New Wall Art: Put a Bird (or three) on it!

This was a spontaneous weekend project. It happened after a similarly spontaneous living room rearrangement (I am convinced that rearranging the furniture periodically is good for your brain) that left a new piece of open wall.

I found this pinterest board, which was chock fill of ideas, and one of them was this bird art silhouette from over at Tater Tots and Jello, which was actually a guest post from the blogger at Crap I've Made. If I'm going to be perfectly honest, I am incredibly jealous of that blog name, since making crap and blogging about it is a favorite activity of mine.

I was really intrigued because it reminded me a bit of my previous venture into canvas wall art, in that it uses blocking off negative space as a substitute for an actual ability to paint anything that looks like anything (this my previous attempt, which has more than 1600 repins, making it possibly the most popular thing I've ever made in my life).

This one is a little different because the base layer isn't just white paint, this time it is a collage. So, first, you've got to cut up some stuff and make one. This takes a while. I would recommend paper scraps that don't include much white- you want it to contrast with the color of the paint you're using. All I had to cut up were my hoard of back issues of the New Yorker which I perpetually intend to get through. I was a little concerned about this plan since it is so text heavy, but actually there is really cool art in there, so it worked out pretty well. In related news, when you spend your evening cutting up back issues of the New Yorker to make a project you found on Pinterest after spending the afternoon potting herb plants in organic potting soil, you start to wonder what kind of a cliche you have become.

These are my supplies:

This is my collage (do you have any idea how many back episodes of True Blood it took to make this thing? Quite a few). You might see that down at the bottom the pieces are bigger. That is because at that point, I thought the only place that the underneath would show through was in the top third. I did want paper everywhere so the paint would look uniform.

Then you have to figure out what to put on this thing. The original post used pictures from sillohouttes.com, but they wouldn't print out big enough for what I wanted (I had spent enough time on the collage that I wanted to be able to see it!). So I drew and cut out some really basic birds and leaves. I actually had to cut them out a number of times to keep making them bigger (see the stray one at the bottom?)

Once you settle on a design, you have to outline it. What I did, was to hold it down, and lightly brush the paint outwards all the way around it, to make a slight outline of the birds.

Using that, I could then trace the outline with my brush (see, no real painting ability needed!).

I went through the whole area around the birds, and realized I was kind of sad because there were some parts of the collage I had gotten kind of attached to (although I had tried to capture some of them under the birds).

I decided to make it sort of purposely undone at the bottom, to allow some color to balance out the higher up birds, and I like how it looks. Unfortunately, since I had done a bad job on purpose at the bottom, I ended up having to redo it using my many leftover scraps.

Then just cover it over. As with the grey hallway art, this takes a ton of cheap acrylic paint. I made it so brush strokes sort of pulled down to almost over the bottom part, leaving about 1/5th of it still colored. In case you are wondering, this whole enterprise made an enormous mess:

Then it was time to hang it! I'm planning to spray it with an acrylic fixer, but want to give it a full day to be sure it is all dry underneath, since there a a few different layers of paint and modpodge going on.

I like how it turned out it's colorful, and also way different than anything else I've got going on.

You could pretty much make any pattern here, Just be sure the resolution of the cut up pieces for the collage are small enough so that whatever cut out you put on top allows you to see different swatches of color. Have fun with it!

Simple Easy DIY Wall Art

This is the reason I love Pinterest, despite the fact that if I see another adorable item unnecessarily placed in a mason jar and decorated with twine, I might lose it. I saw something on there, made a run to Michael's and Staples, and BAM! two days later, my hallway is all jazzed up.

This project is great because while it makes it look like you might actually have some artistic ability, in reality you just have to channel your 3rd grade skills in sticking on stickers and slathering on acrylic paint. Easy peasy.

First, here is the first inspiration, which I saw on Pinterest but traced it to "How About Orange", an adorable blog with tons of ideas that immediately got popped into my rss feed.

I like how simple her version is, but really what I needed was something big for the hallway. I felt like I had seen abstract flowers like that around but had a terrible time figuring out what to call them (for the record, apparently they are dandelions). Then, a google search revealed this piece by PitterPatter Press on etsy. If I hadn't already become bound and determined to make it myself, it would have been a good choice (and, much more delicately done than mine), but that ship had sailed so off I went.

