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Inspired by Others

This Aint your Grandma’s Pink Flamingo

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This is the new face of lawn ornamentation: a Toyota sized chicken wire topiary fish covered in recycled bottle caps.

I know. Isn’t it amazing?

My friend Leah photographed it in her old neighborhood, Takoma Park, MD just outside Washington DC. She posted it on facebook nearly two years ago and I haven’t forgotten about it since. Yes, that means I have been saving up bottle caps for nearly TWO YEARS.

People, I am serious. I need me a bottle cap fish.

Small problem: I don’t have a lawn to put it on.  I need something more stable, upright with a smaller footprint. Ideas?

Look, it lights up at night –that means it’s functional too!

Many thanks to Leah for sharing these photos and haunting my recyclables bin. Many thanks to the Artist-Slash-Leah’s-Old-Neighbor, who I do not know by name, but if you know them, please send them my compliments. People who make good stuff out of crap stuff are the best!

The New 31 Flavors

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The Dirty Girl Scout

“Thing is, no one really knows what smurf tastes like.”
– Overhead on the street yesterday morning.

And you know something? They are right. Nobody knows the true taste of a smurf.

This prompted many questions in my mind…Who would eat a smurf? Who would serve a smurf? Where can I buy one? Can you cut it with a fork? Does it taste like chicken? You know, they always say new and exotic meats “taste just like chicken” but then one time I ate raccoon in ketchup and it certainly did not taste like chicken. It tasted like straight up raccoon.

I no longer like ketchup.

I digress…back to the smurf….so I posted the quote on facebook, and lo, thirty minutes later, Kelly informs me that “smurf” is a flavor of ice cream.

Ice cream!? No kidding. This prompts many more questions in my mind….Which came first, the flavor or the name? Whose job is it to name ice creams? Where does one apply for this job? I love ice cream and naming things more than, oh, um, ANYTHING. Where do I sign up?

So, in the off chance someone reading this blog works in the ice cream business and is in a position to hire, I am offering up a little Whitman sampler of my boundless potential as a professional ice cream namer. Here are some of my favorite ice cream combonations with nifty new names.

The *New* 31 Flavors  o-o-o-o-o

1. Release the Kracken – Mexican chocolate fudge ripple with pretzels and roasted peanuts.

2. Jive Turkey – cinnamon French vanilla with apple pie filling, peppered with brown sugar pecans.

3. The Elvis – banana with peanut butter and bacon bits.

4. Dirty Girl Scout – dark chocolate with essence of mint and olive oil.

5. Dancing Zorbas  – frozen Greek yogurt with blueberries and mint.

6. Lady Di – rose petal mouse with strawberry swirls.

7. Pippi Longstocking  – fig with lemon zest, drizzled with warm caramel.

8. Kentucky Woman – sweet cream with a hint of bourbon and sprinkled with cornflakes. PS: I’m pretty sure someone needs to open an ice cream shop where all the flavors are named after Neil Diamond songs. I’m sort of shocked this hasn’t happened already. Pish Pish. Let’s get on it, people.

9. Bobaloo! – frozen banana custard with sweetened black beans.

10. Good Morning America – sweet cream topped with sliced bananas and cheerios. BTW: have you ever had cherrios on ice cream? It’s amazing. I’ll eat cheerios on anything. Cheerios on steak sounds pretty good to me.

11. Memoirs of a Geisha  – cheesecake with a hint of wasabi.

12. Peppermint Wizard – pink peppermint swirled with sweet cream and rainbow sprinkles.

13. The Color of money – concrete mint yoghurt with dark chocolate shavings.

OK, so I only made it to 13. Fail 🙁
Y’all chime in the comments and see if we can come up with 31 flavors!

Before and After: The Greenbrier Chandlelier

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Couple years ago I spent my birthday at The Greenbrier hotel, and Lord, was it glorious. Let me tell you something: if you ever find yourself in the middle of the Smoky Allegheny Mountains with time to kill and money to burn, go to The Greenbreir.

