Mantel 317

St Patrick's Day is around the corner!  It was time to get my mantel ready.

My framed An Irish Blessing is an oldie but a goodie.  I made it years ago.  I just typed the blessing in Word, printed it on resume pepper, colored the shamrocks, and popped it into a Dollar Store frame.

 A Wish for a Friend was made with the same method as An Irish Blessing.  The shamrock is new this year.  I started out by gluing a page from an old book to a piece of matte board.  Then I just hot glued three heart shaped pieces of felt, along with a piece of crafting wire, to the board.  I dropped it into a frame I already had.  I removed the glass, as I thought you could appreciate the texture of the felt and wire more without it. 


I had some bad luck crafting what I thought would be a great addition for this mantel. 

I thought adding three horseshoes to stained wooden plaques would be a nice addition.  What's St Pat's without some horseshoes?  They looked too grandparenty.  It was a major fail.  Oh well. 

I did manage to slip in one horseshoe. 

Wreath Interrupted

I've always admired these Smith and Hawken wreaths at Target.

They're simple, classy, and versatile. I, however, doubted my ability to store this rather expensive wreath properly. The flowers are so delicate! 

I sought an alternative. I liked the coffee filter wreaths I saw circulating on Pinterest, but wanted something that looked less coffee filtery. 

I managed to find this wreath made from coffee filters dyed using tea bags.

I set out to make my own following the blogger's instructions.

Believe it or not, the variety and quantity of tea bags really effects the color. The first time I dyed the filters, I used some expired Earl Grey and basic store brand. I left the filters in the tea bath for about 8 minutes and achieved the color I had in mind. I allowed them to hang dry overnight. 

Then I used them all and had to dye a few more to finish up. The second time around, I used only the basic store brand and the end result was too pink. Too pink to even use! I had to dye a third batch with different teas to better match those I originally used. Learn from my mistakes. I would recommend just using one variety, so that if you run out, you can easily replicate the color. 

I drove a screw driver into the 14" wreath and then removed it. Notice how I did not take off the plastic covering.

I wrapped the filter around a pen, applied some Gorilla glue to the filter, and then inserted the filter into the hole I had driven. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

I started in September and because I got distracted with other projects, as well as ran out of dyed filters, it took four sessions.

 

Over 150 filters later, I finally finished! It's full and the primary material isn't so obvious.

 

I haven't decided if I will hang it on a door outside or if it will be a part of an upcoming holiday mantel. Stay tuned!

Valentine's Day Wrap Up

I see just about every holiday as a reason to decorate the mantel and  make a nice meal.  I shared my Valentine's Day mantel previously and last night we had: 

 

Rosemary mashed potatoes

Roasted carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower

Lemon baked chicken

Bourbon pecan pie brownies with vanilla ice cream

 

This was my second time making the mashed potatoes and just like the first, they did not disappoint.  Using the immersion blender makes them oh so creamy!

 

Ina Garten is one of my favorites and my adaptation of her roasted vegetables is a special meal staple. This is such a healthy, delicious, and easy side dish!       

The chicken is great because it can essentially be made the night before. I added some fresh minced garlic to the marinade before dunking the chicken thighs and drumsticks. I will definitely add garlic every time I make this recipe. 

 

The only wild card of the meal was the bourbon pecan pie brownies. I had never made them before. Due to some time limitations, as well as scarce oven space, I made them beforehand from a box.  I also didn't have any brown rice syrup, but did have some Karo syrup to use as a substitute. I think the metal pan I baked them in was a bit too large, as the brownies and topping were a little thinner than I would have liked. This decadent recipe is still worth keeping and making again in a different vessel! 

 

I made the table runner over the weekend and used some glasses and dishes that aren't a part of our every day rotation. The red flowers were to me from the hubs.  The white flowers were to me from me.

 

 

It was a really nice evening at home. Hope you had a nice Valentine's Day that filled and warmed not only your hearts, but also your stomachs! 

 

Work With Whatcha Got

For me, the road to hoarding is paved with endless craft supplies and unfinished projects.  One of my resolutions for 2013 was not only to be more productive, but also use what I already have. 

While my husband was out taking care of this

I got to work on some hand-painted burlap table runners inspired these I saw on etsy.  

 

I already had all of the supplies I needed and it was high time to work with what I have! 

My plan was to make three runners - one for my bedside table, one for the tv table, and one for the dining table - all using paint I already had.

I measured and marked where I should cut.   

I used red sharpie. Bad choice.  

The most time consuming aspect of this project was measuring for the stripes and then marking them.  Clearly I didn't learn from the first time I made this mistake, and used red sharpie again.  Next up I tried a small ball point black pen, which resulted in the opposite problem as the red sharpie, but an equally bad choice.  

Then I just used pins to guide me.

Before masking out the last few stripes, I realized you could probably just eye-ball it.

I used small foam rollers to paint the stripes.

I was pleasantly surprised by how crisp the lines turned out.  There were few incidents of bleeding beneath the tape.  