Here is what you need:

--Art tape (surprisingly I found this at Staples and not Michael's- do NOT get some other non-art tape, this stuff was awesome). I got both 1/4 and 1/8 inch tape, so that there would be variability in the stem size.

--Stickers- unlike the tape, I'm clearly agnostic about sticker type. Basically, I wanted some variability in size, but if you get official mailing stickers they come in packets of hundreds, which I just didn't need. Luckily, down the aisle were a variety of other stickers. The smiley faces were surprisingly effective, as were the mailing seals- the price stickers were a little cheap and didn't stick as well

--Paint- I just got regular acrylic paint in a color I wanted. you will also need white paint (I used leftover primer from my dresser).

--canvas- now, I lucked out on this one- 24x30 canvases were on sale ($6 instead of $19!). I wanted mine to be big but just so you know, these really are pretty big!

Now, get going! 

First, you have to paint the canvas with the white paint and let it dry. This is boring because I know you want to get your hands on those stickers, but it's critical because the stickers just really don't stick that well to the plain canvas (I did a test). 

Once that is done and dry (overnight) put the tape and stickers on in a pattern you like- one thing to consider is balancing out the density of the flowers so it doesn't look like one side is weighed down, and also putting in variability in height. When you put the stickers on be sure to really push them down at the edges with your fingernail.

I made two because I have a whole lotta wall. Here is the other one (this picture is awful, sorry).

Next, paint over it all. Honestly it was a lot harder than I would have predicted to get an even coat, it definitely took multiple coats and then I had to go back and redo some spots. Am I some kind of expert painter? no way. Did I manage to successfully slather the whole thing with paint after literally staring at it with a flashlight to find white streaks? yes.

Let that dry (it does not have to be 100% dry). Now is the best part, which is peeling off the stickers. I can't even explain how satisfying this is.

And here you go! these are drying (the one on the right is on the shoebox lid to keep it from sticking to the floor).

Now, up on the wall! I suspect I might have hung them too high, but with my high ceilings it gets kind of confusing where to put things, I'm letting them stay there while I ponder it.

And here they are with my cloth-on-a-frame in the foreground:

Overall, this took a few days all things considered, but I really am happy with how they turned out. One thing I particularly like is how the white pops agains the dark background- it made me really glad I didn't pick a lighter shade of paint. Try it!

Big Wall, Big Problem

I have what you might call a "problem wall" in my apartment. The first thing you should know, is that my ceilings are pretty high. I love having high ceilings because it means there is a lot of light and also that I can wedge more into my hall closets than you could ever imagine. The down side is that I am too short to change lightbulbs even with a step ladder, and also that the walls can look a little bare.

The issue with the "problem wall", which was over my kitchen table, was partly that it was tall, and partly that it has the buzzer for the door, the electrical panel, a light switch and a mysterious pipe. So, nothing normal would cover all that up. After a little thinking, this is my problem wall, now:

This is the wall before (the only before pic was from when I was apartment searching,  so there are paint supplies and things, but you can see all the obstacles).

The main issue is that the light switch is not flat, so hanging a picture was out of the question (also, I don't really use that light switch anyways because the overhead light is ugly). I initially thought I'd get a canvas and paint it, and I did get a canvas that seemed huge at the store (2x3). But once I was at home I realized that a. 2x3 was not as big as I thought, and b. that I am not a painter and no matter what I did it looked like something an 8 year old made. So, on to plan B! I decided to make a frame and stretch fabric over it.

First stop: fabric.com where I also bought all the fabric for my quilt. You can see some of the things I was considering on my pinterest, which is the best thing for documenting shopping options I've ever found. The main hurdle was that this is really part of the living room, and the living room has tons of color, and a number of framed things as you can see (although the bright light from the windows makes it a little difficult to see what they are). I wanted something light and clean looking, so I tried to pick something that would coordinate with the light colors of the pillows and in the rug (not more red!).

This is what I picked- in real life it is more blue/grey then purple.

Then it was off to Home Depot where I bought 4 pieces of wood, each 48 inches long. To do this, I got  1x2's (as a side note if you are a wood buying newbie- the size it says it is won't be right. that is because you can get raw cut wood that is full of splinters and is actually 1 inches by 2 inches (or 2x4 or whatever) but when they smooth it down, obviously it gets a bit smaller). All I cared about was that the wood stuck out far enough from the wall to cover the light switch. The 1x2's were 8 feet long so I got a nice man at Home Depot to cut them for me, which he did for free. I also bought some nails that didn't look thick enough to split the wood, but did look long enough to go all the way through and into the other piece.

