Spoon To Prevent Pots From Boiling Over

I'm sure we've all seen the pin on how a simple wooden kitchen spoon, when placed over a pot, will prevent it from boiling over. Unfortunately it's not true. I made a video demonstrating and explaining why that doesn't work, as well as showing a few methods that do.

So why doesn't this work? Simple. Starch. If you place a pot of water on the stove, crank it up to high and walk away, its not going to boil over. It will boil dry (and possibly ruin your pan) but it won't boil over. What causes pots to boil over is what you're cooking in them, usually high starch foods like pasta. A spoon isn't enough to break the sticky, starchy bubbles that form, and it still allows it to boil over. Images showing this working are likely done by bringing the pot to a lower, more gentle boil, rather than a full, rolling boil, so the chances of the pot actually reaching the point of boiling over are much lower.

So what are the two best methods to prevent this? Use a large stock pot (filling it no more than half way with water) or simply turn the heat down to a medium to medium-high heat. What you're looking for is a gentle boil, just the top of the water moving, not forming large bubbles. It's enough to cook the food, but without forming starchy bubbles. Another method involves a kitchen gadget such as a silcone lid, which allows the foamy mess to collect on top with out pouring all over your cook-top. I personally love mine, but it's not a necessary to prevent pasta from boiling over.

Good Idea Friday Marble Nail Polish

I had three different people ask me bout this pin this week, so I figured I would go ahead and test it out. We've all see the photos, the good and the bad. And since I've never, ever done this before, I thought it would be a perfect example of what it's like for first timers to give it a go (and why it often ends up a hot mess and failed pin for so many).

I'm here to tell you that, yes, it IS doable. But I'm also going to break it down and explain why, if you're anything like me, this is such a huge pain in the side, that there is no way in hell I would ever, ever do this again. If you're the kind of person who doesn't mind spending an hour on their nails, this is perfect for you. I on the other hand, usually do my nails in the evenings sitting on the couch while browsing pinterest, so needless to say I don't usually do anything overly difficult. 

So here's how the experiment broken down. I originally followed the pin to a T. 

The only thing missing here is the vaseline, which I don't own any, so I reached for my trusted and loved cuticle cream (shameless plug, but I love Orange Thyme products. I own probably a dozen of her lip balms and soaps and seriously, best stuff ever. She's not paying me to say this, I'm just a die hard fan. The Earl Grey lip balm is probably my most prized lip balm ever and I have to hide it so my husband doesn't steal it.)

I added the polish to the water, and noticed right away that the coral polish was creating a strange film on the water. Weird. Well it turns out that the water was slightly too warm, and the polish was a quick-set one, and it was literally hardening in the water. So I had to redo this batch.

And here's the results.

I assumed due to the pin that once it had mostly set up, that I could use something as simple as a toothpick to help separate the polish from my cuticle line, easily cleaning up what is on my fingers. Nope. Didn't work for me. What ended up happening was any sort of pulling, would cause the entire thing to stretch, and tear, making me have to redo everything. So that was a huge fail for me at least.

I then decided to see if using different polishes, different temperature of water, and different shape bowls would have any sort of effect. I tried polishes ranging from $2 Sinful colors, to $12 Julep polishes, and everything in between like OPI, Sally Hansen, Maybelline, Revlon, Zoya. I was curious if the brand mattered. As it turned out, nope! What DID matter was the pigmentation of the polish. Pigmentation can vary from polish to polish, even within the same brand.

I also found that you will get 2, MAYBE 3 good swipes of polish before you need to clear the bowl (I would just use a toothpick and scoot it over to the side) and start over. By the third pass, the polish was less swirly and more clumpy.

After a couple of fails, I found  the combination of polish that worked best for me: OPI in Incognito In Sausalito and Maybelline Color Show in Mint Mist.

After I had all my polish on, I waited. And waited. Once it had set up a bit, I got to cleaning up. Dozens of Q-tips, paper towels, acetone and 30+ minutes later, here are the results. (I also used a very tiny paint brush to better clean up my nail lines and cuticle, something I actually recommend doing after painting your nails anytime for that clean, professional look.)

