In the kitchen: brining and baking

If you were two sum up how I have spent my free time this past week, it would only take two words: brining and baking. Or maybe I should say reading about brining  because I've spent significantly more hours learning about the brining process than actually doing brining work.

After reading this lovely post on The Nourished Kitchen about preserving lemons, I knew I had to try it myself. 

The prep work was super basic so it looks like the real challenge will be waiting for the lemons to cure. In the meantime, I'm searching Pinterest for recipes to try when they are ready. 

Now, for the baking news. My whole family loves my modified version of the Cinnamon Raisin Quick Bread recipe from the 100 Days of Real Food cook book so much that I always make a double batch. I don't know about you , but I always have this "ahhhhh" moment when bread goes into the oven. I pour myself another cup of coffee and stick it in the microwave...

...only to discover that I forgot to put in the melted dairy-free butter. Yeah. Mom fail. Thankfully it is still yummy and even tastes more bready and less cakey which I like. The only downside is that it doesn't stay moist as long do I think I'll just use about half of what the recipe calls for from now on. 

In other baking related news, I found a stack of 5" wide baskets for 98c at my favorite thrift store! These will be perfect to prove small loaves of sour dough bread in later this week!

To see more pictures of my baking/sketching/knitting adventures, make sure you follow me on Instagram!!

In my studio: following instructions is sometimes best!

A few years ago Art Mind posted a tutorial for making a polymer brooch or ring. I thought that it would be very useful to make a mold for myself so that I could spend more time decorating my clay pieces an less time manufacturing them.

My brain was still recovering from the holidays when I decided to make a mold in a cardboard box. Yes,  I thought that it would be a good idea to have plaster dry in cardboard. 

Oh, and I also cooked the clay beforehand which did not help matters one bit!!

I couldn't pry them out of the plaster so the only thing to do with it was draw a face on it (before throwing it away). :-)

Thankfully, I learned my lesson and decided to follow the instructions.

  

Success!!

Faux porcelain: DIY fail!!

I attempted to make some Christmas ornaments using a "faux porcelain" recipe I found on Pinterest. Think I didn't cook it long enough...

 I kinda saved some by sketching on them with permanent markers.

Love the idea of this so I'll probably whip up another batch later on in the month and try again.

Week in review

So, it has been a crazy (but fun-filled) week for me which unfortunately meant no blog posts for awhile. So sorry!! Here's a little peak into what I've been up to:

Every since I saw this windchime from wine bottles, I immediately knew that I had to make it.

I have plently of empty, label-free wine bottles (thanks to having a husband who makes wine) so the real challenge was to cut the bottles. Having looked at multiple tutorials from various blogs and YouTube, I thought that I was ready for the challenge. I was wrong.

So, my first attempt was an obvious DIY fail, but I am not going to let this discourage me from trying again. Christmas is just around the corner and I have several family members who would love this for their gardens. (BTW, photographing glass is no easy feat!)

Next up is my cycling-inspired painting for my brother-in law. I did go ahead and use the first thumbnail for the layout and am pretty pleased with how it is turning out. 

I do have some touch-ups to finish but nothing too major.

Hope you all are making progress on your Christmas present projects!!