The Snow and Crystal Tree and Tendril Snowflakes

20 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by Julia Monroe in allsparkledup, Christmas, crafts, DIY, home decor, projects, sparkling

Tags

Christmas, Christmas decorating, DIY, home decor, nature crafts, snowflakes, tree, tutorial

I put away all the Christmas decorations except for one – the Snow and Crystal Tree. The corner will be too empty if I put it away and I love the wintery look of it. The snowflakes remind me of scribbles. Scribble Snowflakes!

Snow and Crystal Tree, with vintage chandelier crystals and snowflakes made from dried vine tendrils.

The tree is a dried branch cut from a tree in the woods behind our house. I stuck it firmly into Styrofoam in an urn and laid moss around the base.
The crystals are from the old chandelier that used to hang in my parents’ dining room when I was a child. I loved that chandelier so I’m thrilled to have some of the crystals from it.
The snowflakes are made of natural tendrils and curls that I collected from the vines in the backyard in the fall. My granddaughter helped me look for the curly tendrils and we really enjoyed our time together outdoors.

Dried vine snowflakes, little 1″ glass ball ornaments and vintage chandelier crystals.

To make the snowflakes, I broke off the dry twigs and slid the curly tendrils off. Here is a photo I posted on instagram of the twig bits with the tendrils removed.

The tendrils were gently twisted and pulled off the broken twigs.

Each snowflake needed six similar pieces so I grouped the tendrils by size.

Once I had six similar tendrils, I trimmed the ends so they were the same length.

For each snowflake, I made a contoured mat out of foil for gluing. A small bead was glued temporarily on the back of the foil so it would create a small mound on the right side.

The foil is gently pressed down around the bead to create a little mound.

On the right side of the foil, on top of the tiny mound, I glued a small bead for the center of the snowflake. All the tendrils will then be glued to this bead using hot glue.

The tendrils were arranged around the center bead in a pleasing manner.

The two straightest tendrils were glued on first, opposite each other, to create the line of symmetry.

The other tendrils were glued on the sides and the hot glue was allowed to harden.

To remove the delicate snowflake, the foil was folded and pinched together under the snowflake. Then the snowflake was gently popped off the foil. One of the snowflakes stuck too much so I used tweezers to pull the foil off and reglue the tendrils that had loosened.

The snowflakes were hung with thin hooks I made from jewelry wire.

The vintage crystals look lovely on the tree.

Vintage hand-cut crystals adorn the tree.

At the base of the urn is a gilded tea cup filled with little glass ball ornaments.

The beautiful earthy and neutral color ornaments were from Terrain. The tea cup is from Anthropologie.

Snow and Crystal Tree, with vintage chandelier crystals, glass balls in neutral shades and snowflakes made from dried vine tendrils.

The little fox ornament I got several years ago finally found a home… at the base of the Snow and Crystal tree.

A furry, little red fox ornament sits at the base of the Snow and Crystal Tree.

I don’t know what to put in the corner when this tree comes down.. probably a lamp. But then again, perhaps I’ll make a Snowy Valentine tree…

Pencil Rolls and Coloring Pages

04 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by Julia Monroe in All Sparkled Up, art, Christmas, color, crafts, DIY, fabric, On my Worktable, photography, projects, Spoonflower, tutorial

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colored pencils, coloring, coloring books, DIY, fabric, pencil roll, photography, sewing, Spoonflower, tutorial

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s. We did!

I made the girls Pencil Rolls and custom coloring pages for Christmas. They loved the sets.

Colored Pencil Roll

Pencil roll with special coloring pages

I used Julie 1971 fabric from Spoonflower.

Julie 1971, a fabric featuring houses made of felt, is available on Spoonflower.

The inspiration for Julie 1971 is a piece of artwork I made when I was 12 years old, in 1971. I made the little felt houses from bits of felt and glued them to the back of a piece of laundry detergent box cardboard.

The pencil roll was very easy to make. The lining, pocket and flap are linen, the decorative cover wrap is cotton canvas.

Felt Houses

Even after all these years, the cardboard is still in great shape.

The back of the Felt Houses artwork is cardboard cut from a box of All laundry detergent.

