Tutorial Wednesday: Lighted Burlap Garland

So I’ve been on a DIY kick the last two holidays. I have to say, I love it. It’s a heckuva lot cheaper than going out and buying the stuff already made, in the long run. And besides that, something that’s made is always closer to the heart, y’know?

The next few days I’ll feature a few of my DIY tutorials. Today I will start with this:

A lighted burlap garland! I had found this tutorial on pinterest. Well. OK it was just a picture, so I kinda took the idea and ran with it.

It’s cute and all, but it’s just not… Me. So I did it MY way.

Here’s what you’ll need: Lots of bits of lace. They don’t have to match or be the same color. There’s some white, cream, pink and yellow lace bits in there and they went great! You’ll also need some burlap. Now you can buy it in yardage at Walmart, Hobby Lobby, Joann’s, etc. I found these rolls of jute burlap that you use for wreathes. And I was going to make a wreath, but I can’t find the forms in the size that I want. Each of these rolls has 15 yards of burlap and it’s about 6” wide. It’s perfect for strips. You’ll also need a good pair of scissors and of course, lights. Now I used a huge flipping strand of lights. I don’t suggest it at all. Use a shorter strand of 50 to 100 lights. They’re much more easily manageable.

Step One: Cut a strip about six-seven inches long.

Step Two: Cut three to four strips out of each six to seven inch strip.

I cut the entire roll of burlap ribbon and half of the next one. If I really wanted to do the entire string of lights, I could have used the entire second roll of burlap. But by the time I got done I was so itchy and cross from all the fiber that the burlap created that I didn’t want to go any farther lol.

Step Three: Cut strips of lace about the same length as your strips of burlap.

Step Four: Start tying your burlap to the cord of your lights. I do three, then two lace and repeat. Sometimes I did four of burlap, three of lace. You can vary it up a bit!

And it’ll look like this! Just keep on going until you reach the end of your string of lights (or as far as you want to go). If you use jute burlap, take it outside and shake it out very hard to release all the stray fibers.

Plug in and check it out and then place on your tree!

I must say, I was a little worried that my garland would be a little too much for my tree. But I am very pleased that it’s not. I think it looks fabulous!!!

And here’s little Holly Day Hedgie to say hello!

If you make one, let me see it, and your tree!

Recipe Corner: Baklava

My favorite time of year is just after fall hits… When it’s still warm enough outside to get out and do yard work in your capris and shirt sleeves but not warm enough to heat up the inside when you bake, creating an inferno-like situation. As soon as this happens I whip out a piece of paper and begin my fall/winter baking lists.

Right at the top of the lists is Baklava. I got this recipe a few years ago from my Scentsy lead and I’ve been making it ever since. It’s addictive… You think about it at weird times during the summer when it’s incredibly too hot to have the oven on for 55 minutes and stand at a stove for 20… You dream about it… You salivate like Homer does when he talks about donuts.

So I will show you how to make my heavenly baklava. It’s easier than you think, so don’t be daunted. Embrace that which is baklava. It will change your life forever. As always, recipe will be after the tutorial!

For the Baklava you’ll need a 9x13 inch pan. Grease it up good with cooking spray. You’ll also need a roll of fillo dough and a moist tea towel to keep it moist. This is very important. If you don’t keep the dough moist, it will crack and tear and just be a bear to work with. I also have over there a bowl with a silicone brush, some real butter and a knife. And what’s not pictured… Pecans and cinnamon. Oh and you’ll need the recipe… And your cellphone if you just can’t seem to be separated from the stupid thing (like me).

Finely chop or kinda ground your nuts. You can use walnuts, but I use pecans because I don’t care for walnuts anymore. Add your cinnamon, stir it around til the pecans are coated.

Add one (two sheet) layer of fillo dough, slather it with melted butter. Repeat until you have like eight sheets layered with butter in between.

Sprinkle your pecans on. Top with two sheets of buttered fillo dough and continue with one of the pecans, two more of the fillo, until you have all the pecans gone. Finish up with a layer around 6-8 layers thick.

Like this. Cover the top with melted butter.

Here’s the tricky part. Using a sharp knife, cut the baklava into squares. Cause believe me. It’ll be too hot right out of the oven, then too sticky after you put the syrup on. This way it’s already cut and all that yummy syrup can seep into the cracks. If you want to be fancy and cut your stuff into squares, you can go right ahead and do that. But I’m not fancy, and this stuff is a PAIN in the butt to work with. Trust me. LOL

Now you put the baklava in the oven and wait and wait and wait and wait. You may die waiting. And your house will smell FABULOUS!!! Like you want to bottle it up and get high off it fabulous.

