The Quest for Snails (Schnecken)

When I went off to college, there was one recipe I asked my Grandma Riesterer for: Snails.  No, not the shelled gastropods also known as escargot, the German cinnamon-roll like pastry also known as Schnecken.  Grandma would make them on the occasional easter or other special occasion, and they were always my favorite.  That recipe card hung on my fridge through my first two apartments.  Then I moved to California, and somehow the recipe card didn't make the move.  It was a tragedy.  By then, Grandma wasn't in great health, and I'd already been given most of her recipe books and cards.  Alas, the coveted snail recipe was not found among them.  Fast forward 7 years to today, when I just wanted to make a nice coffee cake and thought one of Grandma's old books might have a good option.  As I paged through the bread and cake section I came across a Schnecken recipe and immediately decided I would try to replicate Grandma's snails instead.  I knew right away this wasn't the exact recipe; Grandma's used chocolate chips instead of nuts, but the yeasted milky dough looked close so I decided to give it a whirl and wing it on the filling.  Grandma's also had a simple icing on top that this recipe didn't call for.

The Settlement Cook Book, page 82.  Copyright 1976

As a first attempt, I'm pretty happy with the results.  Happy enough to write down what I did and continue to iterate until I get it right at least.  While Snails look like a cinnamon roll, they're much drier than a typical American sticky bun.  The dough is drier, almost biscuit like, and the filling shouldn't be gooey except for the oozy chocolate chips when they're fresh out of the oven. 

You may have noticed that the recipe is quite vague on some important details, like how thick or wide to roll the dough, how long to let them rise, and how long to let bake.  I did some googling for Schnecken and combined what I found on the internet to make this starting recipe:

Dough:
1 Package Active Dry Yeast
1/4 c warm tap water
1 c butter, slightly softened
5 egg yolks
3/4 c lukewarm cream
3 c flour

Filling:
1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c chocolate chips
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Icing:
5 Tbsp cream
125 grams powdered sugar

Yield: 24-27 rolls (Mine made 27, but the thicker ones were better so aim for only 24)

Set the butter, eggs, and cream out on the counter for an hour or more until everything is room temperature.

When you're ready to begin, lightly stir the yeast into the warm water and put in a quiet place so it can bloom.  Cream the butter on medium-high for about 10 minutes.  Add the eggs yolks, one at a time.  They looked kind of like scrambled eggs when I decided they were done. 



Reduce the mixer speed to medium low and slowly add the cream, then the yeasty water.  I stopped to scrape the bowl fairly often.  Switch to a pastry hook and add the flour a little at a time, until it pulls away from the bowl and forms a ball.

Turn out the dough ball onto a silicone baking mat and knead a few times, then shape into a rectangle.



Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into a large rectangle.  My baking mat is 14x20 inches, and I rolled it nearly to the edges.

In a small bowl, mix the brown sugar. cinnamon, and chocolate chips, then sprinkle over the rolled dough.



Roll the dough tightly from the long side into a log.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour or so to make the dough easier to slice.



Using a sharp knife, slice the log into 1/2" rounds and place a few inches apart on a baking mat.  If not using baking mats, I would grease the pan or use parchment paper.  Place the rolls in a warm place to rise.  I let mine rise on the top of a warm oven for about 90 minutes.  Here's the before and after:

before rising

After rising.  They didn't rise much, just rounded out a bit

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 10-15 minutes or until just beginning to brown.  Transfer to wire racks to cool 3-5 minutes after removing from oven.  

Mix the cream and powdered sugar for the icing together with a whisk in a small bowl.  Lightly spread the icing on the warm Snails.

The end result was a dry but not quite crunchy confection that is not very sweet.  It's somewhere between a cinnamon roll and a shortbread cookie in texture and flavor. As I mentioned above, they were a good first attempt.  These are supposed to be dry, but the ones I cut a little on the thin side were almost too dry, and I don't think they were quite sweet enough unless I really piled on the icing.  In the future, I will try doubling the cinnamon sugar in the filling, adding a quarter cup more chocolate chips, and also experiment with using whole milk instead of heavy cream in the dough.  Most of the recipes I googled called for milk, and I'm curious to see how that changes the end result.  If you make these, let me know, especially if you grew up eating them, too.  I'm eager for feedback!