My father cut the picture frame from a single piece of wood. The Felt Houses art hangs in our guest room.

The original artwork is still vibrant and prints beautifully on canvas and linen fabrics from Spoonflower. Here you can see the original art next to canvas, which I have aged a little by machine washing it in warm water.

The pencil roll open, with flap folded over to protect pencil tips and keep the pencils from spilling out during transport.

Outer cover – made of a piece of decorative Julie 1971 fabric 17″ x 8.5″, sewed to a piece of linen 17″ x 4.5″ for the flap, to make a rectangle 17″ x 12.5″.

The outside of the pencil roll, with the flap open.

The outside of the finished pencil roll, with the flap open.

Lining – made of linen cut to 17″ x 12.5″.
Pencil pocket – two pieces of linen 17″ x 4″.

The cover piece with flap was sewn to the lining piece, right sides together, with a small opening for turning at the bottom. This cover piece was turned right side out and pressed flat.

The pencil pocket was made by stitching the two 17″ x 4″ pieces of linen together with a small opening for turning at the bottom. This piece was turned right side out and pressed flat.

The pocket piece was sewn to the bottom of the cover piece. Here you can see how simple the pocket is attached to the cover piece.

The pocket piece was stitched inside the cover piece at the sides and along the bottom.

To figure out where to stitch for the pencil pockets, I simply stuck pieces of masking tape vertically, all across the pocket piece, with a little margin between each piece of tape, and stitched between the pieces of masking tape. Several of the pockets weren’t exactly the same size but that was fine. That method of marking for the pockets was super easy and didn’t need any measuring or marking the fabric at all.

To keep the roll shut, I used what I had on hand – stretchy beading elastic tied in a loop.

For each girl, I made a custom set of pictures to color. I used Photoshop to alter photographs and printed the coloring pages on cardstock.

Some of the coloring pages I gave to the girls.

Boxes for pencils are nice, but there is another layer of artsy satisfaction when you unfurl a roll of creamy pencils tucked in soft linen.

Coloring with pencils

Here are two free coloring pages for you keep and print out.

Free coloring page – Do what is Beautiful and Never Give Up

Girl with Flowers in her Hair – a free coloring page for you.

Enjoy!

Woven Tortillas

04 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by Julia Monroe in cooking, food, Mexican, recipe, tutorial

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

cooking, food, Mexican, recipe, tutorial, woven tortillas

I don’t know what gave me the idea but I was eating a tortilla one day a couple weeks ago and thought it would be great to make a weaving of colored tortilla strips.

It took a week or so to hunt down colored tortillas. We found the green Spinach Wrap tortillas at Whole Foods and the spicy Habanero Lime tortillas at Trader Joes.

The first Woven Tortilla was made of strips of white and orange tortillas. I cut them with kitchen shears.

Strips of white Mission flour tortilla and orange Habanero Lime tortilla.

The Habanero Lime tortillas were a little smaller than the white Mission tortillas. I ended up using the center section of two Habanero tortillas to get enough strips that were long enough.

It was almost as easy as weaving paper strips, but tortillas are more fragile. None broke but I treated them gently.

Spicy Habanero Lime tortillas are woven together with a white flour tortilla.

Brushing the woven tortilla mat with olive oil helped the pieces stick together.

The woven tortilla mat is brushed with olive oil.

They still weren’t very stable though so I had to slide the woven piece into the skillet using a big spatula. Once one side was browned on medium heat, I placed another hot skillet over top and flipped it over. That was tricky! The tortilla mat still folded in half and it was a bit of work straightening out the strips.

The woven tortilla mat is lightly toasted on both sides over medium heat in a skillet.

Once they were lightly browned, the tortillas were more crisp and held together better. I slid the finished tortilla mat out of the skillet and onto the plate.

Woven Tortillas

Topped with black beans in a taco meat nest, scoops of guacamole and sour cream and a sprinkling of white cheddar, the Woven Tortillas looked and tasted wonderful!

Woven Tortillas, served with taco meat, black beans, guacamole, sour cream and cheddar cheese. Use knife and fork to eat.

