a run down of the event…

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We had to get costumes over to the hotel so a few of use left early so we could set up and get our 3 lovely models all set up. Once everything was up on the 7th floor staging area we headed down to the lobby for a celebratory drink. We ended up with shots of Patron…

 

Back up stairs.. let the work begin! Lots of makeup and an announcement…

 

We started with a shimmery base white coat on Laura. Then silvery base coat on Megan…

I added the blue to Megan’s hair since her accent color was blue. Alissa added lots of dark base to my coworker/model Brett…

 

Having a great time and some other teams getting ready…

We decided on bands on all of models’ faces so they were added in the different colors to match their accents…

 

On goes the red accent on Laura. Then A LOT of glitter on top of all of that… (click the R picture to enlarge it)

Megan getting some touch ups. I think she looks amazing here…

 

Anna, a hairstylist prior to switching careers, working on Laura’s hair…

 

Geared up! We had to get our models dressed up in preparation of judging. The gear is hot and heavy so we had to time to correctly so they would not get too tired or sore from wearing it…

 

Obviously you should take embarrassing photos of your coworkers as well as the models…

Judging time! (yeah I know there is a girl getting dressed behind us. no big!) Megan explained our theme and the materials we used to the judges prior to the big runway walk…

 

The hours flew by preparing for the event but it started! Former coworker Mai is a co-chair so she was one of the beginning MC’s. There were more introductions but then it was time for the show to start!

 

Title: “Poche”- inspired by graphic patterns used in drawings

 

Title: “WeARHOL”- using iconic Warhol images, such as Marilyn

Title: “The serpent. The ultimate icon.”

 

Title: “The Beatles(ography)”- yellow submarine (L), Octopus’s garden and strawberry fields(R)

 

Title: “Dweller Among the Clouds”

 

Title: “All Hail McQueen”- they painted the models on stage with paint sprayers

 

Title: “Paint by Numnbers”- including Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Shepard Fairey’s Obama, and Warhol’s “Turquoise Marilyn”

Title: “Living Popart”

And ours… “Man on the Moon”

Brett walking down the record 90′ long runway in front of a record 1,000 person crowd…

The flag was made of a large wood dowel with a sheet of foam core attached to it. It was then covered in tile and leather…

Megan at the end of the runway posing in front of the judges…

Laura making it down the runway…

Brett handed off the flag to Megan while he did the moonwalk to a cheering crowd prior to walking back…

 

Title: “Magic Kingdom Come”

I wish I had a better picture of the main headpiece. It was detailed beautifully. Each of the costumes were stunning. Look at the costumed guy on the left, and then to the woman at the lectern standing next to him to get a perspective at the size of each of these 3 costumes. Crazy…

 

Title: “Icon of the Virgin”

In total there were 22 submissions, including a few schools. I missed a bit of the ones after us since I ran back up to the room to get a scissor incase Laura wanted to cut off the HEAVY metal mesh skirt that was digging into her hips. She sucked it up and wore the skirt for the final procession of all the models.

Then the awards…

WOOOHOOOO!!! We won an award!!! We were awarded with Best Interpretation of Theme.

After Bergmeyer’s “Magic Kingdom Come” we were bummed since their peices were stunning so it seemed like we had no chance for any of the awards. Thankfully we got one of specific awards while they picked up best in show.

In all the night was a blast. I don’t have photos of the after party since I didn’t want to spill anything on my camera and what happens at the after party, stays at the after party! I got home after 2 and Friday was a l-o-n-g day but it was so worth it.

*IIDA= Institute of International Interior Design Association.

Chow Down Uptown- Charlotte Vacation {1}

Price and I recently went on vacation in Charlotte, North Carolina. We had a fantastic time visiting the Queen City. I will do a series of blog posts recapping some of the fun things we did while down there. I hope you enjoy!

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Prior to leaving for Charlotte, I checked the Yelp website for some ideas on things to see and do while we were down there from Thursday night to when we left early Monday morning. One of the events that I saw was a food truck rally called Chow Down Uptown the was occurring night that we arrived. This was a gathering of food trucks in the central part of the city- what we commonly know as downtown. (I learned that Charlotte calls their downtown area Uptown because of the Billy Joel song “Uptown Girl”) I love the food trucks in Boston so I knew this would be a sure thing.

