Brass Jungle Bookends

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As happens sometimes, we spent more of today’s crafternoon in pursuit of materials than actually crafting. Which meant that it was even more satisfying when our hard work paid off. Check out these Brassed Jungle Bookends!

Little-known-fact: You can’t buy spray paint in Chicago’s city limits. This is not good news for crafters. So we started this crafternoon with a trip to the suburban Home Depot for some metallic spray paint. We picked up some tumbled stone tiles there too.

After our Home Depot hot dogs, we stopped at the Dollar Tree for some plastic animals.

Christy and I went for the Jungle variety, Avril opted for the dinosaurs. It was a tough decision.

We got home, took our goods out to the alley, and sprayed away. Take that Chicago!

While we waited for the paint to dry, we super-glued our tiles together. We had hoped to find some sort-of-like-brick-but-smaller-than-brick stones, but tiles turned out to be the best option.

Once our animals were dry, we pulled out some books to test how they stood best on their new pedestals, made small pencil marks under their feet, and then super-glued them down.

Then Voila! Jungle Bookends!

Here’s one view. You can see Mr. Lion up there on the top shelf.

Or the pair together:

Thanks to Little Green Notebook for the idea!

Pretty Pocket Jotters

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Today I was antsy for a project but wasn’t feeling too much patience in me. So these pretty little jotters were perfect. They took less than 15 minutes to put together and I can’t wait to start using them!

Here are the materials:

The secret: Gorgeous wallpaper samples from Anthropologie! (shhh.) While drooling over the website one day, I saw you could order samples for free. So I took them up on it. They are perfectly lovely decorating these mini moleskin journals.

You can easily wrap a piece right around the journal using double-stick tape:

Round the corners to cover the entire front, or add some embellishments:

Gift a set of 3, or split them up among friends (one would mail in a plain old envelope):

I had a few extra wallpaper samples, so with those I went even smaller and made my own little pocket jotters. (I saw this idea over here. Only a matter of time before crafters ’round the world discovered anything free from Anthropologie.)

I just cut a few sheets of paper to be 4″x6″ like the wallpaper samples, folded them together and stapled in the middle:

So get to it! And be creative about the paper you use: sheet music, comic books, a page of poetry, anything printed! These couldn’t be easier and will be fun to fill…

PS: I wrote “Eucharisteo” on one of the Moleskin journals because I’ve been reading the book, “One Thousand Gifts.” The author is dared by a friend to write down one thousand things she is thankful for, so she tries it. Her beautifully written book chronicles how this act of giving thanks — Eucharisteo — softens her heart and gives her joy. These little notebooks seemed perfect for carrying around in a pocket or purse to jot down throughout the day the things I am thankful for.

Je vous aime, Quiche.

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That means, I love you, Quiche. Oh boy, do I love you, Quiche.

I love the warm crispy crust, the creamy and perfectly salty sweet filling. I love eating it for breakfast, brunch, and dinner. And mostly, I love wowing my family and friends with such a wonderfully fancy dish while secretly “mwahaha-ing” over how simple it is to whip up. And trust me, I take as many opportunities as I can for a good wowing.

Here’s how:

Thanks to Marmie for this tried and true recipe. We grew up on this ham, cheese, and broccoli version (which I still love), but my quiche go-to these days is spinach, feta, and caramelized onions.

Play around with the ingredients to your heart’s content, but don’t change one thing: the perfect egg to cream ratio. Just don’t. 5 eggs. 2 cups cream. Perfect.

Here are a few other quiche secrets: 

  • Pre-made refrigerated pie crust
  • Pre-washed bagged baby spinach
  • If you include veggies (onions, broccoli, red peppers, etc), saute them first. It will pull out some of the water to prevent a mushy quiche. eww.
  • This time I tried using fat free half and half. It worked surprisingly well!
So first, just unroll your crust (home or store made) into a pie plate. Cover the bottom with caramelized onions (great how-to here) and feta cheese.

Add a generous amount of raw baby spinach.

Then pour in the egg and cream (5 eggs, 2 cups cream. Don’t forget.) over the whole thing. Top it off with some parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. (That makes it pretty in the end.)

Stick it in the oven for an hour. And it comes out in all its glory looking like this:

It saves well, and is best reheated in the oven (rather than the microwave) covered with foil to keep the crust flakey. Just another reason to bake this up for a crowd or a dinner for 2.

Here’s the recipe for Marmie’s Quiche:

1 unbaked pie shell
5 eggs
2 cups half and half or heavy cream
Fillings of your choice!

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Fill the unbaked pie shell with cheese and veggies. (Saute any veggies for 3-4 minutes before adding to shell.) Add meat (ham, bacon, crab), finely chopped to shell. Beat eggs until smooth. Add cream and mix well. Pour into shell. Top with salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese. Bake for 1 hour.

Painted Wooden Spoons

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Today’s project comes to you from Pinterest. Painted wooden spoons with a coat of shellac to give them a sort of ceramic look. They were so easy! You should give it a try. Especially if you consider yourself a non-crafting sort.

Here are all of the materials I used:

  • Wooden spoons from the dollar store
  • Acrylic craft paint from JoAnn
  • Sponge brushes from JoAnn
  • Shellac from Home Depot (JoAnn doesn’t have it)

Now here’s the how-to:

  1. Start with some basic wooden spoons.
  2. Tape off the handle with masking tape.
  3. Paint the handle with craft paint. (Get creative with mixing colors. That’s the fun part.)
  4. Give it 2 coats of shellac and peel off the tape.

