Glass-Blowing, Vase-Making Adventures

By | November 29th, 2015|Handmade, Learning from the best|

Glass-Blowing, Vase-Making Adventures

It’s time to redeem that birthday certificate that Susanna and I gave our Mom on her birthday earlier this year. We’re treating her to an afternoon, hands on Glass Blowing Class in the East Bay. We’ve got our closed-toe shoes and safety goggles on, and we’re ready to come face-to-face with a 500lb furnace.

This was all together a brand new experience for us. First, we got a brief overview of the facility and an orientation of the tools we’d be using. Then we were asked to think about a color and there was an assortment of colors to choose from. With the metal pole, we initially inserted it into the clear glass and formed the foundation of the vase. It was a combination of dipping it into the liquid glass, heating it in the furnace and shaping the glass on the metal table by rolling it and blowing some air into it. Coloring the glass and dipping it into the palette was the fun part, though I couldn’t make out the actually color until we began to sculpt and shape it. The instructor and his assistant were hands-on at all times and helped create each piece (which took roughly 20 minutes). Following the shaping and molding, we had to quickly stick it in the heated oven for a day until it cooled down. It was an interesting experience and I love that we got to walk away with a finished product. I think my mom enjoyed her birthday gift.

Now it’s time to go flower shopping!

Letting the Chef Retire

By | November 26th, 2015|Holiday Fun, In the Kitchen|

Lee Family Thanksgiving 2015

As far back as I could remember, my Dad has always been the one to cook and prepare the turkey for our Thanksgiving feast. It’d start with days of preparation from picking out the turkey to buying all the ingredients to doing hours of  prep work in advance to making his traditional Chinese sausage sticky rice the night before. Every Thanksgiving morning, my Dad would wake me and my sister up at 8:30 am sharp. He’d pull the drapes open and tell us to quickly wash up. Each minute of delay was another extra minute the turkey would have to spend in the oven. There in the center of the table was the 18 lb turkey and two bowls of sticky rice — one bowl was for us to stuff the front and back of the turkey, and the other bowl was for us to stuff our own bellies. My sister and I would see compete to see how much sticky rice we can hold in our palms before shoving it into the turkey. For the turkey to get a share of the sticky rice, we deemed that one lucky bird. Within good time, we were stuffed and most importantly, the turkey was stuffed and ready for the oven. This is one of the Thanksgiving rituals I cherish and love. Thank you, Dad for all the hours, days and years you spent making the turkey for Thanksgiving and creating this wonderful tradition for our family. We both tip our hats to the Chef in thanks as you gracefully retire from being the Cook.

Thanksgiving Vegetable Platter

While Susanna and I won’t be able to wear the chef hat just yet, we thought we’d make sure our cooked turkey have a friend or two. With a little inspiration from Pinterest, and a lot of vegetables and chopping, we present our Turkey Vegetable Platter.

Thanksgiving Turkey Made from Oreo

And just in case the vegetable platter needed a friend, we made these Oreo cookie Turkeys using Reeses, Whoppers, chocolate sauce and piping. Now how fun is that?! If this can’t get you to say “Gobble, Gobble,” then I don’t know what can. Happy Thanksgiving from the Lee Family!

From Canvas to Home Decor

By | August 8th, 2015|DIY Home, Humbling Hobbies and Habits, Oh My Crafts!, Painting|

Scenes from Pescadero, CA | CleeSF

A few years ago, I took an Acrylic Painting Class over at the Pacific Art League to try and surface any hidden talent in painting. I spent my weekends in the art studio watching these ten minute demos from the instructor and then participated in three hour sessions of supervised painting. We painted old pottery, crooked vases and lots of fruit. Week after week, I painted a variation of the same setup with minor adjustments to lighting and draped backgrounds until finally my instructor pushed beyond the world of still life and introduced me to landscape. She pulled a photo out of her drawer and had me starting painting a scene from her weekend excursion to Pescadero, California. I had never visited Pescadero, but these rolling waves, rocky shores and luscious mountains could easily hold my attention for the next three weekends or 12 hours+ of painting. And so began a newfound of hobby of landscape painting.

As with all my paintings, when I finished, I tucked this one into my portfolio that lay under my coffee table. Only until my cleaner came and pushed my furniture aside did I realize that there was a hint of talent and possibly a “frameable” piece that could sit somewhere in the apartment. I decided to block out the white space on the entertainment stand in my room. It had been sitting there for years unattended, since I had no intention of buying a flat screen television and I had one too many unsuccessful trips to the furniture store. With my painting in hand and a trip to Michaels, I got this piece mounted and framed. Finally, a finished painting and a piece of art that I can call my own.

