Crafts

Accio Stamps!

10:43 AM

Hello! It's been a while since I've updated the blog and since it's almost Halloween, I've decided to do  a small post on paper crafting.

Just this month, the Sweet Stamp Shop released the most amazing stamp set named Wizards. I've been quite addicted to Sweet Stamp Shop's stamps as they're super cute and super fun to play with and stamp in my Happy Planner. So, I went ahead and purchased the set with the intention of decorating the week I travel to Florida to visit the new Harry Potter attraction at Universal Studios, attend a conference, and visit my cousin who is working for Disney World.

So late last night, I did a little crafting to get my mind off the many maps and ancient texts I have to decipher of the Ancient Near East to determine the factors leading up to the Battle of Qadesh.

I pulled out two of my Sweet stamps, a couple of vintage wood mounted rubber stamps, Memento black ink, acrylic block, and a watercolour pad (I will list the materials I used for this project at the end of the post).



I began stamping using the Memento Tuxedo Black in with the intent of embossing the images, but after stamping a few images, I decided that it was getting late in the evening and bed time is a lot more important as I have to get up early in the morning and get cracking on those maps.

After laying out the maps and the outline of events on my desk this morning, I wasn't feeling up to working at all. And lo and behold, the stamped page was sitting at the corner of my craft desk, which is adjacent to my working desk. It was calling out to me! Needless to say, I got cracking on the craft rather than on my work.


I started using the Michael's brand, Artist Loft markers to colour in the faces. I chose the flesh toned marker and started on the girl wizard. I didn't realize that the color was off when put on paper. Instead, I used the peach Crayola coloured pencil and the color turned out great!


For the rest of the wizards, I continued to use the Artist Loft Markers. As you can tell, from the first girl wizard was the trial run and the subsequent wizards turned out a lot better.


After I had the wizards colored out, I went ahead and continued on with the other stamped images.


Now, it's time for some fussing cutting, but after I get some work done. I'll continue on with a post on how I used these cute wizards and the Sunshine stamps in my Happy Planner layout. So stay tuned!

Food

Aloha! Delish food from Hawaiian Style Cafe

7:43 AM

Aloha!

This post is coming to you with love from the island of Hawaii. As a historian, I could give you a full blown lesson on the real history of Hawaii, not the haole version they all want us to know, but I won't. Instead, whilst on my trip, I'll give you guys some tips on restaurants to visit.

We first landed in Kona on October 7 and made our way around the island to stay in the city of Hilo. We could have stayed at our condo/timeshare at Worldmark Kona, but our reservation wasn't until the next day and the reason we flew in early is because of airfare costs. The couple we were traveling with can't travel mid-week and the earliest they can depart was on a Friday. There were a bit of last minute changes, which is one of the reasons why we ended up booking a hotel in Hilo for one night.

If you happen to stay or take a road trip to Hilo, which is only about a two hour drive, take the time to visit Hawaiian Style Cafe. They feature local food in large plates at an affordable price.

We had three different dishes ordered. Since I'm a vegetarian, I ordered the Haupia (Coconut Creme) pancakes. There were two pancakes stacked on top of each other and have taken up the whole plate. It is topped with coconut creme, toasted coconut shavings, and whipped cream. If you're going to order this, I would say share it with another person or two. It's such a big pancake that you can't expect to finish it by yourself.


The next dish that was ordered was called the Mok-A-Saurus. The name of the dish alone told us that it was going to be big. It's the restaurant's take on the local favourite, Loco Moco. This is one of the few versions they had on the menu.

The Mok-A-Saurus is a bed of fried rice topped with Spam, chicken cutlet, kalua pork, hamburger patty, two eggs, and brown gravy. As a pescetarian/vegetarian, this is something I would not order and if I did, I would just be ordering the eggs, rice and brown gravy ... not this meat lover's heaven.

As said, it was quite big. I tried portions of it (without the meat) and it was delicious. It might seem too much with the fried rice and the gravy, but they both complemented each other well. I can't say what it would have tasted like with the meat, but according to Michael, it was heavenly.


Lastly, the other local favourite ordered was the Ahi Poke Nachos. You won't find this on their regular menu, but if you look at the specials, you will find it there. I really can't tell you what kind of sauce they used, what's on top, but from what I saw, the tortilla chips were topped with freshly caught ahi tuna, avocado, tomato, seaweed shavings, green onions, wasabi mayo, and possibly sriracha. I tried a couple of bites.... yes.... I had some meat. I know I said I'm a vegetarian, but I do occasionally consume fish as long as its caught, not farm raised.

The nachos were delicious and also full of flavour. The tortilla chips were crispy and light.


Overall, I would say our brunch foodieventure was a success. It is definitely worth it to take a road trip to Hilo if you're coming from Kona to get a taste of Hawaiian Style Cafe's food.

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