Monthly Archives: March 2012

The Magic of Matte Top Coat

Posted on March 24, 2012 by Ashley| 5 Comments

I’m wildwildwiiild about matte nail polish right now.  Check out this matte tag on the F Yeah Nail Art blog.  Is that stuff amazing or is it amazing?  It reminds me of chalkboard paint or something, and I love the way it looks so smooth and charcoal-ey next to a glossy shine polish.

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Now, I have been informed that resident king (queen?) of nail color, Essie, has a matte top coat that I’ve been dying to get my hands on (literally).  However, despite the fact that it’s supposedly a product that Walgreens stocks, I’ve never been able to find it.  Lucky for me, I found a similar top coat made by NYC at Target.  And forevermore will my nails be changed.  It’s amazing, you just paint it over top any of the nail polishes you already own and suddenly they become matte.  BEEYOOTIFUL

I don’t have the best photo-taking skills nor the best camera, however hopefully these pictures can give you an indication as to what this magic looks like:

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Light tries to shine on those nails and it fails… too matte for its own good.

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This is the WORST PICTURE EVER, however if you look closely at my thumb nail you can see a shiny stripe down the middle.  That is what this nail polish looks like normally.  The flatter look on either side has been matte-ified.

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Look at my faaaancy nails.  The glitter in the polish looks so cool now that it has been matte-ified.  Ignore my dry and stress-attacked cuticles, my nails look so good that whooo cares?

So there you go: a self indulgent, overly excitable post on the transformative magic of matte top coat.  You’re welcome!

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Paint-by-Numbers Art DIY

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Ashley| 9 Comments

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So how do you turn a creepy paint-by-numbers cat painting into something wall worthy?  A few months ago I saw this project by A Beautiful Mess (oh by the way I love this blog and have done a few projects inspired by theirs)  and have kept it in the back of my mind. So when I was at Michael’s Craft Store on Sunday looking for projects with my friend, I just had to pick up this bizarre cat painting.

Well, first off, be aware that there’s no way that your own painting will EVER look like the masterpiece on the package.  Look how adorable the original piece is.  Now look how terrifying my work in progress is:

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Now cry, because you will have nightmares about that blank eye ghost cat stare.  Paint a little more and it’s still scary.

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But have no fear, because creepycat is going to be covered up by paint.  I used some vinyl letters from the craft store in Helvetica because although Comic Sans was on sale, it would have been a crime to put that on the wall.

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Like Essie over at A Beautiful Mess, I chose a song lyric.  It may look strange, but that says “mushaboom.”  If that means nothing to you, check out this song by Feist.  Fun fact: almost used this as a senior quote in my high school yearbook.  Second fun fact: the chorus is my alarm song, yet somehow I don’t completely hate it.

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(Nice picture, right?  Let’s be generous and call it “artistic”)

So anyways, stick on those vinyl letters nice and good and then cover the whole thing with several coats of paint.  I did 4.  Then carefully pull off the letters and you are left with a muuuch more wall-worthy piece of art than creepycat’s dead stare.  There’s a little bit of bleeding because the painting was pretty textured; however, it has that nice artistically marred quality about it.  And I can’t wait to get it into a frame and up on the wall.  Yep, it’s wall-worthy.

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love, ashley

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Posted in DIY, Home Decor

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Fruit Crate Decoration

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Ashley| 2 Comments

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I figure that many people, like me, feel conflicted regarding the process of moving.  On the one hand it’s the opportunity for a fresh start, a time to cull through junk, a great excuse to redecorate.  On the other, there’s the overwhelming process of packing and unpacking, finding new places for all of your belongings, and losing things in odd places (only to find them again when you least expect them… try earrings alongside the tupperware or pay stubs with the nail polish).

I just moved into a new apartment and have been going through these exact thought processes on an almost daily basis.  Thankfully, getting through the bulk of the boxes was an endeavor executed in one fell swoop.  However, there are still those odd boxes full of miscellanea that are haunting me from the closet.  And no, I have not unpacked my shoes yet.  Still waiting to find a place for the junk formerly housed in my desk.

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Despite all of the frustrations, though, I have still been excited and occupied with decorating and decor.  Refining a new space is definitely my favorite part about moving (besides getting out of a waterlogged slum… but that’s another story for another day…).  I’ve been zealously perusing home DIY blogs and pinterest boards like it’s my new religion.  Unfortunately at this time of year (spring semester, senior year), home decor web searches are just so much more enticing than reading another essay by Nietzsche.  And let’s not even go into what Nietzsche would say about that…

But anyways, I wanted to share the first DIY project that le boyfriend and I created for the new apartment.  I can’t remember whose idea it was initially, but the idea of using fruit crates for decor just seemed so perfectly cute and cheery, with a half dose of kitsch, that we scoured Craigslist and ended up driving forty minutes away just to get our hands on some.

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Out of seven fruit crates, we created one nightstand, two speaker stands, and one mail holder.  The process was simple: screw two crates together, one on top of the other, to create a haphazardly stacked, though solid stand.  We used the small wooden dividers to create feet for the speaker stands so that they would be a little more sturdy.  For the nightstand, I wanted miniature shelves so I made do without little feet.  And finally, to call the mail holder a “creation” is a little erroneous because the process is simply this: use the box to hold your mail.  Nice, eh?

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Posted in DIY, Home Decor

A Confession and The Grand New Experiment

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Ashley| 8 Comments

I’ve obviously been avoiding this blog, and I feel really weird about it.

It became this vicious cycle…. I made this grand announcement that I would start to update more, and then I felt this great pressure without the great recipes to back it up.  And then once I had gone back on my promise, I felt too guilty to ever get up the courage and just POST.  I’ve got a million pictures of meals and desserts that I thought were simply fabulous, just sitting there waiting to get turned into blog posts.  But I just never feel up to it.

And then I kind of came to this realization.  I love to write.  And I love to cook and eat.  But I just don’t think I’m adding anything new and unique enough to the food blog world to justify the Drunk Squash in this capacity.  I read food blogs religiously every day on Google Reader.  I read a lot of them.  If I skip a day or two of reading it’s ridiculous the amount of posts I have to catch up on.  And in reading all of those blogs I realized that what I’m doing is not satisfying and gratifying enough to me.

The problem, I think, is that I’m not really a food blogger.

Like I said before, I love to cook and eat.  And I love to write.  But I don’t know if I love to write about cooking and eating.

So I decided that this blog is going to be in a bit of a transitional period.  I created The Drunk Squash a year ago.  Yep, a whole year ago.  I felt motivated and excited to start a blog and keep track of all the cooking and baking I was doing in my new kitchen, and thus this blog was born.  As a CSA member, I wanted to create a space to document and write about my CSA experiments in the kitchen.  And I still do want to do that.  I’m still excited to roast carrots and leeks and blend them all up in my Magic Bullet to create soup (that’s what I did for dinner tonight, in fact).  But I need a change to make me feel more personally connected with this blog.  The Drunk Squash needs a makeover.

I don’t know how much I have intimated this in the past, but I love many other things besides cooking and eating (hard to believe, I know).  For instance, I love art projects, crafting and creating, and I’m learning to love to run.  I want to incorporate some of that into this crazy website I call The Drunk Squash.  I want to reignite the flame.  I want to fall back in love with The Drunk Squash.

So, I guess this is just a heads up.  A warning of sorts?  Or a welcome back, to myself.  If you’re here, and you’re interested in reading, bear with me.  I’m ready to begin a grand new experiment.

Who Knows?

Love,  Ashley

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Posted in Personal