Upcycled Pickle Jars

I find it's getting harder and harder to find time for crafting and projects with research papers and midterms and what not, so I'll keep this one short and sweet. This is a project I've started in the past and finally completed, thanks to procrastination of other more important items, such as my research paper that is due tomorrow, but I'll worry about that later.


For some reason, I inherited my mother's trait of keeping glass jars, be it from pickles to olives and anything in between. She makes a lot of home made goodies like jam and pickles, and uses them to stock up on fresh lemon juice from her tree that she keeps frozen year round. So what am I to do with all these ugly mismatched jars?! Chalkboard paint of course!

I love using these for food storage, or any small items that you just don't know where to put. With a 99 cent sponge and a $10 can of chalkboard paint that you can pretty much use on anything, I turned what usually ends up in the recycling (hopefully), into really cute storage that I can use for anything and everything.

Happy chalkboard painting!

-Lori

Dining Room Table!

   This was seriously one of the most daunting and challenging DIY projects I've ever attempted, but it was well worth all the time and effort put in. Michael and I live in a really old house which comes with an absolutely ginormous living room and dining room, yet we had no table to actually dine on. So, after looking around online and not really finding anything that was worth buying new or used, I decided to make one. I fell in love with Elsie's table found here, and definitely used this as a template to work off of. 

 First things first, we needed our materials. I knew for certain that I wanted steel hair pin legs on this table. If money wasn't an issue, I would seriously just drill hair pin legs on everything I own. This was the most expensive part of this whole endeavor, totaling at around $115 for a set of four, uncoated, raw steel hairpin legs I found here. The coated feature does add more protection and will be a more finished product, but costs a lot more for each leg. Since this table is staying indoors, there is no real need to worry about rust or anything, but be warned that the untreated legs will leave black marks on your hands. Make sure to wipe them down once you get them. For the wood, we decided to go over to Ganahl Lumber in Anaheim, thinking that since it's our first time doing this we should do it right, even if it costs a tad bit more than Home Depot. We got 4 planks of pine that were 6' long and almost 6" wide, and thinner piece of oak for the frame that were about 6' long each, totaling to about $95. The oak had to be sawed down to fit to size in the frame and supports, and luckily my brother had a simple jigsaw laying around he let me have (yay!). 

On that note, we did have to purchase all new tools, but I see that as more of an investment than anything. For this project, you will need a saw (pictured below), a power drill or nail gun ($20 from Harbor Freight), a belt sander ($12 from Harbor Freight), some 60 or 80 grit sandpaper (~$3), and 3/4" screws (or nails) which also depends on the thickness of your wood. We also purchased honey maple wood stain and a polyurethane coating for finishing. 

 Since this was our first time, we had no idea how structurally stable this was going to end up being with my design for the supports, so we decided to glue the planks of wood together along their length with some wood glue. We got three 3' clamps from Harbor Freight (around $6 each). This is what it looked like once we were done gluing all the planks and outer frame supports together.

      

The next step was adding our supports. This definitely was a trial and error process with shaping around the oak planks we had left. Turns out we did not get enough of the oak planks since the table legs have a thick L shaped bracket. The oak we had was not thick enough to brace the entire width. By pure luck and chance, Mike had gotten 4 planks of cheap wood from Home Depot months earlier so that we can hold our windows up, since they don't stay up. It was a necessity in the summer, but now with winter upon us those planks weren't in much use. Here is the design we ended up using:

      

 Along the frame, we space out the screws about a foot apart on all sides, and had about 5 screws going through each support. We tested it out and it was extremely sturdy and the spacing was all even! Self-five.

Next up the process, was sanding and staining. This was the lengthiest part, since you have to allow ample time between each coat. Make sure to sand the wood in the direction of the grain, lengthwise, or the sanding pattern will be very obvious in the grain once the stain and coat are on. I used a simple foam brush to apply an even coat. I recommend you use separate brushes for the stain and polyurethane coating. I tried washing it, but the residue of the stain will never truly get out of the sponge. Here is how the stain transformed the table and how tiny, yet effective, my belt sander is!

I applied two complete coats of stain, allowing a couple hours dry time in between, and 4 coats of the polyurethane coating, which needs 4 hours of dry time in between each coat. This process took a couple days to finish due to our schedules, but well worth it. And here is the final product!! Now to only work on those awful dated chairs.... but I shall leave that for another post!

-Lori

Pumpkin & Plum

Welcome to my cellar door! 

I absolutely love everything about the fall. The weather, the gloom, the clothes, the fruit and not to mention the great variety of pumpkin beer I can find everywhere. For the eve of Halloween, the boy and I went for a brisk night ride aka booze run, and I decided to go with Oak Jacked Imperial Pumpkin Ale by Uinta Brewing. It has all the body of a dark ale, accompanied with the torment of a thousand smashed jack-o-lanterns being trapped in oak barrels. 

Besides the beloved autumn pumpkin, I adore all fruits in this season. I recently was give a whole case of persimmons from a personal backyard, and I am so excited to make all kinds of creations with them, but unfortunately I have to wait until they are fully ripened and soft to even think about baking with them. But that won't stop me! I love baking, especially when I can use anything and everything I have just sitting around my pantry and fridge. I hate seeing things go to waste, so when things are about to go bad and be thrown out why not whip them into something nummy? I had about 4 plums I forgot about in the fridge and decided to make some sugar crusted plum muffins. I found the recipe here, but added my own extra ingredients to it.

Here is what I used: 

3/4 cup & 2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp cinnamon, halved

2 cups flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

~4 ground whole cloves

2 eggs, room temperature

1 tsp bourbon vanilla extract

3/4 cup milk

1/2 cup light butter with canola oil. melted and then cooled

4 ripe plums, pitted and cut into small pieces

To Do:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. Spray (or use liners if you have them) your muffin pan.
3. In a bowl, combine 3/4 cup sugar, half of the cinnamon, flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cloves.
4. In another bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, vanilla, and melted butter.
5. Fold the egg mixture into the flour mixture until evenly smooth.
6. Depending on how big your muffin pan is (mine is a mini-muffin pan), pour only half the batter you normally would into each. Use an ice cream scoop instead of a spoon to make your life a whole lot easier. 
7. Add a layer of the plum pieces to each.
8. Pour the remaining batter (you should have half of it left) on top of the plums into each.
9. Combine 2 tbsp sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon together and sprinkle over all the muffins in the pan.
10. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. They should look golden brown on the top (and smell phenomenal).

Make sure you let them cool at least 5 to 10 minutes before trying to get them out of the pan! They will crumble and die, and that is a guarantee. 

And enjoy!

-Lori