Painted Plates: A Mother's Day Tutorial

The first time I ever thought about making painted plates, I was reading in the Martha Stewart Encyclopedia of Crafts. In the book, there is an entire section on painted china, which can also be found here on her website.  After copying a pattern from her book the first time, I decided to branch out a bit for my gift for my mom this Mother's Day.  My mother is a gardener, so I bought seed packs and painted plates corresponding to the species of flower that I bought.

Martha gives a great introduction to painting china, but I'll give you my slight modifications and step by step.  First, the material you'll need: 

• Ceramic plates.  I purchased mine at the local Dollar Tree because they were so inexpensive.  Don't feel limited to plates though!  You can use anything described as "microwave and dishwasher safe."  Platters, mugs, ceramic tiles, you name it, you can paint it.
• Bake on ceramic paint.  Pebeo's Porcelaine 150, which I found at Michael's, is what I used.  Porcelaine comes in either pens or pots.  I purchased the pots, which I felt were more versatile.
• Transfer paper.  You can use either simple carbon transfer paper (Martha recommends red), or use what I used, which is a bit more complicated (detailed below)
• A template. If you don't own the Encyclopedia of Crafts (you poor soul), you can find Martha's templates here.  I found most of my templates by searching Google Images for "[flower name] png black and white" or "[flower name] vector."  You can also look for coloring pages.
• Squeeze bottles or a VERY steady hand.  I used these, found at Michael's, but you can find similar products on Amazon.  It is possible to freehand with a paintbrush, but my hand is not nearly steady enough for that. 

The Evolution of a Logo

With the first post of my return, I thought I'd go through some recent work I did for a friend.  Her and her husband are starting out as photographers and wanted help setting up their blog on Squarespace (which I have to say is a pretty awesome service).  I wanted to show step by step the evolution of the design process.

The first thing we started with was the color palette.  We discussed a couple options in the same family but locked onto the following one before we started anything.

Design Seeds is a really cool website that helps you pick color palettes.  There are hundreds of palettes, from 5 to 7 colors, and I think it's a great way to start guiding a design.  Squarespace is a really great service for bloggers without code experience: it's more customizable than Blogger, but if you don't want to code at all, you don't have to (unlike Wordpress).  Someday I just may have to switch over!

We started out by choosing what colors we wanted prominent in the design.  The coral was chosen for the major titles, blue for accent headings and elements, mustard for links, and the peach for the background.   The gray was also used for some accent elements.

Pot Roast and Honey Beer Bread

I got a slow cooker for my 21st birthday.  You heard that right, a slow cooker.  And I love it.  I broke it in with a vat of queso (it holds six quarts, so that can be considered a vat, right?), and I have expanded its experience now with a pot roast.  I made this great honey beer bread that I found on Reddit to go with it, which made the meal even better. 

For the pot roast, I used a 3 pound roast and boy was it the most meat I think I've ever purchased in one trip to Kroger - ever!  I realized I usually buy fish or sausage, but rarely beef.

After waking up at 8:00 to start, I began by chopping onions and quickly browning them with a few cloves of garlic in about 1 tbsp of olive oil.  I don't usually smell onions that early in the morning, but boy did that smell good.  The onions don't need to brown for long, just enough to get a bit crisp on the edge, maybe 2 minutes for each side of the ring on medium high heat.

I turned my slow cooker on high and added the slightly cooked onions and garlic along with a bit of butter.  Because it wasn't warm yet, I cut the butter and tried to distribute it evenly along the bottom of the slow cooker.

Next: the meat.  Using the same pan as the onions, I seared the salted and peppered roast on all sides.

I threw that on top of the onions and added 1/2 bag of baby carrots, two really big potatoes, 4 cups of beef stock and parsley and oregano.  The reason I started so early?  I had a 9:30 am class, and I wanted to get it started so it could sit for a while.

When I got home, it was cooking away.  And right before we ate?  Yum!

The meat was falling apart and it tasted (in my opinion) just like a roast should.  Here's the recipe (adapted from Pioneer Woman):

2 onions, cut into rings
3 cloves garlic
3 tbsp olive oil
3 lb roast
1 1/2 cups baby carrots
4 cups beef broth
 1 lb potatoes
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
parsley and oregano, to taste

Begin by browning the onions and garlic in a large pan in 2 tbsp olive oil.  Add onions and garlic to 2 tbsp butter in crock pot on high.  Salt and pepper roast, adding it and and addition tbsp of olive oil in pan used for onions.  After searing roast on all sides, add to crock pot along with potatoes, baby carrots, and broth.  Season to taste.  Wait at least 7 hours (8 or 9) is preferable and serve, pulling meat apart with a fork.

