Please check out their schedule and see what might grab your attention. These films are always so interesting and well done – I hope you’re able to check one out this year!

Here are just a couple of the film synopses, the opening and closing events:

DOXA is extremely proud to open the festival this year with Vancouver director Corey Ogilvie’s Occupy The Movie, a film that exemplifies and expands the feisty tradition of documentaries such as The Corporation and The Take. Although the Occupy movement grew like lightning all over the globe, it had its origins right here in Vancouver. Following the example established by the protestors in New York, encampments sprang up around the globe, a series of brush fires that threatened to engulf the world. Interviews with Chris Hedges, Cornwel West, and Adbuster’s Kalle Lasn add intellectual heft. But it is ordinary people who describe the personal cost of putting their bodies on the front line of social change that speak the loudest. 

and

Back in the early 60s, a group of four young men performed in a low rent club called the Cavern. A seventeen-year old girl named Freda Kelly came to almost every performance. This is how Freda Kelly came to work with John, Paul, George and Ringo, a group of Liverpudlian lads who would become a group called The Beatles. As the band’s personal secretary she was along for the wild ride as Beatlemania reached epic heights. In Ryan White’s warm and sweetly humble film, Freda tells her stories for the first time. On the 50th Anniversary of the very first Beatles’ album (Introducing the Beatles) DOXA is happy to celebrate with Good Ol’ Freda, the woman behind the fab four. 

While they all sound fantastic, I think this year I’m going to check out Rent a Family Inc. and The Mosou Sisters.

For more information, please visit www.doxafestival.ca.

The Pin!

There’s always something about my cakes, cookies or cupcakes that never turn out quite right. I can whip up a mean dinner without any recipe to follow, but if you ask me to bake a cake, you should probably expect the worst. Although, if there’s one thing that I actually can bake, it’s banana bread. For some reason, I’ve been blessed with the ability to make this treat without goofing it up, and that makes my fiance a happy man.

Because of my previous success with banana bread, I thought I would try my luck at making this banana cake. Probably not as good for you, but everything in moderation, right?

The Project Process:

You will need the following ingredients:

• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons of softened butter
• 2 mashed super ripe bananas (the more brown spots, the better. Really!)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup of flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Let me just say that having everything for a recipe already at home makes me the happiest lady ever.

Preheat your oven to 375F, and make sure you oven rack is positioned in middle of your oven. To make sure that the cake bakes properly, you’ll want to have it baking in the right spot. Add the sugar, sour cream, egg and 2 tbsp of softened butter into your bowl and cream together. I used my kitchen-aid mixer, but this could easily have been mixed/creamed by hand.

Once your mixture is combined and creamy, it’s time to add the mashed bananas and the vanilla. If you haven’t mashed the bananas yet, now is the time to do it. I just throw them in a bowl, and mash by hand with a fork. You don’t want to try to mash the bananas while mixed with the other ingredients, it’ll cause your cake to be too dense.

Doesn’t that look delicious? Once your bananas are mashed and mixed into your mixing bowl, add the flour, salt and baking soda. Mix well, and pour into an 8×8 pan. I only had a 9×9 pan, and it turned out just fine. However, if all you have is a 9×13 pan, you will want to double the recipe. Also as an added note, you’ll want to make sure you grease your pan prior to pouring the batter in. I am constantly using Pam baking spray, which has a slight butter taste for baked treats. It’s amazing!

Bake at 375F for 20 – 25 minutes, or until you can insert a toothpick into the cake and it comes out clean. My 9×9 cake took about 23 minutes. The original poster did mention that if you are baking your cake in a glass pan, lower your temperature to 350F to avoid over-baking.

I let the cake cool a bit in the pan, and it separated nicely from the sides after a few minutes. I used a cooling rack to help flip it out of the pan, and then an additional cooling rack to flip it right side up again.

I used the recipe provided for the vanilla bean icing, but I have to admit I was less than thrilled. If you are interested in giving it a try, you can follow the directions here. I found it to have too strong of a ‘icing sugar taste’ and ended up adding more liquid to turn it into more of a glaze than a frosting.

The cake itself turned out much better than I could have imagined, and it has been a huge hit in our household! In fact, much of it has already been devoured and I have a feeling I’ll be making it again sometime in the very near future.

Do you have a favorite banana bread, cake or cupcake recipe?

The Pin!

Since we don’t have an actual linen closet, we have to make the best use any closet space we do have. Unfortunately (or I suppose fortunately for me), my clothes take up most of the space in our bedroom closet, leaving little room for anything else. We can’t afford to have our sheets balled up in a corner of the closet – it takes up too much space!

