Brussell Sprouts and Faux Finishes

My first attempt at eating a wider variety of fruits and veggies was not quite successful tonight. I cooked about 8 brussell sprouts so that Alex and I could each have 4. Surely he'd eat that many without too much complaining, right? Wrong! He flat out refuse to touch them and pretty much dared me to even spoon them onto his plate. Score: Alex 1, Amanda 0. I, however, did enjoy them and will now be having the leftovers in my lunch tomorrow. Maybe at least one of us with be healthier.

On a radically different note, I started working on a wedding present for friends who are getting married this weekend. While at work today, I realized that I hadn't started the making the gift and precious time was ticking away. Thankfully, I was able to use my lunch break to find the right size picture frame to make a personalized wall hanging. I wish I had taken a "before" picture, but, as usual, the thought didn't enter my mind until the frame was completely disassembled. I bought a 12x24 inch frame and had to pull a zillion staples out of the back just to get the picture out so that I could paint over it. It's impossible to find this size frame for a reasonable price (read: cheap), so I had to improvise and tear apart one of those hideous pictures that you'd probably find in a motel. Luckily, the frame and mat were pretty and I didn't break anything while tearing it apart. (It is always my fear that I'll break the glass) A friend gave me the idea to paint a faux finish over the ugly picture to make a background for my design. This way I wouldn't have to scour our tiny town for 12x24 inch paper and I'd add depth at the same time. To accomplish this, I took leftover paint from our kitchen and family room and poured them into separate foam plates.


The third plate (on the bottom of the picture) was to dab off extra paint. I wadded up two plastic grocery bags, one for each paint color, and dabbed them into each paint color. Then I dabbed them on the extra plate to remove excess paint and then dabbed the paint all over the cardboard from the picture frame. I overlapped the colors often to blend them. I didn't want the background to stand out too much, but wanted it to be more interesting than just plain, smooth paint.


Now I am waiting for the paint to dry and have to play with my design. I'm going to spell out the couple's last name and add some other details with vinyl. When it's complete, I'll post pictures. The paint colors reminded me of chocolate and vanilla ice cream, so I had to indulge in some left over Spongebob ice cream cake from my dad's birthday get together on Sunday. Yes, my fifty-something year old father likes Spongebob. What is the world coming to???


Looking at this picture, the Spongebob detail looks like green, yellow and blue mold. Ew. And one last picture for good measure. My faithful blogging companion, tired from a day of playing at Grandma's:


Isn't she the cutest?