Bundle of nerves

Tomorrow's the big day! More brown bread has been baked, green krispy treats have been made, cooking up some Champ...

 

What's the reason for a jumble of nerves? Well, the usual St. Patrick's Day performances as required being an Irish dancer.  This would seem like old hat, but last year I avoided the public displays of dancing (aside from competitions and minor performances) by escaping off to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day.  Not too shabby right? This year, I didn't have that excuse so I'm performing in a few numbers with my dance school.  It's not the usual competition numbers and I've only been doing them for a couple of weeks so I'm just trying to remember the jumble of steps going on in my head.  I do want to know why three steps in one dance I'm doing all start with the same sequence? Not that I don't like the steps but it just adds to the nerves! Anyways, I'll just keep practicing tonight when I'm not... prepping for the big presentation that I have at work first thing tomorrow morning! What?! Yes. I'm a bundle of nerves.

So, since I'm stalling a bit but can't focus on a particular crafty writing topic, how about I show you some of my favorite finds on Etsy?  I found some things on the trip to Seattle, and in general through Etsy's addictive treasury, so here are a few of my favorite finds.

Vintage inspired jewelry from Lauren Blythe Designs.  I love this ring and I picked one up in green.  I also had to have her Nautical Necklace.

When I was in Seattle I saw a shop that had the cutest little earrings!

The Bumbling Bird sells them on Etsy for a ridiculously low $12. Even cuter is their 'baker' necklace with a little muffin tin and whisk. Love! I've added it to my wishlist.

So hopefully your St. Patrick's Day plans are a little more light-hearted! What exciting things do you have planned? And what are your favorite shops to browse on Etsy?

Dancing my socks off

The life of an Irish dancer around St. Patrick's Day...

Sorry for the radio silence on the blog front, but I've been rehearsing non-stop for our upcoming dance performances.  The first one is tonight, and then we have about a week break to get ready for the big day and following weekend.  Some dancers from our school at performing at separate shows, so it's just been an adventure working around the different routine's and layout to fill in where dancers should be.

On top of all this, the hubby and I snuck away to Seattle last weekend for a dance competition and to stay with a good friend, Jonelle, who lives in the glorious Pacific Northwest.  It was my first time in Seattle for non-work related reasons, so I was excited to finally see the city as a tourist.

Feeling crabby?

The weather was (surprisingly) beautiful.  I think it rained in the night while we were sleeping, so we generally woke up to blue (and sometimes greyish) skies and enjoyed that for the rest of the day.

It's true... Coffee from Java Bean in Ballard

My dance competition went well.  A few hiccups on the slippery floor, but those things make you a better dancer, right?  Or at least give you scars to show off.  I won second place in a trophy special and received a really cool clover backed trophy.  I'll take any trophy but it's even more exciting when it's a design other than the typical angelic lady.

When I wasn't competing, I was tasting the delicious foods (and coffees) of Seattle with friends.  My former boss and good friend had also recently moved to Seattle, so we met up for lunch on Saturday.  We had a delicious burger and local beer at Hi-Life, then moved on to some cupcakes at Cupcake Royale.  The shop was very cute and served a mean cup of coffee as well as ridiculously cute shirts.  I really wanted the 'These Cupcakes are Taken' design, but restrained myself.  Their salted caramel cupcake was heavenly and ranked at the top of my list until...

Cupcakes from Cupcake Royale

Yellow Leaf Cupcake!  We spent Monday in the downtown Seattle doing touristy things like visiting Pike's Place Market, the first Starbuck's, and eating at Matt's at the Market.  Afterwards we swung by a cupcakery recommended by Jonelle: Yellow Leaf Cupcakes.  They were incredible!  They had amazing flavor creations like Pancakes and Bacon, Boston Cream Pie, etc.  Their menu rotates with over 100 varieties and sell out constantly.  We were in the shop around 1pm and they had already sold out of a handful of their flavors.  Lucky for me, they had a Spring cupcake available.

Spring cupcake from Yellow Leaf

Yellow Leaf Cupcake Company has a tendancy to combine flavors within their cupcakes.  The Spring cupcake was a perfect example of this.  The cupcake itself was a layer of strawberry, lavendar, and vanilla flavors (and how cute did the middle look?), and it was topped with an Italian buttercream.  It. was. AMAZING!

We had a chance to speak with one of the owners and he talked about their great concept with us.  They really are dedicated to quality cupcakes, and judging by the empty wrappers surrounding us, we were sold.  Wishing I could take a cupcake home with me was actually made possible by the fact that they made Cupcake-cotti.  They take any leftover cupcakes and bake it again turning it into a crispy biscotti like creation.  I had to take a bag home.  They also sell: cupcakes in a jar!  I didn't pick this up but was tempted.... very tempted.  I think I'll just have to plan another trip to Seattle to test this one out. Lucky for me, there seems to be a lot of Irish dance competitions going on in that area.

So that's where I've been! I'm hoping to get some craft time in this weekend, but as usual, it's filled with dance lessons and a bunch of other plans.  In my downtime I've been working on my St. Patrick's Day cross-stitch which should be done this weekend.  I'm looking forward to finishing off the Colette Spring Palette Challenge as the weather is starting to turn into the perfect opportunity to wear the creations.

Thanks for hanging in there readers and check in tomorrow for some delicious St. Patrick's Day sweet treats!

What's been keeping me busy?

I mentioned previously that on my birthday weekend and ramping up to it I was swamped with activities.  I have some pictures to share from my Scottish Highland dancing schools' annual 'Extravaganza' which help explain.

Our school decided to do a theme for the first time... which ended up requiring a lot of extra work.  We did 'Extravaganza in Wonderland,' where Alice falls into Wonderland that is being ruled by an Irish queen who only wants all things Irish.  However the people of Wonderland love Scottish music and dance and are fighting for the right to do it.  We have a few dancers at our school who do Irish and Scottish dancing (like myself) so we thought this storyline would be a fun way to incorporate both types of dance.

Of course, I shouldn't pick sides, but a majority of the dancing I did for the show was Irish as I played the character of the Irish queen.  As my Irish dancer classmates hadn't participated in a show like this before, I had to help put together a few costumes.  In preparation for the show, I made:

Jig dress with the new orange jackets. Circle skirts and their sashes.

2 green circle skirts (for our Irish/Scottish jig battle dance off)
Assisted in orange sashes to coordinate with the skirts
Made a vest for my husband, also an Irish dancer
Made an orange jacket to wear with my jig dress as my 'queenly' type costume
Helped put together the 'trees' used as the backdrop for Wonderland

The back of my husbands' vest

This was all pretty time consuming but looking back, it was all worth it.  I loved the way my jacket came out, and I'm happy that I was finally able to make a vest for my husband.  He's been competing in Irish for a while and has always had to don the black pants, black button-up shirt combo.  The vest I made him is black in front but with a nice green satin back.  I can't wait for him to wear it at a competition.

And now, some pictures from the show:

The Irish dancers in their solo dresses

The beginning of the show. Outside of Wonderland.

Alice is about to enter Wonderland

Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum. A sailor's hornpipe choreography

The flowers dancing a Flora

Dancers in their Aboyne costumes

Mad Hatter's tea party/cake walk

Final character dance