TAFFY! 

(aka my own private hell on a Saturday afternoon)

I vividly remember my mom telling me the story of how she made taffy with her mom and her friends when she was a kid. She told me how excited she was to make taffy, and how hard, and tiring it was, to the point that she NEVER asked to make it ever again. I also remember thinking, "well it will be different when I make it..." It was not different.  I was super excited, I got the kids excited, I thought, well if anyone could be into it, MY kids will be into it... right? no. The making of the taffy base is very easy. The rest sucks. First its really, really sticky. I know its sounds obvious, but when you read other blogs, or watch YOUTUBE videos, it never looks sticky or sounds sticky. Plus you think, oh well I just put butter on my hands like the recipes tells me, and I will be fine right? no. It was sticky level RIDICULOUS!  See this picture below? LIES !!! This is not how it will turn out. See the bottom two pictures? fact!

When you first start to pull, it pulls pretty fast.. so within minutes I got some on my kitchen counter, my daughter got it on the stove, it was everywhere! oi. Once we got the hang of pulling, we were sore, our arms hurt, our fingers hurt, and we were totally over it. This was only 10-15 min into the pulling... we had sooooo much more to go. oi. My daughter had the very bright idea to put it into the fridge to harden up a bit, this really helped!! More than anything else we did just cooling the stuff down made the whole project do-able.  Once it was cooled down, we could pull it until it became hard to pull. but then it would warm up in our hands again, so all afternoon we would pull for a few min, then put it in the fridge again. The whole process took 4 hours! 4 hours people!!! For 1 lb of taffy. damn! The other main point would be that you cant just add butter once to your hands, you have to continue to apply, but as you do this, the taffy wont stick to itself, and wont pull. So the fridge becomes vital!, And wash your hands often, cold hand really help too. All in all, I cant say enough horrible thing about this project, it sucks, go buy a pound at the store for $12. Yes, in the end, the taffy is really good, but we all agreed we will never do this again, and so the story will continue, from my mother, to my kids, taffy sucks. (we had to make toffee again to make ourselves feel better)

PS- if after this compelling story has not moved you to avoid taffy making at all cost, then feel free to try it, I did like the recipe we used. here is the link

link to SKIP TO MY LOVE

Big thank you to SKIP TO MY LOVE for the recipe. you are a better woman than I. I bow to you.

book shelf or bar?

My husband is a great carpenter.  He comes from a line of great carpenters, and he has been a carpenter since he was 18. The man can build. When I was planning our wedding I would go onto Etsy (my addiction along with Pinterest) and show him all the awesome things I wanted. He would then get annoyed at how much people were trying to charge for the simplest of things. Pretty much anything with a mason jar and some chalk paint for at least $50 bucks. There was a lot of head shaking on his part... Recently I picked up some new fabric to reupholster a foot stool, and just never got around to doing it. One day he found the materials in my linen closet, and pulled them out, 30 min later the foot stool was done and beautiful. (my fabric choices were perfect of course) Well after this, it was ON!   We went around looking for great bones to re-finish. We found some great pieces this labor day weekend, two book shelves, a desk, and a set of 8 chairs from the 60's, and so much more. He has been busy in the workshop ever since he is starting with one of the bookshelves. It was pretty decrepit, covered in a million layers of paint, and rat poop, so he had his work cut out for himself.  ( Like a nerd, I forgot to take a true before pic, so all I have is the pic of what it was like after he cleaned and sanded, but before the magic happened,)  He has disassembled the whole thing, and sanded it down. 

We have been back and forth on what to do with it. Should it be a bar cart or a bookshelf? His company does large commercial construction work, but as a favor to their benefactor, they are renovating his mansion in SF. The scrape materials coming out of this place are phenomenal! I cant believe the things that are being thrown away. We have been lucky enough to get a few pieces of beautiful thick wood planks that will make a great bar top, but we both feel like this particular unit is just too narrow to be a bar.We are thinking of a great shelf unit with a pop of color, and texture paint on the inside of the shelves. But of course I have my eye out for the perfect piece to make  into a bar cart. I mean really who doesn't want a bar cart? And really why cant it be both? You decide.

He decided to go with a real farmhouse finish for it, and I think it came out great. The top is reclaimed from the mansion, he sanded it down and then varnished it, but the color is original to this wood. We really lucked out. The best part of projects like this one is even if you have ideas of what you want it to be, the details don't really take shape until you start working the piece. He and I talked about at least a dozen different ideas for this piece, but in the end, the back board, color and top just came together.  Well I suggested the casters, but mostly because I hate moving furniture when family comes over. Boom- a star is born.