Bean Brownies

Ewww right? I know, my first reaction too, but you're wrong. These are so yummy and so much healthier than your normal brownie.

 A few Benefits-

• Low in saturated fat
• Very low in sodium
• Low in sugar
• High in dietary fiber   

 

Dining Table Upgrade Part 2

Part 2, starts with 2 coats of white semi gloss latex paint over the primer from last post. Again I went as lightly as possible over the flowers.

Dining Table Upgrade Part 1

Yet another idea I've been toying with for awhile. This one will take a few days for the table itself and more for the chairs later. I have a beautiful wood table that has seen better days. the top is some form of laminate and so has withstood time fairly well, the rest of the table and the chairs, not so much. I considered refinishing it all but when it comes down to it I'd really prefer something lighter.

I'm in love with white spaces and small bright splashes of color. It occurred to me that the wood itself could be my splash of color, the rest is mostly winging it, I had a general idea of what I wanted but couldn't form a concrete plan.

Simple Closet Decorating

Today I finished decorating my walk in closet, I've added shoe shelves and a shelf for towels. I painted it all white and used a gorgeous paper print to decorate the shelves.

Lawn Chair Revitalized

This lawn chair belonged to my great-grandfather, years and years of weather have taken their toll on this piece.

Pet Warning Sign for Repairmen

Whenever maintenance  needs to enter my apartment I have to lock my dog away in a bedroom and post a sign. I usually forget until the morning of, and hastily scrawl one.




 

Garlic Kale Chips

Today is a little bit of good kitchen fun, I'm sharing my recipe for perfect kale chips. The other veggies are part of my dehydration experiment which I'll be posting the results of soon.

New Flower Wall Art

I made new flowers for my wall art today, see the original art here.

T Shirt Upcycled to Bag

This is a sentimental piece for a friend of mine. He loves snowboarding and had a particularly good time on a trip to Purgatory, Colorado. This shirt is a souvenir from said trip, which made this project a bit nerve wracking as I really didn't want to mess this up. 

Metal and Glass Bonsai Fruit Tree

This was a simple piece to make, it's comprised of jewelry wire, glass beads and parts from a broken thermometer for the "fruit". Construction was just forming a pleasing  layout and stringing the beads on the wire. Then I used white beads to fill in the container for the "tree".

Purse Hook with Iraqi Nickel Imprint

This is an idea I've been kicking around for months, I finally worked out just how to do it. I used sculpey, food coloring, an Iraqi Nickel, and a magnetic purse hook.

5 Ways to Keep Your Data Safe and Available

Can you imagine losing your entire music collection? How about all those photos from your awesome vacation? Storing files online protects your data should something happen to your machine, and gives you access to them anywhere, all you need is internet access. There are many tools to store your important files online, the following is a breakdown of some of the best.

Dropbox
On it's most basic level dropbox is just a folder that constantly backs itself up to your online account. Spotty internet connection? Don't worry your files are available offline too and they'll back up again when you get back online. An account with 2gb of storage is completely free, to upgrade to 50gb is only 9.99 and double that for 100gb. They also have team pricing for groups.

Upcycled Patio Drink Table

I love my patio seat and garden but I needed a table to set drinks on. This was a quick, simple and oh so inexpensive solution.

I started saving aluminum cans for the stand and used an old picture frame for the top. In the making materials included rubber bands to hold while the glue dried, sand for weight, spray paint, and copious amounts of glue.

Protection and Recovery for your Gadgets and Data

Chances are at some point in your life you will be the victim of a theft, and as we become more dependent on our electronic buddies this becomes more devastating. By taking precautions now you can minimize the damage and perhaps even recover your devices. I've gathered some innovative and (mostly) free solutions to help.


The Prey Project is, in a word, glorious. Serious open source security; Prey does everything you could wish for when you get that gut-punched helpless feeling of knowing someone has stolen your device and worse your data. Screenshots, GPS location, webcam access, remote lock down and more. Even better it's good for phones and computers. There's even a new Prey Pro account you can pay for to run prey on even more than three devices.

Seashell Rose

This is a project I've been wanting to do for ages,  I think it came out beautifully. The petals are seashells I collected from Cocoa Beach and the stem is from a 1970's Avon perfume bottle.

Today was a tree

 

 Click the picture to enlarge.

15 Words that are Fun to Say

Everyone has words they like to say, words that just feel good rolling off your tongue. This is a list of a few of mine, go ahead read them aloud, it'll make you smile. Say them slow, savor the words in their unique beauty.

1. Conquistador
2. Spackle
3. Loquacious
4. Onomatopoeia
5. Voracious
6. Realist
7. Confectionery
8. Lotus
9. Vicissitude
10. Trussed
11. Quinine
12. Mississippi
13. Aleut
14. Kip
15. Superfluous

Okami Mountain Wall Art

Cover Art

This is an older project that was inspired by the PS2, and now Wii game Okami. The game is incredibly beautiful, more akin to art than design. I got the idea to make one of the mountains from the game, which are simple brushstrokes, you can see one in the top right of the screen shot below.

Five Things You Should be Doing to Make Every Day Better

  

Protein is best!

1 Eat breakfast, we've all heard it a million times, so why aren't you doing it? Everyone from Harvard to the National Weight Control Registry agrees, eat breakfast. If you just don't have time to cook at least drink a shake like the Myoplex below. It comes out to about $3 each meal and will change your whole day.