We are talking about sweeping staircases, flowered drapes, checkered floors, stripes and color everywhere. And I loved every floral printed chintz minute of it!

I took a lot away from that trip, in particular, a fondness for green glass. The whole hotel comes in every color of the rainbow, but green glass is a common thread. Suppose Dorthy Draper designed it that way as a play on the name but I appreciate it just for the aesthetics too. Sometimes you just like the look of things and there is nothing wrong with that.

Shortly thereafter I came across this chandelier on clearance at Target –cute, but way too girly for me. A coat of spray paint, three ‘cufflets’ made from bottle flowers, and a dozen emerald crystal drops later, I had my very own Greenbrier chandelier! It’s probably a little too low budget and funky to hang anywhere so swanky, but I am awful fond of it 🙂

Anni-Frid’s Intergalagtic Petticoat (aka: The ABBA Lamp)

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What’s the deal with babysitters and ABBA? They always go together.

Seems like everyone I know had a babysitter who loved ABBA, hired a babysitter who loved ABBA, or was an ABBA loving babysitter themselves. Its like there was in international Babysitters Club meeting and they chose Dancing Queen as their anthem.

Did anyone else notice I just made a reference to The Babysitters Club without even trying? Brownie points for me.

 ABBA (Benny, Anni-Frid, Angnetha, Bjorn)

As I recall, the second my parents pulled out of the driveway the babysitter would head straight to the record collection, then a quick flip through the top shelf and out popped four naked Swedes wrapped in tin foil. A minute later the dancing started and before you knew it someone was standing on a chair holding a hairbrush to their mouth singing,
Waterloo – I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo – Promise to love you for ever more

The karaoke games became increasingly elaborate and ran on for hours. Although the babysitter ranged in age and hair color, they always ended up playing Agnetha (the blond), and the cats would play Benny and Bjorn (the dudes). Sam, the 23-pound white Ragdoll cat made for an especially good Bjorn.

I specialized in performing the role of Anni-Frid (the brunette), better known as “Frida” who was clearly superior in every way. She later married a German prince and wore skin-tight white overalls and sequin jump suits on a regular basis.

Like I said, she was superior in every way.

Nowadays I don’t listen to ABBA a whole lot. They are a little chipper for my everyday taste, but still keep them on hand for the occasional pick-me-up like after the dentist or when you are stuck in traffic with no end in sight. Then, one day Steff commented on another post “Never disregard the effect of ABBA on a child’s life.”

HELLO LIGHT BULB.

My brain went twirling and churning and within a few minutes I was brainstorming things and feelings and colors and textures that reminded me of all those afternoons singing Waterloo with a hairbrush. The end result was a page in my notebook filled with terms like hot pants, excessive back-lighting, Swedish Chef singing Christmas Carols.

Gosh, I really hope no one ever accidentally finds my notebook. They are going to think I’m a real perv. 

Anyhow, somehow by the end of the brainstorm I settled on making something ABBA esque that was silver toned and ruffled like one of Anni-Freds wonderful bedazzled, bell bottom jumpsuits.  But, really, how does one approach crafting for ABBA? This is a question for the ages and the answer came easy as milking a cat.

Long story short, a quick trip to the hardware store and $10.00 in materials later….a lamp was born! More of a petticoat than a bell bottom, I am thrilled with the end result. Its fun, sturdy, and surprising easy to clean. The first lamp (pictured above at the top) makes a perfect reading light, and the one below would be perfect above the stove or some utilitarian spot in need of a little dressing up. I think every home needs a touch of ABBA, don’t you?