While you’re salivating over the smell of the baklava cooking, you can get your syrup going. You’ll need a heavy saucepan, honey, vanilla, white sugar, and water.

Combine all that and simmer for 20 minutes.

Get your baklava out after the 50 minutes has elapsed and it’s golden brown and beautiful. Revel in its loveliness.

Then CAREFULLY and SLOWLY pour the super hot syrup over the baklava. You’ll have to do it in stages… And be careful not to float the tops off the baklava. Or if you do… You can just eat them…

Then you wait until it cools slightly. I usually wait until I think the fear of incinerating my tongue has passed. This year it wasn’t to be. I ended up burning the crapholies out of my tastebuds, but man it was so worth it! Tasted soooo good.

So here’s the recipe:

Breazy’s Best Baklava

1 pound ground nuts (pecans, walnuts, etc)

1 tbsp cinnamon

2 sticks (or three) melted butter

1 pkg fillo dough, thawed and brought to room temp

Syrup

1 c Water

1 c white sugar

1/2 c honey

1/2 tsp vanilla

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray bottom and sides of a 9x13 pan.

Grind nuts and toss with cinnamon. Set aside. Unroll fillo dough. Cover fillo with a dampened cloth to keep from drying out as you work. Place two sheets of dough in pan, butter thoroughly. Repeat until you have eight sheets of layered dough. Sprinkle 2-3 tablespoons of nut mixture on top. Top with two sheets of dough, butter, nuts, layering as you go. Continue until all the nuts are gone. Top layer should be about 6-8 layers thick.

Using a sharp knife, cut into diamond or square shapes all the way to the bottom of the pan. Bake for about 50 minutes until the baklava is golden and crisp.

Make sauce while baklava is baking. Boil sugar and water until sugar is melted. Add vanilla and honey. Simmer for about 20 minutes.

Remove baklava from oven and immediately spoon sauce over it. Let cool. Freezes well. Leave it uncovered as it gets soggy if it’s wrapped up.

 

Now I haven’t frozen it yet. I’ve been tempted. But I don’t know whether it should be before it’s baked or after it’s baked? I’m just so scared of ruining some lol. It just costs soooooo much to buy a pound of pecans.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as my family and I do. If you make it and use a different kind of nuts, like hazelnuts or cashews, let me know!

DIY Halloween Tutorial: Hanging Spirits

So… I’m a Pinterest freak. Seriously… It’s an illness. I saw a picture of these things on there and with a little sleuthing I finally found the tutorial for it. Lowe and behold, it was a Martha Stewart tutorial. I was amazed. I didn’t know the Domestic Queen could come up with something so cool and amazing. So… Sit back, read this and then go make some hanging spirits.

Supplies You’ll Need

You’ll need some newspaper to lay out on your work surface if you’re a messy crafter like I am lol. Sponge brushes are the best tools to work with. You can also use just a regular paintbrush to help kinda push the cheesecloth into the nooks and crannies. You’ll need some cheesecloth. You can get this at Hobby Lobby, Michaels or Walmart. Scissors are a must. You’ll need however many foam heads you want. My sister got these for me over at Sally’s for super cheap (cheaper you can get them at Hobby Lobby!) and you’ll need Alleen’s Fabric Stiffener. This works awesome and you’ll definitely use a bit of it, so get the biggest bottle you can.

Step One:

Cut your cheesecloth to varying lengths. Make some long, some short.

Open it up and spread it out so you don’t have to do this when you’re right in the middle of everything.

Step Two:

Get ready to get messy. Pour out a good amount of the fabric stiffener on a paper plate and have your sponge brush at the ready.

Step Three:

Drape your cheesecloth over the foam head. I usually start with a shorter piece of cloth at first and build up from there.

Step Four:

Start glopping on your fabric stiffener. It isn’t going to look completely perfect, but it doesn’t really matter. They’re both white so it’s not really going to show. It is kinda hard to get the cheesecloth to stay in the hollows of the eye, but you just have to keep at it until it looks like you want it to.

You’ll continue on with the rest of the layers of cheesecloth.

NOTE: You do NOT have to cover the entire head with the fabric stiffener. I use the seam of the foam head in the middle to judge where to start with it and then end right around the jaw line/chin.

You can put four to seven layers of cheesecloth, it is all a matter of how flowy you want it. I put four layers on each of mine and I’m pretty pleased with how it looks. But it probably could have used a couple more.

Now these things have to dry completely, and I mean completely. And it will take at least 24 hours, if not closer to 48. The more layers, the longer it will take to dry. It is some SUPER sticky stuff, so make sure wherever you put it, you don’t have to worry about it falling over or sticking to something.

