Now that’s what I call gravy

Posted on March 7, 2022 by lexicolton

Oh my goodness, we’re all sick again.  Patricia brought home something Thursday (not covid or flu) and gave it to my mom, Will, Julius and I.  Patricia has been miserable for the last 5 days and hasn’t been sleeping at night but they prescribed her antibiotics for an infection in at least one ear… hopefully that helps!  Of course as I was at the urgent care Julius’ teacher called to tell us he was really under the weather.  He didn’t have a fever but we brought him home and he napped for 3 hours!  When he woke up he had a fever of 103F.

I haven’t broached the subject of nasal swabs for a covid test with Julius, but he doesn’t seem to mind them as much after our debacle over Christmas where he had to take about 5 covid tests in 1 week.  After crying through the first round of swabbing he told me the name “nasal swab” was too scary and that he would only do another one if I used a different name.  I started calling them “teddy bear puffs”, and now he is happy to take them.  Mind over matter I guess.  Patricia on the other hand is totally fine with them.  She has had 4 tests in the past 5 days including 2 today and barely reacts.  The first time I performed a test on Patricia this week, she picked up the used swab teddy bear puff while I wasn’t looking and attempted to reinsert it into her nose.  More power to you.

Speaking of mind over matter,  Patricia’s vocabulary has really picked up!  In the last few days I’ve heard her say “Patricia”, “nose” (this one many times to help her blow her nose), “spoon”, “bowl”, and some others that are escaping me now.  It’s funny because it’s another one of those situations like Julius where we have to translate her baby pronounciation.  Will is much better at interpreting kidspeak than I am, even with Julius’ speech.  (Though Julius likes to make up words sometimes, so it makes things particularly difficult.)  Julius has a great vocabulary and has been quite a goof lately.  He figured out the annoying “repeat everything someone says” prank and has been trying out “jokes”, whereby he says something he thinks is silly then laughs maniacally at it.  (The laugh is definitely maniacal, but in an adorable way, if that’s a thing.)  He is quite funny though when he is trying not to be.  The other day we were playing a game and he wanted to collect all the yellow pieces so he told me “don’t pick up the yellow pieces” then later, “try not to think of the yellow ones”.  I’m glad he couldn’t see in my brain because all I was doing was trying not to laugh while thinking about those yellow pieces.

Tonight I want to share THE BEST VEGETARIAN GRAVY RECIPE.  You may or may not know that I am a gravy fiend.  Gravy, typically made from meat drippings is decidedly not vegetarian.  In my 2 years, 5 months of vegetarianism (okay in the 8 months I have been eating sustainably harvested fish/crustaceans once a month, so maybe I’m pescatarian) I’ve had some truly awful premade vegetarian gravies.  I know I already posted another vegetarian gravy recipe for Thanksgiving a couple years ago, and trust me there will be more.  (I’m German so you can’t have too many different recipes involving meat drippings gravy… some day I am going to make a vegetarian sauerbraten or rouladen.)  Anyway that recipe is great, and is a great substitute for a typical turkey gravy because the mushrooms are only used for their umami flavor.  In this recipe, the mushrooms stay in and not only impart flavor to the dish but act as big chunks of meaty deliciousness.  I am in love.  We’ve had this recipe several times and usually I just wing it, but the last 2 times I wrote down (and then verified) the recipe to share with all you lovely readers.  I LOVE gravy so this size batch makes enough for a family of 4.  Those who use their nectar of the gods sparingly (read: don’t drown their food in it) may find this serves 6.  Enjoy!  Oh and I serve this over mashed potatoes and Morningstar chik’n patties which I think are awesome and have a very chicken schnitzel-ish flavor to them, which is only enhanced by this gravy.

I’m hungry just looking at this picture.

The World’s Best Mushroom Gravy (come at me)

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

  • 16 oz mushrooms
  • 6 cloves garlic, chopped
  • ¼ cup red wine 
  • 2 cups vegetable broth (I use this amazing vegetarian boullion by knorr which doesn’t have msg, it’s 1tsp to 1 cup boiling water) simmer for 3 min
  • .5 tsp gravy master
  • 2tbsp cornstarch mixed with 2tbsp water
  • salt and pepper to taste
  1. Heat olive oil in a large pan on medium high until shimmering but not smoking. 
  2. Add mushrooms and cook until golden brown, turning only occasionally.  (Note: if the mushrooms are too crowded in the pan they will start to release their juices too early and will not brown.  My solution to this is to crank up the heat to max and toss mushrooms a bit more often so they don’t burn.)
  3. When mushrooms are brown, add chopped garlic and saute until fragrant, about a minute.  (Note: if you cranked up the heat in the previous step make sure you are doing this on medium high heat)  
  4. Add the wine to the pan and cook until reduced – about  2 min
  5. Pour in the broth and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer and add 1/2 tsp of Gravy Master.  Simmer until liquid is slightly reduced.
  6. While simmering, mix cornstarch with 2tbsp water until fully mixed.
  7. Slowly pour cornstarch/water mixture into the simmering gravy while stirring, making sure to scrape the bottom of the pan, reaching all over as you stir.  Continue stirring until smooth, then lower the heat to very low to keep warm or remove from heat and serve immediately.

Picture instructions below for those visual learners.

Brown mushrooms in olive oil over medium high heat.

Add garlic and saute until fragrant

Add red wine and reduce.

Mushrooms with reduce red wine.

Add boullion and gravy master and reduce.

Mixture after reducing.

Stir together cornstarch and water

Stir gravy while adding cornstarch mixture

Finished gravy. Yummm

Posted in Culinary Delights | Leave a comment

Life is the bubbles

Posted on February 28, 2022 by lexicolton

I’m almost ready to show you the next little project that I’ve been working on, but I’m not quite done so no spoilers.  In the meantime, I’ll tell you about the cricut card I made for Patricia’s invitation.  You are welcome to use my template whenever you find yourself needing an underwater tea party invitation!  (I know for a fact that this theme is really in right now… at least in my head.)