Materials
  • Clamp Light (sometimes called a “site light”). You can find them in the hardware store, usually for under $5.00. Sometimes they come with plastic yellow cages on the front that easily snap on and off. 
  • Aluminum Duct Tape (sometimes called gaffing tape or plumber’s tape). It’s as sticky as regular duct tape, but metallic like aluminum foil and comes with paper backing. And as long as you have some around the house, check out this awesome pendant tutorial from Michele L. in LA)  

  • Pull out an arm’s length of tape and use an Xacto knife to score and remove 1cm of the paper backing.
  • Using your fingers, fold and pleat the tape every inch or so. So need to be exact. Just pinch and press. It will be awkward at first but you will get the hang after 10 inches or so.
  • The amount/length of ruffled tape you will need will depend on the size and diameter of your lamp base (for the 10″ lamp here, I would estimate 10 yards all together). If you are a math lover, you could figure it out in advance. I am not a math lover and will leave that ball in your court. Party on, dude. 

  • Stick your ruffled tape to the outer edge of the lamp and work inward, layering as you go.
  • TA-DA! You are done! String it, screw in a light bulb and you have a super cool new aluminum lamp. 


Note: the lamp featured up top came before the one I photographed for demonstration purposes. The one up top is more ruffled and organic looking because I was sloppy with the pleats. As Bob Ross said,  “there are no mistakes, just happy little accidents.”

A Love Letter to Coffee Filters

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Oh my dearest Coffee Filters
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways….

For lining my flower pots so the soil doesn’t drain out…
For hanging out in the produce bag and keeping my lettuce crisp…
For making my own tea bags…
For making clove and soap sachets to line my drawers and closets…
For blotting up greasy blobs when I fry up biscuit doughnuts…
For diffusing the flash on my camera…
For serving up my morning cup of dry cheerios…
For backing fabric when I’m embroidering or hemming delicate fibers…
For wiping glass, chrome and mirrors without ever leaving a trace of lint…
For baking up super-size cupcakes and cornbread…
For lining the food scale when I am measuring in grams…
For straining wine when I shred the cork…
For covering bowls and dishes in the microwave…
And most of all, for being the neatest and cheapest art supply ever! 

Oh my dearest Coffee Filters , how I love you so. There are lots of other uses for coffee filters, but my favorite is making art, especially kid-friendly art. I have found that kids really enjoy working with coffee filters –it’s different from regular paper and there is something deliciously mischievous about scribbling and tearing up functional objects. It’s like getting permission to draw on the wall –it just sounds fun!

Last month, when I saw Sara’s amazing rainbow-style snowflakes, I just knew they would be great for making valentines. You can color your filters by painting them, or if you are lazy like me, just ask a munchkin to draw on the filters with a washable marker, then spritz with water and watch the magic happen. Once they dry, just trim into snowflakes, same as always. Cheap, easy, beautiful AND just one more reason to love coffee filters!

PS: Try making a few coffee filter flowers and you can enjoy them all year long!

Rhinestone Rhinoceros Menorah

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I never claimed to have good taste.
Extensive glitter collection, yes.
Good taste, no.
But listen y’all, it’s Chanukah, and if I want to remember the miracle of the Maccabees through a something four-legged, spangled and fabulous, well, I’m dang-well going to do it!
The pink elephant came about a few years ago following a long night of Disney’s Dumbo, good gin and too many Velvet Underground albums. It’s not unusual for me to messing around with terra cotta clay late at night, and that particular night, when inspiration struck, I saw the elephant on my kitchen counter…and boom! A menorah was born. 
They are easy to make. It’s just a toy + clay + paint/glitter/fancy-top-coat-of-your-choice. Honest. That’s it. If you are thinking hey, maybe I could make that then that’s a good sign you should have made one already. 
So let’s get started, shall we?
The base toy can be any plastic animal laying around the toy chest or your local dollar store (I happen to have an affinity for dinosaurs and rhinoceroses, but y’all decide for yourself!) For those who don’t keep terra cotta clay on hand at all times, get yourself some play clay or make some salt dough. Doesn’t really matter what sort of clay you use, just make sure it’s something that will air dry (FYI: the stuff pictured is from Crayola and is called “Model Magic” and cost $3 for enough clay to make three menorahs using this method –my first time using it and I was impressed.) I could write a step-by-step tutorial on this, but I think you can get the gist of it by looking at the pictures. To summarize:
  • Lay some clay on the animal’s back.
  • Stick some candles in the clay.
  • Let the candles dry.
  • Paint it up.
  • Snazz it up.
  • Light it up.
Dry time will vary depending on density and humidity levels, but I would allow a good 24 hours at least.
Tip: All clay will expand and contract as it dries, so leave the candles in the clay so you can be sure they will fit later.
Tip: If you find your clay/dough is too elastic to support the candle upright, wrap a small amount of the clay around the base of the candle before inserting into the base clay
Tip: If you have a hard time blending the spots where the clay ends and toy body starts, dribble on some white glue. That’ll patch it up.
Tip: Glitter in two coats with two shades of the same color glitter –it will look sparkly and decadant, as well as eliminate any annoying glitter shedding.