Second Annual Oyster Fiesta

By | June 13th, 2015|Holiday Fun, In the Kitchen|

Raw Oysters for Oyster Fiesta

Bought by the dozen, our Second Annual Oyster Fiesta consisted of an assortment of Pacific, Kumamoto and Atlantic Oysters. Some of us became pro-oyster shuckers and mastered the art of shucking an oyster, while others (such as myself) stood to the side and cheered them on. With no shortage of fixings and dipping sauces, we all enjoyed a generous helping of fresh, raw oysters. My favorite happened to be the Kumamotos – small, sweet and nutty.

Grilled Oysters for Oyster Fiesta

Once we had our fill of raw oysters, it was time to fire up the grill and cook those meaty Pacific oysters. My friend, Steph had the BEST recipe to dress up these oysters. She filled them sweet garlic, bourbon butter that was nothing short of perfection. It was a lovely afternoon indeed.

50 Sucks

50 Sucks

Brett is clueless. He has no idea. Friends, family, sangria, a Mexican fiesta and this tree of suckers await the birthday boy. Hats off to the hostess for putting together this party and adding such unique finishing touches to warm up the household. Simple DIY projects such as this this foam ball with dum dums present itself as the centerpiece and is very popular among both the over 50 and under 50. It reminded me of good childhood memories and yep, I’m still a fan of the cream soda flavor. And now there are bacon and popcorn flavored dum dums?! Hmmm, I think I’ll pass, but they were a hit with the kids.

Sitting next to this tree of dum dums is a homemade album featuring the birthday invitation along with an assortment of colored index cards for everyone to send a special note to the birthday boy.

And for this, it’s reason #108 why I love these simple, yet thoughtful DIY home projects.

Pet Terrarium: Take II

By | March 1st, 2015|DIY Home, Handmade|

Terrarium

Hardly into its second week, two of my succulents died. Somewhere between the over-watering and lack of sunshine it decided to give up on me and now I have given up on it. Time to empty out the soil and dispose of the carcasses.

After a few eventful trips to Pier 1, Michaels and West Elm, I got the supplies I need for an ever-lasting pet terrarium: colored sand, assortment of stones, black pebbles, black rice, moss – and the primary ingredient: fake succulents. With these colorful ingredients, I was able to make this lovely centerpiece for my living room table.

It’s going to be a timeless piece 😉

Scrapbook Expo, Pleasanton

By | February 28th, 2015|Craft Day, Learning from the best, Oh My Crafts!, Scrapbooking|

Scrapbook Expo Pleasanton - Tacky Tourist

Signed up for two workshops, Hello Friend and Copic Marker class. Got my wheelie fully equipped with glue dots, card stock, scissors and chipboard. Have my expo and crop night wrist band and my wallet. All set for Scrapbook Expo!!

I’m going to remind you, there is such a thing!! And today’s theme is “Tacky Tourist”, so here is our ‘tacky tourist’ snapshot. Enjoy!

Scrapbook Album - Hello Friend

As always, album-making is one of my favorite scrapbooking hobbies and my first workshop of the day is “Hello Friend” featuring products from Pinecone Press and Graphic 45, two of my very favorite vendors. This class focuses on various techniques: how to cover chipboard pages, how to create a distressed paper flower and how to adhere a binder mechanism. I love walking away with a unique, hand-crafted album with decorative ribbons and such fanciful paper. It’s going to make for a really nice gift.

For the second workshop, all three of us indulged in the Copic Marker drawing class. We’re all really excited to learn how to use these markers and blend to make special greeting cards with a bit of pizazz. It’s an alcohol based marker that allows you to blend light to dark and dark to light. Ah, I wished I discovered this sooner. It’s almost like painting with water colors. This will most likely be a new hobby on my website, so look out!

That said, it’s time to crop into the evening, cross our fingers for raffle prizes, sip some wine and buckle down on our scrapbooking projects.

I’m looking forward to the Scrapbook Expo in Santa Clara this coming August! Hope you decide to join in on the fun!

Pet Terrarium

By | January 21st, 2015|Creative Inspiration, DIY Home, Handmade|

West Elm Terrarium

A stroll through West Elm never leaves me empty-handed. This time, the exquisite terrarium table escape caught my eye. Succulents of different colors, shapes and forms gives life to your everyday coffee and dining tables – and soon to mine. A five pound bag of soil, a container of rocks and a few succulents later, I ended up with this centerpiece on my coffee table.