An Ode to Domestication

Alright, I'm trying something new, please enjoy some musical entertainment while reading.

An Ode to Domestication,

I come from a long line of very crafty ladies, including, my mother

my great and grandmothers, and great aunts. This only slightly

explains my obsessive love of fabric, especially fabrics like the ones

used inthis glorious quilt made by my Great Aunt Jo. It is one of my

favorite possessions.

I have spent numerous hours trying to pick out my favorite

fabrics out of quilts like this one that have been passed down.

These are a few of my favorites from this one.

For some reason I have always liked the little indian heads,

and these clothes that are running around with little stick people in them.

Also, today I got a new cupcake cookbook,

Unlike so many cupcake books this one does not have hokey

recipes that only show you how to decorate the tops like

lady bugs or clowns. Its actually quite informative, and has

recipes like this one, for apple streusel cinnamon swirl cup cakes

So KU folks and other friends in Lawrence, be excited for things like

Lemon angel cupcakes, butter almond tea cakes, and chocolate

sweetheart cupcakes. Pittsburg friends, its ok to cry a little and

I'm really sorry I didn't find this book till now.

Ufta,

So things were a little busy there for a while, but I made it.

First off I want to say that I love Kansas for reasons like this one,

I know they grow wheat other places, and you can probably see

views like this there too, but I'm glad I got to grow up in a place

that I can see this on sunday morning.

Now to what has happened that made my life so busy,

I made it through finals with flying colors, and got to eat

a fantastic lunch with the President Scott and about 30 other

folks who also got good grades. I didn't really receive much else

other than the lunch, and a cool metal for getting good grades, but

when it was my turn to walk across the stage to get my diploma

holder the guy reading " Alysha Coy Dockum, magna cum laude"

read it off like I should come on down for the price is right.

That pretty much made it all worth while.

Also, my cap was cool enough to make it into the year book!

After a graduation lunch my family helped me pack up my

little apartment in Trout Hall. We took off sunday for McPherson,

and yes I cried. Pittsburg was a good home and it was hard to leave.

I've managed to cram all that was my apartment into my

bedroom back at home. Well most of it anyways.

This friday my family is having an awesome garage sale,

so if you are in the area you should stop by.

One of the best things about being at home is this guy,

my kid brother, who is a lot taller than me now, but even

more fun to be around!

Thats all for now. I've got about a years worth of fun reading

to catch up on.

Pigs in a Blanket!

When I was younger my dad made pigs in the blanket while my mom

was out of town. He used a cookie sheet instead of a pan with corners,

and the grease leaked out and started a fire.

Tonight I made pigs in the blanket for my friends Carly and Chris.

It was a feast.

Anyways, I made some other things this week while I've been on break.

They are now for sale on etsy. www.etsy.com/shop/AlyshaCoy

These flower garden bags were fun to make.

They are the product of my screen printing class!

I've also decorated these little notebooks.

They turned out to be pretty adorable.

I hope you enjoy looking at these enough to buy one . . . wink wink.

I am printing some lovely t-shirts, and I though I would give you

all the opportunity to get one if you would like.

These lovely shirts will only cost you $12.00. There will be a small shipping cost if you don't live in Pittsburg Kansas, but I'm not expecting that to be over a couple of dollars.

This is what I am expecting the shirts to look like.

These are not pictures of actual printed shirts.

I will be ordering the shirts this Friday, March 12th at 9:00am.

If you would like one, please let me know and what size before then.

My Lovely Trip to OPE

So I thought I would share my drip to the Oshkosh Placement Exchange

with the world.

Unfortunately I did not have a camera so I have illustrated

my trip with some photo illustrations.

I was sleeping peacefully thursday morning after a long night

of worried packing, frantic double checking, and loud boy

shushing when my alarm went off at 6:30am.

So I stretched and jumped out of bed excited for what the

weekend would bring.

Jennifer, Shawn and I drove to Kansas City where we met

up with Melissa.

We got our boarding passes, and

jumped on a plane to Milwaukee Wisconsin!

When we landed we got a sweet silver ride and drove on

to Oshkosh.

