Marvel and Victorious

So it has been FOREVER since I last blogged. And by forever, naturally I mean 5 months. Pretty sure that is how Webster's defines it... Anyhow, as you might have guessed, I have done some awesome things these past 5 months that the world should know about. Or like the 3 people who will read this. It would probably make sense to write about the project chronologically, but where is the fun in that? So I will start with one of my favs: SPIKE'S BIRTHDAY PRESENT!!! (From June '14).

So for those of you who didn't see Spike's 2013 birthday present, I had a comic book cover drawn up making him the hero [Insert some corny statement here about him being my hero]. As you may have guessed, Spike is a bit of a comic book nerd.

This year for his birthday, I again wanted to incorporate his love for comics, without replaying last year's idea. After some much need Pinteresting time, I found it! People were making and selling pieces of furniture collaged with different comic book images. Rather than buying something that wasn't necessarily tailored to Spike, I decided to go ahead and make it myself. After all, I am no stranger to Mod Podge, in fact I am obsessed with it. And if you don't know what Mod Podge is, shut your computer down, go to Michael's, and BUY SOME! Become a collage master! It's vital!


Here was the final product for those of you who rather not read all the steps:

Awesome, right? It looks even cooler in person.

Here is how I did it:

Step 1: Find the piece of furniture
I looked around for a while before I settled on this 2 drawer wood mini filing cabinet. I wanted something that has a flat surface, that way it would be easier to decoupage and collage all the comics together. I finally settled on this.

Step 2: Casually bring up the topic of Comics to Spike in order to find out the name of his favorite Artist
The point of making this myself was to make it custom for Spike. So I wanted to make sure all his favorite comics were on there, as well as his favorite Artists of those comics. Spike is a Marvel man. This I know. Spiderman is his guy. This I know. His favorite artist though? He definitely told me. Probably should've known it. But had no idea. Luckily it was pretty easy to get the 411 out of him without causing any suspicion. What? I'm just taking interest in his interests! That's what girlfriends are supposed to do, right? Well, turns out its John Romita, Jr..

Step 3: Track down and purchase the Comics
In the end, I purchased maybe 3 comic books (those softcover books that have like 10 actual comic stories in them). And a book that was all about Romita, Jr. that way I would have a selection of his comics.


Step 4: Buy the decoupage materials
- Medium Sized Mod Podge Gloss (You can go with Matte too for a less shiny finish)
- 4-5 big/small foam brushes (I like these best as they are REALLY cheap and you don't feel guilty about chucking them once you're done)
- Mod Podge Roller & Scraper (this gets the air bubbles from under the picture so that way there aren't bumps everywhere... MUST HAVE! trust me, I learned this the hard way).

Step 5: Cut up all the comics
Go through the comic books, and find strips or images of all shapes and sizes that you want to incorporate. The more the better! You can always throw them out if you have extras, but it gets tedious if you have to constantly sift through the comic books mid-project to find the right comic strip. I used a photo box to store all the pre-cut comics in.

Step 6: Label all the pieces of the assembled furniture

This step, while a tad boring, is necessary. Use the instruction manual, and figure out which piece is what. Then take some scotch tape, put a strip on the back of each piece, and label what it is which a sharpie/pen. *MAKE SURE TO PUT AN ARROW TO INDICATE WHAT IS THE TOP SIDE!* With this kind of cheaper furniture, the sides that are going to be in the back or facing down, are often times unfinished. Also, the holes are in proper places for assemble. The problem here is you can accidentally decoupage all the comics facing the wrong way and that looks like shit. (Again, learned this the hard way!) But don't fret, decoupage is so awesome, that if you do fuck up, you can use an exacto knife to take off the entire layer of comics and replace it right-side-up.

Step 7: IT'S DECOUPAGE TIME! (to the hammer time tune)
 

Quick decoupage tutorial if you haven't done it before: Use the decoupage as the glue, using the foam brush apply to the back of the comic strip. Place wherever you want it. Use your Mod Podge roller and scraper to release all excess glue and bumps. Keep collaging until you can no longer see the furniture. Cut off any comic strips that may go over the edge of the furniture piece. Once all desired pieces have been collaged, use the Mod Podge as the top coat. Apply an even layer with the foam brush, always going in the same direction. Once dry, apply a second coat.

