Fake It 'til you Make It

Hi Everybody!

I am a firm believer in the "fake it 'til you make it" concept, because if you're anything like me, you probably really are qualified to do a lot more than you think you can do, but you don't try those things because they're scary.

Why am I talking about this?  I joined a new library today.  I haven't been to a library in a couple of years, but since I'm living in one place for the whole summer I finally have the opportunity to join one again.  After I got my card, I wandered over to the stacks and suddenly felt overwhelmed and unsure if I still remembered how to find the books I wanted.  But here's the kicker: in college I took a whole semester of Advanced Research Methods where we did nothing but learn how to use the library.  With that in mind, I gave myself a self-depricating peptalk ("Really, Laura, really?!?!") and marched myself over to the computer to look at the library catalogue, because that's what you do at a library.  I knew that if I made myself go through the motions and make it look like I knew what I was doing, I would remember how to do it along the way.  And that's exactly what happened.

That same principle applies to trying out craft projects.  If you find instructions for an adorable craft project that seems a little out of your league, ignore the doubts in the back of your mind and give it a shot.  You just might be amazed by the results.

Fake it 'til you make it, Baby!
xoxo
Laura

Embroidery Floss-Wrapped Soap Dispenser

Hello Internet-Friends!

Check out my latest creation:

I fully understand that this project may seem a little superfluous, but in my world it is not.  In my world, I am looking for a silver lining to my very least favorite household chore which is washing dishes.  On top of it being my least favorite chore, I am also currently living in an apartment complex with all the original decorative stylings of the 1970s, so I get to do the dishes in the monstrosity pictured below.

I love my job and I love that they provide me with a place to live, but my HGTV watching, pinterest pinning heart cries out just a little bit more every time I walk across the speckled linoleum floor and fill up that brown sink with soapy water.

Our apartment may be living in the past, but we are members of the Costco cardholding present day.  Because of that, we have a jumbo-sized jug of dish soap under our sink that Justin cleverly decided to pour into a smaller hand-soap dispenser that we had used up.  That little dispenser was already my favorite part of doing dishes because I get a kick out of the way it squirts the soap onto the dishes when I pound the lever with my fist.  (It's the little things, right?)  So this week I decided to decorate it in bright, soapy colors.

Here's how I did it:

1. Pick out 2 colors of embroidery floss.


2. Paint a stripe of mod podge or other craft glue up the side of the soap dispenser so that the floss will have something to help hold it in place while you're wrapping it around the bottle.  I used an old bobby pin as a brush, but by all means use a real paintbrush if you have one handy.


3. Begin wrapping the floss around and around the bottle, trying not to leave gaps between the thread.


4. Once you've made a large enough yellow stripe on the bottom, glue the end of the orange floss in the spot where you left off with the yellow and wrap the orange almost all the way up to the top of the bottle.


5. Switch back to yellow for the very top of the bottle.


6. Once you've wrapped the entire thing, coat all of the embroidery floss in a thin layer of mod podge so that the floss will never fall off.  Let it dry for a couple of hours and you're finished!

Now I smile just a little bit every time I add more soap to the dishes, and isn't that the whole point of crafty DIY projects?  To make you smile?  I hope that all of the projects I post on this blog continue to brighten my world in small ways, and I hope that one or two of them might brighten yours as well.

Happy scrubbing!
xoxo
Laura

Strawberry Butter fit for a Queen

Happy Sunday!

I hope that you, the lovely blog reader, had a great weekend.  Because I skate in ice shows for a living, I work on the weekends and have Wednesdays off.  And because my cast has a social calendar that's chock-full of traditions, we (traditionally) do brunch on Wednesday mornings.  And because we are also fun, the brunch always has a theme!  This past wednesday we had a Queen theme, which explains the tin foil crowns in the picture on the right.  And do you see the fuzzy moving plate that Justin is hoping to devour?  Those are the biscuits and the strawberry butter that we brought to the brunch.

