He's crafty too!

My husband is a self-proclaimed beer snob. Although he doesn't like the term "snob;" he prefers "geek." For his birthday I bought him a Groupon for a beginner's brew kit. It was perfect and he loved it. Before he redeemed it he read EVERYTHING he could about brewing your own beer. He can to the conclusion that 1. an Irish Red was easiest, 2. it was probably going to be terrible, and 3. he didn't want me anywhere near it (I'll explain that part in a bit).

Off he went to Midwest Brewing Supplies and ordered his first beer kit complete with ingredients for brewing FIVE gallons of an Irish Red. The box arrived just around his birthday in mid-June. Since we were moving at the end of June, Ryan patiently waited for us to be in the apartment so we could start brewing. The first full weekend in our apartment we had friends over. No beer. The following Friday though, was beer brewing day. Boy was he excited. The kit came with additional videos and reading material which HE. ATE. UP. I'll have to blog about his love/hate relationship with reading another time - but for him to read all the material is a lot - which shows how excited he was over this. 

So July 13th, Ryan bought a huge stock pot (read: 21 quart stock pot) and went to town. Now, he initially wanted me to be excited and happy for him (which I always am) but to stay far, far away. The reason? I have long hair...and it gets everywhere. Not on purpose but it happens. Ryan had this idea that nothing would get in the beer. No hair, dust, or random particles. But alas, beer brewing is really not a one person job - so he broke down and asked for my help. 

Unfortunately I didn't taken pictures of brewing the grains and adding the hops. Beer brewing is a lot like baking with specific temperatures and baking times - which Ryan followed to the second with hopes for the best possible beer. After you brew the beer on the stove (where the stock pot took up the front and back burners of one side of the stove) you have to pour it into a five gallon bucket...which is fun with a burning hot pot. Then you add a little plastic bobbing device to ensure the bucket is air tight and wait. 

Two weeks later, your bathtub will look something like the following. And that's only if you've been saving beer bottles for the last six months (yes, we moved with EMPTY beer bottles - I was not a fan). Rather than buying empty bottles from Midwest, Ryan saved up all his empties and took off all the labels. Which is why they sat overnight in a mixture of water and baking soda.

After a good soak - and another three hours of peeling off any stubborn labels - we were ready to bottle. The fermenting bucket (with the original five gallons) went on the counter. The bottling bucket went on a dining room chair. Before the fermented beer could go in it, Ryan had to simmer caning sugar and water for the carbonation phase. The bottles were filled on the (clean) floor. Ryan was so excited to start bottling. Here are his first couple. The little bucket next to him was for drips that might come out of the bottle filler - a very neat little device. He was all smiles after filling the first couple. He even let me try a couple.

Ryan filled the bottles while I capped them. Not to brag (but really to brag) I capped about 53 of them and got them all right. Ryan tried one and needed two caps to cap the bottles. I knew we were bound to get some beer on the floor...just wasn't banking on the puddle at Ryan's feet. He claims was from him being distracted by my awesome capping. Note the perfectly dry towel six inches from his left foot. That little bucket I mentioned earlier was also not fully utilized obviously.

Below is a picture of the almost-finished product. The bottled beer now has to sit on the pantry selves for another two weeks while the caning sugar works its magic and carbonates the beer.

Four weeks isn't so bad for your own beer. Right? Ryan's now trying to get me into wine making - which I'm not sure I would have the patience for - which takes three months at least. Here's hoping the beer's good - we've got another two weeks to see how that plays out. I'd love to give some beer away too (friends, family, or if any of you are interested).

Has anyone else tried home brewing? What's your success rate and what kinds of grains, hops, etc have you used? I'd love to pass it along to Mr. Beer Crafty. Any tips would be amazing too!

One year down, so many more to go

Yesterday marked our first wedding anniversary. A longer year than most (366 days) but I wouldn't have spent any of those days differently. I love Ryan and I'm so glad to have him as my best friend and partner in crime.

Traditionally, the first anniversary is the paper anniversary. Since we're kinda broke, I decided to make a couple things that I found on Pinterest. I'll cover one today and the other tomorrow.

At first, I was going to come up with 365 things I love about Ryan. I would have then put them on Post Its and then stuck them around the apartment. After trying to come up with 365 reasons why I love him, I quickly gave up. I mean, I love the guy - but it's hard to put everything I love about him in words. Then I found this blog about putting 52 reasons on a deck of cards. 

First, I wrapped my kitchen island with plastic wrap - it's brand new so if I put paint on it I probably would've cried. I then laid out the bicycle deck with 56 cards (52 playing cards, two jokers, and two with the rules of Texas Hold 'Em). There was some white semi gloss paint laying around and I managed to find a foam brush to boot!

I kinda "white-washed" the face of all the cards with one coat of paint (it's thick paint but not thick enough to cover it in one coat). The cards curved up with the wet paint but flattened as they dried. I did two coats on each side of the Texas Hold 'Em cards so I could use these as the front and back covers of the notebook.

Then I set out to come up with 52 reasons why I love this guy:

It was pretty easy. A few of my favorites include his laugh (you'd have to hear it to understand), his ever present smile, and the way he always makes me feel absolutely beautiful. So I put them all in Excel - which is perhaps my favorite MS Office application. I put a plain box border on all the boxes (which were 168 X 271 pixels in case you were wondering). I also used three different fonts to add some variety to the pages - not sure he noticed but I knew.

