Blizzards Put Me in the Mood for Sorbet

So interview season is underway! I traveled to Springfield, Ma for my first interview this weekend, and of course, it just happened to be during the first blizzard of the year. Whereas Boston barely noticed the snow, Western Massachusetts and Connecticut were completely slammed by heavy, wet snow that destroyed trees and power lines. Many towns in the area are still without power today. I spent the night at my brother's new house and prepared for my interview in the morning without heat, hot water, or light. I'm just happy I was able to put on makeup by the light of a small flashlight balanced on the edge of the sink.

Since I spent much of this weekend freezing, I thought it would be appropriate to update the blog with my first adventure into the world of fruit sorbet. I found the recipe for mango sorbet in The Joy of Cooking with a few minor adjustments.

Tools:
-- Food Processor
-- strainer
-- ice cream maker or Kitchenaid attachment

Ingredients:
-- 3/4 cup sugar, additional sugar to taste
-- 1/2 cup water
-- 3 mangoes, peeled and pitted
-- 2 tablespoons lime juice
-- 1 tablespoon peach schnapps

First I simmered the sugar and water on the stove top for a few minutes in order to dissolve the sugar, and then I set it aside to cool. Next I peeled, pitted, and pureed the mangoes. This sorbet was one of the first things I made with my new food processor, and it was amazing! I don't know how I ever lived this long without one. I put the puree through a hand strainer just to make sure that it was all uniform. I stirred in the lime juice and peach schnapps -- it's important to add some sort of alcohol to the sorbet because it keeps the sorbet from freezing into a block of much less tasty ice and instead keeps it nice and soft. Lastly, the sugar water mixture is added (I threw some more sugar in after tasting it), and I popped the whole thing into the refrigerator for about an hour.

I set up the ice cream attachment on the kitchenaid. I always have the freezing bowl in the freezer so I can make ice cream at any moment. One final stir of the mixture, and then I was ready to pour it into the ice cream maker. It ran for about 30 minutes, and then I divided the sorbet into plastic containers to freeze for the next 4 hours. Yum!

Make-your-own Teeshirt Time

With 2.5 rotations of 4th year under my belt, I thought it was time to finally update with some of the backlogged crafts from earlier in the summer. This was my second attempt at making my own iron on transfer image teeshirts. In the past, I've ordered dark transfer sheets from amymickey at: http://amymickey.com/. They are absolutely fabulous; they come with great directions, feel incredibly soft, and are still vibrant after washing. However, I didn't have enough time to order, so I went to Michael's to pick up both teeshirts and Printworks Dark T-shirt Transfers.

What are dark transfers?
There are both dark and light transfer sheets. Light transfers are meant to go on white teeshirts only; any part of your design that is white, will come out the color of the teehirt. If you use a dark color teeshirt with a light design, the shirt color will show through, and your design colors will be off.

I've only used dark transfers. You can use any color teeshirt and any part of your design that is white, will show up white. Another advantage is that you don't need to change your design to a mirror image because what you print is what you see on the shirt. There is some cutting involved; if you iron on the whole transfer, your design will be the shape of a regular sized piece of paper.

Bachelorette Shirts
With my teeshirts and transfers in hand, I started making my designs. You can use just about anything to make your designs. Unfortunately, I don't have any fancy programs, so I just use MS Word. My best friend loves chocolate, so I thought that her favorite food would make an interesting theme. I found a ton of chocolate clip art on the internet for the front of the shirt. I used pictures of individual colored M&Ms and lined them up to make letters for the back of the shirt. They turned out great! Up close, they look like M&Ms, and from far away you can make out the word "sweet" and the bachelorette's name.
Once I print out the designs I like to peel the back of the transfer to the corner of the design (as pictured on the left). This makes it easier to peel the back off once I cut out the image. Then, I cut around the design so that they are ready to go.