I made some biscuits using gluten-free Bisquick and the recipe that was printed on the back of the box.  They were yummy, but nothing out of the ordinary.  What was out of the ordinary was the strawberry butter that I made to go on top of the biscuits; it was a huge hit among my friends!  I originally found the recipe on Martha Stewart's website, and you can find her original version of that recipe here if you would like to check it out.  Read on to see how I made it...

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature


• 1/4 cup sugar


• 1/4 teaspoon salt


• 1/2 cup hulled and chopped fresh strawberries

*When Martha made this recipe, she used an electric mixer, but I used my Magic Bullet blender instead and it worked great.*


Directions:

• Mix the butter, sugar and salt for about 1 minute until it's light and fluffy.


• Add the strawberries and mix them until they are combined with the butter but not entirely uniform.  Some chunks are a good thing.


• Transfer the mixture into a serving dish and enjoy!

How easy is that?!  I loved that it only took me a few minutes to make, but when I brought it to the brunch it seemed fancy and special.  If you compare the amount of work I put into the dish to the response that I got from it, it was clearly a lot of reward for very little effort, which is how I feel all good recipes should be.



And look how cute Justin was.

When he thought I wasn't looking, he immediately went for the leftover strawberry butter on the base of the blender.  That is another mark of a great recipe!

Happy mixing!
xoxo
Laura

Grownup Friendship Bracelets

Hello from Sandusky, Ohio!

I'm here all summer doing a really fun show at a really fun amusement park, and in one of the numbers in our show we get to dress up as ice skating crayons.  It's so funny!  Nothing gets me quite like dancing inanimate objects do.

In honor of our silly kids' number, for opening day I decided to make friendship bracelets for all my cast mates in their corresponding crayon colors.

Here's How You Do It:

1. Cut 3 strips of black embroidery floss and 1 strip of an alternate color to 40" each.  Fold each individual strand in half then put them all together and tie them in a knot where you folded them, leaving a small loop for later. Tape the loop to the edge of a table and separate the strands into 4 sets of 2 as shown. For instructional purposes let's call the black strands A B and C and the alternate color stand will be X.


2. Bring C over B and under X.


3. Bring A under C and over X.


4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you have braided the entire length of string.  It helps me to say "over under, under over" while I'm doing the braiding.  It also helps to hold all four strings in your hands at once, keeping them taut.  Once you let a strand or two start dangling, it's harder to keep the braid straight and even. Now begin your knot by looping the braid around your finger.


5. Pull the loose end through the loop.


6. Pull the knot tight.


7. You've made the bracelet!  I made all of my bracelets up to this point and then wrapped them up in the paper that crayons are wrapped in and brought them to work.  (The crayon paper was courtesy of my boyfriend, Justin, who is dressed up as the hunky orange crayon in the picture at the beginning of this post.)  Once I had given them to everyone, I sized them to their wrists and added the finishing touches.

Here's how to size and finish the bracelets:

1.  Wrap the bracelet around the recipient's wrist twice to measure how long it should be.

2.  Tie a knot in the bracelet to mark the spot where you want it to end.

3.  Cut off the original knot you tied at the end of the un-measured bracelet you made earlier.

4.  Separate the contrasting colored strands from the black strands. (In this case, the contrasting colored strands are the light blue ones.)

5.  Thread the contrasting colored strands through the holes of a small button.

6.  Thread the same strands through the button holes again so they end up on the underbelly of the button.

7.  Cut off all the excess strings so that they can only be seen beneath the button.

8.  Put a dab of Mod Podge or other clear-drying glue on the end of the strings on the underside of the button so the knot won't come undone later.

9.  Let it dry and you've now got a custom-sized grown-up bracelet for one of your friends!

Here's what a finished bracelet looks like:

Notice how the button that you attached to the end fits neatly through the loop that you made in the very first step when you started making the bracelet?  If your loop is too big, your button will slip back out of the loop while you're wearing it and the bracelet will fall off.  If you have that problem, just tie another knot next to the original knot at the base of the loop.  It will make the loop smaller.

