The Lady Beekeeper | A refined beekeeping experiment

Master Bedroom Reveal

Posted on November 2, 2015 by lexicolton

Well, after 3 years living here I finally finished the master bedroom. It took me an entire year to settle on the right color of paint. Initially Will didn’t want to paint the room, so I decided I was going to find dark blue fabric with white accents to really compliment the while walls. That turned out to be more difficult than anticipated especially since my fabric choices were limited to the groupon deal I had bought. This store is extensive, and the fabric selection turns over repeatedly, but the closest fabric I managed to find at a reasonable price was the inverse of what I was looking for. This put a damper on leaving my walls white, and luckily Will was able to sympathize with my new predicament and begrudgingly agreed to helping with a new coat of paint. So then all that was left was the paint color.

I fantasized painting the whole room charcoal grey or navy blue but luckily Will actually had an opinion for once and dissuaded me. (I’m pretty sure he was just selfishly worried I would hate it and it would take another 10 coats of paint to cover over the dark shade, but I still give him credit for changing my mind.) I decided I wanted a lighter shade of grey with blue or purple undertones, and left 6 swatches sitting on my dresser for almost a year before biting the bullet and buying a sample. I can tell you that this is one instance where the 18″x18″ sample was completely deceiving. After applying it to the walls and waiting for it to dry I was convinced it was too purple and that I had made a huge mistake. But being lazy and not wanting to sleep in the spare bedroom for another week forced me to live with it. The next day in the early morning I was once again in love with my wall color. With bright natural light the paint is exactly the color I had envisioned. Later in the day the walls change hue and finally when night falls the paint under the electric lights is an entirely different animal. Each wall looks completely different because of the way the light hits it. Despite the chameleon effect I’ve come to love the paint color. It is pleasantly calming! Here’s the room reveal!

View from my side of the bed

Homemade curtains and newly install light kit on the fan. I can’t believe they didn’t have a light fixture before!

View of the zen corner

Close up of the new wall art over the bed

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Bigger on the Inside

Posted on October 27, 2015 by lexicolton

The Doctor and TARDIS

The Doctor

The TARDIS

Will and I have been watching the most recent Doctor Who reboot for the last few months, so naturally The Doctor came up as a costume idea for Will. (The 11th is our favorite.) But who should I go as? My favorite companion never even met Matt Smith, so that was out. I don’t have blonde curly hair like River Song (though this was super tempting) and I can’t cross dress well enough to pull off Jack Harkness. But after all the companions have come and gone, whom is The Doctor left with? Yes that’s right, Sexy. (And my name is Lexi so that just works incredibly well.) It always comes back to The Doctor and his TARDIS traveling through space and time…

For my Sexy (TARDIS) halloween costume I used this fabulous fit and flare Burda pattern 6744 with 100% polyester in TARDIS blue. (Just kidding about the color, but the girl in the check out line did ask me if I was making a TARDIS costume based on my materials alone so I figure it was close.) The pattern was easy to follow and the dress came out perfect. I did drop to a size lower than I measured out since I wanted it very form fitting with the stretchy polyester.

Finished dress plus some sexy socks

After I finished the dress I decided to pull out my embroidery machine and whip up a patch that reads “Police public call box” and another for the 11th Doctor’s “St John Ambulance” sticker. The former was easy, the latter gave me lots of grief especially because I couldn’t figure out how to get the letters to center around a figure I wasn’t going to embroider. Eventually I just gave up and stopped the machine after the letters printed. If you want either pattern send me an email and I’ll shoot them your way. All I did was embroider them on cut-away stabilizer that I then trimmed to form the basis of the patch. I then folded the fabric around the stabilizer, pressed, and 1/8 of an inch from the edge. I finally basted it to the dress.

For the Police call box notice on the TARDIS I used an iron on transfer. I sized this picture down to 4×5, inverted it and printed it onto photo paper. I then used my handy dandy paper cutter to cut it down to size. I ironed it onto some cotton fabric then removed the paper backing immediately for “a matte” look.

I next cut some interfacing down to 4×5, put the iron on transfer over the paper and folded the edges back like I did for the “Police public call box” patch. But here I didn’t want any pinholes to damage my iron on so I used tape to hold everything in place while I stitched around the edges. When the stitching was in place I removed the tape. It worked like a charm!

My basting cheat for the iron on transfer.