Step 8: Assemble the Furniture
Take off that tape, and pull out the instruction manual. I'm no dude, I ALWAYS use the manual. Too many nails... I need my shit organized. To add a special touch: Buy custom drawer knobs. I got these Marvels Avengers ones in blue, then put the extras in the drawer in case he ever wanted to switch them out. Also, I wrote a little note on the inside of the bottom drawer, to add that level of corniness every birthday present needs.

Step 9: Bask in the utter satisfaction of him LOVING your present
That is all.

Baked and Glorious

Although I don't know if I would classify this as "crafty," I recently became ADDICTED To baking. All gluten-free of course. My bible? My guide? The Gluten Free Goddess herself. I honestly never thought I could or would bake. Funny now as I sit in my kitchen with my apron on in front of my oven, watching in awe as my g-f Cinnamon Raisin scones rise. RISE! RISE! (Isn't that a quote from Hocus Pocus??)

Anyway, it all started before St. Patrick's Day. I LOVE Irish Soda Bread but being gluten free it was just another thing I had to give up. Truthfully, I don't miss much about gluten. But Irish Soda Bread is definitely one thing that still hold my heart. Well as it turns out there are about one million different versions of how to make GF Irish Soda Bread on the web. Some seemed simple, some really complex. I finally decided on this one. Seemed doable... Until I saw the 5 different kinds of flour/starch I needed to make it. But I was determined. $80.00 later I had all the ingredients. And I did it. And it was fantastic.

A few days later when I decided to make dinner again for my sisters, I decided to bake something again, as I had so many damn kinds of flour/starch/weird ass ingredients taking up room in my cabinets. That's when I made Quinoa Pumpkin Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies (from my girl the gfgoddess). They were delicious. So rare I get to eat gooey yummy different kinds of cookies. Most GF cookies in the store are hard and stale and ALWAYS plain chocolate chip.

From there I went on to make Chocolate Chip Banana Bread (YUM!), Orange & Cranberry Soda Bread (my sister loved the first soda bread so much I had to make some again for her,) Pumpkin Pecan Muffins, and Carrot Cake Muffins. And as I write, my Cinnamon Zuchinni Bread is cooling and my Cinnamon Raisin Scones are baking in the oven. I mean this has all happened in a few weeks.

Top: Carrot Cake Muffins - Bottom: Choc-Chip Banana Bread

Left: Pumpkin Pecan Muffins - Right: Orange & Cranberry Soda Bread

I've also been cooking new recipes, but like, I always do that so it doesn't feel as special.

So next time you see me, please ask for some baked goods, because as much as I love them, I gotsta watch my figure.

Another Dinner Party Success

Last night Spike and I hosted an awesome (and adorable) dinner party for some couple friends of ours. The question on everyone's lips... the theme? Well, at first I came up with the idea of doing "couples," aka things that go together, like mac and cheese, spaghetti and meatballs, etc. The idea, let's admit, is genius. The only downside was applying the idea to the decor. I am not really into the kitschy application of a theme. I mean obviously I could've done famous couple featured centerpieces and things of the sort, but like... I wanted it to be pretty. I have been helping my sister move into her new apartment and her colors are seafoam, yellow and lime green. Which are beautiful together. The scheme started to inspire me, and with a little pinterest binge, the idea came to me: American Nuvo.

One of my favorite things about a dinner party is setting the table. I treat it like a blank canvas. You take this rectangle, or circle, or whatever shape and you add the background, the textures, the colors and you have this fantastic,  unique work of art. On pinterest I saw the idea of using brown paper as the tablecloth so the guests can color on the table. Pinterest had it featured as an element for a "girls night in pizza party," so I repurposed it.

I went to Michaels and got 2 green watering cans, the white doiley chargers, the chalkboard & clothespin name tags, and mason jars. I also went on the hunt for some lace. I've seen online lace tape, which would've been great, but on short notice I couldn't find it. Michaels did, however, have this lace ribbon which was beautiful. After the brown paper was taped onto the table, I took the lace ribbon and did two strips in the middle to act as a table runner and stapled it to the paper. Super easy and really added a level of class to the simple brown paper. Keeping with the couples theme, there were two watering cans, and two types of flowers for the centerpieces.

