Curry and Cabinet Knobs

I struggled today to get anything done. I have a food allergy that sometimes takes me down a notch. I didn’t know I was consuming the one thing that always kicks my bum, and I really didn’t think it would be a big deal. The next morning the first round of reactions hit and then I felt ok for a while. In the evening the second round hit and I was still feeling it this morning. Now I’m just really worn out. I feel like I was in a car accident.

I didn’t feel like doing much of anything today, but I was hungry for curry chicken salad. I love everything curry, all the different kinds and colors that I’ve ever tried have turned out to be soul mates to my taste buds. So I picked up some chickens at the store and then went home to make stuff. I roasted the two chickens in the oven, and made some chicken stock. When the chicken cooled, I put some of it aside for meals later this week and cut up the rest for chicken salad. I made curry chicken salad using this recipe from Ina Garten. I had to find “Major Grey’s Chutney” at the store. That was easier than I expected it to be. It’s there with the other dressings, sauces, etc. I saw Ina make this on her Barefoot Contessa show this week and I’ve been craving it ever since. It turned out to be as delicious as I expected it to be. I subbed in seedless grapes instead of raisins and it was wonderful. I may add some heat to the leftovers, this kind of thing is always better with a little kick! I think it would be really wonderful in the summer.

I combined the chicken stock with a pureed butternut squash, loaded in some veggies and chicken and made a soup that turned out to be pretty good. I pushed it too much though, I’m pretty much toast at this point.

Oh, and I covered a few other cabinet knobs with polymers. They’re so fun to do that I end up making more not because I need them in the kitchen, but because I enjoy making them.  And it seems that the more I make, the more they evolve and the designs get more interesting.  I'm not out of old knobs to cover, so I suppose that's it for a while unless I find something else to cover.  

I picked up more paint at the store this morning, thinking that I may need to rattle can my old hinges just to get my kitchen put back together. I sent another email to the company that has screwed up my order of hinges and knobs. Still no reply from them. So far I’m not impressed. I’m still hoping that they’ll make it right. I guess we’ll see. I’ll keep ya posted.

I'm planning to curl up and take it easy for the evening and hope I can get some of the toxins out of my system and get back to normal. 

Health and Wholeness to each of you,

(cause nobody likes feeling bad!)

-Carmen Rose

The HINGES are FINALLY here

I met the Post Lady on the sidewalk in front of the house, I'd been listening for the mail truck.  I was Soooo excited that the hinges had finally come... I danced with the box into my kitchen, grabbed a knife and opened the box to survey my new kitchen finery...  (which would make it possible to actually install all the doors that are LEANING against something in my kitchen right now!)

And I took a look at these... and quickly realized that they are the WRONG HINGES! O Bother! The are flush mount, I need inset hinges. These have a little bend, and the screw plate comes father in on the door. Blast!  Blast!  Blast!

I ordered these bad boys on December 27th, they didn't get here until today. Now... I'm wondering how long it will take to get the hinges that I wanted, and that I thought I was getting.

Now let me clarify.  This IS the product that I ordered. When I realized my mistake, I emailed the company and asked that they trade out what I had ordered for the other style. They emailed back and said that would be fine. I thought we had it all worked out. Only problem... they shipped the order instead of the update. Sad really, what a waste of time. I'd really like to get my cabinets put back together so things are usable again. I have a great kitchen, that I'd like to USE!

And I'm really really hoping that this second order doesn't take 18 DAYS to ship, that is TOO LONG unless they are actually making them from scratch. So at this point I'm not terribly impressed. Their website says they don't take returns without authorization... so it will be interesting to see if customer service can redeem themselves on this. I'll keep ya posted.

Thankfully, in the same box were some wonderful cabinet knobs, they are PERFECT for my lower cabinets and drawers and I LURVE them! Thing is, now that I've made polymer clay covered knobs for the upper cabinets, that changes the number of these cool "oil rubbed bronze" ones that I need... so I'm ordering more of those as well.  Can't wait to see it all come together!  Sometime.  Hopefully this year. 

I've picked out my range.  I have chosen well... it's a thing of beauty.  One catch.  I want to cook with gas, our range is electric.  It's going to cost me a variety of limbs to get gas to the house, and I haven't seen the contract yet so I don't even know if the price I was quoted gets the fuel to the house, or into the house to the range (and future gas log fireplace upstairs.)  Hmm... decisions, decisions.  I do SO love cooking with gas...  and I have my shiny new range all picked out...  And then the old harvest gold one can go to the basement to be used in the studio and as a backup.

Mies Van der Rohe said "God is in the details."  Perhaps.  All I know is that I love it when a plan comes together.  And having the doors installed where they go will be WONDERFUL!  I can't complain, there are so many that have it so much worse than me. 

A little unhinged, but counting my blessings,

-Carmen Rose

Waiting...

Yeah, the pooches and I are just hanging out waiting on those hinges to come.

I ordered them Last Year!

The doors (for this section at least) are just leaning,

Waiting to be reattached.

With hinges.

Just... 

waiting...

Ever so (im)patiently...

