Halloween Craft - Monster Wreath

Just to get you in the mood, and start thinking about the Halloween Contest, here is a one of the decorations we made in years past. (Oh, and I need a catchy name for the contest (like the previous "Black Heart Anti-Valentines Day Contest" -- any ideas, my clever people?)

When it gets closer to time, I'll be doing a series on h'ween food and decorations, and the tutorial on this will be one of the items! EDIT: Here it is!

The Monster Wreath!

Homemade Lipbalm (A Dabbled Re-run)

While I'm off exploring my inner geek this weekend at Dragon*Con, here's a previous project you might have missed!

Homemade Lipbalm is fun & easy, and makes great gifts.. you should try it!

The Materials:

First Batch:
.25 ounces Beeswax
.66 ounces Shea Butter
.40 ounces Sweet Almond Oil
2 Vitamin E pills (just the insides, obviously!)
10 drops Peppermint Oil

Second Batch:
Olive Oil instead of Sweet Almond
No Peppermint Oil
A dab of lipstick for color

Recipe adapted from some found at Majestic Mountain Sage
Also got a lot of great tips from this BlueArts post.
I was thinking i'd order the ingredients online as well, to get the best deal and selection, but after procrastinating, i got most everything a the local Whole Foods (except the beeswax, which i had from a previous project.)

Melted all slowly in a double boiler, and used a dropper to pipe into the tins.
My scale isnt very good, so the amounts were pretty approximate. i think if i did it again i'd increase the oil a tad for a little bit softer mixture.

Randomness

I'll be letting out my inner geek at Dragon*Con this weekend, but I'll hopefully have some scheduled posts for you, my adoring fans.. And some great pictures when I come back. Talk about CREATIVITY!

In other news,
I had an Ikea date yesterday with one of the winners from last month's Contest, Colleen of Some Art Fabric. Besides being all around cool, she gave me some nifty halloween fabric swatches for prizes in the halloween contest. Nifty! So start thinking of things to do for the halloween contest!!

The Space Robots go Fabric!

I've been meaning to create some fabric designs ever since I signed up for the Spoonflower beta. I finally got around to it, and here is my first attempt! The Space Robots (from the Robot Party) return!



It took some trail and error to get the pattern like i wanted it, so here's how I did it. (This is all done in Photoshop, but if you don't have photoshop, here's a great tutorial on how you do the same thing on paper!)

-I drew the elements of the design in pen, then scanned it. I used Illustrator's Live Trace function with the Comic Art preset to get the lines like i wanted them, then moved it back into Photoshop.
-Then I used my new favorite technique to pull the line art to a separate layer.
-I created a new 8"x8" image in photoshop because that was my desired dimensions. The plan here is to copy/paste the individual design element line art into separate layers, for ease of placement.
-To get the repeat pattern, I took one of the robots and a few of the stars, and laid them out in the center of the new image. I merged those line art layers into a single line art layer when i was satisfied with the placement. Then I used the Offset filter in Photoshop (horizontal & vertical set to 1/2 the width/height of the full image, wraparound checked*). That moves those images to the corners. Then I positioned the rest of the robots and stars in the center.
-I then merged all of the line art layers, leaving me with a background layer, and a line art layer. I created a new layer for the colors, and put that in the middle. Then I colored the image.

While in beta, only I can order the fabric, but if anyone wants some, let me know and I'll order it for you!
It makes a nifty tiled desktop wallpaper too!

*credit: I used this tutorial to figure out how the offset filter worked.

Monday Link Love

Flickr-surfing: I ran across these too cool robots on flickr. by magneto-man.


Ok, So I'm procrastinating.. I really do have to clean up from the weekend!

Here's a few little linky goodness items that I figured you might want to know about!

