Super Green Garden

I'm rather proud of this artsy kind of shot. It's from above and it shows a collection of glass bottles, chopped off and finished with a crusty rim of gold paint. Together with some glass marbles and stones, potting soil and a plant, it's a little garden. The glass echoes terrarium but it's also like a planter. I spend time and anxiety worrying about the variety of glass colors, heights, thicknesses just to make sure that the bottles are all slightly different; that each brings its own piece to the overall puzzle. I'm liking how this collection is going. (I have my own little garden of bottles on my window sill.)

And here's me holding the smallest of jars. It's tiny. I'm hard-pressed finding a plant that will fit inside this little guy, but I'm working on it! And in the background you can see the plastic container of marbles, stones, and sea glass pieces that I've collected to be the water-draining portion of the planter. Oh and you can see the mixing bowl that has been repurposed to house plants as they await their final planting in a jar. And, for kicks, you can see that this whole operation is currently going down atop my stove. Like I said a week ago, there are little projects everywhere! As long as I stay sane, I'm happy to let the crafts take over. It's not like I could put the plants under a cabinet or anything anyway.

Finally, the plants in all their glory, with some glitteratti frogs chillin' in the open space. I don't know exactly why I decided that I needed to glitterize a set of plastic frogs, but I enjoy them living among the plants.

Brr-Rrrr, Heavy Traffic

When I was a child back in the days of "C:/" instead of today's visually intuitive computers, my daddy bought me (or maybe he bought it for himself, fuzzy memory) SimCity. I'm not going to say it was the very first ever edition of SimCity, because I really don't know. Alls I do know is that I loved that game. LOVED. It was so fascinating. I could build a whole town. And then destroy their power plant and see how long they'd live without electricity. In many ways, SimCity might just be what started it all. From there I graduated to home design software (I'd try to fit all the essentials -- stove, fridge, toilet, shower, bed, door -- into 100 square feet or less. I think the best I ever did was 80 square feet, in a house where the bed was stacked above the fridge and stove, which, obviously, would be a really pleasant place to live). And from that software, I started to read interior decorating magazines, study art history and ultimately become a craft blogger. Wow, what a progression...
And you may wonder why I am mentioning SimCity in conjunction with a picture of my kitchen. I'll tell you: in the SimCity of my youth, when you had traffic congestion, a radio helicopter-esque voice would say, "Brr-rrr-rrr-heavy traffic." Or at least that's how my dad and I interpreted what the guy said. And it joined the Henry family lore as a family phrase -- brr-rr heavy traffic. It's right up there with "tit-titilly-boo," "teeka-teeka," or "fiffffty." And if you know much about we Henrys, you may well have heard these phrases. Well, when I was painting this piece of glass (detail shown below), I could only think of one phrase, "Brr-heavy traffic." I don't know why it reminded me of a busy SimCity, but it just does somehow.
I painted this 1 square foot piece of glass over the weekend. I thought I'd tuck it in behind my kitchen CD player and radio to create a little vignette right there under my canned goods cabinet. It's about three layers of paint deep, so it's pretty busy. Good thing it is nice and small. The color palette is a range of colors of the rainbow between orange and blue -- all my yellows, greens. It's like Mediterranean citrus colors, the palette of a bottle of Orangina (seriously consider clicking on this link, if nothing else than for the cute little Vespa graphic). All the swirls, curls and zigzags are very tightly wrought. And there are dots on top of dots. Plus I used lots of shimmery and glittery paints so that the whole thing really sparkles, much like the fizziness of a bottle of Orangina sipped in Italy... (cue some Dean Martin and daydream with me).
Frankly, its been a long, long time since I last presented a painting. This is partly because I didn't bother to post my last three paintings and partly because I thought ran out of glass and keep forgetting to order more. But over the weekend I found this pristine little piece and pulled out the paint trough. It felt so good to get back into the paint-covered swing of things. I found three other plates of glass -- all so well organized that I just forgot how neatly tucked away they were -- so I have lots to work on. Keep your eyes peeled for more.

