Quarantine Hobby #1: Watercolor

It's March 2020. I've just heard the news that everything is going to be shut down for "two weeks to slow the spread". (HAH.) On my weekly grocery trip, I decide to cruise the craft aisles at Meijer for anything to help keep the kids occupied - and maybe myself. Stickers? Yes. Crayola ColorWonder books? Throw 'em in the cart. Clearance watercolor kits? I've never tried that before, sure sounds good.

After watching a few YouTube tutorials of how to get started, these were some of my first "pieces". (That's too fine a word for what I do!)

Turns out the paper and brushes you use have a bigger impact on your final outcome than your paints do, so after realizing I like painting with watercolors (and that the paper and brushes that came with the paints were crap), I invested $15 in a good brush, and bought some slightly better watercolor paper at Hobby Lobby.

Here's my next set. I decided to make bookmarks because it's a small, unintimidating canvas. (Plus I got to use my laminator! So fun!)

When shopping for watercolor paper, I had picked up a 4x6 pad of the same paper, so I tried making notecards.

Turns out, I really like this! (And they make great gifts.) (Although I now prefer to work on 12x12 paper and cut it down to size - I can get 6 cards and 2 bookmarks from a page that size and it's more cost-effective.)

I even got conscripted to make some bookmarks for my cousin's wedding favors!

Mostly, I just have fun browsing Pinterest for fun ideas and then trying them out. I've recently discovered using skinny washi tape as a resist method. (So many fun ideas with that!)

I really enjoy painting with watercolors. I will most likely never be up to painting anything realistic looking, and I don't even know that I want to, but it's very relaxing to just play with the paint!

Love and Washi Tape,

Leah Joy

Christmas 2020 - yep

Okay, we all already know I was quite far behind in this blog, so enough ado already about how late this post is.

For Christmas 2020, Jo and I made little bells for our en masse ornament. (See previous years posts here: 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2013 2012 2011)

We used small wooden dollhouse flower pots from Hobby Lobby that we painted in all different patterns. After they dried, we strung a jingle bell on the inside and tied a cute bow around the hanging ribbon.

 

Jo was super into The Princess in Black in 2020, so I painted this ball ornament to be like Princess Magnolia on one side and The Princess in Black on the other side. My sister made the tiara - and it rotates with the ball ornament.

For Micah, I picked up a package of tiny bottle brush trees from the dollar store, along with a construction vehicle also from the dollar store. A little bit of hot glue, some Epsom salts and glitter later, and we have this snowy ornament:

Love and Lights,

Leah Joy

A Few Birthday Cakes

Here are a few of my favorite cakes I've made over the last year and a half. The first is Jo's 5th birthday cake. Her birthday is always around Thanksgiving, so it's tricky to throw her a birthday party. For her 5th birthday, we tacked her celebration onto Thanksgiving, so she got two "birthday parties", one with each side of the family. I used my 6" cake pans (that I purchased for Pete and Chloe's wedding cake) and made two small 2-layer cakes.

My family always gets my decorating experiments. I kind of like this one!

Micah's 3rd birthday cake was a construction cake, because this boy loves all things "twucks".

This was a very different style for me to try, but I had fun with it!

Photo credit to my friend Jenny

In 2021, my sister had her golden birthday - she turned 23 on the 23rd! I made her a golden chocolate cake!

I tried my first ever drip cake, which was a bit less successful than I was hoping for. To get a nice gold drip, you can either drip white chocolate ganache and then paint it (which sounded like waaaaay too much work) or make a gold drip out of luster dust and vodka (the alcohol evaporates off). I chose the luster dust/vodka method, but my mixture was too liquidy, so it dripped much faster than expected.

I made the number cake toppers out of a gold glitter foam sheet from Hobby Lobby and some toothpicks.

I used lots of gluten-free chocolate candies, some of which I cut and/or painted with more luster dust. I purchased several kinds of gold sprinkles as well, and made chocolate bark with gold accents to decorate the back of the cake. (Unfortunately, I either used too much chocolate bark, or gluten-free cake isn't as sturdy as regular cake - or both? - and the cake started to fall apart on the party day. Thankfully, broken cake still tastes good!)

Love and Sprinkles,

Leah Joy

Lemon Cake

 It's my favorite cake flavor.

My only problem? Every recipe I tried was never as good as the way my mom made it - out of a box! Don't get me wrong, box mixes are great. (I'm looking at you, gluten-free brownie mix from ALDI.) But homemade lemon cake should taste better than a box mix!

So I got down to work to make the perfect lemon cake.

(Spoiler alert: I did!)

