Tile work

27 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in crafts, Gilded Life, God, home decor, lighting, photography, projects, Uncategorized

Tags

home, house, kitchen remodel, painting, replacing tiles, tile, tilework

The facebook post said “What has been your favorite find lately? Please share!!” They found a pair of ornate candelabra lamps. I haven’t purchased anything lately but figured surely I could find something “for a whole new purpose” in this overstuffed house. Perhaps an item I had forgotten. Hmm, yes, there was the old mirror still in the garage. That would do. It was my father-in-law’s and I’ve been planning on cleaning it up for a couple years now. How can years go by like that? Years!

Anyway, we were just talking about the tile work in the kitchen and I mentioned we needed six tiles as close as possible to the original tile to fill the hole. Photography is really difficult in such a dark kitchen so we’re painting all the cabinets white and the walls a beautiful creamy white. I can’t wait! The lighting will be glorious! Here is my cluttered, dark, Kitchen Before, with out-dated orangey woodwork, brass knobs and fruit-that-matches-NOTHING tiles.

Stove area before the redo, with fruit tiles that don't match a thing in my entire house and orange wood cabinets.

Stove area before the redo, with fruit tiles that don’t match a single thing in my entire house and orange wood cabinets.

As we talked about the tile, my husband remembered the old boxes of discontinued tile samples in the garage. They were being thrown out from a construction job eight years ago. What a surprise! Look at my amazing new craft supplies!

Tile samples.

Granite tile samples

Border, relief and bullnose tile samples. These are heavy and gorgeous!

Border, relief and bullnose tile samples. These are gorgeous!

And in that box of old tile were exactly SIX tiles that EXACTLY matched the color and texture of the existing tile in our kitchen! Now what are the chances of that? Wow! We’re pinching even the pennies we find in the sofa to do this kitchen remodel so finding tiles that match is crazy encouraging!

It was hard to capture the color and texture on the tiles but they match almost exactly.

The new tiles are about 1/16th” too big and the original tile was tightly set so we’ll have to carefully sand off a bit of the new tiles to make them fit. But the surface texture and color match couldn’t be better!

I’m looking forward to using the mirror and working with tile this week. What fun to go treasure hunting in my own garage. God cares about so many little details in our lives and the fact that he made sure eight years ago to stow away six little tiles I’d need today is just amazing.

Today’s lunch

20 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in food, photography, recipe, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Andrew Scrivani, CreativeLive, food, food photographer, food photography, hot cross bun, lunch, photography

CreativeLive has terrific classes, especially the class this weekend – Andrew Scrivani’s class on food photography. CreativeLive airs classes free to view live, which is amazingly generous. And then if you love the class and want to view later, the classes can be purchased for a reasonable fee.

Andrew Scrivani is a wonderful food photographer and I’m really enjoying his class! He has such a fantastic breezy way of teaching and the knowledge he shares is clear, interesting (of course! ♥food) and FUN. He had a Facebook contest today, Photograph your Lunch, and he will select three photographs for critique tomorrow. There are so many wonderful entries I’m sure mine will be lost in the shuffle. I thoroughly enjoyed setting up this shot of my lunch and applying some of Andrew’s excellent photography tips.

Grilled Chicken, fresh thyme and a bit of Ginger Spread on a homemade Hot Cross Bun. Dessert was a pear and two figs.

It was rich to my soul to be able to reach up and pluck a ripe fig from the tree in our backyard. The chicken with ginger spread and thyme was delicious, especially with the lightly sweet current and mace bun.

DIY – decorative Wrought Iron design paper

18 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in art, crafts, handmade books, journals, mixed media, tutorial

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

coffee dyed, crafting, crafts, DIY, handmade paper, make your own, paper arts, paper crafts, tutorial

A couple months ago I made some beautiful coffee-dyed, wrought iron patterned paper completely by accident. I wanted coffee-dyed paper for a project so I boiled coffee grounds (about twice as strong as a usual pot of coffee) in water and let it steep about half an hour. I strained out most of the coffee grounds by pouring the mixture through a coffee filter and then added another couple tablespoons of instant coffee.

Even though it was spring, the sun was high in the sky and it was hot out so our cast aluminum, wrought iron-style table was hot. I figured all the heat would help the paper dry.

The day was bright and dry when I dyed the wrought iron style paper. The large pan of coffee dye was wide enough for the paper to fit comfortably.

The day was bright and and the sun was high when I dyed the paper. The large pan of coffee dye was wide enough for the paper to fit comfortably.

I dipped each sheet of drawing tablet paper into the coffee dye and let it drain a little against the edge of the pan. Within seconds of being laid on the table, the table design showed up on the paper! Here you can see the still-wet sheen of coffee on the paper.

The coffee pooled on the top of the paper and the pattern of the table magically showed up on the surface of the paper.

The coffee pooled on the top of the paper and the pattern of the table magically appeared on the surface of the paper.

I covered as much of the table as I could with the dipped paper and loved the variety of design on each sheet of paper.

The table is covered with wet paper. The edges of some sheets are already drying and curling up.

I wish I had written down how long it took the paper to dry, perhaps half an hour. Once there were no more puddles on top, I flipped all the papers over to dry more. When I turned each sheet over, the design on the bottom looked amazing! It is beautiful on both sides but especially smooth and beautifully shaded on the bottom.

