Pinterest Challenge: Bottle Vases

So...there have been lots of tutorials on Pinterest on how to turn wine bottles into vases or tumblers. Some of our dear friends are getting married, and wanted to try it, so we volunteered our space. Turns out it works pretty well!

What you need:

Bottles

Kitchen twine

Acetone(nail polish remover)

Bucket of ice water

Lighter

What we did:

Cut a length of kitchen twine long enough to wrap around the bottle four or five times. Then soak it in acetone(nail polish remover). Wrap the twine around the bottle, tie it in place, and light. Make sure your fingers are a safe distance away from the flaming twine.

Rotate the bottle quickly and evenly, so the flames run around the length of twine. This may take a few minutes, and you should be able to turn the bottle a good half-dozen times before the flames die down. Once the flames go out, immediately immerse the bottle in the bucket of ice water, with the neck pointing down.

The bottle should separate into two pieces with a loud "crack!"

Our first couple of attempts yielded somewhat uneven and rough edges, but after a bit of practice, the bottles started separating cleanly.

Obviously the edges will need to be sanded and smoothed, but overall we were all very impressed by how well this method worked.

In between adventures with flaming bottles, a couple of my friends managed to catch Ruth and say "hello". Ruth wasn't terribly interested in making friends, though.

Mr. Bear was worried Ruth might scramble and claw at Jessie, as we have both been on the receiving end of Ruth's social anxiety.

Rainbow Bling

One of the side-effects of being in a burlesque troupe is having buckets and buckets of rhinestones laying about. I had wanted to have this necklace finished in time to give to Jewels before the Pride Parade, but sadly life got in the way and I'm only finishing it now. As you can see in my inspiration picture above, the necklace that inspired this one is also rainbow-themed, but I wanted to take it in an over-the-top direction more suited to Jewels' style.

[Edited 6/23 to add] Of course, if you'd prefer to just buy a pretty necklace like the inspiration necklace, you can find them at SparkleBeastDesigns on Etsy!(thanks to the Offbeat Home community for locating the source of the inspiration necklace!)

For this project, you will need:

Sheer fabric(I used .77/yard tulle from Hobby Lobby)
Rhinestones(also from Hobby Lobby)
Glue Gun and Glue Sticks
Ribbon

I also used a quilting hoop to stretch the tulle out on, but this isn't strictly necessary.
First, lay out your design. I began with the outline in large clear stones, and then filled it in with rainbow gems.

I began gluing my design by beginning with the center-line. I glued the bottom center jewels first, and worked my way up.

Then I began branching out on the upper edge.

If you accidentally glue something in the wrong spot, don't freak out! Just hold the hot tip of the glue gun against the back. This will reheat the glue and the jewel can be lifted and repositioned.

I completed the outline by adding the lower edge and the drop jewels on the bottom.

I then took my large rainbow jewels and placed them first, trying to space them more or less evenly.

I began filling in the smaller rainbow jewels. It's okay if they don't fit exactly like they did when you planned it out, just fill in where ever you can.

Add any accent jewels you like. Voila! Our design is now backed by sheer fabric.



Carefully cut the design out, giving it a wide margin on the fabric. Here you can just barely make out the outline of the tulle, like a halo around the rhinestones.

Go back and carefully trim close to the edge of the upper outline, leaving a tab of tulle on each corner, but just skim the bottom edge of the lower accent jewels since they're sort of floating.

Here is what the back of the piece looks like. You might think that looks awfully scratchy to wear. You'd be right. So we're going to cut out some small bits of felt to glue to the backs of the larger jewels.

Here's what it'll look like backed with felt. I have sensitive skin and found it to still be somewhat itchy. Next time I would use a sheer organza instead of tulle and back it with soft flannel instead of felt. But if you don't have sensitive skin, this may not be an issue for you.

The last step is to cut your ribbon and sew it to the ends of your necklace, where we left those tulle "tabs" when we were trimming.

It is now ready to wear. When worn on the skin, the tulle disappears into the background, making the necklace appear as though it is hovering on your skin, like an "illusion" necklace without the wire.

It can also be worn lower, as a decorative neckline on a tank or blouse, though light tulle will show up against darker fabric.

Some other things you can do with your new accessory:

Be the world's most bedazzled stage-coach robber!

Attend a costume party as a blingin' garden gnome!

Have the shiniest headscarf ever!

Give your pooch a Lady Gaga cape!

This "Ice Cream" is Bananas!!!

Can you spell "ice cream"?
B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

In today's Pinterest Challenge, I took on the banana "ice cream" recipe. Mr. Bear's favorite treat is ice cream, and since he recently developed lactose intolerance we've been looking for a substitute. Both Tofutti Cuties and Rice Dream have met with disapproval, so I thought I'd give this a shot.

The recipe I used as my inspiration is the Ultimage Vegan Ice Cream from (never home)maker.

For my version, you will need:

A blender
3 ripe bananas

1 tsp vanilla

1 Tbs chocolate syrup
3 Tbs peanut butter.

Really, you can add anything to taste, these are just estimates.

First, slice the bananas into thin rounds, then toss in a freezer bag and freeze several hours or overnight(I did overnight). Then, add your frozen bananas to the blender and process. I first used the "crushed ice" option until I felt it was fine enough to use the puree option. The blender is slower than a food processor, so be patient. I repeatedly had to stop and squish my frozen banana down with a spatula. It looked about like this(please excuse the poor pictures, I used my 1st generation iPhone):

...and was the consistency of frozen yogurt. At this point I added my peanut butter, vanilla, and chocolate syrup. After a few more minutes of pureeing and squishing back down, it finally became soft enough for the blades of the blender to pull the mixture down itself, which you can see in the lovely pinwheel pattern here:

Since I felt it was mixed and smooth enough for me and Mr. Bear, I ceased processing and transferred the mixture to a 3-cup Gladware container:

As you can see, it only filled about three-quarters of the container, so if you were aiming to make a lot of banana ice cream, you'd need quite a few more bananas. Now, if you prefer the soft-serve consistency, the ice cream is ready to eat now. However, I put the container in the freezer to set up to a more traditional ice cream consistency. After about 4-5 hours, it was ready! I scooped it all into a bowl and shared it with Mr. Bear, who loved it!

Success! Next time I will add crushed Oreos and see if I can replicate his favorite cookies n' cream ice cream.

Pinterest Challenge: DIY Circus Marquee Letters

For our wedding, Mr. Bear and I decided on a vintage circus/carnival feel. I set to gathering inspiration on Pinterest, and stumbled across this tutorial on Ruffled:

We used much of the same materials: 2 sheets of foam board, 2 sheets of poster board, metallic spray paint(ours was gold), red spray paint, hot glue, and string lights.

Here's how ours came out:

The font I chose was Big Top. The extra flourishes made it a bit more challenging to cut out, but since the letters have walls, you can't really tell where any of the rough spots are.

We used round string lights from Target($13 per string of 25), and spray painted the inside of the walls metallic gold to really reflect the warm light of the bulbs.And here's how it looked on the big day:

They are now gracing the walls of our home, which is becoming more and more circus/carnivale-y awesome by the moment! Hurrah!