Oh, I also bought some twine string! I used this to tie 2 crayons together for each person, as well as a making pseudo napkin rings. Everyone had a great time coloring all over the table. While I will admit I love to make things look delicate and fancy, I like to think of myself as a very informal person. This way the presentation got to be pretty and had that "OMG" shock value, but at the end it became just fun and the best part: easy clean up! After dinner we played Cards Against Humanity, so we kept score right on the table cloth!

The Food!!

Okay, so I was still into the couple thing, but now I needed to add the American theme to it all... which actually was easier than expected. For the appetizers we did Pigs in a Blanket and Mac 'n' Cheese... but of course with a twist.

"Pigs in a Blanket": Wasn't as easy as I thought to find a good recipe for pigs in a blanket with a twist. For a "breakfast for dinner" themed dinner party Spike and I threw in the past we did breakfast sausages in croissants. But I wanted to try something else. Then I found this Chorizo in Cornbread Mini-Muffin Recipe. Being that I am gluten-free I couldn't try them, but they were a big hit.

Next up was the Mac 'n' Cheese. Very traditional American, and also a perfect pairing. While the recipe was pretty basic, I baked the premade M&C in a cupcake pan. Adorbs, simply adorbs. And apparently tasty (although again I missed out on the tasting).

Spike then came up with the idea of doing a "couples shot." This past summer we went to the Loveless Cafe in Nashville and they gave us these cute mason jar shot glasses to keep. Spike's brother makes this AMAZING homemade Cinnamon Apple Pie Moonshine (which Spike gives out very sparingly because its that exclusively good). Each couple shared a shot of this piece of heaven in a mini-mason jar as we toasted the start to an awesome evening.

Unfortunately at this point I had already had a couple drinks and was in the swing of things and stopped taking pictures of all the treats. But I will give you a quick run down of the rest of the meal.

The Signature Drink: Rosemary Infused Watermelon Hard Lemonade
A lot of work, but in the end it came out amazing! Like I had 3 glasses and wanted so much more! (and I don't even like watermelon). Basically what I did was I used this recipe and added lots o' vodka. Yum!!

The Main Course: Orange Glazed Turkey Meatballs w/ Zucchini Pasta in a Pecorino Cheese Sauce
This was our play on "Spaghetti and Meatballs." This was the recipe I found for the turkey meatballs. I made them bigger than the recipe calls for, just for convenience sake. So fucking good! I also made them early, before everyone came over, and put them in my slow cooker on warm, that way they were done and I didn't have to stress out about them while trying to host. The "spaghetti" though was my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE. This dish was all Spike. (He had made it for me before and I just loved it). This was the recipe he used as his inspiration. What you do is take zucchini (a lot of them) and use a peeler to take off and discard the skin, then continue peeling the zucchini until you hit the seeds. All these peels them become your pasta. The recipe calls for using real pasta as well, but Spike just used all zucchini, which in the end is much healthier and super tasty. I may have eaten 3+ servings of this, no big deal.

The Side Dish: Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes
Although it is not really a perfect couple pairing, just because its called "twice" made this a no brainer. I went with sweet potatoes as opposed to regular potatoes in order to keep up the eclectic theme. The recipe I found on my fav website Allrecipes (I don't know why I love it, I just do) called for mini-marshmellows to top off the sweet potatoes, so yea, had to be done! And it went really well with the orange-glazed turkey meatballs.

The Dessert: Gluten-free Apple Pie a la mode and Chocolate-covered Strawberries
I have to admit, I didn't make any of this. I have a hard time relinquishing control... maybe you've noticed. But, come on!!! I'm kind of awesome. Anyway, Spike convinced me to let some of the guests make the desserts and they did, and they were AWESOME!

I know I write wayyyy too much and I'm sure you have given up after the first sentence, but if you did get through it all- please use some of these ideas and have an awesome dinner party of your own... and maybe invite me? Yes? No?

Ciao for now...

 

For Throw Backs, Thursday is.

So yes, I converted the phrase "throw back thursday" to Yoda speak. I may have found a Yoda-talk-converter online. Right now I am hungry and bored at work, forgot to eat lunch.