I've got to try this.. Making Homemade Paneer (Cheese) from Angry Chicken

A few tutorials (via Whip-up)

-A really nice blockprinting tutorial from LizzyHouse

-A neat how-to on making cute leather bracelets from Erleperle

And last but not least, Hatch has a fun weekly roundup including a bacon alarm clock and water bottles kids can build with.

Ah, Monday..

Busy Busy weekend -- we had our big neighborhood Block Party. So no creativity to share from the weekend. Although I did make a super-large batch of the Asian Pasta Salad for the party, and it came out really well.

And the lack of creative output can also be blamed on playing online video games all day Sunday.

But I do have several new projects in the planning stages, so watch this space!

Now, the house is a huge mess, and I need to motivate myself to clean it.

IF: Routine

Going about his daily routine.. he dreamed of something more..


Pen, colored in Photoshop

wednesday linky goodness...

Ooohh.. Way nifty cupcakes! These are just gorgeously done. By lorijohernandez on Flickr (via)

Really nifty writeup on Craftypod, a review of The Pocket Paper Engineer-- a book on how to create pop up books! These are so fun and look like some really great projects. (*adds to ever growing list...)

Betz White made this fabulous Etch-A-Sketch Laptop cover! I'm in love... When I get a new laptop, i may have to try this... (via)

Several really cool things from Hostess with the Mostess
- a Wii themed party
- Child's Candyland themed party
- Denture-like Ice Cubes - too cool and creepy, these might be good for halloween.

No Interview this Week... I'm looking for suggestions of people you guys think would be cool to interview! If you have nominations, let me know!
Previous Dabbled Interviews:

Interview 1: Diane Gilleland, of Craftypod
Interview 2: Diana Evans, Artist
Interview 3: Shannon Riffe, of Make It and Rifferaff
Interview 4: Cory Godbey, Artist and Author of "Ticket"

All Interviews

Illustration Friday - "Detach"

As promised in the Myrtle Beach review post, here is your daily dose of cute robots. I think this needs a good caption... any ideas? See, I'm making up for lost time with 3 posts within the last 24 hours!


Ink drawing, colored in photoshop.

Oh another note..
I haven't done much photography lately, but I really like this one, from the beach trip:

Hacking a toddler bed

I think this counts as both a parent-hack and an ikea-hack :)



I was browsing through the As Is section at Ikea and came across the parts to a Kritter child's bed. I wasn't really planning on getting the 3 yr old a toddler bed (his crib converted to one by taking off the front rail), but for basically $6* I couldn't resist--it's too cute! When I got it home I realized that (duh) it takes a longer mattress than a crib mattress. Well, The Boy doesn't need a longer mattress yet, he still fits fine on the crib sized one--and I really didn't want to go buy all new sheets and such anyway. So the fabulous husband modified the bed to make it fit the crib mattress, leaving a nifty little compartment perfect for stuffed animals at the end!



All he basically did was add a flat wood bottom to the end section where the mattress wouldn't reach, and use the guard rail (which we weren't needing anyway) as a divider between the box and the mattress. Easy Peasy!

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*$6 for the headboard, footboard and sides. It was missing the bottom frame, so handy husband just added some slats for the bottom.

Motivation.. and a Beach Review (Myrtle Beach SC)

It seems that it's so hard to get back in the groove when you've been away for a few days. We decided at the last minute to join the in-laws while they were at the beach, this weekend, which meant the non-trivial stress of getting the three year old up and to the airport for a 7:30 am flight* friday morning, then spending a fun, if somewhat hectic, day and a half with the doting grandparents, then flying back late Saturday. So when I got back, there's so much to do that I'm behind on, and arrrrggg I just can't seem to make myself do any of it! So, I do heartily apologize for a content free past few days.

I did do a cute robot sketch for illo friday this morning, but i'm going to color it, so it will be posted later. And I also have some crafty stuff to post once I get my act together. But, not yet. So off the subject of arts / crafts, I'll give you my quick and dirty review of Myrtle Beach, SC. I don't think I'd been to Myrtle Beach since I was a kid, and my remembrance of it was
pretty vague - an "OK" beach, pretty tourist-trappy. And hey! I think it still is! It's a really odd mix of old and new - brand new condos next to old retro looking cheapy beach hotels.