I walked through my kitchen earlier today and looked at all those leaning cabinet doors and burst into a loud rendition of "Lean on me... when you're not strong..." The girls threw in a little howl, twas lovely.  

I may be a little unhinged.

(but maybe my hinges will come tomorrow?)

Love and chuckles,

-Carmen Rose

Ta Da! The Polymer Knobs are Done!

I now have enough polymer covered knobs finished to complete the upper cabinets in my kitchen, YAY! I have a few extras and another project in mind for them. I baked them in my little polymer oven, baked them hanging right on the rack. It was as if that little wire shelf was made exactly for that purpose.

Here they are, and that one on the lower right just shows the knob that is underneath the polymers.

I'm looking forward to seeing these on my cabinets!  I suppose it's time to get the painting completed and hope that the hinges get here sometime this year. 

Oh you know you have to try this!

-Carmen Rose

Polymer Clay Learning Curve

Oh yeah, nothing like learning the hard way. I made these for the bi-fold doors on the pantries in my kitchen - three doors need three knobs.

Apply heat to set the polymers. Heat is what takes it from being mailable to being just like PVC pipe at the hardware store - same stuff. Check out those three bad boys in the middle of the firey furnace. They looked good at the beginning!  (Yeah, we all look good at the beginning)

However... the plastic of the door knobs just didn't stand the heat so well.

And they turned out looking like rather sad mushrooms. No worries, I'll find another use for my three homeless flowers, but just in case you give this a whirl... don't put plastic knobs in your polymer oven!

Lesson learned.

Carry on.

-Carmen Rose

Polymer Clay Cabinet Knobs - a knobby tutorial

Kitchen cabinet knobs in the making. It's a surprisingly simple process, here are a few photos to show you what I did. If you've got some basic polymer cane building skills, then these will be pretty easy.

I cut out a round of polymer to cover the knob

and wrapped it around the old kitchen knobs that I took off the cabinets before we started this little painting project.

I wanted the back to be free of polymers since I think that's the part that will take most of the wear and tear on these over the years.

The shape shows through, but the texture didn't really show up in the covered knob.

I sliced a simple cane and arranged the first row of petals.

Added some texture with a little ball shaped tool.

I sliced another cane thin, added those on top, overlapping some.

Then adding some texture to that layer.

I cut a different cane to go in the middle.

Then I ran a fine fine polymer snake around that and added some little flat back Swarovski crystals.

And that's how it looks. 

Here's one of my favorites, this blue matches the kitchen walls and I really like how the cane turned out.

Here are a few really ultra simple spiral canes.  Think jelly roll, very easy to make but they really can be cute!

And these are the ones I have so far.  I have 60 doors and drawers in my kitchen (when I met this kitchen I knew it was perfect for me!) so doing one of these buggas for each of them just seems like overkill.  At this point I'm only going to do the upper cabinets and maybe the knobs on the pantry doors, and then evaluate things from there.

I'm still waiting very impatiently for the new hinges to come, the new hood and the new faucet are here... but the hinges... the one thing standing between me and having doors on my cabinets again...  Argh!  Hurry UP!

You really gotta try this fun project, then post photos!

Happy Creating,

-Carmen Rose 

Polymers and Cabinet Knobs

I waged a little war with my body today and lost... so I did more sleeping than working. I've been thinking for a few days about covering my cabinet hardware with polymers inspired by the work of Mary Walsh. So yesterday I started mixing and conditioning the polymers until I had a broad group of colors to choose from.

Then I started covering the old knobs. When I get the chance I'll upload the other photos and give some of the step by step action. It's not difficult at all, maybe a bit on the tedious side. Mine are pretty simple but I'm pleased so far.

I'm two short at the moment, but I wanted to make extra so I could chose out my favorites. And I'm only doing the upper cabinets, I'll see how that looks and then evaluate what needs to happen with the rest. In a kitchen with 60 cabinet doors and drawer fronts, it's unlikely that I would do them all. I've got new knobs and hinges ordered, it's just taking them a really long time to get here. I'm really impatient to see how it's going to look! Next week I'll expect to get back to the kitchen painting, we'll see. The new hood and faucet are here, I am waiting on someone to have the time to give them a little TLC.  Well... the ol bod still isn't cooperating, so I'll write more another time.

Happy Creating,
-Carmen Rose

Knobby Inspiration

Somehow in the midst of things, I ran across an artist making polymer clay kitchen hardware. It was an interesting idea and I kinda thought it would be nice but not really for me. Too tedious. However, as I’ve been enjoying my partially painted kitchen with guests here… and the old pulls were just sitting there… (and the new ones have not arrived yet) I started to think that it might be kind of fun… and I have a box of polymers around here somewhere…

(By Mary Walsh of Merely Knew)

And these images in my head for inspiration…

 

(by Susan Goldstick)

So now the old knobs are soaking in a jar to get all the old gunk off. Wouldn’t it be fun to have colorful fun quirky knobs to brighten up otherwise boring kitchen cabinets? I've worked in polymers, it's fun and easy to work with.

Maybe in my house where everything is potential gallery space. We'll see... if I manage to do something like this then I'll post photos.
Happy Creating
Love,
Carmen Rose