Bee's Knees Industries

Recipe: Zucchini Bread Muffins

We've had a tough time with the garden this year. It's tricky taking an over grownpatch of clay soil and turning it into a harvest, so not many of our veggies took root very well. One of the few plants to do beautifully, though, is the zucchini.

We only have one plant, but we have more zucchini than we know what to do with. I tried to get a photo to show you just how crazy the zucchini plant is, but it was too crazy even to get a photo of its craziness. Which I love.

To make sure we eat plenty of our little harvest, I've been tweaking my zucchini bread recipe all summer, and I think I have something I'm fairly fond of (as are my coworkers, who graciously helped me judge my most recent batch).

Ingredients:
4 c. shredded zucchini
1 c. raw turbinado sugar
1/3 c. melted butter (or vegetable oil)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
4 eggs
2 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. almond flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Prepare 24 muffin cups by greasing them or with paper baking cups.

2. Beat eggs and mix with sugar. Add zucchini, butter, and vanilla extract.

3. In a separate bowl, mix remaining ingredients, then add to the egg mixture. Stir until well incorporated.

4. Pour batter evenly into muffin cups and bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

5. Enjoy!

Rabbit Sugar Skull

Tony has suggested a few times that I spend more time drawing for no real reason. I can find myself with creative block if I work too much on projects with deadlines and specific goals, so he insisted that I sit myself down and draw something silly.

When I saw this week's Illustration Friday theme, "skull," I thought it was a perfect prompt to get my silly drawing mojo to flow. So here we are: A sugar skull bunny inspired by the super-sassy bunny who shares my home (and silliness, of course).

Working Wednesdays: Embroidery Kits

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm trying to get some of my work into shops around the country (and world!) again. I used to sell my work in a lot of handmade boutiques, but it is something that seemed to fall by the wayside when other parts of my life got too busy.

Since I have so many embroidery patterns now (and I can't really sell PDFs in stores), I decided to try making embroidery kits. I had some of my favorite designs printed at Spoonflower and am now working on putting them together as full kits. I have to say, even though I have expanded my horizons on transfer methods, just being able to dive into an embroidery without worrying about transferring the design is pretty nice.

I'll be sure to post again once I have some of these kits ready. Does anyone have any special requests as I work on this project?

Printable: Blythe Passport

In the summertime, Tony and I like to take a few trips around the area. We usually head down to the giant redwoods and up to Seattle, and we might even make it to Crater Lake this year. My little dolly hates being left home alone, so she decided to pack her bags and head someplace new.

She is perhaps a more adventurous traveller than I, since she demanded a passport of her own and a little suitcase to pack up her belongings (mostly just adorable dresses, of course). I'm not sure where she's off to, but I wasn't going to stand in her way.

I printed out the little passport from the file I have provided at the bottom of this post, and the tiny suitcase comes from a tutorial I found on Design Sponge.

The suitcase is actually the second installment of my Pinned It, Did It series. As I was photographing my doll and her passport, I realized the photos were missing something, but I couldn't find any travel-related props in my dolly drawer. However, I remembered this little tutorial I had pinned a little while ago to my Dolly Days Pinterest board and just had to try it. I think the hardest part was finding the rubber bands (as Lydia has a tendency to steal every rubber band that comes into the house); the rest was a piece of cake and really quite fun.

I like to imagine where my little doll might have gone to receive some of these stamps. I'd certainly like to visit the land of mushrooms or candy.

In true dolly fashion, though, she's keeping quite mum on the subject.

I'll just have to watch her passport for more stamps and see if I can guess where she's been.

These little passports are just right for some of the miniature stamps I've collected over the years. I also made a little "B" stamp using a pencil eraser that was past its prime.

I wonder what would happen if I tried to use one of these at the border of a foreign country...

Files:

• Download Blythe Passport Printable (PDF) - prints on 8.5" x 11" paper
• Set your printer to photo quality for best printing
• Use regular printer paper
• Requires double-sided printing

Where will you and your dolly go?