Sheesh speaking of things in my head I thought I’d give you an update on my new year’s resolution!  A couple weeks ago I took a 5 hour flight to Denver to visit my sister and her future bride and go wedding dress shopping!  My sister found a beautiful dress and I got to see their new house and test out my comfort level flying!  I’ll just warn you – my comfort level was pretty low.  I wore my n95 (after my grief from my extended family members about me mentioning I was going to wear my painting respirator) and was too afraid to take it off for drinking or eating.  I had a few sips of water, but otherwise I was slightly dehydrated after the flights.  I’m definitely glad I went before they dropped the mask mandate though.  On that page, Patricia’s daycare dropped the mask mandate for everyone (vaccinated, unvaccinated, kids or adults) so now I’ve got another thing to try not to be worried about.

Julius asked me the other day after I sneezed, “oh no, do you have the covid?”  I responded that I hoped not.  Julius sneezed today and I reminded him to cover his mouth (he had gotten good at that, and then I honestly think wearing his mask made him forget it was required!) Patricia thought it was hilarious and tried to imitate him sneezing.  She was so forceful with her pretend sneeze that she fell over!  It was hilariously adorable.  I wish I’d gotten it on camera.

And without further ado I bring you…

Tea Under the Sea Invites

What you’ll need:

  1. Place cardstock on medium weight cutting mat.
  2. Load pattern for card outside and cut, selecting cutting pressure for cardstock thickness that matches your cardstock.  (This will cut 2 card fronts, repeat for additional card fronts as necessary.)
  3. Carefully remove card cutouts from mat. 
  4. Fold cards in half using a ruler as a guide.
  5. To customize text for inside, click on the project then “customize”.  Click on each text box and customize with the wording desired.
  6. Place paper for inside on lightweight cutting mat.
  7. Load pattern for card inside and cut, selecting cutting pressure for paper thickness that matches your paper.  (This will cut 6 card insides, repeat for additional card insides as necessary.)
  8. Cut contrasting front paper into rectangles 5 3/8″ x 4 1/8″ using a paper cutter.
  9. Using the tape glider, on the inside of the cardstock card, tape around the border of the silhouetted card front.
  10. Affix contrasting paper to inside of card front on top of adhesive.
  11. Apply adhesive to the back of paper inside card rectangle.  Open card and apply in the center of the right side of card.
  12. Using the tape glider apply adhesive to the top of a bag of tea. Apply on bottom center of left flap of card.
  13. Apply adhesive to top of second tea bag.  Apply on top center of left flap of card.
  14. Insert into envelope and mail!  (You may need to use 1oz postage depending on how much your tea and cardstock weigh!  I used 1oz postage!)

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | Leave a comment

Raise the Roof

Posted on February 21, 2022 by lexicolton

January’s prize is boxed up and ready to ship tomorrow!  Don’t miss your chance to be the February winner (see last week’s post for info)!  Hope everyone is enjoying President’s Day for those in the USA who get it off (which was surprisingly Will and I both this year!)  When I told Julius on Friday that it was a long weekend due to President’s Day his response was “present’s day?!”  I had to burst his bubble and explain it to him.  (I was really good and unlike my outburst at work I didn’t refer to it as “old white dude day”, which it basically is.)  I followed the explanation of what the president does with, “but while I respect that the president has a hard job I don’t really celebrate President’s Day”.  My response to his “why not?” was “because there has never been a women president which is extremely unfair”, though at the time there were about 50 reasons running through my head.  Julius was very surprised to hear this and asked, “why not?!”  At this point I’d opened a can of worms so I told him the very, very brief summary of patriarchy.  Good to start them young.  (Speaking of patriarchy, has anyone seen The Last Duel?!)

Speaking of starting young, Patricia’s new favorite word (as of today) is “no”.  The full list of Patricia’s vocabulary (in the order I became aware of them) is “hat”, “ock” (sock), “kih kah” (kitty, her beloved toy), “mama”, “dada”, “mo” (more), “oh doe” (all done), “no”.  She also says “baba” but I haven’t figure out what exactly that is referring to because she uses it all the time.  She is so much more wild than Julius ever was and they’ve gotten to the point where they are both frustrated sharing with each other.  I’m sad to see this day happen.  The biggest source of contention lately is the tot tower.  They used to both squish onto it together, but now Julius flat out refuses to use it (and sulks in a corner of the room) if Patricia joins him on it.  I’m going to have to make another one… I guess this day was inevitable.

Julius coming through

I do love when my little guys play together the most.  For Christmas I made them a playhouse to drape over the amazing Pikler triangle that Amy made for the kiddos!  They love climbing on the Pikler triangle and now they love to turn it into a little playhouse.   Every time put it away, it is taken out again immediately the next day.  On the bright side it takes up very little space… unlike the cardboard rocket ship (no matter how fabulous).  In fact, that distraction may have been the only thing that let me get away with disposing of the rocket ship without tears (there were many tears for the catbus).  This little house I whipped up the night before leaving for Nashville, so it was pretty quick.  I originally wanted to make a fabric house cover for a folding table for indoor play, but at some point I envisioned this little a-frame for the Pikler and it made so much more sense!  I used scrap muslin (left over from a dye project in my costume course) and an old brown curtain I’d bought at the thrift store at some point (I have no idea what I planned to use it for).  The window and door trim was some leftover 1.5″ white satin ribbon I had on hand.

Pikler Triangle House*

*Note our Pikler triangle is 33″ high x 38″ wide x 38″ long, you will need to adjust for your own measurements.  Email me if you need help figuring out the dimensions, I’d be happy to help.

What you’ll need:

  • 2 yards of fabric for house front and back (at least 40″ wide) (I used brown dyed cotton muslin)
  • ~3 yards of fabric for roof (at least 42″ wide) (I used a brown curtain I found at the thrift store)
  • 1.5″ trim window and door trim (I used satin ribbon)
  1. Fold house front and back fabric in half from selvedge to selvedge. Cut a 20″x34.65″ right triangle (with the right angle on the fold).  When you unfold you should have a triangle with sides of 40″ each.

    Fold fabric in half the long ways and cut triangles for front and back.

  2. Repeat for second triangle.
  3. Cut a 14″x10″ door in the bottom center of one of the triangles.

    Cut door into center bottom of one of the triangles.

  4. Cut a door from brown material – note I cut mine so the door bottom was on the bottom of the curtain so I didn’t have to hem it.  Door should be 12″15.5″ (includes 1″ seam allowance).
  5. Hem all sides of the door by pressing 1/2″ then folding on top an additional 1/2″ and stitching.