The Good: Traveling with a three year old, it's frustrating that there isn't usually a lot to do with them, on their level. They aren't quite big enough for so much of the fun stuff. We did go to Broadway at the Beach, which was mostly a big mall-like outdoor tourist trap (not even on the beach!), complete with a Margaritaville (where yes, we ate an overpriced lunch and had an overpriced margarita). But they did have a bunch of those old carnival rides perfect for that age. Mostly stuff like the cars/boats/motorcycles that spin around in circles, but also a very cool old carousel, which was divine. The Boy was in heaven. They also have a big 'lake' in the center with a free watertaxi across it, which The Boy also enjoyed riding. Elsewhere, MB also still has the old amusement park too, over by the beach, which we saw but didn't make it to, but i expect would be nostalgic fun--big old wooden coaster and ferris wheel. The fact that there were funny mini-golf places on every corner meant there were alot of things to point out to the boy when we were driving, like dinosaurs and pirate ships.

The Bad: mediocre beach--kid friendly and flat, but like many Atlantic coast beaches, brownish sand and just not that pretty. Extremely built up with hotels & condos, crowded Strand (main drag down by the beach) (we drove back down it past the tourist attractions, tons of evening traffic) Not exactly a 'quiet' beach holiday. We were staying down at the south end, which wasn't bad though for traffic.

Bottom line: Was better than I expected. Mostly because the hotel/timeshare the inlaws had was very nice with multiple pools, and we found fun activities for the little one. A lot of options of things to do (if you were staying longer than two days!) with a family--if you don't mind feeling like a constant tourist!--, but I wouldn't recommend highly unless you need lots of activities to amuse kidlets. There are much nicer beaches. We enjoyed the Outer Banks of NC more (if anyone's interested, I can write up a review of that!).

PS: I finally got around to putting up an About Me page.

*lest you think we are wealthy jetsetters, I have flight benefits from my previous job that allow us to fly very cheaply on standby.

Back from a quick trip to the beach..

Will post tomorrow!

HOW TO: Finger Puppet Bus

Edit: Welcome ParentHackers! Stick around and check out the place! More Tutorials here.

As you probably know, i outsource my ideas that involve woodworking to my fabulous husband, the maker behind the Play Stove, and other cool stuff.

Previously we created a Finger Puppet Bus to store The Boy's Ikea finger puppets. After Ikeahacker linked to it, I got numerous requests for more detailed instructions. So here they are! [Note: I think it would be great to do this with homemade finger puppets as well. Here’s some great finger puppet crochet patterns from Crochet Me ]. If anyone has any cute instructions for felt or cloth or yarn finger puppets, let me know and i'll include!


Instructions (by Dameion):

Supplies
Wood (In this case, 1/2 inch MDF)
Drill
Glue
Sandpaper
Paint (yellow, black, glow in the dark yellow)
#6 screws
1/2 " Dowels


Out of ½ in. mdf cut to two 3 ½ “ x 8 “ rectangles (based on your finger puppet needs - ours holds 10 puppets)
Glue and attach together. Let dry.
Cut four 2” rounds using a hole saw for wheels (from ½ in MDF also) (You could also just buy 2 inch circles from the craft store, if you don't have a hole saw)
Sand edges well. Prime, paint black. I beveled the hub with 3/4 forstner bit so they would stay centered. (See drawing below)

After chassis is dry, mark a grid pattern for the ‘seats’
Drill holes. if you have a drill press, set the stop (depth) @ ¾”. Otherwise you can use a regular drill and use a piece of tape on the drill bit to mark the depth

I cut the “seats” from a long dowel but precut dowel pins are an option as well. Stick finger in puppet & mark bottom, placer finger and ruler on flat surface (table) to get depth. Add ¾ inches to depth measurement. Mine were ½” wide x 2 ¼ long” (depend on size of puppet;)
Bevel or smooth the top edge of each dowel section for ease of placing puppet.

