A Somewhat Oldie but a Goodie: And the Owl Goes

People must do a ton of searches for snow owls because this post from my short lived first blog has garnered the most views.  Decided to bring him on over to the new one slightly edited.  Eventually, I'll delete my old blog, but for now I'm going to bring over two or three of my favorites in order to fill up some space since the husband and I are going to be way busy over the next month putting in our backyard so I'll be posting even less than I already do.  IF that's even possible. 

And the Owl Goes.....

Another painting project?  Yes, and it's awesome so deal with it.  While perusing the aisle at Hobby Lobby during one of their big clearance sales I came across this fat little gentlemen.

 

With only one and a half eyes, how could I resist?  This is one of the most odd planters I have come across.  His body had a porcelain like finish with that flowery curly cue pattern but his eyes and feet looked like someone had smeared brown and green paint on them.  It is pretty ridiculous to look at in real life.  But the shape of him had so much potential I had to snag him.   

First I made him a lovely little cardboard perch and then went to work with some spray paint.  Next, after many, many, many thin coats of white spray paint I was finally able to cover up that extremely persistent and therefore annoying blue flower pattern which resulted in a nice clean white owl planter.
 

I was half tempted to stop at this point and leave it white but I figured if I didn't like it with the colors I had planned on adding I could always just spray paint it white again.  That's why spray paint is so awesome.  The plan was to color his eyes, beak and feet with black paint and use blue to fill in the space around his eyes.  Why those colors you ask?  Mostly because I thought it would look nice and was partially inspired by this actual owl.



Not sure what he's looking at but I'm pretty sure he wants to eat its face.


Also, I already had blue spray paint and a tube of black acrylic.  Yep, decorating inspiration can come from many places including feelings of laziness and not wanting to spend money.  In order to add the blue spray paint, I had to section off the eye area so as to not ruin the rest of the now perfectly white body.  To achieve this I had to concoct a tape and Sunday comics mask.    



He could totally be a crime fighter




Featured in the background:  Our lovely, soon to be gone, dirt yard.



 

A few more thin coats of spray paint and the careful removal of the tape we have blue eyed perfection.


Is it weird that his eyes now match our great room?

The next step was to add some black paint to the eyes, beak, and feet so that he no longer had that creepy dead blue eyed stare.  Using a small paint brush and a mostly steady hand, I added black acrylic paint to the eyes, beak, and feet to add some more definition and a bit of personality.   

I think this planter turned out pretty adorable.  Now I just need to figure out what kind of plant needs to call him home.


**Update**

So, instead of getting a plant for my owl planter I decided to use him for something a bit more practical.  Turns out he was the perfect size to house all of my contact paper, cellophane wrapping, sign vinyl, and other vaious tube shaped items.  Much better than my previous storage solution for all this stuff which was leaning everything precariously in a corner of the closet. 

And Then a Space Became Useful

After long last, the craft room, my mecca of creative glory, is no longer random piles of crap piled on top of other piles of crap.  The craft room had turned into one of two rooms in the house where things ended up if we didn't know what to do with it or if we were cleaning up real quick before people came over.  After attempting to clean and organize my space and repeatedly failing for it to stick, we are now on the road to recovery.   

Anyways, enough rambling, onto the projects!

I whipped up three quick and easy projects that helped to organize my work area.

Project 1: Less than stellar thrift store shelf into awesome display area

Step 1. Purchase or barter your way towards owning a shelf. 

Step 2. Lightly sand and then spray paint shelf a color that will be visually appealing to your face.

Step 3. Hang shelf on wall.  Nail into studs or use anchors when necessary.

BAM!  A beautiful purple shelf for various glues and my random awesome things.  I’m pretty in love with this little guy.  The dark purple against the light purple appeals so much to me that now I’m hunting for other shelves of various sizes that I can paint the same dark purple and hang elsewhere in this room.  Shelf collage of purple happiness.  

Project 2: We Can Rebuild It, We Have the Technology

Might I introduce you to my previously used thread holder?  Don’t get too attached, the little guy shown below is no more. 

Step 1. Use a claw hammer or some other prying tool, like maybe your teeth, and pry or gnaw bars off of base.

Step 2. Glue to already owned or freshly snagged bulletin board.

*Quick side project: Get an empty frame and glue a piece of thick cork or a hacked off chunk of an old giant bulletin board into it.  Results in a nicely framed bulletin board.  Take advantage of your local thrift store and this would probably cost less than $10.  

BAM! New thread holder/bulletin board.  This was a spur of the moment project in the style of use anything within a five foot radius.  Now, the extremely detailed and highly specific directions above may not apply to you but I'm positive that you can improvise your way into creating something similar or better.  Probably better.   