    Hem all sides of door flap.

  6. Stitch the door to the inside of the house, right sides peeking out through the door.

    Stitch door flap to house, .

  7. Cut one window in each side of the house, by folding front and back triangles in half, then marking a right triangle with legs of 5″.  Cut along lines, and unfold to form diamond windows.

    Cut out windows on folded front and back.

  8. Trim the windows by starting at a point and running ribbon (or other trim) just over the cut out for the window.  When you reach a point fold ribbon down the next cut out of the window, repeating this fold at each corner.  When you reach the place you started, tuck the unfinished end under one of the folds and trim.  Pin.  The ribbon trim should hide the unfinished ends of the window fabric.

    In the topmost point of this picture note you can see the unfinished edge of the ribbon (right side) poking out. You’ll want to tuck this under when you sew so it isn’t seen.

  9. Stitch ribbon to house along the outside of the trim first, then along the inside.
  10. To trim the door, start at the bottom left outside of door by matching the unfinished edge of the door, with the unfinished edge of ribbon.  Pin up the side, and w hen you reach the top, fold ribbon so it runs along the top of the door then fold again when it comes to the top right point and run down the door back to the unfinished edge.  Pin and stich as in step 9.
  11. Hem bottom of both triangles by pressing under 1/2″ and then pressing under an additional 1/2″ (make sure to incorporate the door trim).  Stitch.

    Hem bottom of both triangles.

  12. Cut roof out of material to 42″x81″ (includes seam allowance – note I used the finished edges of the curtain so I had to do less sewing here).
  13. Hem all edges of the roof by folding under 1/2″ then pressing under another 1/2″ and stitching close to the first fold.
  14. Fold the roof in half and mark the center with pins.
  15. Pin the front of the house to the roof.  Place the point of the front of the house 1.5″ from the edge of the roof fabric, along the center line.  Pin 1/2″ from the point. Right side of the house front should face the wrong side of the roof.
  16. Pin down both sides of the triangle 1/2″ from the edge, leaving a 1″ overhang on the roof from your pins.
  17. Stitch.

    Stitch leaving 1″ overhang of roof.

  18. Repeat steps 15-17 for back of house.
  19. To use, simply drape the house over your Pikler triangle!!  It’s so easy even a 4 year old (or less) can set it up!

 

Posted in Crafts & Sewing, Thrift Finds | Leave a comment

You’re one cool cat

Posted on February 11, 2022 by lexicolton

Happy Valentine’s Day friends!  May you all revel in bacchanalia and lust… or just enjoy a delicious box of chocolates from your sweetheart.  Julius has been making Valentine’s cards for everyone in his class and all of his teachers.  It’s pretty cute.  He also has been composing thematic songs with fabulous lyrics.  One of the ballads he composed was quite catchy and seemed to demonstrate his understanding of love as a give and take.  Will and I stared at each other, impressed as he spouted it off during dinner.  (We have taken to calling Julius’ ballad compositions at dinner “poetry slams”.  He really is quite good, age aside.)  My favorite set of lyrics, “I am bumpy but I can be yours.”

Patricia is trying very hard to live up to the big helper Julius has become.  She frequently helps us unload the dishwasher, feeds Dany her breakfast and dinner and will put toys and other things away when asked.  The other day Patricia saw Julius set the table for us (he did this to earn praise after we had praised Patricia for helping us unload the dishwasher… but hey a helper is a helper).  Since then Patricia has been unloading all the plastic cutlery from the kids drawer and places it in a pile on the dinner table every night.  It’s so darn cute we thank her profusely for being a big helper.  I think this makes Julius a little bit sad because he knows she isn’t doing it correctly.  We have tried to make it clear though that he is a big helper in lots of ways, and Patricia is following in his footsteps and we need to help her a bit.

Speaking of helping, Julius helped me write out Valentine’s cards last night for his classmates.  He started out by writing his friends’ names on envelope and on the cards inside and then signed it.  Each card this way took about 15 minutes, so I slowly negotiated him into writing his friend’s name only on the inside as well as his name.  This took about 10 minutes.  Finally, we negotiated that he would just write his name.  He did this rather well, but was extremely distracted and each signature took him several minutes.  It took us about an hour and a half to make out 17 cards.    l think he’s making cards for his friends in school, so I suspect he’ll get quite good at this process.  It’s cute to watch him making things for other people.  Every piece of art he brings in the door, he tells us he made for us.  Yesterday he came home with this fabulous drawing.  I won’t tell you what it is, because it’s part of my contest below… but just bask in it’s glory!

Julius’ fabulous drawing

So back to Valentines.  This might be the last year I make them to give out because designing and making 30 Valentines was not quick.  I had a lot of fun with these though.  I combined Julius’ love of stickers with Patricia’s love of hats and dress up to make kitty valentines the kids can decorate.  Julius was pretty pleased with them and excited to give the stickers to his friends.  Patricia hasn’t seen them yet, so we’ll see what she decides.  If you want to make the Valentines for yourself you can have my designs below!

Here is my version of the Valentine cards with hat stickers!

Dress Up Kitty Valentines

What you’ll need:

  1. Print out as many cards/terrible cat puns as you desire on cardstock.  Note they print 4 per page.
  2. Cut cards out with paper cutter or scissors.
  3. Choose if you will be making the hats-only version of the cards or the full dress up version of the stickers.  (Hats only version prints 3 sticker sheets per page, full dress up only prints 1.)
  4. Load sticker paper into printer, face down (check printer configuration to make sure sheets print on the face down side).
  5. Select “make it now” on your cricut design of choice.  Select “print” to send the sticker sheet to your printer.
  6. After sheet has printed, align it onto the top left corner of your cricut mat (I used blue light grip mat)
  7. Select material “Sticky Note” and make the pressure “less”.  (You may need to adjust this to get kiss cut stickers to work on your machine, but this one worked the best for me.)
  8. Feed into the machine and press the cricut button.  The machine will cut your stickers.
  9. Using a scissor or paper cutter cut the stickers into 3 distinct sheets.  You will have to cut fairly close to the stickers to fit them into the envelopes.
  10. Address cards and stuff envelopes with sticker and card.