So there you have it. Yes, it's doable. No, it's not easy. What this experiment showed me, however, was that there were a few things that did help: highly pigmented polish, a shallow plate worked better than a bowl, tepid water worked better than warm, and you should only do 2, maybe 3 swipes before you reset the polish. Also, the clean up is KEY to getting this to look pinterest ready.

Have any of you tried this? Share your photos (the good and the bad!) and what methods worked best for you with us over on Facebook or Twitter. And if you have any pins you're curious, let us know!

Egg White Pore Strips

"DIY pore strip/mask with egg white and toilet paper! So trying this!"

This is part 2 of the DIY pore strips that I've been testing out. The first one didn't even set up right, but what about this one? First off - the link connected to this image, at least for me, was a spam site. Which isn't really adding to the credibility of this. Now the idea of eggs as a facial isn't new, and egg white masks have been popular for many, many years, but can you use them as a DIY pore strip? 

Well I tested this one out this weekend and it failed miserably. I don't know if it was the paper I was trying, but it became a soft gooey mess on my nose. I had to attempt this one a few times, because the toilet paper kept falling apart. I first tried to dip it into the egg whites, but it mushed up in the bowl, so I then smeared some of the egg whites on my nose, placed the paper on, and pat on more egg whites with a q-tip. However that caused it to goo up again and tear. So round three, I put egg whites on my nose and tried gently patting the toilet paper on. It didn't work all that well, but it did stay, and at that point I figured it was good enough. 

Facebook and Twitter fans got a sneak peak of this lovely image

I waited until it was hard and set up and peeled it off. I looked over what I peeled off my face but didn't see a single thing. It's hard to say if it was due to the texture/pattern inherent in toilet paper, but even on zoom I couldn't see a thing. 

Now here's where I add the disclaimer that I'm a skin care freak, in the same way some women are crazy about shoes, or makeup, or books, I'm that way about skin care. So my pores are generally kept clean and clear more so than the average person. But even the best skin has clogged pores and blackheads, so I went ahead and tried a Biore strip to compare what it pulled out vs the egg white/TP mix. This time around it was clear the strip pulled some gunk out of my pores. (if you look closely by my fingers in the photo below, you can see a few blackheads)

Ewww! 

So there you have it.  If you ask me, it doesn't work at all. Just testing out the two methods side-by-side, the feeling of pulling the biore strip off hurt more than the egg white one. Which sounds weird to say, but the hold, the adhesive of the biore one was clearly stronger than the egg whites were, so it seemed more likely to get the junk out of your pores better. 

I'll be testing out a few other methods in the coming weeks, so if you have any DIY pore strips you're curious about post the ideas over on our facebook or twitter!

Cinnamon Roll Crust

"How great is this? Just use store bought cinnamon roll dough in place of crust for your pies!"

A fan submitted this one and had the same concerns I did when reading this. If you've ever made cinnamon rolls before, even store bought ones often found in the chill case, they tend rise when baked. So either the rising roll crust is going to cause all the amazing pie filling to leak out the sides (and onto the oven floor) or it's going to remain a dense, chewy undercooked mess. 

Luckily I was able to track down the original source of the image, and wouldn't you know it? That's not what this is an image of. Over at Tablespoon, Stephanie shares a great recipe on how to make a pie with a faux cinnamon roll crust made of rolled up crust, spices and sugar. Since it's crust, it won't rise like the supermarket rolls will, so your pie filling will stay in place. You can read more of her recipes on her blog at Girl Versus Dough. 

So, is anyone game to try this? I'd try one with cinnamon rolls from the store, but I made a new years resolution not to set my oven on fire for this year. If you try ether examples though, let us know! Share photos or stories on our facebook and twitter. 

Honey and Milk Pore Strips

"homemade pore stripes without gelatin or eggs. 1 tbsp honey mixed with 1 1/2 tbsp milk, microwave ten seconds or until warm (not hot) and apply to area with cotton ball or makeup brush. Let dry 15 minutes and peel off." 

I'm sure we've all seen a couple different ways to make homemade pore strips on Pinterest. Everything from gelatin to school glue seems to be mentioned. I've been meaning to test some of these out, but I've been wanting to wait until I  get a decent microscope so I can examine them closely enough to see if they really do work. 

