Meet me at Hester Street Fair this Sat~!

Come meet me at Hester Street Fair this Sat! I love this little corner of heaven downtown Manhattan. Quality handmade goods, delicious food and a little court yard of grassland with shades from trees to sit under. It is a nice little hidden corner away from the bustling shopping area filled with tourists. So come say hi. I'll be there ;)

June 22, 2013 10am-6pm 

Corner of Hester and Essex

F J M Z to Delancey

F to East Broadway

Where to spot a bunny that dreams

As we are stepping into December, here are some great news from us few bunnies that dream a lot!

You can find Bunnies Can Dream at our new home, Urban Alchemist Design Collective in Park Slope, 343 Fifth Street, and Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn! 

Spot not only lovely pieces from my line, but also a collection of lovely pieces that will make great gifts this season. Take a look at my earlier post about them here. 

I will be there most Weds so come say hi! 

Also, I'll be at this great holiday market hosted by PS10.

The South Slope Holiday Craft Fair is at it's 3rd year. Enjoy a gallery of artists, artisans and craftspeople, many from Brooklyn and all purveyors of original and high-quality goods. They have assembled a diverse product line for your shopping pleasure, including jewelry, apparel, ceramics and more. 

Saturday, December 15, 2012 from 11am-5pm

P.S. 10, 511 7th Avenue, Brooklyn 11215

Another great place to shop for this holiday is the Brooklyn Craft Central Holiday Market.

I'll be at this market on Dec 15, 2012 11am - 5pm.

But the event is actually a 4-day one, each weekend features different groups of artists and local crafters. Also listed as one of the holiday shopping destination by Time Out New York, this once a year shopping event is one not to miss!

Come say hi! There will be exclusive pieces created for this holiday season, new collection premier and free gift wrapping! I want to see you all :D

Macrame Fall Collection Sneak Peak!

Last Sat and Sun, I was invited to Urban Alchemist Design Collective in Park Slope Brooklyn for a trunk show. I brought the entire line of Harlequin&Lionhead and a few collections from Bunnies Can Dream. It was a delightful boutique and I just love the neighborhood. I did a little post here.

I took the opportunity and played with my macrame collection a bit on Bunnies Can Dream to incorporate all the great colors that would go well with the fall palette, and included more metal components to the design.  Here is a sneak peak - they are not available online yet and currently only available at my trunk shows in New York. If you are interested at them, email me and I can always make one for you ;)

Discover the hidden gem of Park Slope - Urban Alchemist

Imagine a mini Anthropologie in your neighborhood. Well, the Park Slope folks can. Urban Alchemist Design Collective was nice to enough to host a trunk show for me last weekend and I spend 2 days drooling over all the creative and beautiful pieces in the shop.

Located on the quiet street of 5th and 5th Avenue, this Brooklyn boutique houses independent artist works from all over the country, one-of-a-kind mixed media jewelry, t-shirts, home decors and high quality vintage finds and vinyl records.

I'm going to show you a few lovely finds here.

First off, enter the colorful world of Betsy Olmsted. The Lancaster Pennsylvania designer draws in gouache, water color, pen, pencils and spray paint to create original artworks that are used for her collection of towels and blankets.

Next, the super-cute A-line upcycled sweater dress for toddlers by Banbutsu, a British Columbian brand! All their products uses recycled or organic materials. This bright red pinafore top is made of wool and some angora so really soft. But to avoid the protest of Charcoal and Roxy, I did not buy this for my little baby niece. But she'll look so cute  in it!

Roots In Rust

Alison Corrie's Stuffed Animal Collection

Another great find is Roots In Rust by the New York artist, specializes in ‘planters’ and terrariums using air plants and unusual, mostly reclaimed metal, wood and glass objects. It is rustic but modern, definitely one-of-a-kind. The air plants require low maintenance and makes a great gift this fall!
I just love the whimsical animal print on these high quality cushions by Alison Corrie. The only 2 left in the store is the cool alligator and wacky dodo. If they have this rabbit it would be sitting with me, Charcoal and Roxy right now. Alison's artwork is indeed amazing. Check out her collaboration works too!

Urban Alchemist opens Tues-Suns (closes on Mons) from noon-8pm (to 6pm on Suns) and on most days, you will find Tara or Eric from Fencing and Archery Printing Co. there.

If you are hungry from shopping, hop over to my fav. restaurant Juventino for a lovely meal. You can order gluten free yummies and check with the very friendly staffs there if you also want to skip dairy in some dishes due to allergies / dietary requirement.

Next post will be a complete view of my fall macrame collection, including bib necklaces and earrings, launched at my trunk show this past weekend. You can get them in my next trunk show at the Two Fair Ladies 1st annual holiday market. More details to come so stay tuned!