Corn and Turkey Egg Drop Soup

Everyone in my house has a nasty cold.  Poor Baby G will only stop screaming when bundled tightly in the Moby wrap or snuggled in the rocking chair with Carl, and even that isn't fool proof.  Indigo and Carl are miserable, and I'm only hanging in there because I was lucky enough to get it a few days early so I'm over the worst of it already.  I knew I needed to make a big pot of some kind of soup, but the soup connoisseurs in this house are picky eaters.  I also knew I wanted to use up the leftover roast turkey breast I made last night when company came.  If asked, Indigo will say her comfort food is any sort of Asian cuisine, so I decided egg drop soup would fit the bill.  Having never made it before, I did some googling and came up with this hybrid recipe that I thought was absolutely delicious. 

6 Cups Chicken Broth
2-3 Cups of frozen corn, divided
1 Tbsp Corn starch
1 tsp oyster sauce

1/2 tsp Chinese 5 Spice powder1/2 tsp dried cilantro
salt to taste
white pepper to taste
~ 1 pound of cooked turkey, cubed (could also use chicken)
4 eggs, beaten
In a medium sized stockpot or dutch oven, bring chicken broth, oyster sauce, 5 spice powder, cilantro, and 1 cup of corn to a boil.  Ladle out a little chicken broth and mix it with the corn starch in a separate cup or bowl to make a slurry, then pour into the main pot.  Lower heat to a simmer and cook until thickened slightly.  Using an immersion blender, puree everything in the pot so you have a silky smooth corn-chicken broth.  Taste and add salt, white pepper, and additional seasonings to taste.  Add the cubed meat and remaining corn.  Return to a boil.  When everything is hot through, stir the soup in one direction to create a vortex.  Slowly add the beaten eggs so they "flower" and create eggy ribbons.  Simmer a few minutes longer until eggs have turned white and are fully cooked.

Makes 4 servings.

DIY Nursery Part 5: Easy Felt Animals

This post is Part 5 of a series on my DIY nursery.  Click here for Part1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

When Carl and I first started talking about a woodland nursery, I was a bit overwhelmed by the different stylistic choices within the general theme.  To me, there's few things more irksome in a room than things that should be similar, but are just different enough to stand out.  It's why I obsess over matching colors and stylistic choices and try very hard to pick something inspirational to work from.  For example, I knew I wanted to use the crib bedding as our theme anchor point - sheets are relatively portable so easy to go shopping with, and as part of the crib, be part of a central focal point in the room.  I'd narrowed our bedding options down to the four options below.  Each of them has a very different color scheme and stylistic feel though.  Mixing and matching just wasn't an option to me.  I'm far too much of a perfectionist.

Our theme inspirational choices.  We opted for the bottom right.

  

We eventually chose the bottom right option because it wasn't too babyish so kiddo will be able to use it long into the toddler years, there were lots of colors to match to, and Carl didn't like the modern look of the upper right.  No matter what option we chose, I knew that finding coordinating pieces would be difficult. With a little time and patience though, we could easily make standard, plain pieces match the theme we had chose.  And so, my menagerie of little felt critters was born.  Here's how to make your own felt critters that you can use to decorate crib skirts, hampers, storage bins, or whatever else you might have in your nursery.

Step 1: Make your pattern
To make my pattern, I opened up the picture of my bedsheets on Amazon.com's website and then zoomed in on the image using my browser's zoom function on my external monitor.  I then put a piece of printer paper up against the monitor and lightly traced all the outlines that shined through with a pencil.  I then cut around the outside of each critter / shape.

Step 2: Cut your felt
Look at your critter and decide which layer is your base layer.  For my owl, I decided the thin layer of green that was underneath his belly and wings would be the base.  I also made a fox, and used orange for his base layer.  Cut out the outline of the entire animal from the base layer.

  

Next, carefully cut out the shape of the next layer.  For my owl, I wanted his tail to be a layer underneath the green.  The wing was in the way of cutting a smooth tail shape, so I smoothed it out in a way that made sense to me.

Continue cutting each shape out of your paper pattern and then your felt, placing them as you go so you can see the animal build and adjust any pieces that may have been traced or cut a little off.  Always work from the larger, lower layers up.  For example, cut out the face, and then entire eyeball before cutting out the pupils.