The last step was to add a lantern headpiece. I tried a mock up using a water bottle and hated it, but I got the idea to use an old spice bottle from my last blog post. I am really happy with how it turned out (and as a bonus it smells like cinnamon…) If you want detailed steps on how to make it, read my “TARDIS headpiece” post here.

Oh and I won’t post me in the full costume before Halloween because in the words of River Song… SPOILERS! But check back next Monday night and I’ll add it, but for now, here’s my mannequin wearing it…

Sneak peek of my TARDIS dress…

Posted in Crafts & Sewing | 4 Comments

TARDIS headpiece

Posted on October 27, 2015 by lexicolton

DIY TARDIS headpiece

Here’s how I made my fabulous TARDIS headpiece.

Step 1: gather these ingredients:

Supplies to make a TARDIS headpiece

16 gauge floral wire
Empty plastic spice container (mine was about 6 inches high by 2 inch diameter)
Paint of your choice (I used my husband’s burnished copper leftover from his miniature painting days)
card stock
Fabric covered 3/4 inch thick headband
Glue gun
Drill
hand saw
If you want it to light up (and who doesn’t?) you’ll also need:
Velcro
Battery operated tea light (they sell them at the dollar store…)

Step 2: Remove label from your spice jar and cut it down to size with your saw (I made mine xxx inches high). Leave the screw top portion so you can open and close your lantern. (Here is where I painted everything and let it dry for a bit before proceeding).

Step 2: Cut container down to size leaving the screw on top.

Step 3: Drill 4 holes equidistant from one another around the perimeter of the jar.

Drill holes for wire

Step 4: Cut two strips of wire and wrap them around the circumference of the jar. Leave them on the jar.

Step 5: Cut indents into the top of the spice jar so a wire can rest there. Insert a wire in one drilled hole, loop it over the top of the jar, resting in the indents and back into the drilled hole on the opposite side. Repeat for second set of holes. Glue in place on inside of jar.

Add wire strips around jar and insert into holes.

Step 6: Glue circumference circles in place on the “back” side of the jar. (Choose an ugly side). Be sure to hide the glue under one set of longitudinal wires. Add spots of glue to keep each circle sitting properly.

Glue holding wire strips

Step 7: Cut a circle of cardstock (mine was about 3 inches diameter). Cut a slit in the circle and overlap cut edges to form a cone. Glue together and glue to the top of the lantern on top of the criss-crossing wire.

Step 8: Glue one end of the velcro to the battery cover on the tea light. Glue the other end of the velcro to the inside of the spice jar cover. Glue top of spice jar cover to headband at desired location.

Finished lantern

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Copycat Williams Sonoma Mulling Spices

Posted on October 20, 2015 by lexicolton

Well it is that time of the year where the deciduous trees don the most marvelous hues and the air turns crisp. There a million reasons I love fall. I told my husband this weekend that this is the one time of the year where tourists from the city scramble to our tiny town to pick apples, go on hayrides or “leaf peep”. No wonder I moved out here; I don’t have to go anywhere to enjoy some of my favorite things about my favorite season.

Well yesterday was so brisk I made the first batch of mulled cider this year. Another one of my favorites – and my absolute favorite brand is the Williams Sonoma version. It is a fabulous blend, and they use superior exotic spices that I just don’t have the palette to discern. I gave out mulling spices last year as host/hostess gifts on Christmas when I discovered that you could make this delicious blend for about half price in bulk.

For 5.75 oz of mulling spices:

1 c (2.25 oz) dried orange peel

1/2 C (1.5 oz) cinnamon sticks (pulverized)

1/4 c (1 oz) whole allspice

1/4 c (1 oz) cloves

Mix.

To mull cider, gently simmer 1 quart apple cider (if you want to know my favorite drop me a line) and 2 Tbsp mulling spices for up to 20 minutes. Excellent with a jigger of rum or brandy added per cup (or fireball whiskey if you’re up to it).

To break the cinnamon sticks into chunks I popped them into a ziplock bag then used a meat tenderizer (the flat side) to pulverize them.