But what to have with this wonderful roast?  Something hearty, to be sure.  This great Honey Beer Bread, adapted from Kirbie's Kitchen, is so delicious as a side, and I'm ready to try it out as toast tomorrow!

My favorite thing about it?  No waiting for anything to rise.  It's like 5 minutes of work, 5 minutes of cleanup, 50 minutes in the oven, and done.  Perfect to go with the easy crock pot meal!

Combining dry ingredients (just flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder) is really the most complex step.  I promise.  You do want to do it in a large enough bowl, though.

Next is the best part: the beer!  I chose to use a Sam Adams Boston Lager.  You can really use anything you have around, I think it'd probably taste like light beer if you use light beer, so use those with caution.  Unless you like light beer or something... then more power to you!

You're going to add the whole bottle to your dry ingredients along with 2 tbsp of warm honey.  For the honey, if you have a plastic container, you really only need to nuke it for 5 seconds to get it runny enough.  Trust me, the first time I did it I put it in for 15 and the honey got HOT.

So after you've added your bottle of beer (minus a sip or two if you're me), then mix your ingredients until they're just combined.  Add two tbsp of melted butter to the bottom of a 9" by 5" loaf pan and another two tablespoons to the top.  Sprinkle coarse salt on top, and pop it in the oven for 50 minutes or so.

 Yeah, it's a lot of butter on top and bottom.  But it makes a difference.  I'd never made break in a loaf pan like this before and thought I could omit it, but everything I saw online said "keep the butter!" so I did!  And boy does this loaf of bread look beautiful.

Yes folks, that is what my loaf looked like (before we devoured most of it).  And this is a picture with my terrible point and shoot camera that is 5 years old with no editing.  All those other pictures had to be edited a bit.  But not this one.  Because that loaf of bread is that beautiful. 

So is your mouth watering yet?  Because here's that recipe:

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp warm honey

1 bottle beer
4 tbsp butter, melted 

1 tsp coarse salt

Preheat oven to 350.  Combine dry ingredients and mix in a medium bowl.  Add slightly warmed honey and beer, mixing with a wooden spoon until they have just incorporated.  Grease a 9" by 5" loaf pan, and add 2 tbsp melted butter to bottom.  After adding dough, spread the reaming butter on top.  Sprinkle salt on batter before baking 50 to 60 minutes or until brown.

Baseball Movies

This weekend my friends and I went and saw "Moneyball," starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill.  The movie follows the Oakland A's and their struggle to put together a winning team on a limited budget.  Full disclosure: I'm a Cleveland Indians fan.  I always have been, as both of my parents are from Cleveland and I have some hardcore Chief Wahoo fans in my family.

"Moneyball" does a great job of showing how much other teams hurt when there's a huge wealth disparity.  Or, at least, that's how it was, before Peter Brand started looking at the game like a Harvard educated economist.  Baseball statistics, as far as I know, have been recorded since the beginning of the game.  Because it is so cut and dry (strike or ball, single or double), teams with money have been able to look at a page of statistics and say "I want that guy, he's got a batting average over 300 and stole 20 bases last year."  What Brand did, however, was teach the A's to buy runs, not players.  If you can get ten players that can do as well as your three star players and cost 40% less, you've got yourself an efficient baseball team.

What made "Moneyball" great (and why it is currently sitting at over 93% on Rotten Tomatoes) is that it's more than a baseball movie.  It's the little guy challenging the establishment, and showing that new ideas can work, even in a sport with a history as long as baseball.  I have friends that went to see the movie that were not baseball fans.  After leaving the theater, one said, "Wow.  I thought that was going to be boring, long and drawn out, like a baseball game.  But even the baseball stuff was interesting!"  When you can get someone who hates baseball enough to refuse to watch the World Series to like a baseball movie, you've done well.