Project 3: About Damn Time This Got Done

In addition to the gold framed bulletin board now bulletin board/thread holder pictured above, there was a second gold frame hanging above my desk, as well.  This one however, was empty.  It mocked me each and every time I walked into the room.  Why, you might ask? Because, it's a jerk.  It was a reminder of my procrastination.  The empty frame's fate was to have a pegboard mounted in it to hang my various shears, pliers, and scissors from.  An empty frame that I hung up around two months into moving into our home.  Ten months later, empty it still hung. 

I shall be mocked NO more!

 
Step 1: Acquire a frame, empty of its junk if necessary, and paint if an undesirable or gross color.

Step 2: Obtain a piece of pegboard that will fit in empty frame.  Paint, or stain (as I chose to do) pegboard so it is pleasing to your eye and the area it will be hung in.

Step 3: Use some wood glue to attach pegboard and frame.  Be sure to allow proper drying time for glue so your stuff doesn't get messed up.  Watch a movie.  Or do some laundry maybe.  I don't know.  Don't be so damn impatient.

Step 4:  While you were getting pegboard and an empty frame you should have also picked up some pegboard hardware.  A hardware store, garage sale, or craigslist could be helpful.

Step 5: Hang frame on the wall.  Arrange crafting tools on board in an orderly fashion.

Upon finishing the above three projects, your desk area might look something like this.

I'm hitting a bit of snag when it comes to adding color to this room.  The gold frames and the dark purple shelf look great but it would be nice to add a bit more variety.  There is also a bookcase and a cupboard storage piece in this room that require makeovers.  Two chairs reside in this room as well, both of which are partially pictured above that need reupholstering.  Making everything dark purple and gold or silver seems a bit overkill and crazy ugly.  

Medicine Cabinet Makeover

Hello, my name is Megan and I am a project hoarder.  When I was younger, I had serious issues with holding onto everything that came across my path.  Opening my bedroom closet was a risky undertaking that often resulted in a pile of crap hitting me on the head.  Over the years, I've managed to break most of my pack rat tendencies to the point where I am now at the complete other end of the spectrum and cannot stand having anything extra or useless in my possession.  This new behavior, much to the annoyance of my husband, manifests itself every few months when I start going though every closet and cupboard in our home and asking, "Do we need this?  What is this?  You don't need this, when was the last time you used it?"   Believe me, I know how annoying I can be, but it's a compulsion that cannot be stopped.   

The one area of my life that still echos with old habits is anything to do with crafting.  I have piles of untouched fabric, random scrapbook paper, thread every color of the rainbow, crafting kits that remain unopened (BJ - I promise I will open and love the screen printing kit you bought me two Christmases ago), unfinished wooden chests, dozen of items picked up with the intention of adding fresh coats of spray paint, fake flowers, glass rocks, etc, etc, etc.  Once we moved into our house however, I self-imposed a no new craft shit rule.  I was/am determined to whittle down my supplies project by project.  

Now that we're all up to speed, I bring you my newest project.  Around five years ago, I picked up a medicine cabinet at a thrift store which then sat unaltered in various closets up until a week ago when I finally decided to get off my ass and either do something with it or donate it back to a thrift store.  Considering there was no use for an actual medicine cabinet in either of my bathrooms, this guy was going to be transformed into a jewelry cabinet that could hang in the master bedroom closet. 

    

There are no proper before pictures of this thing before the makeover started because I get overly excited about projects which causes me to jump right in and not realize that no pictures have been taken and the project is already half over.  As shown in the above picture, the cabinet was previously silver.  Not shown in the picture, is that there are two adjustable shelves inside.  There, all important aspects of the medicine cabinet have been discussed.      

The whole thing, minus drying time for the paint, took around two hours from the first spray till it was up on the wall.  It helped that I had all the materials used already on hand and didn't have to buy anything additional to complete it.

Supplies
medicine cabinet
foam board
chipboard
fabric
ribbon
masking tape
glue
anchors + screws
spray paint 
sewing pins 

Assembling this piece was pretty straight forward.  For the outside of cabinet, a black satin finish spray paint was applied using painfully thin coats of paint which takes forever but yields the best results so don't pull a me and try to glob on thick coats to quicken the time.  To make the inside of the cabinet accommodating to my jewelry, foam board (allows for pins to be pushed into it creating a space for necklaces and bracelets to hang) was cut to fit in the top section of the cabinet and chipboard (creates a uniform look to the back while being thin enough to not take up valuable storage space - helps to not read dimensions properly when placing an online order so that you have WAY more chipboard than a person will every actually need) was cut to fit in the bottom sections in between the shelves.  Cover each piece in fabric and it's done.   

 

Foam board covered in fabric

Chip board covered in fabric.