Once I printed all of them out, I used scissors and incredible patience to cut out each box. I hate doing repetitive things and often mess up if I do it to much. But I made sure to get all the black border so I had a thin white strip of paper outside each box. Once they were all done I went to town with a glue stick and glued all the reasons on the face of the cards. Because I didn't do a lot of rearranging once they were on the card (I tried to stick them to as center as possible) so I was able to put heavy things on top of them (ie binders, 3-hole punches, and staplers) to help the items dry and stay together. I gave them about 45-60 minutes. After that I hole punched them. I used the jokers to find the best hole punch positions - I threw them out afterwards. One in each corner. There was no way to set up my hole punch to do that (at least not that I know of) so I did the following 4-5 cards at a time.

After that I covered several items (lap desk, old VHS taps, empty boxes, etc) with plastic wrap. I laid out all the cards again and modge podged them to make sure they had a nice glossy finish on the face side. This is NOT necessary and I'm not sure if I would do it again. Although I probably would - but you don't have to. Why the move from the kitchen island where everything fit to random flat items? I almost had my husband convinced I was making a notebook of sorts at the beginning (when I was "white-washing" the cards) but if he walked into the kitchen and saw me modge podging cards with random things on them I'm pretty sure he would stand there and read them rather than be suspicious of why I wouldn't let him in the den. He knew I was making something for him but he was a good enough sport not to ruin my surprise for him.

After the cards dried I used 1" binder rings through the two holes to bind the little notebook together. From what I saw in form of reaction - he started reading it while I was in another room - Ryan liked it. This is what the finished product looked like:

Here's a breakdown of the products, cost, and steps:

Supplies
1. Bicycle Cards - $1.50
2. Foam Brush (for value pack) - $1.89
3. Leftover wall/molding paint - $0.00
3a. Acrylic paint (substitute for 3) - $4.99
4. 3 Hole Punch - $16.84
5. Binder Rings - $1.88
6. Modge Podge - $9.00
7. Glue stick (pack of 3) -  $1.17


I'm sure you have a few of these things sitting around the house (especially if you're a crafter but I'm including the prices just in case your new or don't have them and want an estimate). I base all my prices on Amazon - but you can probably find it cheaper at Wal*Mart. I'll link a product if I get it from a specialty store or if I found it at an amazing price.

I had a few of these things laying around so the total I spend for the project was the cost of the binder rings and modge podge. But I have rings left over and pretty much the whole thing of modge podge for future projects.Total cost for the project considering percentage of paint/modge podge/binder rings/brushes used is probably close to $5.00.

Steps
1. Plastic wrap a large flat surface (like a counter or kitchen island).
2. Lay out all cards in single layer.
3. Using leftover paint (or acrylic) lightly coat the face of each card using the foam brush.
4. Apply a second coat to jokers about 30 minutes later (cards will bend but should flatten out as they dry!). Rinse out the brush so you can reuse it!
5. Allow the cards to dry for a couple hours or overnight.
6. While the cards are drying - come up with 52 reasons why you love the person!
          a. Think of physical attributes (nice eyes, cute butt, sexy legs?)
          b. Think of personality (funny, kind, your kind of crazy?)
          c. Think of quirks (snore, snort when laughing, talk to themselves?)
          d. Think of what they're passionate about (math, books, beer?)
          e. Think about how they treat you (make you laugh, make you feel gorgeous, always brighten your day?)
7. Write out the reasons (or use the computer) on white paper with a border (if you want).
8. Write out a title and dedication for the notebook ("52 Reason Why I Love You..." "Happy 1st Anniversary")
9. Diligently cut out each reason and the title.
10. Using the glue stick, coat the back of each piece of paper and place it centered on the dried cards.
11. Lay out all cards and place heavy objects (like books) on top of the cards.
12. Allow the cards to dry for about 30 minutes.
13. Using the 3-hole punch, punch two holes on the left-hand side of the face of the cards (one at the top, one at the bottom - see pictures above).
13. Plastic wrap a large flat surface again and lay out all the cards.
14. Coat the face of each card (where the reasons are glued to) with a thin layer of modge podge.
15. Allow the cards to dry for 1 hour.
16. Place the cards in order (or randomly) and hook through the binder clips.
17. Done! Present unwrapped or with a ribbon around it (I used some leftover streamers that I had).

The times, they are a-changin'

Things have definitely changed over the past year. Even since my last post - ten months ago.

Last October, Ryan and I decided we needed to make a change. We downloaded MyFitnessPal and started to track our calories. After some success we wanted more. In March, we added P90X. We got through about 40-45 days of it and then I had to travel for work. With every intention of working out - Ryan and I traveled to Saint Petersburg, Florida. And we didn't work out.When we came back to New York - it was hotter and more humid than Florida - so we waited until it cooled off (mainly because we didn't have air conditioning). And the waiting never stopped. And then life got in the way.

Which leads to another big change: Ryan and I finally moved out! July 1st we moved into our own space, our own one bedroom plus den space, our first apartment! We have most everything settled - aside from hanging a million photos and frames. We couldn't be happier. It feels so great to have something that we take care of. Having complete (shared) control of a home is indescribable. I am ecstatic,

Now that we're in a good grove, I figure I'll have more time to chronicle what's happening. More about our joint weight lost, healthy (and not-so healthy) recipes, diy craftiness, and overcoming life's struggles.

It's everyday life and it's always changin'.