Roasted garlic, where have you been all my life?

I've read countless cooking blogs and foodie websites that talk about how easy it is to make roasted garlic, and how tasty it is, but I thought those people were crazy spending all that time roasting full pans of garlic and wasting all that olive oil. Until this weekend...

Tiny garlic bulb in a tiny LeCreuset

To make roasted garlic, you basically just douse a head of garlic in olive oil after chopping off the top bits of the bulbs so the oil can get ALL up in there. I did this kind of on a whim and just used what I had at home, and I didn't want to pour my entire bottle of olive oil in the pan just for one head of garlic. In a flash of inspiration, I grabbed a silicone muffin cup to keep everything compact. I covered the whole thing in foil after the pic, put it in the oven while I was roasting some butternut squash, and then I got...

nutty, fragrant, roasted garlic! When I took it out, I could still see bubbles coming up from the bottom of the muffin cup. The little bulbs are pretty easy to get out, especially if you don't mind getting your fingers and/or chopsticks a little oily. I used some while broiling salmon by cutting deep scores in the salmon and sticking some garlic in the cuts before sprinkling salt, pepper and panko flakes on top. Mmmmmm....

I can't wait to try this crushed up on some bread!

How to dress like Gwynnie; or, DIY Kain t-shirt

Me and Gwyneth, twinsies.

When I saw the t-shirt Gwyneth Paltrow collaborated on with Kain, I thought it was so cute to have a slightly formal update on the basic white T. But I don't spend $90 on my formal clothes, let alone my play clothes! I went to Uniqlo on my lunch break and got a cotton/modal blend t-shirt for $9, and I had some extra black grograin ribbon left over from another project. This DIY is super easy to do and then you can finally have an excuse to go to a garden and make your boyfriend take pictures of you while you pose like a rich, skinny white woman!

SUPPLIES:

• White t-shirt
• 2 yards of black ribbon
• Sewing stuff: pins, needle, black thread; or your sewing machine.

  

DIY: How to turn a button-up shirt into a skirt

One of the most awesome things about going to Hawaii was my boyfriend's dad's old walk-in closet that was FILLED with the most amazing vintage aloha shirts I've ever seen! But since I don't have that much use for them in my daily wardrobe, I decided to turn this silk one into a skirt!

It's actually pretty easy if you have access to a sewing machine, and doesn't really require being a great seamstress. Read on to find out how to do it!

DIY gone awry!

When I was in elementary school, I read a lot of books in lieu of having friends. (Awww.....) But since I learned all my new vocabulary from books, I didn't get a chance to hear these new words out loud until years later, so I spent my formative years thinking the word "awry" was pronounced "aw'-ree." I felt so embarrassed until my piano teacher in college (who had taught my mom in college) told me a story about how she mispronounced "archipelago" at a dinner party and was so embarrassed. See, we all do it!

You know what else we all do? Botch up DIYs! Luckily this one still had good results!

HOW (not) TO DIP-DYE/BLEACH A DENIM SKIRT

1. Find a skirt! Mine was on super sale at J.Crew and is a happy bright neon pink. Get it in store, $60 is too much!

Step I skipped: Make sure it's 100% cotton! The skirt below is about 87% cotton and the rest is rayon and spandex, making for a very comfy skirt that WILL NOT bleach the way you think it will.

overpriced J.Crew skirt

2. Get out your $2 off-brand bleach!

ultra!!! TO THE MAX!

3. Pour some into a bowl, dye pot, or pot that you don't plan to use for cooking again. Mix in some water. I went with a half/half ratio to start with because I wasn't sure how fast the bleach would work. You can start there and add more bleach if you think you need it.

4. Put your hand up on your hip, and do the dip!

When I dip, you dip, we dip.

Things may not start to happen right away! Depending on the type of fabric, the type of dye, and your bleach mixture, you may want to dip it, get it pretty saturated, and then hang it up or let it sit there in the bleach for a bit. I've bleached items that needed five minutes and some that needed at least 30. Keep an eye on it, and remember that after you machine wash, your item will be a shade lighter than what you're seeing.

5. Let it lie in wait.

6. Wear it, wrinkle it, walk by a bodega, and squint your eyes up!

Dear New York, please stop raining.

7. Go to Muji for room shoes.

I need those.

As you can see, the bleach made my skirt darker and more purple/fuschia than neon pink. Not what I had planned, but still really cute!

I saw a cotton denim men's shirt in Uniqlo on sale, so this DIY may have a part two in the near future! Are you going to try it?

Glitter shoes DIY

First I bought these last year on super duper sale:



But I never wore them because that leather flower on the side isn't really my style. So I took it off:



And then realized there's a bunch of holes left in the leather because of the thread that held the flower. So I decided that the only thing to do was to fill those holes with glitter.

First I taped up all the parts that I didn't want glittery, including the heel tap:



Then I scuffed up the to-be-glittered part with sandpaper.



Then I mixed about half ModPodge and half glitter from Michaels in the cut off end of a water bottle and painted it on.



Here they are half dried:



I ended up painting on three coats to get the glitter as opaque as I wanted, but the difference between one coat and three is actually minimal.

I let them dry some more and applied some Angelus Acrylic Finisher and voila!





They're pretty cool! I bought the glitter while at home in Memphis so I didn't compare the colors, and in the future I might get a color more similar to the base color. But I kind of like the spectator look these have now, and I'm happy with how they turned out! Not all of the thread holes are hidden, but I think the glitter distracts.