Seakettle

I finally made a sea shell shadow box to match my feather and egg shadow box!

I love the look of old nature illustrations, and was drawn to interesting arrangements like these. Though the average sea shell craft is a little too kitschy to match our decor, I thought a symmetric pattern with some of the many shells we’ve collected would fit in nicely. Especially in an old cigar box.

To make the light-colored shells pop a bit more, I stained the inside of the box a darker shade (after lightly sanding and wiping clean). I used my favorite removable glue, Rubber Cement, to hold the shells at first, but had to redo them with hot glue after several of the big shells came unstuck. At least now they won’t come crashing down on our guests sitting (or sleeping) on the couch!

I’m amazed by the variety of shapes and colors in even such a small sample of shells. I love passing by and seeing them on our wall!

Greg and I did a little experimenting with Smitten Kitchen’s recent crepe cake recipe over the weekend. It calls for banana crepes layered with a sweetened cream cheese and yogurt mixture topped with butterscotch and walnuts. And, because everyone loves it, we made a last minute decision to add Nutella to half the layers. Yummm.

The dozen layers really stole the show, and the sliced pieces were just lovely. Though I didn’t get a photo of the sliced cake, I was pleasantly surprised by how easily it cut. Apparently it’s one of the magical qualities of crepes — they cut without stretching or tearing. They also keep well, and can be stacked and stored for a few days (without sticking together!).

This version was good, but I’m even more excited with the possibilities ahead (Grand Marnier, anyone?). Crepes are really quite easy to make, and every time we have them we vow to make them more frequently. And just like our bentwood chairs, crepes are a welcome reminder of our (too brief) time in Paris!

There comes a time in every man’s life when he must replace the as-is Ikea dining chairs he bought secondhand on Craigslist with something a little more, I don’t know, stylish? Sophisticated? Less self-assembled? That day has finally come courtesy of a set of six bentwood chairs Jennifer found on Craigslist.

Ever since our epic trip to Europe last summer bentwood chairs remind me of the charming cafés at the heart of Parisian life. (OK, so not like I’m an expert on Parisian life, but it sure seemed like the locals loved their cafés.) Since then we’ve been on the lookout for a reasonably priced set of Thonet-style chairs, but have only been able to find an occasional solo chair with a battered cane seat. Meanwhile, new reproduction Thonet chairs sell for $120 and up.

Despite generally poor luck with Craiglist in LA, Jennifer struck gold with these chairs. (In contrast to Atlanta where it worked quite well for us, being stuck in 1999 makes Craigslist only marginally useable in a city the size of LA.) The only trouble: they were 35 miles away, across downtown LA, at rush hour. If you’ve never had the joy of driving across all of Los Angeles at rush hour here’s what you’re in for (upper left to lower right):

We could have waited until the weekend and hoped no else would snatch up our beautiful chairs, but it just seemed unlikely they’d still be around, and I could just see us kicking ourselves for missing the opportunity. So as soon as I got off work — well, as soon as I got home from work, which in LA is quite another thing — we set off to brave the traffic and claim our prize.

When we arrived we were met by a gregarious mover who buys furniture he knows is popular from his clients to resell on Craigslist. He showed us the chairs and asked if we knew about Thonet chairs and their history. I said ‘no,’ and he proceeded to tell us all about Thonet chairs, digressing along the way to discuss Herman Miller and furniture by several other designers I had never heard of. After the interesting history lesson, we bargained for the chairs and loaded them into the car.

Driving away I made the startling discovery that Jennifer knew all about Thonet and Herman Miller and all the rest! (Really I shouldn’t have been surprised.) She also informed me that Thonet is pronounced TONE-et, not tho-NAY as their previous owner and many others mistakenly assume. (He was German, not French.) She thought I was just playing dumb so as to seem ignorant of the history and desirability of the chairs to perhaps negotiate a better price. In reality I was just plain dumb and entirely ignorant! In any case we successfully purchased the stylish bentwood chairs.

We hope to re-cover the red vinyl seats in the future, but were pleasantly surprised to find that our curtains tie them into the room nicely. The chairs have turned our dinner table from used Ikea showroom to sophisticated dinner space.

Just thought I’d share this Easter gift I made for my grandmother, who has spent far too much time in the hospital recently. I often send sweets, but I know she gets a lot of sugary treats from the rest of my family. Instead, I decorated a wooden cross in hopes that the cheer it brings will outlast that of my usual chocolate!

In honor of her favorite Floridian colors and her unwavering faith, I decorated a basic wooden cross (from JoAnn’s) with stripe-y scrapbook paper that reminds me of sunset at the beach. I used spray adhesive to attach the paper to the wood, and then trimmed off the excess. I attached my favorite paper flowers (tutorial coming soon) with hot glue and sent it on its way.

My grandmother is a fantastic woman. She spent many years serving in her church and ministering to the homebound before becoming homebound herself. I have always admired her devotion and her strength through difficult times.

She also loves vibrant, tropical colors. Even when she wasn’t living in Florida (but in Chicago or St. Louis), my grandma decorated her homes in all coral and teal. And I mean all… coral walls, teal carpeting and a coral leather couch! Her color palette also extends to her wardrobe — I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen my grandmother in purple or navy or black. But bright red, orange and yellow? Definitely!

My First Communion in 1992 and eighth-grade graduation in 1998. Wasn’t I the coolest?

I hope my little cross is a welcome bit of Easter color and that tomorrow is sunny in Florida! Wish I was there.

Have a wonderful Easter everyone!

I often wait until the last minute to decorate for holidays (and generally don’t care to have a seasonally-themed house except at Christmas), but not this Easter! I saw an adorable arrangement of succulents in eggshells and wanted to make my own immediately.

I did end up waiting a few days to eat enough eggs and collect their shells, but then I made this egg carton arrangement of my own. Based on the succulent tree I made at Christmastime, the little succulent clippings will survive just fine until Easter. The tiny pink flowers (mostly New Zealand Teas) will need to be replaced, but I’m fortunate enough to have an unlimited supply.

The supplies are pretty straightforward: eggshells, a cardboard carton (top half removed), soil, succulent cuttings and a few flowers. Moss is nice, too.

Just fill the shell with dirt.

And “plant” the succulents and flowers!

Ta-da!

I love party favors. They’re often one of the first things brides cut from wedding budgets, but I’d never dream of it! For less than $1 per person, you can both say “thank you” and give your guests something to remember your wedding by. Even more than that, favors also serve as a decoration — they’re a completely customizable way to extend the theme of your party and add another fun element to the event.

When I have the chance, I like to include favors at smaller occasions, as well, and I made a couple dozen of these shamrock boxes for a party last week. I didn’t have enough of any single color paper to make them identical (as I might have done otherwise), but I loved how the combination of greens came together! The same idea would be perfect for Easter — spring hues, paper flowers on top, and jelly beans inside. I just might have to make another batch!

Supplies:
Solid colored card stock, 6 x 6 inches per box (4 boxes per 12 x 12 sheet)
A few sheets of patterned scrapbook paper in coordinating colors and patterns
Printer
Scissors
Clear tape
Elmer’s School Glue or similar
Heart punch (if making shamrocks)
Hot glue and gun

To make card stock favor boxes:

1. Print and cut out box template.

2. Trace template onto scrapbook paper. Add little marks on the outside of the main shape to indicate the fold (dotted) lines.

3. Cut and fold boxes.

4. Fill with treats! I used two cookies per box (see recipe below). And you can paint your nails to match, if you’d like. Hehe.

5. Seal the boxes with a little piece of tape, or use a cute sticker and call it done.

6. To attach a shamrock, bow, flower etc. to the boxes, use a dab of hot glue.

To make shamrock toppers:

1. Cut four hearts per box using heart punch (approximately 1 inch).

2. To make them three-dimensional, fold the hearts in half (from point to point).

3. Pair up half the hearts and glue them together with Elmer’s by slightly overlapping the tips. They’ll look like bow-ties. Remember to only do half the hearts — don’t get carried away!

4. After the bow-ties are dried, glue two hearts more on top of the first two, forming a sort of +. These two hearts don’t need to overlap each other.

To make my favorite spritz cookies (approximately 4 dozen):

Supplies:
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
Food coloring (optional)
Sprinkles (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 375.

2. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until smooth.

3. Beat in egg and extracts.

4. Combine the flour and salt; gradually add to the creamed mixture.

5. Tint mixture with food coloring, if desired.

6. Using a cookie press fitted with the disk of your choice, press dough 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets.

7. Top with sprinkles, if desired.

8. Bake for 6-8 minutes or until set (do not brown).

9. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

Warning: These cookies are very buttery and will start to soak through the box eventually. I filled my boxes several hours before the party and they only soaked through a bit of the bottom, but the next day I noticed spots on the box tops, too. If you want to fill your boxes farther in advance, I’d recommend using candy or a drier cookie!