Poisonous Food Journal turned Healthy! #1

Because hubby has been tested to have high blood pressure, and both our families has a higher risk of heart disease, we have decided to get back on the health wagon when it comes to dinner. I cheated all the time during the day on my own with chocolate, eggs and cheese, but he does not have to know.

Anyways, I want to share with you one of my BEST experiments on my lab rat husband. Yes, he is a brave man eating food cooked by the girl who penned the Poisonous Food Journal. Look I'm very nice to not try the coffee maker cooking recipes on him. Let's just say the blood pressure report actually saved him.

This one took nasty extra lean ground turkey breast, small sweet peppers, kale, and black beans into town!

Turkey stuffed peppers

Ingredients:
Extra lean round turkey breast - 90-100g
Small sweet peppers - a dozen or more (you can also replace with bell peppers)
Soy sauce (low sodium) - 1.5 tea spoon
Soy sauce (dark - get that from Chinese grocery stores) - 1 tea spoon
Onion powder - 1 table spoon
Galanga ginger powder - 1/2 table spoon
Ground black pepper - as much as you like
Sesame oil - 1 tea spoon
Olive oil - 1.5 table spoons
Egg white - 1

Instruction:
Marinate ground turkey with onion powder, ground pepper, ginger powder and sesame oil the night before. Mix in egg white before stuffing.
Cut sweet pepper in halves, and stuff the turkey meat in with either a fork of a spoon. Add olive oil in a flat non-stick pan and wait for it to get pretty hot. Put the stuffed peppers in meat side down and let it sizzle for 1-2 minutes with lid on with high fire. Turn peppers and lower heat and let it sit for another 2 minutes. Check to see if pepper are burnt and shift it a little and let it sit for another minute and serve!

Nutrients approx.:
Extra lean turkey breast ground = 120 Cals. (Sat.Fat 0.5g, Cholesterol 41mg, Sodium 58mg)
Soy sauce = Sodium 600mg (that's more than 25% of daily, so be fugal with it!)
All oil added = Fat 30g (stinker, that's almost 60% of daily! See how it all adds up!)


Kale
1/3 of a bag of kale, chopped into 1 inch sections
Wait for water to boil, then put stems in first, and then leaves. Keep it in water still under heat for no more than 2 minutes, take out of hot water, and rinse under cold water. Tastes real good with some sesame oil (1/2 tbsp), Worcestershire Sauce (1 tbsp, Sodium 65mg) and a bit of sugar.


Black Bean Rice

Ingredients:
Black bean from can - 1/2 (Make sure to look for the ones that have the lowest sodium level! I was unpleasantly surprised by the nutrient labels on some of these well known cans!)
Rice - slightly less than 1 cup

Instruction:

Cook rice in rice cooker with half cup of water. Wait until water is boiling, then stir in black bean and some of it's water from the can into the rice cooker. Then wait for it to cook and viola! Delicious!

Meet me in August at these locations

August brings some really exciting events. First off is a very meaningful one for animals in need of adoption and the kind people who take care of them in the interim. 

Event: Fundraiser for Forgotten Friends of Long Island

Date: August 18, 2012 (rain date: Aug 19)
Time: 10am - 5pm
Location: Organic Farm - Garden of Eve
4558 Sound Ave, Riverhead, New York 11901
(At the intersection of Sound Ave and Rt 83/Northville Tpk)

Forgotten Friends of Long Island was established in the spring of 2008 as a rescue organization that would help the neediest animals in our municipal shelters. Their mission statement was to reflect the belief that all lives should never be forgotten. The folks at the organization decided to rescue the animal that was continuously overlooked by others or the one in need of medical care. They constantly host adoption events. Check out their website here.

Garden of Eve kindly offers their space for this coming fundraiser. For more info regarding the organic produce, click here.

For this special event, proceeds of all vendors' sales will help support the organization and their efforts. Bunnies Can Dream and Harlequin&Lionhead will be donating 20% of all sales. I will also have (very) limited quantity of these lovely animal silhouette pendants available at my booth.

These little pendants are all about 3/4 of an inch tall or less, made in brass with satin polish, hung on a delicate plated ball chain of 16 inches long. Do you see your favorite animals here?

By Upstate

Yesterday I went to a fabric dyeing class in Brooklyn, taught by Katrin Reifeiss. It is about a specific Japanese technique called the Shibori. It involves binding techniques, stitching, folding and pole-wrapping. Here is a quick introduction of Shibori based on what I learned. For a thorough introduction, you can also view videos by Narablog on youtube.