Then I nailed them together.

Then, I got excited so I put it up there to see how it would look. The red you can see is some tissue paper I taped together which I put up to check out spacing- as you can tell, it was a good idea because one of the main things I learned was that my initial idea about how big it needed to be was wrong. The tape is because I thought the fabric might sag, but it turned out to be a waste of both time and tape.

The first key step here was to IRON THE FABRIC and WASH THE FLOOR, otherwise it would be dirty and wrinkly, which is not what you're going for, here. Then I tried my best to line up the pattern with the edge, and went around and glue gunned the fabric. For some reason I cannot fathom, the wood did not seem exactly straight, but I soldiered on. If I had picked a less geometric pattern, I'd never have noticed, but, lesson learned. One of the benefits of this is if I get sick of the pattern, I can easily glue a new one on!

And... here it is!

Easy Decorating Idea: Colorful Framed Paper

I got this really easy decorating idea from Pinterest (as usual). Unfortunately, (also as usual) someone didn't pin it carefully, so it isn't possible to track down the originator of the picture and cite them here (I also can't get the embedded pin to center itself- ah well).

Source: tumblr.com via Yellowfish on Pinterest

Having just recently wrapped up the painting of the dresser, I've been thinking about the state of my bedroom. It was fine, but there was kind of a lack of coziness, I think because of all the white wall. I have tall ceilings, which I love, but it does mean there is a whole lotta wall to cover! Here it is, before:

Meh.

I went to Michael's to see what there was to see, and it turned out they were having a sale. I found the frames I used for 5 bucks each- I wasn't really willing to risk too much, because for all I knew this was going to look ridiculous. My criteria were: black, relatively thick frame, and the mat had to be included. 

Michaels also has a large paper selection, which is good, because picking out the paper was pretty challenging, actually. I noticed the original picture had a mix of sizes of patterns and colors. It also had to match my quilt. I tried to pick patterns that had some unique and some repeating colors so that every color was in at least one other panel. Fortunately, paper is pretty cheap (usually about 50 cents per sheet, but today 6 for $1, can't beat that!). So, I bought a bunch of extra just in case. The other perk here is that you can always switch up the colors later if you want a new look.

Be sure to clean the glass in the frames before putting the paper in. also, for geometric patterns, really make sure it's straight or else it'll look sloppy. (It was really hard to take these pictures without glare obscuring the patterns).

Other than picking the paper, the next hardest thing was clearly hanging them evenly spaced along the wall. Really, I don't have any magic solution for this, it involved a lot of measuring and remeasuring and making teeny dots on the wall and then doing math on my hand and swearing while I stood on the bed. But finally, I got them up!

Overall, I'm pretty excited about it! It didn't take that long, it brightened things up, and things look a lot cozier!

We made cheese.... yes! CHEESE!!!

To me, cheese is a kind of magical substance that appears at the store and seems way beyond the capacity of any normal, modern, non farming, person to make unsupervised.

Oh, I was wrong! Not only can you make it, you can make it in 30 minutes!

It turns out, to make delicious mozzarella cheese, this is all you need:

- A gallon of whole milk

- citric acid

- rennet (I got liquid vegetarian rennet, because real rennet kind of grosses me out)

- salt

I got all of this at whole foods for a reasonable price (although I had to ask for help finding stuff), and I have enough rennet and citric acid for many many more batches.

So- what do you do? Turns out most of it is pretty simple.

Combine 1.5 tsp citric acid with 1/4c water. Also combine (separately) 1/4tsp rennet with 1/4c water. Pour the milk in a large pot and slowly (this will require only low heat) bring it up to 55 degrees - as a warning, this is really not very hot at all so be sure you're taking the temperature as soon as you start heating. Once it hits 55 (Fahrenheit), pour in the citric acid and keep heating. When it hits 85, put in the rennet. Continue to heat, but stir very very gently and only occasionally- you want the curds to be able to form. 

Keep heating (to around 95-105) and pretty soon, the milk will start to seem clumpy and thick, and separate from the side of the pan.

When this happens, stop heating it, and just let the curds sit there for about 5 minutes or so, so they can separate from the whey in peace.