Step 3: Glue

Finally, glue all of your pieces together.  I used Aileen's Tacky glue and made sure to keep everything f and undisturbed while drying.  I'm only going to be tacking these animals on things like a crib skirt, storage bins, and a hamper, so any kind of household white glue should be enough to keep them together.  If I were going to put this on a pillow or something that would be handled a lot, I'd probably upgrade to E6000 or pull out the sewing machine.  

And that's it!  I whipped together these little no sew critters in well under an hour each and they are a great way to get the same cartoon-feel of our sheets throughout the rest of the room.  

DIY Nursery Part 4: Handmade Crib Skirt

This post is Part 4 of a series on my DIY nursery.  Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 5

Our beautiful hand-dyed yellow crib needed an equally adorable crib skirt to tie everything together.  That said, calling this project a crib "skirt" seems a little misleading, since it quite honestly is just three hemmed rectangles tacked onto the mattress support.  First off, if you've ever shopped for crib skirts you will be amazed at the wide variety in price points (anywhere from $10 to $104 including shipping), and yet surprising lack of color or character in any of them.  So.  Many.  White ruffly things that are going to bunch up in an unsightly fashion when you lower the crib as baby grows.  Clearly, I'm not the only one with this gripe, as I found this fabulous and entertaining blog post on How to Make / Sew an Easy DIY Crib Skirt.  I used 52 1/4" inches of 60" wide gray decorator canvas I had left over from another project and then followed the instructions basically to the letter.   The lighting in this picture isn't great, but the gray matches the wall color surprisingly well.  Finally, I added my own special touches by sewing on premade pompom trim (approx $3.25 a yard after coupons) and handmade felt appliques that perfectly match the critters in the crib sheets we picked out.  All told, the project cost me about $12 in trim and felt, plus it helped me clean out the fabric stash that is currently taking over half of Baby's closet.  I call that a win!

DIY Nursery Part 3: Refurbished Bassinet

This post is Part 3 of a series on my DIY nursery.  Click here for Part 1, Part 2, Part 4

The beauty of treasured heirlooms is their ability to bring families together and inspire conversations about our shared history.  When my mother found out I was pregnant, one of the first things she did was pull out the bassinet that my sister and I, my mother, and my mother's siblings all slept in as babies.  The piece is beautiful in it's simplicity and is in remarkably good shape for being over 60 years old.  That said, it's age merits a little TLC before we use it for our upcoming baby.

Step 1: Remove the legs
Why would we remove the legs from an antique heirloom?  Well, they're a little wobbly and would benefit from some new rivets and bolts.  Plus, painting them and the basket itself will be much easier if they're removed and then replaced once the paint is dry.  I also think Carl wanted a good excuse to play with the Dremel and his riveter.

Step 2: Replace the bottom

Carl also carefully lifted out the cardboard bottom of the bassinet.  Given it's only cardboard, I'm amazed it hasn't disintegrated yet, especially given the water stains and years in the attic.  A new 1/4" plywood bottom will provide extra support for baby and help the bassinet last a few more generations.

 . 

Step 3: Sand the peeling paint

Carl had planned to use the orbital sander to quickly remove the peeling (hopefully not lead!) paint from the inside of the bassinet.  The peeling paint was our biggest concern about the bassinet when it was given to us, so we knew it had to be remedied.  After realizing the inside of the bassinet was also very old cardboard, Carl decided to hand sand the interior instead of risking damage from power tools.  He grabbed some 150 grit sandpaper and put on a respirator just in case it was lead-based paint to clean up the cracking, peeling paint seen here:

Step 4: Spray paint

As much as we would have loved to use anything other than spray paint, the bassinet's wicker exterior made it necessary.  We researched latex-based spray paints, and while there was a low-VOC option available from Krylon several years ago, it appears they no longer make it.  We also read articles that said Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore stores would put latex paint in an aerosol can for you for a ~$10 fee, however, none of our local stores had the equipment to do so or knew where to have this done.  So we're left with spray paint as our only option unless we buy, rent, or borrow a paint sprayer.  That's expensive and still usually requires mixing the paint with VOC-laden paint thinner so it doesn't gum up the gun.  Plus, my dad tried using a paint sprayer once.  Let's just say it didn't go well and I didn't want to repeat that experience.  To minimize VOC exposure for me and baby, I left this project in Carl's capable hands.