I tried another method of weaving that stayed together easily. Instead of cutting the white tortilla into strips, I cut slits in it with a knife, then wove strips of colored tortilla through the slits.

Strips of Habanero tortilla are woven through slits in a white flour tortilla.

This time, I brushed olive oil on the white flour tortilla before weaving so the oil would help hold the pieces together. That worked great.

Woven Tortillas

Treating the tortillas gently so the one-piece white tortilla didn’t split at the ends, I carefully wove orange Habanero and green Spinach tortilla strips through the slits.

Green and orange tortilla strips are woven through the slits in a white flour tortilla.

Woven Tortillas are so fun and festive! Tasty too!

These take time so I recommend weaving them ahead of time, wrapping air tight and keeping the woven tortillas in the fridge. Brown them on medium heat right before serving.

Woven Tortillas – great way to add color and flavor to a Tex-Mex meal.

Lunch was festive and delicious!

Latte Magnets for the Water Counter

24 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by Julia Monroe in All Sparkled Up, crafts, DIY, On my Worktable, projects, tutorial

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crafts, DIY, health, magnets, refrigerator art, tutorial, water

“Did you drink anything today?”
“Yes… I think I did… I had a cup of coffee… maybe two…”
“Any water?”
One of my sons is keen on proper water consumption and I really appreciate his healthy diligence.

I keep a Water Counter on the refrigerator. You can check out the tutorial here.

To help curb my coffee intake, I made two Latte Magnets. From now on, it’s two cups of coffee a day max. Coffee is no substitute for water. In fact, caffeine actually dehydrates you and flushes fluid. So for each cup of coffee you drink, drink one or more cups of water to stay hydrated.

The magnets were first coated with gold acrylic paint.

The magnets are painted with gold acrylic paint.

Here you can see the finished magnets, as well as my test painting right on the tray.

For the test, I made a puddle of gold acrylic paint on the paint tray. Immediately after that, while the paint was wet, I used the tip of a toothpick to lightly dab on blobs of white gesso. The gesso was carefully dabbed on top of the wet gold paint, not mixed in. Then I used a toothpick to draw through the gesso and gold paint to make the design. The test worked great so I did the same thing on the magnets and let them dry overnight.

To make the design, I dabbed on two small blobs of white right next to each other for the heart and long thin “smilies” under, for the leaves. It only took one sweep of the toothpick down through the center to make the design.

White gesso is dabbed on a puddle of gold acrylic paint. A toothpick dragged down through the center of the wet paint creates the cute Latte design.

Little Latte Magnets.

Now when the water counter on the refrigerator just has two cups of coffee in it… that means drink more water!

Plastic wine glass Water Counter on my refrigerator with water, juice/wine and Latte Magnets. Today it’s one glass of juice, one cup of coffee and two glasses of water… need more water.

Super Bowl Soup with Chip Dip Dumplings

13 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by Julia Monroe in food, recipe

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chip dip, food, hot wings, leftovers, recipe, Super Bowl, tutorial

Well now, this post is a bit late! Ha ha! But the recipe is applicable to any party leftovers of hot wings, a veggie tray and chip dip. Hey, you don’t even need a party. The night we had this, the soup WAS the party!

What do you do after the Super Bowl game with all those delicious leftovers? I had some spicy Hot Chicken Wings, a veggie tray and chip dip. They were the perfect leftovers to make spicy Super Bowl Soup with Chip Dip Dumplings!

This recipe doesn’t need many measurements. Just use what you have and it will be delicious.

Start the soup broth by putting hot chicken wings in a couple quarts of water with a handful of herbs. I used Bouquet Garni.

Place hot chicken wings and a handful of fresh or dried herbs in a couple quarts of water in a pot.

Simmer a bit.

In the meantime, in a little oil and butter in a skillet, saute the veggie tray vegetables. I had pepper strips, carrots and broccoli and added more carrots.

When the veggies have browned a bit on the edges, add a little water to deglaze.
Use a slotted spoon to remove the chicken wings from the broth and let them cool on a plate.
Stir the veggies and liquid into the pot of broth. Simmer on low.

I added a bit of thyme and fresh rosemary along with the sauteed veggies.

