These are the words that make a mother deliriously proud. Or cause her to weep uncontrollably, depending on the situation. Either of these reactions have also been known to follow all do it yourself projects performed by me in the privacy of my own home. Friends and family will see and be prompted to praise the results of the successes, and the failures will die with me, along with other various missteps, fiascos and sordid secrets.
Prompts for the Promptless: Do it yourself (DIY) is the method of building, modifying, or repairing something without the aid of experts or professionals.
What do we need experts and professionals for when we’ve got Google? said a lot of clueless people who went on to learn that experts and professionals are not completely without merit after all.
For my do-it-yourself project today, I will be making a sun catcher. I don’t really need or want one, but I have plastic beads hanging around which no grandchild seems at all gung-ho to string. And I don’t want to throw them out and be all wasteful. Better to throw out the finished product and feel good about myself for having at least given it a try. Or file it under F for fiasco. It’s kind of exciting to have no idea how something will turn out.
Notice the artistic arrangement in both cases with some opaque beads in one and only clear green, blue and purple in the other. This is about as artistic as I feel like getting today.
While waiting for the oven to heat to 400 degrees, on the other side of the kitchen counter I ponder what to do with these three avocados I bought because they are supposedly so good for me. The creative, multi-tasking side of my brain thinks putting them in a smoothie might be interesting, while the other side of my brain reminds me that I haven’t yet had breakfast. Voila! Coconut almond milk, a banana, scooped out avocado, key lime greek yogurt (which I bought accidentally thinking it was vanilla) and a bag of frozen spinach and kale results in this delightful looking concoction.
The consistency and color are great, but the taste is rather disappointing. In fact, there is no taste. So I add a squirt of lemon juice, a shake of cinnamon and a couple scoops of frozen blueberries. This makes the smoothie look like mud, but a lot easier to swallow.
I can’t say for sure whether the aroma of melting plastic is adding or detracting from the avocado smoothie taste experience.
The melting process is supposed to take twenty minutes, but I’d suggest forty is more realistic. This number comes from my admittedly limited experience – please note that I am not a professional or expert melter of beads.
The next thing to do is let these things cool, slip them out of the plates (ha – I’m not optimistic about that one), drill holes in them and hang them up with something like fishing line to catch the rays of the sun. It’s cloudy today, so I’m not optimistic about that one either. I notice the one on the left already has a hole close to one edge, so how forward thinking was that? Flukey forward thinking is probably an apt name for it in this case.
Oh. My. God. They really do pop right out of the pans. And there is a little hole in the second sun catcher as well, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is no luck like dumb luck.
Okay, all that’s left of this Sunday project (which didn’t turn out to be from hell after all), is to air out that burnt plastic smell from my house and wish for some sparkly sunshine. Plus think up some totally awesome weird thing to do with the two remaining avocados. That should not be a problem as I appear to be on a roll.
Very funny, but the sun catchers look great – the smoothie, not so good.
Lillian
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Yeah, the smoothie was not my greatest achievement. But good for me I hope because I drank the whole thing.
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Haha funny and a cool idea too!
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And easy! And they’re non-breakable although they kind of look like glass. I’m thinking they might look good outside.
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Those turned out gorgeous! Also, I wish my stovetop were half that clean . . . tho’ I don’t necessarily wish it enough to act on the wish. :p
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haha – I know exactly how you feel. ♥
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These sun catchers are so pretty, grandmalin!
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I know! And no one is more surprised than me. lol
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Haha! Oh stop, I knew you had a creative spirit in you. 🙂
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I am impressed!
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Me too. I even thought about going out and buying more beads….thankfully I have come to my senses. 🙂
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ROFL!
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They look lovely, and I think I would actually prefer the brown smoothie (looks a bit like chocolate milkshake!)
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You know, it had that kind of smooth texture too. But sadly no chocolate taste. 😦
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Holy cow, that turned out really nice (the suncatchers, I mean — could live without green shakes, ha).
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I’m really happy with how they turned out. And did I mention astonished and amazed? lol Yeah, the green shake – not my proudest moment.
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Suncatchers for Peace. Let’s auction them off. haha. I love all the creativity in the Lin household. {{{hugs}}} Kozo
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haha – feel free to start the bidding. The peaceful art of bead melting could change the world. Or set it on fire. You will only ever see the creative successes here and not the disasters. That’s why there’s so few DIY posts. 😀
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haha, GM. Maybe we should make a new acronym–DIOY. Do It Over Yourself.
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Looks great. Tip: buy an old toaster oven at a thrift store and do any plastic melting outside!
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So cool.
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