My sweet little son is going through a lovey dovey phase. He prefers all his food to be served in the form of a heart. He slathers me with kisses and hugs. I know there will come a day when he will be embarrassed to show affection for mama. But for now, the sandwiches I eat usually look like this.

To make little chocolate heart cookies, use the classic tollhouse recipe and swap 1/2 cup cocoa powder for the chips. Leave out the nuts. Then roll the dough into a log with a diameter that is bigger than your smallest heart cutter. Wrap it in wax paper and let it chill in the fridge. When chilled, cut approximately 3/8 inch slices from the log then cut out mini heart shapes. I used this little heart cutter. Baking time will depend on the size of your cookies. I baked these 1 1/2 inch hearts for 8 minutes. Take the scrap dough and form a new log and rechill or you can do like I do just nom nom nom. I am hunting for smaller heart cutters now. I have this fantasy of making an all heart meal including mini carrot heart slices. Maybe I will somehow have to try and make my own extra mini heart cutter because I can’t find one small enough for my scheming!

Wait, aren’t we supposed to be thinking about spooky Halloween stuff right now? Oh well.

Love,
Jenny

I am a lucky duck because I have a new friend. I won this Deadface doll from the Plush You blog contest. I feel a little guilty having such fun times with my PFF (plush friend forever) because I still owe a plush from another Plush You contest. I am working on a custom prize and have attempted three versions so far but I am not happy with it yet. I hope to try again this weekend. Anyway, here is the story of how Deadface came in to my life.

Deadface: Hello. I’m Deadface. I’m from the other side of the ocean. I’m gonna live with you now, here in New Jersey.

Mrs. Lady: Welcome Deadface. My name is Mrs. Lady. Why don’t you take some time and go around and meet everyone in the Harada household?

Deadface: Ok here I go.

Bear Lamp: Pssst. Stay away from Jenny. She is Crazy.

Deadface: Really? And what do you think, Large Tauntaun?

Large Tauntaun: Yep. The rest of the humans here are crazy too. Just stick with us.

Alien Fingerwiggly: We mean you no harm as long as you stay away from our cheese.

Kewpie minions: Cheese! Cheese! Cheese! Cheese!

Deadface: Ok I’ll have the salami instead.

Clown head: Hey man, don’t worry, you won’t have to think about any of this while you are sleeping.

Deadface: Ok I’m going to make the arrangements.

Deadface: I guess this box of hats and mittens will make a nice bed for me. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

And that’s all for now. Thanks to James and Stef of We Dream of Meat for sending my PFF and a tip of the hat to Margot Potter for all the Kewpies in my life (of which I shall fashion into something cuter than just naked Kewpies… soon) and for implanting the word minions into my common vocabulary. Although, every time I type it I think of mini onions.

Click the pic to see some photos of the plushes. If you are in Seattle, this show is a must see!

Plush You!
Schmancy, Fancy, and Nancy
Starting October 10
1932 Second Avenue Seattle WA

Here is a kitty that I made for my crafty pal Becky. Becky is traveling the USA for six months with her suitor Aitor on a mighty crafty fair and performing tour. They stopped by to visit us as they were passing through the state. It’s always fun to see those guys. I love to hear stories of their travels. Now I’ve done some traveling in my life, but I am generally a homebody, so I don’t really get out much. I must say I am a tad jealous of her huge craft fair adventure! You can read all about it on Becky’s blog. She wrote about their visit with us too. Actually, she wrote about it two months ago like a very good and prompt blogger. I just caught up on some blog reading and was happy to see some cute pics of my kiddies over there. Awww.

Here is a picture of Aitor when they visited us a few years ago when we lived in Ohio and they were in town for Craftin’ Outlaws.

Well despite my hermit tendencies, I went out and partied this weekend! Here is my party outfit.

My friend from my old days in animation had a birthday party. She is now a shoe designer and I am a plush designer. Isn’t it interesting how life unfolds? The party invitation stipulated that guests come dressed as the universe. Do you think I look like the universe? Not Miss Universe, just the universe. That would have been fun if somebody came dressed as Miss Universe. Or Mister. Well nobody else dressed up. Seems like the story of my life – me being the only one to dress weird. Gotta love it. I was voted “most unusually dressed” in my high school yearbook. It was foretold! Life unfolds!

Here is the birthday present I put together for my pal. I thought it was a fun idea worth sharing, so here you go.

The original concept was to gather all the ingredients to make some fancy mixed beverages. Well I forgot a few things and added rosemary. I don’t think rosemary has any place in a drink, but it makes a nice smelling mini bouquet. I should have added sweetened condensed milk for the thai tea and some seltzer for the mojitos. I remembered everything else though. I like to save cute jars and bottles for projects such as this. It wouldn’t make much sense to rebottle seltzer anyway, and a can of milk is not so pretty. Or so I justify. I used a sharpie on some blank sticker paper to make the labels. The pot has mint roots in it so there will be more mint later.

All together now:

I might have made the final presentation more exciting, but I think the garden fresh herbs helped me pull it off with simplicity. It’s nice that I still have usable herbs growing out in the yard in October. I should probably make a final harvest soon, though. Death to plants is coming soon.

As if I didn’t have enough tummyache for one week, all this political poppycock and bailout bulldunky is making this me quite queasy. So I’ve gone and plastered web banners for my favorite pick all over my website, MySpace, and Facebook. Hopefully it will get a few extra people to remember to register. If you haven’t registered yet, do it now. Time is running out! I mean now, like right now. Don’t even keep reading this! If you wanna spread some web graphic Obama love around too, you can get your banners here:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/downloads

My favorite coat: