Monthly Archives: January 2011

Best snack ever.

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It’s also one of the easiest to make. Step one: make some popcorn that does not involve a microwave in any way (specific instructions below). My favorite way to pop the kernels is with mostly vegetable oil, a little bit of olive oil and way too much salt. Then, you add your favorite version of M&M’s. I went with peanut butter this time, but I swear to you – they’re all delicious.

Steve taught me to make the best popcorn ever. Forgive me if this is common knowledge, but for those of you who have never tried it, I would recommend doing it as soon as possible.

1. Put enough oil to just cover the bottom of a large pot.
2. Turn heat to medium.
3. Put enough popcorn kernels in to also just cover the bottom of the pot (the oil should cover them slightly).
4. Put the lid on.
5. Shake the pan every couple of minutes and remove from heat when the pops start getting infrequent.
6. Add some salt.
7. Put a good movie on and eat the entire pot by yourself. It’s okay, I do it all the time.

Reusable tote

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Remember this amazing fabric from yesterday? I made a thing or two out if it when I had the chance. It’s a heavy-duty upholstery-weight cotton, which means it’s meant for things like outdoor pillows or to cover a couch. Initially I bought the fabric because it was only $1/yard (shocker, right?) but it ended up growing on me. For such a heavy fabric, I love the brightness (and uniqueness) of the pattern.

To make this bag I put some plastic sheets inside (between the lining and the shell fabric) cut at the right spots for the bag to fold in the correct places. I remember it being a little difficult to figure out the construction, but as far as durability and storage efficiency, I’d say it was a pretty genius move. Ahem.

DIY: Jewelry board

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I made this jewelry organizer out of a bulletin board a few years ago and I still appreciate it every single day. I’ve had visions of adding an ornate thrift store frame to the outside, or maybe changing out the fabric…but obviously haven’t put too much effort into it yet.

To make it, I just used a piece of vintage fabric and pinned the excess down in the back with flat thumb tacks. Then I added some wire to the back to hang it on the wall, and used longer-style push pins to hang up my jewelry. A new addition to this set up is that I also stuck a bunch of push pins in the wall to hang my heavier necklaces. I figured if we had to pay a non-refundable $300 cleaning/repair fee…I’m going to put as many holes as I need to in the walls.

A little Friday shout out.

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My brother Derek is a seriously talented artist. He’s annoyingly smart. (Not so annoying now, extremely annoying when I was a kid. I still have nightmares about playing Trivial Pursuit with him and my other brother Kyle.) But he does silly things sometimes because of the whole he’s “an artist” thing. I’m just going to give one small example because I don’t want to tick anybody off. One Saturday morning a couple of years ago I was going to pick him up and go to a coffee shop by his apartment so he could help me with a Photoshop project. I called him when I got outside his place and he didn’t answer. So I called again. Then I buzzed the apartment. Nothing. I just figured he was reallllly asleep. As I was driving away I spotted a backpack-toting disheveled young man with the funniest sleep-hair you can imagine. I pulled up alongside Derek, and after making fun of him a tiny bit gave him a ride to the coffee shop. When we sat down and started to unload our computers and such he opened his backpack and realized it was empty. He was so disoriented from over sleeping that he walked outside carrying a backpack with nothing in it. Not even a pencil. Not even his cell phone. Boy. I am laughing real hard right now, but I have a feeling this is one of those ‘you had to be there’ stories.

The moral of this story is that Derek is awesome. He’s one of my favorites, really. You can buy each of the above 11″ X 17″ prints from his Etsy site. Or you can get a full alphabet set on 4″ X 6″ card stock – I use them as post cards.

Butternut squash soup

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I made butternut squash soup for the 3rd time since November. (See the previous posts about it here and here.) What can I say? I love it, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. This time I went with a crock pot recipe, which made it the easiest recipe to execute…but it was definitely not the best tasting. (The recipe I used last time was by far my favorite of the three.)

I love how our counter top from the 70's matches our crock pot from the 70's. No, really.

The cookbook of choice.

A high school quilt.

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When I was a senior I made a quilt out of the left over fabric from some of the high school dance dresses my mom made me. That’s what all 17-year-old girls do, right? The quality is a bit embarrassing to look at now, but I thought I’d share anyway.

The light blue is from my prom dress, the dark blue is from my winter dance dress, and the pink and ivory fabrics never actually got made into dresses. Let’s be honest, it’s probably better that way.

Useful table decorations.

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In our last apartment Steve and I had a tiny little dining room table (that fit perfectly under my pattern making table when I started to take over the apartment) that I made a table cloth, place mats and napkins for. Now that we have a real live table with matching chairs (!), we can no longer use that small rectangular table cloth. But everything else has been put to good use. (As with the pillows, these fabrics probably aren’t the ones I’d choose now if I were to make fun new stuff for the apartment. For the time being however, they’ll work just fine.)

Pillows

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I realized as Steve and I were unpacking last weekend that we have quite a few things I’ve made for the apartment – pillows, bags, cushions, bulletin boards, etc. In most cases, the fabric color or pattern I chose isn’t what I would necessarily go with now (since I made all that stuff about 3 years ago), but until I take the time to replace the items they will definitely do the trick.

Here are four pillows I made when we first moved into our other apartment. My goal with these was simply to experiment with a couple of different pillow styles and decoration techniques.