Coat 1: Slather your creature with glue and liberally apply glitter. Dry.

Coat 2: Mix together equal parts glue, water, glitter in a shade slightly different than the first coat, and paint the mixture all over. Dry 24 hours.

Tip: Don’t leave candles burning unattended. Do really need me to tell you this? If you are reading this, you should know this already. If you don’t know this, then skip this project. You should be spending more time on fire safety than craft time.
Tip: Don’t freak out about wax drippings. You spent $2 on making this. It’s not your grandmother’s menorah; it’s a glittered circus animal.  If you really want to remove any potential drippings, you can dip the hole thing in hot water for 5 seconds and it will release in a jiffy. Relax, Max.
Tip: Display your finished menorah in front of a mirror. Reflected candlelight is ridonkulously beautiful.
Tip: You still here? What are you waiting for? Get started!

Egg Carton Flower Thumbtacks

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There are two types of people in life: Bulletin Board People and Magnet People.

Bulletin Board People tend to be creative, spontaneous, and struggle to keep things organized. They like having everything in tidy rows but rarely have time to maintain such a lofty goal. They surround themselves with diverse, eclectic, exciting environments that stimulate thoughts and feelings. They build nests like muskrats and smell like fresh fruit strudel. 

Magnet People tend to be organized and efficient. They streamline their daily activities in effort to get things done. They thrive on feeling accomplished. They are methodical, conscientious, and constantly remove clutter and waste from their homes and minds. They excel at creative endeavors that do not generate mess, like interpretive dancing, knitting and playing the calliope.

Sometimes magnet people have bulletin boards, or visa-versa, but deep down, we are all one or another. There are no two ways about it. Which one are you?

I am a Bulletin Board Person. There is one in every room of my house, even the bathroom. Sometimes they are just a simple old frame or foam board, but I can’t go without one. I need my slush pot! A visual, vertical junk drawer, if you will. This photo is all nice and neat and empty looking, but give it ten days and this thing will be loaded. Have you ever seen the bottom of an old boat that’s covered in ten years of barnacles and sea weed and hairy sludge and somehow and old shoe got stuck in the crud?

Yeah, that’s what my bulletin boards look like.

With that in mind, knowing that this board will soon fill with visually unappealing items, I thought I would dress it up a bit with some flowers made from egg cartons. Cute, huh?

These flower thumbtacks are made form cardboard egg cartons and were inspired by these flowers by Michele Made Me (if by chance you have never been to her site, you really have to check it out. It’s one of the few blogs that gets my creative juices flowing every single time and I’m pretty sure it will have the same effect on you!)

So, as you can see, Michele’s flowers are far more impressive and complex than these, but I’ll cut myself some slack as a first timer. For ten minutes and zero dollars, these came out mighty cute!  Cutting the egg cartons was not as easy as I thought, although the cardboard took to the paint very nicely.

Egg cartons are the now officially the newest member of my club of waste/rubbish based art materials. I’m confident our first encounter will not be our last.