A little background: my boyfriend, Spike, is a huge Star Wars fan, before dating him I had never seen any of the movies. Not gonna lie... I never intended to either (sorry). Anyway, I had been giving Spike a lot of shit for making me watch the movies. I procrastinated as much as possible (which ultimately resulted in a 5 month stint of "no, I'm too tired for the force right now," and "okay finnnneeeeeee.") Okay, I started feeling guilty. I was kind of being a bitch about something Spike cared about. So I did what I do best, turned it into a theme.

In case you haven't realized by now, I fucking love themes. Anything I can turn into an elaborate project, I... do. I don't mean to, but I just have so many ideas and once I get started I don't know how to dial it back.

I googled the shit out of "Star Wars theme dinners" and while some stuff was inspirational, others were lame as shit. So for all you people out there (if there are even people out there reading this) who want to throw their significant other an awesome Star Wars themed dinner, or maybe just, you know, spice up a Tuesday evening, here's what I did:

The appetizer: Yoda Salad
I took a head of lettuce and balanced it on an open Tupperware. Got water chestnuts (pre-cut in a can), black olives and cucumbers. Then I took toothpicks and just put the eyes together (water chestnuts with black olives on top), nose (end of the cucumber), mouth (cut out slice of cucumber) and for the ears I just cut the insides of the cucumbers out in a triangular way to look like Yoda's ears. It looked pretty stupid just sitting there on an open Tupperware container, so I grabbed a tanish-brown dish towel I had and wrapped it around it to look like Yoda's cloak. AND IT WAS PERFECT! (I made a separate salad on the side we could actually eat because it seemed cruel to cut into Yoda).

The dinner: Tauntaun biscuit with spaghetti & sausage guts a la vodka
I saw this one online. I bought some Pillsbury biscuits and shaped them to look like the dead tauntaun from Star Wars episode V (not sure if I'm actually correct on the movie there). But remember that scene where Han cuts open the tauntaun to keep Luke warm? Its like that, yo. Put the biscuit in the oven to cook. Made some spaghetti a la vodka with some sausage to look like guts and set it up to look like it was spilling out. I was surprised it came out so good. I'm not really a baker.

The side dish: Light Saber Asparagus
I deff wanted to do light sabers for the dinner and was having a hard time coming up with a way. In the end I sautéed some asparagus and added some pit-less black olives to the ends. Another alternative I was thinking of (that would've been more appetizing) was mushroom stems, but I couldn't find the right shrooms so last minute. (We took off the olives before eating the asparagus... because like... ew.)

The dessert: Princess Leia Cupcakes
I also got this one off the internet. Made some cupcakes (vanilla) covered the top with white frosting (that bitch pasty) then used sprinkles to make eyes and mouth). The cool part was then you take frosting, put a slab of it on one side of an oreo and stick 2 on either side of the cupcake to look like her hair.

Of course then I went onto getting a couple cute party stuff from The City, For Partying is (am I playing it out? too much Yoda speak??). And of course, threw my hair in some buns, dressed up in a white outfit and instant Princess Leia.

Ultimately, Spike was really happy. And I think that was when he realized I was a complete dork... who I kidding? He's probably known that since day 1.

There you go. Star Wars Dinner.

Super Mariah Party: Mission Accomplished

Yesterday was Super Mariah Party. After several long nights and days getting everything ready I was very proud with how it came out. I mean, of course, there were a good amount of fights that broke out. We are a competitive family full of soar losers and winners.

Mariah and I spent our Saturday night getting the last minute things together. I went to Staples and had a giant mustache-less poster of Mario printed up. Then later on we made mustaches out of construction paper, threw some double sided tape on the back and played Pin the Mustache on the Mario.

Mariah and I had a great time decorating the balloons. Went to Party City and ordered 6 white, 6 black and a few gold star balloons. Ghosts, bombs, Chomp-chomps galore.

The dice block was a last minute add on and I was super happy I did it. Basically just got a cardboard box, wrapped it in red wrapping paper (left over from making the giant gameboy), added some yellow construction paper and drew the numbers onto it. It was a good time chucking it around the house.

