A Quick Guide to Mural Envy

Painting a mural is a process but it doesn't have to be hard. I finally settled on the theme for our nursery and got started right away on the mural. Please note that finding a theme is a completely different story and I'll write about it next month. For now, let's focus on the title of the blog.

After you decide what you want to paint I strongly recommend investing in a projector. Projectors have been used for over a century by artists like Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish (two of my personal heroes). Projectors help you get the image on the wall in the size you need. I've used a projector for many, many, a mural.

First, you need a high contrast image to work with. In this case I drew my plan on paper and passed along to another artist friend - Michelle Lana, to digitize the work and clean it up. She produced a .jpg which I projected on the wall. Thank you Michelle - you're the best. :)

After you project the plan in a very light pencil you'll want to set up the area in the room you plan to work in. You need plenty of lighting, floor covering, and supplies. I also recommend a trusty side-kick and/or apprentice to keep you company during the process.

Tips:

• If you're custom mixing colors, mix more than you need. You'll never be able to create the exact color if you need more, and you will always need more.
• Use synthetic brushes. Period. They're the softest and spread the paint the best. This reduces your work time and saves money because you won't have to repaint as many layers.
• Try to avoid leaving brush strokes and thin out your paint. Paint strokes are hard to remove when you decide to repaint the room. Trust me...

When you're ready to paint work in color blocks. Work on one section at a time using the same color so you don't have to remix it again. I prefer to dilute my paints with a thinner or water to make the paint more pliable and smoother.  I usually have a hair dryer handy for quick drying between layers.

  Layer by layer you'll start adding the details. It takes time. Reminder: if you're painting with several colors you NEED to let it dry before going back in with another color. This is especially true if you're using tape on your edges.

Finishing detals are the most fun! Once you let the walls dry the best part is putting everything together!

The same rules apply for more complicated murals. But if you follow the guidelines above you should be on your way to mural envy. Good luck!

Spaghetti Squash Mexicana with Tropical Avocado Salsa Fresca

While I am not a vegan, I do enjoy vegan meals when I have time to cook or when someone else is doing the work. (It's a commitment, you see.) One of my favorite cookbooks for vegan dishes is "Veganomigon". This is one recipe I've had great success with, which also doesn't take "too" much time out of your schedule to whip up. That is, once you cook the squash. Oh, and I recommend having someone else prepare the jalapenos unless you want to enjoy that sun-burned feeling inside your cuticles for the next 6-8 hours.

You'll need:
1 spaghetti squash around 3lbs

Salsa recipe:
1 cup chopped tomato
1 cup chopped pineapple, mango or papaya
1 avocado, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Juice from 1 lime

Bean mixture:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 medium sized yellow onion, diced
2 jalepenos, seeded and chopped small (I suggest wearing gloves)
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 teaspoons coriander seeds, crushed
1 1/2 teaspoons chile powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt 
1/2 cup red cooking wine
1 cup fresh or frozon corn
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

First bake the squash. Preheat oven to 375. Cut the squash in half across its waist and scoop out the seeds. Prick the squash halves with a fork a few times. Fill a baking dish with 1/2 inch of water and place the squash cut side down into the water. Bake for 45 minutes and set aside. 

While that's baking prepare the salsa!
Toss all the ingredients together and refrigerate. 

Then prepare the bean mixture:
In a skillet over medium heat saute the onions and jalapeno for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and coriander seeds and saute for 2 more minutes. Add the rest of the spices, salt, wine, and raise the heat for a couple more minutes. Stir often. 

Lower the heat and add the corn, and beans and cook for 5 more minutes. Take the cooled squash and cut it in halves and shred and scoop it out into a bowl. Add the bean mixture and mix well. Divide this on plates and top with the salsa fresca. 

Enjoy!

Chocolate and Almond Biscotti

Since so many of you asked, here's the recipe for my holiday biscotti. This was created from several other recipes and I still make little adjustments along the way. 

Before you set off on your biscotti baking journey - be warned - you will need a good portion of the day set aside, and another night if you plan to drizzle them with chocolate...which is totally worth it. But seriously, this is a commitment.... and don't try to rush anything.

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups of blanched whole almonds
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
7/8 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips for biscotti
2 cups of semisweet or dark chocolate for drizzle (optional)
1/4 cup unsalted butter - softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons of whiskey... or more 

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toast the almonds in a shallow pan for 12-15 minutes, shaking the pan a few times until the almonds are lightly colored. Set aside to cool.

2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with aluminum foil, shiny side up. 

3. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and sugar. Place 1/2 cup of these dry ingredients into a food processor. Add about half a cup of the toasted almonds and process for 30 seconds. 

4. Return the mixture to the bowl of dry ingredients and stir in the remaining almonds and chocolate chips. In a large measuring cup, beat the eggs, vanilla and whiskey with a fork to blend. Stir into the dry ingredients until moistened. Add the butter in slices. (You can also use a heavy duty mixer for this).  With your hands wet, divide the dough into 4 batches. Form each quarter into strips about 9 inches long, 2 inches wide and about 1/2 inch high. Round the ends of the dough and place two strips crosswise on each cookie sheet. 

