DIY Tuesday: The scariest DIY ever!

Reminder: This is the last day of the blog this week, see you on Monday!

I had a light pink cashmere sweater that I never wore. I'm just not a pink wearing lady. I decided to either donate it or make it wearable. I would rather wear it. 

So I decided to dye it. 

I know. What? Dye a dry-clean only piece of clothing?

No, really, you can do it. 

Here's what happened: 

Grab sweater. 

Measure the sweater. Top to bottom, side to side. Sleeve length and width. This helps you when you block it to dry so it doesn't shrink or anything. 

Acquire dye, I used RIT black. 

Mix dye. Take a bucket or some other container. Put the dye in, a cup of plain vinegar, and fill halfway with hot water. Stir to dissolve. Then add cold water to fill the bucket about 2/3 of the way full. 

With a rubber glove on, feel the temp of the water. Or, if you are more high-tech, use a thermometer. 

Then try and match the water from your faucet to the same temp. Keep it there. Temperature changes will be the things that make your sweater stretch. 

 Then, carefully wet the sweater, being careful not to pull or stretch the sweater. NOTE: In the above pic, the sweater is already wet. I matched the water temp already to the bucket, so no worries about shrinkage.  It might take a long time to wet the sweater, as cashmere does not like to be wet. Persevere!

Ignore the white sweater in these pics, it's another sweater (non cashmere) that I dyed at the same time. If i'm dyeing, i'm dyeing everything that I can. 

Stick the sweater in the dye bath. Stir gently and press all parts of the sweater under the dye. Stir every thirty minutes, for 2 hours total. 

Now, match temperature of your water in the bucket to the faucet flow again. Once you got that on lock, carefully dump out the dye bath and start rinsing. This is another thing that will take a while. Do not pull or stretch the sweater in any way. Be as gentle and patient as you can. 

Rinse the sweater until the water runs clear. Then--very gently--fold the sweater and press some of the water out. 

Then place your sweater on a towel. Using the measuring tape, match the sweater to the before measurements. Let dry. This will take several days. I really like how it turned out a dark charcoal grey. 

I like knowing that this is a possibility, and if I find something cashmere at the goodwill that's not my color I might try this again. It was totally a nerve shaking experience though! 

Random Monday: Thanks for the decor!

My genius husband came up with this blog post title. Clever boy. 

This post is about the turkey day decor I have going on in my houzzz right now. 

Even though it's not DIY Tuesday, I will share a bit about how I made each item, as y'all know it's made cheap! 

First, I made the door decoration that says Thankful. 

I used word to create triangles on a page, then typed the letters to make up Thankful inside them. I printed them on my old standby, which is brown craft card stock left over from my wedding. Then I cut them out, ghetto laminated them with packaging tape (optional if you don't live in a RAIN FOREST), and affixed them to a ribbon with some more tape. I like tape. 

Tied on my door, it looks like this: 

I also stuck tape on the door to help the pennants stay where I wanted them. Moral of the story: Tape. 

Also, I made a nifty table runner. I bought a 1/3 of fabric...total 1.66. 

Then I ironed the edges over. 

I was too lazy to sew  didn't have the right color thread, so I used liquid stitch to glue the edges down.

 TADA! 

And here's a picture of me as a thumb: 

Adventure Time Friday: Explore some other blogs!

So since we are headed to Canada next week, I won't be blogging Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. Blame Canada. 

 I wanted to share some of my favorite blogs with you so if you need a blog fix you'll know where to go. (Not that my blog compares to these awesome blogs...) 

I read a couple of blogs every. single. day. and some other blogs when I am bored or waiting somewhere. 

1. Young House Love

This blog is the best. It's a young married couple, their kiddo, and a cute dog named Burger. (I like his name.) They do a home design/DIY blog. Their style is a mix of modern traditional with some awesome colorful accents. They are on their second house, and have chronicled the renovation of both, inside and out. Their first house is seen above. 

This blog is a huge inspiration to me, and I read it every day (going on about 2 years now). The wife loves Ceramic animals and spray painting things. A girl after my own heart. 