I’ve heard of the ‘how to fold a fitted sheet’ pins for a while now, and thought it was about time that I give it a try. The most popular one was the picture featured below. Since this one was originally from Martha Stewart, it (of course) appears to have been ironed prior to folding it. I had a feeling this particular folding method wouldn’t work for me for two reasons; one being that I have king sized sheets and it would be difficult to do it by hand in the air, and the other being I knew it wouldn’t look nearly as good because my sheets were wrinkly from the dryer.

I went back to the Pinterest board, and found another post that looked more like what I needed (and with written instructions as well). Here’s the picture for this one: (you can click here for the original post

The Project Process:

The photo above is pretty self explanatory, but I thought I would provide my additional notes and pictures for you as well!

Step 1: Throw on floor (that was easy)

Step 2: Take your pointer finger and find the corner of one side, and lay back on the floor

Step 3: Do the same to the other corner on the same side.

Step 4: Straighten the ‘line’ from the one corner to the other.

Step 5: Using the same pointer finger trick, find the remaining two corners, but inside out (it will make sense on the next step)

Step 6: Take the inside-out corners and then tuck them up into the regular corners. This should create a square with four square corners!

Step 7: Fold in half long-ways so the top two corners meet.

Step 8: Fold in half again, bringing the bottom up to the top.

Step 9: Fold in half again from the left side to the right (or mix it up and fold from the right side to the left!)

Step 10: You’re done! If you need too, you can fold in half an extra time to make the sheet more compact. You should be able to stack the fitted sheet on top of your flat sheet in a nicely fashion!

Although all of our extra pillow cases are currently being used, I love the idea of keeping everything together in a neat little package like this! I will most definitely be doing this when we move into a home that has an actual linen closet

The Pin!

A few years ago, my sister in law made me one of those neat spa towel wraps for your wet hair. I was looking for a Pin to make one of those, when I came across a bunch of beach/spa towel wraps. I forgot about my favourite old towel wrap – its fate was sealed by my dog back when he was a crazy puppy. So I decided to make one of these first.

Out came the new-to-me sewing machine that I’ve now had for 10 years, unused. I dusted off the cobwebs, had my neighbour remind me how to thread the machine, and away I went!

What you need:

• One towel (thinner is better than thicker, so it’s easy to sew)
• Elastic
• Safety pins
• Velcro (by recommendation I bought the sticky back velcro – wonderful stuff!)
• Scissors
• Sewing machine (or by hand)
• Strong thread

Begin by pinning the length of the towel, so you end up sewing a straight line. Hint: stripes are very helpful for this! Make the fold just a little bit bigger than the elastic you choose to use – not too large of a pocket or the elastic can twist. Next, stitch all the way across the towel.

Attach a safety pin to each end of the elastic; secure one end to the towel. With the other end, feed it through the tube all the way to the other side – then attach the safety pin to the other end. Sew each end so the elastic stays in place…remove pins.

Hold it up to yourself at this point and determine where the velcro will go. Attach the velcro – the sticky stuff is magic, as you can remove and play around with the fit if it’s not quite right at first. Once you have found the right spot for the velcro, stitch it on.

Here’s the finished product. No modelling for you this time, sorry, ha ha. Fairly simple, but I am happy with it!

Next, I am going to make a matching towel head wrap for my hair. I’m definitely going to be the most matchy-matchy Mummy after baby W’s swimming lessons this summer!

If you are a more skilled seamstress than I, you could try towel wraps with straps or cute embellishments, too. I think this would make a cute gift. You could even add some soaps/lotions, a good book and/or a bottle of something bubbly and summery!

The Pin!

Since we were having a wedding related gathering tonight at our home, I knew I needed to whip up a snack that would be a definite hit. I’ve made this particular Pinterest discovery a number of times before, and the plate has always ended up been scraped clean. It’s a great ‘in a pinch’ dessert dish, that is sure to be a hit at any pot-luck style gathering – we promise!

The Project Process:

Here are the ingredients that you will need:

• 1 block of cream cheese (softened to room temperature)
• 4 tbsp of icing or confectioners sugar
• chopped nuts
• chocolate chips (mini are best)
• sundae syrup (I always use caramel)
• granny smith apples

As you can tell, I visited Wal-mart for the ingredients of this particular recipe. Although I normally stick to Philidelphia cream cheese when making actual cheesecake, I find that the Great Value brand is very acceptable for a dip such as this. You can also pull out any other items in the cupboard that you might like to add, such a broken up Skor bar, chopped up fresh strawberries, etc.

