Fruit and Vegetable Onesies

September is a month filled with birthdays of people I care about. Three of those people happen to have celebrated their first birthday this year. I was so ecstatic about the birthday excitement, that I decided to make a personal gift for each of them. With the 2012 Vegan MoFo right around the corner, I thought it would be a good time to share them in honor of the month of food. 

This idea came to me as I pondered each of the babies (one being a niece and the other two babies of two of my close girlfriends). As far as the babies go, one of them is a vegan, the other is a vegetarian, and the other is an omnivore. Fruits and vegetables are important to any child omnivore or herbivore and I thought this was a good way to make them fun. 

Violet received the onesies with strawberries and an eggplant. The eggplant came about since her name is a color and it was the only vegetable that was Violet. Now that I think about it, I could have drawn grapes, but the vision for eggplant popped into my head! The smiling strawberries made me think of her with her bright red hair giggling!

Sidney received the onesies with the green beans and carrots. I picked these  because his parents have been feeding him his first foods from their CSA share that we both joined this summer. I could just see Sidney enjoying green beans and carrots. He has a very healthy appetite and I was so excited to be there when he tried his first bite of food!

Catherine will receive the onesies with carrots on it and the apple. I chose the carrots for her because she has two brothers and the image of the three carrots reminded me of the three of them together. I don't have a real reason for the apple, expect that I thought the worm was cute and she Catherine is cute! 

I'm thinking of creating more and selling them in my etsy shop. All I need to do is find a good stash of used onesies!

Help Kickstart The Fiction Kitchen

Most cities have at least a couple of vegetarian restaurants, but when you visit the triangle there is a bit of a void. Cary, Morissville, and Chapel Hill all have vegetarian restaurants, but the two largest cities (Durham and Raleigh) do not. While there are plenty of restaurants in Durham and Raleigh that have vegan and vegetarian options, there is not a place that has stayed 100% vegetarian.

So in step Caroline and Siobhan of Fiction Kitchen. They started off with catering and amazing vegan brunches. And when I say amazing, it is an understatement. They provided brunches once a month on a Sunday afternoon that would knock your socks off. Their creativeness with local ingredients was impressive. They would have over one hundred people lined up outside the Pinhook in Durham for these infamous brunches. The food was different each month and I can honestly say that I was never served anything I didn't absolutely love! In addition, they made an effort to always have a gluten free option for me and some other gluten freers. My favorites included biscuits and gravy and a coffee cake that was out of this world. I still dream of that coffee cake. Ok, I think I just salivated on my keyboard!!

Now these wonderful women want to open a restaurant in downtown Raleigh and need your help.  Please visit their kickstarter campaign and consider donating. Make sure to watch the video too! (Yours truly makes several appearances in it.) Even if you can only share a couple of bucks, it will help. They have a goal to reach by October 13 and we need to help them get there. If they do not meet their goal, they don't get any of the money. If you do not live in the area, you can still donate and I promise once they open to post pictures of their amazing food. 

What are you waiting for? Get on over there and give them some support!

Vegan MoFo 2012

Fall is approaching and it is that time of year again. Yep, it is time for Vegan MoFo 2012!! What is it you ask? It is the Vegan Month of Food 2012 blogging challenge. Volunteer bloggers from all over the world and come together to blog about vegan food. It is a great way to connect with wonderful people and get a ton of new meatless, cruelty free ideas. 

All you have to do is sign up here. Sign up goes until September 26. You can also follow the buzz on Vegan MoFo's facebook page and check out their blog for upcoming information. Yours truly will be participating for the third year in a row. I even plan to roll out a new graphic and color design for my blog. 

I hope you will join me. If not, please come back to my blog and the other participating blogs. Some of my favorite blogs were discovered during MoFo. 

Happy MoFoing!