Light Switch Plates

This is a craft project that I first took on back in November, taught to me by the ever-crafty and cool, Kim! Thanks again so much for teaching us. This has really added a lovely touch of color to our rooms.
I am finally featuring it here to show the latest one in preparation for the arrival of June, my mom-in-law, in preparation for Ella's first birthday party~!

I'll show you how I went from this:


To this:

Besides the light switch cover and paper of your choice, this little project only requires the few following materials:

• Mod Podge
  
• clear acrylic sealer
  
• sand paper
  
• X-Acto knife or scissors
  

Everybody ready?
Let's begin!

1) Sand the plate until it is just scratched (this will help the design stick to the plastic better) and then wipe down with a damp cloth.

2) Lay out your design on your plate, folding it tightly around the edges.

3) Poke holes in the design through both screw holes with a blade and then pen

4) Cut an X in the switch hole starting at each corner and fold the flaps over to the back of the plate.

5) Remove the design and trim until about 1" overhangs all sides, snipping off the excess at the corners too.

6) Apply a medium coat of Mod Podge to the front of the plate and the back of the design.

7) Quickly now, place the design on the plate and position it by lining up the holes for the screw holes.

8) Working from the center, smooth out the design, using a pen to re-establish the screw holes and smooth that whole situation out.

9) Apply more Mod Podge, this time to the back flaps, to stick nice and close to the back of the plate. Coat all this with a thin layer of Mod Podge for extra security.
It will look something like this:


10) Set the plate, face up, on an overturned yogurt container or any other such thing that can act as a pedestal for your plate to rest on with minimal contact.

11)Let it dry for a couple of minutes, then apply 2-3 coats of Mod Podge to the face of the plate, letting it dry 3-5 minutes between coats.

12) Let it dry again and then spray with 2 coats of acrylic sealer.

13) Mount to your light switch hole in the wall, screw in place, and enjoy!!

Here are some other ones I've done around the house:


The more switches, the harder, that's for sure.
And all the designs came from a stash of nice Japanese paper I received some years back. That means the paper is somewhat thinner than other stocks and the coloration on them is gorgeous~!
And for those of you who have covers with a far smaller flip-switch, lucky you! That means more surface area for your design to cover, instead of a big, white switch. {:)

Well, either way, I hope some of you try to give this a go yourselves and enjoy the end result!
Keep me posted if you do!!
'til then~ ♡

Birthday & Yarn Tree

Today is Daddy's birthday!! Happy 38th, my love~!!!
Such a difference this past year has been, and I'm more in love with you than ever. :)
It makes me excited to see what this year holds for you and me alike! We'll see one year from now ;)

And on an unrelated note, even though it was the birthday boy's week and he should have been pampered and allowed to indulge in anything he wanted (which I tried my best to do!), he took it upon himself to indulge Mama and build her the yarn organizer she's been coveting for months!!

Behold, a creation from Daddy's own brilliant mind...the Yarn Tree!


Sure, it may look modest and small, but this fantastic combination of thrifted dowels and wooden planks has come together to inhabit a modest corner in our guestroom and bear fruit to a multitude of beautifully colored yarn!


Again, H4H supplied us with the dirt cheap materials for under $3 and were completely salvaged from old homes. Hurray!
By simply piercing my skeins of yarn through the center, I can work right off their branches as they slowly rotate around and around~ It's really quite fun!
And since about 90% of these skeins are also thrifted (thank you, Arc!), I have a ton of little scrap yarn balls too! I organized them in rainbow-order in a basket:
Pretty, no?


Looking at all these colors is much more effective to stirring my creative juices!!
Oh what to make next...in rainbow colors!!!!

I'll keep you posted as to that~
For now, off to wrapping up our lovely birthday celebration weekend :)
And to think Ella Rose's will be next weekend! What a time of the year!! ♡

Crackers~!

The Dashiell household's really gotten into homemade crackers this month. For young and old, alike!
Here, I'm going to share with you the recipes and step-by-step tutorials for making your own recipes at home.
First, baby crackers...

