Chicken Avocado with Pita Pockets

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The Famous Roasted Chicken

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Coctel De Camarones

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Poor Man's Beef Wellington

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Apple Pie Logs (Four Ingredients!)

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Elvirochka (Russian Vegetable Pie)

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The Door Decoration

My supplies.

Our front door has looked fairly bland to me ever since we moved in. I wanted a decoration but not just anything. I wanted something unique, something pretty, something simple, and not a wreath to hang on it. I also wanted it to be something that I made, not bought, so that it had a bit of that homemade look.

The first stop was my absolute favorite craft store, Michael's. There, I picked up this nice letter S, two bottle of acrylic paint, and a metal magnetic flower.

The S was near the picture frames/woodworking crafts, not with the other cut-out letters, interestingly enough. The magnetic flower was in a clearance bin for a dollar. The paints were with the other paints.

After painting the S yellow, I taped off the stripes.

The paint I selected was 509 Sunny Yellow and 2561 Steel Gray.

First, I painted the S in yellow. I gave it three coats so it was nice and bright, letting it dry in between coats (about 20 minutes). Once it was coated, I let it set for two hours so it was fully dry and cured.

Next, I taped off my stripes. Originally, my stripes were perfectly spaced. I ended up re-taping the bottom part of the S, as I wanted my stripes to curve with the S. I also made some of the stripes bigger than others, instead of making them uniform.

After taping off my stripes, I started with the gray paint. I just painted from top to bottom going right over the tape.

I recommend pushing down your tape to ensure it's fully covering the area. I did not do that and had some gray paint escape under the tape. I went back with a touch-up brush once it dried and fixed the stripes as best I could.


After removing the tape, before clear coating
it with the fixatif.

I let it sit overnight before removing the tape. I then clear coated it very, very generously with some workable fixatif (I prefer Krylon Workable Fixatif) to give it a glossy look and protect it from the weather. It also makes it very easy to keep clean.

I went ahead and sprayed the metal flower as well, to keep the weather from rusting it. I let the S and the flower sit another 24 hours to fully cure.


The next day I hot glued the flower to the S. I had to bend the petals just a bit to make it fit flush against the wood. I hot glued the magnet directly to the wood, along with each petal that touches it. If there was any gap between the flower petal and the wood, I filled it with hot glue to ensure it would stay secured (I prefer the term overachiever to paranoid).

I spent two days searching for twine, but it seems every place nearby was sold out. I finally located a $0.94 package of jute (which is very similar to twine) in the craft aisle at my local Wal-Mart.


Before the jute.

I originally was going to hot glue the jute to the back of the S to create something to hang it by. Since I wasn't certain the jute and hot glue would hold up for a long time, I chose to wrap the twine around the S a few times, then knot the two ends together to create a loop to hang it from.

To attach it to the front door, and to keep it secure, I used the upside down command hook method. (It's a simple method that keeps your stuff secure. Install a command hook upside down on the inside of your door. Hook the jute/twine/string/ribbon/whatever you're using around the hook and hang it over the top of your front door. This will allow whatever you are displaying to hang nicely on the front door without driving a nail into your door. It will also keep your item from falling in the event the hook fails you).



It's complete!