Threadbanger's back! I'm a bit late to the party....

I love Threadbanger. I love their tutorials and the inspiration they give. The original Threadbanger posse of Rob, Corinne and Meg went off air for a while, and several other Youtubers came to keep the community going, which was pretty awesome. Both Corinne and Meg did their own thing and stuck around on Youtube with Craftovision and Meg Allan Cole Crafts, respectively. Now, however, Rob and Corinne are back with the old school Threadbanger!

I am pretty thrilled. So thrilled, that I clearly decided not to do anything about it until about 2 months later. They've been celebrating their return with some great tutorials for fashion recons including this fantastic Rorschach T-shirt!

Screen captioned/Stolen from the video posted below.

About 2 days after I saw this tutorial, Value Village had a half off sale, so clearly this was going to have to happen. Also, I decided it needed some neon.  This post is pretty picture heavy from now on, be warned.

Supplies:
-White or light coloured shirt,
-Black fabric paint (NOT the puffy style), and some neon colours if you want to go that route,
-Cardboard,
-Exacto knife,
-Tape,
-Iron with steam setting,

Step 1: Luck out with a Value Village sale and find an old, giant, white Joe Fresh T-shirt. Feel slightly guilty about it because of recent news involving Bangladesh and Joe Fresh, but figure that you're still stopping the shirt from being thrown out and ending up in a landfill, so feel slightly better.

Feel free to model them in some awesome Leopard print leggings that you just got from Domino Dollhouse since their Astralnauts collections in now on clearance.

 Step 2: Find some cardboard to put on the inside of the shirt. Cut a line in the middle of that cardboard to allow it to fold in half easily. The board stops the paint from bleeding through and keeps the shirt rigid while folding it over. 

 *Use some painters tape to secure the shirt since the low stick factor will allow you to peel it off safely, ish.

Step 2b): Discover that the only cardboard you have is slightly smaller than the shirt, so tape up the sleeves and bottom of the shirt to itself to get a better fit.

 Step 3: Shake up your first colour of fabric paint and blob some of it on one side of the shirt. Fold over and press firmly!

Step 4: Unfold and admire! From now, you can either:

a) Wait the requisite 4 hours for the paint to dry and skip to step 5, or

b) Wait the requisite 4 hours for the paint to dry and either add more of your original colour or do some more colours, repeating step 3 and 4, or

c) Do what Rob does in the video and quick dry the paint with a hair dryer on high.

Step 5: Following the instructions on the side of the paint tube, iron the well dried shirt on a steam setting to set the paint.

Step 6: Enjoy! Model awkwardly in a variety of poor lighting choices.

I'm pretty happy with how this shirt turned out! That being said, there was a discovery process that happened with this shirt, and I'm now going to pass on some tips.

I didn't know until I unfolded the shirt the second time that the Tulip brand neon paint was actually sparkly neon paint, not just neon, which was a nice surprise. Also, next time I might do the neon first and then the black, I'm on the fence about the texture it creates from doing the neon on top of the black, which I probably should have seen coming. Oh well. 

I also learned that I may have used a bit too much paint, since the it seeped through the shirt and fused the shirt to the cardboard. I think for the next attempt I'll put some waxed paper in between the cardboard and shirt, hopefully that would peel off of the paint better.

There's actually some paper still on there, despite my best efforts to peel most of it off. I'm hoping it'll come off in the wash, once that happens. Otherwise, I am really happy with my new shirt!

Thai chicken and coconut milk soup

It's been a busy few weeks since I last posted, helped along by the really lovely weather we've been having in the Tdot lately. A fair amount of last minute stuff happened surrounding the PHSC Image Show last Sunday, and the show itself went quite well. Since then I've finally had a bit of time to myself to actually plan out and make some of my own meals again. My local Loblaws has been taunting me lately with some lemongrass stalks, and I finally decided to take to the plunge and actually make something with them. I'm sure why I put it off for so long, although it probably had a bit to do with the fact I was always reading varying ways of how to treat it properly when using for cooking.

Thai Chicken and Coconut Milk Soup
Got to love Canadian Living!

Ingredients:
-1 cup of Jasmine or white rice (I'd argue that this optional, it worked with or without the rice),
-900ml of chicken broth,
-1 stalk of lemongrass, halved crosswise and then again lengthwise,
-6 slices of fresh ginger, about 1/2 inch thick,
-1 lb of boneless, skinless chicken breasts that have been freshly sliced,,
-1 & 1/2 cups of thinly sliced button mushrooms,
-1 cup of frozen peas (another optional, I put about 1/2 cup instead),
-2 tbsp of fish sauce,
-1 tbsp packed brown sugar,
-1 tsp red curry paste,
-1 can (400ml) of coconut milk,
-1/3 cup of chopped fresh cilantro (again, another optional ingredient as far as I'm concerned), and
-2 tbsp lime juice.

Preperation:
Cook rice according to package directions, or according to your rice cooker.

Meanwhile, in large pot, bring broth, lemongrass and ginger to a boil over a medium-high heat. Stir in chicken, mushrooms and peas. Cook over medium-low heat until chicken is no longer pink, about 4 minutes.

In a small bowl, whisk together the fish sauce, brown sugar and red curry paste. Stir into the pot along with the coconut milk. Simmer until hot and fragrant, for about 3 minutes. Discard the lemongrass and ginger.

Stir in cilantro and lime juice, and serve over rice.

This was an excellent dinner, and as I said, it worked with or without the rice. It did make quite a lot, but it kept pretty well in the fridge for about a week. You do need to mix up the soup before re-serving and heating.