    Here is Julius addressing the cards!

  11. Give to a friend or loved one!

    Finished card with all clothes stickers!

    Patricia put all the hats on her cat. None except one on its head

    Julius putting clothes on kitties

Julius’ finished creations

Wow!  You made it this far again?!  I’ve got another contest for you!  Comment below with a title for Julius’ artwork and I will enter you in a drawing for a custom t-shirt of your choice!  You have until March 14th to enter!

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 10 Comments

New Pantry (or Fridge Sage Part 2)

Posted on February 7, 2022 by lexicolton

I did it!  I finished the pantry project I’ve been working on for an eternity!!!  “Pantry project?!” you ask.  “Why, yes, let me fill in some holes.”  You may remember back in July how I described our pandemic fridge saga?  Well this is the thrilling conclusion!  Previously on ladybeekeeper we waited for an entire year for the only model of fridge to fit in our built in cabinet to come in stock.  That fridge arrived broken and the company was not manufacturing any more fridges.  For that year we had been living with a tiny 7 cu ft fridge for our family of 3 (and then 4).  Now that you’re caught up…

We had no options left so called two cabinet companies to come in and give us quotes to shorten the cabinets above the fridge to a reasonable size.  Both told us they couldn’t touch a set of connecting cabinets without removing the rest… this meant basically re-doing our entire kitchen.  After a summer of basement renovations, door replacements, solar install (and we didn’t know it at the time but emergency window install) we were not keen on having another vast renovation project ongoing.

So… we decided we were not going to be able to have a fridge fit in that spot so we went buckwild, thinking we’d put it on the new wallspace opened up from the sliding door removal.  Will and I didn’t measure anything and bought a huge, fancy fridge on Labor Day from our favorite appliance store.  They penned us in for rush delivery since this was the 3rd fridge we’d attempted to get from them.  The big fridge arrived, fit fine, looked beautiful… and tripped the breaker.  Nope, not joking!  We ran an extension cord to the original fridge outlet in the (now empty) cabinet and the fridge powered on fine.  Sigh.  At least it wasn’t the fridge this time?  The appliance delivery guys gave us the name of the electrician they use and we called him to figure out what to do.  (Bonus: we ended up with the name of a great electrician who has done several projects for us since then!!)

In another two weeks he was able to come and fix the problem (bad GFCI outlet) and we now had a real working family-size fridge!  (And a giant open cabinet where the old fridge was, but… we’ll get to that.)  That was September… and it is now February 2022 and since I finished the pantry I can finally close out this saga!

Before….

See the tiny fridge in our fridge cabinet that is too small to accommodate any modern fridges? That is the fridge we lived with for a solid year during the pandemic. And the surround is what I turned into a pantry. (I have no idea where my better “before” picture went).

My completed pantry!

Pantry from a Fridge Cabinet

My plan for the pantry was to add in pull out shelves and doors to the front of the cabinet.  I didn’t think I could handle making the cabinet doors, so I bought 2 custom made doors from cabinetdoors.com.  The problem is I didn’t like the look of the doors with 3 panels (I have no idea why, I just didn’t) so I had to max the size out on the length with 2 panels and I figured I’d fill in the gap afterwards with a toe kick drawer.  As you’ll see that sort of worked, but it made a lot more work for me.  When the cabinet doors came in I stained them to match and applied polyurethane.  I then managed to find closely matching hinges at Rockler in Cambridge (these hinges were called semi-wrap overlay hinges – thanks to someone at Home Depot who knew).  The two knobs I stole from the downstairs bathroom.  I luckily had replaced the bathroom knobs with extra matching ones when I replaced the ones in the kitchen when we moved in.   This made the cabinets far less ugly so after I completed this in mid September I didn’t bother with the final parts of the project until this January…

Finishing the doors I custom ordered

The first step was reinforcing the walls of the pantry cabinet so I could screw actual shelves into them.  The walls of the cabinet were 1/4″ of what looked like hardboard.  I instead bought 3/4″ high grade plywood, cut it to size, cut out divots with a coping saw to avoid the plastic pieces holding the hardboard to the face of the cabinet, then installed it with pocket hole screws to the face frame and back of the cabinet using pocket holes and screws.  Later I filled the pocket hole screws in by putting glue on the tip of a 3/8″ dowel, shoving it in the pocket hole and using a pull saw to flush cut the dowel off.  I didn’t even need to sand most of them the flush cut saw worked so well.  (Somehow I don’t have pictures of any of this).

Picture of finished reinforced cabinet side. Note the cut outs to accommodate the cabinet side holders and the nicely filled pocket holes.

After I was happy with the sturdiness of the walls, I installed a single stationary shelf on the top, tall enough to fit all my cookbooks.  The stationary shelf I originally built with plywood, but it was ugly and looked like it was bending a bit, so I instead bought a nicer piece of 3/4″ pine and cut it to fit.  I used some old 3/4″x2″ slats I had from a project the previous owners left, and for good measure added a 1×4 center bar for support (I attached this with pocket screws.

Support for the cookbook shelf.

Next I made 4 custom drawer boxes using 1/2″ plywood for the base and 1″x3″ boards.  I don’t have a table saw so I didn’t bother trying to dovetail the drawers.  Instead I cut the box bottom from 1/2″ plywood using my circular saw and bora saw guide.  This was extremely challenging as I had to cut extremely accurately to get the drawer boxes to fit, and every cut had to be measured.  Having a circular saw probably would have cut the project length to a quarter of what it ended up being.  After cutting the box bottom, I cut the left and right sides from 1″x3″ pine using my chop saw (I love my chop saw), with the length of the sides matching the depth of the drawer.  Finally I cut the drawer back from pine and the drawer front from a nicer oak (I just thought it looked better) to size.  This was 1.5″ more than the width of my drawer (to account for the overlap of the two pieces of 1″x3″ pine on the sides of the box).

Finished pieces for drawer with pocket holes drilled.

With my pieces cut, I drilled pocket holes 2″ from the corners and 6″-8″ in between along the sides of the drawer bottom.  I used the Kreg pocket hole guide set to 5/8″ to drill these holes, and used a 1 1/4″ screw to eventually attach it.  For the sides of the drawer box, I drilled 2 pocket holes using the 3/4″ mark on the Kreg tool on each end of the outside face of the left and right drawer box sides.

