My Kitchen Makeover.

I wasn't going to share this, but it occurred to me that many people are in a similar living situation to myself, namely, you live in an apartment and can't do much about how it looks.  I've lived in my place for over three years, and as much as I like it, the kitchen is absolute crap.

I know, everybody in the world hates their kitchen.  Who is designing all these bad kitchens?  Who in the world thinks that four square feet of countertop is enough?  Get it together, architects.  Or interior designers.  No, I'm going with the architects on this one.  THE WORLD NEEDS MORE OPEN FLOOR PLANS.

But now I hate my kitchen slightly less, because I got a Kitchen Micro-Makeover!

I'm too lazy to look through past posts to see if I mentioned that my mom and her boyfriend (who is, as of last weekend, her husband) visited in November.  Well if I didn't, they did, and they gave me something SPECTACULAR.  They had it all planned out ahead of time.  They came, got tanked on franzia, took me out for thai food, took me out for indian food, slapped this thing up, then left.  It was the best parental visit anyone has ever had, ever.

 I don't have a 'before' shot, and yes, the makeover was limited to just the stove.  Let me walk you through it... (Just imagine the 'before' for a sec--the 'before' was a bare wall, a stove with 4 exposed burners, and a trash can.)

The 'after' shows a cute backsplash, racks for used-often pans and utensils, a shelf for spices and another shelf over two burners that houses my induction cooktop, a marble cutting board/trivet, and a cup for spoons.

The backsplash is just contact paper.  I wasn't sure when my mom was drunkenly slapping it up if it was necessary, but I now know it's fucking magic.  Grease wipes right off, and even if there's crap stuck to it, the pattern camouflages it.  If it ever gets so gross that I don't feel like magic-eraser-ing it, then I can peel it off and put up a new one.  One roll of contact paper did the job, and the one we used was leftover from lining my drawers and cabinets, so now everything matches!  If you've never bought contact paper, it's magic and cheap, and even if you spring for the cool deco rolls, you'll never be out more than $10.

The shelf is just a cheap floating shelf, not more than 18" long.  It's perfect for the spices I reach for most, which include trinidad garlic lemon marinade/seasoning, chipotle chili powder, garam masala, garlic, thai spice, curry powder, rosemary, basil, salt and pepper.  This one is from target, $10.

The rods and hooks are from Ikea, and according to my mother, the whole operation (two rods, three sets of hooks) came in under $40.  I'm not sure how that's possible, even at Ikea, but I'm using it to house my induction cookware.  The bar on the side keeps my tongs and spatula collection at the ready, and a spare hook holds a rag.

The red shelf is just a piece of plywood, sanded and spray painted.  It's not just resting on the stove: underneath the board on the left hand side there's a support screwed into the wall, and the shelf is screwed into the support.  The vent on my stove is in the center back, so a notch is cut out of the shelf to make sure there's no blockage.  The burners underneath are still fully functional, so I removed the stove knobs to avoid any accidents.  Cost on this was nada.  Greg had the spare wood, I had the spray paint.

On top of the shelf: my induction cooktop.  I've been cooking on this for a little over a year, and I love it.  It's amazing.  If you have an electric stove, get one of these.  It's faster, and you have exact temperature control.  If you have a gas stove, get one of these.  It's faster, and you have exact temperature control.  Do you want to know how long it takes me to boil a pot of water with this?  It'll only make you sick.  You really want to know?  For a big-ass pot of water?  THREE FUCKING MINUTES.  If that's not enough to make you buy one of these immediately, let me tell you something else.  Because it cooks with electromagnetic energy, it's only the cookware in contact with the cooktop that gets hot.  If you touch your hand to the ceramic cookplate, it feels cool.  And after I flash-boil that pot of water?  The metal handles are still cool to the touch--no potholder needed.  It's kitchen voodoo.  And because it heats only what it's in contact with, very little heat is wasted.  That means it doesn't heat up my kitchen with wasted, inefficient energy, and bonus, only costs about 12 cents per hour to run.  /end sell.

Here's a link to my model on Amazon.
So that's it, my Kitchen Micro-Makeover.  All in all, less than $50 to turn my stove into something that made sense.  (Less than $50 because I already had the contact paper, paint, induction burner and Greg had the wood pieces.  Pay attention.)
I am not going to say that my kitchen is awesome, but part of it is.  And damn if I can't cook an egg in a hurry.

The Infamous Butt Pillow

I know that Christmas is over, and I've even taken down our tree and decorations already (which usually takes me until February to do). So, I'm pretty late on posting this, but I have to show off my fabulous handmade Christmas gift.