Cinnamon sticks soon to be pulverized

And as for sourcing my spices, I got my orange peel from a store on amazon called Whole Spice. A pound-worth costs about $17.50 (or about $1 per oz). It is so delicious smelling. The cinnamon and whole cloves I purchased from Job Lot for $1 for 1.25 oz of cloves and $1 for 1.5 oz of cinnamon sticks. They have a huge inexpensive spice selection with really good turn over. I’ve never gotten something that isn’t fresh from their spice aisle. The whole allspice berries I purchased from the best spice store I’ve found in the area: Ed Hyder’s Mediterranean Market in Worcester. They have the best selection of spices around, and they have a yearly spice sale where everything is discounted 50%. Here’s the full list. I honestly can’t remember what I paid for the allspice berries but at $4 for everything else, I can’t imagine it was more than $2 for the oz (especially considering McCormick brand is $3.75 for an oz and they are usually twice what I pay.) This brings us to a grand total of $6 for 5.75 oz of mulling spices. (Half the price of W&S)

Spices soon to be added to our favorite cider

Oh and fun tip – I use these great fill-able tea bags with a bit of kitchen twine to throw into the cider to mull.

Posted in Culinary Delights | 9 Comments

Pet Silhouette Paint Nite

Posted on October 12, 2015 by lexicolton

After my ceramics kick I was looking up more fun, inexpensive group crafting ideas. I looked at some of those “wine & paint” nights but I don’t have anywhere to hang a reproduction painting that looks like a failed forgery attempt. (My apologies to those artistic enough to make a reproduction Monet). And the paint on wine glass events were too expensive, even on Groupon. (Especially after I saw an article on pinterest about how to make them in your own oven, wonder if this works…)

During the spring I was talking to the owner of our “doggie daycare” and she showed me photos of a “wine & paint” night where the artist guides you through creating a picture of your dog! To me that seemed better than the Monet forgery, but still requires some serious artistic talent. Eventually I stumbled upon what I was looking for – dog silhouettes. What a great idea, and this blog has fabulous steps. There are a few clarifications I’ll add below, but with her instructions I held a “wine and paint” night where everyone successfully created a silhouette of their pet! This project was such a success I even created one for my friend to use as the guest book at her wedding. Here were the final results (bonus points for spotting my little fluffy butt dog):

Some tips we found useful:

I had everyone email me pictures of their pets a couple days beforehand so I could blow them up on Picassa and print them out on the sticker sheets. To save ink I used paint to remove most of the background of the pictures then printed in black and white.
Another issue we had is that the Picassa poster resizing with your print margins is not obvious to use. You have to double check that the entire cat/dog/pet will fit in the picture before you print it. We ended up cutting off a couple tails and ears the first time around.
Most of the work for the project is cutting out pictures of your dog or cat. We did this while drinking wine and eating appetizers. It is not necessary to cut out all the tiny details of your dog or cat, just big chunky spots of fluff are going to be the best bet. More minute details will be lost in spray paint.
The contact paper was not sticky enough by itself to prevent the spray paint from seeping under. It could have been the brand I used, but I ended up instead lightly spraying the back of the contact paper with 3m adhesive to get it to stick properly. Luckily I had this removable adhesive leftover from my bee stenciling. The adhesive worked really well.
Have tweezers and disposable gloves ready so you can easily remove the contact paper immediately after spraying. (This is messy business, so I informed guests not to wear fancy clothes and had aprons ready.
The whole project was incredibly cost effective! I used leftover spray paint I had on hand (or had guests bring a color if I didn’t have one they liked). The 16×20 canvases were less than $2 a piece from Job Lot, sticker paper was $13 for 100 sheets, and 18 inch wide contact paper was $7 for 24 feet. This is a grand total of $6 per person, way cheaper than wine and paint night. Plus minus the canvases I still have half the supplies left…

Here’s the version I made for my friend’s wedding guest book. I provided gold sharpie paint pens for guests to write on it since their colors were cobalt and gold. I’ll have to ask her for the version with all the signatures!

Do it yourself pet silhouette guest book

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Ceramics Kick

Posted on October 5, 2015 by lexicolton

Last winter I was on a ceramics kick. On a whim I bought a groupon for this awesome ceramics place called “The Clayroom”. For those from Massachusetts it is worth the drive. When I called to make a reservation for our group the owner encouraged us to try wine and pizza night because pizza was included as no extra charge and you could BYO wine. What a nice guy! Sounded like a perfect ladies’ night, and it was! We have been there twice now and can’t wait to go back next winter.

The first night I painted a bee platter. This was a little ambitious for my first try and I barely finished it in the single sitting, but I am very happy with how it came out!

Bee Platter

The second time we went there I painted a teapot for my sister-in-law Erin’s bridal shower (more on that later) and a spoon rest to match my platter.

