Friday, June 22, 2012

perfect polishes part 1


Everyone seems to be obsessed with nail polish right now. Though it is great that you can find any color of the rainbow in the cosmetics aisle, getting every color that you want is pretty expensive - especially when precious metals are involved.

This is an easy recipe for gold flake polish which uses actual gold bits. The texture is more organic in shape, size, and distribution because the metal is irregularly cut by hand.

You will need:

A bottle of clear nail polish
3 sheets of real gold leaf (per .5 oz)
 a sheet of printer paper
scissors
a funnel


You can find gold leaf in most art supply or craft stores. There are also less expensive metals available, but they may oxidize over time and alter the color and consistency of the clear base polish. Think of what happens to the color of your finger when you wear a cheap ring.


Put a piece of printer paper on your work surface and lay out a sheet of the gold leaf.


Gently fold the sheet of gold leaf into a roll and chiffonade (cut into strips) the metal with a pair of sharp scissors. If you have trouble with the gold sticking to your fingers, wash and dry your hands or wear a pair of cloth gloves.


Snip the ribbons of gold leaf into little flakes keeping everything contained within the borders of the printer paper. The flakes should be smaller than a half nail before they are proper glitter,

Place your funnel on top of your nail polish bottle. Mine was able to balance/stick on top of the polish bottle. Pick up the printer paper and fold it in  half, gathering the gold into a stream in the center. pour the flakes into the funnel. Some of them may not go down, you can use a toothpick to help push everything in. 

Ready to use plain or layered.




Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Lovely Lawn

I just have to say that grass lawns are so boring.  

My father has always made sure that, along with grass, our lawn has wild flowers, wild strawberries, chives, and moss naturally growing in patches.

 It's pretty.


More people should let their lawns go wild.





Sunday, June 3, 2012

Midnight Curry

I am not a big fan of daylight, you may notice that usually my posts go up around 3-4 AM. It can make eating kind of tricky because I'm not usually awake during grocery store hours. Left in the middle of the night with limited ingredients, an excess of frozen IKEA meatballs, and a coconut craving, some strange things happen.


To make IKEA Coconut Curry you will need:
2 cubes or packets of Japanese style curry
 300ml water OR the amount of water in the box's instructions
1/3 cup of Baker's sweetened Angel Flake coconut
12 frozen IKEA meatballs
Rice

Start by heating the meatballs according to the instructions on the package (4 min in the microwave).

Combine the water, coconut, and curry cubes in a pot over high-medium heat.

While the curry mix is coming to a boil, quarter the meatballs. For maximum fun, use scissors.

When the sauce starts to thicken, add the meatballs.

Serve over rice garnished with some shredded coconut, flavor improves with some fridge time. This will make about 4 servings.


There are no pictures of the cooking process because it was dark when I made it, but this is my leftovers lunch. I'm not a huge fan of the well-done, ground beef flavor of the meatballs unseasoned and so letting the flavors blend overnight and mellow a bit made this recipe a lot better. Adding coconut to basic curry makes it sweeter and less like the usual cheap boxed curry.

If you are daring, bored, or ever wondered what the food tastes like on the show CHOPPED, you might want to try this out.

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