However, this is one I don't even need to test to say it won't work. The pin suggestions a simple mixture of milk and honey. Looking over the link it goes to, the website suggests all it takes is 1 tablespoon of honey with 1.5 tablespoons of milk, microwave for 10 seconds, then dab onto your face where you need to clear your pores. Within 15 minutes it should set up into a hard layer that can be easily peeled off.

The problem? Honey doesn't set up like that, especially when mixed with milk. The only thing this will accomplish is a leaving your face a big gooey mess. Honey can and will solidify over time, but ironically as soon as you heat it up, it's going to go back to being liquid. Add liquid to that and place on a warm face, and there is no way this is going to set up enough to clear your pores. 

On the other hand, honey has been used as a skin treatment for thousands of years, and I personally love it as a face scrub (mix equal parts sugar and honey for a great DIY exfoliant), but a pore strip? I don't think so.

Whole Egg Compost

"Fill pot with 2" of soil then place one uncracked raw egg in the pot. As it decomposes, it will serve as a natural fertilizer."

This is a pin that made me do a double take. You see, eggshells are honestly a great compost addition so it's easy to think maybe by tossing in the whole egg, it can work just as well. However, there's a handful of problems that can come up when you just toss a whole egg into compost, let alone in a pot you're planting in. 

Not only do whole eggs attract pests like raccoons, mice, rats and skunks, inviting them to dig up whatever you planted in order to get to the egg, but the egg will go bad before it starts to decompose. Quite a few people have mentioned how when they tossed a whole, uncracked eggs into their compost a few of them over time basically exploded. And that is one smell I wouldn't wish on anyone. Thoughts are mixed on if you should even add whole eggs to your compost pile; those who do it recommend either cracking and stirring it into the compost pile or burying it very deeply so pests can't get to it. That's not an easy solution however when we're talking about pots. 

All in all I'd say this is a bad idea. It's best just to stick with compost or if you feel the need to add eggs, use the shells only to be on the safe side. 

Shattered Mirror Floor

"Broken glass floor - great for a bathroom floor or countertop. Just lay broken mirrors on the floor and top with polyurethane" 

I don't even know where to start with this one. That's not what this is an image of. The image quality makes me believe it came from a magazine of sorts, but I'm having a hard time finding the source. My first thought when seeing this image is that it was an artsy spread of some sort in a magazine, not some great DIY home design project.

I'd like to point out there is no sealant or polyurethane in that photo, it's just broken mirrors. Also, as someone who has done a lot of refinishing including the floors of my house, polyurethane is an extremely thin sealant - I think what the creator was the pin was thinking more of would be an epoxy resin, which on the floors wouldn't work easily, takes days to set up, and bubbles like crazy unless it's set just so or with a heat source. 

So yeah, this isn't even doable if you ask me, at least not as a DIY home project. 

Crayons As Makeshift Candles

"In an emergency, a crayon will burn for 30 minutes." 

Ok. I'm trying to get through this post without laughing. For some reason this image alone makes me laugh every single time I look at it. I also thought I would try something different and do a video post for this bad idea. Because honestly, this is a REALLY bad idea. 

UPDATE 1.24.15

We're working on a new format for the blog and are currently having problems getting the video to play properly on mobile devices.

Here is a direct link.

So lets get down to why you shouldn't do this. On youtube I found just a few videos of people attempting this. As I showed in the video, I did one crayon with your basic lighter, and another with my work torch. I actually seemed to have had better luck with my lighter than I had previously seen on other youtube videos, but the torch, due to its higher temperature and more focused flame, got the job done quicker. My theory on why this works is that it's like a reversed candle - the paper on the outside of the crayon acts as a wick, and the melting wax inside the crayon helps coat and protect the paper from just going straight up into flames. 

