HTML 101: Text Links

Wanna link to a picture or website in a description or comment at Flickr?
Easy-peasy!


Here is what is going on behind the scenes.



The highlighted portion is the url of the link to which you want to direct people.


Copy the address from the destination page and paste it into the code between the quotation marks. The text that peolpe will see and click on to reach the link can be anything. I have used the incredibly creative choice of the word here.


Good luck and happy hotlinking!

Re-ment Hack: DIY Baking Secret Set

Re-ment DIY Baking has a lovely secret set with an iced bundt cake and an even lovelier bundt cake mold. But I could never bring myself to get it because of its dang, ghostly floating pitcher.

Enter Dorothy Alice and her enabling suggestion to hack the set and get rid of the stream of icing.


The stream of icing is connected to the pitcher and plugs into a hole in the bundt's icing. The icing on the cake is raised around this hole like an escutcheon. Removing the connection would involve both infilling and carving.




I first filled it with white glue which was working just okay. The challenge was that, as it dried, the glue would shrink, causing a dimpling at the hole. Over time, with more glue, this lessened. When the glue was smooth on top and dry, I decided to do a little sanding to smooth the edge and shape the infill a bit. The horrifying result was that the glue plug popped out immediately!


Ruling out glue as a filler, I decided to jump right to the acrylic paint. Since the opening is so small, it actually worked well as a filler, requiring fewer treatments to fill the hole. It even took well to sanding without any weakening of the bond.

A few coats of paint and a final application of a satin sealer finished the hack. And I had a lovely bundt cake sans ghostly pitcher at last.


Next up could be the bundt cake in set #8 of Grandma's European Dinners.

Valentine's Day: Stickers on Fruit

Although it gets Nancy White's eponymous song stuck in my head, Twig & Thistle has such a great, off-beat idea for a Valentine's suprise
I may use these stickers more freely, on some less healthy treats but what a great viral marketing approach to expressing your cootchy-coo sentiments.

Magazines: Digital

High Gloss - lifestyle
Rue - inspiration
Matchbook - Field Guide to a Charmed Life
Sweet Paul - Chasing the Sweet Things in Life
Gifted - gift and packaging inspiration

Grub: Salted Caramels

MAKES ABOUT 50

1 3/4 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup glucose or light corn syrup
1 tsp. fine sea salt
1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, seeds scraped and reserved
1 3/4 cups sugar
Fleur de sel, to garnish

Combine and heat cream, glucose, salt, and vanilla seeds in a 4-qt. saucepan over medium heat until mixture begins to simmer; remove from heat and let sit for 10 minutes. Line bottom and sides of an 8″ square baking pan with parchment paper; set aside.

Stir together sugar and 3/4 cups water in a 2-qt. saucepan. Heat over medium-high heat, without stirring, until the mixture turns a medium-dark amber color and a candy thermometer reads 370º. Remove pan from heat; slowly pour cream mixture into caramel. Return saucepan to medium heat; stir until caramel dissolves. Transfer mixture to a 4-qt. saucepan and cook, without stirring, until candy thermometer reads 246º. Pour mixture into prepared pan; smooth top. Let cool completely; then cut into 1″ squares. Sprinkle with fleur de sel and wrap individually in wax paper squares. Store at room temperature.

Recipe by Michael Laiskonis, Le Bernardin, in Saveur #135

UPDATE: Heed the candy thermometer! The recipe was delicious but I suspect that the caramel was not allowed to reach the correct temperature since it since prone to getting soft awfully quickly and easily. Maybe the thermometer needs replacing?

Manly-Man Lunchboxes

My coworker asked me about Manly-Man Lunchboxes this morning, which prompted me to compile this list.

Cleverly nested and stacked containers with a bottle by Oots.
Servicable aluminium in not entirely unmanly colours by Sigg.

Dollhouses: Collapsible

Brinca Dada may be producing a collapsible dollhouse called The Dylan. You can see and read more over at Call of the Small. This could be just the ticket! and the currently proposed pricepoint is not bad.

PERK Pioneer AdFunture Boys

Image by PERK.
PERK PIONEER AdFunture Boys by PERK: Wang, Keep, Know, Dollar, and Green. Originally, these 9cm/3.5 inch fellows were designed as a much larger sculpture, pictured on ToysREvil's blog.
This post was inspired by a beautiful Ernesto Padro Campos photograph.

Decor: Cable Management

I think about this often. But it is not often that something comes around that is simple, effective, and attractive.

That is why I was thrilled to read about a kitchen countertop idea for cords that fits the bill on all three counts over at Making It Lovely. I have been doing it ever since I read her post and can swear by its working well.

And her idea got me wondering if, say, you had lots and lots of cords, if a nice looking retro breadbox could be hacked so as to work in this way as a hide-a-way charging station. Hmmmmm.

Photography: Tara Gorman

Image by Tara Gorman
Miniatures + humour + mad photography skills.
I have always loved Tara Gorman's (a.k.a., Diastema) images.
You can buy some of them at Imagekind. I wish you could buy more!

Some Candidate Images:
o - orange octopus, green olives on blue ... and a favourite
Untitled - green seahorse candy on green
Untitled - lobsters and shells
Untitled - colourful tentacles
Adaptation - octopus, man, on blue
Untitled - red fish on a hook, on blue and green
Untitled - tentacles and EIGHT

28.i.11 UPDATE: Tara Gorman responded to my inquiry about her work; she plans to update her offerings on Imagekind. How exciting!

Grub: Eggs

Ni-tamago as done by Chubby Hubby - firm marinated whites and runny yolks. Yum.

01/30/11 UPDATE: Dee-lic-ious!!