Now, this next part was actually the hardest for me- you want to get the curds out and leave behind the whey. You can gently scoop it into another bowl using a slotted spoon, but depending on how big the slots are it can get a little tough towards the end.

Now, here is where we start to use modern technology to make this stuff happen fast (a trick I learned from SimpleBites). Take the bowl with the curds and stick it in the microwave for 60 seconds. Lots of whey will come out, so drain it off carefully. (I have no pictures of this part because I was busy trying to do things like drain off whey without dumping all the cheese on the floor). Fold it over to distribute the heat, then put it back in the microwave. Sprinkle with half a tsp of salt. Repeat this microwaving (not the adding of salt) until it starts to look like melted mozzarella (I had to do it more times than the original website did- don't despair, just keep going!). 

You should get to a point where you can stretch it a long way without breaking, when that happens, you're ready to make it into little balls! (or a big log, or whatever). Just roll it in your hands while it's still hot and melty.

Then of course you have the important dilemma of what to do with all this awesomeness.

We decided to make turkey slider patties (a current addiction) and grill a lot of veggies. We did peppers, onions, carrots, and zucchini, while they were hot they were tossed with garlic, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and dry basil (fresh would have been awesome). 

 Then we cut the balls into little pieces (they were a little big) and tossed those in, and served it on a bed of baby spinach. So delicious!!

It would also be amazing on homemade pizza (like our bbq version!) or about a million other things... give it a shot!

Fancy-schmancy Springtime Eggs- aka Brunch in 5 Minutes

Ok, in terms of cuteness vs. easiness, these eggs pretty much have all the odds in their favor. I saw them (of course) on Pinterest, and they originally came from Apron Strings. If you can get a 4 lobed pepper, they're not just cute, they look like little flowers! (and they'd be a lot cuter if I liked my eggs less cooked like the rest of the world seems to)

Anyhow... basically, here is your giant ingredient list, hold onto your hats!
Eggs
Bell peppers.

All you do here is slice the pepper into about 1/2 inch thick rings (through the widest part of the pepper). Heat up the pan on medium heat, spray with cooking spray or put in a little olive oil, put in the pepper, and crack the egg right into the pepper. A little egg will leak out, but it's easy to remove later.

You can flip them but you have to wait until the egg has cooked enough to stay together when you flip it. If you like runny eggs (which I don't) you could actually cook it on low until the egg seems solid and then serve as is! Use salt/pepper/chili sauce and whatever you normally would put on a fried egg.

Basically, it's not necessarily out of the ordinary in terms of taste, because it's still just a plain egg and bell pepper, but it definitely is an easy way to make eggs a little more special!

Strawberry Frozen Yogurt... A Little Hint of Summer!

Basically, like everyone else these days,  I've become completely addicted to Pinterest. I'm there under *(what else) yellowfish - come check me out, or leave me your name and I'll follow you.

One of the things I pinned recently was this awesome looking strawberry frozen yogurt I found on Pink Parsley

 

Source: pink-parsley.com via Yellowfish on Pinterest

Looks delicious, right?? And when you read the ingredients, it gets better- Greek yogurt, strawberries, lemon and sugar. Couldn't be easier!

Here's what you need:
2c Greek yogurt- I used regular plain, but I think you can also use low fat
1 lb fresh strawberries, diced
2/3c sugar (next time I'll use 1/2c)
juice of 1 lemon
zest of 1 lemon
2 tbsp alcohol (vodka, triplesec)


What to do:
Chop the strawberries up, squeeze the lemon in the bowl, zest the lemon and add to bowl. Let it sit for about half an hour while the juices release.

Put the strawberry mixture in the blender, add alcohol (I used triple sec because it has a citrus flavor- the reason it is in there is really not for flavor so much as to keep everything from becoming a block of ice in the freezer). Blend well, then add yogurt and blend everything together. Pour mixture into the chilled ice-cream maker. Then, let it go until it becomes firm, then put into freezer to chill further.

What is so great about this is, #1 the beautiful color :). But, in addition, with all the fruit, it's almost on the border between an ice-cream and a sorbet. The fruit flavor and the lemon really come through and it's really fresh and light and summery. Plus, with the Greek yogurt, there is protein and while it's not really guilt-free due to the sugar, it's definitely a better choice than ice cream. Plus, it's delicious- give it a try!