Arts & Crafts

I got into an artsy mood today.  First, I played with colored pencils.  But then I had some real fun playing with my new encaustic set! 

In each little tin is colored wax.  The two light colored ones on the right are a cleaning wax and a clear wax.  I used a pancake griddle to melt the wax.  Then you can use the cake griddle as your palette!  Fun, right?!

OK, so my tree looks a little arts & craftsy and/or middle school art homework project, but whatevs!  It was fun, and I went ahead and framed that sucker.  I'll probably find a place in my bedroom for it.

The cool thing about painting with wax is that it is very textural. I included this picture so you could see more how textured it is.

Future visitors -- if you want to play with my encaustics when you visit me, I thoroughly support that!

Baked Beans

I went to a potluck type dinner thing this week, and I was assigned baked beans. Melissa has some yummy baked beans, but I didn't plan enough in advance to get her recipe. I looked something up online, but I don't remember where I got it from, and I changed it anyway.

Here goes:

Ingredients
2 cans baked beans (yes, you're baking baked beans. get over it.)
1 sweet onion
2 cups brown sugar
bacon (I used pork jowl bacon - yum)
tabasco sauce (the recipe I saw online called for chili sauce, but tabasco is what I had)
mustard


Directions
Cook the bacon & crumble it.  Mix together all ingredients to taste.  Cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour at 350 degrees.

I forgot to take a picture.  Here was what was left!  I actually thought when it came out of the oven that it tasted kind of funny, but people love love loved it.  And I think by the time I got to my location the flavors had time to "marry," or whatever it is flavors do.

Home Project - The Thing

I have this thing in my kitchen -- I never know what to call it. It's a shelf, pantry-type thing. I generally refer to it as, "that thing in my kitchen." Thing is, the thing is pretty ugly.

See? Ugly.   But functional! So I decided I should paint it.

Of course, in addition to being ugly, it's also cheap (read: particle board). Luckily, there is a primer you can use on particle board. It's this Zinsser stuff.

Then I painted it a greenish color similar to my welcome sign.  The paint is called "Quaking Grass."

The finished product. You might still think it's kind of ugly.  But you'd be wrong and nobody asked you anyway.

The end.