Happy thanksgiving!

This thanksgiving I am thankful for a little Italian woman I met at the farmers market by my old house in Costa Mesa. I went to the same market every Thursday and always bought her tiny bundt cakes. One day I was talking to her about how badly I wished I knew how to make her butter rum cake, so she gave me her recipe. Although I am sworn to secrecy to protect her homemade Butter Rum Cake recipe, I've adapted a slightly different version of the recipe (that tastes almost as good) for your enjoyment. I've made it for the past two Thanksgivings and Christmases and it has yet to disappoint. Happy Holiday baking!

Ingredients:

Batter:

• 1 box Butter recipe cake mix
• 1 small box french vanilla pudding mix
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup light rum
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable cooking oil
• pecans, chopped

Rum Glaze:

• 1/2 cup light rum
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup superfine sugar
• 1 stick of butter

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix all batter ingredients together in a large bowl and beat on medium speed until very smooth. Grease and flour and bundt pan and then add your crushed pecans into the bottom of the pan. Once well blended pour batter evenly into bundt pan. Cook for 50-60 minutes, until its a pretty bright golden and brown color.

When the cake is about 5 minutes away from being done, start making the rum glaze. In a large saucepan melt all ingredients together at a simmer, don't boil it! Keep it at a medium to medium low heat. Pour glaze over the cake (while its in the bundt pan) as soon as you take it out of the oven. This will make the cake more spongey and it will more readily absorb the sugary glaze. Let settle for about 40 minutes to an hour then flip over onto a plate and enjoy!!


Your ingredients

The rum glaze

 The finished product!

Pumpkin candles

I know I've been really terrible about updating this blog, but I promise I'm getting back into the swing of things now. I have just been so busy with a million things, but everything is starting to wind down now. One reason why I've been so busy is because my birthday was last week! October 21st to be exact. I had a really great weekend away in San Diego with my boyfriend and then had a ton of fun with my friend Erin at Stone Brewery in Escondido (beer blog post to come asap). This weekend I had a little soiree in my backyard to celebrate with a few other friends as well. I made some cute decorations and took out the Christmas lights to se the mood. Anyways, let's get down to brass tacks. This DIY is for the rad little pumpkin candles I made to decorate the party!

What you'll need:

• mini pumpkins (not gourds!! they won't work, get the normal orange pumpkins)
• soy candle wax chips
• metal anchored waxed candle wicks
• a spoon/knife
• metal bowl and pot or a double boiler

What I did first was hollow out my pumpkins. If you've ever carved pumpkins, you already know what to do. Cut off the top of your pumpkin and then use a large spoon to scoop out all the gunk and seeds inside there. Try to make the inside as smooth and pulp free as possible to avoid getting floaties in your candle wax.

Once your pumpkins are ready to go, you need to place your wick. I recommended getting the wicks that come with a little circular anchor on the bottom because it save your the trouble of having to worry about your wick moving after you've poured the melted wax. take your wick and wedge the metal base into the center of the bottom of your pumpkin.

After you're done preparing the pumpkins you can start melting your wax. I chose to use soy wax chips because I find that they're the easiest to work with and cheaper too! You can also add a scent to your candle if you'd like. When you purchase your candle wax at the craft store there should be a little section of essential oils near by. You can use any of these in the wax to create an aromatic candle. Most waxes will tell you to melt it in a double boiler, but I don't have one of those. What you can also use is a metallic bowl over a pot of boiling water.

The chips are pretty thin, so they melt fairly quickly. (If you're making a scented candle, you'll want to add you essential oil to the wax once it's completely melted. Essential oils are very strong so don't over do it! Use a dropper and put in just a few little drops.) Once your wax is melted you can pour in into your pumpkins.

Once you pour all the wax, you just have to wait for them to harden. Don't let them sit in the sun to dry! That's bad for the wax and the pumpkin. Set them in a shady area outside for about an hour to let them completely harden. Check on them every so often to make sure the wick is still correctly placed. 

As soon as your candle is ready, just trim the wick and you can start burning it! They make lovely fall decorations for your patio and they'd make really great center pieces for your thanksgiving table, rather than your typical candelabra. Enjoy!

Happy Halloween as well from me and my spooky cat!

More studded denim

I know I've done a studded denim tutorial before, but I wanted to do one more, this time with step by step photos. So here it goes,

What you'll need:

• studs rf spikes of your choice (i recommend using studsandspikes.com, or you can google wholesale studs and look for some deals)
• denim
• needle nose pliers

Usually you can get away with not using a special studding tool if you're studding regular denim, or even double layered denim (like the collar of this jacket). It's bust to tweak the prongs a little before piercing the denim because they tend to flare outward a little bit when you buy them, and if you stud them like that it will create ripples in the denim.

Once you've got the stud through the denim, use your pliers to grasp the prong at the base and the bend it inward to lie flat on the denim. Repeat with the second prong.

Repeat for all the studs you want to put on your garment. after you finish they should all lie flat and look fairly uniform like this...

