It's a Pinterest Appreciation Halloween

I had an entire post written about my love/hate relationship with Pinterest but deleted it for fear of sounding whiney. I'm guessing you can relate. It's like an endless pit of awe and inspiration, with the devilish quality of sucking ones entire life away or making us each feel like we aren't creative enough, fashionable enough, photogenic enough, or.... insert characteristic here. My SIL mentioned a while back that she's quit reading blogs because they make her feel like she isn't doing enough, when she's actually one of those awesome people we all aspire to become. I wish I had that much self control. Wait, no I don't.

For years I had folders full of ideas, just waiting for the right moment to use them. I'd cut out pages from the Pottery Barn catalog because I liked the paint or felt I could make my own kids Christmas applique quilt similar to theirs for 1/100th the cost. There were pages from old Martha Stewart Holidays magazines I'd purchased from used bookstores and random scribbles I'd jotted down watching HGTV. Somewhere, I still have half those papers in a file folder. Too bad I probably can't track down all those old ideas when I *need* them.

This year, Halloween is really laid back. I didn't make any new decorations and my Squirt's costume was purchased by her dad. I didn't plan a party or swap out couch pillows or make a new wreath. It's been very liberating. Most importantly, it's been really fun.

Since there's been no stress I actually spent 4 hours baking cupcakes with a friend and carved pumpkins  with the fam last night. Both of those endeavors were simplified by Pinterest. I literally sat at the table with a computer, typed in an idea, and five minutes later we were on our way. That would never have happened with my paper files.

We used many ideas that we found online (ghosts here, owls here) but then our creativity ran a little rampant and we came up with some things on our own (I'm especially proud of my Harry Potter ghost) like the skeleton cookies. I saw the idea here but decided that they would be extra-Halloweeny if I used the ABC cookie cutters so they were missing random limbs without having to actually break them. I'm also pretty proud of my chalk outline dead guys, though the hubs didn't seem to find the same humor in them that I did. If I'd had more time, I'd have mixed up multiple colors of royal icing and had a complete zombie apocalypse going on. As it was, I would bust up laughing every third cookie or so. Even more so when I iced one with a giddy smile.

Pumpkins are another story. I suck at pumpkins. So a quick search led to a Hello Kitty template for Squirt, which she cut out all by herself and exclaimed "It's even cuter than I thought!" Totally worth the 4.13 seconds it took to type 'jack o'lantern template' into the search box.

I guess the whole point is that I think I may just be finding a balance. Clearly I relied on the 'ol iphone and didn't pull out the Canon to document things in the name of blogging. Nor did I spend hours on Pinterest obsessing over how many freaking cool Holiday ideas are out of my budget. So, Pinterest is on my good side again. Great ideas and time to use them. That is what it should be about.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Now that the skies are frequently grey and the air is becoming cold, I'm having fun getting back into the kitchen. My poor family has been mostly devoid of homemade snacks for the last several months but for some reason cooler temps make the no-dishwasher detail a moot point where baking is concerned. For today, I'm surprising my Squirt after school with her all-time favorite snack.

 

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

*modified from the Kitchen Aid recipe booklet

1/2 cup shortening or butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 cup plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

dash cinnamon

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

3 mashed bananas

1-2 tbsp. raw sugar (optional)

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Place shortening and sugar into mixer bowl. Beat until combined. Add eggs, scrape down sides of bowl and beat just until eggs are somewhat incorporated. 

Combine flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a separate bowl. Add half of flour mixture and half of banana to mixer bowl. Mix for about 30 seconds, add the rest of the flour and banana, and mix another 30 seconds. Stop and scrape the bowl. Add chocolate chips and mix until distributed. 

Pour mixture into greased and floured loaf pan. If desired, sprinkle raw sugar over the surface of the bread. Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes or until the top doesn't look "juicy" anymore. It will likely split down the center as it rises, if this looks wet the bread will be undercooked. 

*At high altitudes, this actually takes almost a full hour to bake. Trust your gut and if it looks gooey at all, let it bake a little longer.*

Plastic Spoon Roses

In full disclosure, I completely copied this idea. 

Squirt is having a sleepover tonight, which means I will be up until around midnight with squealing girls. In order to cope I decided to try out making plastic spoon roses. The idea is pretty simple, and it didn't take too long, so I jumped right on that. 

First, I gathered everything I thought I could possibly need. Plastic spoons, a candle (tealights are all I have right now), some wire cutters, a lighter (because a candle is no good if it isn't lit), and the trusty iphone. Remember the hubs has the camera? Yeah. I apologize right now that some of these pics are pretty crappy. To start, I followed the tutorial linked above, and then I changed it.

Holding a spoon above the candle, let it get hot enough to deform and then use your fingers to mold it into a curved petal for the center of the flower.

Ooops! Don't forget you're holding something flammable whilst watching Harry Potter or you'll burn a hole clear through it!