Front is a scrap from when I cut the chassis. I beveled the edge 15 degrees or so and left it a little taller than the chassis (an 1/8”)

Headlights are holes made with ½ in forstner bit sunk 1/8” down (Optionally you could just paint on the headlights or attach circles for headlights). Attach front bumper & glue with nail through the center of the headlight.

Rope attachment is a kreg bit drilled from the bottom. A hole & glue from the front would probably work as an alternate.

Paint yellow (or whatever color your municipality uses for school buses). Paint it again, heck you’re giving it to a child to play with!
Head lights are glow in the dark paint.

Seal, varnish, etc.

Attach wheels by pre-drilling the holes (I used #6 in screws, so make the pilots the appropriate size) ¼” from the bottom. Any place that looks right. I did 1 ¾ from the front and back (not counting front bumper)

Attach the wheels by placing a finishing washer at the top of the screw. Next is the wheel you made then finally, 2 flat washers. Before sinking the screw, put a little wood glue on it to make it less likely to back out. DO NOT over tighten. Make sure the wheels spin, but don’t wobble.

Place pegs (you could paint these in festive and matching colors, if you want, or just leave natural) in holes with glue. Wait 24 hours, enjoy.

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Since I translated this from D's notes, I may have gotten something wrong. So let me know if anything seems weird.
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Some Cute Finger puppets I found on flickr:

Soozs's felt puppets



Made By Moxie's needle felted puppet

Robots, news ,owls, and cupcakes!

Relatively productive today, at least for a Monday. I did finish a few watercolor sketches. And did some laundry. And cleaned up the porch from Sunday's after brunch gathering. Oh, and tried to find something for The Boy to wear to a wedding in Sept, as the ringbearer. The bride gave me no real direction as to what he should wear, and I have no idea what the wedding party is wearing. And I refuse to spend a fortune on something a 3 yr old is only going to wear once. Maybe I should check out the consignment stores. Unless anyone has a ringbearer appropriate 3T outfit they'd like to sell/trade me?

I need to send out the contest prizes. It's top of my list for tomorrow. One of the prizes..


For those who wanted a tutorial on how to make the Finger Puppet Bus--I'm not ignoring you!--the hubby is writing one up for me as we speak. I'm also looking for cool felt or crocheted finger puppet tutorials to include with it, so if anyone has one, let me know.

Monday Inspirations:
- I like this - Via Drawn, a teacher's animation of 'Some Facts about Owls'. Sweet and subtle.

My husband and his work friends (Kim, Ed, etc, I'm talking to you) would love these: Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes. via.

Oh, and finally, iPhone and iTouch peeps: I followed the instructions linked to by A Little Hut to make an iPhone icon if you favorite Dabbled from your iphone or itouch. But since i don't have one, if anyone does, can you let me know if it works? If you add dabbled to your iphone favs, it should have a little 'murder girl' icon.

Cheers, caio, and prost!

Roundup of the week..

Hiya all! Hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend. We just got back from a trek up Stone Mountain with a 3 yr old in tow, and the exhausted me decided to take a hot bath. Sweet hubby brought me red wine and his i-touch, with Dr Horrible playing, to amuse me in my bath. good hubby. So i'm mellow, but still a tad sore since my not exactly athletic self has gone rock climbing and walked up a mountain in the same weekend.

First, a wrapup of the week, then some new stuff.

Since my posting schedule was all messed up this week, here's a wrapup of stuff you might have missed (hey, don't miss a thing if you subscribe to the Feed!)

- Lots of new sketches here and here. Nothing fancy, though everyone seems to love the Tempest in a Teacup. I'm working on several tiny pieces and i'll be posting in the next few days.