To start, break up your cream cheese into chunks and put into a large bowl. I would like to take a moment to stress how important it is to make sure your cream cheese is room temperature. If you attempt to make this dip with cold cream cheese, it won’t whip up as nicely as it should. Add 4-5 tablespoons of confection sugar, and beat until nice and fluffy. You want to give it time to thoroughly mix, and also whip into a nice, smooth consistency.

Spoon the mixture onto a shallow dish or plate, and smooth out evenly using the back of a spoon. A small pie plate works perfect, but mine was currently being use for another dish in the fridge – so I made due with a few square plates. This works especially well if any of your guests can’t eat nuts; consider making one with nuts, and one without.

Squeeze on your desired sundae topping. Even though this layer will be topped with other delicious treats, I always like to have a little fun with the design (it makes me feel a little like a dessert sous chef). There’s no exact measurement given for how much to use, but I usually just eyeball it based on how quickly it comes out of the squeeze bottle.

Add on your other desired toppings (I used pecans, walnuts and butterscotch chocolate chips) and decorate with sliced apples! If you opt for chocolate chips, you’ll want to try to find mini chocolate chips for ease of eating. If you only have regular sized chips, try putting a handful in a bag and breaking them up with a rolling pin. It’s effective, and usually a bit of fun as well. If you don’t plan on serving the dip right away, hold off on cutting the apples so they don’t turn brown on you. I usually just cover the dip up with saran wrap and store in the fridge until it is time to serve it. I then cut up the apples at the very last minute and arrange them around the dish.

This is one of those Pinterest discoveries that I am so happy to have found. In fact, I love making it so much that it’s even become a permanent fixture in my ‘cut and paste’ cookbook. You may laugh at me for still having one of these, but I can’t be the only one secretly thinking about what would happen to all my favourite recipes if Pinterest disappeared one day.

Have you found any recipes from Pinterest that you love so much, you’ve printed out for future reference?

The Pin!

These days, it can be so easy to get caught up in all the fancy schmancy photo editing tools! So today, we thought we would try something a little more low-tech.

At first glance, all I thought this pin did was create a heart shaped frame around whatever you were taking a photo of. Neat, but easily editable with even the simplist photo editing apps available out there. I was really surprised to learn that it actually creates a neat artsy light image of the shape you’ve cut out.

The Project Process:

Providing you already own a SLR style camera, this project doesn’t require too much advanced planning.

Here’s What You’ll Need:

• Camera with manual focus
• Dark-coloured cardstock (pattern or colour won’t matter, as long as it’s dark enough to block out additional light)
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Shaped hole punch (or a talent for cutting free-hand shapes)
• Rubber band
• Tripod (or in my case, an elegantly stacked pile of books magazines and a granola box for good measure)

To make the filter, trace your lense to create a circle that’s exacty the right size. Some tutorials suggest cutting the circle out and attaching it right to your lense. You can do this, although we’d like to keep the filters to re-use in the future (and we don’t want to cover our lense in tape!). If you’re like us, we recommend adding three wings on to you circle before cutting it out.

Once your cut out your winged circle, it’s time to choose your shape! Since most of my fancy scrapbooking punches are in storage, I thought I would try a circle punch to start. The original poster really stressed the importance of the size of the shape, so whichever shape you choose, make sure it is smaller than a dime!

Attach your filter to your camera lense by placing it front of the lense, and folding the wings back towards the body. Secure with an elastic band and you’re ready for the magic to happen! To start, change your lense to manual focus. Because I’m not used to shooting anything other than automatic on my camera (it’s horrible, I really should finally take a class on it) – setting it up was the scariest part for me. I would suggest not setting your camera up on your tripod right away, and instead spend some time playing around with the different options to find out which you like best.

This is where I started getting into trouble. 

I started in aperture mode, as suggested by the original poster, and lowered my f-stop to as low as it would go (zoomed in, the lowest it would go was 5.6). They say the more out of focus your viewfinder is, the bigger the shapes will be. Unfortunately, after the 100th time, I began to think this just wasn’t going to happen for me.

I played with aperture, learned how to adjust my f-stop and tried a whole bunch of different focusing techniques (if you want to call them that). Although this particular tutorial was a failure overall, I did manage to figure out how to make those neat squiggly light lines. Small victories, right?

Here is what the finished product is supposed to look like:

Here are a few of my attempts:

I heard that chuckle! It’s ok though, after all the stress and frustration I felt while trying to be be successful, I’m even laughing at myself while writing this. The truth is, even though it took me over an hour to admit defeat, it was probably the most educational hour I’ve ever spent with my camera. Granted, I did want to throw it up against the wall a few times, but what great relationship doesn’t have a few tense times along the road to greatness?!

