A Different Kind of "Craft" Beer

I come from a family of artists. My mom is all around crafty; she can literally make something from nothing. Growing up our garage was always filled with buckets of bottle caps and empty bottles. I would often stare into the heaps of junk and think to myself: my god my mother is a hoarder what the hell is she ever going to do with that stuff?! Two months later I would look in the garage to find a funky coffee table, made from you guessed it, bottle caps and beer bottles. My father, brother and sister-in-law have been lucky enough to make careers purely from their artistic talents (check out their sites: Tad Dowdy Custom Models and Dowdy Studio).  My older brother (another artist) can literally scratch weld/build/create anything from hand. Yes, I am totally jealous. I have always played it safe and kept on the corporate career route. However, every now and then I like to try and get a little crafty and put what little "art skills" I inherited to use.

Each time Bryan and I go on a trip, I collect just about every piece of literature you can imagine from the city we are visiting. Brochures, receipts, postcards, ticket stubs, maps, bus schedules, newspapers; if its paper it goes into my purse. Like my mother, I collect these things with the intent of making some kind of cool art piece or scrapbook. I rarely ever get around to doing it. A couple of weeks ago while enjoying my favorite Friday five o'clock beer, Bitburger, I decided to dig into the box that holds all these random pieces of paper and do something with them. I knew it would have to be something easy and something that didn't take longer than an hour to do (I have a short attention span for art projects). Looking around our apartment I noticed we were in need of some new coasters. Bingo!

A quick trip to the local Michael's Craft Store for a decoupage set and a bag of circle and oval wooden cutouts and craft night was on!

The first step in creating the custom coaster required sanding the perimeter of the wooden cutouts. Seeing as I don't craft that often I had to use what I had...so I sanded with a nail file. It got the job done.

Next, I dug through my box of trip paraphernalia and chose a bus schedule brochure that I collected in Vancouver, Canada last year.

I selected the scene I wanted to use for the main focal point of the coaster and began to clip away.

Once I had the scene cut out that I wanted to use it was time for the fun part: Modge Podging! Just lather up a sponge brush and paint under and over the selection.

Keep slathering on the modge podge until the paper is smooth and shiney! The result a fun custom coaster that is also a good conversation piece. 

You can take an even easier route and simply glue a pre-existing coaster to the wooden cutouts. That's what I did with a few coasters I picked up at bars in Amsterdam and Scotland. The other coaster in the photo includes a section of a street map from San Francisco. A fun happy hour project complete!

Cheers!
--Jessica

Cold Weather, Mac & Cheese and Kronenbourg 1664

Most Pre-Thanksgiving nights are filled with family and preparing for the coming feast that will be on the last Thursday of November. It’s a time to give thanks and enjoy family! Back in the year of 2007 Jessica and I shared what I call my most memorable pre-Thanksgiving night ever. On that very cold and windy night, we braved the weather, headed out of our Dallas apartment and went on a last second foil run that lead to one of my most cherished discoveries. That night I found a beer called Kronenbourg 1664 that I now give thanks to every year. On that night Jessica and I decided to make a 7-Cheese Macaroni dish, that I have to say was out of this world, and enjoyed for several days after Thanksgiving. 


As we were preparing our dish we ran into a problem that I’m sure occurs in just about every household that is preparing for Thanksgiving. Inevitably something is forgotten at the store and for us that was foil. We walked over to our local CVS to pick up some up. Anyone living in Dallas knows that Thanksgiving weather is a total crapshoot. That particular evening the weather became so cold and windy we nearly froze to death on our foil run.


We decided naturally that what we needed to do was get some beer to warm up with and enjoy while we cooked. Thankfully we decided on Kronenbourg 1664. The taste is so unique; its light and crisp flavor never lets you down. The flavor rich taste becomes almost sweet in your mouth but still allows you to be a man when you’re drinking it! While letting our dish cook in the oven we opened the windows and allowed the heat from the oven to warm the apartment. Yes it was a very small place! 


We popped in a movie called “After the Wedding”, which is a foreign independent film that I highly recommend (it's about reconnecting with a past love). I suggest that you watch it while your Thanksgiving meal is cooking, sitting next to the one you love, and enjoying a Kronenbourg 1664.  Hopefully it will make for just as special a night as it did for me!


À la votre!
-Bryan