8 Favorite Summer Recipes
Summer is all about backyard barbecues and fresh fruits, and summer recipes are some of my favorites. With fall approaching I'm sure I'll start to crave baked things and soups again, but I'm still craving the fresh tastes of summer cuisine.
I've been wanting to try some new summer inspired recipes lately, but here are some of my favorite recipes from the past perfect for the sunny, long days of summer!
ORC Week 3: Shower tile installed!
We have tile!!! If I’m being honest, the tile isn’t 100% done… I still have to clean up grout haze, grout the shower niche (I think I’m going to grout that with white grout, which I didn’t have on hand), and caulk everything. Details, details. I always drag my feet on the details.
Tile was the biggest project in here, and the next biggest is to move plumbing, which I’m going to hire out. I’m moving the vanity to the wall under the mirror, so we need the sink plumbing to be there as well. Since we are in the midst of selling our other house, though, I may wait on that and try to button up some of the less daunting projects like finishing the drywall, installing shiplap on the ceiling, and re-doing the wall texture to feel more natural.
Make sure to check out all the other One Room Challenge participant projects here!
Jack's big kid room
A little less than a year ago, shortly after we moved into this house, we transitioned Jack from a crib to a “big kid” bed. I got this Ikea bed planning on making it into a cute little house, but after sketching out a bunch of iterations, I realized that his bed needed to be a Winnie! Luckily by this time he was a little bit older and I flipped the bed into the loft configuration in order to turn it into his very own Mini Winnie! I had some plywood leftover from a project, cut it into the Winnie shape, cut out the windows, painted it, and then just screwed it to the side of the bed!
I hadn’t really set out on designing his room with a plan, but over time it turned into a sort of adventure room, which I love. I had a bunch of National Park posters from years past, so I put those up (still need to find some frames that fit them). I found a vintage map at a local vintage shop, and had the paper star lanterns from his newborn nursery (Jack’s middle name is Polaris, so his baby nursery had a subtle star theme).
There’s obviously some work to be done, we need to finish the trim throughout the house so his room is missing door and baseboard trim, but for the most part, everything else is almost there! I’d love to take the super dated ceiling fan down and do a DIY paint job that fits his room, maybe do a Hudson Bay blanket look on the fan blades? The yellow triangle was inspired by Erin Barrett (@sunwoven on insta, if you don’t follow, you must! Her house is gorg).
Like the rest of our house, most of Jack’s room is thrifted, with the exception of the Ikea bed and the rug, which is from Wayfair!
Sources:
Bed frame: Ikea Kura Bed | Rug: Wayfair | Red Ampersand : Modcloth (years ago, here are some similar options) | Letter Boards: Mini + Poet size from Letterfolk | Winnie Painting: by me | Shelving unit: thrifted (originally from Ikea) | Storage Bins: thrifted (similar metal bins) | Bookshelf: thrifted (similar) | Elephant Clothes Hamper: thrifted (similar) | Chairs: thrifted | Floor Pouf: c/o D+K Renewal
DIY Hanging Rope Shelf
I made this shelf probably five or six years ago and it’s followed me around in all those years. I brought it over to our new house when we moved in last year and it’s just been sitting in Jack’s closet since then. Yesterday I finally decided to put it up, but then when I got some questions about it I realized I had never posted the DIY to my blog! So here it is!
What you’ll need:
Rope
Screw hooks and anchors
Wood planks
Drill
1/ Drill holes in the shelves in their four corners, about an inch in from the edges.
2/ Decide how far apart you want your shelves to hang from eachother. Cut a length of rope long enough to go from the bottom of the lowest shelf, up to the top of the shelves and back to the bottom, plus a couple of feet.
3/ Tie a knot at one end of the rope and push the other end through a corner hole on the first plank. Tie the next knot at the distance apart you decided to make your shelves and then push the end of the rope through the next shelf’s corresponding corner hole.
4/ Repeat with each shelf. When you reach the top shelf, create a looped knot at the top, forming a right triangle so the shelves hang level from the screw hook you’ll be hanging the shelves from.
5/ Now, take the rope down through the back holes in the shelves, tying knots at equal distances as the first set of knots so the shelves hang level. When you get back to the bottom knot, cut off the excess rope. Repeat with the second side.
6/ Measure the distance between the two rope sides to determine how far apart you’ll place your hooks. Decide how high you want the shelves to hang, then install your screw hooks. You might want to put anchors in, depending on what kind of walls you have and how heavy you predict the items on your shelf will be.
7/ Once the screw hooks are in, you can hang the shelf! Use a level to check that your shelves are straight. You may need to do some tweaking and raise/lower some of the knots to get everything perfectly level.
Quarantine Meal Planning Round Up
Since the start of quarantine, my meal planning has looked quite different. Or rather, I should say, I’m ACTUALLY meal-planning now. Like picking out recipes for the week or two weeks, then shopping for everything I need for those two weeks so I don’t have to go back to the grocery store for one thing I forgot, which is my usual Modus Operandi.