July Reading: 26 to 32

Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie by Holly Black. I finished this book on my birthday, and it was a perfect birthday present to myself. I'm having to stop myself from reading the last book in this series because I just don't want it to be over.

Fairy Tale Ritual by Kenny Klein. This is one of a handful of books that Tony bought me for my birthday, and it was wonderful. It's filed with the occult books at the bookstore, but I think anyone interested in fairy tales at all would love it. The occult element is very well done, but the part I loved the most were the essays on the undercurrents that run through fairy tales that ties them to many other myths that came before.

Magical Herbalism: The Secret Craft of the Wise by Scott Cunningham. Throughout June, I couldn't stop reading young adult books. July's theme was the occult. If it's published by Llewellyn, I wanna read it. This book was recommended by a friend when I asked her about witchy gardening, and it's great. I've had a lot of fun digging in the dirt with the ideas in this book in mind, and I'm looking forward to planning even more gardening projects for next year.

Faery Wicca: Book One by Kisma K. Stepanich. In England, Tony and I had a chance to visit Stonehenge, which was incredible. We learned that there is a group of Druids who are allowed to hold rituals there in exchange for doing some care-taking of the area. I was intrigued and got to work studying Druids when I came home. This book was a great introduction, but it also left me with plenty more topics to study. I'm just fascinated by the mythology of pre-Christian England and want to soak up all I can.

The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black. This series was another birthday present from Tony. I counted them all as one book since they're fairly small and the story runs through them continuously, more like a serial than a series. This was a good follow-up to reading a book of Faery traditions since many of the same ideas were used in the story. Of course, now I just need to learn even more about the topic. I'm on the hunt for good translations of some of the older texts of mythology, like the Maginogion. Any suggestions?

Blue is for Nightmres by Laurie Faria Stolarz. I've been trading books back and forth with one of the gals in my office, and she gave me this series after I lent her Ender's Game. It fits in with both my young adult obsession and my occult obsession. It's a fun set of whodunits involving a girl who practices Wicca to help her solve the mysteries.

White is for Magic by Laurie Faria Stolarz. I couldn't stop with just one book from the series, of course. The gal who lent these to me is leaving for college soon, so I'm trying to tear through them quickly. It helps that they're fairly addictive stories that tend to end with cliffhangers. I imagine the other two books in the series will be on my August reading post in a couple of weeks.

Seattle Aquarium

The Seattle Aquarium is a magical place. I could spend all day there happily taking photos and watching the marine life. Cuttlefish fights and octopus escape attempts and puffin acrobatics and seal yawns all give me such a sense of glee. I should make a point of going there at least once a year.

The Sampler is Back, Baby!

How many folks remember the Sampler? For anyone who's not familiar with this awesome indie craft wonder of yore, it's a monthly subscription box filled with all sorts of handmade goodies, like a surprise box of excellence from Etsy.

I used to contribute every month to the Sampler, but, when I moved to Oregon, I was just a bit too busy. By the time I got my act together again, the Sampler had been discontinued. So you can imagine my glee when I received an email from them a short while ago saying that some of the previous contributers were starting up a new Indie Craft Sampler project and that they'd be interested in having me as a contributor.

The next Sampler goes out in September, and I sent in a bunch of Sea Serpent button sets to be a part of the action. Go check out their website, snag a fun subscription box, and maybe you'll get a set of buttons and be super-stylin' like me!

Yep, stylin'!

(A note to anyone thinking of contributing: I highly recommend it! You get a free sampler box in exchange, and your samples go out to lots of press in addition to paid subscribers. I've had quite a bit of exposure through these boxes, and I'm excited to see where they take me this time around!)

Taming of the Shrew

This is the first year that I have tried any sort of flower gardening. I usually stick to more practical plants, like vegetables, but having a more permanent home makes me want to gussy it up a little. Since this is my first year, I'm not having a ton of success. I have at least managed not to kill the rose bushes that the previous owner of my home planted, but I don't have much to show for myself beyond that.

