Bottle Cap Necklaces
As I mentioned in a previous post, I have a bunch of random stuff around the house that I decided to start making into jewelry. Why does it get to laze around the house for free while Hubby and I are busting our booties at work all the time? Time for all this junk to start pulling its weight!
Over the years I have collected, and then thrown out, and collected again a bunch of beer bottle caps. I have seen so many cool things made from them, but most of the projects require hundreds of bottle tops. I always get sick of the clutter and chuck them all before I have enough to complete anything. Finally I have a project I can complete with each beer I finish!
I have always collected cool magazine pictures, so I have plenty of resources to pull from. To make a necklace you need some kind of cute picture, a bottle cap, silicon glue, a tooth pick, and the necklace hanger I used in the other post. A quarter is the perfect size template to trace the paper to go in the bottle cap. After I cut out what I wanted to use, I spread the glue into the cap with the tooth pick.
I made sure to press the picture down really hard into the glue. Squish it around to make sure there are no air bubbles trapped.
I let it dry thoroughly, then attached the necklace holder on the back. In the future, I plan to experiment with filling these with resin, but for now I decided I would use up some old clear nail polish. I poured a bunch in there, and let it dry over night.
It ended up looking really awesome. I now have several complete, with plans for a bunch more. I may even make some with magnets on the back instead of the necklace holder. I promise, I’m not using this as an excuse to drink more beer. Seriously. I’m just…recycling.
Tomato Glut Sauce
Let me start by saying, I freaking love tomatoes. I will cut up a bunch of them raw, and just eat them. During this time of year, when all the tomatoes are ripe, delicious, and super cheap, I have a hard time not buying out the store. I usually buy several pounds more than I can finish, and here’s what I do with the extras.
Once the tomatoes start to get a little soft, not rotten or anything, just a bit soft, I make them into homemade tomato sauce. It’s perfect for spaghetti or bruschetta. A couple years ago I found this recipe for tomato glut sauce on Care2.com, a website I like a lot. The best part about this recipe is that you don’t have to peel the tomatoes! That would take forever.
This is my pan of raw, seasoned vegetables. One piece of advice I have is either cut the carrots REALLY small, or cook them some ahead of time. They take a long time to cook, and mine were still really crunchy.
This is after I baked it all. It smells fantastic, and it’s super healthy. Lots of commercially made pasta sauces have lots of sugar and preservatives added. After this step, you run it through the food processor and then eat it or freeze it. This is a great recipe for freezing, and it comes out tasting just as good.
Hubby made pasta for us the other day using this sauce (Yes! He cooked! And I didn’t have to screech at him or anything!) He took some ground turkey and browned it in BEER, then added the glut sauce. It was so freaking delicious, I hardly even needed the pasta with it! We had some beer in the house neither of us was that fond of, and it cooked up great. This would also be a good recipe to use up some white or red wine that either you don’t like, or has turned to vinegar. It also gives you a great excuse to buy beer! You’re welcome.
Austin Roller Derby
Here in Austin we are blessed to have TWO women’s roller derby leagues: flat track and banked track. Dr. Stacey and I had been to a banked track event for her birthday a few years ago, and it was a BLAST! When I found out the flat track league was having a match, I had to call her.
The two leagues in Austin get very irritated if you mix them up, so let me give you a little background. The Lonestar Rollergirls is the banked track league, and these are also NOT the girls that were in the reality TV show. The flat track league is the Texas Rollergirls.
Both of these groups are awesome, hot, tough chicks, with clever names that crack me up, and I would Looooooove to be one of them!
The match Dr. Stacey and I went to was at Playland Skate Center, and it was rowdy. We got to yell and scream and drink Shiner! We picked our favorite teams based on their uniforms, and they both won! Fantastic! We chose the Hustlers because they were wearing purple, and they beat the Honky Tonk Heart Breakers easily. In the second match, we cheered for the Hotrod Honeys who destroyed the Hell Marys.
Dr. Stacey and I have both chosen our own Roller Derby nicknames, but they are so good I’m definitely not revealing them in a public forum. They would get stolen immediately.
The TV show I mentioned earlier was on A&E, shot here in Austin. Apparently, there was just one season, but it’s available on netflix!
If you plan on going to a match, do not be intimidated! It is a ton of fun, there’s beer and food, just like at a baseball game. Get there early to get seats, like an hour ahead of time, seriously. You can get tickets there, but I would get them ahead of time online, and you CANNOT buy them online the day of. You have to get them at least the day before. Bring cash for beer and food, and a Shiner is like $4, which is a lot, so have more than $5, just in case.
If you know nothing about the scoring or rules, don’t worry. The MCs explain everything, and the people around you will be super nice and answer questions. I promise. This is Texas, right? And it’s Austin, so people are doubly nice (but don’t move here. It’s full).
I love the giant disco skate hanging from the ceiling at Playland. This was basically the last shot I got before my batteries died! Let that be a reminder to you, that I am not 100% clever, all the time.
There was an after party at Weirdo’s, but Dr. Stacey and I went to Opal Divine’s for food and lots of water. We had had enough of the crowds, and wanted some tasty food and quiet atmosphere. Weirdo’s is nice, I would go there willingly, and they have good happy hour drink specials, but it was not blow-my-socks-off fantastic. So we opted for the place with the best Mac ‘n Cheese in town!