I don’t have the mental space to go out and scour the internet for recipes to make each week, but early on in the quarantine my friend sent over the Budget Bytes “15 Pantry Recipes for Emergency Preparedness” round up and since then I have been making recipes from Budget Bytes … like pretty much exclusively for the past two months.
I’ve asked on Instagram if you guys wanted me to round up my favorite recipes that I’ve tried (and most of these I’ve made multiple times!), so here they are!
Pasta Sauce
I had been using a similar recipe for pasta sauce from one of my old Hello Fresh meals, but this one is similar and so I’ve started using this one instead. The one thing I pulled over from the Hello Fresh recipe was to slice up 2 small zucchini’s into half-moon chunks and saute those with the onions. It adds a bit more to the sauce and makes it more substantial. Plus, I just like zucchini.
Tikka Masala
My house smelled AMAZING the whole day I was cooking this one. I have been meaning to make it again because I loved it a LOT.
Pineapple Teriyaki Chicken
This one is similar to the skillet pineapple chicken, but I dig pineapple and chicken so both are solid in my book.
Jerk Chicken with Pineapple Black Bean Salsa
I had never had Jerk Chicken before and it was bomb. The pineapple black bean salsa was super delicious and added a nice flavor dynamic.
Skillet Pineapple Chicken
I’ve made this one maybe three times in the past two months? It’s so good and so easy.
Slow Cooker 5 Spice Chicken
We just made this one a couple days ago! Another chicken flavor I had not tried before. Another that made my house smell delicious all day.
Thai Chicken Pizza
I love Thai Chicken Pizza, and this one was fun because I made my own Naan bread for the crusts!
King Ranch Chicken Casserole
I love a good casserole. Mostly I love having hella leftovers and not having to cook the next day. This one was real tasty. I’d never had King Ranch Casserole before, but I was into it. Making it again this week!
Creamy Salsa Chicken Skillet
This one was so delicious. So many good flavors, and I’m always down for a sprinkle of Queso Fresco. This one is solid and is added to my will-make-again-many-times roster.
One Pot Creamy Cajun Chicken Pasta
This one was recommended by an instagram follower of mine who also loves Budget Bytes’ recipes. I’m not typically a big pasta fan, so I don’t think to make it too often, but I loved the Cajun flavor and creaminess of this recipe. Plus: leftovers!
Lemon Blueberry Cornbread Skillet
I just made this one today, because I just happened to have everything on hand for it! I love cornbread and this is a more dessert-y version that I will probably eat for breakfast for the rest of the week (if it lasts that long).
all images via Budget Bytes, except cornbread images
Hi, I’m Liz
I'm an artist, writer, designer, DIY renovator, and … well basically I like to do all the things. If it’s creative I’m probably doing it. I’ve spent over 30 years voraciously pursuing a life steeped in creativity and I wholeheartedly believe creativity and joy are inextricably linked.
Read more…
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PRIVACY POLICY & DISCLOSURE
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Lino relief print created during the 2026 Wayzgoose Steamroller Print event in Tacoma. Each print was pressed using a 1.5 ton steamroller. See the entire process here!
The Wayzgoose theme this year was Tacoma Works, a celebration of the labor history of Tacoma, labor solidarity, Tacoma industry, and what work in Tacoma looks like.
As I thought about the theme, I realized I wanted to highlight the unpaid labor that women do, all the work that doesn't get acknowledged as “real work" and goes uncompensated but quietly forms the backbone of society. Care work, cooking and cleaning, household management, pregnancy and child rearing, carrying the emotional and mental load, etc.
I wanted to use the imagery of a quilt because this devaluing of "women's work" has extended into the art world by deeming mediums historically associated with women as merely "craft" - lots of fiber art, quilting, embroidery: highly skilled and artistically incredible work that wasn't considered "fine art."
Women's work is the thread that stitches everything together. It's the thread that goes unnoticed and under appreciated, but without it, everything would fall apart.
When I say “women’s work” I don’t mean that only women engage in these types of work, but historically these types of unpaid labor have fallen vastly upon women. I also don’t mean that women don’t or haven’t engaged in paid labor and industry throughout Tacoma’s history, they obviously have. To me, “women’s work” is the phrase that embodies how we devalue certain types of labor typically associated with women, and can extend into forms of paid labor— why is it that teachers are so underpaid in our society? Could it have anything to do with teaching having been a workforce of primarily women historically?
So when we talk about women’s work we’re talking about things like care work, elder care, feeding a family, procuring groceries, household management, keeping a home clean and stocked, rearing children, pregnancy, birthing and breastfeeding, emotional labor, mental load, community building and organizing. Without these forms of “women’s work” our society would unravel.
Women's work is work. The labor and industry history in Tacoma could not have happened without the women in the background supporting it all with the work they did that wasn't considered real work.
Tacoma Works because Women Work.
—
Due to the nature of printing outdoors, on the ground, with a steam roller, there are variations and slight imperfections from print to print.
Prints ship rolled in a cardboard tube.
Local pickup is in Central Tacoma.
Paper size: 30.5 x 44 in
Print size: 24 x 36 in