While the soup is simmering, make the Chip Dip Dumplings. Whisk together 3 cups flour, 5 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt in a bowl. Cut 1/4 cup unsalted butter and 1/4 cup shortening into the dry ingredients until crumbly.

Measure about 3/4 cup chip dip. I had a little less so I added another spoonful of sour cream. Then I added milk to make about 1 1/4 cup of sour cream liquid. Beat one egg in a bowl.

Stir the sour cream mixture and egg into the flour mixture. Mix with a fork until everything sticks together.

The dumpling mixture will be sticky and lumpy.

Taste the soup and add more seasoning if desired. We added more Frank’s Red Hot sauce and Cholula Hot Sauce. I also transferred the soup into a bigger pot to make room for the dumplings to puff up. Add more water if necessary. The dumplings absorb quite a bit of liquid while cooking so it’s ok if there seems to be too much liquid.

Use a fork to drop blobs of dumpling dough on top of the simmering broth. The recipe makes a lot of dumplings, plenty for 8 or more servings. The dumplings will be crowded but that’s ok. Cover with a lid, turn down heat to low and time 15 minutes. While the dumplings are cooking, debone the chicken wings.

Remove the lid and check the dumplings. I use a fork to break one open. If it’s not done, I cover with the lid and time another couple minutes.

When the dumplings are done, use a big fork to lift them off the soup and transfer to another dish.

Look at that fluffy mountain of dumplings!

Stir the chicken meat into the soup and heat. The dumplings absorb a lot of liquid so add more water and seasonings if you want. Heat and serve.

Super Bowl Soup with Chip Dip Dumplings. What a yummy way to use party leftovers!

Super Bowl Soup with Chip Dip Dumplings. It was delicous!

Angel Curtain Treatment

12 Friday Dec 2014

Posted by Julia Monroe in All Sparkled Up, Christmas, DIY, holiday, home decor, lighting, sunlight, tutorial, Uncategorized

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Tags

angel, Angel Window Treatment, Christmas, Christmas window, curtain treatment, curtains, DIY, home decor, tutorial, window treatment

All I wanted was a little more light in the dining room so I gathered up the curtain in one hand and pulled it up and discovered … an Angel Curtain Treatment!

Angel Curtain Treatment

[Please excuse my unwashed window. We’ve pared back on a lot of things since my surgery. ;) ]

Normally, the sheer curtain just hangs over a tension rod stuck in the window frame. I don’t hang the curtain full length as normal, using the rod through the curtain sleeve, but rather just drape the floor-length panel over the tension rod so the pretty embroidered bottom edge hangs about halfway up the window as seen in this fall photo.
I also like the double thickness of the sheer when I hang the curtain like that.

To make the angel curtain treatment, all you need are two S hooks with lengths of ribbon tied on and whatever decoration you want to use for the top of the “angel head.” That’s it! One end of the ribbon is shorter than the other when tied, as you can see here.

I made two S hooks from an old hanger, making sure they would fit over the tension curtain rod. I like using the inner stiffening layer from men’s ties as ribbon. (You can see what else I used the tie pieces for here.) In this tutorial, I will call the wool tie interlining pieces “ribbons” for clarity.

The curtain is very light and airy and you can see how long it is here. I’m not sure this treatment would work as easily with a heavier curtain. Also, the top of the curtain will actually be the bottom of the angel’s dress. So the back of the curtain’s hemmed sleeve must look good.

To begin making the angel, the S hooks with ribbons were hung near the center of the rod.

The two shorter ends of the ribbons were tied loosely across the middle, wrapped several times to make the ends hang at the sides of the “angel head.” I didn’t have to tie any knots because the rough tie fabric held position easily when wrapped around several times. But if your ribbon is slick, like satin, you will have to pin it together to make it stay.

Here I’m lightly gathering the curtain in one hand, a little above the embroidered edge. I adjusted the curtain length over the rod and made sure the embroidered edge was arranged with pretty folds as I gathered it together.

Once the curtain was gathered together in my hand, I raised it up.

Again, I adjusted the folds to adjust the bottom of the curtain.

Once the curtain was held up, I looped the long left ribbon under and around the bundle of gathered curtain.