Does anyone else know of other fun things you can make with old egg cartons? I’m intrigued!

This project is linking to Craft School Sunday at www.creativejewishmom.com 

Friday Flowers: Ruffled Lotus Lantern

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This latest flower project was inspired by stories from my friend Erika, who briefly lived in Seoul Korea about ten years ago. Apparently, every May, the good people of South Korea celebrate Buddah’s birthday with the Lotus Lantern Festival, a time when everyone in town decks the streets with thousands of beautiful paper lanterns. They make them out of paper cups and tissue paper, then hang them from trees and fence posts and exchange them with strangers. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? Can you imagine a whole giant city lit up with paper lanterns? Man, I got to get to South Korea in the Springtime!

Anyhoot, my friend Bird needed a lamp, so when we went to Chinatown last weekend, this giant white lantern came home. Now, the plain paper lantern are nice enough, but we thought it could use some dressing up. Inspiration came from the lamp on the cover of this book, and we were off!

This project is so simple, it really doesn’t warrant a tutorial. All you need to do is glue the muffin cups to the lantern.  Of course, knowing me, it’s the simple things that get flubbed most often! I quickly learned that you will end up with a mess if you don’t get a strategy first.

  • Wrong way: Glue them on in tight clusters. Yeah, you would think this method would be best, but it turns out the walls of the muffin cups like to expand as they dry….they start pushing against each other and moving each other around and sometimes they just plain fall off. 
  • Right way: Glue them on in stripes with gaps in between. Let them dry, then fill in the gaps. This way there is room to expand. Add layers and fill in holes as you see fit. This one is difficult to mess up, as long as you let them dry properly.

Tips (images above, left to right)

  • For a lantern with a 36″ diameter, it took 300 standard muffin cups + 100 mini candy cups to accent. This will vary widely, depending on size and  how thick and full y’all want your ruffles.
  • Hot glue will dry faster, but it will not dry completely transparent and you will see glue blobs when the lantern is lit from within.  Maybe there is a special technique to avoid this, but I prefer plain old Tacky Glue.
  • When choosing your lantern, be aware of the structure on the inside and how it shows when lit from within. This big white lantern was made of very thin paper and the structure lines show, but we sorta like that that effect! If you don’t like it, find a lantern made of darker/opaque paper, or triple up on muffin liners, or paint your lantern before gluing on anything.
  • To add dimension, trim down some of the muffin cups to make smaller size ruffles to insert in larger ones.
  • To add even more dimension, make some blossoms by rolling the trimmings and gluing them in the center.
  •  Important: this is difficult to move after it’s finished. Assemble it on location or get a friend to help you move it. Opening doors with this thing in your hands is just about impossible!

Also made this little one for a BBQ this weekend using orange and red polka dot cups. Aint she cute?!

Happy weekend!

PS: Update Dec 31, 2010
Anyone looking for a seriously nifty last minute New Year’s craft needs to check out this amazing lantern from Alison over at Backstich Baby! Wish I had thought of this one myself. Seriously considering hanging one in my bathroom all year round 🙂 Thanks for sharing, Alison!

The Liza Minelli of Cake: Chocolate Zucchini with Peanut Butter Cup Ganache

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I repeatedly have to remind myself: you are not writing a food blog…you are not writing a food blog…there are thousands of fabulous food blogs already…no one wants to hear about your ugly chicken marinated in diet coke…blog about something else…you are not writing a food blog…

But Y’all, sometimes I can’t help it.  The force is too strong. I can’t contain it. This cake busted out of the oven like some kind of Liza Minelli, all sparkly and crazy eyed, making jazz hands, dancing as fast as she can and singing Cabaret songs as LOUD AS SHE CAN in hopes you will forget who her mother was and that creepy phase when she married a gay guy who had way too much plastic surgery but it’s ok because he made her feel special.

This cake deserves to feel special, too. This cake deserves your love. You can’t turn down the volume on this one: this is The Liza Minelli of Cake.