Katrin Reifeiss, who also teaches at Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn if you are interested for the full course. But ours was just 3 hours and it flew by like an hour! Here is our table. There was a bucket of squeeze bottles of dyes we could have used for direct dye method but it would have taken at least 12 hours for the fabric to cure in dyes to complete so we opted for the tub dye method, using buckets of dye water and submerging our fabric in it for a few minutes to 45 minutes to achieve the dye.

There are 4 types of methods as I introduced at the beginning of the post. Below is the Pole-Wrapping Shibori technique called the Arashi "Storm" Shibori. It involves some folding of the fabric (or not), then wrapping it around a pole (you can get the PVC pipes from Home Depot) and then stringing the thread over in horizontal lines tightly, then pushing up the fabric to bunch it up before dyeing. Katrin was demonstrating on a scarf she has made before the class. The red scarf is then dyed in navy so you can see the black lines which is the bunched up fabric exposed to the dye, and the lighter red lines which is covered by the thread (i.e., the resist) which is not dyed. 

The other method is called the Binding techniques. Below are some examples:

Ring Shibori - a string is tied to a little bit of fabric bunched up. The white line seen here is created by the resist of the string.

Shell or Spiderweb Kumo Shibori - It is basically a larger Ring Shibori, and the string is wrapped around the bunched up fabric in horizontal lines to create the white line you see over the orange here.

My attempt at the Spiderweb Shibori was ok. The strings were too thin and the color is a bit too light so I cannot really see the horizontal lines. But the ombre effect of yellow to green is very nice in reality. 

My classmate of the day, Christina, is working on her skirt here to try and create an ombre effect. She did a combination of Spiderweb and Arashi on her scarf below and it came out really beautiful.

Another example of the binding techniques is the pleated stripes. Here Katrin made an example for us using this technique, which starts off with pleating your fabric and securing it with rubber band or a string, then you wind the string down the folded fabric to create the horizontal lines you see here. I tried but mine was horrible. Note to myself, must fold my pleats a lot tidier next time and tied the string tight around the fabric!

Then there is the Stitching Shibori Method and this is called the Ori-Nui. You start with drawing a pattern on the fabric, then fold it up a little into a ridge, and stitch running stitches in regular intervals right under the fold line, pull tight to bunch up, then dye. After you dye it, the pattern will emerge as white dots. It is absolutely beautiful.

The last method is called the Folding techniques. Below is my work (yay!) from yesterday which is a not very regular Tortoiseshell Kikko Pattern. The folding techniques involve pleating the cloth, then folding it in triangles or squares, and clamping it down sometimes on its own, or sometimes with a resist material. To achieve the tortoiseshell, I used a pair of chopsticks clamped on both sides of my folded triangular shaped fabric and submerged it into the dye to get all the fabric colored, except for the part where the chopsticks were clamped in tightly. The yellow is actually part of the black dye which somehow got separated from the black and the effect is random but lovely.

Here is my friend Atsuko, and our teacher Katrin. Atusko's dress was dyed using the folding technique, and then using a plastic resist in the shape of a circle but somehow it came out square...?

Fabric dye is fun and I love the surprise you get everytime you unwrap a piece.  Of course, the masters can always control the dye. But for me, it is like magic!

A new page to the Poisonous Food Journal girl!

This past Valentine's Day was a sweet one with an unexpected bouquet from my husband. To thank him (we usually don't celebrate VDay) I thought I'd make him a nice dessert that is low in cholestrol (for him) and calories (for me).

As the girl who is proud of her "poisonous food journal" this is a huge challenge. But I had a big bag of carrots from Cosco that Charcoal and Roxy could not finish and it was going dry in the fridge, I thought that kinda passed as semi-nasty ingredient and I used it as an excuse to get working on a carrot cake! I found this recipe on allrecipes.com and adjusted it to my need.

Ingredients

1 cup cake flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
(Changed to 2 cups of all purpose flour)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 eggs
(Changed to 1 egg and 2 egg white)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup buttermilk
(Changed to skim milk)
1 1/2 cups grated carrots
(Added 1/2 cup of raisins and a tablespoon of vanilla essence)

Technically you should fluff up the egg white and fold the ingredients in, but I am too lazy so I just mix all the wet ingredients and then whip in the dry ingredients. Don't over blend. Heat up oven to 350F (remember to preheat!) and bake for 20-25mins.

Instead of icing, I use confectioner's sugar for decoration only. And you really don't need to use any because the cake is so moist and delicious! To make the pattern, get a paper cutter and cut out your favorite shape and put it on top of the cake before you sprinkle the sugar on. And voila! It's done looking pretty decent. All in 30mins!

The problem is, I still have a big bag of carrots left...grumpy.