A few more views because I was having fun taking pictures. Can you tell I like my new succulent?

This was a quick and easy project and I wish I had gotten more spoons! I’m excited to keep some for myself, but they’d also make a great little hostess or house-warming gift. Yeah, I’m a grown up wife now. Look at me talking about hostess gifts.

I’m So Proud of My Honey Muffin

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Alex is taking the GRE this weekend, on top of taking multiple classes, while working a full time job, mind you. That means there’s been lots of studying around the Wilgus home lately. (I’m one proud Mrs.)

So last night I baked up a batch of “I’m-So-Proud-of-My-Honey-Muffin.”

Check out the recipe here (originally called Marmalade Muffins) and then soak up all of their jammy gooey goodness. They were sweet enough for an evening study break and nutty enough for a satisfying breakfast the next day.

Oh, and they call for Marmalade, but I used Strawberry Jam instead. I get the sense they’ll be good with whatever flavor you have in your fridge.

Make Mom Proud

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My first 28 years of writing thank you notes was child’s play compared to wedding thank yous. A note seems to hardly suffice for the overwhelming generosity of so many (oh so very many), so a special thank you card is even more important.

I got a few questions on my last handmade stationery post. So I’m back to detail a bit more of my process in pictures.

And I’m including a free printable to make it a bit easier. So just click here, follow the photo instructions below, write a few thank you notes, and make mom proud!

Here’s the free printable of the handwritten “thank you” part of the card. Just cut along the lines and then use double-sided tape to attach it!

The Paper Source is a great one stop shop for all things stationery. So check there for cool paper, pre-cut cards of any color, matching envelopes, and envelope liner templates.

PS: All you engaged ladies out there do not have time to be making your own thank you cards. So you better keep an eye on your mail… 

Project Defeminization

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For the last 8 years, I’ve been collecting pretty accessories, curtains, paintings, lamps, etc, with the hope of some day compiling it into an Anthropologie-esque dream home.

Then I got engaged.

And Alex said, “Do you think that, maybe, when we get married, our apartment could like, um, maybe, you know, no offense or anything, but be a little less…feminine?”

I got his point. I’ve certainly kept his very gentle request in mind, but it’s been harder than I thought to neutralize all those pinks and flowers. So this weekend I went to work.

Project #1: The Entryway

Here’s what our entryway has looked like for a while. We bought this card catalog together at an antique shop, and we love it. But it’s had a few pretty little afore-mentioned accessories sitting on it. With a pretty, flowery painting hanging above.

No more. This weekend I used my incredible defeminization powers and Zap!

Bold, graphic, orange print in a bigger and thicker black frame. More clear space showing off that masculine metal surface. Accompanied only by Mr Bird. (Who, by the way, went from dumb and boring to slick and cool with a few coats of glossy white spray paint…)

But back to the project at hand. This entryway no longer says “Good day, sir, welcome home to your lovely abode. May I pour you a cup of tea.” It says, “Hey man, come on in. You’re just in time for our co-ed crafternoon.”

Just what every guy wants to hear, right?

Well, if not completely defeminized, hopefully the aesthetic at least falls a bit more in the middle on the scale of lace to movie posters.

Home Cookin: Chocolate Chip Bites

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Everyone has a chocolate chip cookie recipe they rarely stray from, I know. But seriously, you gotta try these. Then thank Mama Schmunk for passing on the recipe. You can tell mine is oft used already.

The secret weapon? Canola oil. Butter can leave cookies crunchy in the long run. But the canola oil ensures soft chewy cookies immediately out of the oven, or thawed from the freezer weeks down the road. (If they last that long.)

Once the chips are mixed in (a few extra certainly doesn’t hurt), drop by spoonfuls onto a baking sheet. It goes against every fiber of my being to say so, but smaller spoonfuls tend to work better. Just means you can eat more of them.

The other secret to getting these just right? Bake them for 8 minutes. They should look just underdone. But they’ll continue cooking once they’re out of the oven, and mature to perfection from there.

These will definitely make you, and whoever you share them with, feel special today. So pull out the red plate.

Here’s the recipe for Mama Schmunk’s Chocolate Chip Bites:

1 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup white granulated sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 large egg
2 egg whites
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix the sugars and oil. Add eggs and beat until smooth. Add dry ingredients. Drop by spoonfuls onto baking sheet. Bake until just light brown.

PS: With just 8 ingredients and a short baking time, these are perfect for budgets of both time and money. And of course, my favorite kind of before and after.

Enter the Flat Forest

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Today I’d like to take a moment to brag on my very talented husband. He’s very brag-worthy. You see, he just launched an Etsy shop. It’s called…

I whole-heartedly supported this Etsy shop idea because he’s very good at drawing. And after he draws things, I like to turn them into frame-able prints and sets of notecards, like this:

and this…

But you better just go see for yourself. Enter Flat Forest.

Announcement!!

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Welcome to The Handmaden! Yep, I’m the proud owner of http://handmaden.com.

I have my wonderfully clever husband to thank for this new blog name.

Although the name has changed, the purpose of this blog has not. I simply want you, yes you, to know that you are creative! And you can do creative things, even though you might think you can’t.

The truth is, creativity shows itself in so many different ways: crafting, cooking, singing, drawing, journaling, playing games, decorating, traveling, doing something thoughtful for someone else. The Handmaden wants to explore all of those things as I try them out myself. And hopefully give you a few ideas (and pointers) for when you get stuck.

PS: Of course, a URL alone isn’t enough. You can now find The Handmaden at: