If you haven’t seen this little trick before then I’m super pleased to be able to be the one to show it to you. One of our issues when we make salads or deal with fresh greens is that we always have way too many and they get all gross after just a few days. So one of the tricks we picked up in Newfoundland (the land of rotten vegetables) is this: the salad roll.
So you take your greens, spinach, lettuce, whatever, and you give it a good wash and a bit of a shake (so that there’s still some water on the leaves).
Then you lay it out in a thin layer along the length of a clean dish towel.
And you roll it up. Not too tightly. But tight enough that the leaves aren’t sliding around in there.
Then you can toss this in the fridge and your greens will last so much longer!
I don’t know what winter is like where you live (if, in fact, it IS winter where you live), but here in the Ottawa Valley winter is cold. Very cold. And very, very dry. It’s not uncommon to spontaneously bleed from the nose as you battle a searing headache and croak for more water through parched lips. And that’s not even an extreme case. In our house, the Pie’s sinuses dry up and cause him to snore. My asthma acts up, meaning I cough and wheeze all the time, and, because we have wall-to-wall carpeting, Gren has been avoiding us because we static shock him every time we pet him. It’s no fun.
We have a humidifier in our bedroom, and it helps a whole bunch. We did our research and got the one that worked the best for the money we wanted to pay and we’re very happy with our choice (remember, kids: always do your research when buying an appliance). I also picked up a travel-sized humidifier for the various hotel rooms I seem to be finding myself in these days (and Winnipeg is even colder and dryer than Ottawa, and I’m in it as we speak).
But sometimes you don’t want to buy a humidifier. Sometimes you can’t afford one (the ones that won’t give you Legionnaires’ Disease or fester with black mould tend to run a bit expensive). Sometimes your dormitory has ruled them out (usually for mould reasons). Or maybe you just need to give a bit of extra oomph to the humidifier you have. Here are seven quick-and-dirty tips to help you humidify your home the old-fashioned way.
1. Shower with the door open.
Yeah, so this won’t work if you have roommates or small children or larger children or children at all. But if you don’t, skip turning on the exhaust fan and get things all good and steamy.
2. Get more house plants.
So plants, when they’re done with all the nutrients and stuff in the water they suck up through their roots, basically sweat out water vapour through their leaves. It’s called transpiration. And sweaty plants make for a more humid environment.
3. Skip the dryer.
When you’re doing laundry, hang your clothes to dry inside the house in a warm spot. As the clothes dry the water on them will evaporate into the air in your house, making it more moist. MOIST. Plus you save on energy costs.
4. Spritzy-spritzy.
Grab a spray bottle of water and gently – GENTLY – spritz your curtains with a little bit of water. You don’t want them soaked or anything, but a little misting on them will produce the same effect as wet laundry – without putting your skivvies in the middle of the living room.
5. Set out bowls.
Place shallow dishes of water on sunny windowsills or on top of heating vents and the water will evaporate as it warms. Make them pretty crystal vases and you’ll add to the decor of your home. Add a floating bloom or some pretty pebbles. Granted, if you have small children or pets, leaving a bowl of water on the floor in your kitchen is asking for trouble, so be warned.
6. Wet a towel.
Run a small dish towel under your tap and then wring it out thoroughly. Lay it over a heating vent (make sure the fabric isn’t so thick that it blocks the warm air completely) and let the heat percolate through and humidify the air as the towel dries. Again, probably not a good idea with small children. This is why we can’t have nice things.
7. Cook!
When in doubt, cook. Whip up a batch of chilli or soup, anything on the stovetop that will get hot and steamy. I like to make a giant pot of tea, and when the kettle whistles and I’ve poured my pot and turned off the burner, I put the kettle back on the cooling element to let it steam itself out.
You could also try a “simmer,” which is super trendy right now. Set a saucepan full of water on your stove and heat it to a low simmer. Toss in some whole spices: bay leaves, cardamom pods, star anise, cinnamon, and allspice; or rosemary, citrus zest, and lavender – or some combination thereof – and let that sit there simmering and scenting your house while it steams it up. Just keep an eye on the pot and add more water occasionally so it doesn’t all boil away.
I’ve been sitting on this project for what feels like FOREVER. I made it for the Pie’s birthday and despite it being a first attempt I’m nevertheless pretty stoked about how it turned out.
I’ve seen a few blog posts on the internet where people take photos or photocopies and use a medium to transfer them to canvas or wood for a folksy sort of artistic-like thing. And I wanted to do that. So I did. But a bit differently. You’ll have to forgive the photo quality, as I did most of this at night while the Pie was out. Playing Street Fighter.
First I took this image, which is Hakan, the Pie’s character of choice in Super Street Fighter 4. You may remember him from a birthday cake I made a few years back.
Assembled it with tape. If I did this again I would skip the tape part and just assemble it in situ.
Then I cut it into four pieces and hid them in the closet where the fuse box is and worked on my canvas.
These are four 20″ x 16″ canvases I got at DeSerres.
Hakan’s colours are sort of maroon-y purple and turquoise, so I vaguely mixed some craft paint together in a dish and smeared it across the four canvases.
I’m quite pleased with the effect.
Once it was dry I grabbed my gel medium.
I smeared that generously across the whole surface of each canvas.
I then used my screen printing squeegee to smooth the printout pieces face down onto the gel medium. It’s important to note here that your image will be reversed from how you originally printed it out.
Then I hid it back in the fuse box closet to dry overnight.
To remove the paper, spray it with water and get it nice and soaked. Then you can just peel off the other ply of the paper, leaving the ply with the design on it stuck to the medium.
You can use your fingers or a soft towel. If you pull up some of the design, don’t freak out — this is supposed to look a little weathered.
I used a gentle scrubby for it as well.
This takes for-freaking-EVER, FYI. And it’s messy. Paper bits get everywhere. This is blurry but you can see the scrubbed side versus the non-scrubbed side.
And then once it dries you can still see some white leftover. So I went over mine a few times.
Eventually I had to give up and just leave it as-is. It’s not supposed to be perfect, in any case.
Some of my dots are missing.
But the rest looks pretty badass.
Look now neat that is! I did fill in a few spots with black craft paint where I thought it was necessary.
To get rid of some of the whiteness, I coated the whole thing with glossy polyurethane top coat a few times.
Nice and shiny.
The finished piece, assembled on the floor.
Now to make it hang-able. Gren stood watch for me while I did this in secret.
You can get little hanging hardware kits from department stores, grocery stores, and hardware stores. In each kit will be a bunch of these little loops with screw ends. Measure down from the top of your canvas an equal length on both sides and screw them in.
Then you have this wire stuff.
Cut a length and loop it between the two screwed in hooks.
Pull it tight and wrap the ends around the wire to keep it secure.
Make sure if you’re using multiple canvases that the length of the wire and where it’s situated on the canvas are consistent across the board.
Also make sure when you’re putting in hanging hardware that you can hang the picture without the hook pushing into the surface of the canvas.