Matching Bee Spoon Rest

Erin & Mark Teapot

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Homemade Kitchen Bookshelf

Posted on September 28, 2015 by lexicolton

For the last 3 years I have been using a kitchen microwave cart that I got when I was in college. It was a functional metal and wood structure that could hold my oversized cookbooks and quickly became the kitchen junk table. After redoing the backsplash of the kitchen, I’ve been itching to change other things. After my cookbooks started falling through the wire shelves I decided a bookshelf for my kitchen was at the top of my list.

I originally intended to buy something, but I couldn’t find a piece that had everything I wanted. My requirements included a drawer (for all the junk that collected on the counter), ample shelf space for my cookbooks (including the 14 inch oversized ones), and a wide countertop. Surprisingly the only results for “kitchen bookshelf” were built ins (I fully intend to change this). After scouring the internet for weeks I finally stumbled upon this amazing blog. She does beautiful modern updates of outdated classics. The below dresser -> kitchen island transformation became my inspiration.

Beautiful dresser turned kitchen island from Heir and Space

I searched craigslist for weeks and finally came across this chest of drawers that had the right dimensions and was the perfect countertop height. (Remind me to add “people who include dimensions in their craigslist postings” in the list of my favorite things). After a busy weekend entertaining Will’s family, I picked up the bookshelf for $25. One of the drawers was broken but obviously that did not matter to me in the least!

Perfect sized dresser from craigslist

The first step to refinishing the cabinet was to remove the drawers and lightly sand the sides to accept paint. Then I needed to remove the center drawer slats to make room for the oversized bookshelf. When I got rid of the drawer slats I was left with a 1/4 by 1 inch groove in the frame that drove me crazy. At first I thought I would leave it as an accent stripe by painting it with a different color. Eventually I decided that idea was terrible and tried to mitigate the problem by adding thin wood slats. Well these didn’t look right either because at the time I didn’t own a proper saw (now I do, thanks Mom & Dad for my birthday gift – a circular saw!!). Instead I decided to use this wood filler. This stuff is AMAZING. You mix it up, apply it and you can sand and paint it within an hour! I’ve used it for several home repairs since!

After taking care of the drawer slat dilemma I went to Lowe’s to purchase a counter top and wood shelves. The depth of this piece was 16 inches which is larger than your ordinary hardwood board. I began fretting over how to create a piece of wood with the right dimensions using wood glue, wood clamps etc. Luckily while browsing through the Lowe’s hardwood section I discovered they have large sized hardwood boards in all sorts of thicknesses, pre-glued-together. I chose a 3/4 in piece for the shelves and a 1 1/2 inch piece for the countertop. Regrettably they only had 1.5 inch boards in the largest size so I have a ton leftover that I’ll have to find something to do with. Another great thing about buying these boards from Lowe’s is that even without any proper saw of my own I was able to have them cut to my dimensions with their industrial cutter! (One great advantage to being female in a hardware store is most employees are extra helpful!)

Being a perfectionist I wanted the kitchen island counter top to have beveled edges like the counter tops in the rest of my kitchen. Luckily my best pal and her husband own every tool in existence and they let me borrow their router and a round-over bit. The router was super fun to use. Once you get the bit properly set in the router you really can’t screw it up. Check out these beveled edges…

After sanding, staining and polying the shelves and countertop, then priming and painting the base and top drawer-front my new kitchen cart was nearly complete. I got a little worried when I could see the white primer after applying the first coat of black paint, but the second coat covered everything up evenly. The back of the chest of drawers was particle board and not solid wood like the rest of the piece, so instead of attempting to paint this uneven surface I simply wallpapered it with this peel and stick wallpaper from Target. I then gently inserted my shelves with a rubber mallet (the dimensions were spot on) and screwed the counter top to the dresser. Here’s the finished product:

Finished Kitchen Bookshelf

Before and after – kitchen bookshelf

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The Lady Beekeeper 2.0

Posted on September 28, 2015 by lexicolton

Welcome back! After such a long hiatus, I’ve decided to reboot this blog. From here on out you won’t just hear about my beekeeping tales, but also my other hobbies like crafts, home improvements and cooking. I hope you enjoy it!

Posted in Beekeeping, Crafts & Sewing, Culinary Delights, Parties, Thrift Finds | 2 Comments

A Series of Rookie Mistakes and Lame Ducks

Posted on August 15, 2015 by lexicolton

Well after a truly disappointing year with no bees the lady beekeeper is back. Let me fill you all in where I left off. Rosalinda (may she rest in peace) and her colony perished at the very end of the winter in early March 2014. It was only a couple of weeks before the weather broke, but they ran completely out of honey and I still believe it was too cold to feed them at that point.