For the spaces, ultimately I decided to use felt paper for the spaces. It was 33 cents a piece but stayed in place and looked a lot better than regular paper. Plus the prices they charge for a pack of colored card stock paper was like $20 a pop, so the price was about the same in the end, and the felt paper worked out much better than paper would have.

Despite the minor complications (e.g. my siblings and I predisposition to being hot messes) I think it was a success. And also, we looked super cute!

 (More specific details to come on the actual mini-games later on when I'm not so exhausted...)

Super MARIAH Party: The Hats

Okay so the characters will be Toad & Bowser as helpers/hosts and Yoshi (Me!), Birdo, Mario and Luigi as the contestants.

Instead of making elaborate costumes or buying some that would cost too much for a one day extravaganza, I decided just to make/buy everyone hats, then let them where what they think is appropriate for their character. Mario and Luigi were easy, just went to Party City and bought a red and green cap, printed out the logos and stapled them onto the hats. Yoshi I bought off ebay (which I'm still waiting to be delivered, so if it doesn't come in time there may be a last minute yoshi hat creation in my future). Toad I had to also buy, which I'm glad I did because the Toad hat is kind of awesome. It's big, fluffy and adorbs. The Birdo and Bowser hats were the real bitches. I thought about making a Birdo hat but wanted Mariah to have something cooler, and I couldn't really think of a great way of going about it in a timely/cost-efficient manner, so I googled the shit out of "Birdo hats" until I found one. I mean there was some weird shit out there...

like... no. just no.

But then I stumbled upon an awesome site where this lady actually sells knitted Birdo hats. I ordered it right after the holidays and wanted to make sure I would have it by 1/12/14, the day of SUPER MARIAH PARTY! So I emailed the site owner and she has very nice and able to help me out, sending me the hat ASAP. CHECK OUT HER AWESOME BIRDO HATS HERE

Then the only one left is Bowser... fucking bowser. Again weird ass complicated shit exists out there on the webisphere for Bowser hats/costumes. I had all but given up when I saw a picture of my boyfriend and I had taken in a photobooth in which he is wearing a Viking hat. So I went for it... I got a viking hat at party city, along with an orange mohawk wig. Then hopped over to Home Depot and got some glue, green spray paint and some blue painting tape. I currently have paint and glue all over my hands, so I suggest if you're going to try this, BUY SOME GLOVES! Unfortunately, while my ideas are admittedly solid, I don't always think through the logistics of it all, especially when it involves cleaning.

BAM! A mothafuckin Bowser Hat!!

Super MARIAH Party: The Idea

So yes, I am a loser and I spend way too much time where I should be working... ummm... doing crafty things that to most seem extremely dorky. Well, they are. And I don't care because its fun and I kick ass at it.

So for my little sister's "Chrismukkah" present I decided to do something a little different this year. She has so much crap. And by "so much" I mean she has everything. All the crap in the world my little sister has. What she doesn't have, however, is a lot of quality time with her 3 older siblings that are in their 20s while she is in middle school. I started thinking of something I could do that would involve all 4 of the siblings, something that would be fun and different. Then it came to me, like divine intervention, (wait do Jews believe in that??) SUPER MARIAH PARTY!

The back story: my siblings and I love Super Mario Party. Okay, not much of a "story." Basically what this would involve would be making a real-life Super Mario Party-like game set up around my mom's house. If you've ever played Mario Party (which if you haven't, you need to stop what you're doing and get to it) its involved. There are different kinds of spaces, mini-games, maps, stars, coins, yada yada yada.

ANYWAY... this is what I gave Mariah for Chrismukkah:

Basically just took a cardboard box (actually lucked out on this one because the guys at Staples were throwing out boxes that held a poster paper shipment so they just gave it to me, AND IT WAS THE PERFECT SIZE!) and then I wrapped it in red wrapping paper and drew in the buttons at the bottom. Then took the top of a clothes box (had like a 100 of them for holiday presents) taped it on and added the printed out graphic that I had already made. The graphic actually lifts up to reveal "Featuring" pages that display who will be what character in the game. Mariah likes birdo, so had to make sure that diva was in there.

Mariah is super excited. I am in the midst of getting all the shit together. Only 3 days away!!