Drilling holes with my Kreg tool

Next came assembly of the boxes.  I added a thin line of glue along the edge of the box bottom.  Then I used a single Kreg corner clamp to position a side of the drawer box (make sure all the pocket holes on your piece face out) at the corner I then used the bar clamp on the other end to hold the drawer bottom onto the drawer side.  Using 1 1/4″ screw I attached the drawer bottom to the box side where the clamp was.  I then remove the clamp, moved it to just over the next pocket hole and continued the process.

Right clamp is the Kreg corner clamp, left most clamp is a bar clamp

When the one side was complete I repeated the process for the opposite box side.  Finally I repeated the process for the front and back faces, but this time I used the Kreg corner clamp to hold the box face to the box side (instead of to the box bottom).  After all 4 faces of the box were in place I clamped the sides at the front and back faces and screwed in the remaining pocket holes.

Screwing in the face of the box.

Screwing together the side panels.

When my box faces were complete, I installed the drawers following the instructions on my drawer slides.  My drawer slides are Accuride 200lb over travel drawer slides.  I wanted over travel slides so I could have complete extension of the cabinet and I wanted them to be beefy to accomodate all the cans and things I intend to load them down with.  I chose to space the first drawer slightly lower than the others because the fridge outlet was behind it.  If needed I could use that drawer as a work bench for my Kitchen Aid.  (The beefy drawer slides mean this would be no problem).

Drawers all installed, waiting for toe kick.

Once my drawers were all installed I used a piece of 1″x8″ pine to make a toe kick board that I attached to the bottommost drawer.  This is the part I’m not happy with.  I stained this board multiple times, but couldn’t get it as dark as the rest of the cabinets.  I suspect it is because of the difference in wood type.  Some day I may buy a piece of oak to replace it, but for now I’m just happy to be done!

Drawers with completed toe kick

Finished Outside

 

Parts List

  • Screws – $14
  • 2 custom oak door cabinets – $297.70
  • 4 sets of hinges – $34
  • 1’x3″ poplar boards – $35
  • 1’x3″ oak boards – $30
  • 1″x8″ pine board – $15
  • 4’x8′ 3/4″ plywood – $65
  • 4’x8′ 1/2″ plywood – $57
  • 3/4″x24″x48″ laminated pine – $33
  • 3/8″ dowels -$4
  • 4 pairs of 200lb over travel slides – $264 (I am kicking myself because I forgot to enter a 15% off coupon…)

Grand total – $814

Prices I was quoted to redo my kitchen just to fix this cabinet:

Quote #1 – $19,550.57 (full kitchen, no hardware included, cabinets only)

Quote #2 – $12,795.00 (full kitchen, no labor or hardware included, cabinets only)

Quote #3 – $3504 for new fridge area only (on the other side of the kitchen but this is closest to the price it would have been if I could have gotten someone to do this project for me.)

Overall, it was pretty pricey and a lot of work (especially with my limited tools), but I love how it turned out!  Plus I was able to custom design the pantry (something neither of the above quotes allowed me to do since they were using stock cabinets) and to top it all off, we didn’t have to have another construction project going on!

 

Posted in Home Improvement | 6 Comments

Sublime Sublimation

Posted on January 31, 2022 by lexicolton

Patricia is so chatty.  She says lots of rambling baby words, none of them quite English.  I do get the feeling that she understand me though.  I’ll sometimes ask her “do you understand”?  And she will nod her head emphatically if she does.  She has unfortunately started getting into tantrums.  She will full on lay down on the floor and whine sometimes if she doesn’t get what she is asking for.  I don’t remember Julius doing that at 14 months… but then again I barely remember anything from Julius!  The one good thing about having a second is I get to relive some of the cuteness of Julius by watching Patricia.  It is also easier having gone through it before.  Babies are strange little creatures that are all unique, but (at least mine) seem to have a lot of things in common too.

Speaking of strange little creatures, it is time for this strange little creature to tell you about her new year’s resolution!  I usually like to have a resolution with achievable goals so there is some accountability, but in this year’s case I think the accountability is obvious.  My resolution is to be less panicked and anxious about covid.  This includes spending time with friends, leaving my house a bit more often and not obsessing about who I came in contact with every time I leave my house.  Don’t get me wrong, I am going to continue to wear an N95 everytime I leave my house.  I will continue to limit my interactions to vaccinated and boosted individuals only (to the extent that is possible).  I won’t go to large gatherings.  I don’t think I need to remind any of the readers of this blog that there is still no vaccine for my kids, so I am certainly not going to do anything reckless. It’s just that the last two years have taken a toll on my sanity, patience and empathy and I have to do something different.

For the first attempt at getting outside my bubble, Will, Julius and I went skiing a couple weeks ago.  I am not going to lie I was freaked out most of the time, and I wore an n95 under my ski mask.  It was not a total failure, but most people had no masks on at all, and, even though (or perhaps because) we were outside, people didn’t give 6 feet of space in lines.  Next step is a plane flight to Colorado to see Mandy & Bailey’s new house!  I haven’t been out to visit since Julius was born so I am LONG over due.

Speaking of long overdue, let me tell you about sublimation printing!!!  Six months ago I went crazy and decided to buy a new toy – a sublimation printer!  Sublimation is the conversion from a solid to a gas – in this case we use heat and pressure to go from a solid dye to a gaseous dye that infuses with polyester.  For this reason you can only sublimate on polyester material – but the sublimation dyed material is permanent!  It is AWESOME.

I made last year’s Danycon shirts with my sublimation printer as well as the bags for “Rolling Danycon”.  I also printed the scales on Patricia’s wild thing costume using sublimation.    At some point I’ll be making family shirts as well… Here’s a quick intro for how to sublimate!  Remember you will have to have a printer that is able to use sublimation dyes.  Regular printer ink will not work for sublimation!

Rolling Danycon bags with dye sublimation image.

