Chocolate Fest 2013

 

This year Brenna and I decided not to got lolita, but in twinsies since I had made two dresses out of the same material. She wore the short one, and I wore the long one.

We were trying to glare at each other but we kept dissolving into giggles.

JaCivas was giving out ganache samples out of giant chocolate cupcakes!

Sparkle chocolate!

After the festival we went out to lunch, and afterward walked down to Old Glory vintage. Awesome!

Geek Slappy Madness

I heard about a geeky craft fair being put on at the Jupiter Hotel by the PDX Browncoats our local Firefly fan club. There was so much awesome geek stuff but most of it was very over priced.

Shiro Cosmetics was there! Isn't the owner adorable? I got to test out the new holiday glosses Red Ryder smelled the best, but I think Leg Lamp was the better shade. I am definitely buying from her soon!

Girl dressed like TARDIS, looks comfy.

Randall really liked the steampunk stuff, the guns, utility belts, and canes.

Afterwards we went to Slappy Cakes for lunch. I had my usual sweet potato pancakes with goat cheese and apples.

Randall had toast, hash, eggs over easy, and vegan sausage. He's on this weird doctor recommended diet for a month, it's cut out weird things like soy and citrus.

After lunch we walked down the block to Movie Madness so Randall could see what they had. They have a lot of movie memorbelia including some awesome old costumes.

 

I love the gold dress in the above photo, from a 60's version of Grimm Fairy Tales. It's super tiny though, I could never fit in it, the actress must have been 12. 

 

Eyeshadow was Aromaleighs Zues and Verdant Wisp, and Femme Fatales Space Cow.

Salt & Straw

 

Salt & Straw is a locally owned ice cream parlor, but it has a Portland twist. The flavors include Pear and Goat Cheese, Aquabeet, and Buttered Popcorn. But don't be too scared off there are a few normal flavors, but by all means go with the weird ones, you'll like yourself better if you do.

I got myself the brown buttered popcorn with pink peppercorn, it was very good.

Fred got the Ox which is smoked vanilla ice cream, homemade hazelnut gram-crackers, foie gras marshmallows, and veal stock fudge. Don't let the foie gras or the veal scare you off, it tasted nothing like meat. I picked it up on my second trip over there.

The ice cream on it's own is made with 17% percent butterfat, and low sugar content to bring out the flavors. The the ingredients are all of the best quality.

Often Awesome At Work

A few months ago I got myself a new job in the field I eventually want to go into, Fashion Designer. Don't get me wrong I adored the Red Cross but I don't want to go into a medical field, or teaching for that matter. My boss is really awesome and I'm no where near his level of craftsmanship but I help out, and do little things he finds tedious and watch him do his thing, so hopefully, one day I'll be half as good.

He also makes me food for lunch. And sends me home with boxes of treats like chips ahoy, Fruit gummies, and half gallons of milk. Sometimes life is awesome.

We made this wedding dress about a month ago. I never got a picture of the finished product it was a last minute thing. The shoulder straps look weird because we haven't adjusted them for the bride yet.

This is the beading on the over-skirt, it's made to be detachable so the bride doesn't have to trip over it while dancing.

Another picture of the over skirt. I individually hand sewed on hundreds of little circular flaps of fabric. When it was done it looked like it was covered in white butterflies. 

My official title is assistant, which involves a lot of things besides sewing. I take notes from clients, do a bit of work traveling, a lot of reminders, and sometimes accompany him shopping.

This day we stopped by some clients near Bridgeport Village so we stopped to do a few errands, and he bought me a cupcake. Chocolate with cherry frosting nummy!

My boss picking out his cupcakes.

Later this same day we picked up fabric from a clients shop and I was looking at her dresses and got super excited because "I helped make that one!" It's really cool to see something I helped with up for sale, even if my name isn't on it.

Bonus!

Later that same day I went tomato picking in Randalls parents backyard.

Oooh delicious tomatoes! Seriously garden cherry tomatoes are one of my favorite things, they're so flavorfull!

