DIY project: napkin pompom/flowers

Find the whole DIY list here!

As far as my love for useless decorative items, pompoms are right up there with tassels and stuff with birds on it. I can never get enough. 

Stack 4 large, good quality napkins together and fold them fan or accordian style and tie the middle with a large garbage bag twist-tie.

Trim the ends in any shape you want. I went triangular. Basically because it was really tough to work my scissors through all that paper.

Then my pompom looked like this and I wasn't very happy with it.

So I tediously went back and scalloped all the edges. (That's my first, not-so-hot prototype in the background.)

bookmark DIYer

Hello. I have a problem. I'm a chronic bookmark DIYer.

What's that you say? That is when someone goes around collecting DIY projects to do but actually never does them.

Cuz it's far easier to collect projects than to actually do them, right?

Some of my collected DIYs aren't even actual DIYs. They're random products I see that I really can't think to spend that much money on, so out of my mouth comes, "I can make that." And I file it away in the back of my mind to do later, but guess what happens?

I never do it later.

So I decided to do something about it. More specifically, I've decided to try to work through my entire DIY list this month. I don't know if it's going to get done in one month, it might actually take two months, but I wanted to put it down right here in writing.

Because sometimes that's all it takes to motivate me.

All right. Here are my bookmarked DIYs in no particular order:

• fabric window cover
• green cleaners
• heart-shaped bokeh lens hood
• shower curtain
• duvet cover
• pads of paper
• t-shirt bag (my project)
• ruffled pillow
• napkin paper pom-poms (my project)
• t-shirt jersey necklace
• upcycled leather bracelets
• cement planters
• pom pom flowers
• silk flowers
• braided hex nut bracelet
• homemade toothpaste
• bedsheet shower curtain
• light fixture bird bath
• box braid necklace
• fabric wreath (my project)
• no fuss foam roses (my project)
• magnetic gate latch (my project)

Wow. That exhausted me just typing them all out. Looks like I'm going to need a lot of t-shirt material!

I also have in-my-head DIYs, photographs from stores DIYs, Pinterest DIYs, and random pictures I saw on the internet DIYs (I would post the pictures but I saved them to my computer so long ago, I don't remember their source, so I don't want to post them. I'm getting quite anal regarding crediting source material -- not like I wasn't already). I'll list these ones as they're finished below!

• anthropology travel card
• gift tag envelope stamp
• pop-up flower card
• turn half wine barrels into planters
• decoupage thrifted mirror frame
• napkin folding tutorial
• envelopes from any paper

I think a good goal would be 5 DIYs per month. One per week, essentially. But let's see how much I can really get done in a month, shall we?

Let the DIYs begin!

how to freeze birthday cake

{supplies}

Of course, you're gonna need some leftover birthday cake. Mine was pretty rich and filling, so we had three quarters left. You'll want to make sure the cake is already cold. Like, straight out of the fridge cold. We don't want smeared icing now or later. Also get some parchment paper and a large baking sheet. Alternatively you could use a silpat instead of the parchment paper. You could also try placing the cake directly on the pan as I don't think they'd stick that terribly but I didn't try it, so I don't know.

{method}

phase one

Cut up your cake into portion sizes you'll want to eat later. You could totally freeze a whole half but then you'll also have to unfreeze a whole half to have some, so it really depends on how many people plan on enjoying this cake later as to whether you want to slice it or not. Personally, I'm a big fan of measuring portions out before freezing. I do it with everything. It just makes it easier to take out what you need and ensures that there's no overindulgence or leftovers.

Take your slices and arrange them on the baking sheet making sure they don't touch. This is the pretty part. Commencing pretty slice pictures!

{method}

phase two

Put the tray of cake into the freezer. Check out my highly advanced system of plastic containers/pan holder-uppers. Leave your cake in there till it's frozen solid (or as solid as cake can get). I think I left mine for a good 6-8 hours. I thought about leaving it overnight, but then I realized I was just being lazy.

Once the cake is frozen, throw it into some freezer bags. I mean, don't throw it. The icing will break off if you toss it around. So hold the bag open with one hand and gingerly (as if handling a bomb) place it inside. Then even more gingerly try to squeeze as much air out of the bag as possible and seal the top.

There's two of us so I put two cake slices per bag. If there's four of you... well, you know. This way, when we want cake, I just have to take one bag out.

