I'm visiting the west coast for some sunshine and fabric sourcing. Although most of the time was spent in LA traffic, I did manage to get in some skating, beach time, and fabric hunting. The image above is of the path on Venice Beach. I snapped the pic while skating down it with my boyfriend on our way to the skatepark.

I searched down town Los Angeles and the Fashion District for just the right fabric and I'll end up needing to add another suitcase to bring back my findings. I found some super rad indigo tie dye print fabric I just LOVE. See the sneak peek below. I have lots of idea of what to make out of it.

The hunt was real! I searched for hours on several different days. I rummaged through hundreds of different bolts of fabric from lots of different types of fabric dealers. Here's and inside look below.

Venice Beach is an interesting place with a lot of characters and creative energy. It's a very artsy community with a lot of people who make there living right there on the beach. From dog walkers to clothing vendors to street performers, they all bask in the sun during their work day.

My boyfriend LOVES Linzer cookies!! I've Made these a few times for him as a Valentine's treat. These are from the Williams Sonoma Cookies and Biscotti cookbook. It's a lot of work especially making the frames (top cut-out cookie) but a lot of love goes into them as well. And when you taste the buttery sweetness and crisp crunch with the jelly filling, it will all be worth it!!! Find the recipe online here.

This is by no means a healthy dessert but if you are looking to indulge for the night and want an easy sweet fix, this is a great option. It was as simple as a box of cake mix, some mixed berries, vanilla frosting, and some dark chocolate chips. Follow the instructions as per the box then mix 1 1/2 cups of mixed berries into batter once in the bundt pan. Bake as directed. Mash about 1/4 cup mixed berries and mix into vanilla frosting. When the cake cools and you have placed it on your serving dish, drizzle with frosting and melted dark chocolate. 

This is the perfect dessert if you are having the girls over for a singles V-day night because it make a enough for 5 more people. If its just for you and your boo you'll have some leftover for a few more love filled nights. 

The waves wash up so many beautiful treasures and I just can't  help but take them with me. After a while i'm forced to come up with ideas of what to do with all the shells, sea glass, and other beach finds. I literally have shells everywhere in my apartment! I love the beach and I love the the outdoors and having the elements of nature inside makes me happy. I love to turn a corner in my apartment or look down to the floor and see the perfect curvature of a spiraled shell or the beautiful frosted turquoise color of beach glass. It just puts me in a great mood and inspires me.

Filling glass containers with all size shells was my first reaction. I've filled mason jars, honey jars, perfume bottles, and even petri dishes! Shell collecting has become an easy and economic way to decorate.

The pink and purple shell fragments are from a trip to Costa Rica I took last year with my boyfriend. Some shells in the pictures are from the beaches of Northern California but most shell I found right across the street in Rockaway Beach New York. 

The original idea of the petri dishes was to put both sides together so that the shells were inside and I could dust the outside but I just have too many shells that I want to display so the lids got used as containers as well. I bought all different sizes off eBay. (I'm kind of obsessed with eBay. Its like a yard sale or vintage store that delivers right to your door! I love it!)

Another idea I had was to encase the shells in the petri dishes and seal them closed, then tie a ribbon around the outside and make Christmas ornaments but I found something else better for that.

I learned around gourding as a craft from my Aunt in California. You can do all sort of cool things with them. Most people carve them out and make decorative bowls out of them and stain or paint them. My aunt has made some beautiful gourds some with braided leather rims and others with studs that were countersunk into them. I tried to get creative and drilled tiny holes in patterns into the hollowed out gourd and made a hole in the bottom to insert a flameless candle. It was a test run and lit up how I wanted but I need to perfect the design of the hole patterns. I'll post it as soon as I get to it.

I like the mixing of the shells with the wood looking gourd. Its nice to have different elements come together. This came about just to save space. I do lots of crafts and my craft/art cabinet doesn't always have room for larger supplies like large gourds.

The weather has been back and forth here in NY. One day sunny and the next snowing. Today we got the best of both. The sun came out by 2pm and the beach had a fresh blanket of snow. This is Presley's (my dog) favorite scenario. She LOVES the beach!! In fact you can't even say the word around her with out perking up at full attention like ... are we going? are we going? .....tell me we're going? And she also LOVES the snow. She loves to run through it, roll in it, and eat it. When the snow starts to melt and there are only patches left, Presley always makes sure to find them.

DIY step by step instructions to come.

I modified this recipe quite a bit from one I found online. I searched LOTS of "healthy" zucchini muffin and bread recipes but found they all still used processed sugar and flour. I'm trying to cut back on carbs and I usually use raw honey as my sweetener so I created my own recipe. These are delicious and moist!! (sorry for those of you that don't like that word) Most of the recipes used 1 1/2cups of flour. I modified this by subsituting it with a combination of Almond meal, oat flour, whole wheat flour, and ground flax seed.
Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups Mixed flour (1 part Oat Flour, 1 part Whole Wheat Flour, 1 part mostly Almond Meal with ground flax seed mixed in (about 2 1/2 Tbsp)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• Dash of cinnamon
• 1/3 cup raw honey
• 2 drops pure stevia extract
• about 1/2 cup  60% chocolate chips (I actually placed about 3 chips in each muffin)
• 1/2 cup applesauce (unsweetened)
• 1/3 cup coconut oil + 2 Tbsp almond oil
• 1 tsp  apple cider vinegar 
• 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup grated zucchini ( I used the grater on my food processor & then the "S" blade)

Total Time: 20m
Makes 10-12
​Calories: about 176 each

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Combined wet ingredients in a separate bowl then mix into the dry mixture. Add chocolate chips and nuts if you want and then spoon into muffin tins lined with paper baking cups. Bake for 16-19 mins.
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I made these for breakfast this morning and enjoyed them with a hot cup of Chocolate Truffle tea. 

Living at the beach I'm always finding all kinds of cool shells. Whenever I take my dog down to play or just go for a walk on the beach, I always find myself looking down hoping to find some sort of treasure. My eye searches to pick out these tiny spiraled shells among the common shells. These ones are all smaller than a dime. I love how perfectly they are formed and how detailed they are in their mini state. This is the perfect time of the year to find large and micro shells. Its off season and that means I pretty much have the beach to myself. More shells for me! Ha. 

The other day I found this awesome large shell formation that has all these crevices or perfect potholes. I automatically thought it would be a great way to display all of the tiny shells i've found. I just love how it make each shell standout.