That's just about it! As a little troubleshooting comment, I'd say that if you're going to be adding a lot of studs to wear gardening gloves or some type of thick glove to protect your fingers. After putting all these studs on my jacket my finger tips were pretty raw. But hey, no pain no gain.

Happy studding!

Custom orders (and this jacket) available on our etsy!

DIYDS on Tumblr!

Mason jar wall planter

This initially started out as an idea to make a kitchen herb garden for my window sill. Unfortunately, my current kitchen window gets no sun and there's just no room for it to fit. But in 6 months when I move into my own place I promise I'll show you all my little herb window garden. Until then, I decided to make and outdoor wall planter! It's relatively easy to make, but if you don't trust yourself, I'll probably have some variation of this on sale on the Repurposed Remade Etsy store soon.

What you'll need:

• mason jars of any shape of size
• plants and potting soil (i chose succulents because I can't kill them)
• a wood plank of some sort (I salvaged mine from an old Pier 1 wine rack from the Salvation Army)
• short screws to mount the jars
• long screws to mount the planter as a whole
• pipe clamps
• power drill
• flat and phillips head screwdrivers
• somewhere to mount your planter!

First off, you'll want to take apart whatever structure you have (if necessary) to get your wood board.

Next you need to drill holes in the back of your pipe clamps so that you can screw them into your board. Before you screw them into the wood, you'll have to drill holes slightly smaller than the size of your screws in the wood where you want the pipe clamps to be fixed.

Once both pipe clamps are attached to the wood, the planted can be screwed into the wall. To do this, drill holes through your wood (once again slightly smaller than your screw) and do the same on the wall space where you'd like your planter to hang. Use your long screws to attach the planter to the wall.

Finally the fun part! Now you can plant your little pants in the mason jars. I chose some lovely multicolored succulents for mine.

Use the flathead screwdriver to tighten your pipe clamps around the mason jars so that they stay in place on the planter.

Now you have a pretty new planter :)

Bird seed

 I usually work doubles Monday-Friday but to I got lucky and just have to work tonight! So over a cold beer I decided to make a little mini bird feeder.

What you’ll need:

• Some sort of glass or ceramic or wooden (whatever) container that can be hung with wire and have an opening that is accessible to birds
• Wire of your choosing (I used copper)
• Birdseed (or a candle! this would look just as lovely as a hanging lantern for your porch) 

All you need to do is attach some sort of hanging mechanism to your chosen container and then attach a reinforced hook to the top of that. I found a container that had pre made holes in it, which made it easy to hang. My little ceramic trinket thing is probably meant for candles, but I make lanterns so often that I thought this would be nice! 

Anyways, It’s best to reinforce some part of the wire you use to hang it. In the photos you can see that I wrapped the wire around itself in a few places to ensure that it wouldn’t bend too much with the weight of the container when it’s hanging. Now find something to hang it on and that’s all!

Go bird watching of something, there’s a book for that.

Homemade Deep Conditioner

This week I’m trying to brace myself to bleach my hair. I used to have lovely white blonde hair that I could dye pretty colors, but since it was incorrectly bleached and re bleached so many times it was just terribly damaged. So I let it grow out and then hacked it all off again so i’ve sort of started anew. Still, I thought it wise to give it a little extra nourishment before I bleached it again. I’m sure there a billion other girls out there with gross damaged hair who can’t afford an outrageously priced conditioner, so listen up.

What you’ll need:

• one over ripe avocado
• half cup honey
• third cup extra virgin olive oil

All you need to do is mix it all together and smush it until it's creamy and slap the nastyness on your head. It smells a little funky but try to deal with it for 15-20 mins.

Focus the majority of the mixture on the ends, your roots tend to be healthier and not require as much moisture. Once you’re ready to rinse, use a mild shampoo (make sure to really lather your roots to prevent them from getting overly greasy or oily) and warm water then condition like you normally would. 

Hopefully you’re hair won’t feel like a broom anymore. Mine’s nice and silky for now :)

p.s.

please don’t try to eat this. It’s not food. If you do, don’t email me and blame me because you did something dumb and it made you puke.

Facebook Fan/Tumblr Follower Giveaway!

First off….congrats to Emily Johnson, the winner of our last giveaway! The lovely Emily won a vintage gold accent floral ceramic necklace (which sadly will not be pictured) and a pair of T.U.K. black leather creepers! 

This week, starting today, we are kicking off another giveaway in collaboration with Repurposed Remade Vintage! The rules will stay the same: when you follow us on tumblr, reblog us on tumblr, like the facebook page, follow our blogspot or RR’s blogspot, or recommend the facebook page to a friend, your name will be added to the raffle. So, you have multiple opportunities to get your name added for a chance to win! The prize (or prizes) could be anything from vintage bags, shoes, clothes, or DIY items! Guys and girls alike are encouraged to enter. Good luck, the winner will be announced on Friday evening at 6pm Pacific Time!