How to Sublimate

What you’ll need:

  • Sublimation printer w/ dye cartridges (I bought a Sawgrass printer)
  • Dye-sub paper (sublimation transfer paper)
  • scrap paper
  • a heat press or iron or capable of reaching 400F
  • Pressing pad – or a slightly soft surface to press onto that will not melt at 400F
  • a polyester or polyester blend shirt or fabric (the more polyester the more vivid your transfer will be, blends will produce a more vintage/aged look)
  1. Print your design on sublimation transfer paper – make sure to mirror the image if you have any text in your design. 
  2. Heat your heat press to 400F. 
  3. Place shirt on your pressing pad and press gently for a few seconds to iron out any wrinkles and moisture in the shirt. 
  4. Place a piece of scrap paper on the inside of the shirt to protect the back of the shirt from any dye that may leak through. 
  5. Place design ink face down on top of shirt in desired location.  (You can heat transfer tape it in place if desired).
  6. Place a piece of parchment paper on top. 
  7. Place heat press on top of design, and apply medium pressure to the shirt for 45-60 seconds. 
  8. Design will show through the spent paper now.
  9. Remove the parchment, transfer paper and inner paper on your shirt.  
  10. Your shirt is ready to wear!

You made it to here?!  Kudos to you!  I want to thank those of you who responded with your new years’ resolutions!  I think this is going to be a great year!  And thank you to ANDREW who will be getting this month’s prize!  As a reminder – it is a DIY rocket ship kit!  I’ll be sending it to you shortly Andrew!  Thanks again for entering!  I’ve got some more prizes coming in the next few months so stay turned for the next contest!

 

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To the Moon

Posted on January 24, 2022 by lexicolton

Well just a reminder to check out the contest in my previous post if you’re looking for an activity for your kiddo!  No one has entered yet so there are very good odds of winning!  On another exciting note Julius tried skiing this weekend!  He had to walk up many flights of stairs in his ski boots though and by the time he got to the slopes he declared he was too exhausted.  He kept asking when we were going to go on the chair lift and take a break.  So… we’ll have to work on that!  I was so exhausted after teaching him for an hour that I didn’t ski the rest of the weekend… I might need to work on my stamina as well!

Right now I’m sitting in the basement while Julius plays with his brio trains.  He loves these things.  We got a TON of them from one of my co-workers and Julius has asked me all their names (many of them are characters from Thomas & Friends) and he makes them have conversations with one another.  It’s really cute to listen to.  Renews my faith in humanity type of cute.

Speaking of cute, a few days ago Julius and I got on the topic of “magic”.  I’m not sure how.  But we started naming things that were magical “Santa”, “unicorns” etc.  Julius at one point said “popcorn” was magical.  I asked why he thought that and his response was, “because it’s a bag, then it’s popcorn”.  I had never considered the magic of popcorn!  I did then destroy his interpretation of popcorn magic though by explaining how the bag turned into popcorn.  Science really is magic.  There’s probably a scientific explanation for Santa too but I won’t look for it.

Well, since I’m getting ready to take down the rocket ship from Julius’ birthday, I thought this was the perfect time to finally give you an overview.  I made the ship from a refrigerator box from our fridge saga. It only took me about a night to make, but the hardest part was getting the box into our basement…  Talk about challenging!   One other challenge – I thought using tempera paint would make the project recycleable… turns out our trash company won’t recycle painted cardboard even if it’s only been painted with water based paints.  Something to consider for next time….

DIY Cardboard Rocket Ship

What you’ll need:

  • 1 fridge box
  • 1 other large box (mine was from a baby carriage)
  • 1 bottle of red tempera paint (or color of your choice)
  • box cutter
  • packing tape
  • wood glue
  • markers (I use paint markers)
  • optional – cabinet knob for steering wheel
  1. Make sure the top flaps on the box are opened up fully.
  2. Mark a vertical line down the center of each box face.
  3. Use a metal ruler and a blunt edge (I used the back end of a chop stick) to make a bend in the box face along the line you just drew.
  4. Open the box out and bend along the line you just made.
  5. Repeat step 3 and 4 for for all 4 faces, forming an octagonal prism shape (My box had slightly different widths for the sides, so my rocket wasn’t an equilateral octagonal prism)
  6. Cut the box flaps down to the fold you just made, forming 8 flaps.
  7. Cut a small angle off the sides of each box flap to form a trapezoid.
  8. Fold flaps in towards the center until they meet.  Hold together with packing tape or wood glue to form the nose of the rocket.  (There will still be hole in the center.) (The following picture shows the finished top.)
  9. Cut out fins of the rocket using the other large box.  Simply cut off 4 box faces and form a curve from opposite points.
  10. Cut windows into the rocket ship and a door.
  11. Make a window frame (or window frames) by drawing two concentric circles on scrap cardboard from the box used to make the fins, then cutting them and removing the center circle.  I then glued them over the holes I cut for windows using wood glue.
  12. Paint the entire rocket outside and fins (both sides).
  13. Tape or glue the fins to the sides of the rocket, equidistant from one another.
  14. Inside the rocket draw assorted control panel looking buttons.
  15. Cut out a steering wheel from scrap cardboard.  Poke a hole through the steering wheel and through the back of the rocket ship.  Use a cabinet knob through the steering wheel to hold in place (make sure you use a large washer on the back side of the rocket to prevent the screw from pulling through the rocket.  (I couldn’t find any washers and in a rush I used a random piece of some other project).
  16. Fly to the moon for a picnic.

    Snuggles in the rocket

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 2 Comments

Tea Under the Sea

Posted on January 18, 2022 by lexicolton

Well hello cats and kittens!  I apologize deeply for missing a post last week.  I ended up having to help out one of my coworkers due to a family emergency.  It was a great experience but boy do I think that was enough of that role for me.  For those who did not notice, the last blog post had a contest included for those who want to enter.  I don’t blame you for not reading to the end of that saga though if you missed it!

Well speaking of cats and kittens – Patricia has a lovey!  Until recently, she has taken almost no interest in stuffed animals.  One night though I left a crocheted kitty doll in her crib, and she apparently cuddled it all night and woke up talking to it.  Success!  Only downside?  The crocheted kitty was Julius’ toy… a fact I had forgotten.  Before Patricia took notice of kitty Julius never played with it, so I thought he wouldn’t care… of course I was wrong.  Luckily he has mostly acquiesced and has been letting Patricia snuggle with it and carry it around.