- Interview for the week: Cory Godbey, Artist & Author of Ticket.

- If you somehow missed it, check out the winners of the Summer Doldrums Contest!

New/Future Stuff:
- Next week, I plan to do some designs for Spoonflower -- this way cool print on demand fabric site. They are still in beta, but you can sign up to get in. This has been on my list of things to do for weeks, so hopefully next week will work!

- We talked about the new Joss Whedon thing, Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, a few weeks ago. If you missed it, they have it up again at drhorrible.com. I'm not sure for how long, but check it out while you can. I've got a mad crush on Neil Patrick Harris (especially when singing) now (yeah, I'm aware that's hopeless) and I never thought anything could make Nathan Fillion look like a (very funny) twit! And if you, like me, are a new Neil fan, check out this song he did for Sesame Street!

Illustration Friday - Sail

Finally an IF on actual Friday!

Note 1: I didn't get the last 2 weeks IF's posted until yesterday, so check 'em out here! Pretty Please? I'll give you a virtual cookie...

Note 2: Check out the my interview with Artist Cory Godbey
(I know he does Illo Friday too!)

Tempest in a Teacup

Watercolor pencil, done in a couple of hours this morning.

Last 2 weeks - Click through to see:

Interview - Cory Godbey, Artist

This week's Dabbled interview is with the very talented Cory Godbey. Cory is an illustrator & author, and is part of Portland Studios. He just released "Ticket", a story in pictures. Without further ado...

1. Let's get the standard stuff out of the way first... In three sentences or less.. who are you, what do you do, how long have you been doing it, and do you do it full time?

I'm Cory. I draw things, I've been doing it for a while, and it do it all the time.

2. So, Portland Studios.. your profile says you're in South Carolina! Are y'all just trying to sound like you're from Oregon!? Seriously, as a fellow southerner, what are your thoughts on being an artist in the South?


Portland was a place where we wanted to end up and somehow the name was supposed to help get us there. Fortunately, we got hung up on making things and doing the work rather than the name and after a while we never bothered to change it. As far as living the South, I deal just fine with humidity and the cost of living is unbeatable. We have some local clients but mostly our clients are scattered from NYC to LA so our region doesn't really come into play all that much.

3. The quick personal question.. you married? have kids? if so, how does that effect your creative time?

Married with three cats. And a white couch in my office at home. The cats like to scratch it (and since it's the only thing they go for we gave it up a long time ago) and my wife Erin will read or something if I'm working in the evenings.

4. I have no idea how (you know how it is with the internet!), but i first started following you when you started 'The Photoshop Experiment' blog. Honestly, as an artist who was not really versed in PS as the time, it was a great help in honing my own techniques! What made you decide to share your Photoshop techniques with the world?

I'm glad the The Photoshop Experiment was helpful! I even named it "Experiment" because it was an experiment for me to see if people even cared about how I get from point A to point B. It's always helpful for me to see how another artist works. I got a crash-course lesson in Photoshop once and spent the next few weeks struggling to make anything look even remotely passable. I wanted to put something out there, sort of a catalogue of studies to give anyone who wanted a boost in Photoshop. It can be beyond frustrating learning it.

5. Your latest project is Ticket. I understand this is a labor of love, tell us a little about it! It looks way cool, though i admit I haven't ordered it yet :) (ed-I ordered it! )

Well you better get on that, there are a few left! This post here : http://lightnightrains.blogspot.com/2008/07/ticket-how-why.html : contains a lot of pictures of what I'll mention here about Ticket. I spent about 3 months worth of evenings, nights, and early mornings preparing the book. Work during the day was too full to hold anything else so when I came home I then worked on Ticket. The company gave me a chance to make something so I spent a lot of time thinking and making storyboards and thumbnails. I made a list of everything I like to draw and decided to sort of weave a loose story through them. I made a small book for my wife when we were dating called "Curious Events." Curious Events (yet unreleased) has since developed into a little library of four distinct, interweaving stories. I think of Ticket as almost a "postlude" to Curious Events. You don't have to have seen Curious Events to appreciate Ticket though, more or less, Ticket reprises most everything I love about these four little unreleased books.