Aren't these bracelets so fun?  They are basically just the same as the ones that I made when I was a kid, but the double-wrapping and the button add that little something extra that distinguishes the things we love as grownups from the things we loved as kids.

Until next time,
xoxo
Laura

Sock Buns!

Hola!

Have I mentioned that I'm in Mexico?  Acutally, I'm not just anywhere in Mexico; I'm in Villahermosa which is way down south near Guatemala and the equator, so it is super duper hot here.  And naturally our ice show is outside in the 100 degree heat.  Just doing our hair backstage makes us break a sweat, let alone actually skating in the show, so all the girls have started wearing our hair in braids and buns to keep it off of our sticky skin.  Last week, one of my friends borrowed another girl's hair donut to make a bun, but she didn't know how to use it, so I showed her.  That got me thinking about all the fun ways to wear your hair in a bun, so I decided to do a bun blog!  I don't have a donut here with me, but that's no problem at all because you can make an equally great bun with a sock.  Just cut a hole in the toe area, roll it up on itself until it is the shape of a donut and you're ready to roll.  It's preferable to use a sock that's similar to your hair color, but I used a colorful one for these tutorials so you can see it better.

Here's what a basic sock bun looks like:

And here's how you do it:

1.  Put your hair in a ponytail.

2.  Put your rolled-up sock over your ponytail holder.

3.  Pull the sock down to the bottom of your hair.

4.  Begin to roll your hair around the sock by turning the sock-donut inside out over and over again while it rolls up your hair.

5.  Roll...

6.  it...

7.  up!

8.  Once all your hair is rolled over the sock and it's on the top of your head, make any necessary last minute adjustments, tuck in any rogue hairs that may be sticking out, and put a rubber band around the whole thing to hold it in place.

Now that you know how to do a basic sock bun, there are a million different ways to wear it and make it your own.  I've done a few variations here on this blog, but the beauty of these buns is that you can make up all sorts of different ways to wear them yourself.  Anything that involves a ponytail can also involve a sock bun, so get creative!











Here's a basic sock bun with a braid wrapped around it:

And here's how you do it:

1.  Put your hair in a ponytail, pull a small-ish section of hair from the ponytail off to the side and clip it out of the way for safe keeping.

2.  Roll the rest of your ponytail (that you didn't clip to the side) up into a sock bun.

3.  Secure the sock bun with a rubber band.

4.  Un-clip the section of hair that you saved for later and braid it.

5.  Loosely wrap the braid around the base of the sock bun.

6.  Secure the braid with a bobby pin and you're all finished!















Here is a low bun with the sides all twisted up so your hair stays out of your face:

And here are the directions:

1.  Make a part and twist your hair away from your face on one side, starting up near your part and moving down.

2.  Secure the hair you just twisted with a clip so that you can come back to it later.

3.  Now twist the other side of your hair so it matches the first side.

4.  Take out the clip you used earlier and put all of your hair in a low ponytail, being careful not to un-twist all the hair you just twisted.

5.  Turn the ponytail into a sock bun.

6. Secure the bun with a ponytail holder.

And now it's time for my personal favorite...












The upside down braid into a high bun:

Here's how you do it:

1.  First of all, take a deep breath and believe in your braiding ability, because french braiding upside down is not as hard as it looks.  Then flip your head upside down and give it a go, starting the braid as close to the nape of your neck as possible.

2.  Continue your french braid until you are about even with the top of your ears.

3. Stop french braiding but continue a regular braid up about 2 more inches so you'll have some extra braid to work with if you need it.

4.  Pull the rest of your hair into a ponytail with the braid.

5.  Stand back upright and secure the ponytail with a ponytail holder.

6.  Make your sock bun, secure it with another ponytail holder and you've done it!  Yay!








I really hope this blog helps spread the sock bun fun!
xoxo
Laura