2. Apartment Therapy

This is a huuuge blog with a lot of contributors. There's always a new story every time I check it, and the stories are usually very interesting. There's a nice mix of diy projects, reader questions, professional designs, and random cool stuff. There's also offshoot blogs for cooking and parenting. Above is a picture that represents a typical design that the Apartment Therapy community would go nuts over. 

3. Design Sponge 

This blog is full of super special things. They have select DIY projects, luscious recipes, and a mix of eclectic stories about amazing things. Its run by a woman named Grace, who I think must have the best taste possible in the world. She does a great job highlighting unique craftsmans of gorgeous products. 

Leave a comment with your favorite blog! 

Have a great weekend, and I will see you on Monday and Tuesday. 

Booze Thursday: Best. Brewery. Ever.

Big claim up there in the title. Lemme back it up. 

Husband and I have been in love with the Russian River brewery ever since our 21st birthday. Great beers are made here. We loooooove their sour beers, my favorite beer ever probably being supplication. We have thought about driving down to Santa Rosa and centering our trip around this awesome place. 

Last night since it was the Husband's b-day, we busted out a bottle that we have been hoarding for a long time. It was a bottle of Consecration, which is a sour dark ale that has been aged in cabernet sauvignon barrels. Then, as if that wasn't good enough, they add currants. It is a great beer. 

The reason I like this particular beer so much is because it's well balanced. There's a balance of woodiness, sourness, and fruitiness. I think that the currants are not a super sweet, or dominating, fruit, so that helps the beer stay balanced. 

I encourage everyone to try a sour beer if they haven't before. It sounds odd until you try it. 

Have a great day! 

Good Eats Wednesday: Salsa Chicken!

Last night, I wanted something for dinner that made it feel like a party for the election result watching night. I decided to make salsa chicken. It's the easiest thing ever...actually this doesn't even count as a recipe. It's like something you would see on pinterest, minus the cream of _____ soup, ew. 

Take 3 chicken breasts.

Throw them in a crock pot. 

Pour over about 2 cups of salsa, your choice. (I made my own, because I have too much free time)

Add some corn or beans or something if you want. 

Cook 6-8 hours on low. 

Shred chicken, return to crock pot.

Add some sort of creamy substance. This could be sour cream, queso substance, cottage cheese, or cream cheese. I happened to use about a cup of greek yogurt. 

I then added a cup of shredded colby jack cheese.

Eat with chips. Yum. 

Husband looooved it. 

DIY Tuesday: Raaaaaawr!

Tomorrow is the husband's birthday. He already opened his present, mostly because I couldn't wait any longer (and because he saw the one I made for myself)

  We keep our house pretty cold, and that means that we almost always need a blanket while watching tv or playing a board game at night. I wanted to make two fleece blankets for us to use, but I didn't like the way fleece blankets are usually finished. Your options are: 1) Use two fleece fabrics and tie them together along the sides. This makes is hard and lumpy around the edges, and I didn't want to buy double fabric. 2) Crochet the edges. That's above my skill level. 

So I forged my own way. I wanted fringe. I bought 2 yards of fabric per blanket, and then 1 skein of yarn. Oh yeah, the fabric was awesome T-rex fleece. 

Jon participated in cutting the fringes. He was bewildered as to what I could be making. We cut a bunch of 7 inch long fringe. 

Then I cut off the salvage of the felt. 

Then I made sharpie marks about 2 inches apart, one inch in, around the whole blanket. 

                                Then I snipped a tiny hole on top of each sharpie mark. 

I made bundles of five pieces of yarn, then threaded the bundle through the holes. I took another piece of yarn and tied the fringe nice and tight. Repeat around the whole blanket. Ta da! 

Husband loves it. He did a dance with it as a cape. 

Random Monday: It's a great idea...Ikea!

Yesterday we had zero plans. My ingenious husband came up with the idea of visiting our favorite Swedish store, Ikea. I can't turn down meatballs and random cheap purchases. 

We ended up buying a sleeping pillow, table runner for Christmas, Christmas ornaments, a pretty cool roasting pan, and wrapping paper. 

Throughout the store I took pictures of what I liked. I thought I'd share my 'window shopping' Ikea experience with you! 

We liked this dining chair because of its gray/brown color. It would be great with a colorful cushion on it. I think that they were around 25 dollars a chair. 

