Monday, June 1st, 2009 | Recipes

I had a party at my apartment and wanted to make a dessert that would impress. Normally I’m not a cupcake fan, I mean, they’re pretty annoying to eat. If society allowed it, I’d eat it with a knife and fork. Nonetheless, I had to make cupcakes when I stumbled upon some lovely cookie monster cupcakes. Aren’t they adorable? They’re also super easy to make!

I started with a basic chocolate cupcake and made up a batch of vanilla buttercream icing. Then, using a few blobs of blue food coloring (gel kind) I turned the icing a delightful shade of cookie monster blue. Next came the fur. I took a bag of sweetened coconut flakes, added a few blobs of the coloring, and proceeded to mix it with my hands until every little shaving was coated. Then I simply iced the cupcakes and dipped them in the coconut mixture. To get the eyes, I cut off the ends of marshmallows, glued them on with the icing, and glued some chocolate chips onto them. Finally, I shoved cookies into their mouths. Ultra easy and a big hit. Next up is Oscar the Grouch!

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Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 | General

I just had to post these pictures somewhere. I had intended this site to be purely recipes and tutorials but, well, that was before a kitten came into the apartment. You know how these things work. This kitten’s mother was killed by a dog, so my roommate’s sister decided to take her. Isn’t she (he?) cute?

I just love little paws. I’m going to need to take some paw pictures soon. Here are a few more adorable pictures:

Duck: Pssst, come here!

*whisper whisper*

Cat: “The duck said I must kill the “other one.”

Saturday, April 25th, 2009 | Photoshop

This Photoshop tutorial is a little odd coming from me considering I rarely wear make up and have been known to put deodorant on in the car, forget to shower, rub my head on my dog’s butt, roll on the cafeteria floor, etc. I really could go on for a very long time, but I digress. This tutorial is geared towards those of you with etsy shops who model your own jewelry or clothing etsy. We all know that the picture is a big factor in the sale, so why shouldn’t you have the best picture you can?

First, get a picture that you want to edit. I found this old photo of myself from last year. I don’t know why I took it. I assume it was vanity. Oh yeah–most of these pictures are clickable so that you can see a larger image.

Let’s begin with blemishes. I have two zits on my chin. To remove them, I’m simply going to use the healing brush tool. It’s the bandaid located in the toolbar, left column, fourth from the top. At the top, you need to change the size of the brush so that it’s about the size of what you want to fix. Then, find an area of skin close by and and alt+click it. Now, go to the zit and click and drag the brush over it. Magic! It’s gone! If a bit of it exists or if it didn’t quite cover up, keep experimenting with different sizes/areas until it goes away.

Now, it’s time to remove bags under the eyes and wrinkles! This next tool is really awesome. We’re going to grab the patch tool. Just click and hold the healing brush on the tool bar and you’ll see the patch option. Make sure source is selected at the top. Now, lasso the arrow around the bags or wrinkles. When you’ve lassoed it, drag it to a nearby area of skin that you want to copy.

Presto! Dark circles are gone!

Time to smooth out the skin. There are longer and better ways to do this, however this is fast and produces decent results. Go into the filters menu, down to blur, and select surface blur. Below are the settings I used, but you’ll need to experiment and see what works for you:

Be careful not to overdo it. It’s a good idea to have someone nearby to make sure that you still look human. Unfortunately all I have is the cat. You may notice you’re a little too smooth. That’s easily fixable by adding some noise from the filter menu. I added 1.5%, uniform, monochromatic. Sometimes in pictures I appear very pink, so I slightly adjusted the hue (Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation). You can also lasso any areas that you want to change and adjust them individually that way.

Finally, my eyes were a little dull so I decided to brighten them up. Create a new layer (shift+ctrl+n) and call it eyes. Now, grab the paint brush and choose a color that’s similar to your natural eye color, maybe a tad brighter. Hey, we want these items to sell, don’t we? Start painting on top of your eyes in the new layer. Only paint over the iris. If you have a small area to work with, adjust the size of the brush accordingly. Once you’re done, change the layer from normal to overlay in the layers palette. I decided to reduce the opacity because I looked a little freakish. 26% seemed about right for me, but it really depends on how bright of a color you chose to begin with. The top eyes are my dull, dingy ones. The bottom are my brand new blues!

And now, drumroll please!

Before

After

I don’t think I went too crazy, right? Ok, maybe I did a little…but trust me, I could have gone waaaay further. It’s a slippery slope playing with your appearance in Photoshop. Be careful…

And just for kicks, here I am at the beach with kitty!