The butt pillow was a brilliant idea I had to give to my best friend Eve, with whom I have been determined to get a matching butt tattoo with for practically as many years as I've known her (10 years!). About 6 months ago we finally had the epiphany.  We will get half of a jagged heart each on my right and her left butt cheeks.  These hearts will have the letters "BE"/"FRI" and "ST"/"ENDS" inside them, and will be reminiscent of the 1990s best friends necklaces that spell out "Best Friends" when you put the two sides of the heart together.  Except we will be using our buttcheeks and mooning everyone who has the innocence to ask what's new with us. 

Eve is currently working on her Masters in Environmental Education up in northern Wisconsin, so I knew the butt pillow should be covered in soft warm fleece.  However, I'm not an expert seamstress of any kind, and assuming that I was not the first person to want to make a butt-shaped pillow, I decided to search the internet for a pattern of some kind.  I didn't find what I was looking for, but I did find out that people with hemorrhoids have a lot of pillows to choose from.  I also found this variation on a butt pillow, called the Booty Pillow, which I found very amusing although totally inappropriate as a gift to my best heterosexual girl friend.  (Plus, what color thong would I choose for her?)

After a whole lot of unfruitful research, brainstorming, sketching, sewing, and consulting with my fiance Alex and stepson Isaac (who are both booty experts), I created this beautiful little number:

I made this beauty by covering an existing pillow (specifically the red velour one with the hole in it that Anna kept nagging me to fix, ha!) with pink polar fleece that had the tattoo design embroidered into it.  I first rounded all the corners, then sewed the butt crack to attach the fabric on both sides, then trimmed and sewed the seams.  The embroidery was my favorite part because I got to look up tons of free tattoo fonts online.  I love fonts, so this took awhile, but once I found the one I wanted, I simply sketched it onto the fabric and embroidered to my heart's content.  The end product came out pretty effing amazing despite my rather novice hand-sewing skills.

Isaac's new puppy, Rose, (at his mom's house) particularly liked the pillow because it was so soft and fluffy.  Just like butt pillows are supposed to be.

In case you can't tell from these photos, my tattoo is on one side of the butt pillow and Eve's tattoo is on the other.  So, theoretically more than actually (because of measurement problems), if you push enough of the stuffing into the pillow, you can get the "mooning" effect we were going for with the tattoo in the first place.  If you are thinking right now that I am probably the world's coolest best friend ever, you are probably right.

Printing.

I love the art of printmaking in all its forms--letterpress, woodcuts and linoleum cuts, lithography, etching, screen printing.  Hell, I love what can be done with a rubber stamp or half a potato.  (Some pretty sweet potato art can be found here.)

Printmaking really fits my ideal of the perfect craft, because it fulfills every requirement on my 'Learning New Things Checklist'

Anna's Learning New Things Checklist:

1. It must not be cost-prohibitive.  Basic tools must be available in a brick and mortar store somewhere I'm willing to drive to, and reference material must be available online or in my local library.  If I progress and want to invest in supplies and reference materials beyond what I can find in my city, I am willing to do mail order or online ordering to get supplies.  But if I'm just scratching a crafty itch, I need to be able to find extra materials before I lose my craft momentum (craftmentum).  The amount of money I'm willing to spend on learning a craft is different for each craft.  It depends on how rich I'm feeling, how much the materials cost, and how likely I think it is that I'll succeed.  But generally, if I can't get started with the bare bones basics for less than $50, it takes me longer to decide to dive in.

2. Low fuck-up factor.  Nobody likes fucking up.  I'm actually okay with it, as long as I'm not ruining something I have a lot of time/money/effort invested in.  When I'm thinking about Learning Something New, I need to feel like I can learn and make mistakes and get my hands dirty without ruining all my materials or ruining materials that cost a lot of $$$.  The best crafts produce great results at every step of the learning process, and over time yield a product that shows the skills you've acquired.

 That's my whole list right there.  And guess what?  Printmaking fulfills both of those requirements.

My personal experiences with printing is in the potato/woodcut/screen printing area, heavy on the potato.
I've done a lot of carving, and a fair amount of screen printing, using the embroidery hoop method (or cheating method).  I love the embroidery hoop method of screening because it's inexpensive, easy and effectively teaches the method of blocking the screen and passing the ink through it without jumping straight into photo-emulsions, which still terrifies me slightly.  I still screen on embroidery hoops, mostly because I keep finding huge ones at Goodwill for like a quarter.  I have invested in some real squeegees, instead of using cardboard, because they are gentler on the screens.  (If you take care of them you can use them practically forever.)
Linocuts are great, because you can get the linoleum blocks inexpensively at most craft stores, and because even amateur carvings can look very stylistic.