These chairs make me drool every time we are at Ikea. They are 140 a piece, so not on the budget today. Maybe someday. The seat is a taupe/grey fabric. Gorgeous. 

This is the table runner I bought, except the background is white. It is a super fun graphic print! I'm excited to decorate the table with it. 

This chair is another Ikea staple that makes me drool each time. It is like a dark grey felt fabric. I think that they are like 150 a piece. 

The lovely husband is modeling a chair that I hadn't seen before. It's a dark blue wing back chair. The pic sucks, so here's the Ikea pic: 

It also comes in gray. Fierce. 

I really liked this fabric. Something about the color combination and almost architectural pattern appealed to me. If our name started with a Y, you could bet that would be on our headboard STAT. Otherwise, I could see it as an accent pillow or table runner. 

This picture is just a laugh. The zany Ikea store decorators cut up a fur rug and made little booties for this chair. Ya know, no holiday gathering is complete without furry chair legs. 

This one is obviously not Ikea, but I thought that you might appreciate the snapshot of a cool spiderweb that I took while chasing a cat out of my yard (I was yelling, "I love you kitty, but don't come in my yard!!!!!!!). Yeah, we live a glamorous life here. 

Adventure Time Friday: I suck at taking pictures.

I really failed this Halloween. I hardly look any pictures. FAIL. 

So I'm just going to tell you all about the fun times to supplement the lack of pictures. 

First, the weekend before Halloween we had a party. I was Elaine from Seinfeld. 

Yes, I did dance like this all night: 

We also had poop dip, which is queso with meat and food coloring added to make it brown. Sounds gross right? Kinda, but it was the hit of the party. 

mmmmmmm. 

Then on the actual Halloween we handed out candy. I was dressed as Mickey Mouse. I wanted something more recognizable. 

 My favorite trick-or-treaters were a little blonde girl as Mario with the stick on mustache. Soooo adorable. I also liked the little princess from Brave who came all the way into our house and outright judgmentally inspected what she could see from the doormat. Or the boy dressed as a chicken who didn't realize he had chicken feet as well. He acted really surprised when I complimented him on his feet. 

After that died down a bit, we went to downtown Portland where we went to a couple of bars and played the game of "Costume or Real Outfit???" Yes, people dress so weird here that could make up a whole game on Halloween. 

But the bars we went to were not super hoppin' with Halloween crazy people. It made me miss Halloween in Fort Collins, it's a zoo and so much fun. Maybe next year we will find where the party's at! 

Have a great weekend! 

Booze Thursday: Full Sails Ahead!

This beer confuses my mouth...in a good way. It's Full Sail's Limited Edition Lager. 

The bottle says there's no coffee or chocolate in this Limited Edition Lager, but your mouth will insist otherwise. 

It's out of Hood River, Oregon. 



I don't have a glass pic for you because I drank it out of the bottle, so there. 

This beer made my taste buds go "whaaaaaat?" I have been conditioned to expect a certain taste when drinking a beer with a lager label and this was waaaay different. It's like expecting that your cup has water in it but someone sneakily changed it out for chocolate milk. Or like when you pick up something you think is going to be heavy and it's super light. Or when you think there's one stair left but you're already down. Really, any of those work. 

This beer has an intense malty flavor which right away got me hooked. It also has coffee notes, as it says on the bottle. The aroma is sweet and light, which made the drinking experience a pleasant one. According the the info on the six pack, it is a Czech black lager that is called Cerne Specialni. Whatever you want to call it, I recommend that you pick some up immediately. 

Also, since my momma is complaining about my lack of pics of me lately, here's a picture of last night's Mickey Mouse costume. Full deets to come tomorrow. 

Good Eats Wednesday: Caesar is a pleaser!

I'm continuing on my journey of homemade dressings today with a recipe for some flat out amazing egg free Caesar dressing. It's not my recipe, so here's the link to where I found it. I did tweak it just a bit. (no tabasco and more vinegar to cut down on calories per serving)

Before we begin, I think we need to have a talk about anchovies. If you are hesitant to use them, don't be! Trust me. They are essential in this dressing.