Yes, that is masking tape being used to adhere the fabric to the foam and chip board.  This material was chosen because I was feeling lazy at the time and didn't want to bother with glue.  It came together perfectly fine though and once the fabric covered boards are in place the tape is never seen.

To add a bit more storage, another piece of chipboard was cut to size to fit on the inside of the cabinet door.  It was also covered in fabric but ribbons were added as a place for pictures or other items that required hanging.       

Always a kitten close at hand plotting to sit on whatever is being worked on.

Jump cut to around a day or two later when the cabinet paint has fully dried, all inserts are covered in fabric/ ribbons, and everything can be assembled.  Using E-6000 craft glue, the the fabric/ribbon chipboard is attached to the inside of the door and weighed down with whatever was close at hand for a couple of hours.

Enlisting some help from the husband in the hold-this-right-here-and-don't-move capacity, the cabinet was positioned on the wall, pencil marks were made where the holes were, screwed in anchors where the marks were, repositioned the cabinet, and added screws to hold the entire thing up.  

One music montage later and we have a fully functional and decorated jewelry cabinet.  Once the cabinet was screwed into the wall, I put the shelves and the fabric covered inserts into place.  I didn't use any kind of adhesive to keep the inserts in place since if I needed to move the cabinet I would have had to rip them out anyways which would have been a pain.  Past Megan helping future Megan out.  Thanks Past Megan, much appreciated.  Luckily, the pieces were snug enough where they stayed put once wedged into place. 

    

The hangers for the necklaces are regular sewing pins snipped in half with wire cutters.  Once popped into the foam board they work perfectly as jewelry hangers.  Be sure to allow enough rooms in between necklaces so things don't get tangled up.  

Final shot of the cabinet hanging in place.  I approve and it looks like that one Homer Simpson slipper approves too although I'm not entirely comfortable with how he is leering at the cabinet. 

That one where I talk about nuts

Since the whirlwind that is the holiday season has passed, I finally found a moment to get back on here.

For the last couple years, I’ve made a pledge to attempt and simplify Christmas.  The goal’s intention was to alleviate some holiday stress since I tend to overthink and overcomplicate anything that involves a second person let alone all of my family, in-laws, and friends.  The biggest way I do this is by giving everyone the same present.  It might sound like a cop-out (which it totally is) but it saves a ridiculous amount of time, stress, and usually money as well.   It’s normally handmade or mostly handmade and involves an edible treat along with something substantial the person can keep.     

Luckily, everyone I give presents to are in at least their early twenties which seems to be the age where a person doesn’t care as much about getting a bunch of stuff and they mostly want free food from mom and dad along with a clean place to do laundry.  No one cares about the newest fad present (seriously, what the fuck is a zhu zhu pet?  Or is that even still current?  Sometimes I feel so old for only being 26) and Christmas really does turn into that lovely time of year where family and friends gravitate back to home base and simply want to enjoy being around each other.

The present that the husband and I put together this year was a fun one.  One of the takeaway presents we gave was a  bar glass etched with a comic book sound-effect word.  BJ drew up all the words by hand which I then turned into a stencil and etched onto a glass.  We also used a different word on each glass (klik, ding-dong, buuuurrrrrp, BAM!, whoooosh, etc.) so while everyone received the same items the overall gift was also unique and personalized. 

The rest of the presents were of the snack and booze variety.  Each person received a small jar of spicy rosemary mixed nuts and either a 22 ounce beer (brewed in our kitchen), a jar of cranberry-lime infused vodka, a jar of jalapeno-garlic infused vodka, or a jar of Liquid Gold which is another infused vodka that when mixed with sparkling cider becomes a dangerous elixir.  Also, I attempt to forgo wrapping paper because I think it's kind of a waste and I'm cheap.  This year I chose to use a super awesome reusable shopping bag from Envirosax to package everything in.  

Something to drink, a receptacle for said drink, a snack, and probably the greatest reusable shopping bag in existence.

Seriously though, if you use reusable shopping bags, I highly recommend picking up an Envirosax.  As demonstrated in the above picture, they roll up small so it can be tossed in a purse or glove box and when unrolled they hold a TON of stuff.  I love mine and use them all the time. Just get one.  You won't regret it.  Well, you might regret it if you hate awesome stuff but then you're a sad and bitter person who doesn't deserve to own something so cool.  
       
Anyways, in order to keep some of the holiday cheer going, I’m sharing the recipe for the spicy rosemary mixed nuts.  These were the surprise hit of the Christmas grab bag and almost everyone has asked me for the recipe or offered to buy me an endless supply of Costco tubs of mixed nuts so I could keep them stocked for life.  Enjoy!