Regardless, I think I’ll stick to www.pickmonkey.com for now

Are you a photography buff that has successfully attempted this bokeh-inspired technique? I’d love your input on what my errors may have been! How many of our readers have a DSLR, but still shoot on automatic like me?

The Pin!

Even though I absolutely adore hummus, I have to admit I’ve never actually made it! My love for this good-for-you dip started when I took a Chef Dez cooking class at Lepp Farm Market, and was actually surprised that I liked the taste of pureed chic peas. Who knew they could taste so good?! After the class, we were given the recipe  – but since I didn’t own a food processor, I never got around to making it.

Fast forward a few years and I finally have a food processor (and it has literally changed my life)! I’m not quite sure why it took me so long to get around to making my own hummus with it, but I figured this would be the best time to give it a try. Since Chef Dez’s Greek hummus recipe is unfortunately long gone, I headed onto Pinterest to find a suitable replacement.

The Project Process:

For this super simple hummus recipe, you will need the following ingredients:

• 1 cup canned chick peas (if you do any shopping in the states, they call these garbanzo beans!)
• 1/3 cup tahini (this is sesame seed paste – I didn’t have any, so I omitted it and it still tasted great)
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/4 extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• dash of salt & pepper
• dash of paprika

If you have tahini, the original recipe indicates for you to combine the water and the tahini ahead of time, so it’s already mixed together for when you need it. Like I mentioned above, I didn’t have any tahini, but was willing to give it a try without it anyways. I have seen hummus recipes in the past that did not include it, so I knew it probably wouldn’t cause any major problems.

Start by pouring the canned peas, garlic and cumin into the food processor. After the mixture begins to look like coarse meal, start adding small amounts of water to make it easier to blend. I would recommend using just under 1/4 cup (if that), as 1/4 cup seemed to be too much without the thickening power of the tahini. Of course, if you did have the tahini, this is where you would add it, along with the full 1/4 of water.

Once everything is well blended, you can start adding the lemon juice and olive oil in small quantities, alternating between the two. This is where I started to feel like a fancy chef! I just love the feeling of making something from scratch, and having the yummy smells take over your kitchen.

After you have all of the ingredients combined, continue to process for another 5 or so minutes. Scoop out of the food processor into a dish, and garnish with paprika. If you’re feeling extra fancy, you can add an olive or two and a dash of olive oil on top as well!

A note about garlic: I love, love, love garlic and actually put 3 cloves in, instead of the recommended 2. I highly discourage this! As you might have guessed, it ended up being way too much garlic, and greatly reduced the chances of a goodnight kiss without prior teeth-brushing!

A note about chick peas: After making this recipe, I learned that while chick peas don’t have to be peeled, it’s worth the effort if you have the time. Apparently, peeled chick peas will make a much smoother hummus, and a less grainy texture. I’ll be giving it a try on round 2 of my hummus – I’ll keep you posted!

The Pin!

Okay, so, these didn’t exactly turn out as planned but I still love the idea and will be giving them another go.

I’m forever losing my popsicle stick markers in our veggie garden each year. Either they get lost in amongst all the greenery or the rain washes away the ink or some critter decides they would make a good addition to their nest.

So I found this project! I think these are great. They are inexpensive to make, relatively easy to make (says me who didn’t do a good job), customizable and add colour to your garden, which is always a lovely thing.

What you need:

wooden spoons
letter stickers
spray paint
clear coat
tape

The process is fairly straightforward. First, use the alphabet stickers to spell out the names of the items in your garden. I’d recommend using the back of the spoons as they are a flatter surface.

I liked the tip about putting tape around a couple of inches at the bottom so paint isn’t sitting in your vegetable garden. Because, really, the whole reason I’m growing my own food is so its healthier than what I can buy at the store! I think this would be a great way to get kids involved in veggie gardening – have them decide what they would like to plant and make these great markers together. Perhaps instead of spray paint you could use a brush to paint on any variety of children’s paints that you have on hand – finger paints, watercolours, you name it – it would all work, as you will be sealing with a clear coat.

So after you paint, let them sit until dry. I put mine upright in one of my planters so the paint could dry evenly. When the paint is dry, carefully peel off your letter stickers and apply a coat of clear coat so they become water/weather proof. Again let them sit to dry.

Here’s the finished product. Not best, I’m so unhappy with all the paint bleeds. I still love this idea, though, and will give them another try before I plant my garden next month.