5. Bake for 25 minutes in the preheated oven. If you're baking more than one at a time you need to rotate the sheets mid way through to ensure it cooks evenly. 

6. Using a metal spatula, remove the slabs from the cookie sheets and let them cool (warm to the touch) for about 20 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 275 degrees.

7. With a serrated knife, slide the slabs at an angle about 1/2 inch wide. Place the slices cut side down onto the cookie sheets. 

8. Bake 25 - 30 minutes in the preheated oven until the biscotti is lightly toasted. 

9. Turn off the oven and leave the door open until the biscotti has cooled, about 30 minutes. 

10. Store in an air tight container.

FOR THE CHOCOLATE DRIZZLE:
There are many ways to melt chocolate. The best way is using a double boiler. If you don't have one you can just use a small saucepan and a metal bowl that fits snug on top of the saucepan.

Fill the sauce pan with hot water from the tap. Make sure the water doesn't touch the bottom of the bowl you place on top of the sauce pan. Heat the sauce pan over LOW heat until it begins to simmer. Then put the metal bowl on top. Make sure the chocolate is chopped up into little pieces so it melts evenly. Stir gently until the chocolate is consistently smooth and shiny. If you need to thin the chocolate out, I've had success with Crisco Shortening. This helps a lot with thinning it out, depending on the type of chocolate you're using. 

Lay the biscotti out on wax paper and make sure they're evenly spaced out. If the biscotti's touching ends the chocolate won't drip down on the sides. 

Using a spoon, drizzle the warmed chocolate over the biscotti in a consistent pattern. Let the chocolate cool and dry before packaging the biscotti in an air tight container. 

Flooring 101

When we moved here the entire first floor of our house was covered in a nice off-white carpet. It was glorious. It looked so peaceful and spacious... like a soft blanket of snow had just landed in my house and made all the clutter go away. It was absolutely magical.

That was until I learned the only way to keep it that way was to regularly vacuum foot traffic, steam clean cat puke, and remind our guests to remove shoes on a daily basis. Let's just say when we had guests over all I could think about was when that first glass of red wine that was going to christen the floor. (I would like to thank my friend DeeDee for taking care of that so promptly.)  

Admittedly, I was a bit neurotic. But you would be too if everytime you came home your eyes scanned the rooms for the next spot before you took off your jacket and settled in. I was obsessed with keeping the carpet impossibly spottless. I was turning into Mommy Dearest - scrubbing and steaming until the floors bared no trace of human inhabitation. If the vacuum lines weren't on the carpet it was time to vacuum again. Get the point? So here we are now.

My Nesting Affliction

If nesting is when you physically cannot stop changing your house around because you can't go into your studio to paint, well then I'm in full blown nesting mode. Others may call this "withdrawal". Either way, here is one result of this affliction I am suffering from.

Another piece of furniture was attacked by me and a paintbrush. This one took some time though. I had to remove the glass, sand the inside AND outside, remove the shelves and repeat the same process for those. It was worth the wait. I also changed the paint color (3 times) after painting the entire piece of furniture before selecting this blue color, which happens to be the same color in our kitchen and where the hutch currently resides. I just used leftover paint. Too bad we bought 2 other new colors I need to repurpose... which you will see soon.

New Gym - No excuses

Well, we did it! We bought a treadmill and then a bunch of other stuff to pull some gym space together in our basement. Our "plan" (and I use this term loosely) is to use this space to cut back on gym commute time and monthly costs from the traditional gym. Hopefully when the winter hits we'll be down here more often. Right now it's gorgeous outside so we don't spend a lot of time in the basement. That said, the best part about this gym was designing it!

We painted first since the floor would be covered anyway. I went with a really intense orange color to keep energy levels up when we're working out.

Please note: this color was most likely selected due to subliminal messaging coming from pandora radio earlier in the week. They have Home Depot commercials after every other song and guess what color this almost matches.. (sigh).

Then we picked a floor. I wanted something that would be durable, replaceable, and not overly expensive since it's going in the basement and anything can happen down there - anything. Fortunately I found a rubber flooring site. These tiles were on sale and amazing! Not to mention the shipping costs were really low because rubber flooring is super lightweight. These were SO easy to install. All you need is a box-knife and a husband. BOOM.

Then we got to shop for the fun stuff. This was Jeff's job. He selected some fancy schmancy treadmill that shows where you're running while you watch on the TV. Which meant - yes - we had to buy a TV. Then we had to buy special brackets to hang the TV from the wall. Then we needed a DVD player for my workout videos (Yoga and that Jillian lady who is really the devil in spandex). Anyway, we're all set up now and completely broke so it worked out in the end.

Utilizing some tall space

Our bedroom was a little scarce with the tall walls and needed some love. So I took a bunch of frames and arranged them above the bed to create a focal point in the room. The photos can be swapped out and the frames can be repainted if I get bored. Chances are, that will be in the next few months! Now I need to find a paint color that works...