Prepare for deliciousness

Spicy Rosemary Mixed Nuts

1 lb mixed nuts
1 tbsp melted butter
3 tbsp fresh chopped rosemary
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 -1 tsp cayenne pepper

Mix melted butter, rosemary, sugar, and cayenne pepper together.  Pour this mixture into the nuts and stir to coat.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for around 10 minutes.  Stir halfway through.

I used a salted nut mix but I'm sure unsalted would probably work as well.  You can always toss some kosher salt in with everything.  Enjoy!




Side note: I mentioned that I'm 26 but I'm also apparently a 12 year old boy because I giggled each time I wrote nuts.  Every.  Single.  Time.




Nuts.

Christmas Time Progress Goes Boink

This holiday season, I found myself in need of more ornaments for our tree and so decided to whip up some some classic salt dough decorations.  Aside from being super easy to do, the real inspiration for this project came from my parents.  When they were first married, my mom made a bunch of salt dough ornaments to decorate their tree with most of which she still has and continues to use.  It's a nice thought that years from now, BJ and I can decorate our tree with ornaments we've had since our first year of marriage. 

Anyways, salt dough is a simple, cheap recipe and easy for anyone to do.  Lots of people probably made it as kids for some school project.  For this batch of ornaments, I decided to make possibly the coolest thing I've ever made.  At least the top five.  I give you....Calvin & Hobbes Snowmen Ornaments. 

After making the salt dough and rolling it out, I found three random kitchen objects that I could use to create the snowmen.  I ended up using a cake decorating tip, some blue plastic thing that came with my cake decorating kit, and the metal tin thing that votive candles come in.  I am super fancy.  Once I had the snowmen shape pressed into the dough I mostly carefully used a knife to cut everything out.

 

Be sure to poke holes in the tops of the ornaments so they can be strung later for hanging.  Since I planned on adding tiny stick arms after they were painted, I also added holes to the side of the snowmen.  To smooth out the edges or any lines made from drawing these shapes out, use a finger and water to gently even everything out.  Now, whether you chose to use your own finger or one that you have laying around is up to you.

 

I baked my salt dough ornaments at 250 degrees for two hours.  They weren't quite dry at this point so after the two hours was up I turned off the oven and left them in overnight.  Okay, so I actually left them in the oven for a couple of days but I can't be expected to remember everything that I'm doing.

 

Once everything was dry, I painted the ornaments using acrylic paint.  Also, notice anything missing between the picture above and the one below?  Yea, somewhere along the way my two headed snowman disappeared. The most embarrassing part of this is that I didn't even notice one had gone missing until I was editing the pictures for this post.  I have to assume that one of the cats, dirty little thieves that they are, snagged it when I wasn't looking.  It's pretty impressive that it didn't break when it hit the ground too.  Of course, it seems odd that there is no sign of it so there's also a very good chance the two headed snowman is lost somewhere in my craft room.  I keep trying to clean the place but it just won't take.

 

 

After I painted the faces on, I also sprayed these with several layers of a clear sealant with a flat finish.  This was a tip from my mom whose salt dough ornaments look like they were painted yesterday so I definitely recommend taking this extra step.  Once the sealant dried and the fumes cleared, I used E-6000 craft glue and some salvaged stick clipping I took from this decorative thing we have in our hallway.  Just one of those standard sticks & stones in a giant vase ornamental thing that everyone eventually has a version of in their homes.

 

I think the headless snowman may be my favorite.  He just looks so surprised that he's holding his own head.  The hanging snowmen is the runner up though since I got to learn how to make a tiny noose.  I love learning new things.

 

Salt Dough Recipe

2 Cups flour

1 Cup table salt

1 Cup water

Mix flour and salt together in a bowl.  Slowly mix in water kneading together with hands.  Knead mixture together until a solid dough forms.  Roll dough out onto counter to a thickness of 1/4 and inch or smaller.  Use cookie cutters, knives, and other various objects to create fun shapes.  Bake in oven at 250 degrees for several hours.  Also helps to forget about ornaments (after the oven had been shut off) for several days to allow further drying.  Helps to dust counters, rolling pins, hands, cookie cutters or anything else that may touch the dough with flour.  That shit is sticky.

From Desperation Comes Greatness

On Wednesday, the husband made a ton of super tasty burgers for dinner.  I got to take a break from the kitchen while he cooked and did the majority of the dishes.  It was awesome.   

Cut to two days later and we have no hamburger buns or any other bread in the house but still have an abundance of leftover burgers.  Me, being a complete genius, came up with a delicious solution.    

And they shall call it BUGERITO!!!  

 

1.  Spread thin layer of butter on a flour tortilla
2.  On the non-buttered side, place a slice of cheddar cheese and a leftover burger
3.  Fold tortilla around burger and crisp up both sides in a hot pan
4. Nom, nom, nom*

*Recommended dipping sauce is ketchup and Tapatio.

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.