Vignette, How's That For Diction?

The Halloween Vignette.
I'll go months without decorating for holidays. The apartment will look exactly the same for months at a time and then suddenly I'll get this urge to really do up something bizarre for a holiday. And the night before Halloween, I just decided that I couldn't live without creating a Halloween vignette on top of my microwave. Of all places. And so I scoured my apartment for creepy things or typical Halloween colored things that could be added to some creepy elements and become part of the vignette. Have you noticed how much I love the word vignette? It's one of my favorite words ever. It's French and I'm a francophile. Plus, like those amazing donut-y pastries from New Orleans, it has that "nay" sound where it looks like "net." Clearly I've moved past the point of the post and I sincerely hope you'll forgive me. I'm a little hopped up on caffeine while I type. Thanks a lot Buzz Brews (By the way, as long as I've mentioned that I'm at a coffee shop while I'm writing this post, I'm going to tell you that the girl who is trying to be all seductive with this guy sitting at the table next to mine just told him that she'd never heard of CCR. Who are these people? How can you live without knowing of Creedence Clearwater Revival? And is that really going to impress anyone? She's all, I'm not into popular music, but not knowing CCR? That's like not knowing who Abraham Lincoln is because you aren't a history buff. She also claims to hate how many Internet cafes have recently sprung up in Cambodia and that when she goes to Cambodia, it's to relax, not to check email. Eavesdropping never loses its appeal). So back to the vignette... Halloween things have to involve candles, right? So I used two little votives, one placed on top of the microwave and approximately 5 inches below the wooden cabinet, which incidentally, is my crafting cabinet, and every intelligent being knows that votive candles don't belong within a few inches of a wooden cabinet. So I lit the candles, turned off the lights and took this picture. Then I had to blow out that little votive. But I think it turned out cutesy eerie. I would never be going for straight-up eerie because that kind of thing just isn't my bag, man. However, I'll take my best stab at cutesyfying any holiday, from Kwanzaa to Arbor Day. And below is a picture of the vignette with the lights on so you can see my efforts in full daylight glory, even if I'm expecting you to appreciate my Halloween efforts though we've nearly reached Thanksgiving.

10, 2 & 4

Hey kids! I know I promised my most loyal reader that I'd have tons of projects rolling out this week. And I wasn't lying. I've got a lot of things ready to post. A month ago (perhaps more?) I believe I mentioned that I have a new laptop and that this new computer would help me post more frequently. Well... As I discovered, it wasn't going to let me post anything but raw, uncropped pictures until I got photo manipulating software. And since I didn't want to splurge on Photoshop, I thought I'd shop around for something cheaper. I was mentioning this little photo editing crisis to a coworker (who happens to be the ultimate Photoshop whiz) and he told me I should get GIMP, a free photo manipulation software that has vectors and layers and all the cool bells and whistles of Photoshop but is slightly less intuitive and of course completely a bigger bargain, i.e., free. So I downloaded it and have been loving it!
I forgot how much I love being able to do cool tricks with photos. And not that I did particularly cool tricks with today's pictures, but I was able to lighten the color of the Diet Dr Pepper so that it wouldn't look so black. Instead its kind of a creepy shade of neon maroon or something but I'm learning the ropes with this new software. I hope you'll cut me some slack. It's not like I professionally edit photos (anymore).
This is an update of my kitchen shelf complete with old school style glass Diet Dr Pepper bottles, which will eventually hold spices and baking supplies. For now, I have the uber tough task of drinking all that soda!

