i love lamp

A long, long time ago (last Christmas to be exact) I bought a brown vase with the intent of turning it into a lamp.  Then, a few weeks later I was strolling through Marshall's home section and found the very same vase (on clearance for $5!), only it was clear instead of brown.  Now I could have matching-but-not-too-matchy-matchy lamps.  Heck yes.

Fast forward to me finding this tutorial for how to make a knockoff lamp shade of this Anthropologie one:

Well Defined Ensemble Lamp (for a mere $388!!!!)

I was sold.  So back in April, after buying 2 lamp kits for Home Depot, 2 shades from Target, and 1 dictionary, I ended up with these bad boys:

Off...

and on!

The lamp kits were $10 each from Home Depot and although I did have to get different size "stoppers" to fit into my vases (which my dad drilled holes into when my parents visited in April), it was super easy to assemble.  The tutorial for the lamp shade was also super easy.  The only thing I did differently was instead of doing random ripped up pieces of paper I used strips (which made mine bubble just a bit instead of laying totally flat, but I tend to like the not-100%-perfect look).  So basically, I made 2 bed side table lamps that I love with this budget breakdown (I had to buy just about everything):

- 2 vases: $13

- 2 lamp kits: $20

- 2 lamp shades: $12

- 1 dictionary: $5

- (I'm not counting those other stoppers we had to get because they were only like 50 cents or something and my dad went to Home Depot without me)

Total cost: $50

Take that Anthropologie.

Oh and one other note: if you decide to do a similar lamp shade, be careful of the pages you choose.  I tried to pick ones that had words that had special meaing (North Carolina, Southeast, and baseball all made the cut) I accidentally included a page that has a word that starts with "chla" and ends with "mydia." Funny how that word and chivalry were on the same page.

what the hell is a crispelle?

Now that it's finally finally getting warmish around here (and my warm I mean on May 8 we're having spring - low to high 60s for all of next week) Will will be taking over the dinner duties.  Because he has an awesome grill and he likes to use it.  Good timing because I haven't really been in the cooking mood recently (although a new cookbook that just arrived might help me out).  And on top of it, the last cooking experience was um, not great.

Let me preface this and say I don't think this recipe is bad - it just didn't work out for me and I doubt I'll be trying it again.  But I am glad I gave it a shot. 

So anyways, it's Homemade Spinach Manicotti from Gina's Skinny Recipes. 

skinnytaste.com

Notes:

1)  I made the crispelles the night I intended to make the whole dish.  My bad.  Not only did I use up all my eggs on the crispelles only to remember I needed one for the filling, but I also struggled making these things.  It says you should make 16.  I ended up with 8.  Usually I'm okay with cutting a recipe in half like that, but since it was unintentional I just got off to a bad start.  Again, not the recipe's fault.

2)  My frozen crispelles were a) oddly hard to dethaw and b) difficult to work with since I lost the patience to let them completely dethaw.  Starting to understand why I'm weary of trying this one again?

3)  I bought bad marinara sauce.  I failed.

4)   They took way longer to cook than the recipe said.  Probably because my crispelles were too thick?  Maybe because the cooking gods just wanted to mess with me?

5)  I don't like the word crispelle.

6)  After everything was said and done, they were fine.  And fine, after over 24 hours of preparation just didn't do it for me.

To sum it up: I loved the idea of not-as-bad-for-me manicotti and I loved the idea of making my own shells, but turning into a dish I loved just didn't happen.  I really don't think it was the recipes fault - I mean it tasted like every other manicotti I've ever had - but just thinking about making this again tires me out.  Thank goodness for Will's grilling abilities.