Note: There is zucchini in here, so really, this is basically health food.

*If you are not a chocolate person: this is probably going to gross you out.
*If you are a chocolate person: get ready to blow your mind! This cake is so easy to make, and so decadent that it’s hard for me to eat more than a sliver. Look, I realize you probably don’t know the severity of my chocolate addiction, but let me tell you something; for me to say suggest “a sliver” is pretty effin profound. This is serious business.

Cake
Ingredients:
•    1 stick of unsalted butter, softened
•    4 large eggs
•    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
•    ½ teaspoon Louisiana Hot Sauce
•    1 cup sour cream
•    1 box Devil’s Food cake mix (18.05 oz, preferably with pudding in the mix, but no big deal)
•    1 large zucchini, shredded and laid on paper towels to absorb excess moisture
•    Half a bag of mini semisweet chocolate chips
•    Optional: 1 cup chopped pecans
•    Optional: ½ tsp cinnamon

Preparation:

  • Grease and flour a 13”x9”12 cake pan.
  • Heat oven to 350°
  • Mix wet stuff til its good and sloppy.
  • Mix in box of cake mix until it’s well incorporated.
  • Mix in the zucchini, chocolate chips, and anything else that’s strikes your fancy. Don’t overbeat.
  • Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center of the cake. 
  • Cool completely.

Ganache
Ingredients (slightly altered from this recipe from Bakerella)
•    1 cup chopped peanut butter cups + plus more for garnishing (I used 2 bags)
•    8 oz. semi sweet chocolate chips
•    1 cup heavy cream
•    1/4 cup peanut butter
•    ½ teaspoon salt

Preparation:

  • Bring cream to a slight boil and then pour over chocolate chips. Whisk until chocolate melts. Add peanut butter and salt and whisk until smooth. Let it cool until thick.
  • Remove cake from 13×9” pan, turn on to flat surface and cut in half to make 2 cakes.
  • Slather ganache on one half, stack the layers, then smooth a thin layer of ganache all over as a crumb coat. Let it set 15 minutes.
  • Go back and spread the rest of the ganache. Allow it to set for another 15 minutes then gently press remaining chopped peanut butter cup pieces all over top and sides of cake. Place in refrigerator for about an hour to set.
  • Remove, serve, tap dance!

Swiss Candy Jewelry

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 I call it Swiss Candy Jewelry because it loosely resembles Swiss cheese and the Haribo Gummi candies they sell all over central Europe.
Similar to the process used in the Sparkling and Melting Flowers, this tutorial uses the magical properties of #6 recyclable plastic.

Materials:
* Five #6 recyclable plastic cups
* Heat source (like a well ventilated oven)
* Chain or wire to use as necklace base and links
* Pliers

Cost: Free for me (I already had cups leftover from a party and an old junk necklace, but I imagine this could be assembled for less than $10)

Time: 60 minutes for the blue statement necklace, 20 minutes for the pink pendant

1.    Remove the bottom and top rim of the plastic glass.
2.    Cut rounded shapes, roughly the size of large rose petals
3.    Punch holes

4.    Warm in oven at 180F (see bottom of previous post concerning plastic in the oven)…watch it carefully, it will shrivel and buckle quickly (mine took 25 seconds)…working in small batches in an outdoor toaster oven would be a good idea
5.    Remove from oven and sift out pieces with at least one sturdy hole towards the top (be prepared to discard quite a few)
6.    Assemble jewelry making supplies, including pliers and chain or wire, long enough for your neck
7.    Link individual pieces on to the chain/wire, making sure that individual pieces curve outward and not directly against your neck (could get itchy)…if you want to know more about basic jewelry assemblage, check out this tutorial
8.    Ta Da!

Variation in pink.  I love the contrast between the round/opaque/ vintage pearls and the very thin/translucent/modern plastic.  Also love asymmetrical jewelry of any sort…try it, it’s not so easy to find the right balance!