Category: Artsy and Craftiness

  • Star Trek, Ants, and Painting

    Well, we decided to go see Star Trek last Saturday for my birthday. Rather, I decided and Matt said, “Sure…it’s your birthday!” But he laughed during all the appropriate parts…sometimes during inappropriate parts too. Like, when one character is dying, and there is intense grieving on-screen, he turned to me and said, “Spock says, ‘Whaaaa??’” I did tell him that Vulcan’s don’t have much emotional expression, but I neglected to tell him how Spock is part human and therefore, capable of expressing emotions. Moot point. I shrugged it off and went back to my tears.

    We stopped at Red Robin for dinner. My first time. *First times!* I got the Chili Chili Cheeseburger. Can you say yum?

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    All that was left. It was so tempting that I forgot to take a before photo.

    We got a box of gift cards to restaurants and such at one of the wedding showers, so my birthday date night only cost us about $10 max and that was leftover cost of meal and tip. Very nice afternoon/evening.

    I’ve been trying to make this place more homey and together. It’s been hard because there are still boxes about that need to be unpacked. I can’t do that until I paint the bookshelves and start getting things on the walls. It’s a mess.

    But I did manage to pull out the tablecloth and napkins and iron them out. I’m just saying, tablecloths are my least favorite thing to iron.

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    Sure looks pretty, but I’m still not sold that it was worth the effort. Not to mention, it’s a round tablecloth! Ugh. Anyway, those are the flowers from the Huz. We’ve actually had two meals at the table now, since I put it together. That’s nice.

    I’ve even been cooking. I had bought some various kinds of meat and thrown them in the freezer until we got around to doing something with them. I’ve been eyeing the tilapia that’s been in there for a while now, but I’ve never made fish before…besides fish sticks as a kid, and I have long since thrown those out of my diet. So, I went to good old Allrecipes.com and searched, “Easy tilapia.” No joke.

    Here’s what I got:

    Healthier Easy Baked Tilapia

    and here’s what my version of it looked like:

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    Ok, the fish IS in there, and it tasted yummy. I forego most things with lemon, and I went ahead and increased the amount of melted butter. It was pretty wonderful. There was so much seasoning on the fish, that I didn’t put much more than salt and pepper in the mashed potatoes…which I made from scratch. Go me! 🙂 You have no idea what an accomplishment this is for someone like me. I have never felt comfortable in a kitchen unless I was baking something, and then I’m right at home. Cooking is too ambiguous for me; there just aren’t enough rules. But I think I’ll keep trying at it. Matt certainly hopes that I will.

    Speaking of kitchen, I walked into mine last night and found some tiny black ants crawling on one of the counters. Just in one little spot. You could tell they were just starting to explore. Ugh. I pulled everything off that section – they weren’t in anything yet, so it was a good catch. I stopped by Home Depot after work today and picked up some bait things and some spray.

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    They caught on pretty quick. I went down for a nap and when I woke up 30 mins later, they were all over the trap. And then taking it home to their queen….to MURDER her! muahahaa! I let them go back and forth between the bait and their lair for a few hours and then sprayed the perimeter. The stuff must be pretty potent because there is little to no movement in that corridor now. Maybe I’ll leave the carcasses for Huz to clean up. 🙂 That sounds great!

    I mentioned that I have some bookshelves to paint before I can really start putting the house together. Well, here’s one!

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    This used to be my dad’s…way back in his college days. I didn’t know that until a week or so ago. This isn’t its finished state. I am just getting started. But i think it’s going to be good. It’s a short one and then I have its two big brothers to paint after it. Wish me luck! I love painting. 🙂

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    Garden Update:

    Not much to report, except that I was weeding the other day and came across these!

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    Yipes! Those things were huge! I don’t know what I’m going to do with this garden bed. There’s no telling what will come out of it. Ugh. Good news, though, my Impatiens are doing beautifully and starting to really fill in! Yay! Off to finish painting!

  • Insta-post: Paint By the Glass

    Friday night, I indulged in a fun evening of painting at Paint By the Glass. I’ve gone three other times, the last one being to paint a vibrant color rendition of Union Terminal in downtown Cincinnati. This time, my mom joined me to paint Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

    We have been so excited to do this one. In case you don’t know about Paint by the Glass, here’s the gist. A “class” is held and people can sign up to come to a specific painting class. The painting is sketched out on the canvas and the artist instructs and demonstrates for those in the class. They serve wine and such as well as hors d’oeuvres. You can read about my first visit here. I’ve gone with friends and also by myself and enjoyed myself in both settings. I’m not usually intimidated by flying solo for an evening.

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    Sampling of the paintings they do in the class.

    Some of these I hadn’t seen before; I would love to do the butterfly and flower one at the bottom!

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    Nothing like well-loved brushes.
    This is probably my new favorite thing! If only it didn’t come in a plastic bottle!

    They always start you off with a blank canvas and the picture sketched onto it. This is the first time I’ve ever seen them give any guide to the colors and such on the canvas, but it was very helpful since there was a lot going on with this painting.

    Blues are fun. This painting took a lot of blue. I mean, A LOT of blue. And yellow, but that comes later. You always start from the furthest thing back and come forward in the picture. We were supposed to do it all in flat colors, but I wanted to make mine with a little more texture before putting on the etch strokes. I like how it turned out.

    Cloud etches, purple mountains and swirls in the sky
    Yellow!

    I wish I had paid closer attention to how big the yellow circles were and actually closed them in a bit with the blue, but it turned out alright having really large moon and stars. Making the swirls within the stars was probably my favorite part.

    My final product! ‘Twill look great in The House!

    I love how my tree and village turned out on the bottom. I had so much fun painting this! I think I do a lot better with more abstract painting. There aren’t as many rules, but I love coming to these classes and learning little tricks here and there to be a better painter. Kat and Ashley were the instructors that night and they were so helpful. We had such a large class that both were painting a canvas and walking around to help.

    Well, you already know that I’m a pretty big nerd, but I do get it honestly! My mom loves to watch the show Doctor Who and got me hooked on it as well. One episode, I think last season, had The Doctor and companion Amy go back to visit Vincent Van Gogh. Afterwards, when they were in a modern art gallery, they looked closely and found a Tardis (his space ship) tucked into the painting. Mom was really keen on duplicating that into her painting. She got the basic shape down and then Kat (a fellow Whovian) helped fill in the details. Mom is so excited for her painting now.

    Check out my previous review of Paint by the Glass here!

  • Insta-Post: Mathis Fabric and Sunflowers

     

    Yesterday was a long day, but I decided to instagram some of the afternoon. I heard from a friend that our favorite fabric place, Mathis Fabric, is going out of business. They’ve been around for years and always have an amazing selection of fabrics available. It’s going to take a few weeks to liquidate their stock, so I will probably need to make another trip up there soon.

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    fabric scraps! all for $3!
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    yards of fabric. I love the blue one. This pic is too dark to really show you the beautiful color

    Our garden out back is so wild and random, when I’m not paying attention, it changes its whole appearance!

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    This sunflower should not be alive. There are so many kinks in the stalk and the part at the very top is all but broken through.
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    a mammoth sunflower stalk and a teeny tiny marigold
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    two blooms sunflower!
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    probably the biggest sunflower head we have this year!
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    We got this owl to scare away squirrels…I’m surprised we haven’t seen them draw a mustache on it and play other tricks
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    our zucchini plants have been really lovely and green – lots of blossoms too – but we’ve only been able to harvest one big zucchini. Not sure what the issue is. Let’s hope this one get big and strong!
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    Sweet Williams for a splash of pink in our otherwise very green and yellow garden right now.