From the monthly archives: May 2011
Everything has its place. And with my embracing jewelry adornments lately, I needed to give them a proper home. Since I was not impressed with the standard tree or body form necklace holder, I had to make my own. Rustic and pretty, soft pastel and cold iron.
Start with a cheap vintage painting with a sturdy frame. Look up the artist online to make sure it’s not worth a million dollars then remove the painting within.
Have a handy person cut some wood to fit in the frame. Thank them. Select a dainty color from behind the locked gates of your local hardware store and set the wood up for spraying in a well-ventilated area, like the handy person’s backyard.
Spray your wood with at least 2 coats of color and 2 coats of a topcoat. Monitor the wood for curious bugs who may want to land and huff the chemicals. Let it dry thoroughly.
Get yourself a fancy, rustic hook. Like this moose hook.
Screw the hook to the wood in the frame. Marvel in its beauty.
Be on the look-out for #2 in this jewelry holding project: the earrings holder.
I have recently learned that there exist printable Shrinky Dink paper. Yes, Shrinky Dinks! Teeming with possibilities, I thought I’d create what I had been looking for in a pendant.
My first tries were an anatomically-correct heart, an artichoke (a play on the heart theme) and a brain. My parents’ ink was running low so the color is very vivid. I trimmed the excess paper and made ugly, sloppy holes. I was just eager to watch them wiggle and bake in the pre-heated oven!
It only takes a bout 2-3 minutes and they are shrunken and firmed up. The color darkened with the shrinking although the ink-strained stripes on the artichoke were still visible. Next time I need to make more careful holes within the image and trim them better. But they were going to be perfect for my first attempt at jewelry making!
And here is my first necklace! I attached the shrinky heart with some heart lockets and affixed them to the left of a double chain. The pendant is a bit large and I’ll consider that on my next batch of ‘dinks. Success!
While I was in the jewelry making section I picked up some other pieces to play with. This delightful branch and bird silver pendant was easy to piece together with set of tools.
This is my new desk. I saw it from across the room at the Unique Thrift in Levittown and was smitten. But, crafted with care, it was sturdy and large and too much for me to handle on my own. Luckily, upon my return next week, prompted by a nagging desire for attaining it, there it was ….waiting for me–or us, as I arrived with resource. Its one flaw was a water stain the size of a potted plant in the right upper corner. It was an opportunity to prove Vegenaise equal to mayonaise–in its ability to penetrate wood and remove a water stain. I was optimistic!
I smeared the white gold onto my beloved piece of furniture and let it sit for more than a day. This was not planned; I simply forgot about it.
After wiping away the old Vegenaise, the stain remained. It certainly did lessen but I suppose nothing infiltrates the wood like animal placenta. This or the stain was way too old to remove. I’ll be borrowing 2 TB of mayonaise from my roommate to do another trial.
My first Mets game of the season and I chowed down on two loaded veggie dogs. I may have gotten a bit over-zealous with the fixin’s stand.
Pine Box Rock Shop, a vegan-owned and operated bar in Brooklyn, hosted a special Cinco de Mayo feast, courtesy of Yummy Eats [a pop-up restaurant] and Verily Baked Goods [an impressive baker that does both omni and vegan treats]. Here was the impressive pre-fixe:
Having the choice of two appetizers, I selected the black bean and mango salad in a delish tortilla bowl, as well as guacamole and chips. They also were offering fresh salsa and chips; mushroom ceviche; a kiwi, cucumber & jalapeno cup or a sexy green salad. These fresh, flavorful bites were paired with a sweet blanco sangria filled with yummy berries.
Entree was a smoky veggie chili in a whole wheat bread bowl. It had a lot of heat and I wished I had ordered it atop lime rice rather than in the bowl, which was quite dense.
Yum. Verily’s delicious avocado cupcake. This was spectacular–a moist muted chocolate cupcake with a perfectly textured and sweet-pitched frosting. The frosting tasted a tinge bit like how Play-doh smells but it worked! It was such an interesting flavor. I hope to try more of Verily’s goods, especially after perusing their Flickr album for their other goodies, most which are very un-vegan.
CandyPenny, ArtSparrow and VeganVictuals–and cupcakes.
It wasn’t that long ago that tomatoes were in sorry shape. Apologies were displayed in the supermarket. But with winter gone, bring on the better fruit! In honor of my easy but satisfying lunch and to balance out the hectic culmination of 5th grade test prep, here’s what I am eating this busy week, sprinkled with some fascinating facts about the beloved tomato.
Tomatoes are quite bad a**. They’re related to several poisonous plants. They got poisons flowing in their stem and leaves.
Like a lot of fruits, tomatoes are rumored to have aphrodisiacal powers. They’re called pommes d’amour (“love apples”) by zee French.
Tomatoes’ technical name means “wolf peach”. The love apple-wolf peach from the wrong side of the tracks with its poisonous relatives- – -sexy.
Lycopene is quite fascinating. It is so wonderful how we can eat all of these colorful free radicals and antioxidants like eating a treasure from the Earth. Fruits and veggies are sparkling jewels. [And dairy is spackle.] [And meat, a grey silly putty affixing to the intestinal wall.]
Organic Village‘s Shiitake-Veg “Burger”. Quite good for a raw version of a burger, however, after horrendous service I’ll likely not return to this place. We ate in the car so to escape the mess of stress within the tiny restaurant.
Finally tried Dunwell Donuts at Champs Family Bakery, which is now home to Bone Shakers too. Yes, the Kingsland location is no longer. We were pleased to find pleasant service and an offer of free cupcakes. I tried Dunwell’s jelly donut and coconut-glazed. They were yummy but a bit dry. Of course.. once you go Mighty, your standard is way high.
With the weather finally cooperating, we had grilled eggplant sandwiches for a lazy day lunch. Scrumptious marinated sweet onion and sliced eggplant discs atop grilled under Mr. Blue Sky and onto toasted Italian. Then I ate a mango.
Vegan Reporting By Location