There are two other baseball movies that I love, "Fever Pitch" (don't make fun) and "Major League."  The rom-com style of "Fever Pitch" works for me because the whole time I was watching the movie, I wondered what it was going to be like at the end of the season.  As indifferent to the Red Sox as I am, the 2004 season was one for the record books.  And although "Fever Pitch" is not a movie for the hardcore Sox fan, it's a good baseball-centric story most people can get into.  And I don't think I need to say anything about "Major League" other than that as an Indians fan, I am required to love it.

Out of my (now) three favorite baseball movies, I'd say "Moneyball"  is easily the most accessible to baseball fans and non fans alike.  It does a wonderful job of being a movie with all the baseball quirks (dipping, anyone?) and phrases ("I like him, he's got a strong swing"), but it's easily connectable to those who aren't gearing up for October and the playoffs.  My recommendation: if you like baseball, this is a need to see movie.  If you're not a baseball fan, it's supremely acted and well written and worth your time anyway.

Catching Fire Book Review

After my previous review of The Hunger Games, I took a few days to gather my thoughts about the next book in the series, Catching Fire.  Catching Fire in the middle of an obvious trilogy, and, as I find common with trilogies, is probably the weakest of the three.  Don't get me wrong, it's still a good, enjoyable read.  But it falls decidedly short of the first book.  As with my last review, this will be spoiler free if you've read the first book.


Catching Fire comes to us in three distinct parts: the Victory Tour, the preparation for the 75th Hunger Games, and the Games themselves.  Katniss is still adjusting to her life back in District 12 when President Snow shows up.  His creepyness is palpable, and his rosy bloodstained scent makes him that much worse.  He knows things he shouldn't be able to know about Katniss, specific things that happened in the woods outside of District 12.  He makes it very clear that the only reason her and Peeta have been allowed to live is because the people love them.  With some unsettling comments about conditions in other districts, Katniss and Peeta are off to relive their whirlwind love and remind the citizens of Panem that the Hunger Games are still alive and well.

After leaving District 12, the first location the duo visit (team in tow, of course), is District 11, Rue's home.  Katniss doesn't know what to say to the families of the dead tributes, but winds up making a very moving speech.  Instead of placating the crowd, Katniss only manages to embolden the people.  Members of the gathering are shot by several peacekeepers, showing that the game here is not the same as it is in District 12.  After returning to District 12, Katniss goes out to hunt, meeting mysterious refugees from District 8.  They say that they are headed to District 13 and share the rumors they have heard.  In news reels from the Capitol, the footage of District 13 never changes.  Katniss dismisses some of their talk, but she still questions whether a secret district could actually exist.

The second part of the book follows the preparations for the third Quarter Quell.  Although I loved the idea of a Quarter Quell, I felt like it was an afterthought added after the first Hunger Games book.  Collins has said that she always intended it to be a trilogy, but if the Quarter Quell were mentioned in the first book, I would have felt it would be more believable.  Special punishment is included in the Hunger Games every 25 years, to remind the citizens of Panem just how lucky they are to still be alive.  The 25th Hunger Games had citizens of the districts vote on children as tributes instead of the usual lottery, while the 50th had twice the tributes.  It seems as though the mandate for the 3rd Quarter Quell comes at too fortunate a time for the politics of the capitol to be coincidence.

I don't want to go more into the plot, as I feel that'd give too much away.  However, I will say this: this book sets up the final novel, the conclusion.  This Games, the last third of the novel, is not as shocking as the first, possibly because the reader knows what to expect.  There are clever terrors invented, but the real payoff does not come until the end.  Katniss has grown in some ways; she has decided to throw all of herself at one cause, but she still allows herself to be manipulated and a pawn.  Secondary characters are much more interesting in this book, with the exceptions of Katniss's mother and Prim, who remain blandly flat. 

I missed a few thing from this book.  I wanted the Victory Tour to go on longer, and I wanted to know more about the other districts.  Katniss goes numb on the trip, and while Peeta says all the right things, she seems to say all the wrong.  The idea that Katniss should be choosing between Peeta and Gale seems contrived as well.  Peeta, the boy who will always love her, who supports Katniss, is apparently not the yin to her yang, but Gale doesn't seem to fit either.

Although the book is good, the only reason I would consider it a rereadable book is because it is stuck between two stronger ones.  The first book is wonderful: suspenseful, well-written, and gory.  The second has slightly less of each.  Mockingjay is good too, and really does need the setup from Catching Fire, but some of the best parts seemed to get lost.