We arrived during rush hour, which wasn’t bad at all, at least compared to New York’s or Boston’s. We had the local NBC news on while we were settling into our hotel room. Sure enough, there was a piece on Chow Down Uptown, so I knew it some something meant to be.

The event was held at NC Music Factory. We didn’t really get to explore the venue but I thought it was a nice space. The space is in fact a series of old factories. We breezed through one space and I could see how they kept a lot of the history alive with the old pieces that were left intact. The food truck rally was held in a lot next to the amphitheater.

We missed the rush by the time that we arrived since it was on the latish side. The night was perfect for the event. We thoroughly enjoyed the weather, especially in comparison to some of the fall nights that we have in Boston.

We had a hard time choosing what to have for dinner. There were several food trucks that offered great things, such as burgers, philly cheesesteaks, BBQ, and tacos. I liked the diversity of the menus items that we had to choose from.

 

-some very friendly food truck vendors-

We ending up getting our dinners from Maki Taco, an Asian inspired food truck. The smells coming out of the truck were incredible. Since we arrive a bit late we missed out on some of the menu items. They ran through their current offerings and still everything sounded amazing. I got the chicken hibachi and Price got 3lettuce wrap chicken tacos with fresh sauteed veggies. The hibachi was exactly like that I have ordered at restaurants, but with 1/3 of the price tag. I’ll settle on a manageable portion without the show for great food at an amazing price. Price’s tacos were great too. We are not sure if it was because we arrived late and they modified their menu to serve more people but they were served the tacos on romaine lettuce leaves, this made it difficult to eat, we would suggest using Boston bibb lettuce instead.

 

-Both of us enjoyed our dinners so much-

Next up.. dessert! We decided on the Southern Cake Queen cupcake truck because the selection of desserts looked so good.  Price got a Willow cupcake, I got the Turtle, and we got a Charleston Chewie to split over the weekend. Each were impressed with the cupcakes we had, really enjoying the flavors and texture of each of the cupcakes. I loved the Charleston Chewie, it reminded me of a really rich blondie.

 

-Willow Cupcake and a Turtle Cupcake-

It was a great night out introducing us to what Charlotte food trucks have to offer. The food was great, and the Southern hospitality really shown through as we got to talk to the vendors. Grant, the founder of Maki Taco, was eager to share with me what makes his food truck so special, it was great to hear about his passion to serve local, fresh ingredients. They considered everything from the food to the printing of the shirts, which are made in the US and printed by a local company. Plus he explained that they JUST started- really just a few weeks old- so they were so excited to attend the event! And Emma, of Southern Cake Queen,  asked if I was a part of Charlotte Food Bloggers as I was busy snapping away by her food truck. I explained I was not and that we were just visiting, which prompted her into sharing some things about the city. I just loved the friendliness of everyone!

If you want to find out about more Charlotte food trucks then check out Roaming Hunger, which lists food trucks by cities.

Follow the food trucks we visited:

Maki Taco

Southern Cake Queen

wanderlust

I have a severe case of wanderlust.

We just had a fantastic day in Charlotte. Lots of NASCAR, went to the Big G office here, had an amazing BBQ dinner, and had a little dip in the hot tub. We’re we lounge in our hotel room eating popcorn and watching Ghostbusters. Nothing entirely special at this moment but we are enjoying just getting the chance to relax… no laundry, no dishes, nothing distracing us from doing nothing.

So at this moment I’m already dreaming of the nextr trips planned.

SLC, Provo – October, 2011

Greece – March, 2012

I can’t wait for either of those trips. I know that both will be fantastic in each of their own ways. The thought of them makes me think of all the other fun places that we can go together. I love thinking about fun trips that we could go to. Here are a few places that we are thinking about at this point.

Seattle

Austin, Texas

London

Napa Valley

Thailand

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Where do you suggest we go to? Where do you want to go to?