Some genius cooking and kitchen ideas I’ve come across! Enjoy! [Read more…]
Lisbeth Saaaahl-Laaaahnder
In college I went 4 months straight eating a mixture of 1 part plain yogurt with 1 part Grapenuts cereal. And it had to be the right ratio. And the Grapenuts had to be added periodically because I have a standard of deviation for sogginess. After 4 months I never ate it again. Ever. I eat other cereals though and I still pay attention to sogginess. I’ll pour a bowl of milk and then add a few Apple Jacks at a time. I’m such a creature of habit. Excess habit. That’s a nicer way of saying OCD. If I find something I like I’ll eat it over and over and over until one day something new comes along.
One thing that I will never eat willfully: plain sandwich bread. I’m not talking about dinner bread…..I’m talking like a loaf of sandwich bread. Unless it’s covered in peanut butter and jelly. But now I can’t eat peanut butter because my mom says it’s full of bacteria. Yesterday the refrigerator was down to a bare minimum and I was so desperate that I ate some Soybutter. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It only took me 2 years to try it. (This is why I can’t make Boo try stuff she insists she doesn’t like…..because I won’t.) Oh yeah, back to the sandwich bread…..just the smell of it makes me nauseous. It smells like fish bait to me. Probably because when I was little we used to ball up little pieces of sandwich bread to catch fish. It reminds me of ducks too…..for the same reason. Not that we tried to catch ducks with hooks. Who would want to catch a duck? And in conclusion, the bread also reminds me of investment banking because everyone knows that if you split a loaf of bread apart you can sell the slices for more than the entire loaf but you have to factor in the costs of separation too.
Recycled Mosaic Kitchen Art
I just finished these little mosaics for the wall going from our kitchen to the butler’s pantry. It is an awkward space because it steps down from the kitchen and the wall is tall and narrow. I needed something long and narrow to fill the space and look proportional. I also knew that I wanted something dimensional, colorful and unique. I’m so happy with how they turned out.
Huge bonus I discovered once they were done: Each little art piece is a mystery game for my 2-year-old! She loves to point out each square and guess what it is….she can point out Mommy’s cereal (Raisin Bran), Daddy’s cereal (Go Lean Crunch), pancakes, goldfish, crackers etc.
I’ve been saving all of these boxes for a year. I had grand plans of cutting them all into little 1 inch squares, sorting them by color and making a huge fruit or veggie mosaic with them to decorate our kitchen. Since I’ve never gotten around to that, and we seemed to have run out of wall space I made some smaller more manageable mosaics.
First, I cut out lots of 2 inch squares from all the boxes so that I had an interesting selection of colors. (I actually cut the squares about 1/16th larger than 2 inches so that the cardboard would hang over the edge slightly.)
I made a small template to make the cutting process easier.
Here is Sienna working on her own mosaic. (Sorry she didn’t dress up for her photo op)
Then I laid out the squares in a design that I liked. For the base, I bought 8 x 8 inch cradled Gessobord (2 inch deep). You can usually buy these at your local craft store. I got mine at Aaron Brothers with their weekly coupon.
I worked in rows…brushing on a generous layer of medium and placing the squares in place and then brushing a layer of medium over top as well.
As I finished each row, I laid wax paper on top and used a brayer to roll out any air or glue bubbles underneath. This also helps to make sure that the squares are adhering flat. (Note: If you don’t use wax paper, your top layer of the cardboard squares will begin to disintegrate or peel….you’ll end up with a huge mess.)
Note: Only leave the wax paper on for a few seconds as you roll out the bubbles…..it will leave a waxy residue if you let it dry onto the squares. You can also use freezer paper for this step.
After the squares were completely dry, I took a razor blade and with a “sawing” motion cut off any excess cardboard down the sides.
I made three different mosaics.
I sprayed the top and sides of each mosaic with one coat of Krylon Triple Thick Clear Glaze.
I didn’t have to use any hardware for hanging. The boxes are so deep that I just put 2 inch wire brad nails 6.5 inches apart into the wall and hung them.