Homemade mayo

Here's a mayo recipe & re-purposed jar double whammy for this terrific Tuesday! Over the weekend, I had a craving to re-create the olive oil mayonnaise hubby and I made a couple of months ago, using a recipe we pieced together from others so that we could use the whole egg instead of just the yolk (because we're too lazy to deal with a lone egg white).

It's really easy, but definitely use a food processor if you have one.

Ingredients (and acceptable substitutions)
1 egg
4 tsp white wine vinegar (lemon juice or regular white vinegar)
1 tbsp dijon mustard (1/2 tsp dry mustard powder)
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup oil or oil blend of your choice: the first time we did this, we used all extra virgin olive oil, but it was a little too much like being smacked in the face with an olive branch in terms of olive intensity level. This time, I used 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil with 3/4 cup virgin olive oil, and thought it was just right. I really want to try sesame oil next time, so get creative! Or, use vegetable oil or something neutral like veggie oil for classic mayo.

1. Pasteurize your egg to be safe. (Yes, it's up to you if you want to skip this, but it doesn't take that long and I'd rather not deal with food poisoning! Thank you to Saturday night dinner company for suggesting this.)

• Combine all ingredients except oil together, and whisk together well. Microwave for 10 second intervals, whisking with a new fork each time, until the mixture is piping hot and gets really frothy, like this:

• If you have an infrared thermometer (I love the cheap-o one I have), this is the perfect use for it - make sure it hits 140°F. Don't dip a regular thermometer into the egg mixture more than once, as this could re-contaminate it.

• Let it cool for about 2 minutes before moving on.

2. Add egg mixture to a food processor. Process alone for about 30 seconds.

3. The fun part!! Slowly add your oil in a very thin stream, while the food processor is running. About halfway through, you'll actually be able to hear things sounding different as it thickens, when contents turn from the runny egg mixture into a thick, creamy emulsion: teeny olive oil droplets in the water phase, with all the proteins in the egg stabilizing things so it doesn't turn into a salad vinaigrette. It'll also turn from yellow-ish translucent in color to more white and opaque, since the emulsion scatters light:

This batch has a lovely green tint because of the olive oil:

4. Taste your creating! With a pita chip or whatever else you have around:

You know I'm going through spray paint withdrawal already, so I took this clean old mustard jar with label removed:

Taped off the edges to keep the pretty design:

And put a couple of coats of spray paint on the top, let dry while eating a fresh steamed artichoke with my mayo, filled the jar, and assembled:

Wow. Writing about this makes me want to go eat some. The little monsters wish everyone a great week!

Visit Yush's profile on Pinterest.

Circuit board coasters

Yeeeessss weeeeeeekennnnnnnd!

Moving on...

A really long time ago, the hubby brought these circuit boards home from the office because they were going to throw them out, and he thought I could do something cool with them. Bless his heart, he knows me so well!

They were the perfect size and shape to turn into coasters, but then thought twice when I learned that a lot of circuit board solders and other components have trace amounts of toxic materials that are bad for you to come into direct contact with. (Which I should have already known, considering I learned about some of this stuff in college learning materials science.) So these sat in a junk box for a couple years.

But I finally just got around to ordering these self-adhesive laminating sheets from Amazon so they could be sealed up for safe use! I just cut the sheets to size and sealed them up. (I may not have retained much from my MIT education, but I'm sure enough that a layer of adhesive and plastic will keep me safe in this situation.) There's a slight hint of some air bubbles because the surface isn't smooth, but it's pretty hard to see unless you really look for it.

You could really use these adhesive sheets to make coasters out of anything that isn't already waterproof; even just pretty paper. Uh oh, watch out - nerd alert! My desk has some spiffy new coasters now.

 Follow

Champagne cage chairs

Hi.  I have a problem.  I keep everything.  Sometimes it's basically trash.


But.
Here's a rare case I'm glad I'm borderline hoarder!  I've been collecting champagne wire cages (you know...the little metal thingy holding the champagne cork in place) for a looong time, and we drink a lot of champagne, as evidenced by my wine cork napkin holder bordered by champagne corks.  I finally found a cute use for them!  I basically followed these simple instructions from about.com.

Then I played around with different chair backs, and finished off the chairs with a coat of my trusty silver spray paint for a uniform look:

They're pretty adorable lined up in a row on a shelf.  I think ultimately, these would be great keepsakes for special occasions...I'd just need some oil pens so I can write the occasion and date.  Anyone out there have any recommendations for good oil pens?

Can't believe this week is already over - hope everyone got to do some lounging this weekend like Elba did!

Follow

Mason jar soap dispenser DIY

Ugh. The common cold is a cruel invention of nature.

To ease some of the pain associated with the awful cold I came down with this week, I had to solve something around the house!  Our fancy high-tech sensor hand soap dispenser in the kitchen broke down the other day, so it needed a replacement.  Now, I don't think I've emphasized this enough, but I'm a HUGE fan of trash-to-treasure/upcycling/call it what you will. (a.k.a I'm cheap and too lazy to go to the store.)  So I wanted to try to pull this off using only stuff I already had at home.

First, the jar.  That was easy: dug this little gem out of our recycling bin.  Note "Classico" pasta sauce actually has a pretty nifty mason jar behind the label, which came off pretty easily with the scrape of a razor blade and some Goo Gone. The expiration date printing comes right off with acetone nail polish remover.  And, it's nice not to jump on the Ball mason jar bandwagon like everyone and their mother ;)

Next, the pump.  I have a stash of identical shampoos and conditioners (...thanks, Costco...), so just took the pump from one of them.

