Many of you know that I was a vegan for many years and I've been a vegetarian for even longer (I celebrated my 10th year of vegetarianism 2 years ago!). I'm still a vegetarian.. as I like to say a "strict vegetarian and a sloppy vegan"... because I do avoid dairy products when I can, but still not often enough to call my self a vegan. I often feel guilty about not being a vegan anymore. See the thing is I still believe that a vegan diet is one of the best things I can do for the environment, for the animals, and for my health, but like so many things, "life" seems to get in the way. It's hard when your beliefs and actions are conflicting. To get things to jive better.. for my own sanity as well as the reasons mentioned above, I'm going to start making a concentrated effort to out my "money where my mouth is" (so-to-speak) and get back to veganism. Like most things in my life, I started with an internet search :) You may find from time to time links and tidbits about the vegan lifestyle here at this blog. I'm also excited to pull out the HUGE box of vegan cookbooks that I have stored away! There's so many good recipes in them and so many that I have yet to try so getting back into the swing of things shouldn't be too hard! I don't love cooking, but I do love eating delicious food and there's never been a recipe that I didn't like from those faithful cookbooks!.. many of them from one of my heros, Sarah Kramer.
I know I don't post too many "talk" posts here but I just thought I'd let all of you know what's going on with me and where a slew of veg links and content might be coming from haha.
To start us off, here's some great meal plans I've found. I never follow a meal plan I do like to look at them to get ideas :)
Vegan Meal Plans
Developed by Dina Aronson, MS, RD at dina dot aronson at yahoo dot com.
These meal plans can only be viewed with Adobe Acrobat Reader.
I love this idea as a wedding guest book or a piece of art to make at a baby shower! Your guest put their finger print on the tree and tada! You've got a unique piece of art for your wall to remember the special day! I may just have to use something like this for my own wedding ;)
(pst, click the picture to be taken to the site where I originally found this idea)
I have a small obsession with candelabras and have recently started to taking an interest in chandeliers as well! I'm sure you can imagine how thrilled I was to find a sweet, simple, and cheap DIY chandelier tutorial on this blog! I'll be adding this to my list of ever growing projects :)
This may sound crazy coming for me (a paper artist) but no matter how hard I try, origami and I just can't seem to get a long haha. I'm always amazed at the wonderful things people are doing with paper these days! Check out the projects below that I found while surfing around the web! You can also see more projects like this here. If anyone tries these (and succeed) you NEED to make me a youtube video so I can figure it out too :)
From the photo page: "A night shot with the Milky Way and Orion just above the Matterhorn. Picture taken with the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8. The light on the mountain on the right comes from the light pollution of Zermatt."
I really love candles, soft lighting, and of course, crafts! I'm pretty sure this crafty project could be turned into a gothic delight pretty easily! I came across the tutorial for this DIY thread LED tea light cover at the Wedding Bee. I'm not interested in making these for my wedding (no, no, only gothic old looking candleabras with skulls on them will do for my wedding! lol).. but I think a few of these in the window cill would look pretty snazzy.
I know Christmas is still months and months away but I look for neat holiday craft ideas all year long! Every once and a while I come across a tutorial for something that I haven't seen before or have never thought about how something fairly ordinary was made until coming across a tutorial for it. In this case, I came across a blog post that shows you have to make your own glitter ornaments. They aren't reinventing the wheel here, but I LOVE glitter! Any chance I get to use it, I'm going to take it! These Christmas ornaments are pretty, easy to make, and can be customized to suit your holiday decor! I think I might have to try to make some black ornaments along with some orange ones :)
One of my more recent fascinations has been with terrariums. I have yet to make my own but oogle over all the ones that other people have made. Recently I came across this blog post with a tutorial on how to create a terrarium centerpiece. This is this one of the better tutorials I've seen I thought I'd share it with you. I'm sure I can't be the only one fascinated by these mini worlds. :)
If you're in the London area this weekend, please come out to the Schoolhouse Studio to check out the Arts & Craft Show event! I'll be there with all my pampering bath & body products (including new releases) and I'll be joined by many other local artisans showing off their creations including jewelry, fused glass, metal sculpture, blacksmitthing, handmade corsets, oil paintings, belt buckets, wood works (bowls, platters, etc), photography, and more!
Martha Stewart has done it again! She's come up with another great fall/halloween pumpkin project! Ok, let's be honest, we know there must be someone working there... or maybe a whole team of people who are the ones coming up with these great ideas, but never-the-less, I still can't get enough of all their fall & halloween treats! You'll find the tutorial for these pumpkins here.
As many of you know I love making my packages pretty and colorful which is exactly why I got so excited when I came across this tutorial of how to make your own custom bubble mailers! Right now the value of orders I'm getting is too high to make custom bubble mailers for all of them BUT, i think this could be a great project for some of the swaps I'm signed up for over at swap-bot!
How cute is this?! This project is definitely going on my list of things "to do" when I step away from the studio and need a non-work-related crafty project! See the full tutorial here.
How to wrap your presents in Furoshiki (cloth) to avoid using wrapping paper. Unlike wrapping paper (which usually can't be recycled) Furoshiki can be used again and again.
We were SO close to the stage because it turned out that we had floor seats! I had no idea and was totally kicking myself for not bringing my good camera! I got this picture with my "take anywhere" point-and-shoot camera. Sigh... next time i'm bringing my minolta!
We had to stop and take a pictures of us together because we always for get to do that lol! ... plus drew added "you're never up when the sun is out so we have to get a pictures of this!" lol!
During my travels around the web I found this very cool technique using a sharpie and a doily... and here I thought doilies weren't good for anything! Shame on me! lol! Click on the image to head over to the follow tutorial (although it's really self explanatory). I'll have to remember this technique the next time I don't want to dig through my box of stamps ... because going on a hunt for a paper doily is probably a lot less time consuming lol.
I came across this inspirational blog post of Converse Creations and I just HAD to share some of the shoes in the post! Make sure you go over to the original blog post to see all the credits as well as some shoes I didn't include here! Now I'm thinking my pink Converse need a make over hehe ;)
Hello! My name is Jamie and I'm the girl behind this little blog. I'm also the owner of "She's Batty Designs" and "Batty's Bath". I'm a huge animal lover, I'm in love with a great guy (that's Drew in the picture!), and I'm a mommy to 3 dogs and a turtle. I'm also a huge Tim Burton fan, a photographer, a star gazer, a paper artist, a soap maker, and a university student studying psychology.
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About She's Batty Designs She's Batty Designs (SBD) has eco-friendly, unique handmade greeting cards and adorable accessories that everyone will love! The SBD studio is located in London, Ontario, Canada and is an earthy friendly place. Photography services are also available for local clients.
About Batty's Bath Batty's Bath is a small soap and bath products company specializing in handmade cleansers, moisturizers, lip balms, scrubs and hair care products to make you feel totally pampered. Batty's Bath uses only the freshest, highest quality ingredients and makes all products in small batches to ensure the best quality possible. Batty's Bath also ensures that all products are cruelty-free and none have ever been tested on animals. Batty's Bath also has a blog.
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