I find it works best if I pre-wash the teeshirts in mild soap and dry them in the dryer (without any dryer sheets). This ensures to remove any dirt or starch on the shirts so that the image will adhere better. You'll need a surface to insert in between the layers of the shirt. I use a piece of wood covered by a pillowcase. Next, I peel the backing off of the cut design and place it where I would like on the teeshirt. Use the provided tissue paper to put on top of the transfer and make sure to apply even pressure with the iron. I split the design into three sections and iron each section for approximately 15 seconds at a time. I also go around the edges several times to make sure that the edges won't lift up when I'm done. Make sure to keep that iron moving -- if you see the tissue paper starting to yellow, you may be spending too long in one place. Next, let the tissue paper cool for a few seconds and carefully peel it away. If the color of part of the design looks a little dull, try replacing the tissue paper and re-ironing that area.

Let the teeshirts set for 24-48 hours before washing or wearing them. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Printworks transfers did survive the wash. Just make sure to use cold water and to wash the shirt separately. I didn't remove mine from the washer immediately, so some of the colors ran a tiny bit.

I love using transfers to make my teeshirts because I have full creative control over the designs. Anything that I can come up with on the computer I can put onto a shirt! This project was especially great for the bachelorette party because I could easily personalize each shirt with the name of a different bridesmaid. The teeshirts were just the beginning to a great night out.

Mango-Papya Scented Elephant Soap

I'm currently finishing up a 7 week break from medical school, courtesy of the 3 week gap between 3rd and 4th year combined with taking the first block off of 4th year. Since my first Sub-Internship starts on this upcoming Monday, I thought it was time to update the blog a little bit, as my craft and cooking projects are starting to get a bit backed up. That brings us to the elephant soaps!

Originally, I was looking for something that would serve as a cute, cost-effective memento for the guests at my wedding to take home with them. I also wanted it to be something they might actually use, and since I wish everyone loved washing their hands as much as I do, the idea of decorative soaps popped into my head. They are both pleasing to the eye and functional! As for the elephant shape, that has to do with my Alma mater, Tufts University. Jumbo the Elephant is the amazing mascot of Tufts University and seemed a fitting choice since the wedding was held at that location. And yes, Jumbo is awesome -- my mascot can squish your mascot.

Since it became painfully obvious that buying soap in 1 lb bricks at the craft store would not be thrifty, I stumbled upon Wholesale Supplies Plus (http://www.wholesalesuppliesplus.com) where I was able to purchase a 24 lb brick of ultra white soap base, blue dye, and mango papaya fragrance oil for a reasonable price. I purchased elephant candy molds from Amazon, along with a food scale, large measuring cup, and dough scraper from Target. The picture to the left is the soap block with at least 1 lb already removed. Once I had the supplies, the process was quite simple.

Since the soap can get quite slippery, I used the dough scraper to cut away chunks of the soap base and the large handle kept me from cutting myself. I measured out 1 lb of soap using the scale and then dumped that into my makeshift double boiler (which happens to be a regular sauce pan topped by an oven-safe glass bowl). Once the soap melted to liquid, I added 1 tbsp of fragrance and enough of the dye to achieve the color that I wanted. Next, I quickly transferred the melted soap mixture to the measuring cup for more precise pouring into the molds. A quick spray with alcohol ensured that no bubbles formed on top and then the soap was left to cool for about an hour in the molds. Probably the most difficult part was prying the soap from the molds once cooled, which had to be done with constant even pressure on the mold. Unfortunately, not all the molds survived as I cracked them in the process. Too much pressure! In the end, I made over 150 scented elephant soaps. I have enough left over to survive many-a-hand washing.

More Invites

Since my first attempt at paper crafts went surprisingly well, I decided to try my hand at making invites for a friend's bridal shower. This time, I went to Paper Source to purchase violet folding cards and matching envelopes, so I didn't have to worry about cutting any paper. For this project, I also used the rotary cutter on my paper cutter for the first time. It's surprisingly easy to use; just line up the paper, pick a cutter design disk with the cut that you want, pop it in, and slide the rotary cutter once, and voila! A beautiful cut! I used the rotary cutter to make some snazzy gold velum with white polka dots pop. For the printed insert of the invite, I once again used Staples to print out what I had designed in Word onto card stock. I like to have all the parts of the card cut, printed, stamped, and ready to go before I assemble the pieces. On the left is a quick shot of some of the supplies.