This is a picture of my brain iron-on patches, which are printed using a linocut.  (It's very similar to using a potato, except instead of a potato, you use a block of linoleum.  The benefit of using linoleum is that it stores better over time than a potato, so you can use it many times.)  The  brain is the first linocut I ever did. 

Here are some cassette tape patches.  Same linocut process, you could easily substitute a potato, or a yam.  I've never printed with turnips or radishes, but I'm sure that would work, too.  Also a carrot would make a cool sealing wax monogram if you were willing to re-carve it every time you did some letter writing...

Here's a cool resource on beginning linocuts.

 ...and because I have had so much fun going through my printmaking folder, above is a piece I sold in 2008, titled 'this anatomical life.'  You can't see, but there's lettering on each one, heart, mind and soul.

And below is a little gnome.  He's about 4" high.

Not to shamelessly plug, but all my printed patches are in my etsy store here.

Making Up.

I like makeup.

I don't act like I like it.  I never wear it to work, because my job can be physical and I sweat easily and profusely.  I don't wear much when I'm chilling with friends, because the dress code for my version of 'chilling' usually involves sweat pants and hair scrunchies.   What can I say--I'm not usually out to impress.

Last night was New Year's Eve, so of course I went out drinking.  And since I was going to a bar and shit, I put on a cute top and my nice jeans and did my makeup.  And because the new year is a reason to try new things, I put on some false eyelashes.

AND BY GOD, THEY CHANGED MY LIFE.

I only have some truly shit cell phone pictures of me with them on, so I'm going to spare you all seeing me booze-saturated in low light.  But I will show you a picture of the lashes:

 They are awesome.  I was worried, because I've never really attempted falsies before, and I had all these horrible images of Rock of Love girls going through my brain.  Luckily, though, I was getting ready sober, and had as much rational ability to judge my appearance as I ever do.

 I did my makeup with some eyeshadows I just got in the mail a few days ago from Santa. I guess I didn't have enough things that have the potential to make me look like a clown.  They're from Sugarpill.  The above pictures are two eyeshadow quads and a single eyeshadow.  There are nine pressed shadows in their line right now, so this represents all of them.  And because I've wanted these things for over a year, I'm going to geek out over them and show you the swatches I took.

 I swatched these over an eyeshadow primer, mostly because I didn't want them to stain my arm.  (They didn't.  I used mineral oil to remove them and they all melted off with no staining.)  I especially love the red (love+) and white (tako).

 The purple (poison plum) and pink (dollipop) are awesome, too.

Oh, remember when I told you I wasn't going to subject you to a boozy, embarrassing cell phone picture?  I lied.

Sorry to make the first post of the new year about STUFF.  Hopefully you'll understand.  I'm coming down off of the gift high of Christmas. 

Time Out.

I've been absent for a while...over a month, in fact.  I'm posting now not because I have a burning topic or witty anecdote, but I did want to post something. 

My Mom and her boyfriend visited me before Thanksgiving.  It was wonderful, probably the best weekend my mother and I have spent together in years, and I got to show her and Greg the city that I've made my home.

They brought my childhood dog along with them, Lily.  Lily was the dog that got me over my fear of dogs, and I always had a real connection with her.  She was so intuitive of my moods and responsive to my words and actions that at times it seemed she wasn't really a pet.  I know lots of crazies say that--maybe it's just called love.

Lily enjoyed the visit, and didn't leave my side.  The morning Mom and Greg left she came into my room for a little while and sat by me while I talked to her.

My Thanksgiving was wonderful, spent with my dad, my sister and her boyfriend.  I saw my grandma and an old friend.  It was the best thanksgiving I can remember, full of family.  I called my mom and she said Lily was back to her old habit of running to the door and looking out the window whenever they mentioned my name.

A few days after Thanksgiving, my mom called.  They had put Lily down.  They hadn't told me that for a few months, she had been on antibiotic treatments for a chronic skin condition.  It had cleared up for the visit, but started again in earnest when they got back to Pennsylvania.  The antibiotics had stopped working, and they began a steroid treatment, which ran down her system quickly.  It was an auto-immune disease of the skin, untreatable.  At the end her poor little body was too run down to recover and they made the decision to let her go.

 I am taking it pretty hard.  All pets are our friends, but Lily really was a friend to me.  I miss her. 

Not Girl Power...