I was still pretty tired from my busy night so I napped,

but still managed to catch a few glimpses of the lovely Wisconsin country side.

I awoke from my nap to find that we had arrived. We all got out and headed inside the conference center. From this point on I was a little overwhelmed for two reasons.

1. There was a frenzy of posters everywhere for any school you can imagine.

2. There weren't any door decs.

However my fears and butterflies subsided after I packed

and helped hang up some posters for Pitt State. That evening

we ate at Red Robin, which is very tasty!

Friday morning I woke up once more at 6:30 to find that

my little cold had turned into a big one. So I took some

meds a headed off for a candidate briefing and a breakfast social with KU.

After breakfast I started feeling a bit better and started

off my long day of interviews.

The day had its ups and downs, which were caused

mostly by the amount of congestion and pressure I was feeling.

I made it through though and ended the day with some

delicious food and a big smile on my face.

Saturday I awoke feeling a bit better, and started yet another

long long long long long day of interviews.

Finally around 6 I had finished! So I turned up my music

in my room, put on a dress and danced around feeling very proud of myself.

That evening there was a social for everyone who had gone

to OPE. Everyone. It was intense.

But the food was amazing, and I had my first cheese curd experience.

Yes, they did squeak.

Finally it was time to go home, but first we made a pit stop at Shawn's

house to eat brunch with his family. It was delicious, and just what I needed.

We drove back to Milwaukee, and I napped again.

Then we flew home to Kansas!

The whole experience was something else. I was intimidated,

scared, hopeful, happy, hungry, ecstatic, and a whole bunch of

other things rolled into one. Way to many feelings for three days.

I'm expecting good things to come of this, and I wanted to share it with you all!

This is a stick up!

This is a stick up! Give me all your coffee!

Last night was a late night, because of a little thing called homework,
and another litthe thing called Resident Assistant Selection Carousel Night,
which went really well, but after two nights of it I am very glad that its done.

Anyways, remember that veiled project from my last post?

( If not please scroll down)

Well this is what it resulted in!


I printed my photos out on some vintage magazine pages.
It was fun looking for the perfect pages,
but not so fun trying to figure out which way I needed to load them into the printer.



Jeremy my partner/model works at a liqueur store
so I thought this page was a good fit.


And this one was also just to perfect








Before I sleep I would like to thank a few people.
My Mom and Dad for the huge boxes of old magazines they bought me,
which I will have till I die,
Jeremy for making some really nice faces and
being a good sport while I took pictures,
Larry for remember 9.75 when my brain couldn't
And last but not least Mary, for my fantastic new hair cut,
making its picture debut right here on........

Wall of Whimsy, Slew of Scarves, Cupcakes, and Photography 3

In my adorable little apartment,

I have what I enjoy referring to as my wall of whimsy.

It is my collection of the glorious little things I have found,

or been given.

I am particularly fond of these brightly colored plaster banks.

Hopefully this collection will grow.

Yesterday during a deep move all of the furniture, dust, vacuum,

and organize type cleaning I realized that I have a huge amount of scarves.

I decided that rather than shove them in to a drawer

I would display them. And this is what happened!

It is a hanging slew of scarves.

I think it is fantastic, well at least for now until I can find a better way of hanging them.

I also made cupcakes and learned how to make dark chocolate ganache frosting, which is basically a miracle. I'm sure it is fairly terrible for me, but goodness, it is battling with fudge for my love which is saying a lot.

It made me happy to use my pretty cupcake liners too.

Alright, on another note, I have started photography three for the 2nd time.

We are taking portraits with partners, this is mine.

He's not grumpy, just making a face.

I'm sure he will be thrilled that I'm throwing him up here, but honestly how many people run across my blog anyways. I have the feeling that he is a better photographer than I am, because the above is what I came up with, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I am the better crafter.

This is what he came up with, I did fix it up a little bit though.

We are going to take some more photos tomorrow. Hopefully I'll come across some sort of photographic inspiration tonight, so I'm not completely clueless tomorrow.

My dear little friend

My brother got me this little robot for christmas.

He keeps me company on my desk.

The best thing about him though is that he doubles as a pencil sharpener!

Thanks Kyle!