Christmas crafting is on hold until I finish up some baby gifts for a very dear friend. It seems my luck hasn't changed with friends having babies, as she is going to bring another boy into the world. I just hope the little peanut likes comics...
The first thing I worked on this weekend was a stroller blanket, in a kicky yellow and red scheme. I know little boys are down with monkeys, I just hope the same holds for lady bugs, which I thought were too cute to pass up.
Don't you love it when a plan doesn't come together?
No, of course not. Neither do I.
This was the second birthday present shirt I worked on this weekend. The first one was so fouled up, I wont even share. This one got some lovely paint splatter on it, from when I closed the bottle. The splatter was so awesome Goof-Off failed to do anything but take my nail polish off. Thus the addition of two extra monarchs, which really takes away from the effect anyhow.
Ugh.
Our Top Banana, Lass Lady 'Della is having a birthday...
Inspired by this post, and the fact that the beloved birthday sign that my mom had when I was growing up, has totally been abducted by my brother; I made this simple and cute birthday banner. I didn't actually read the linked post, I just looked at the lovely pictures and thought, "well, there is a great use for Cricut."
Glancing at the other post now, I can say we both pretty much followed the standard birthday banner design. I used the Cricut to cut out 5" letters and some bridges, my Martha Stewart hole punch for the holes, and packet of scrapbooking brads I picked up at Micheal's to string them all together. It was pretty simple, fast, and I think turned out really cute!
Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY 'DELLA!
For everyone around me, this blog has been a long time coming. I can't even recall at this moment what awoke this obsession, that I had as a kid, but let me just state that I'm all into metallic flake at the moment, particularly of the bass boat variety! I was heavy into it as kid, from those kiddie rides at the county fairs, where there was a "car" on a spoke, of a Ferris wheel kinda thing? When it went in a circle, it was often accompanied by what some might call obnoxious, but I felt fabulous, "beeping" noise, that I do believe was supposed to be the vehicle's horn. These rides actually came in different varieties, be they helicopters, motorcycles, boats, space ships, or even little trucks; I LOVED them all. The only real question was, did I love the ride, or the just the paint job most of them had? I'm pretty sure it was the sparkle. My father didn't really help with this obsession, being that he understood it completely, offering to paint my first car... a 1996 dodge neon, with candy apple red flake.
D was utterly patient with me, as I first tried to describe the rides, then the paint as "depth sparkle," then looking at countless photos of random people's hot-rods, until I finally communicated exactly the kind of paint job I was looking for. Once we got over that hurdle, he helped me with the reason I went to his genius in the first place: how to achieve this on a terracotta pot. After much back and forth, educating myself, and expounding on his own paint knowledge, of such things as gelcoats, rattle cans, and air guns, we finally decided the best way to bass boat paint a pot (without hauling out my Dad's compressor) was epoxy resin. However, once I was at the store, holding a can of pour on resin, I spotted Decoart's Triple Thick Glaze. Since it was non toxic, and about half the price of the resin, I thought I would actually give that a go first.
I'm pretty happy with the glaze results. I made two different pots, and had a bit of trial and error. The first pot I made, had a base coat of burgundy, and a lighter red glitter coating. It had exactly the tone I wanted, only the glitter size was all wrong. Playing around, I mixed a goodly amount of orange fabric glitter into the glaze, and slapped that onto a plain pot. There it was, the missing key for bass boat sparkle: tiny fleck.
However, I realized just from trying to find example pictures, how hard it is to photograph metallic fleck, let alone the "depth" of it. In my photos, the reflections actually make it look a bit bumpy, which the glaze, shockingly, is not! There are a couple of air bubbles and drips on the rims, which can be completely avoided with a bit more patience, and rotation, however they, the red pot especially, came out exactly how I wanted! Now, I just have to figure out what else needs a bass boat paint job...
As you saw last week, I've been playing with my smoker in order to master the art of the world's greatest smoked salmon™. I had a very good reason... I wanted to make "wedding salmon." Now, the actual brining and smoking of the salmon is a pretty passive thing. It doens't take take talent, it just takes time. There are a couple of variables you can do to change things up, and I will share what I did, but the real talent is knowing "when to say when." There are two of stages in the smoking process that you just have to "eyeball," like when the pellicle has formed, and when it's sat in the smoker long enough to be cooked. These stages, unless you have someone to show you, you're just going to learn to identify by google fu, trial, error, and common sense, because they're a bit hard to describe and even harder to photograph.
Once the fish has brined, you take it out of the bag and gently wash it under cool running water. Then, I take my fillet, place it on the rack I'm going to smoke it on (which is actually the top rack, but it's on the bottom rack for the picture) and let it develop it's pellicle. What's pellicle you ask? Well, google it, but the short answer is, it's important and it's hard to photograph, so I'm going to let you use your great web research skills to figure that part out. While the pellicle is forming, I get my smoker going. I like to use apple chips, about a handful at a time, and place them in the smoker pan, plug it in, and let it heat up. I have a theory that preheating the smoker will speed up the whole smoking process, but I do realize I let an awful lot of smoke and heat out, when I put the rack with the fish in it. Which, of course is the next step: once your pellicle is formed, you carefully take the rack out to your smoker, snuggle it in there, and DON'T PEAK AT IT for several hours.
The no peak rule was one of the hardest to learn. I am known for my want of immediate gratification, and I will admit that my first salmon took a lot longer to smoke than it should have, because I was opening the lid every hour and "checking on it." It's really rather important that you don't do that, and actually only open it so that you can add some more chips when necessary, or when you actually are getting close to it being done. Now, you want to smoke your fish until it reaches 180* (a thermometer is best, but once you've smoked a couple you get to know what a done fillet looks like), and most sources will tell you to only have the smoking chips in there for the first couple of hours. I don't disagree with the chip instructions, but I will say that if you really like the smoke flavor, you can play around with how long you keep your chips going. What's really great about smoking it yourself, is you can make it the way you like it.
A couple of important things during the smoking process; is to try to do it in a sheltered area, so wind isn't robbing you of your heat, and watch what you put your smoker on, especially if it gets really hot. Oh, and always open the lid away from you, or you'll get a nasty face of smoke.
Once the beauty is cooked, you can take it out, let is rest, and then go at it! Personally, I can just flake off a piece of fish and be happy enough, but for the wedding it was served with creme fraiche, creamed cheese, red onion, and capers for garnish. I had a small basket of different crackers, but personally I like a water cracker or a saltine, because I don't think either takes away from the fish too much. Though, it's pretty hard to take anything away from the world's greatest smoked salmon™.