 If you taste them by themselves, they just taste like salty fishy deliciousness. I happen to really like them. So suck it up and use them. 

Ingredients: 

3 cloves garlic

6 anchovy fillets

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

4 dashes of Worcestershire sauce

10 grinds of pepper

juice of one lemon

1 cup olive oil

Grab a container with a lid. This is what you will store the dressing in, so choose wisely. Crush the garlic and add it to the container. Then chop the anchovies and smash them with the side of your knife until it is a rough paste. If you can find anchovy paste to begin with, use that. 

Then add the red wine vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, and lemon. Add the olive oil and shake until an emulsion forms. It will change color to a beautiful golden yellow.  

Done! You should eat it on a big ol salad with some chicken and Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. Amazing.

DIY Tuesday: Ants!

I found a swarm of ants yesterday when I was cleaning in my bedroom. They were right by my side of the bed, ew, ew, ew. It's that time of year that the ants swarm in Oregon so I was expecting it to happen soon. I don't think my house is dirty, it just is an Oregon thing. But I was still SUPER irritated. Lots of cussing. 

Instead of using a chemical  ant spray, I want to share with you my NEW WONDER SPRAY recipe. 

It's orange oil and vinegar. 

I use this to keep spiders away (spiders taste with their feet and don't like the taste of orange oil)

I use this to kill weeds (the oil helps the vinegar stick to the weeds and kills it faster)

I use this to clean my counter top (cuts through grease and grime like no one's business)

I use this to clean my tub (let it sit on the tub for a while, wipe off)

I use this to kill and keep away ants (This is the best part! The vinegar kills the ants on contact, destroys the hormone trail that they follow, and the orange oil creates a barrier that they will not cross)

I just filled up a spray bottle with regular vinegar (I buy it at Costco for super cheap)

and added about a half-cup orange oil. I bought it off of Amazon. Here's the link: Orange Oil 

The bottle is huge!!! 

I think you should try this new spray concoction! I haven't seen an ant since I sprayed it and vacuumed their little corpses up. 

Have a great day! 

Random Monday: I like lists.

 My life is incredibly busy for being unemployed. I always seem to fill my life up to the brim no matter what I'm doing, that's just who I am. I like lists to help me prioritize, and I also like my lists to be pretty. I get a lot more done when I have a pretty list to write on and cross off of. Sounds lame, but works for me. 

 The next few months seem to be filling up like CRAZY and I need to get organized. We've got a trip to Canada, family and friends for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and more family coming after Christmas. I have created some list  templates that you guys might like, centered around the holidays. They are nothing too fancy, but they DO have fancy fonts, which makes me so happy!

Click Below for Links: 

Thanksgiving
Christmas
New Years
Vacation 

I printed them out on some nice looking brown card stock and hung them up in my office/sewing/crafts area. They are already filling up! 

Friday Adventure Time: Screen Door

Husband and I took a little excursion into Portland last weekend and ended up going to a brunch place called Screen Door. 

It's southern food with a Portland twist. 

I had a fennel sausage scramble, and husband had some GIANT chicken and waffles. 

Yeah, that's three chicken breasts on there. It was amazing. 

It's such a cute place to go on a weekend, although it was crazy busy. 

It's all part of our master plan to explore all the awesome places Portland has to offer in the eats department. 

Afterwards, we headed downtown to look around Blick Art Supplies. 

I was fascinated by the large oil pastels.

Twas a fun fun day! 

Booze Thursday: Pumpkin Time!

I bought pumpkins at the grocery store the other day, and of course I needed to randomly pick up a six pack of pumpkin beer. Hey, it was on sale. Tis the season of pumpkins. 

It is pretty yummy. It is a ton more fruity that I anticipated, but that is a good thing. It has a subtle pumpkin taste, and it tastes more like a raw pumpkin than a pumpkin pie, hence the fruity-ness. It is a lot less intense than I expected, it's actually slightly refreshing. It's not a super well crafted beer. I would describe it as having 'drinkability'. Which is a way of saying that it's a beer with mass appeal. 

I went back for seconds, which I don't normally do. I think it's a solid offering for this season, but if you want something more substantial tasting, go for something like Avery's Rumpkin. 

Have a great Thursday!