The wrought iron design on the bottom side of each sheet has a beautiful creamy color and delightful shading.

I will be using this paper to make handmade books and journals.

If you dye paper like this using a wrought iron table, please let me know how it turns out. Cast aluminum doesn’t rust so there was no rust residue on my paper. A wrought iron table might have a different effect on the paper.

The table surface was very hot. I haven’t experimented to see if this works on a cold table.

There may be coffee dripping from the paper so don’t do this over a deck surface that you don’t want brown drips on. There was very little coffee dripping from the paper because the day was hot and dry and the paper absorbed it very quickly and it didn’t matter to me if there were brown specks on my deck.

One year ago today I broke my back… and didn’t know it.

16 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in All Sparkled Up, God, Inspirational, Scoliosis, Scripture

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

All Sparkled Up, broken back, health, inspirational, Scoliosis

I should have known though. The symptoms were severe. Over the next couple weeks I searched the internet for “How to tell if your back is broken” and “Can a person walk around with a broken back.” There were no conclusive answers. Well duh! My husband said most people do NOT walk around with a broken back. Most people seek help immediately, due to immobility or pain. I’m not that smart though. I’ve told my doctors to make a note in my charts “HAS DIFFICULTY INTERPRETING PAIN.”

For the next several weeks I tightly strapped a gallon size bag of ice to my back for 16 hours a day. I wore a back brace day and night as tight as it could be pulled to keep my vertebrae from shifting. I moved slow, walked slower, couldn’t drive, could barely sit. My feet and legs would go numb and I had other worse not-normal symptoms. But I’m not that smart. I thought it was old age. Or just maybe, a popped disk. I do NOT recommend ignoring symptoms.

For the next two and a half months, I helped my husband and sons clean our house, fill and move boxes, reorganize everything as we readied our house for inspection for refinancing. The work was endless and huge. I did it with a bag of ice strapped to my back and silent prayers that God would hold me together, literally.

I finally got surgery two and half months after I broke my back. I had 17 vertebrae fused. It was after surgery that I found out how bad it was. My surgeon told me the upper part of my back wasn’t even connected to the lower part of my back. It is a real, live, unexplainable miracle that I didn’t get paralyzed. Praise be to God!

Today, one year after breaking my back, I am repairing very well. I can walk, sit and drive again. I can bake delicious treats, cook, do laundry, sew on my sewing machine, make crafts, pick figs, and do container gardening. Best of all, I can kneel down and hug my grandchildren.

When I look over the past year, the thing that stands out above all wasn’t the pain, the learning to walk again, learning new ways to do things. The thing that stands out the most, the memory that glows the most intensely all the way from July 16th 2012 to today, was God was with me. He was so close that he fluffed my pillows when I needed, He supported my back when I could feel the vertebrae shifting and grinding, He helped me lay down at night and get up again and fall asleep even when it felt like I was lying on spears of glass. God was there. The entire year glowed with His presence. I sought Him and he was there. There are no words to describe the profound peace and love I felt, even when enduring pain.

As I look ahead, I don’t have to fear because I know God will be there.

“For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11-13

Our first ripe figs of 2013

15 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in food, gardening, nature

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

fig trees, figs, food, fruit, fruit trees, gardening, harvest, nature

The figs are juicy, sweet and huge this year!

We were really pleased that the netting kept the birds away.

We put the net over the tree too early though so some of the new tree growth went right through the net. We’ll have to either prune the tree or cut the net to get it off in the fall.

We haven’t hung the bug traps yet so we lost a few figs to beetles and bees.

But there are still so many green, healthy figs.

I hope the traps work for beetles. We didn’t have beetles last year.

It’s disturbing to see how they ravage a fig. But at least they stay on one fig until it is all used up without taking a single bite out of the neighboring fig.

Beetles ravage a ripe fig hanging on the tree.

The basket was heavy with plump figs.

This warm-from-the-tree fig fits my palm!

I remember our first harvest several years ago yielded just one tiny fig that didn’t even fit in a spoon. Look at the size of these. Luscious!

We weren’t sure if the figs were ripe or overripe. This was one of the yellower figs. I thought so much white pith might mean the fig wasn’t ripe. It still tasted delicious and juicy and sweet.

Here is a riper fig, with a darker brown skin next to the golden yellow skinned fig from the same tree for comparison.

When both figs were compared in flavor and texture, they were still almost identical. The riper fig had a slightly larger pink, seeded center. The seeded area should take up more of the fruit but this year the figs are dropping if left much longer on the tree. They still taste delicious.

Figs keep only a day or two and taste better at room temperature so these will sit on the counter for snacking. I cut and ate half of one immediately after picking then ate the other half several hours later. The flavor was better after the fig sat for a bit after picking. I’m not sure what caused it to be sweeter. We are still newbies at growing figs.

Finished the Leaf and Stone Necklace

08 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in crafts, jewelry making

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

crafts, jewelry, jewelry making

It turned out better than I hoped. Lots of vintage beads with crystals and a cut geode. The beads match the color of the geode crystals.

Leaf and Stone Necklace

I love surprises so this necklace has the cut side of the geode facing in. Only the wearer will know about that extra special glitter that no one else sees on the outside.