A funny thing happened while I was installing this project. Or at least I chuckled. I got the power drill all ready and figured out where I needed to drill holes and had everything all ready. I reached to look for the screws I needed and couldn't find them anywhere. And I'd been sure to buy 16 golden screws designed to fit the "L" brackets I used for the project. I searched high and low for the screws--through two tool boxes, opening drawers and cabinets. The logical crafter walks away from the project until the screws surface, knowing that 16 screws can't really vanish into thin air. But not me! I was really determined to get the project done, even at the expense of abandoning these 16 golden screws. (insert apparent non sequiter here) If you know my father Dale, you may know that he never throws away a piece of hardware. He keeps nails, screws, bolts, nuts, washers, and countless other metal objects designed for some household/outdoors/automotive function in old coffee cans and washed out jelly jars. He has shelves full of these jars. And he searches through them with great care and pride. It's a wonderful relationship he has with these jars. The greatest part is that he can grab a jar off the shelf, empty out a few items and pick up a washer and tell you where he got that washer and why he chose to save it. Some have great stories like, "I found this while walking down a sidewalk in New Orleans" or "This came out of the engine of my 1975 BMW that I drove when you were born. It's been waiting a long time to finally be used again!"
Well folks, I too have such a jar. I only have one jar and it's not full of truly storied pieces of hardware. But it did manage to produce 16 mismatching screws that I could use to complete my project and hang up my Diet Dr Pepper shelf. And I kid thee not, as soon as I finished hanging the shelf, I walked out of the kitchen and saw the 16 golden, matching screws on my coffee table. How irritating. Murphy's Law I guess. I put them in my hardware jar. Sometime during the next five decades, their time will come.

I like this project, but I feel like something is missing. It's still a little drab. I can't decide what to do to make it more fun. Something behind the bottles? A different collection beneath them? I don't know. Let me know if you have any thoughts. I am really open to suggestion...


And one more note, how come that one bottle is so much more full than the other bottles? Doesn't that seem odd? I'm really looking forward to drinking that one.

Off the Shelf

Normally, I don't like to post pictures of projects until they are completed. But today I wanted to give you a preview of something that I am anxiously working on. Of course, fate isn't cooperating as I'm having a hard time getting my greedy paws on some of the key ingredients for this project. What is this project you ask? Well, I'll tell you. It's a spice rack/shelf for my kitchen. And it is super personalized, as the spices will be stored in glass Diet Dr Pepper bottles, with precious little red, yellow and blue rubber caps (from Sweden) on top of the bottles. I was really inspired a few months ago when I saw a project by a super cute pair of designers in Virginia, who painted up bottles for storing odds and ends. And I immediately wanted to do something like they had done, but instead of using it to store ribbons, buttons and the like, I thought it would be fun to use to store cake toppers, cocoa powder, curry powder, cinnamon sticks, you know, kitchen items. So I've been tossing this idea around since April! That's when I first saw the Virginia version of this project and was really inspired.

Often in Dallas, I go to Corner Market, which is on the corner of Greenville & McCommas. It's so old school and the food is delicious! It really feels like it's not in Dallas somehow. I feel like I'm some other city... try the A-1 To Go in Gardiner, Maine. Anyway, whenever I'm there, I order my sandwich, read my Observer and drink Diet Dr Pepper out of a glass bottle. In a stroke of genius, I decided that instead of using milk bottles, I'd use Diet Dr Pepper bottles! Of course, I have this idea at the very time that Corner Market sells out of Diet Dr Pepper. I've been waiting a couple of weeks for them to restock their selection and then I'll be buying 30 bottles. The next step will be drinking them, then I buy/fill all the bottles with exotic spices and baking decor items and, voila! Project Completed.

For now, I'll tell you what I've done. Above is a picture of the supplies I needed to make the shelf. And below is a picture of the area to be perked up with the shelf/spice rack. Pretty dull, huh? Give me some credit though, I usually keep a collection of cookbooks, cute plates and cups and that kind of thing in that corner, but I really don't use the area as a cooking surface, so I thought I'd build a spice shelf. I got a 48" wooden beam and covered it in Mexican oil cloth from La Mariposa, right in my neighborhood. Then I painted little "L" brackets to match the bright Mexican oil cloth. And that's my progress thus far! I'll update as soon as the project marches forward.

* Sorry I went a bit links crazy today. No explanation. I just got carried away.

