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Banana Bread!

Lara Jo — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 14:48:51 +0000

NOTE: the images in this feed have been downsized or removed for copyright reasons. And because they're frickin' huge. To see them in their unmodified state, please view the original post by clicking here.

My relationship with food lately has not been good. Nothing sounds good to me. I had a bunch of bananas going bad on the cabinet and thought I would give some banana bread a try.

I was brought up not to brag on myself but DUDE, IS THIS STUFF GOOD. I got the recipe here, and to make it easier for you, I’ll copy/paste here:

Ingredients

1/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup butter
3 cups white sugar
3 eggs
6 very ripe bananas, mashed
1 (16 ounce) container sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking soda
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Grease four 7×3 inch loaf pans. In a small bowl, stir together 1/4 cup white sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon. Dust pans lightly with cinnamon and sugar mixture.
In a large bowl, cream butter and 3 cups sugar. Mix in eggs, mashed bananas, sour cream, vanilla and cinnamon. Mix in salt, baking soda and flour. Stir in nuts. Divide into prepared pans.
Bake for 1 hour, until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

I think it’s the sour cream that’s the secret. It’s delicious. Thanks for the recipe, Esther Nelson!

Kitchen Kitch’n.

Lara Jo — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:51:58 +0000

May I bore you with photos of my thrifted/yard saled/estate saled purchases that currently live in my kitchen? I can? Why, thanks! You’re too kind!

Let us begin with my keen yellow cake plate. Cake plate? Cheese plate? What the hell is this, do you think? It’s on the small size, so I’m thinking NOT a cake plate. Too big for a butter plate. But man, do I love it. It’s marked “Madrid” on the bottom — that’s it, Madrid, in a pretty, vintage, cursive font, no other clues.

I brought this cookie jar home, thinking it would end up in the booth, and my husband LOVED it. He was so enthusiastic in his praise for it! I was delighted! He was really showing an interest in vintage items! I had visions of a week-long vacation spent doing nothing but antique shopping. It was a couple of weeks later that he told me the reason he liked it so much was because it made him think of the Beatles’ record label.

I love these plaques an unreasonable amount. I don’t think these pictures really show how cute they are. Look at those little hearts on the shutters! Plus, they match the paint in my kitchen perfectly.

Thus ends the tour of my kitchen wares.

Craft Room Clean-Up!

Lara Jo — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:11:28 +0000

At Casa Pretty. Quirky., my husband and I are lucky enough to each have our own little hobby rooms. We dubbed his room The Media Center because the vast majority of North America’s electronic equipment is located in there. If you ever experience a power lull in your home, it is probably because my husband has turned on yet another of his electronic devices. Mine is called The Craft Room, which is hilarious, because I’ve never actually done any crafts in there. Instead, it’s where I throw all of my crap and where I keep my steadily increasing collections of craft materials — which I apparently never plan on using on actual craft projects. Instead, it’s a dumping ground. Before I went back to school after the holidays I tackled the job because I knew there was stuff in there that could be in the booth that I had forgotten about.

I stitched these together in a Frankenstein-like manner in Photoshop, so excuse the weird look to them. I almost didn’t post these, because the after still looks SUPER cluttered! Those lampshades in the corner are supposed to be completed for the Vintage Bazaar but with the weather as it is, I can’t spray adhesive outside, so that’s on hold. At least you can see the floor in the after photo!

I have so much ribbon that I rigged up this little hanging system — they’re just curtain rods mounted to the wall.

This summer, I got into the habit of buying every 1950s-1960s multi-strand necklace I saw. I WANT to be the kind of girl who wears little vintage, knee-length sun dresses with spaghetti straps that would look so cute with these necklaces…but I will never be that girl. And if I was, the dress would be covered in paint within 30 minutes of putting it on. The cream-colored necklace would be so lovely with a wedding dress, I think. Right now, they’re decorating my jars with yet more ribbon in them.

So far, you can still see the floor in the room. I can’t make any promises as to how long that will be the case, however.

Photo practice, and a lot about cameras that may be boring to you.

Lara Jo — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:56:18 +0000

So. I’m thinking about getting a new camera. You may say to me, “Why, Lara, would you be shopping for a new camera when you haven’t even learned to use the very good camera that you have now?” And while I think that would be pretty mean of you to say, and pretty critical, you would still have a point, so I would answer you thusly: I’m helping my very good friend Shannon out with photos for our school yearbook, for which she is the sponsor. And I am completely useless when it comes to taking photos in the gym or hallways, where I take the majority of the photos. My Speedlight, while very helpful in smaller room situations, has no place to bounce off of in a gym, and, of course, is useless at outside ball games during dusk or night time. I love my D80, but I get extreme noise when I bump ISO even to 500 — which is why I ended up with almost no useable photos from the College Fair in October, which was held in our gym.

Rationalization? MAYBE. But I want a D700. From everything I’ve read, it is THE camera to have in a low light situation, which is about 80% of my photo situations. So I rented one this weekend from the lovely people at Calumet Photo (whom I love for a lot of reasons but most of all because, no matter how stupid my questions are, and they are, frequently, VERY stupid, they always answer as though I just asked the wisest photographic question anyone has ever asked them). And I spent some of the time wandering around my house, taking photos of random objects in low light just because I could.