6. Do you consider yourself a writer as well as an illustrator? What challenges did you face trying to do write the story? You did Ticket more independently, will you try to sell that to one of the 'big' publishers?


I love to write. My hero is Maurice Sendak. To make "story" and "pictures" that what I want. Really, what I'm most interested in is telling stories. With Ticket I knew that this would be "a story in pictures." Part of the joy of that comes in finding what other people bring to the pictures or imagine the story to be. The original version of the "Curious Events" book I mentioned earlier had no climax, nothing happening exactly, just a collection of pictures that were (hopefully) interesting to look at. With Ticket I really wanted to make a rise and fall in the narrative -- a definite climax and dénouement. As far as selling it to a big publisher, I don't know. One of the reasons we are interested in self-publishing is that the artist is able to control ever step of the project. We have really been overwhelmed with the response Ticket has brought.

7. You just went to ComicCon in SanDiego... was that purely a work thing for Portland Studios? Do you go to other Cons? I'm sure it was a blast, but did you find it professionally rewarding as well?

It was work; we had a booth, we sold a lot of stuff, and met a ton of really awesome people. What I got out of it professionally, you could say, was sneaking away from the booth long enough to see the drawing and painting demonstrations by the likes of Jon Foster, Donato Giancola, and Gregory Manchess. Those demos were eye-opening. Also getting to chat with the guys at Flight and Imaginism was fantastic as well.

8. What advice would you give an artist just starting out?

Draw. All the time. And learn how to draw the human figure.

Check out (and buy!) Cory's stuff here! https://store.portlandstudios.com/ is where you can find all of our products, including Ticket. A Big Thanks to Cory for taking the time to talk to us and share his art and vision!

Click here for All Previous Dabbled Interviews..

Little Watercolor Sketches

Finally, some ART! In an attempt to get out of my creative funk, I was playing around with my watercolor pencils again yesterday. I missed (for the first time this year!) Illustration Friday last week, and I'm bummed because my goal was to do something new for it every week. And here it is thursday, and I'm about to miss a second week! So I'm making up for it by posting 2 Pictures--last week's and this week's themes--today.

Oh, and check out the interview I just posted with artist Cory Godbey.


S is for Spokesmodel (for the IF theme Canned)

One of the monsters of my imagination displaying a can. I started sketching him and he just looked like a spokesmodel to me.

P is for Penguin (for the IF theme Poof!)

Don't ask what this has to do with Poof. I was thinking of a 'muff' but in my head I was calling it a 'pouf'. After I finished I realized that the pictures has nothing to do with poof. Oh well. He's cute anyway. I don't like the way I colored the P though. I should have just left the center white, with the blue around the edges.

Oh, and I posted these character sketches on MondayArtday, so I figured I'd share them with you guys here too, since I know I have some robot fans out there. You'll remember him, he's been featured here before.

Summer Contest Winners!

Much thanks to our judges, Dana of Craftyminx and Lisa of Tissuepapers.

Adding up the points, we ended up in a tie for first place! Both of these really fit the spirit of the Summer Doldrums Contest!

The Rainy Day Fun Insect Window Shade, by Some Art Fabric

http://someartfabrictalk.blogspot.com/2008/07/rainy-day-fun-insect-window-shade.html
This is a great project, recycling pages of an old book into a whimsical and interesting window shade. We loved that she got all the kids involved too! Per one of our judges: "I just love how simple this is!! Very easy to make and do!" She gives all the instructions and details on how to create this on her site.