Punching a hole in the lid big enough to fit the base of the pump was the hard part, and I almost caved here and bought a 3/4" drill bit.  Crisis averted: I ended up using the biggest drill bit I had to start the hole, then a Dremel with cutting attachment to cut slits, and pliers to peel them up to make the hole bigger:

Then sealed the pump into the lid using a hot glue gun:

Thankfully, trimming the pump tube to fit the jar was a lot easier...just good ol' scissors.

Wrapped up the stem with newspaper, and sprayed the top with spray paint.  (Had some leftover from when I painted heating vent floor registers to match our carpet.)

Now the best for last!  Faux mercury glass.  Pretty much followed this nice tutorial from Vintage Fragment to a tee.  Just did 2 layers, and really happy with the results.

So here we are!  Yes, I realize the side-by-side comparison doesn't quite make sense because the jars are different sizes, but I'm sick, ok?!  Cut me some slack.

Having a functioning soap dispenser in our kitchen is SO great...maybe it'll keep the hubby from catching my cold.  Wouldn't that be nice, Elba?

(She says yes.) Hope everyone reading stays healthy!

Refinishing an old mirror frame

Ok I really need to stop this bad habit of finishing 97% of a post and then letting it sit in draft stage for weeks.  In 2015, I will try to be better at finishing things!  It's been a terribly relaxing and lazy last couple of weeks - I feel like the same kind of useless blob I turned to during winter vacations in grade school.  Here's one of about 10 projects I did at the end of 2014 that I hope to eventually tell you guys about...

I bought this mirror at a garage sale for a few bucks a couple of years ago because I thought it was beautiful, even though the finish was not.  And despite that, I still hung it up in my staircase right away and lived with the dull, fake-looking, slightly orange-y gold finish and all of the scratches that were on it.  (Pardon the lighting, but it's just so much easier to let my phone sync up to my dropbox so I don't have up manually upload!)

My last can of silver spray paint had clogged up a while back, because I wasn't careful enough to spray it upside down for a few seconds to clear the nozzle after each and every use. Lesson learned.  I got a different kind of one this time, and I quite like it:

Now, the question of how to tape off the mirrored surface.   I thought about taking the frame apart from the mirror, but the back looked pretty solid and I didn't want to mess with it.  The thought of putting painter's tape around all those curves frightened me.  So instead, I cut up little curved pieces of paper that very nicely fit in the gap under the frame, and held them down with bits of painter's tape.

After wiping off all the dust on the frame and using plain ol' drywall spackle to fill in the big gouges, I gave it a couple of coats of the silver spray paint.

I then realized that a piece of the patterned border was gone, and it was kind of ruining things for me.  I very probably should have just done the following with the drywall spackle, but for some reason I thought doing homemade puffy paint would be a good idea.  So I mixed 1 part flour to 1 part salt, and added enough water to get a pretty thick paste that would hold its shape.  Then, I put it in a plastic bag to act as a teeeeny piping bag.  The result was better than the starting point, but not very durable.  (It also occurs to me now that if I had mixed mod podge into this pasty mixture, it probably would have been a lot sturdier and less crumbly. And less crummy!)

Anyway, I gave it one last good liberal coat of silver, and let it dry.

Final step: the black detailing! Just use regular acrylic craft paint and a skinny little paintbrush to get into all the nooks and crannies of all the pretty flowers and designs.  (This process was easier with the paint diluted with water about 1:1.)  Then, wipe over it with a rag to remove the black paint from the raised areas, and you'll see how this brings in a lot of richness and depth.  Work in small sections so you don't have paint drying prematurely before you wipe it up the way you want it.

After removing the paper, I scraped with a razor blade to remove errant specks of silver and the previous gold remaining on the mirror itself.

And ta-da! What do you guys think?  I have another mirror in my house that may fall victim to this makeover, will post when I do it! Might take a couple years to get to it, though...

I have absolutely zero excuse this time to include this pic of dogs perched on barstools, other than it's pretty adorbs:

What to do with old greeting cards

Wow has it been a while since my last post!  I definitely have a backlog of great ideas to share with you guys, so let's get started.

I have the urge to keep everything - including greeting cards.  But let's be honest, you pile them into a shoebox and never look at them, and the next time you move you toss them all out anyway!  Here's a couple of ways to hang on to them without putting yourself at risk of becoming a hoarder.

Bind cards into a book

This is what I did with all of the beautiful cards we got for our wedding, and I included my bridal shower cards.  I used this fantastic tutorial from tortagialla.com to bind the cards together, with the only alteration being that instead of putting several sheets of paper together to form a "signature", one card is one signature.  As long as everything is centered, it'll still look book-like even though your pages will all be different sizes.  For cards that are oddly shaped, you can still bind it by taping it onto a folded piece of cardstock that is big enough to bind.

This is what the finished product looks like:

This would be great for other once-in-a-lifetime occasions: baby showers, graduations, etc.

Ornaments

What to do with all those gorgeous holiday cards you get every winter?  Turn them into ornaments!  This tutorial from Martha Stewart takes some time to do, but the end result is totally worth it:

I like to strategically place the circles to capture not only the prettiest parts of the front of the card, but also some of the handwritten note on the inside.  Use ribbon scraps that coordinate with the colors on the card, too.

What about you guys - what do you do with your old greeting cards??  I'd love to hear from you!

Finally, we close today with a glamourshot of Casper, courtesy my buddy DMo!