There’s something about the weathered texture and classic muted red that I love in salvaged brick. Growing up, we always had plenty of it around due to the stockpile my dad accumulated from the neighborhood chimneys toppled by the Northridge earthquake. This Valentine’s Day I stole a brick from the remnants of that stockpile to fashion into a gift for Jennifer. Knowing that she loves typographic details, I decided to carve our initials into one face of the brick.

One of the perks of being married to a graphic designer is getting to play with professional design software. Another is access to an unlimited number of fonts. For transferring type to the brick I created an Illustrator document with its dimensions, 4″ x 8″. I then set about selecting a font. I thought a modern, sans-serif typeface would contrast nicely with the worn brick. After trying all the sans-serif typefaces I could think of and a bunch more I hadn’t heard of, I settled on Frutiger. In addition to being an all-around nice looking font, its “J”, “G” and “&” have no descenders and fit into the rectangular shape of a brick. (I was surprised to learn that capital “J” is a descender in so many fonts.) I wanted the letters to fill the space of the brick, so I picked a heavy weight (65 bold) and eliminated the space between the characters. Once I had the text finalized in Illustrator, I printed it, cut it out and traced it on the brick.

To carve out the white space surrounding the letters I used my Dremel, beginning with relatively large grinding bits to clear out the larger spaces and then using finer bits for the detail work. For the finishing touches I used a fine-pointed tungsten carbide bit.

For the price of covering myself in fine red powder I had a unique Valentine’s Day gift that now adorns our distressed cabinet. Who knew you could turn a brick into something so cool?

St. Patrick’s Day is just a week away, but there’s still plenty of time to whip up a pretty Irish flag cake! You just need round cake pans and a little food coloring to turn a boxed cake mix into a green, white and orange celebration cake.

Just divide the white cake batter into as many bowls as you’ll have layers (three for the Irish flag) and color it.

Bake as directed. After the baked layers cool, they need to be leveled so they can be stacked nicely. My mom bought me a fancy schmancy leveling tool, but a serrated knife or dental floss also work. I used whipped cream frosting between layers and on the top, though you could use a tub of frosting instead.

Part of the fun in colored cakes is the disguise! An innocent looking white cake is surprisingly festive inside. (Perfect for parties to reveal baby’s sex!) This cake also served as a bonus birthday cake for my friend Jill.

I love cakes with tons of layers and with three round pans, I can cut the layers in halves and make a six layer cake! Though I haven’t tried it yet. I can’t wait to make a cake with varying shades of the same color, or a whole rainbow inside!

Here’s where I wish I had a photo of a piece of the cake! The slices look even more like the flag than the cake itself, as the surface is rectangular and the stripes are in the proper orientation (if the piece is set on its side).

All in all, I was so happy with how the flag cake turned out. Party desserts should always be this much fun to eat!

I love, love, love Oreos. Highlight of my junior prom? Not my date or my shoes or the venue, but the Oreo cheesecake. And while I’m still searching for another Oreo cheesecake that can live up to my memory, the Oreo truffles and Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies I’ve made are both fantastic. This Oreo treat is considerably quicker, but also fancy enough for the (rare) times when bringing a package of cookies to the party just won’t do.

For starters, this bark can be made with just 2 ingredients — 10 oz. of white chocolate and 18 Oreos. TWO ingredients! This is a great relief for someone as incapable of cleanly measuring powdery ingredients as I.

In short: line an 8×8 dish with wax paper, melt the chocolate, mix 15 of the chopped Oreos into the chocolate, pour mixture into the dish and sprinkle remaining 3 chopped Oreos over the top. Chill for 10 minutes, then break into pieces. For more details (and photos that actually do the bark justice!), see the recipe on Bakers Royale .

Definitely serve this in small pieces and with milk. I found it to be over the top in sweetness, but that might be solved by using the recommended Ghiradelli chips. It was addictive, nonetheless!

Update: Perfect timing! Happy 100th Birthday, Oreo!

I’ve made a couple of these butcher paper wreaths, and I just love them! Despite the elegant appearance of the finished product, the steps are very basic. It’s the perfect project to work on during a movie (and it will even be finished by the time the movie is over!).

You only need butcher paper, a wreath form and a willingness to freehand a bunch of circles! (Oh, and hot glue and scissors. The essentials.)

The paper flowers are cute on their own, too. They look great with all papers — scrapbook, copy, tissue — and fill in perfectly for bows on presents!