Part of my problem is some sort of digging beastie who insists on unplanting all the flowers I plant. Almost every day, when I come home from work, my marigolds and pansies are somehow pushed up out of the ground with no evidence of the hole that they were once in. I started to get frustrated with this to the point that I started wishing ill on the little beastie, until I came outside one day to find out how adorable the little beastie really is.

He seemed to be lost and kept spinning around in circles, backwards, until I managed to goad him under some brush using a stick. His spins got to be so emphatic that he wound up rolling over on his back again and again. He was way too helpless and sweet to possibly wish ill on him.

I'm not sure that this adorable shrew was actually the digging culprit, but at least now I have a cute memory to make me smile as I pass by my dead marigolds.

Seattle Adventures

Living so close to Seattle, Tony and I try to make it up there at least once a year together. It's a fun spot for a little vacation. (I usually go up more often, since my Sister from a Different Mister lives up there.)

Last time, I crushed the Space Needle. This year, I decided to transform into a Sasquatch, of course.

I love the view of the city from the Space Needle, particularly the fact that people do fun things on their roofs that you can only see up there, like giant spiders.

The first year I visited Seattle, I discovered that the best way to get to the top is to get lunch up there. If you just go to the top, it costs $18, but if you get lunch (which is pretty expensive at $25 or more a person), you get a free ticket to the top. The food there is incredible, so it's like getting a really fancy meal for just $7, plus you get to sit in a comfortable spot and enjoy the view the whole time. Not to mention the fact that the restaurant rotates, giving you a chance to enjoy every part of the view, one slice at a time.

And that's your accounting lesson for the day.

The little round dots you can see in the photo above are silly post-it notes that people stuck to the windows. It's the same concept as the little notes people leave on the train at Sushi Ichiban (a fun experience if you're in Portland and have never tried it), exept this time the note stays stationary and the restaurant moves.

This note reads, "Why are you reading this? Enjoy the view."

Of course, I did more than just enjoy the Space Needle in Seattle. Tony always has business to do in Seattle, so I spend some of that time with the pseudo-sister I mentioned above.

We trekked around Discovery Park (where I snuck this photo of my bestie who thought she'd never look good in a candid photo), visited a farmers market, ate plenty of happy hour treats, and even watched The Trouble with Tribbles.

Tony and I did a few more fun things, too, like check out the amazing aquarium, but more on that later.

Have you ever been to Seattle? What's your favorite thing to do there?

Working Wednesdays: Sketchy

Color-Coded Creative Writing

Over the past few months, I have been writing more and more. Working on my goal of reading a book a week is very inspiring, and every story that I finish gives me so many ideas for stories I might create myself. The only trouble is organizing all those ideas into a way that I can easily work on them. Organization groupie that I am, I decided to come up with a fun method to make it a little more efficient.

I know lots of people like to write on a computer, but I tend not to work well that way. I get frustrated with the fact that my words never sound quite right the first time I put them down on paper and wind up deleting the whole thing. I needed a writing method that was less conducive to instant deletion.

The last time I visited my favorite Portland art suppy store, I found just the thing I needed. I bought a set of Stabilo colored pens to color code my creative writing notebook. I use a red pen for a story about Snow White (inspired by a crazy nightmare about a neighbor), purple for a story about demons, and black for a story about Lydia (naturally). This way, no matter what I feel like working on, I can easily find all my previous notes and continue my writing.

At the moment, I feel pretty far from ready to send any of my work to publishers, but I am excited (and extremely nervous) about the prospect of publication. With my work nicely organized, I know I can just keep plugging along until my stories are ready to meet the world.

June Reading: 19 to 25

I have managed to make a huge dent in my reading goal this summer so far. There's very little that is more pleasant than sitting outside on the porch, listening to the birds, surrounded by flowers, with a stack of books by my side.

Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd. I picked this one up because I was intrigued by a book I saw in the staff pick of Powell's by Patrick Ness that said it was "inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd." I quickly Googled Siobhan Dowd on my phone and learned that anyone who loves young adult fiction must read her books. I couldn't agree more with my Google search. This was a thought-provoking story about the IRA and the 1981 hunger strike in Ireland that made me want to learn more about the history of the country.

Sweetly by Jackson Pearce. Once I get on a young adult fiction streak, it's hard to get me to budge. This is another book suggested by the Powell's staff (They have amazing taste, by the way.), and I found it so intriguing I read almost the entire thing in one sitting. (It helped that the sitting was done on a beautiful sunny Saturday in my back yard when I should have been doing my work.) It's a new take on Hansel & Gretel that I found to be very fun and enjoyable. I'm definitely going back for more of this author's work.

Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale by Holly Black. Yep, Holly Black again. I'm a woman obsessed! I remember seeing this book at Borders when it first came out and wanting to read it, but at the time I was in college and had very little time for pleasure reading. A decade later, I finally found the time, and I am so glad I did. I have a feeling I'm going to devour all of Holly Black's books this year. I already have another one sitting in my to-read pile.

Black Spring by Alison Croggon. This is one of those books that I picked up just based on the cover. It turned out to be a story inspired by Wuthering Heights (one of my favorite books) but with witches (one of my favorite things). Thoroughly enjoyable!

The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter. I found out about Angela Carter through the Black Apple's blog. She has a beautiful way of writing that I fell in love with at once. Every so often, I spy her books in the sale shelves at Powell's, and I can never pass them up.

Divergent by Veronica Roth. I always get excited when reading becomes part of pop culture, and the recent trend of young adult books becoming movies has been a great way to get more people reading. Of course, I can never see a movie without first having read the book, so I took this one on the plane with me to England. It was a great way to pass the time, and it kept me pretty interested during the whole trip.

Fathomless by Jackson Pearce. This is another young adult novel based on a fairy tale, this time with the little mermaid as the main character. I did realize a few chapters in that it's actually a sequel to Sweetly and that I had started this series in the wrong order, but that didn't keep me from loving it. Next up is the first book in the series, Sisters Red, so that I can get back on track with the overarching plot.

(The photo at the top is a shot of Greenland from the airplane. Staring out the window at the ocean was my other form of entertainment on the plane ride to England. I've always wanted to visit Greenland so seeing it like that was pretty incredible.)

Supermoon

Did anyone else get a chance to check out the supermoon on Sunday? I found out about it a little late, so I don't think I saw it when it was as big as it could have been, but it was still amazing and beautiful. I had just finished watching Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, so I felt a bit of trepidation about wandering around in my yard at night alone, but our dog, Roofus, kept me company, and I even caught a shot of Tony as he closed up his shop for the night.

Now I'm excited to see what other kinds of astronomical wonders I might be able to spy before the Portland area clouds up with the changing weather. I've been using the app Star Walk to keep track of what's coming up and to learn about new and interesting happenings.

A Mountain or a Molehill?

A new dolly dress design inspired by the beautiful mountains out here. Some days I really miss the Midwest, but I don't know that I could ever move away from mountains after having lived near them for so long.

June & July on Instagram

This summer has been pretty busy around my household, with lots of new and exciting projects. I have been working to get my creations into more shops, and the first step was bringing my Flapper knitting needles to an adorable knitting shop in London called Loop. It was so much fun being able to visit a customer that's so far away.

A month or so ago, Tony finally got a chance to start a new hobby he's been interested in. It's either beekeeping or spacewalking.

I crossed a major item off my bucket list: I visited Stonehenge! In case you can't tell, it was ridiculously sunny there.

With all those activities, I needed a bit of a break, so I taught Lydia to make breakfast in the mornings. She's a pretty great cook!

You can find me on Instagram as @BeesKneesIndustries.