While I like the orange one a lot, it doesn't work on the tv table.  The green one is my least favorite because of the lack of contrast between the paint and the burlap.  It may resurface around Halloween with some black.  

I cut and hemmed smaller strips of muslin to line the bottom of each runner to conceal the paint came that came through on the under side and give them a more finished feel. 

Then I sewed the muslin and burlap together.

If I were to do this project again, I would be sure to hem the muslin with a more similarly colored thread.  I would also try to measure, cut, and pin everything a bit more precisely and uniformly.  This would also to ensure that the seam connecting the liner to the burlap could also serve as a means of prohibiting  burlap from fraying. 

Overall, I was pleased with the results, especially given the challenges burlap presents.

Here is my favorite one put to use:

This was the first project in a very long time that I was able to make using only supplies I already had!

The Odyssey

We got some really cold weather that prohibited muddin' and yielded an ice rink out front.

The low temperatures also postponed the repair.  Warm weather came again and Thursday was the day to fix everything.

Around 10:30, I came home to this:

What a big job!  While I was snapping photos, the crew mentioned the water pipe was sparking and I witnessed it too.


Yikes.

 Everything stopped.  They called the town water and electrical inspectors. 

I returned indoors and was messing around on the computer when I smelled burning.  Initially I attributed it to soldering but then I got worried.  I went outside and mentioned it to the foreman and a crew member.  The crew member said, "We were jack hammering down in the basement," and just chalked it up to that.  The foreman accompanied me to the basement and smelled what I smelled.  Burning.  I knew it wasn't good when the foreman ran quickly back upstairs and shouted, "Scotty!  Scotty!  You gotta get down here!"

Scotty joined us in the basement.  We sniffed around but couldn't find the source.  All of the electricity was turned off.  Scotty poked around at the circuit breaker.  He and another member of the crew are firemen. They allayed some of my concerns. 

We returned outside and waited for the inspectors as the temperature dropped and the wind picked up.  It was cold and I was getting increasingly stressed.

To think I once thought the biggest source of stress in this project was going to be the crew's care of our little maple.  Ha.  

At this point, I was so worried I stopped taking photos.

The water inspector arrived and didn't have much information to offer.  Shortly thereafter my husband also arrived home.  The water inspector left and we continued waiting around outside.  

Within five minutes of his arrival, the electrical inspector spotted the problem.  The neutral at the electric pole was snapped.  Typically a home has two neutrals - one buried and one above ground.   Without one of these, all of the current is absorbed by just one.  This may have been what caused the pipe to leak.  The inspector said the odor we detected was probably something burning out and we should be prepared for damage.  He told us we would also need to call an electrician to connect a new ground and that the electric company would have to repair the neutral. The inspector called the electric company. 

The crew resumed their work and were visibly shaken.  They joked, "Man!  We thought this would be an easy job and we'd be out of here by 1!"  One said, "Well, I don't think anything else can go wrong."  Scotty said, "Oh no.  More can go wrong.  More can go wrong."

I was able to get an electrician who arrived and looked around in the basement only to say, "Until the power company makes their repair, I can't assess anything."  Shortly after he left, I left too.  I needed a break and headed up to the thrift store.

When I returned home, the foreman said, "Yeah.  We broke your neighbor's drain pipe."  The neighbor has a sump pump in his basement the connects with our sump pump drain pipe.  I thought he was joking and laughed, but he wasn't joking.  More had gone wrong. 

The sun went down.  The guys were getting around using flashlights.  Still no sign of the power company.  They hoped to be able to thread some of the pipe through the ground, but weren't able to.  They had to dig the trench all the way to the house.  I stood at the street and was able to see flickers of light in the basement through a hole they had drilled in the foundation.  A pretty wild sight.  I had calmed down enough to take a photo, but it was just too dark. 

I took a walk up town to get a drink and have something to eat.  My husband returned home and helped them get squared away.  They were finally able to cover the hole and he joined me at the bar.

When we got back home, the electric company had already repaired the line.  We spent the night without heat and electricity.  We left all of the faucets on with a slow drip to prevent the pipes from freezing.

I took the day off to ensure we got the electricity repaired and restored.  The excavating crew returned to apply top soil and grade the lawn, as well as finish the work that needed to be done on the foundation in the basement. 

The electrician was able to return around 4.  He advised me to turn on everything to check for damage while he connected the ground.  I was able to turn everything on except for the heat. Then we discovered the primary source of the burning smell - a light in the basement.  It was a tremendous relief to find the source.  

The electrician left and my husband came home from work.  He looked at the furnace but was not able to get it working.  He suspected the transformer was blown.  It was so cold, we could see our breath. We had to call an emergency HVAC technician.  We waited.  My husband was anxious.   He was pacing around, wearing socks with flip flops, and drinking wine from a coffee mug.  The technican arrived and confirmed my husband's assessment:  the transformer had blown.   

After he made the repair around 10:30 pm, we realized the surge had also ruined the programmable thermostat.  Thank goodness we had a second one on hand - we bought two with intentions of installing one upstairs but never got around to it.  Once the replacement was made, we had heat again and the odyssey finally came to a close.