After you've got a good looking "petal" formed from your spoon, snip the handle off.  Keep melting spoons until you've got a pile of usable petals from which to meld your flower.

Now, at this point the tutorial says to heat the broken end of one rose petal until it is melting and place it where you like. The melty plastic will attach to the base of the flower and you end up with one fully connected plastic flower. This was a great idea, but I found that my petals didn't fit together as well as I'd like and trying to melt them together at the bottom ended with black, charred bits and images of spontaneous ER visits flashing through my mind. Plus, I was not in love with how it looked. See?

By that point I was over it. Even though I kept melting and adhering petals until it was done, I didn't take any more pictures because I didn't like it enough to use the storage room on my phone. I started over with three major changes.

One: I used soup spoons instead of regular spoons. They are wide and round and look SO MUCH MORE like rose petals after they are rounded. This one change made me change my mind from "what am I thinking???" to "ohmyheck iloveit iloveit iloveit!" Two: I formed each petal as I went. Then I could mold it while it was still warm into the shape I wanted for it's particular place on the flower. Three: I hot glued each petal to a circle of felt as I went instead of melting them together.

It didn't take long for me to know this was going to be pretty dang awesome.

A third of the way into it, I was already in love.

And....? What do you think? 

I like the shape of the soup spoons soooo much better. See what I mean? Granted, I did actually have some idea what I was doing on the second one which definitely made a difference.

I am going to make many, many more of these. Just as soon as I get myself back to the Wal-marts to buy more soup spoons. My flower used 13 petals and there's 24 spoons in a box. I may get impatient and try to make one work with 11... 

Have you made anything from plastic spoons? How did it go? 

Sleepless in Eugene

It happens every time the hubs leaves town. I stay up way too late watching way too much TV, then get crazy tired and don't want to go to bed alone. It seems I don't sleep well when he's not around. So I plop down one of the pillows from the back of the sofa, curl up with a fleece blanket, fall asleep to something like Everybody Love Raymond re-runs and stay there for the duration of the night. When morning comes, I feel like I've been hit by a bus. It does not make for the most restful of nights, last night especially. Squirt was crazy excited for picture day today and a sleepover tonight, so she woke up over an hour early and came to pester me in the living room.

I feel sleepy.

So I did what any normal person does when they are too tired to function: I went running.

It's hard not to when the sky is cool and cloudy, the air is filled with misty rain, and the leaves are beginning to change.

It's really surprising to me how much green there still is. There are so. many. trees. that it takes a good while for them to all change, and fortuitously they do not all change at once. We get to drink up fall for a good long while.

I had hoped to get out and play with the camera this weekend, but the Hubs took it to document Munchie's 6th birthday. I wish Squirt and I were there. Since we are not there and the camera is not here, I am stuck with only my phone. Which is actually just fine by me. Can you believe how good some phone images are?

It's so refreshing to get out into nature a bit and recharge one's batteries.

Speaking of batteries, I tried to light the house on fire yesterday by putting non-rechargeable batteries into the charger. They were in there a good few hours until I heard unexplainable crackling, thought there was a mouse somewhere, and then noticed battery acid spattering from the wall. My brain seriously goes dead when the hubs is away.

Now I am going to go push through the rest of this day weekend until the hubs returns.

EAT String Art

...as in string art that says "EAT" not actually eating string art (but I'm sure you already figured that).

Our poor little, bland, overly neutral apartment has been needing a little spunk. I actually love that the paint is bright white since it helps it feel lighter during the gray rainy months. I'm sure you've seen string art around the internet but I just got around to trying it out. Honestly, I can see why people are hooked on it. It's easy, fast, and pretty fun.

Fortunately I had a scrap board floating around so I didn't need to buy any lumber. All I had to get was a box of nails and some embroidery floss. I chose to use lime, tangerine, and peacock blue so that our lime green Le Creuset pieces that have to be stored in plain sight would tie in with it. First I whitewashed the board using leftover paint from when I did the striped nightstand diluted 50% with water. Then I printed the letters out on the computer and played with the layout.

I'd read other blogs that said making sure the nails didn't line up perfectly gave a better end result so I drew dots where I thought the nails should go and then counted up how many I'd need. This was a needless step however, since I have no idea how many nails are in 0.5 lb and a google search didn't help. I just bought the big box and called it good.

Hammering the nails was a beast - until I decided to pre-drill all the holes. Seriously. That was the best decision ever - and took this project from highly annoying to really fun. These nails are aluminum (only because the others were out of stock and I was too lazy environmentally conscious to drive somewhere else) and did not go in the plywood as easily as normal ones. Plus, I actually really like the white coating. I had planned to put drops of similar colored nail polish on the tops of each nail to make the color pop a little more, but come to realize I like it just the way it is.

It makes the weird white space above our fridge a little more charming. What do you think? Now I'm just a little bummed I have to put the baskets of baking stuff back up there. It's so cute and minimalist this way.