These three photos were taken without any lights on at all, just using the ambient light coming in from our west-facing windows at around noon on a sunny day with some cloud cover. I think I had the ISO up around 1200. These are two of my favorite hats from my vintage hat collection that I’ve had for about twenty years now. I am thinking about calling it quits on this collection. I don’t know, I’m just bored by them, and they collect so much dust, it makes me anxious. Does anyone else do that, I wonder, give up on collections they’ve had for a very long time? And if you do, do you get rid of the collection all together? The photo in the middle was taken through the glass cabinet door, which accounts for the reflection. This is a little shrine to Mary that I bought from an estate sale that was run by the children of a man who had done a lot of wood work — this was made entirely out of materials from their church, which had been torn down when they got funds to build a new one. The little red and white checked linoleum that you can see on the bottom there was from the hallway of Catholic school they had all gone to. I was so moved that he had so lovingly built this little reminder of the church that he and his family had gone to all of their lives. It reminded me of something my own Grandpa would have done. It’s one of my favorite all time purchases.

Again, both photos taken with no lights on, just ambient light from window. My matte white pottery collection is out of control, people. The photo on the left is of some vintage checkers pieces that I bought just so I could put them in my pottery to give me an excuse to put it on the coffee table. Good Lord, look at the dust on the dolphin vase. Great camera, messy apartment.

Another photo taken through the glass door. About seven or eight years ago, I started collecting photos of huge groups of people. Most of them are military photos, like this one, but then they started making me sad, especially the ones that were taken during wartime, so I tried to focus more on non-military groups. I am still kicking myself for not buying THE most awesome group photo I’ve ever seen — it was at the Edgewater Antique Mall a year, maybe two years ago, and it was of an entire town, stretched out along what must have been the main street of the town. There must have been 200 or 300 people — including AN ENTIRE MARCHING BAND, all decked out in their uniforms, carrying their instruments (very The Music Man). I think it was $175, which was not in my budget at the moment, and I watched it for a really long time, until I started feeling safe that I was the only one who wanted it and could therefore afford to wait and purchase it at a later date…until the fateful day I went to visit it AND IT WAS GONE. I KNOW you’ve had that experience before. Of course, as soon as I realized it was gone I was all DADGUM, I didn’t need electricity or food this month, why didn’t I just buy it and damn the consequences? But it was too late at that point. It will now live on in infamy as The One that Got Away (Part 32).

So…yeah. This camera? Pretty much rocks. Wonder if it will be going down in price any time soon. A girl can dream.

How about an example?

Lara Jo — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 05:34:58 +0000

One week later and it occurs to me to post photos of some calendar art I’ve actually managed to frame instead of photos of the shameful stack of calendars I’ve been meaning to frame. You know, so you don’t think I’m JUST a hoarder. Sometimes, I actually manage to do something with the crap I collect!

I framed four pages from the Cavallini & Co. calendar featuring World War II propaganda posters. I used frames from Ikea, similar to these, and covered the mats with art paper as described in my post here. There are four in total, but I was too lazy to go get my other lens so I could get a full shot of the mantel.

That mirror, by the way, was purchased at a yard sale for $4. FOUR DOLLARS. I spotted it from the car and screeched to a halt, leaped out, and asked how much — and about fainted when the lady said $4. It’s about three-and-a-half feet tall and heavy as heck. The gesso at the top is chipped somewhat but I absolutely adore it.

More Fun With Ornaments.

Lara Jo — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:04:24 +0000

I was trying to desperately whip some semblance of the Christmas spirit into my apartment yesterday because some friends were coming over to have a holiday photo taken — and I wanted SOMETHING that called to mind the holiday spirit in the photo! — and I ended up threading a bunch of my ornaments onto a ribbon.

For such a quick project, it turned out really well! And unlike the wreath project in the last post, this is non-permanent — I can easily take them off the ribbon if I decide to use them for something else. Oh, I don’t know, like, for a TREE. I guess that’s what they’re really made for, right?

We don’t get a tree in Chicago, because we ultimately end up spending Christmas down south with my family. But my parents stopped getting a real tree — something that would have been sacrilege when I was growing up but became necessary due to allergies.

I just realized it’s been a long time since I’ve smelled a genuine, real, live Christmas tree. We might have to go get a little Charlie Brown Christmas tree to satisfy my sudden Christmas Tree Fragrance craving.

ANYWAY, this project could not have been easier. Grab a length of ribbon (thin enough to go through the ornament hooks but strong enough to hold the weight of a bunch of ornaments) and string a variety of ornaments onto it. Move them around so that you get a nice, full, chunky look to the garland. I did three shorter lengths to make arranging them a little easier. They get a little unwieldy once you’ve gotten a bunch of ornaments on — I probably used about 40-50 ornaments per three-foot length.

Fun, Fast, and Pretty! What more could you ask for?

My sunny yellow kitchen.

Lara Jo — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:01:15 +0000

Over the summer I painted my kitchen yellow — yellow is a really hard color to choose. I tried three or four different shades before I settled on Sherwin Williams’ “Friendly Yellow” which is a shade more vibrant than a butter yellow but just shy of a super-bright, obnoxious yellow. I love the way it looks in the dark and the way it looks in the sunlight.

See all the crap on the walls and shelves? That’s a partial answer to the constant question “What do you do with all of that crap you buy?”