But they don't burn for 30 minutes. Maybe 10-15 if you're lucky. In my video I show how at the 5 minute mark it's already halfway burned though. Also, the image above has it sitting on someone's carpet. Which is just remarkable as far as "really bad ideas" go -- not only are you faced with dripping wax on your carpet, most carpets are made with synthetic fibers and when they catch fire, it's not good. The wax itself is just a simple paraffin wax, which is commonly used in candles and even foods, but this experiment caused a lot of smoke to form, leaving my studio smelling my melted crayons for quite some time. 

All in all, this is just not a good idea. The crayon itself isn't stable, making it very prone to tipping or falling over, it doesn't last long, and it puts off a lot of smoke. I can't think how this would ever be a good idea. In a pinch you're better off even making a homemade oil burning lamp with olive oil than you would this. But the majority of people generally keep candles, lanterns, and flashlights on hand in case of power outage. 

Glow in the Dark Bubbles

"Cut open glow sticks & pour them into bubble solution. Glow in the dark bubbles. I like the idea for summer nights & camping"

Who hasn't seen this idea going around not just Pinterest but Facebook and the like? Looking at the picture, this looks like this would be true. And it is, sort of. You see, you CAN add glow stick formula to bubbles easy enough. The problem comes in that even though the bottle of bubbles does glow, the bubbles themselves? Not so much. At all really. First off - that photo? It's a photo of "Miracle Bubbles Glow Fusion" bubbles, which you can buy retail, not of someone DIYing glow in the dark bubbles. How do I know this? the bottle shape. Here's the source of the image above (flickr) 

For this post I decided to buy the glow bubbles shown above instead of DIYing it. I really dislike cutting open glowsticks for a couple of reasons; the smell alone that lingers is awful and being not quite summer, I didn't want that smell lingering in my house from bubbles. They come with two packs of activators - I'm not having a lot of luck with finding what is in these pouches, but I'm going to go ahead and assume it's the same, if not similar formula used in glow sticks. We decided to do this on the last day of spring break, as a sort of kiddie rave party for our kids. We waited until dark and turned out all the lights and pulled the drapes closed to make the house as dark as possible for this, then crank up some electronica music and mixed the bubbles with the activators.

no joke, this isn't just a black square.
I promise it's an actual photo.

Over to the left you can see two photos I took of our party. I'm not joking, the first one is really a photo taken without the flash, the second one with a flash on. So the bubbles don't glow when you blow them. I didn't figured they would, due to surface mass and tension and all that, but when they landed and popped? That was a whole different story. I tried to get a good photo of it, as it looked like the most beautiful milky way space image but I wasn't able to quite capture it with my camera. 

See? Bubbles!

 Which brings up another issue with this: I would HIGHLY recommend using this either outdoors, or in a house with hardwood floors. Everything by the end was covered in glowing solution.  Luckily we had the hindsight to roll up the area rug and do this in our entrance room so it wouldn't get on the sofa in the living room, but the kids still needed a good bath when it was done with.

So all in all, as fun as this is, don't expect to have literally glow in the   dark bubbles. It doesn't matter how dark you get the place (as shown in the photo there to the left) these bubbles just aren't going to GLOW like you want them to. It was still fun though, and something we plan to do again maybe this summer - but outdoors this time, as I don't feel like hosing down the kids and mopping floors so late at night. 

Glow Sticks Lanterns

"Break open a glow stick, dump it in a jar, shake it up and you have an instant glow stick lantern! Perfect for outdoor parties. Could keep a few of these around for when the power goes out...fun in the dark"

This is one of those pins that verges on true, but misses the mark. The sheer amount of crazy glow stick pins is overwhelming, so I figured I'd start with the easiest - can you cut open a glow stick, dump it into a jar and get an easy lantern?

Sort of. Before trying this myself I read up a bit on it. The biggest complaint about this was that it didn't last long - something about the chemicals of glow sticks exposed to open air causes them to fad far quicker than if you leave them in the tube. 

So I decided to try it myself -  I wanted to see if it would glow well enough to replace candles and battery powered lanterns if the power went out, and just how long it would last. 

A quick trip to the dollar store and I had a fist full of glow sticks to play with. Now here is where I'd like to also mention that despite the fact glow sticks are labeled NON TOXIC, that doesn't mean breaking them open doesn't come with risks. and it's tricky to break them open - you basically have to cut one end, aim it towards the container, and then cut the other end to break the suction so it will flow freely into the container. There is a great article on the safety of glow sticks on Steve Spangler's blog, which you can read here. 