Step Five:

When you’re all done and everything is dry, then you’re ready to hang them! You’ll need some fishing line, a pair of scissors and eye hooks or eyelet screws.

Be mean and give your foam head a headache by taking the eye hook and pushing it into the top of the head. If you’re planning on leaving this out for a few days (and I really don’t, because the fabric stiffener doesn’t react well with moisture) you might want to use a little epoxy or hot glue to make sure that the eye hook stays in there. Then string with fishing line and hang!

Pretty darned creepy huh? I can’t wait til Halloween and I can put them all out. I think they’re really gonna creep people out. It’s gonna be fabulous. I will of course I’ll have pictures of the final setup!

Let me know if you make these awesome little ghoulies!

Polish Review: Literary Lacquers Wrinkle in Time Collection

When I was in the sixth grade I discovered Madeleine L’Engle and A Wrinkle in Time. I got lost in the world she created, as I did with many of the books I loved (and still love today). The images she painted with words still give me goosebumps to this day.

Amy, the creator and genius behind Literary Lacquers has come up with a collection of seven beautiful polishes based on L’Engle’s works. I am here tonight to share three of them with you!

First up is Aunt Beast, labeled in the shop as “A tarnished silver linear holo packed with taupe microflakies – a true neutral” it is a stunner.

I really dig how it’s not in your face, how it’s understated and yet undeniably gorgeous.

As with before, the sun was not a friend of mine, so I have nary a sunlight shot to share with this gorgeous polish, but even with flash you can still see the beauty!

Two coats reaches full opacity, three coats makes it shine even brighter!

Next up is Megatron, listed as a “royal purple linear holo with purple and silver holo sparkle added”.

I was lucky enough to get sunlight pictures of this beauty!!!

But a really crappy macro shot LOL go figure. Again, two coats is completely opaque, three makes it shine!

Next up is my favorite. I’ve been looking for a white holo like FOREVER and I found it in Tesseract.

It’s not exactly a linear holo, but not exactly a scattered holo. Either way you go, you’ve got beautiful white holo gorgeousness.

It is really hard to capture with flash though!

And I had pictures on my phone of it in the sun (what sun I could muster) but my phone dumped everything and I lost them *sad panda*

It goes on creamy smooth in two coats, but three really makes it pop. I absolutely ADORE this polish! Dry time is nil with pretty much any of Amy’s polishes.

You can purchase them at Literary Lacquer’s Etsy shop (it looks like Tesseract may be sold out!)and make sure to stop by and show her some love on her Facebook page!

Polish Review: Zilla 5-Free Lacquers

Hey there, my wonderful Witchie-Poos! Thank you so much for hanging around while I was in the middle of this madness I call my life…

We just found out that my husbands job is ending in February… After three years with the company they feel like it’s in their best interest to close up shop here in Oz. It’s a horrible blow; not only to my family, but also to the communities that surround us and the people that work there.

But we will persevere! We always do!

We’re also gearing up for Halloween! Right now, as I’m blogging this, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! is playing on ABC! So why not share some awesome halloween-themed polishes?!

First off is Spectre, a beautiful black jelly full of iridescent micro glitters. It goes on like a dream!

In three coats its completely opaque. As with most jelly polishes, you have to apply a topcoat to smooth out all the bumps but it dries super fast, so bubbling in the topcoat is a thing of the past with this polish!

So sorry for the crummy macro shot!

Next up is Superstition. This is a definite sleeper polish. I wasn’t real sure what I thought when I first saw it. It’s a shimmery brown base with purple micro glitter and gold-purple iridescent hex glitters.

Worn in two coats under a black undie it really is a stunner. I really wish I would have been able to get pictures of it in the sunlight, but alas… The sunlight has been missing here in Oz for more than a week

Isn’t it gorgeous?! It’s so freaking shimmery and wonderful.

Next up is my favorite, Grim. A teal/turquoise-y jelly filled with purple micro glitters, small and large transparent green hex glitters and the cutest darned pink skulls ever.

I really, really like this polish. I’ve been wearing it for three days now and I can’t stop looking at it. And the compliments?! Out of this world!

This is three coats of the regular polish, then the skulls were placed with a toothpick as they’re a little hard to fish out of the jar.

It’s so darned cute!!!!!!!!!! I love this polish. It may have to make an appearance in my Halloween mani!

All in all, these are wonderful polishes. The smell isn’t overwhelming, the dry time is next to nil and the formula is pretty spot on! They’re well worth the time!

The only hitch is, she hasn’t released them/opened her shop yet!!! Keep an eye on her Facebook page for further updates!