Latvian Easter Eggs

LATVIAN EASTER EGGS

Start with raw eggs, onion skins, various vaguely edible things to put in along w/ the eggs (these are not needed if all you want is to make them brown), and old nylons/tights/pantyhose. Wrap eggs with onion skins and other misc things (pasta, rice, grass, tapioca, etc...). Tie off the nylon/casing inbetween each egg to keep all the stuff pressed up against the egg. Wherever that stuff is pressing will be less accessible to the dye coming from the onion skins, which will give your eggs a wide range of color, going from pale yellows all the way into a deep deep brown and sometimes you'll even get greens & purples, too!



Boil eggs ~30 minutes... Cool eggs and cut the casing open.



Admire the eggs... each one is different!





We did regular eggs, too!

New screen door!

BEFORE:

(picture missing - I am looking for it)

I can't find a picture w/ my old (beat up, aluminum) door... but here's what my door looked like at the height of my DIY misery.... notice there are multiple layers of house I had to take off in order to get this to work...



AFTER!


...is very nice - no?

New bathroom faucet

So... this actually happened way back in April, but I finally found the old picture for comparison... my big bathroom's faucet went from this:


to THIS:


Much nicer - eh?

(Don't worry ---the mosaiced tiles are still inthe bathroom, but instead of leaning against the backsplash, they now are hung up on the wall as they were intended :)

a new (slate!) floor!!!

First... the gosh-awful carpeting in a crowded front porch... I'm sure that part of the awfulness stems from the not very cleaned up porch that resulted from the door-installation fiasco of the previous weekend (pictures of that forthcoming in the next week or so, too)



Did you say you wanted a close-up of that?
Welll....
OK...





After removing the carpet, I see that there's a lovely cement slab base to start from!!! (actually, I knew that already or else I wouldn't have sprung for the slate tiles)




So I lay out my tools... before this (I didn't post a picture of it, but I have one if you are interesed) I opened the boxes of slate tiles & set them all out on my driveway, where I hosed them off, let them dry and then sprayed them with their first coat of pre-grout sealant.


Took a short coffee/tea break after laying down 20+ square feet of slate....






Apparently took (a very important) break just 8 tiles later...






Phew. Here's what the floor looked like after ~8 hours of tile-laying. Each of these tiles had been handled no fewer than 6 times before being installed... carried to car, set out on driveway for clean & seal, carried in to porch for Layout #1, rearranged into current layout, moved over & out of the porch so I could start installing, and finally each one picked up and back-buttered for maximum stickage & tile-eveness...
Yep. those are the *technical* terms ;)



The (almost) final product... it's been grouted with a lovely "pewter" colored grout and is currently curing so that I can put 2-3 coats of another sealant on.... I'm thinking I will use one that will give a *slight* shine to the tiles without actually making them super glossy...