Sleeping with Kitty

Snuggles

Patricia also loves books!  A few weeks ago she started enjoying sitting in our laps and turning pages.  I would say her current favorite is Moo Baa La La La by Sandra Boynton which I’ve been reading her at least twice every night before bed.  She still hasn’t been talking much, but I am pretty sure she is saying the same sounds every time for Dany.  It sounds more like Doodle.  So maybe she’s trying to say doggy?  Or perhaps she is saying one of the twenty pet names I call Dany like “Dany Doodle”.  Hopefully we’ll figure that one out soon because she says it everytime she points at Dany.

Speaking of Patricia, we celebrated her first birthday with a cake smash over zoom this year.  I had some pretty grand plans and the zoom call included a green screen, a bubble maker and mermaid costumes.  Scroll down to see the celebration.

Theme
Patricia is my little mermaid.  She just loves the water.  When she was a baby just learning to stand she would squeal with delight when she heard the bath running.  Then she would pull herself up the side of the tub to peer into the water.  Julius is very nervous about water getting in his eyes when we wash, but Patricia will happily dump water over her own head.  I had been wanting to throw a tea party themed sip-and-see when Patricia was born, but that theme apparently wasn’t weird enough for me.  Instead I combined the two and decided to throw a mermaid themed tea party for my little water bug.

Invitations

I decided “Tea Under the Sea” had a cute ring to it, so I sketched out an idea and cut the invitations using my cricut.  I then used adhesive tape to tape some of my favorite Harney and Sons teas to the inside and then shipped them out to my family members.

Decor

For the party I thought it would be cute if Patricia looked like she was under the sea… so I bought a bubble maker, taped green fabric to the wall and used the zoom green screen feature with a free background I found online.

I decorated Patricia’s high chair with a blue and green “one” banner I whipped together with my cricut and taped it to her high chair.

The setup

This is what it looked like to us.

This is what it looked like over zoom

Cake

I’ll be honest, I had the most fun making Patricia’s tiny smash cake.  I baked it in ramekin dishes with some of Julius’ cake batter dyed blue, and then froze it.  And I froze Julius’ leftover birthday cake frosting to frost the tiny cake and cupcakes and I had just enough.  Patricia ate the cake extremely daintily, there was no smashing involved.  After I took the cake away, I brought a banana in the room and she got extremely excited for that.  At least she got what she wanted for her birthday.

Patricia’s tiny smash cake – cupcakes for scale

Patricia daintily tests the cake.

Costumes

A Lexi party wouldn’t be complete without costumes.  At first I was going to make all 4 of us mer-people tails, but I realized that we wouldn’t be able to fit anyone but Patricia in the zoom shot.  Instead I made Julius and Patricia tails.  Patricia’s was blue/green and Julius’s tail was yellow by request.  Patricia used to ask to wear her tail everytime she would spot it hanging up, though I’ve since moved it to the costume closet in the basement.

Overall, we had a light turn out due to some scheduling conflicts, but she got to zoom with her cousins and it turned out really cute!

Patricia given her cake and Julius ready to immediately blow it out for her.

Silly goose.

The rest of the non-virtual party goers.

 

 

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Contested Vacation

Posted on January 3, 2022 by lexicolton

Wow, is it Monday again?  I’m going to be honest – I didn’t write last week’s (meager) blog post last Monday like usual.  I wrote it on the 23rd when I started feeling crappy and Will and the kids went to the playground to see some of Will’s Nashville friends (which I will be perfectly honest, I was not thrilled about since our kids were at the time, sick).  Anyway, the last couple weeks of “vacation” have been a mix of nice time with family, crippling anxiety, and feeling like absolute s**t.

Let me give you a run down of our vacation and you can tell me if my anxiety was unwarranted.  After being in Nashville for 30 minutes following a two day drive from Massachusetts, Will’s cousin Walt, who had arrived only hours before, got a phone call saying he’d been exposed.  Strong start!  That was on top of finding out on our drive down that Will’s brother had been covid exposed to a co-worker several days before, and he and my sister in law had decided to cancel their flights down so they could test negative for 5 days.  Their results luckily remained negative and we were able to see them for Christmas.  As for Walt, out of an abundance of caution, he ended up leaving the next morning and his side of the family cancelled their flights to Nashville and stayed in Chicago for the holidays.  Unbeknownst to us at the time, this was a lucky move as Walt did not have covid, but two of his other family members did.  (They are both okay, luckily both were boosted.)

Next, Patricia spiked a very high fever the Tuesday after we arrived and started having coughing attacks.  Since everyone was on edge about omicron, and we were planning to visit with a different group of Will’s cousins and his elderly grandparents we decided to get PCR tested.  This was easier said than done.  As those of you with infants know it is very difficult to find a place that will covid test patients under 2.  Many urgent cares won’t even see patients under 2 (for whatever reason)!  Since we were not anywhere near our home pediatrician, we spent an entire day trying to get a PCR test for Patricia.  The silver lining is we discovered that a rapid PCR technology exists and we got PCR results (all negative) within the hour!  Unfortunately by this point Will’s family had cancelled the gathering with Will’s other set of cousins and grandparents because his aunt had just found out she’d been exposed to someone with covid.  (Luckily she tested negative many days later.)

With a clean bill of health, we went forward with slightly diminished Christmas eve plans, and had a great evening.  Unfortunately the night afterwards was another story.  After we tucked Julius into bed on Christmas eve, he woke up at 2am coughing and wheezing and completely unable to breathe.  All four of us were in the same room so Will and I woke up immediately and were both looking up the nearest emergency room to take him.  It was one of the scariest moments of my life.  He told us through tears that he didn’t want to go to the emergency room. (This is odd because he normally loves going to the doctor and begs to go to the hospital or urgent care whenever he gets a sniffle – no, I’m not joking.)  Since it seemed his breathing had gotten better we acquiesced (I really didn’t relish the thought of being in an emergency room in a red state in the middle of the omicron surge on Christmas day).  Julius returned to sleep with only a couple additional interruptions but Will and I did not sleep at all the rest of the night, instead listening to Julius’ wheezing to make sure it didn’t sound labored.  The next day (Christmas) Julius slept in until 9:30am CENTRAL.  That is two full hours longer than he has ever slept in his LIFE.  ON CHRISTMAS.  Poor guy.