Despite knowing I shouldn't get this on my skin, it was a pain to try to get the liquid out and yes, some splattered on my skin and shirt. As fun as it was to look like an old school raver, it really did burn my skin a bit. Not eating away the skin or anything, but for sure you shouldn't be having young children do this project.

And there we have it - my jar. You can't really tell, but that is a tiny jar - about 3" inches total in size. I couldn't help myself and had to place it next to a dental casting I have because creepy is fun. 

But would this work if the power went out? Uh.. no. Not unless you feel like breaking open a LOT of glow sticks. Here's a photo I took midway into the room of the jar:

Yeah.. that's not lighting a whole lot of anything there. But hey, what about just using it for fun party or Halloween decorations? Well, I failed a bit at tracking the time on how long they last, as I figured it was late and I was tired, so I took a quick hour long nap. When I woke, I asked my husband where my jar was. "It's where you left it silly" ... oh. After just an hour the jar had already stopped glowing. So unless you're planning on a rather quick party, these aren't going to last the whole night through. The other glow sticks we had cracked for fun were still going strong though, and lasted about 4 hours before I went to bed.

All in all, though you can break open a glow stick and dump it in a jar, it's not going to last long, and it's sure not going to help when the power is out. You'd have better time just leaving it all IN the stick and playing with those. 

Jello Legos

"Wash mega blocks, fill them with jello, and chill. You will have lego jello!" 

Hey look! It's a picture of Jello, in the shape of Legos! What makes people assume that it's as simple as just filling empty legos with jello I will never understand. I have kids - kids have Legos. I've played with them before and took a look at the underside of the blocks - they don't look like just an inverted Lego.

But the pin says Mega Blocks, which we don't have. A quick google search though shows the same thing on the underside of the blocks. There is no way you can just pour Jello in there and get a lego shape. Not to mention the blocks are so ridged that it would be really difficult to get the Jello out once it's set up. 

So how DO you get Lego shaped Jello shown in the pin? With a silicone mold of course! You can order one here at amazon . Those are made by Lego it appears, but there are several other companies that make them as well. And because Pinterest is all about DIYing, here's a great blog write up on how to make your own silicone mold if you're feeling fancy. 

Crafty Corner : DIY Lego Mold

Muffin Tins Secret Use

"Flip Over a Muffin Tin to Make Delicious Ready-to-Fill Cookie Bowls The dream of enjoying cookies and milk—or cookies and ice cream—at the same time is real, and all you need to do it is cookie dough and a muffin tin. Flip the muffin tin over, form the cookie dough around the cups instead of inside it, and bake the tin upside down." 

I'm sure anyone who spends any time on Pinterest has seen this one. Maybe some of you have been lucky enough to see the failed attempts at this as well. Because it's false. For the most part at least. As much as that  does look at first glance like a muffin tin, it's not. It's designed just to make these cups, as you can see it has a small indent at the rim of each cup, to help support the dough. (It's made by Wilson's if anyone is interested)  But fear not, even though this is a specialty pan it still seems to get mixed reviews, as people complained that the cookie dough still tended to 'run' or melt out of the cup shape molds. You'd need to use a fairly firm cookie recipe, probably one with less butter than normal for this to work right. Other reviewers have suggested everything from making sure the dough is very well chilled to rolling it out between wax paper to help roll out the thicker made dough.

I have a bad habit of setting my oven on fire anytime I mention baking, so this isn't something I'm going to attempt, but has anyone used these pans? Do you think they worked better than a muffin tin or not? I guess if all else fails you could always use this tin right side round to make some very pretty mini flans or jell-o desserts. 

And if anyone is wondering if there is any way to really make them at home - sure there is! Here is a great write up on how to make cookie cups with a muffin tin the right way with a tried and trusted fail proof method - it does take longer time and prep to make them this way, but at least you know the outcome will probably be better then a cookie coated oven to clean. 

Mini Cookie Cups via Sweet-lab.com