4 posts tagged “diy”

Thinking of lots of little details that need to be finished up.  I think it’s a really cute little cottage, and I can ratchet up the cute factor a little higher given some time and money.  I think I should work on it some and then invite some friends over.  I think we’ve had my parents and hubby’s parents as guests in this house but that’s about it.  Just doesn’t seem like there are enough hours in the day for all the work to be done sometimes.  I did a big painting for the kitchen a while back, but the surface got marked up somehow before it dried and now I need to figure out how to fix it, then get it to the spot where it was intended to go.  I think it will look good in that room. 

That’s the best aspect of my house.  It’s loaded with great artwork.  When we visit other people I notice what they’ve done with their walls.  One friend has P Buckley Moss prints and a few quilted wall hangings and some kitchy country craft stuff, most of it is hung WAY too high on the walls and their house is loaded with DOLLS!  Seriously!  Living room, dining room, on the stairs, everywhere there are DOLLS!  (What?  How old do you have to get before you grow up already?!)  Many of our friends have prints and non-descript artwork on their walls.  Another friend has “Christian” artwork, all of it has words in it, or little verses.  Even if the image is nice, the little effort at making everything MEAN something is rather tiresome.  Beauty is an end in itself, if you ask me.  You shouldn’t have to “Christianize” it to hang in your house.  One friend has watched a few too many “trading spaces” type shows and does little hooks with vases, with fake blossoms in the vases.  It was cute to do it once but not three places in the same house.  Someone else I know has fake plants everywhere.  (Eeek!)  And that “Home Interior” stuff is just too horrible for words.  Oh, and anything involving wire and votive candles that hangs on the wall… eeew!  Wrought iron and candles are good for fireplaces, and even for chandeliers - but not on walls.  Mostly I have my own vibrant artwork all over the house, but I also have a fabulous painting by a friend in my living room.  I have an excellent collection of some nice pottery pieces and a few small enamels from another friend.  I have some excellent handmade baskets from yet another artist friend not to mention a few pieces of my art glass.  My years as a gallery owner have served me well to collect a piece here and there and I’m delighted that my home is full of great original artwork.

I wonder how long it would take me to finish up some of the details on the house.  Just a few little projects here and there and I think the place would be really cute.  It certainly has come a long way from the first day I walked in.  It smelled SO horrible and EVERYTHING was coated with this black tar from the lady who smoked constantly.  And there was a leak around the chimney that hadn’t been attended to for a while.  We refinished all the wood, painted and sealed every surface and cleaned for days and the smell is gone and the place looks so much better.  Pretty amazing given how bad it was.  The room that needs the most work is the bathroom, which needs some attention.  I don’t think it would be hard to get that to look nice though.

I should walk around my house and make a list.  I’ll bet we could do a little something each week and have it looking really cute before long.  Something to think about at least.  Then we should invite people over for dinner.  That's fun.  (And then they can write their own blogs about my house with vibrant artwork everywhere and paintings that are hung too low - LOL!)  And wouldn't it be cuter if it had a few dolls and fake plants?  (NOooooooooooooooooooo!!!) 

 

What a lovely morning!  I am NOT going to work at the bakery today, which just tickles me PINK!  Yesterday my hubby and our friend Ed moved the rest of my gallery display pieces to my studio.  A desk, some pedestals and two jewelry display cases.  I discovered that these old jewelry display cases are an excellent addition to my work area here in the studio and I’ve already loaded them down with supplies.  They were given to me by the man who owns the American Motorcar Company next door – they work on antique cars.  And one of them has become my soap formulation center.  On the top shelf is my collection of essential oils, the blends I’ve created and some fragrance oils as well.  The second shelf is full of all my natural colorants of every description that go in soap.  The bottom shelf has all my herbs and exfoliating ingredients that go in the soap.  And after the Fed Ex guy comes and delivers the rest of my supplies – I’m going to be in high clover!  I’m really excited about getting back in the studio again and into some new adventures.  I’ll be posting photos soon of some of the things I’ve already made.  I started out making soap at home, but after the collision of soap and food prep, I knew I wanted to move that work to the studio.  So what can I say, I think this is going to be fun!  I am a Happy Happy Camper!

 

Step by step instructions on making molded chocolates with fillings

 

First, gather your supplies. 

            Candy coating.  I use Wilbur’s – the best American made chocolate coating.  I'm using White Chocolate but this would be really good in dark or milk as well.