Of course I was freaked out that Julius had covid, but some rational people assured me that since we’d all only been covid tested 2 days before it was unlikely.  And more likely that he had caught it from Patricia.  Julius bounced back quickly (with the exception of spiking a really high fever for 12 hours that went away the next day).  Of course through all this Will and I were not feeling great either.  Who knows when we caught it, but being in a car and hotel room together for 2 days and then sleeping in the same room it was doomed to happen.  Of course mine must have turned into a sinus infection or something because I progressively got worse and I am still in that state.  I haven’t gone a day in the last week without heavy napping.  Writing this blog post is the most strenuous thing I’ve done all week!  What a vacation!

Well that was mopey!  This post is reading more like a dead journal than a blog.  Let me liven it up a bit… WITH A CONTEST!  It has been several years since I’ve had a CONTEST.  I’m going to try to do a few this year*.  If you’ve gotten this far, you rock!  I’m going to give one lucky winner a rocket ship kit!  These are very similar to the Home Depot kids kits and whoever wins will require a hammer, Phillips head screwdriver and wood glue to construct the kit (or if you so desire I can build it for you).  Julius started doing the kits when he was a bit under 3 years old, with my supervision.  To enter the contest please comment with your new year’s resolution!  You have until January 31st to enter, which is the date I’m giving myself to come up with a new year’s resolution…

If you don’t want to wait… below are the instructions to make your own kit!  It fits 1 regular and 1 small peg doll as passengers upon completion!

Rocket Ship Kid’s Woodworking Kit

What you’ll need for each kit:

  • 1″x5″ board
  • 1″x3″ board
  • 1.25″ dowel
  • 2 #6 x 3/4″ screws
  • 4 #16 x 1-1/4″ nails
  • template here
  1. Using a chop saw (or other saw) cut 1″x6″ board into 8″ segment.
  2. Print and cut out the template above and use the template to trace the rocket ship nose in pencil.
  3. Using a band saw (or scroll saw) cut around one side of rocket ship nose, removing a small amount of wood at a time, slowly forming a curve.
  4. On 1″x4″ board mark a 1″ segment. Set chop saw to 31.6 degree angle.  Position saw to cut up to the first 1″ mark. Cut.
  5. Set chop saw back to 90 degree angle (normal position). Cut along your 1″ mark to form first rocket fin.  Repeat steps 4&5 for other 3 fins.
  6. Using a 1″ forstner drill bit, drill into the end of the dowel 1/2″ to form a hole.
  7. Using the chop saw, cut dowel with hole into 1″ segment.
  8. Using a 3/4″ forstner drill bit, drill into the end of the dowel 1/2″ to form a hole.
  9. Using the chop saw, cut dowel with hole into 1″ segment.
  10. Sand all pieces.
  11. Mark the letter “F” on the bottom center side of the rocket face, and mark a fin with “F”.  Aligning the bottom (flat side) of the fin with the bottom of the rocket, drill through the center of the fin into the rocket using a 1/16″ bit. Using an awl trace around the location of the fin.
  12. Mark the letter “L” on the bottom left side of the rocket, and mark a fin with “L”.  Aligning the bottom (flat side) of the fin with the bottom of the rocket, drill through the center of the fin into the rocket using a 1/16″ bit.
  13. Mark the letter “R” on the bottom right side of the rocket, and mark a fin with “R”.  Aligning the bottom (flat side) of the fin with the bottom of the rocket, drill through the center of the fin into the rocket using a 1/16″ bit.
  14. Flip the rocket over.  Mark the letter “B” on the bottom center side of the rocket face, and mark a fin with “B”.  Aligning the bottom (flat side) of the fin with the bottom of the rocket, drill through the center of the fin into the rocket using a 1/16″ bit. Using an awl trace around the location of the fin.
  15. Place one of the cylindrical seats/windows in the center of the rocket face.  Drill through the center of the cylinder into the rocket using a 1/8″ bit.
  16. Flip the rocket body.  Place other cylindrical seats/windows in the center of the rocket face, slightly above where the other hole was.  Drill through the center of the cylinder into the rocket using a 1/8″ bit.

    Finished rocket kits.

Assembly Instructions

You will need:  Safety goggles, sand paper, wood glue, a phillip’s head screwdriver and a hammer.

  1. Sand all pieces until smooth, remembering to sand with the grain of the wood.
  2. Find the fin piece marked “L”.  Place a small amount of wood glue on the long part of the fin, and place it in the position on the rocket body side marked “L”, aligning the bottom (flat side) of the fin with the bottom of the rocket.
  3. Hammer a nail into the hole marked in the fin.
  4. Find the fin piece marked “R”.  Place a small amount of wood glue on the long part of the fin, and place it in the position on the rocket body side marked “R”, aligning the bottom (flat side) of the fin with the bottom of the rocket.
  5. Hammer a nail into the hole marked in the fin.
  6. Find the fin piece marked “F”.  Place a small amount of wood glue on the long part of the fin, and place it in the position on the rocket body face marked “F”, aligning the bottom (flat side) of the fin with the bottom of the rocket.
  7. Hammer a nail into the hole marked in the fin.
  8. Flip the rocket body over.  Find the fin piece marked “B”.  Place a small amount of wood glue on the long part of the fin, and place it in the position on the rocket body face marked “B”, aligning the bottom (flat side) of the fin with the bottom of the rocket.
  9. Hammer a nail into the hole marked in the fin.
  10. Using your screwdriver, start a screw on the hole on the inside of the window/seat cylinders.
  11. When screw starts to protrude through the center of the cylinder, apply a small amount of glue on the flat side.  Align it with the hole in the center face of the rocket, and screw until fastened.  Repeat for other screw and other cylinder on the reverse side of rocket.
  12. Paint as desired!

*I think I owe many of you pokemon hats from the last contest.  I am so sorry.  When I ended up becoming an actual hatmaker and didn’t have time to make any and completely forgot!  If you still want one, let me know and I’ll make it happen.

Posted in Crafts & Sewing, Home Improvement | 4 Comments

May All Your Rumpuses be Wild

Posted on December 27, 2021 by lexicolton

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year dear readers!  May 2022 be the best year yet!

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | Leave a comment