Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Owl screen printed camisole

So I tried the screen printing thing a few years ago, failed on my first attempt, and gave up. I've been stenciling for a long time, and there's one I do over and over and I thought it would be so much easier and faster to have it on a screen. But my chemicals long ago expired or dried up or got lost or spilled, I can't remember. So I started playing around. I grabbed this little guy from my stack of freezer paper stencils I never cut out, cut him out, and ironed him onto the bottom of my screen instead of onto the shirt. Boom, owls on everything! I was able to wash and reuse the screen with the owl still on it. I wouldn't recommend washing too often, though. managed to catch this pic as it was blowing off the fence, lol

Monday, April 13, 2009

Chocolate-drizzled caramel corn from scratch!

My dad bought this tiny bag of caramel corn drizzled with chocolate, and it was kind of expensive but so good! His birthday is today, so I thought, I can make him some of that stuff! Here's what I did:

Preheat the oven to 275 F
Make 1 cup of popcorn. You can heat it a little at a time in 2 Tbsp oil in a pan over high heat, or airpop it, or make two bags of microwave popcorn and take a little out. Grease a roasting pan or two cake pans, and put the popcorn in them in the oven to keep it warm.
You'll need:
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
3/4 cup butter
1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 regular package chocolate chips, divided in half

Melt the butter in a large saucepan and add the brown sugar, corn syrup, and salt. Stir well, bring to a boil, and continue cooking for 5 minutes without stirring. Turn the heat off and stir in the baking soda and vanilla. Pour it over the popcorn, distributing evenly. Bake for 15-25 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes.

Spread caramel corn out on wax paper. Melt half of the chocolate chips in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time until smooth. Dip a spoon in the chocolate and drizzle over caramel corn. Let cool and turn as much of it over as you can (it will be in clumps) and repeat, drizzing the other side. Let cool and store in an airtight container.

with walnuts: add nuts or other additions to the sauce before pouring over popcorn, or else it won't all stick together.

both

close-up: the chocolate was still melty



Monday, April 6, 2009

Cool blog giveaway!

Over at Domestic Disaster, ThreadsOfGray is hosting a giveaway of a super cute wristlet of the winner's choice - check them out here! All you have to do is post a comment, answering the question, "If you had all the money in the world…what charity would you support and why?" There are some great charities already listed in the comments, go check them out.