The two long long lengths of ribbon tie were tied together under the gathered bundle.

I fine tuned the embroidered curtain edge, pulling it down a bit to make it longer.

Here you can see the curtain sleeve from the top of the curtain now hanging at the bottom of the angel’s dress.

To finish the angel, I simply tucked a small halo of gold star holiday wire and a Christmas package decoration on top of the ribbon tie.

The finished Angel Curtain Treatment

An angel spreads her wings of sheer batiste. She disappears at night when I let the curtain down and the window sill lights shimmer through like stars.

To make this window treatment took less than 5 minutes. Seriously, it took longer to rummage through my old ribbon box to find the package decoration! To take it down, simply untie the ribbon from behind the curtain and remove the S hooks. Super simple.

And Thank You, Brenda, for your husband’s ties. This project finished up the linings I had from the first batch of ties. Your bag of ties will be plenty for new projects!

Sugar Bonnets

02 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by Julia Monroe in cake decorating, candy, crafts, food, recipe, tea time, tutorial, Uncategorized

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Tags

cake decorations, DIY, food, pressed sugar, recipe, sugar, Sugar Bonnet, Sugar Bonnets, sugar cubes, sugar decorations, Sugar Hats, sweets, tea time, tutorial

Sugar Bonnets, made with just sugar and water and a tiny bit of food color for the decoration. Each one is about 1 teaspoon of sugar.

I’ve been making these Sugar Bonnets for many years and used to sell them to a local tea room. Now I just make them to keep on hand for guests. They can be used for cake decorations but I just use them as sugar cubes to sweeten tea. Recently I made a batch for a Dessert Tea.

The Dessert Tea was so much fun! The tablescape was actually my entry for a Dessert Tablescape Contest by Rosanna Inc, which I will post about soon. Every year Rosanna has a terrific tablescape contest and the entries are beautiful. I seriously adore Rosanna’s style and look forward to seeing the entries every year. This is the first time I’ve entered and I’ll definitely be doing this again.

Oh my goodness, I had so much fun setting the table and baking all the treats! I’m looking forward to sharing photos with you soon.

I didn’t have a smaller table for my entry so there was a lot of table space to fill. I spread things out a bit and placed all the desserts on the front of the table but the back of the table had tea items, including a dish of Sugar Bonnets for the tea.

The back of the Dessert Table had items for tea, including a dish of Sugar Bonnets.

This is the recipe I wrote a long time ago for making Sugar Bonnets.

This is my recipe for Sugar Bonnets, written over 15 years ago.

This is my recipe for Sugar Bonnets, written well over a decade ago. I can’t even remember!

Each bonnet is about 1 teaspoon of sugar. The ingredients are just sugar and water. Perhaps with a little food coloring if you want other colors. They dissolve quickly in a cup of hot tea.

I do confess it takes dexterity and patience to make these but the effort is well worth it. And they keep for several years in an airtight container between layers of wax paper, perfect for on the tea tray.

I created the hat form from a cake decorating lily nail set, matte board and packing tape. There is a piece of packing-tape-wrapped matte board wrapped around the nail to form a small smooth edge, which becomes the hat brim. I’ve replaced the matte board and tape only once and it has held up amazingly well, even with a quick wash and air dry. Some day I’ll cut a piece of PVC pipe to replace the matte board piece.

The tools I use to make the Sugar Bonnets include a Lily Nail that I’ve adapted with tape and matte board.

The bottom of the lily nail, showing how the matte board has been secured to the nail.

I use a small baby spoon to spoon damp sugar into the lily nail. This is how I hold the nail while spooning in the sugar and making the initial “press” with the top of the lily nail. Holding the nail this way helps the sugar stick together around the “brim” of the hat.

Holding the custom lily nail before spooning in the damp sugar.

After spooning the damp sugar in the mold, the top of the lily nail is pressed down on the damp sugar and then the excess sugar is scraped off around the edge.

I’m sorry that I don’t have actual action photos since I didn’t have time to set up a tripod and remote. Holding a heavy camera with one hand to take a photo of your other hand sure isn’t easy! So I’ve reenacted a couple of the important steps. Here I’ve placed a dry sugar bonnet back in the mold. If the sugar were freshly pressed, it would fit tightly in the mold and the lily nail would be a tight fit on top of sugar.

The top of the lily nail is removed. Note: if the sugar sticks too much to either piece of the lily nail, wipe them clean with a damp cloth, dry them and then brush on a little bit of cornstarch with a clean paint brush. The amount is so small that you can’t even see it but it makes a difference.

The lily nail set with a sugar bonnet pressed in between.

The top of the lily nail is removed to show the shaped sugar piece.

The hardest part of making these is tapping out the fragile, freshly pressed sugar bonnet on the wax-paper lined cookie sheet. The sugar usually sticks a little in the mold so I hold the lily nail right above the cookie sheet and tap on the handle of the nail with the spatula and the hat drops right out.

The bonnets can not be moved for at least 15 minutes. Then I’ll carefully slide the barely dried ones in neat rows to dry further as I make more. They must be dried overnight to be strong enough to be handled.

If the sugar breaks as it’s tapped out of the mold, I just push the broken pieces aside.

There will be broken pieces. Even with a very light dusting of corn starch, the sugar still sticks a little in the mold.

Some broken pieces are inevitable. They can be reused if you mix the sugar immediately back in with the damp sugar. If they are even the tiniest dry on the edges, they can not be reused.

When the bonnets are dry, they are surprisingly sturdy. Once all the bonnets are drying, I make the sugar decorations.

Royal icing doesn’t melt in tea so the decorations are made like the bonnets, just sugar and water, perhaps colored with a little food coloring, then pressed into flower and leaf molds.

Sugar Bonnet decorations made of sugar, water and a little food coloring.

To make the decorating process more efficient, I line up all the decorations as they will be used on each sugar bonnet.

The bonnet decorations are attached using a drop or two of “sugar paste” which is simply sugar and water mixed together. I crush a bit of the sugar grains up with the back of the spoon while stirring in the water. The consistency is thick, but not dry.

Sugar and water are mixed to make the gritty “sugar paste” to attach the sugar decorations.

Small imperfections and cracks in the side of the hats aren’t a problem since decorations can be glued over the holes.

A small bit of sticky “sugar paste” covers a crack in the side.

Even a large hole can be covered using a decoration.

It’s so satisfying to see an entire cookie sheet covered with drying Sugar Bonnets.

The Sugar Bonnets are decorated and drying.

The only sweetener better than a sugar cube is a Sugar Bonnet.

The birthday girl drops a little Sugar Bonnet in her cup of tea.

It quickly dissolved.

The Sugar Bonnet quickly and completely dissolves in the cup of hot tea.

If you want less than one teaspoon of sugar in your tea, simply break a Sugar Bonnet into pieces.

Aren’t Sugar Bonnets sweet? Please let me know if you make them!

My granddaughter hold a little Sugar Bonnet before dropping it in her tea.

My granddaughter holds a little Sugar Bonnet before dropping it in her tea.

Sourdough Breadstick Cobras

19 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by Julia Monroe in baking, food, recipe, tutorial

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

bread, bread dough, breadsticks, food, meal, recipe, salad, sourdough bread dough, Sourdough Breadstick Cobras, sourdough starter, summer supper, supper, tutorial

We were scraping the bottom of the barrel for supper tonight. Things went from bad to worse when he forgot to put the yeast in the bread dough. He forgot to add the honey too and I forgot to check the dough, so much later we found the forlorn little lump in the bottom of the bread machine bowl. I was going to throw it out but decided to try breadsticks and called him out to help.

“What are we doing?” he called from the other room.

“Making bread sticks,” I called back. “Help me roll all these snakes.”

And so he did. I watched as he coiled up his snake like a … snake.

So then I figured we might as well make a bunch of snakes, cobras, actually, with little flat heads and perky tails. They were delicious and adorable!

The recipe is my Sourdough Grain Bread recipe, found here, but WITHOUT adding yeast or honey and using the starter cold, straight from the refrigerator unfed.
These chewy breadsticks need a tiny little rise so it’s essential to use a good sourdough starter in the recipe.

SOURDOUGH BREADSTICK COBRAS

Prepare a shallow muffin tin by greasing the muffin cups. Place a tart tin upside down as shown next to each muffin cup. Roll a small piece of tin foil into a ball and place in each muffin cup.
Roll a piece of sourdough bread dough, about the size of a small egg, 16″ long, with a little taper at one end for the tail.

Lift the long piece of dough and place the tail over the muffin cup edge. Slowly lower the long piece of dough into the muffin cup, around the foil ball twice and then back up out of the muffin cup, draping the end over the tart tin. Pinch the end flat to form the cobra head. Ours puffed up more than I thought in the oven so next time I will flatten them even more.

The sourdough “snakes” are formed into snakes and positioned over a foil ball and tart tin.

Beat one egg white and use a small brush to brush the cobras. Sprinkle with sea salt.
Bake at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes. (NOTE: Ours seemed barely underdone so next time I will quickly remove the foil balls and pop them back in the oven for another minute.)

Bake at 375 for 15 or so minutes.

Remove from oven and remove from the muffin cups. Pull out the foil balls. Ours didn’t stick, even though they weren’t greased.

Aren’t they adorable?

Who could complain about a sorry-lettuce salad, canned beans and fried egg yolk supper when there were Sourdough Breadstick Cobras?

Salad with beans and Fried Egg Yolk and a Sourdough Breadstick Cobra

Perfect for a warm summer evening. So what started as a recipe fail ended up as an Oh my goodness “play with your food” meal!

Homemade Goldfish Crackers by the slice

02 Friday Aug 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in baking, food, grandkids, recipe, tutorial

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Tags

after school snack, baking, cheddar crackers, crackers, food, Goldfish crackers, homemade crackers, king arthur flour, recipe, snack, tutorial

The boys say the flavor is closer to Cheez-Its than Goldfish, but either way they are delicious!
I used King Arthur Flour’s recipe for Cheese Pennies from their Baker’s Companion cookbook.
This is our version to make the Goldfish.
2 cups finely grated sharp cheddar cheese
8 tbsp unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dry mustard
a generous 1/8 tsp Ground Red Chipotle

In a bowl, combine all ingredients to make a dough that sticks together. Add one teaspoon of water at a time if necessary, just enough to make the dough squeeze together. Squish the dough together and it should be a nice consistency, like playdough. Which is great because the next part is playing with the dough!

Divide the dough into a couple pieces. We made two small 1/2″ logs for “bubbles” and three 1 1/4″ logs to make the fish. To make the gold fish, work with one log at a time.
1 Pinch the length of the top for the mouth end of the fish.

Pinch along the roll to form the front of the fish.

3 For the tail, carefully slit about 1/4″ into the round side of the log.

4. Pinch the two sides of the slit you made in the log to form the two tail fins.

5 As you pinch the fins out, also press at the base of the fin to form the fish body shape.

6 Once the basic tail shape has been formed, press the tail between two wood spoon handles to straighten out the fish body.

8 I also pressed each side of the tail against the spoon if the tail seemed too misshapen.

9 The finished goldfish roll.

10 Repeat for the other two rolls of dough to make goldfish rolls.

11 Place the rolls on wax paper on a tray and place in freezer for no more than 20 minutes. If the dough is too cold, it might crack as you slice it. If it gets frozen, just let it thaw for a couple minutes before slicing.

12 To make the bubbles, cut the round roll into 3/16″ slices and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. The crackers don’t raise so they can be placed fairly close together.

13 Bake the round “bubbles” at 375 for about 9 minutes. They won’t burn quickly so just watch them and pull them out when they are lightly brown on the bottoms. Turn out on paper towels to cool.

14 Using a sharp, non-serrated knife, slice the goldfish rolls about 1/4″ thick and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

16 Aren’t these cool?

20 The dough doesn’t raise much so the goldfish can be placed fairly close together.
Bake at 400 for 14 minutes. Cool on paper towels.

21 The Goldfish Crackers are all ready for her.

Goldfish in a bowl.

22 She walks home from school with her mom and little brother.

23 And then we have tea (Apple Juice or Water) and Goldfish and Shortbread.

25 We ate them by the handful. None got away.

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

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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.