What went wrong? I believe two things were against me. First, the stickers I got were cheap and not very sticky. They didn’t stick properly so the paint got under the sticker bit. I’d use stickier letters, maybe better quality ones meant for scrapbooking. Or you could use wooden spoons that are already clear coated. Some of the letters on my project are blurry because the paint ran/seeped on the raw wood. Or better yet, you could still buy the cheap spoons and give them a quick clear coat of your own before the paint. I’ll experiment and update this post in the coming weeks.

The Pin!

While there is no shortage of amazing craft ideas floating around Pinterest, I think we can all agree that there is a shortage of cute crafting materials. I know I can’t be the only one heading out to the local craft or home improvement store in search of the perfect spray paint colour, fabric design or scrapbook paper, only to be disappointed by the lack of selection. While we’ve always supported shopping local, sometimes it takes a little bit of  online browsing know-how to bring those Pinterest ideas of yours to life.

Today’s pin is a website we stumbled upon while searching for amazing aqua colour fabrics, and it was too great to keep to ourselves!

The Website:

Pink Chalk Fabrics is a website based out of the US that has an incredible selection of all those great fabrics you see on d.i.y. Pinterest projects! With affordable shipping to Sumas & Canada (and free shipping on sewing patterns), this site has been my new go-to place for vibrant and modern fabric designs. I knew there were more options that what was available at my local fabric store!

You can shop for fabrics by style (such as florals, birds & animals, novelty and geometric), designer (like Amy Butler, Cosmo Cricket and Lizzy House), colour or fabric. I actually didn’t realize that many scrapbooking companies (like Basic Grey and Echo Park Paper Co.) produce patterned fabrics as well as paper. This could be dangerous territory for me!

Although the designs themselves could be very overwhelming, it was neat to view the fabrics by designer and see how the whole collection is meant to look together.  Since I’m an only an occasional fabric crafter, I was surprised by my sudden urge to take up quilting after browsing all these ultra modern and vintage designs. Some of the collections would look absolutely stunning woven together in a quilt – and where else could you find a quilt focused around vintage kitchen themed fabrics?!

I was very happy with their selection of teal geometric inspired fabrics, and am already dreaming of someday completing a d.i.y. bench something like this:

Although it’s a little over my head for this month’s Pinterest challenge, you can bet that I will share my project process along with you when I tackle this one in the future!

What would you do with your dream fabric? Do furniture projects intimidate you, or get the creative juices flowing?

The Pin!

I’m a huge garden fan, but living in a one bedroom apartment can sometimes be a little limiting in this area. I have little pots of mint and basil sitting on various window sills, but I love the idea of trying something new. Before reading this pin, I wasn’t even aware that you could plant lemon seeds! Well, I figured you could plant them, I just didn’t realize they would grow into aesthetically pleasing sprouts.

The Project Process:

This was one of the cheapest pins I have completed this month. Since I already had all of the required items, all I had to do was gather them up from around my house and display them nicely for a picture!

Here’s What You’ll Need:

• Seeds from one lemon
• Mug (for planting)
• Few handfuls of soil
• Saran wrap

Like the original poster mentioned, doing too much research on certain projects can just end up being extremely confusing. So for this one, I decided to keep it as simple as possible.

Here are the steps I took:

• Using a knife, pop the seeds out of the lemon and collect them in a bowl (this got the seeds out, without totally destroying the lemon). Note: use fresh seeds only. Don’t collect seeds for weeks and then try to plant them. It probably won’t work.
• Rinse the lemon seeds with water. I allowed mine to soak for a little bit in the water as well.

• Fill a mug (or other suitable container) 3/4 full with soil.
• Arrange lemon seeds in dirt

• Cover with a bit more dirt – just enough to cover the seeds.
• Add a little bit of water.
• Cover with saran wrap, to help create a cozy greenhouse for your seedlings. This will keep the moisture in, and allow the seeds to germinate within the soil.
• Set the container on something that is relatively warm. While the original poster effectively used her Apple Time Machine, I opted to use my wireless router. Although I don’t think it generates quite as much warmth, I figured it would work better than flat on a table or a ledge.

It’s been there for about 3 days now, and I’ve probably been checking it much more often than I need to be. However, it’s my first time growing something right from seed form and I’m anxious to see how they turn out!

I’ve also heard that leafy lemon plants can also add a slight fragrance to the air, so I’m looking forward to making a few more of these little pots if everything goes as planned! Stay tuned for an update in a week or so!

Have you ever planted anything from seed form? Did you realize you could plant lemon seeds for household plants? Oh the things you can learn on Pinterest!