Of course, I used my new love, the double sided tape clicker, to attach all the parts together. Finally, I used sea foam white embossing powder and the versamark stamp to emboss the flower image on the front. Embossing is such a quick way to add some texture and elegance to paper crafts.


Next up, my first go at soap making! More on that in a few days.

Wedding Invites

For the last couple of weeks I've been working on making my own wedding invitations. Currently, I am on a ten week Medicine rotation and I'm just about to finish up third year of medical school! It's been a good rotation, but with 30 hour call once a week, maybe it was not the best time to undertake this project. It took a little more time than I thought it would, but it was worth it in the end. There was one small hiccup in the production when my fiance tried to be helpful and constructed 40 invites on his own to save me time -- they then needed to be re-cut and reconstructed from scratch by me afterward because I'm picky. I felt really badly because he had worked so hard, but I really wanted them all to look the same and that would be difficult with two different people constructing them in different ways, with different methods for measuring and taping.

I decided that there would be three parts to my invites: The actual invite, the response card, and an insert with additional information and a map.

Invite:

There are four parts to the main invite. I started by creating the actual written part of the invite in Word, found the wording and font that I wanted, and then I sent the document to staples where they printed it onto white card stock. They did a great job, and it saved me the ink from my own printer. The middle paper layer was a black and white design that I found at Michael's in the scrapbooking section, and the outer layer was a red cardstock from Paper Source. I used my brand new papercutter to cut everything to the appropriate size (how did I live without one all of this time?!). Then I assembled the three layers using double sided click dispenser tape and a ruler to attach them together. The last step was to use a special ribbon hole punch that puts two vertical punches right next to each other and to tie the ribbons. Here's a photo with all the ribbons strung, and just waiting to be tied.


Response Cards:
Next, I created the response cards. I already had the printed information from Staples: I was able to place two invites and two response cards on each copy from Staples, so I just cut them apart. The assembly was the same as above; cut the three paper layers, cover the edges with clicker tape, and use a ruler to assemble. To make the process go a little quicker, I would put the tape around the edges of 10 invites at a time, assemble those 10, and then continue from there. Here's a picture of all the cut paper layers ready to be assembled and a quick look at the mat and ruler that I used to make sure that everything was even.

Inserts:
The final step was the wedding insert that has all the hotel, webpage, and location information that I did not want to muck up the actual invite. The hardest part was finding a map online that I wanted to use. The wedding will be at a church on a college campus, which is private property, and therefore does not have an actual address that can be entered into a GPS. Hopefully it will all end up okay; I included more maps on the wedding webpage, and I'm sure we'll put some signs up so that people can find their way. For the insert, I made a Word file again that had two copies on one sheet, sent it to Staples, and had it printed on white cardstock. After a few hours they were ready for pick up and I just cut them in half. To spruce them up a little bit, I stamped a design on the top, covered it in embossing powder, and used the heat tool to create a raised image. The finished insert came out great, as did the invites in general. As I mentioned before, I was pleased with the outcome; I just had such a hard time finding invites that fit my style when looking online, so I'm glad I was able to find this as a solution. Besides the fact that it was very relaxing to come home and do something that was not related to medicine, I'm proud that I actually finished a project!

Why exactly am I doing this?

So, I'm currently finishing up the 3rd year of medical school (31 days to go and counting) and looking back on the year I've realized that it was much more difficult to have spontaneous fun outside of the hospital. Instead, I tried to plan out very specific craft and cooking projects to finish in the time allotted between work, sleep, study, and other obligations. Medicine is my passion, but in order to be fully refreshed for those long hours I need to unwind with something totally unrelated. I thought that documenting what I accomplish might actually encourage me to finish projects through to the end, and even might allow me to get ideas for future activities from anyone (dare I hope?) who would read and comment on my blog. So that's the story. Hopefully by the end of fourth year I will be matched into an awesome residency program AND have a collection of fun do-dads that I made myself.