Thursday, April 16th, 2009 | Photoshop

A tool I use for just about every banner and shop ad I make is the lasso tool in Photoshop. This tool allows you to get rid of the messy background and just cut out the image you want. Within photoshop, you have three options: lasso, magnetic lasso, and polygonal lasso. The standard lasso relies on you clicking on your image and then dragging around the item you want to select. The magnetic lasso is a clever rope–you drag around the item and it attempts to find the edges of what you want to select. My recent favorite, however, is the polygonal lasso. Rather than just dragging around an object, it creates straight lines and you click to make a line in a new direction. What’s very nice about this tool is that you get to choose what’s selected and you don’t need a steady hand like the regular lasso requires. So, let’s get started. You’ll need an image with a background that you wish to remove. Here is my roommate’s cat stealing my yarn. He’s on my roommate’s rug. I hate the rug and want it gone. The cat can stay.

First, we need to blow up this picture so we can get precise lines. Go into the view menu and click Fit on Screen. If it’s still not big enough, use the magnifying glass to zoom in a bit.

Now, select the polygonal lasso tool. It’s on your toolbar, left column, second from the top. You need to click and hold the icon in order to select the correct lasso:

Once you have the tool selected, click ones on the edge of the picture you want to select. Then, follow the edge of the picture until it curves. When you see a curve coming, you’re going to click right before it and then angle the line against the new border. Each red dot you see below represents where I made a new click. You’re basically drawing an outline around the cat using only straight lines. Don’t worry if your object has a lot of curves–you can even draw a circle with straight lines. Go geometry!

As you’re doing this, be very careful not to double click. If you do, Photoshop assumes you’re done and you won’t have your entire selection. Really, be careful. If you should make a mistake and click in the wrong spot, simply hit backspace as many clicks as you want to revert to.

Once you’ve reached the end, click on the very first point you made and your selection will have a moving outline. Go into the edit menu, hit copy, and paste it into a new document or on top of another picture. This will automatically create a new layer of just that image. If you took a little background with it, don’t worry. That can easily be cleaned up with the eraser tool.

Kitty is pretty dull, so I decided he needed to visit the beach. Enjoy kitty!

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 | Recipes

This last weekend I visited my parents in Phoenix and as soon as I walked in the door, my mom exclaimed that she had a job for me: decorating cupcakes. While I was a bit wary at first, I quickly came around when I saw how I was to decorate them. There, on the cover of Family Circle, were the most adorable Hostess recreations! If you’re interested in them, it was p. 127 of the April 17 2009 issue.

They’re surprisingly simple to make. Just bake some chocolate cupcakes and once they’re cool, insert a piping tip into the top about half an inch down, and pipe in some white frosting. Then, dip the cupcake tops in a ganache so that the tops are covered. Once they’re dried, simply pipe on some frosting in curly-q’s.

Now you too can buy the ingredients and bake your own hostess cupcake instead of having to go to the painstaking trouble of unwrapping a pre-made one!

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 | Recipes

Although it is common knowledge that alfredo sauce is the king of the sauces, I will let one be the prince. That sauce is Basil Cream Sauce.  Not quite a pesto sauce due to the cream, the sauce rivals many restaurants in its taste. This recipe comes from AllRecipes.com and is quite good when made following the recipe to the letter. Following the comments, I made a few changes, however, which you’re welcome to try:

Basil Cream Sauce

• 2 cups fresh basil leaves
• 4 cloves garlic, minced (I used 6. It’s good for you!)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 pint light cream
• 1tbs each flour and butter

I cooked several cloves of garlic in about  a tbs. or so of butter, then made a roux with the same amount of flour. I then added the cream until it simmered. The recipe doesn’t call for a roux, but it gave it a little extra thickness which I liked. If you are opting to use milk instead of the cream, I’d go for it.

Meanwhile, I processed the basil and a couple cloves of garlic in the food processor and slowly poured in the oil until it started to emulsify. You can add pine nuts but I didn’t. Tastes just fine without. I added the cheese and processed for about a minute more.

I poured some of the hot cream mixture to the processor and pulsed until it was combined. Then, I added the basil mix into the rest of the cream on the stove and cooked it another five or so minutes until it was thickened. This is something you need to eat hot, otherwise it will get a little lumpy. It does keep well, and I’ve read that if you refrigerate the basil mix w/out the cream, it will last awhile.

You should make this. Really, just do it. It’s good.

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 | General

I’m still tweaking things here and there, but this blog is finally up and running! Well, almost. It doesn’t quite have a name yet and I’m out of ideas. “Emilyadi Designs” doesn’t really sound like a blog name, you know? Calling it simply “Emilyadi” sounds weird. “Moonlit Cat” doesn’t relate to me. So, what should I call it? I’ll be using this blog to post craft related things and I want it to appeal to etsy visitors.

I’ve decided on a contest. Please comment with your ideas for a title and make sure to include your email address. The person with the winning idea will receive their choice of a free shop banner, business card design, or web ad from my etsy shop, Emilyadi Designs. I’d offer to make the winner a blog layout, but after spending so much time on this one, I think I need to take a little break from blog graphics or else someone will get hurt :)

Don’t make the puppy cry :(