Bucket of Poison

So along with the hundreds of hobbies that I already have, recently I added beer brewing to the mix.  I don't have any pictures of this process yet but imagine me and my friend Amanda drinking in my kitchen while attempting to make a brew without all the necessary tools while my husband and our friends are playing Magic and speaking in a nerd language incomprehensible to either of us. 

Tools we were missing: steeping bags, long metal spoon, enough ice or freezer packs to cool the pot down, and also a cooking thermometer.  It was like trying to brew beer as a pilgrim.  I now know how my ancestors suffered.

Luckily, my parents only live a few streets away so I was able to borrow a candy thermometer from them which worked fine.  I didn't know about the metal spoon part before I left their house so we were out of luck on that one.  By the time that information came up I was already three beers deep. 

Anyways, there's a step in beer brewing where the pot of everything that been boiling for over an hour needs to have the temperature dropped down below 75 degrees (the closer to 60 degrees the better I believe) so that the yeast can be added.  We barely had any ice in our freezer so my friend smartly grabbed a reusable freezer pack to put directly in the pot of beer to cool it down quicker.  Worked like a charm.

Cut to a week later when I'm using the same freezer pack in my lunch bag and discover that it has a leak in it.  So, potentially, I have a giant bucket of poisoned freezer pack goo beer sitting in the closet of my sewing room.  Considering this batch was meant to end up as Christmas presents neither one of us were too pleased.  The only thing I can do now is wait a couple weeks and check on the beer to see if it looks okay.  The yeast will go fucking crazy if anything nonsanitized is in it so it will be pretty clear whether or not the batch turned out drinkable.   

Poison or beer?

However, we find solice in the fact that if the batch is ruined we can blame my mom.  I did steal the freezer pack from her.  Thanks a lot Mama Kuff.

Double Nerd Coasters

During my daily search of Pinterest, I came across these cool Scrabble tile coasters.

                               

                                                      Source: intimateweddings.com via Megan on Pinterest

I actually had spare Scrabble tiles on hand from when I turned a batch of them into fridge magnets.  We hadn't been using them since we moved into the house so I figured I might as well repurpose them into something more useable.  Unfortunately, this also meant I had to pry the magnets off the backs of a bunch of stupid Scrabble tiles.  Me having constantly stocked up on fabric in the past meant I, of course, had spare felt on hand to use as the backings on the coasters.  The only other things I needed were Mod Podge and glue which luckily I also had.  So the total price of this project was $0.  Super sweet.

 

Once all the magnets (stupid magnets broke my nail) had been removed, I laid the tiles out in five by five squares.  This only gave me three coasters so I'll have to hit up a thrift store for an old Scrabble board so I can make a few more.  If the coasters are examined a touch more closely, you'll see that a word is hidden in each one.  The first has Cthulu for my H.P. Lovecraft loving husband, Bad Wolf in the second for a nice Doctor Who reference, and finally Johnson in the third since that's our last name.   

 

These were easy enough to make.  Just use a crafting glue or super glue to attach each tile to the felt backing.  Careful if using super glue though, a bit of it leaked through my felt pieces.  Not enough to do any damage but still something to watch out for.  

Once I had all the tiles glued down, I also tilted the tiles so I could run a line of glue down the edges to add a bit more stability to the whole thing.  After letting it dry for a good 20 minutes, I trimmed the excess felt off and got to work on waterproofing these for coaster use.

Whenever working with Mod Podge, I like using a small sponge brush.  It seems to leave a smoother finish and allows for super thin coats to be put down.  I've found that doing multiple coats of Mod Podge that are really, really thin creates a better end product.  On previous projects when I got overzealous with the application, the final coat always seemed to be tacky no matter how long it dried.  Maybe that's just me though, if there's a better way please let me know.  

After a couple hours of Mod Podging and drying I had created three super cool coasters.  At least, I think they're pretty cool.  I think the Bad Wolf one is my favorite but I'm a sucker for anything Doctor Who related.

 

A nice action shot of a coaster in use.  Absolutely going to round up more Scrabble tiles to work with.  I was thinking another cool project using these tiles would be to cover the bottom of a square or rectangular serving tray.  They could even be laid out to mimic an actual Scrabble game and use the back side of the tile to fill in the blank spots.        

Ha, ass.

Starting Fresh

Let's get this started.  Had an old blog that lasted about five months before moving on to one whose title I could pronounce correctly.  Plus, it gave me an excuse to make a stuffed felt koala (see blog header) and who doesn't need more of those.
 
Figured, if I was going to make this change, now would be the time to do it while my old blog views were averaging two people a day.  To the folks over in Germany, India, Australia, and other places who read my old blog, I love you.  Even if you only came across my site from doing a Google search for a snow owl.  I know that deep in your heart you really wanted to see snarky posts about me spray painting a bunch of shit.