Grub: Lemony Desserts

And it uses Meyer Lemons,
And it is a pudding,
And it is a cake,
And it came from The Traveler's Lunchbox.

Armchair Gardening

Some lovely bamboo and twig trellising at the Embarcadero Centre.

It is time to start dreaming about planning for the garden.

I have had a request for "something climbing/trailing." The original request was for a pumpkin but maybe runner beans could fit the bill ... or hairy cucumber! Cucumber Carosello Barese Seeds are available here:

Seeds from Italy
Mail Order Garden
Gourmet Seed

Even though the Green Zebras and Black Sea Man tomatoes did really well, Costoluto Genovese are back on the menu.

Purple sage and Rau Ram are still doing well but they may get some dill, thyme, and rosemary for company. I still need to find a basil less prone to bolting.

Theme & Variations: Windsor Chairs

Image by Tapiovaara

I saw this post recently at Shelterrific. It reminded me of how much I like Windsor Chairs and how much (more) my DH likes them.

Shelterrific's alerted us to West Elm's latest offering: the Modern Windsor Accent Chair. For some reason the pairing of "Windsor Chair" and "Accent" makes me snicker. I guess I have always thought of a Windsor Chair as a Windsor Chair. Amen. I like the look of the thing but I would like to see a photo of someone sitting in it. I looks very low in the back ... is it only for perching at the front or for doing back bends? I need photographic, ergonomic reassurance.

Leave it to Shelterrific to have another hearty collection of modern Windsors. I think I am more of a traditionalist than I care to admit, when it comes to windsor chairs. Only the George Ainley version seems compelling.

Another frequent stop on my blogger reading list is Nicole Balch's Making It Lovely. I am not daring enough to match her use of pink but I admire her ability to find a wide assortment of stylish items to feature on her lists and in her collages. See here her post on windsor or windsor-like chairs and her discovery of a lovely interpretation by Tapiovaara Design: the Mademoiselle Chair.

Décor: Peacock Chair

I love Hans Wegner chairs ... some more than others. And so I blame Bloesem for reminding me of this most recently with her lovely holiday photo from KL.

Usually, his Ox Chair springs to mind first when I start mooning over Wegner chairs but her shot of the Peacock Chair and its homey cushions has me thinking maybe we need one of these. And it has no upholstery for Big Boy to ruin!

In stock at In Mod.

Grub: Cabbage Rolls

Smitten Kitchen's recipe but with some adjustments:

• replaced 50% of beef with pork (but I might try 100% beef next time since everyone was so pleased)
• added ~ 2 cloves minced garlic to pan prior to onion, sautéed it just till fragrant (I cannot not put some garlic in a recipe)
• used an off the shelf marinara sauce

DH ate three, Big Boy ate a half, slurping the cabbage separately by the fistfuls, and I loved them. In the past, when I have made cabbage rolls, I always asked myself why I bothered since they always seemed so bland. Not this time! And I revisited her post and started to read the comments. Now I am thinking things like, "Sauerkraut! Pickled cabbage! Ham hocks!" Oy. For once, I cannot wait to try making cabbage rolls again.

Storage: Spices

Inspired by Smitten Kitchen.

Smitten Kitten has all the right ingredients: small, vaguely apothecarical looking glass jars, translucent labels, and pretty inspiring photographs.

Smitten Kitchen's Shopping List:
Libbey Vibe 4.5 oz. Jars at Amazon
Avery Easy Peel Clear Return Address Labels also at Amazon. Although, I like the idea of round labels on top like these to put on the lids. Especially, since my version of this might have to place the jars in a drawer.

The Traveller's Lunchbox uses some nice looking tin boxes. I am a little skeptical about scoring the right size printer type tray though.

Dollhouses: Custom (Hollow Frame Construction)

Seen over at One Twelfth Scale Miniatures Blog, stick built construction not only looks like real framing but it has the advantage of being lightweight, allowing for concealed wiring, and needing only small hand, not power, tools.

From Mike's own summary in the comments section of Part 3:

Buy some 1/4" x 3/8" stripwood & use graph paper for your template ... Make a frame for each section ... I space them about 2" apart & also 3" spaces for doors & 2-1/2" for windows or whatever opening you want. I glue a horizontal piece 7" high & another under the windows. And the top & bottom plates (studs) equal the wall lengths.

You'll need matboard to glue on each side of all the frames. I glue the frame on a full sheet of matboard - squaring it into the top left hand corner. Put some weight on it & let it dry, then trim the right & bottom edge, & all the openings. Then flip the frame over & glue it to another sheet of matboard. Put some weight on it & let it dry, then trim the right & bottom edge, & all the openings.

Dry fit, decorate, add doors & windows etc.

Nail, screw, dowel or just clamp & glue all the parts together.

Dollhouses: Custom (3D Modelling and Prototyping)

Sketch Up + Ponoko
Seems like the way to go for a really finished look.
In the interest of a learning curve and frugality, I might try Sketch Up + Gatorboard for now.

Ellipticals vs. Treadmills

Which is better? This article at Self Growth has a good summary of pros and cons. It has me leaning even moreso towards an elliptical.
Ellipticals offer a lower impact, full body workout. You can get a good elliptical for less than a good treadmill.

A good general knowledge article on Treadmills at Runner's World. Here are some rules of thumb from the article:

• "... getting a deck larger than the standard 60" x 20" probably won't matter."
• "... pay attention to the motor's continuous duty rating, rather than its peak duty rating. Runners need 2.5 to 3 horsepower continuous duty, but any more can be overkill."
• "Look for lifetime coverage of the frame, three years on all parts, and at least one year on labor. And since all machines will require some maintenance, be sure there is a certified technician in your area ..."

UPDATE: We went with the Schwinn Elliptical. It is fantastic!