Baked Cuteness

So last night found me on my big baking blitz of the holly jolly season. And it was much more tame than in years past... Only three cookie types, just two dirty bowls, one messy counter and a 30-minute cleanup session make this a record for small-scale baking blitzes, but that's OK with me. I did get to spend lots of time making sure that the presentation of the cookies was dazzling. This year, the baking part was just to get me to the cookie-plate making part. Above you'll see the finished project. Actually, you see an artsy-design-bloggish view of the cookie platter. I'm kinda proud of the platter part of the deal -- I took a piece of cardboard, wrapped it in fancy paper from my FAVORITE paper store in Dallas, Paper and Chocolate. Then I artfully arranged the cookies, wrapped the whole bundle in shrink-wrap paper and tied a green and red bow to the whole thing, with a nice little happy santa face ornament tucked in for flare. I've done this flat cardboard cookie tray thing before and here are my little tips in case anyone actually reads this wanting to know about crafts...

• Use paper that's got a waxy sheen to it. Using a matted paper is really leaving yourself open to unsightly greasy spots. No one likes those. It just reminds you that cookies are fattening and when indulging in a cookie, it's nice to also indulge in the fantasy that it's calorie-free.
• Use spray glue from the spray-paint-style can to attach the paper to the cardboard. It looks so much flatter and prettier that way.
• Recognize that because you used shiny, slippery paper, the cookies are going to move around on the plate when you drive or walk to deliver the cookie plate. So plan on doing some gentle nudging of the cookies between your arrival time at your friend's house and the actual doorbell ringing moment.

And as that last tip went far beyond the realm of common sense, I'll stop there! I'm sharing a few more pictures of the baking process, mostly because I'm really thrilled that I got to wear my awesome apron that I bought in Los Angeles a month ago.

There's a shot of one of my peanut butter kisses cookies. Truth be told on this cookie -- it is messed up because it sadly took a tumble to the kitchen floor. It was thrown away and the night's only cookie casualty. I took the picture because I'm trying to learn how to take good close up shots of my little items. It's harder than it looks for me. For my years of working at newspapers around professional photographers (Andy Molloy comes to mind here), I didn't realize how hard it was to take good, interesting still life photos. Alas, this blog is giving me even more respect for how hard those photogs work!

I am thrilled anytime I get to dive into my bin full of baking supplies. The most popular cookie that I make, according to my cookie eaters, is one of the easiest cookies in the world to make. You can see it in this entry's top picture, the raspberry sugar cookie. Here's what you do... make sugar cookie mix or even use a tube of sugar cookie dough. Roll it out all flat on a counter or surface with a light dusting of flour on both sides of the cookie. Use a biscuit ring (a round cookie cutter) to make a bunch of circles -- make sure you do this in pairs. For every pair of rings, one should be a plain ring, and the other needs a cutout. I use hearts, stars, Christmas trees and angels as my cutouts of choice. Bake them according to instructions and as soon as they come out of the oven, spread jam over the flat cookies. Then put the cutout cookie on top, and people will rave about them tasting good, being pretty -- all that jazz, which is music to a cook/crafter's ears.

And, finally, I will mention a few notes of praise for the apron. I read the city guide for LA on the best design blog ever, Design Sponge, and attempted to lead myself on a walking tour of LA's hottest shops for design and all things cute. Well, apparently no one in LA walks anywhere. People stared at me as though I was from Mars, walking the streets of LA. It was a Saturday morning and apparently the cool LA design shops are intermixed with lots of Jewish Temples, so I wasn't alone in walking the streets, I was just the only person not wearing a yarmulke. Anyways, after walking all over, I found a heavenly store for Francophiles... It's called Maison Midi, and it's a section of the larger American Rag Company, on South La Brea Avenue. I wish I'd bought everything I saw, because it was all so wonderful. They even have a french cafe inside the boutique. Well, the one thing I did get was this apron, which is made out of an "antique" French tablecloth. I instantly feel the old world charm when I tie it on!