I ordered another package of bees, this time from the local beekeeper near me. I also ordered a marked queen since I had so much trouble finding the queen last year. Installing the package went off without a hitch (mostly, except when I dropped the queen cage into the 5 pounds of worker bees and had to fish it out, swearing under my breath the whole time).

Unfortunately I had to wait over two weeks to check on the queen because the weather was so lousy during the first weekend. (Ideally you wait for a nice sunny day to open the hive when the bees are out foraging.) By the time I looked in the hive there was no sign of the queen but there were eggs being laid at odd angles or multiple per cell. The hive was also overrun with drones! A telltale sign of laying workers. My best guess is they killed the queen, then some of the workers started developing ovaries without the queen’s pheromones to suppress them. When this happens the workers are able to lay eggs, but since they have never actually mated, all the eggs will be unfertilized. This means only drones will be produced. Drones are the male honeybees, whose sole purpose in life is to mate and die. If you’re only producing (virtually) useless drones and no worker bees, your colony is pretty much doomed.

Well great. After discovering this I rushed to the local beekeeping supply where I got the package and purchased a new queen. Unfortunately, I was in a hurry and didn’t follow the right procedure to rid my hive of the laying workers. Instead, I sophomorically decided that introducing a new queen would set things right so I did just that. Shortly after adding the queen I read about laying workers and how normally in this situation the bees will kill the newly introduced queen since they are now loyal to their laying worker(s). Well great.

This did not happen to me. Instead they left the queen alone, but the laying workers continued laying. Apparently they weren’t threatened enough by the new queen to kill her? Seems odd. Almost like I got a dud queen. (Or two dud queens!) By this point the hive had dwindled considerably and was about 80% drones. I decided to cut my losses and wrote the colony off as dead since I didn’t think there were enough worker bees to properly correct the laying worker issue. But I didn’t want that second $30 queen to go to waste.

Luckily my beekeeper co-worker offered to split one of his hives into a nuc cluster (tiny hive box). So I went back to my hive, recaptured the queen and got her back into the little queen cage. That took some doing. I then brought the queen over to my co-worker’s house and we added the queen to his nuc. Two weeks later he reported they had killed her. Great. Definitely not my year for beekeeping.

But did I mention we got a dog?

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Bees in the Bath

Posted on February 19, 2014 by lexicolton

I have been fantasizing about a new design for my bathroom for the past month, because that is what I do – fantasize about bathrooms. I mean rooms. When Will & I bought the house I knew it was perfect because the previous owners had left everything neutral – white walls, hardwoods, grey tiles and grey rugs. A virtual canvas. The first thing I did was paint everything in my dining room between the white wainscoting and the white crown molding avocado green (Valspar Greentree to be exact). Sound hideous? It is actually glorious. (I got the idea from my fabulous Wedgewood china in Oberon).

But anyway I digress. While I was daydreaming about my blank white bathroom walls with ugly white porcelain drawer pulls – the ladies snuck into my daydream. The bathroom has this neat hexagonal (okay its octagonal – but who’s counting) window that reminds me of honeycomb. This then reminded me of the fabulous soap that my aunt gave my mom from C’est la bee (her friend’s shop – also a beekeeper). I scoured the internet for wallpaper patterns with the Napoleonic bee until I realized wallpaper is ridiculously expensive. Eventually I stumbled upon an article on pinterest showing this neat bee themed table setting – with a stencil from Royal Design Studio. They had not one, but two bee designs to choose from.

Let me rave about these stencils for a minute. I have never stenciled before, but it was incredibly easy. I used a 2″ brush, 4 oz of bright gold stencil paint and “The Buzz” stencil, all purchased from Royal Design Studio. The stencils are made to cover large areas of wall and look like wallpaper. You have to be a bit particular to get the designs to match up and measure out correctly but it is worth it. Several people have asked if it is wallpaper. And the stencil is indestructible. At first I was gentle with it, but by the end I was slapping it on the wall, bending it at odd angles and there is not a hint of wear on the plastic.

So after I convinced my husband to help me paint the bathroom Fairmont Lobby Cream (he is the best). I spent a ridiculous amount of quality time with that stencil, painting the bathroom with bees. It took me 8 hours in total. Not in one sitting that would be crazy. Well, it was still a bit crazy. But it was totally worth it – pictures below.