Plastic Bottle Christmas Tree

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted on here. It's true, I have had some gaps in creativity, but when Christmastime rolled around, I was all over it! And now that I've finally disassembled my tree, I'd like to show you how I made it.

Step 1: Collect as many bottles as you can.

Step 2: Use "cool temp" hot glue to connect them in a circle, starting with the bottom and working up.

Step 4: Decorate with as many recycled/homemade ornaments as you can. I also made cool ornaments out of old light bulbs and pop cans. Oh, and an empty toothpaste tube! But they aren't in this pic. To my knowledge (and I did extensive research online) this is the first tree of its kind!! I intended it to be 7 ft tall, but didn't have enough bottles so it topped off around 3/3.5 ft. I still feel like a "green" genius! :D

OTT?

I bet you guys were sick of looking at that rice or cous cous, whatever it was. Well, as you know, I am on the Historic Home Tour list which is coming up in a couple weeks. YIKES! So, today I've been doing some decorating projects in preparation. Mostly window treatments and some light gardening.

What we have here is my primary bathroom. It used to just have the mini-blind (which I hate but have to have till I can come up with a better privacy-yet-light-filtering solution) till I snagged the curtain from the red living room and put it up. The rod was a challenge, as it involved my electric drill (2nd time I've used it).

This is not a great picture. Sorry. What you are missing are the adorable colors. The wall is a real pale turquoise and there's lots more going on in this tiny room. But it's really tough to photograph.

This next photo is of my red living room. I finally moved the gauzy sheer with the baskets of flowers OUT of there and into a more appropriate room (see above). I replaced it with this awesome antique white linen sheet I forgot I had. It has a gorgeous embroidered hem and a monogram (?) which turned upside down, make a beautiful bottom hem for a curtain. The sheet was too long for the window and I did not want to cut it, so I decided to "gussy up" the extra into a valance. Do you think the rose is too much? Well, you'd kind of need to see the whole room before you decide.

OOH! I just had an awesome idea. I'm going to move those little tassels to the middle of the scallops so they make a gothic V instead! That will diminish the slight grandma look it's got now. I might also change the ribbon on the rose to black. Still playin'!

I also used that giant wicker vase I used for my derelict Christmas tree to house an arrangement of stems I've collected over the past several Christmases. I have to put something on top of the armoire. I'd like to put some shorter items around it too.

OK, here's the revised version:

Can She DO That?

Well, I don't know if you're allowed to mix cous cous and tofu, but I did. And is it ever YUMMY!

I wanted to share it with you in case you love tofu like I do and wanted a made up recipe to try.

Here's what I did:

Marinated 2/3 of a pound of firm tofu, cubed, in

• 1/3 cup veg. oil
• enough red wine vinegar to make a total of 1/2 cup with oil
• one clove fresh garlic, minced
• 3/4 tsp sea salt
• generous tsp. dark molasses
• 1/2 tsp. powdered ginger

for one hour in the fridge.

For the cous cous:

• 1 grated carrot
• 1 stalk celery, chopped fine
• 1-2 green onions, sliced

Boil 1 & 1/2 cups water (or veggie stock) with 1 tbs. butter (optional) and the veggies, and about a half tsp. curry for funsies. As soon as it's boiling, add 1 cup cous cous (I used whole wheat), cover, and remove from heat. Let sit for 5 min. No peeking! :) Oh I think I added some sea salt to the cous cous water too. Cous cous can be so bland!

Once the cous cous was ready, I added my marinated tofu. I just dumped the whole thing in, leftover marinade and all. It's up to you if you want to do that. It solved the problem of the cous cous choking me, like it usually does. I stirred it up and covered it with tin foil for a few minutes to heat the tofu.

Anyway, I found the whole thing delightful. And it worked out well, although I would have loved to have some soy sauce for the marinade, but had none on hand.

Alright! You Got Me!

I admit, I did take time to do some yoga with my pal Shania today and bake these:

I thought I'd attempt to bake with natural sugar. I still used partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening (shame shame shame) but you can't go 100% healthy cold turkey! These are Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies. No special recipe, just different ingredients. I noticed they did not flatten out in the oven but stayed round and puffy. They are also quite delicious. I had 4. Oops.

OK, now back to work, Trish! K-shaw! (sound of whip cracking)

I'm BIZ-AY!

For real, people! I am super busy! Have any of you ever tried to stock a whole entire store of only handmade items by yourself????? If you have, please commiserate with me. It's a thrilling prospect. And I know I'm gaining lots of valuable experience for the store front I'd like to open one day. But DANG if it isn't a DAWG's life! I just can't seem to keep up. The designing, the production, the photography, the techno, the marketing, the admin stuff (hate hate hate), and oh yeah, eating and sleeping.

This is not a complaining session. It's all very exciting to me! I just thought I'd let you know what's been going on at Domestick Kingdom. Or Dom Sticking Dom as my friend Laura says.

Sorry for no entries lately. I'll try to be better about it. I don't really have any housy projects going on right now on account of the new biz.

FINALLY!

OK, I finally got up the courage to open my Etsy store. It's meager but hopefully will grow in time. It'll be awesome when I get my logo and banner, etc. Plus, I need to create more inventory. :)

Lunch

I've been going to a four week class Sunday nights at church to learn more about our church. Last night we (the people at my table) were discussing our latest culinary fixations. Of course I talked about popcorn. The guy next to me said he is really into making pork fried rice. His description was so exciting that it inspired me to make my own version today for lunch. I already had some leftover rice in the fridge which I had cooked in tumeric. Tumeric is used a lot in southeast Asian countries (like Indonesia) and it costs way less than saffron (the most expensive spice in the world) with the same yellow effect. I picked up a big bag of it in Singapore.

I also had a bottle of Sambal on hand, another Indonesian staple. It's a chile sauce which adds a nice kick. In the end, my concoction was a tad bland, so I'd probably add more garlic and sambal and salt, next time............if I ever make it again. I tend to not repeat myself too much. Oh also, I made it vegetarian style. I've hardly been eating any meat lately except chicken. Just not into it.