I chose 4 lemon cake recipes - all of which had marked differences - made them all, and then had a sampling party with some highly critical taste testers (AKA my family). I took notes, made more cake, took more notes, made more cake, etc. until finally:

Moist, flavorful, and the perfect texture.

If you like a lemon cake with just a hint of lemon flavor, this is not the cake for you. This lemon flavor is strong enough to punch you in the nose and taste buds.

So, in case you don't live close enough to order from my bakery, or just want to make it yourself, here's the recipe:

Cream together:

1 cup oil*

3 eggs

1 tsp lemon extract

Zest of 2 lemons

Juice of 2 lemons + whole milk to 1 1/3 cups

In a separate bowl, whisk together:

2 cups sugar

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

Add to oil mixture and mix to combine. Pour into two 8-9" baking pans and bake at 325(F) for 25-35 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. (Rotate the pans halfway through if your oven bakes unevenly like mine.)

* Use a mild flavored oil like canola, not olive! (I made that mistake for you.)

For the frosting:

Cream 2 sticks butter in a stand mixer, then add the following ingredients, switching between dry and wet ingredients as necessary:

7 cups powdered sugar (add 1 cup at a time)

juice and zest of 1 lemon

1 generous tsp lemon extract*

1-2 drops yellow gel food coloring (optional)

*I like a very strong lemon flavor. If you don't, begin with less lemon extract and work your way up to your desired flavor.

Sometimes I try new cake decorating ideas. Sometimes they are less pretty than others. (But still delicious.)

Love and Lemons,
Leah Joy

Little Free Library

For quite some time, I'd been wanting to build a Little Free Library for our yard. Especially at the beginning of quarantine, when the libraries were closed for some time, I thought it would be a helpful service for the neighborhood. Of course, by the time I got one up, the libraries were open again, but now I'm prepared. :)

I found this cabinet on craigslist, and while I loved the basic shape, it needed to be a bit deeper. My brother-in-law helped me make the necessary adjustments. By which I mean, he did all of the hard work, and I sanded and painted.

We used some old sign boards from my dad's real estate business (they get new signs every time they change their name - and they change their name a lot). 

My dad had some metallic blue oil-based paint lying around, which he gave me. I kind of regret using this paint as oil-based paint is awful to clean up, and the inside of the library STILL stinks of it a year and a half later. But it is pretty.

This past summer, Jo had a lot of fun running around our yard taking pictures. She took both of these artistic shots of our library.

Love and Books,

Leah Joy

Spring Wreath

I've been working on my interchangeable felt wreath for years. 

Here's the set of decorations I made for Spring. These are definitely my favorite from the whole set.

I was inspired by this picture, but I wanted a bit more variation in rose style. I used three different tutorials.  (This one is in Portuguese, but the pictures are very helpful.) 

Love and Roses,

Leah Joy

Yes, It's Been a Year and a Half, but I Get Reminders on My Phone Now So Maybe it Won't Happen Again?

 Life happens, right? 2020 hit hard. Since I'm a stay-at-home Mom, you might think I wasn't really affected too much. After all, it's right there in my title: stay at home. Except, I like liked to take my kids places a couple times a week where someone else planned the activity and I just got to enjoy being with my kids. We went to storytime at the library every week. Caleb had just bought us a membership to the children's museum. We went grocery shopping all together, which totally counts.

And then, suddenly, all of that stopped. I was not prepared. I like to be prepared. And it was only supposed to be two weeks. (HAH!)

After falling over and reeling a bit, I came up with some plans. Not all of them worked so well, but one of them was this ABC craft for Jo. I tried to include Micah, but he wasn't super interested. Over a few months, she put together these crafts I prepared. Most of the ideas were from this page, but for a few of the letters, I liked other options better. 

We had them as a border in our dining area for a good portion of the year.

I think N is for Night might be one of my favorites she did. She had a blast painting it and got very creative. Jo splattered some blue paint over the page because "it's a rainy night".

I took up cross-stitching, which I kind of fell in love with. Here's my first project - a good reminder for every day:

Pattern from Etsy

I also took up watercolors (I found a cheap set at Meijer) and I'm having a lot of fun with that. I created a painting board for myself, so I can paint at the table if I want, and then move the painting off the table without disturbing it.

I sanded, stained, and sealed a pine board from Lowe's, then added two handles on each side to make it easier to carry. A year and a half later (with lots of use), it's still in perfect condition.

These were some of my first painting attempts. I've improved so much since then (more on that later), so it's fun to look back on.

Lots more has happened since then, and you can actually look forward to reading more about that because I've set reminders on my phone to write. :)

Love and Sunshine,

Leah Joy