...Woman Power!  Why is that almost all of the pop culture versions of feminism since the 1990s Spice Girl campaign for girl power has included girls looking all kinds of sexy, skimpy, and often more like a prostitute than someone who has read all of the classic volumes of equality.  Exhibit A:

Girl Power, even by that name which signifies one not yet grown, a child still, does not mean having the right to dress provocatively and show off your skin, while still being respected and feared to some extent.  Rather it is about the idea that women and men are equal partners in humanity and should behave as such.  I read this anonymous quote the other day "Never let the hand you hold, hold you down." Lately, (as in obsessively for the past week since having a nasty fight with my fiance) I've been mulling over what all this encompasses.  I am a child of the 90s, a Spice Girl lover from way back, who has always gone in for the notions of feminism and girl power.  I admire greatly the writers of feminist literature including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary Wollencraft, Betty Friedan, Mary Piper, and beyond.  They found not only the strength, but the words, to discuss this oft ignored or unseen problem.  Even Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love, with her newest work, Committed, delves into the feminist issues with modern day marriage and finds ways to express those slightest of slights that mean so much.  As a teenager, I remember being so angry at this injustice, the unfairness of all the weight of my own ovaries, and although I've learned to channel that anger better, I still don't know what to do with it or how to fix it.  

And what of our oppressors?  Our fathers, and brothers, and boyfriends and sons?  How do we correct them and stand up for ourselves without the sense of attack making them defensive?  How do we say this is my right to be however I want to be, and if that is silly , then I'll be silly, or angry, or melancholy, or however it is that I want to be, and I don't want to hear what you think about that because you don't get to have an opinion, because I need to hear myself above your voice, because if I can't be these things, if I can't live authentically, then I'm not really living, and it's all too easy to drip into those channels.  This is all just to say that I would rather be alone and authentically sad about a breakup than be with someone who wants to fit me into anything other than the skin I've grown up in, but why do I keep feeling like I have to choose?

Thankfulness Update

So, since I have been MIA from this blog for the last month or so, allow me to bring you up to speed on my life with a list of things that I'm thankful for right now, and in no particular order:


1. Pinterest
http://pinterest.com/sasspants/
I just found pinterest a few weeks ago and immediately fell in love.  I regularly come home and tell Alex how many new followers I have since last week.  It makes me feel like a celebrity.  Are you pinning, Anna?  If so, I need to become your follower, and likewise. 

2. My new home!

Now, this is not my new kitchen, but the color of the walls is pretty close to what Alex and I have recently painted our kitchen.  We also (read: mostly Alex) repaired the giant disgusting cracks in the ceiling and repainted it to clean white and re-textured it!  We also found an old island cart made of beautiful butch block to use and a tall bar chair that matches pretty well.  AND as if that's not enough, we have just purchased new flooring (which Alex will install) and we are planning to tile a white and yellow pattern in the back of the small built in liquor cabinet above the sink.  So basically, it is looking super awesome.

3. My new family, which will soon include a dog! (Although not this dog, he belongs to my boss.)  But seriously, living with Alex and Isaac has been awesome!  It was a short and difficult adjustment period for me to figure out how the heck to hang out with boys all the time when my favorite people are girls, but I guess love just makes it easy. (or easier at least!)  I have successfully put on my step mom pants (which are a barfy color of beige), and have been doing some damn fine parenting if I do say so myself.  I don't want to brag, especially since I haven't been doing this 13 years like Alex, but I'm pretty much kicking ass, and although it is very difficult and frustrating, I feel like we are gaining ground in the Battle of the Apathetic Teen Student.  I can't believe Isaac will be 13 next month!

4. FRIENDS! 
Eve and Britt were both home this week so we had oodles of fun including blanket forts with Isaac, movie watching, girl date to see Twilight, brunch and coffee dates, a night out on the town, and a million hours of chatting it up. I am majorly short on girlfriends in this town, so having them here really warms my heart.



5. My job!  I am just so thankful for work family and all that they do to make my life happier, more creative, and more hilarious.  We are all so supportive and flexible with each other, and I am incredibly lucky to be a part of this place.

I could go on like this all day, talking about how thankful I am for Green Bean Casserole, and Pecan Pie, and fluffy king size beds, and warm socks, Prozac, the midwest, good books, diy projects, slow weekend sex, and fun in-laws, and love, and music, and everything, but I should probably wrap this up.  Soon, I will also be thankful for birthdays since mine is coming up in just 2 weeks!  Woweee!  Coming soon: pictures of the kitchen projects and a full list of crafty Christmas ideas for my beloveds!