Tying for first was:
The Memory Mobile by Hello, I'm Sally, of Pollywog's Cakewalk.

http://polliwogscakewalk.blogspot.com/2008/07/memory-mobile.html
This is a beautiful mobile, and the sentiments behind it are fabulous. Per a judge: "I like this idea of highlighting summer memories. " It really captures the essence of summer!

Third place goes to the adorable little narwhal by JuliePeach

Judge's comment: "I love the narwhal -- very original."

And an honorable mention to the cool freeform coral from Rachel at Cornflower Blue

Judge's comment: "Very cool"

Please be sure to congratulate the winners!

Please check out all the entries over at the original contest post. There are quite a few very cool ones!

Winners, please email me: dot -at- dabbled -dot- org.

And start planning now... Halloween will be the next contest!

Dot's Easy Asian Pasta Salad... and 3 other things

Item 1: The Judges are feverishly working to judge the summer doldrums contest.. Results soon!

Item 2:
I realize I haven't done a food post lately, so I figured we'd remedy that today.
My fabulous neighbor invited us over for dinner tonight, and they are vegetarians. I'm bringing a super easy vegetarian asian-inspired Pasta Salad. Recipe follows at the end of this post.


Item 3:
The cute stuff I won from The Caffeinated Crafter!


Item 4:
The mess I really need to clean up this weekend. This is the corner of the 'office' -- picture two other computers sitting off next to the one you can kind of see. The much maligned scanner has a stack of scanned doodles just sitting under it, and lets not even talk about the sewing equipment. We also won't talk about the fact there are two OTHER computers in there that are my husband's problem to clean up.


Dot's Easy Asian Pasta Salad:
RECIPE*:

*As always, I don't measure and I substitute freely, so take this as a guideline! I know some of the directions are vague, but go slow and taste often, and it's really hard to mess up.

Ingredients:
Pasta (1 package) - i used bowties.

1 can cannolini beans (white kidney) (this also works well with black beans instead or together)
1 can heart of palm
1/2 package of frozen, shelled Edamame (i'm guessing, because I just used what I had left - you could probably use close to a whole package)

1/3 to 1/2 jar Ginger dressing (from the refrigerated section, like Maria's or Naturally Fresh)
Olive Oil
Sesame Oil (optional - it just gives a great smell!)
Rice Wine vinegar (or white wine or red wine vinegar would do in a pinch)
Soy sauce
Black Pepper
Sesame Seeds (optional, as a garnish)

Boil water and cook pasta according to package directions.
In large boil, pour beans (with the liquid!) and palm hearts. Microwave the Edamame in a boil of water for 1-2 minutes to defrost, and add to the bowl.
Now add Ginger dressing, a drizzle of olive oil, a drizzle of sesame oil, several shakes of vinegar, several shakes of soy sauce, and a healthy few shakes of black pepper. Stir.
TASTE. Does it taste good? This is where you play around with it. Want it hotter? more pepper. Want more of that Ginger flavor? more dressing. not enough 'kick'? More vinegar. Just try to do approximately the same amounts of oil and vinegar. Let that sit while your pasta cooks. When the pasta is done, drain, and add about 1/2 to the mixture. Stir it up and ensure that it is fully coated. You may not need all the pasta. For mine, I added about half again of the pasta, stirred, and decided that was enough pasta based on the amount of beans and palm I had, and saved the final 1/4 for red sauce for The Boy. (Obviously, if you increase to 2 cans of beans, and a full package of edamame, you may use the whole thing. But up your liquids accordingly.)

Refrigerate the whole thing for several hours for the pasta to cool and the flavors to meld and be absorbed by the pasta. Taste before serving and you can always add a few more shakes of soy/vinegar/oil if it seems dry. Optional: sprinkle with sesame seeds before serving.

Alternates:
This is great with many different kinds of vegetables, so feel free to go for artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, baby corn, steamed carrots or peppers, whatever you have on hand.
If you're really lazy or don't have any supplies on hand, you can always just mix everything with a store-bought asian dressing for a quick and dirty version.