Randalls mom runs a cat rescue, there's always a ton of cats around but Bebe is the only cat that actually belongs to them, she has the cutest little meow, I just liked the way she looked near the marigolds.

Picnic with Brenna

 

Brenna and I both have very odd schedules, makes it difficult to get together for anything more then cursory makeup swatching. We had to plan this picnic 2 week ahead of time which maybe not the best thing because it was really cold and windy at the park.

We held up against the cold for a little while and ate our sandwiches and had some tea, but after about 20 minutes we were like, "yeah this isn't working."

Our tea wasn't even hot because it was supposed to be nice out....sad.

We headed back to Brennas place and set everything up again in the backyard, it was blocked from the wind and quite warm. Hummingbirds dive bombed my head.

• Fruit was Apples and Nectarines
• Tomatoes, Fresh Mozzarella, Basil for Caprese Salad
• Sea Salt and Balsalmic
• Salmon Lox and Cream Cheese Sandwiches
• Chocolate chip, Coconut, Oatmeal Cookies
• 3 Types of Tea
• Rosehip Juice

I made my dress for the day, you can't tell for this picture how cute it is, it's vintage 70's Holly Hobby fabric with really small strawberries. It's only half the outfit, I promise one day I'll get a full picture of everything put together. My head looks so big here cause Brenna is tall and I am short.

What if Roses Were Called...

 

...Skunkweed

Gasoline Hybrid

Tuna Flower

Mold Rose

Foot Flower

Sewer Plant

Cheese Blossom

Bathroom Bloom

Halitosis Posey

Natto Florette

 

Durian Cluster

Roses courtesy of the Ester Short Park Rose Garden, photos and all around weirdness courtesy of me.

Furious Food Carting

 

Brenna is thankfully a huge fan of food, and of taking pictures of her meals, which even though I blog I tend to forget in my rush to get it to my mouth. She doesn't do much in the way of food carts without me though, so a few weekends ago we made our way to the Mississippi Marketplace cart pod. I haven't been there in awhile so there were some changes the carts, Burgatroyd was still standing of course along with a few other staples like the Big Egg, and Native Bowl, so we shared a Crack Burger, and a peach vanilla, rooiboss and black tea.

A new addition to the pod was Prickly Ash which serves up a chinese street food called Mo. The "Mo" is the nan like tortilla item at the bottom, they cook it up when you put in your order and it's delicious. Brenna and I shared a Red Oil Chicken Mo, which was supposed to be spicy but fell a little short. It was however really, really salty, not my favorite food cart experience but not bad either.

Hungry Heart Cupcakes had a kiosk instead of their full cart at the cart pod, in which they sold minis in varying flavors. I tried their Dark and Dusty, a chocolate and cacao nib cupcake with salted dulce de leche frosting.

Brenna had a cardamom carrot cupcake. They cake in these is flawless, moist but not crumbly, but the frosting could use a little work, mine tasted like pure butter.

Our next stop was to Pix Patisserie where we shared a pear and rosemary ganache tart and a rose with lemon cream french macaroon. This was both of our first time visiting Pix, it was delicious though the macaroon could have used less lemon, and the tart more pear.

After that we headed over to 23rd for something delicious at Moonstruck Chocolate, my favorite there is their Mexican Hot Chocolate.

We shared the milk chocolate version but they have a dark chocolate version as well. We decided it tastes like a chocolate snickerdoodle and have decided to try our hands at making some when the weather cools down. Chocolate snickerdoodles that is.

Upon our leaving we grabbed some chocolates I bought a salted caramel, and Brenna the Grenada Truffle which is described on the website as "An exotic ganache of whipped cream and single origin dark chocolate derived from rare and flavorful Triniterio cocoa beans from the Caribbean, resulting in hints of dried fruits and fresh tobacco. Enrobed in dark chocolate and topped with roasted cocoa nibs."

We also hit a few makeup shops, including the MAC Store where Brenna picked up a new lip pencil.