This is the most important step: put the bags back into the freezer. What's the point otherwise? I would make sure they sit on top of whatever you've got in there. Don't go throwing a whole roast on them. I don't think that'll end well.

Do not ask me how long they'll last in the freezer. This is cake we're talking about here. Are you honestly going to store them for longer than three weeks?! Do you really have that much will-power? Cuz hats off to you if you do. We're currently trying to "eat better" and "be healthier" so we plan on indulging in cake only on Saturdays. Therefore, the longest these babies are going to be in the freezer will be three weeks. I'll let you know if anything terrible happens to the third week cakes, but I think they'll come out just fine.

We tasted two slices after one week of being frozen. I took them out of the freezer, put them on the plates we wanted to eat off of, and let them unthaw. Please note that the cake and the buttercream unthaw at different rates. We ate the cake after it had been out for an hour and 45 minutes and could easily be cut into with a fork. We definitely rushed the buttercream, though, as it was still a little solid and not very pleasant eating (to me; Idle Husband thought it tasted the same). I couldn't eat a lot of the buttercream, so I left it on the plate for another 3-4 hours. At that point, the buttercream had softened up a lot and tasted just as it did the day I made it. Lesson learned: don't worry about whether you can get a fork into the cake or not, base all of your thawing judgement on the buttercream.

The cake, including the cream cheese filling, was delicious as well. It was still moist and flavourful and didn't taste at all of freezer (you know that freezer, I'm-not-fresh taste). And I love that it's frozen and I can easily unthaw just what we need when we want it. It's so much safer better than having a whole cake around with just the two of us.

{Get the cake recipe here}

march recap

delicious treats from San Franscisco

exotic candies

I discovered that Hermes loves playing with his own feathers

my favourite teacup

fake flowers

real flowers

impossible menus

cake!

recent finds

I've been doing a little more thrifting lately in the hopes of finding some retro furniture pieces, but unfortunately, I've been coming up empty-handed. Do you know what sucks about living in a city that has an IKEA? Every piece of second-hand furniture is from IKEA. It's getting a little irritating. I have been finding a lot of art pieces and tchotchkes (I knew a guy who would refer to tchotchkes as "pretty-pretties" Fitting, right?). Here are some of my recent favourites.

Meet our new extended family! When I saw this picture at Goodwill, I just couldn't leave it behind. It's one of those photos you can always stare at and ponder, you know? Who are they? What are they all there for? Look at their eyebrows! (The ladies and their hair styles, clothes, and, yes, eyebrows are amazing!)

Oh well. I'm starting to break my own rule of not going down the tchotchke aisle. The blue bird was a little overpriced, I'll admit, but it's also a vase! There's a little container on the back with a string so you can put some tiny buds in it and hang it on the wall. The blue jay was part of a set of three. The other two were both hummingbirds and I already have a hummingbird, so I opted to break them up. I don't usually like breaking sets up, but I thought it would look weird to have all three. The plastic resin was a disgusting tobacco smoke yellow when I bought it, and I thought it was supposed to be like that. But when I washed it to get the sticker off, it came out crystal clear!

Do you ever find stuff that's just too weird and mysterious NOT to buy? This piece is all leather. Yup. A black leather landscape. I really stewed on this one. It had dust in every fold and pocket and I had no idea where I'd put it since it's so far removed from anything else I have, but it was just one of those things that I thought I'd never ever see again. I had to have it. (Even if it meant I'd have to give it regular Q-tip dust cleanings.)

At first I thought it would be better if there were a pair of these, but now I really like that there's just one. It's a little treasure on my bookshelf. Besides, OWL. BOOKEND. Who would ever pass that up?!

The Goodwill I was at (the one near West Edmonton Mall) had a TON of fantastic embroidered art pieces. I've really never seen so many in one thrift store at one time. Unfortunately, there was some guy frantically going through the stacks of art grabbing all of the cheaper ones out (like completely dominating the whole section until he was finished -- so annoying). But I managed to get this one of purple thistles because it was up at the front of the store in an inconspicuous place. It's in perfect condition and it's really quite large (mom has the only other embroidered flower piece I've ever seen that matches its size -- gah. I need to get my grubby mitts on that one, too). Yesterday, Idle Husband suggested we put it on the wall opposite the staircase and it's so perfect for that spot, I don't even notice it's there. It was meant to be.

Not related to thrifting at all, I saw the new installations at Anthropology and I was really smitten with these humongous daisies. I want one!

what the heck do they do with all of this cool stuff when they change the store around again?