get it in gear

September 3, 2014 ~ ghostfaceknitter ~ 2 Comments

wow. Well I guess with labor day this weekend, the summer is officially over. I, for one, had the best summer of my life. I learned so much about myself, conquered some really big personal mind-blocks, and did a bunch of cool shit. Plus I let go entirely of the control I felt I had on my life and in doing so was surprised to find what I’d hoped and dreamed for all along.

I’m a fan of lists so I guess I’ll just do a little list of the things I experienced this wonderful wonderful summer.

1. Rode 1000 + miles on my bike – yep from memorial day to labor day. I hit the 1k. SO RAD.

2. Learned to brew my own Kombucha, make my own Kale chips, and can my own shelf stable foods.

3. Celebrated 1 year sober.

4. Joined Title Boxing.

5. Ran the majority of days during lunch – with awe inspiring views.

6. Let go of bad self-esteem and closed the door on relationships that make me feel badly.

7. Opened an Etsy Store! Weeeee!

8. Got tattooed.

9. Did the Whole30 Challenge with Lois.

10. Embarked on a new adventure with lots of motorcycles, antiques, and laughs.

It was a damn good summer. Now that it's over I need to focus and get it in gear for a productive and great Fall. That means, tightening up the budget, dedicating myself to 3 days of boxing a week, focusing at work and hustling for a promotion hopefully, and giving GFK + the etsy store my undivided attention.

lesssss dooooo this.

xxx
GFK

GHOSTFACEKNITTER ETSY STORE

August 18, 2014 ~ ghostfaceknitter ~ Leave a comment

IT’S HERE………

GHOSTFACEKNITTER ON ETSY

Thanks for all my friends, family, and followers for the love and support to finally open an etsy store.

Big things start now.

XXX
GFK

Ghostfaceknitter Etsy Shop COMING SOON!

July 18, 2014 ~ ghostfaceknitter ~ 1 Comment

I have been quite the crafting fool lately. I have had several custom orders from people through Instagram and now with that momentum I have decided to open an Etsy store as Ghostfaceknitter!

Huzzah! I’m guesstimating in the next two/three weeks I will go live with that store – and you all will be in the know when I do – have the confirmed timeline. Let’s take a look at some of the items I’ve been stock piling, custom making for you lovely lovely GFK supporters.

What do you think? I’m think about cowls, sunglasses cases, different skirts/shirts/dresses, and of course more cakes! 🙂

toodles
xxx
GFK

Chicago Modern Quilting Guild

April 30, 2014 ~ ghostfaceknitter ~ Leave a comment

Oh my cow. I can’t believe it’s already Wednesday. I swear I blinked on Sunday and here I am! Speaking of the weekend I finally hit 1000 followers on Instagram! Weee. To celebrate I made this cute little celebration cake cozy.

On Sunday, I was so kindly invited to attend the Chicago Modern Quilting Guild and let me just say WOW. I didn’t really know what to expect. In crafting, I find that fellow crafters are either really friendly and welcoming or the other extreme of incredibly protective and clique-like. I was very pleased to find that CMQG was the former – full of enthusiastic and warm women. I seriously was jaw dropped at the kind of creativity and happenings in this local quilt guild. It was a ‘demo-day,’ which meant we had four different short, but informative demos. I learned a great deal focusing on ‘squaring up your quilt’, labeling your quilt, creating a sleeve to hang your quilt (yay! no more ruined door panels!), and finishing borders. Then during the show and tell portion. HOLY QUILT BATMAN. Let me just say I have always been impressed by traditional quilting, but modern quilting and concepts for inspiration BLEW ME AWAY. I seriously can’t believe how amazingly creative and talented this guild is.

Robbi Joy Eklow. QUILTING GENIUS & Epically wonderful lady.

I was just so impressed and inspired. I think I’ll go ahead and work on some cute little beginner patterns for quilting some coasters or maybe a door panel. I was so jazzed up I came home and knocked out a cute little embroidered semi-reversible baby bib.

I have 31 days until my GMAT. Then, on June 1…. Quilting….. the final frontier.

XXX
GFK

Lemon Cake Tissue Box Cover

March 14, 2014 ~ ghostfaceknitter ~ Leave a comment

Welp. I am one of those retro-crochet ladies now. I’m obsessed with the kitchy and the rather 50s-70s crochet patterns. I know loads of people actually hate crochet because of the toilet paper covers, the bathroom doilies, and the tissue box covers. Well sadly for those people, I am about to make a shit-load of that stuff.

Twinkie Chan really got the ball in motion for this new cult obsession and I think it will only get worse from here. There are coasters, covers, afghans, dustruffles, all sorts of things to crochet….

Anyways, here is my first attempt at the tissue box cover cake. Enjoy.

xxx
GFK

Some More Cupcakes

May 7, 2013 ~ ghostfaceknitter ~ 1 Comment

Over the weekend we had a good friend celebrating a birthday! We did several ‘birthday-themed’ things from dinners and drive-ins to drinks and cupcakes.

I’ve had a gift card to William-Sonoma’s for years now so there was FINALLY parking in the Lincoln Park location to shop at that store. My better-half is a kitchen gadget/knife junkie so he was in heaven. I love baking and realized that in my moves I misplaced/lost my standard 9X13 cake pan. I picked up one for $20 – which I thought was a great deal since the quality is much better than a cheaper glass version.

I was planning on making a cake, but then I spotted some special cupcake/cake mixes that WS makes. They literally had $25 cake mixes….. I couldn’t even think about spending that much money on a cake mix so I saw their cupcake mixes were 20% off for $10. The Dude suggested Red Velvet so we went for it.

I loved the recipe – I think I’m going to incorporate the vinegar, buttermilk, and oil into my Boxed-Cupcake Cheat recipe. It really made a difference in moisture and density.

The Cake:

Box Mix

2/3 C Buttermilk

2 Eggs

3/4 C Vegetable Oil

1 tsp White Vinegar

Frosting:

8 oz. Cream Cheese

8 Tbs Butter

1 3/4 C Confectioner Sugar

1 Tbs Vanilla Extract

The frosting was TO DIE FOR. I did sub the butter for Earth Balance. I’ve been trying to incorporate more vegan/vegetarian choices into my diet so not buying butter was a good place to start. The Dude was concerned about the amount of frosting on each cupcake and usually I agree with this less-is-more frosting ratio, but with this batch I was not going to doubt the people at WS who proportioned the recipes. People loved the cupcakes (even strangers at The Silver Palm)! The frosting to cake ratio was just on the edge of being too much so maybe next time I would scale back just a small amount. In the end the Dude abided and enjoyed a cupcake.

Plus check out the awesome ‘eyeball’ satanic theme decorating job!