 

            Microwave safe container for melting chocolate and something to stir with.

 

            Filling for molded chocolates.  Ganache or creamy peanut butter are options.  In this case I used Nutella right out of the jar.  It is an easy and yummy hazelnet chocolate flavor.

 

Chocolate molds – I prefer to have at least three molds of any design I’m working with.  That way I always can be working on one while the others are in the freezer.

 

            Clear plastic decorating bags.  I got a pack of 100 of these from sugarcraft.com. 

 

            Candy foils.  I’m using a royal blue candy foil in this case to make this particular piece stand out among the other chocolates I’ll be serving.  I’m also planning on using a red foil for a red hot cinnamon/cayenne formula and a silver foil for an Earl Grey ganache formula.  These three foil wrapped chocolates will really set off the display.  (We’re using the colors of the Colombian flag – red, yellow and blue.  I bought these from sugarcraft.com.

 

 

 

 

Melt the chocolate coating in the microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring in between.  Too much heat will turn the chocolate gritty and stiff and disgusting.  If water gets in the chocolate it will seize up and will be gritty and nasty.  The warmer the chocolate gets the more you need to stir in between heating.  A few lumps will disappear by stirring the product.

 

Open the end of the decorating bag and place the small end in a cup and folding the edges around the rim of the cup.  Pour in the melted chocolate and twist together the end of the bag, trying with a twist tie if possible.  Snip the end of the bag to about a ¼ inch opening.

 

 

 

Repeat the above process with your filling.  Avoid warming ganache as the heat from your hand will warm it enough to make it workable.

 

Make sure your molds are clean and dry.

 

Pipe a line of chocolate around the rim of the mold.

 

Tap the tray until the entire mold is coated.  Place on a level surface in the freezer.

 

After the coating has set remove from freezer.  Pipe filling into the center of the mold leaving space between the filling and the edge.

 

Pipe warm chocolate on over the filling

Tap the tray on the counter to settle the chocolate.

 

 

Freeze briefly until mold is set.

Turn upside down and gently tap the mold on the counter or flex mold to remove the molded chocolate.

When the coating chocolate in the decorating bag begins to become harder, remove any wire twist tie and microwave for ten seconds.  Massage the bag and pipe chocolate into the melting bowl until the chocolate flows freely again.

 

I wrapped these chocolates in foil which is pretty simple to do.  Just turn the chocolate upside down over the foil square and turn both sides in to the center.  Then turn in both ends.  Turn the chocolate right side up and gently rub the foil into the design of the mold.  That’s all there is to it.

 

 

 

 

For variation try these with milk chocolate and creamy peanut butter.  Or dark chocolate with marzipan in the center.  The process is the same no matter what the filling is.  I know it looks like a complicated step by step process but when you have three molds going in and out of the freezer it goes by pretty quickly and they look so pretty when finished.  Yummmmm! 

 

Oh, and the hazelnut Nutella is better with dark chocolate in my opinion, the white chocolate is a bit on the sweet side but the crowd I'm serving has quite a few who hate dark chocolate so I'm trying to cater to a variety of tastes here. 

If you try this, let me know.  I'd love to hear how it goes.

toodles foxy voxers!

 

I wish I knew someone who lived around here who was a film maker, or at least liked to tinker around with video and the editing process.  (I have a film maker friend in Colorado, but that’s a long way away!)  I’d really like to try some video work but at the moment I don’t know how.

 

I want to create a video of my hubby and myself telling some of our story with infertility and talking about our adoption plans.  I’d like to be able to play it at church and make it available for other people to use it in venues where we can not attend – like the out of town fund raisers.

 

I just don’t know the first thing about this stuff though.  (Well, I've run a video camera and have a killer "eye" and tons of creativity.)  My digital camera has a video option, but I’ve never figured out how to download those images and actually be able to see them on my computer, much less be able to edit in music and photographs and such.  I’d really like to give this a whirl.  I can’t go out and purchase a bunch of expensive equipment and editing software.  I just want to be able to make something I could post on youtube, our blog and for use in church one Sunday.  That’s it.  Doesn’t seem like a tall order.  But when you are starting from ground zero – it seems like a big order indeed.

 

I have a 5.0 mega pixel Kodak Easy Share z730 that has the video option, and I have a tripod.  I can borrow a video camera from any number of someones, but what else?  Um…  can anyone tell me what else I need?