This is all they require:

And in these quantities!

• 1 1/2 C rolled oats
  
• 1 C brown rice flour
• 1/4 C olive oil
• 1/2 C water

The steps are as follows:

1) Grind the oats into a coarse powder.
(I use our Magic Bullet, and it's just the right size!)

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2) Mix ground oats and rice flour in a large bowl.

3) Add the olive oil to the mixture and mix by hand until it reaches a crumbly consistency.


4) Pour in water and knead until the mixture is pretty compact and sticks well together.


5) Roll out onto a greased baking dish until it's nice and flat -- it should fill to ever last corner with the help of a really good "rolling pin".


6) Cut into whatever shape and size you want. I like mine itty bitty.


7) Prick with a fork. I like mine itty bitty because the prick marks make them look like little Legos!

8) Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

9) Let cool and you're done!!


A salt-free, sugar-free, spice-free snack!
With the tiny Lego size, this recipe yields a gross of cookies! That's 144, in case you didn't know ;)

Well!
The recipe for the "adult" version of our crackers will be up soon too.
Until then, happy baking~!!

Wool Diaper Cover "Soaker"

This post is very long-overdue, as I completed this project back on March 1st.
So now, behold! Ella's first 100% wool diaper cover handknit by Mama with love~


I got the pattern for free off of Ravelry here~!

There are a couple of reasons why it took so long for me to finally put this up.

1) I'd been hoping to catch Ella on video with it on while she walked, to hit two birds with one stone and post about how she can now walk! As of the end of her 9th month, back in January, to be precise. But Daddy is far better about catching things on video than me, so I just settled for a crappy Photobooth shot. Sorry!!

2) I wasn't happy with the finished product at first and had written it off as a failure that wasn't worth blogging about. The leg holes seemed too tight while the waistband ribbing seemed too loose. But after taking Celeste's advice of wetting and then stretching the leg holes around a yogurt container overnight, they fit much better.:)

Since Ella's birth, we've only used cloth diaper covers and plastic diaper covers to keep the wetness from wicking onto her clothes (or us). But not until I finally stumbled across a wool diaper cover in a second hand store in January did I realize "omigod, they can be made of wool too! And knit for that matter!"

I felt so enlightened, but sorta disappointed that I hadn't known about these sooner...
But, oh well! It took a while to pick my wool and pattern and then of course complete the pattern, but it was worth it!
They feel so nice on her and smell much better too -- even after a major pee-pee from Ella, they don't smell bad the way the plastic ones do.

This is diaper cover #1 of what I hope to eventually be 4 total...
Wish me luck! Though I know I have plenty of motivation from Ella too.
Remember: Ella is always watching you!!

Perez-Guerri Recipe for Mayonnaise

I love mayonnaise, don't you? ♡♡♡

And I figured it's about time I feature my favorite family recipe, passed down from my grandmother's side, for homemade mayo!

The ingredients are quite simple and only require the following:


The amounts are as follows:

• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp vinegar
• 1 tsp salt
  
• 1/2 tsp dry mustard
  
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 1 C vegetable oil

And the steps are even simpler:

1) Put all ingredients into blender except for oil

2) Add 1-2 tbsp of oil and beat

3) Keep beating while adding the rest of oil sloooowly until it firms into a mayo-ish consistency

This really only takes a couple of minutes.
If you use the kind of blender that has a hole in the center of the lid, through which you can pour the oil slowly.

But I use a Magic Bullet, which means I have to turn it off, unscrew, add oil, rescrew, beat again, and repeat. A little timely, but I gotta work with what I got. {:)

But I digress.
When you first start beating the mixture, it will be very liquidy and orangish thanks to the paprika:


After about 1/2 C of the oil has been added, it'll start to get that nice lighter whipped mayo look:


Finally, I dollop the mayo into a jar and ta-dah! All done~


This recipe makes a little over 1/2 pint of mayo.
Mm-mm and enjoy!!