After waiting three weekends for a compatible weather day (90 degrees and humid in June, really Minnesota?), Carl got to work.  We opted to use the Rust-oleum Universal Paint and Primer in One in a plain white satin.

Carl got grumpy because he really wasn't happy with the trigger on this can, but I think he was able to do a good job.  It definitely didn't leave a perfectly smooth finish like I expect out of a good spray paint, so we did sand the inside lightly between coats to take the bumps off.  Here's what the outside looks like after two coats:

Still a little yellowed and has some uneven spots, especially along the bottom.  The cracks on the inside were also still showing through, although thankfully no longer peeling, after two coats. Carl will be putting a few more coats on after work each night this week, then starting on the leg rehab.  Soon it'll be looking good as new!

DIY Nursery Part 2: Dyed IKEA Sniglar Crib

This blog post is part of a series on my DIY nursery.  Click here for Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

The centerpiece of any nursery, other than the new adorable baby, is of course the crib.  I spent more time than I care to admit admiring beautiful mid-century inspired cribs, reading safety reviews, and scouring the internet for the best deals.  Eventually though, my loving husband reminded me that we are, in fact, on a budget, and while the bright yellow Jenny Linds and adorable two-tone mid mod masterpieces are beautiful, we also need to afford to feed and clothe this kiddo.  So I cracked open the Baby Bargains book and found glowing reviews of the utilitarian IKEA Sniglar crib.

Photo from Ikea.com

This crib has no frills, but it does have two heights for baby and adjusts to a toddler bed when kiddo is older.  It meets or exceeds all safety recommendations from the American Association of Pediatricians and may other infant-safety-interested parties worldwide.  It's two most alluring features though were it's price ($79.99) and the fact it's constructed of unfinished beach wood.  Because it's unfinished, crafty parents can turn this Plain Jane into something fabulous.  I was still lusting over the pretty yellow Jenny Lind I'd seen, and knowing we wanted to go for a woodsy feel, Carl suggested dying the wood yellow instead of painting it.  Dying it preserves the natural wood grain, which we both agreed would help tie it into the overall theme of the room.  I'm so glad we did, because it looks great!  Here's how we did it:

Step 1: Dye the crib
We did a fair amount of Googling whether or not dye would be safe for baby.  Many people suggested using food coloring for dying wood toys, but this was a large project and getting the color to stay consistent when adding food coloring drop by drop seemed error-prone.  We eventually decided on using RIT fabric dye.  It's cheap at $2.50 a box and readily accessible at our local Michael's.  Plus, as long as we measured the same amount of water each time we mixed up a box, we felt pretty good about getting a consistent color.  We'd found lots of examples of people using the dye on children's clothes with no safety concerns, and a few examples of using it to dye toys.  We scoured the RIT website for safety information, and felt good about it being a safe, non-toxic option.  It's essentially just a mild acid, pigment, and salt.  Worst case scenario, in our opinion, is that baby chews on the crib and color transfers to baby's face, making baby look jaundiced, but that's what your finish coats are for.

I mixed up one box of Golden Yellow Powdered Rit Dye in a glass bowl, grabbed a clean shop rag, and went to work applying the dye.  I also experimented with a paint brush, but found that the rag applied the dye much more evenly with significantly less dripping.  To prevent drips, it was important to go slowly and ring out the rag before applying it directly to the wood.  Here's what a first coat before and after looked like:

While I think the first coat was enough to give the crib a nice pop of color, we knew we'd need to sand the crib because a water-based dye was going to raise the grain.  I wanted to make sure the color was really soaked into the wood, so I opted for a second coat.  It took about 6 hours total to apply both coats to all of the crib pieces.  Here's what they looked like drying in the sun:

Step 2: Sanding
Like I mentioned before, any time you get unfinished wood as wet as we just did, you run the risk of raising the grain.  Well, we definitely did, and this left the crib feeling uneven and scratchy.  While I don't think baby would have gotten any splinters from it, I still wanted a smooth, finished feel to the crib when we were done.  We found these new(?) 3M Ultra Flexible Sanding Sheets in the paint section of our local Home Depot and boy am I impressed.  With all the little spindles, we absolutely needed to hand-sand this puppy, and these sheets were by far the best sandpaper I've ever used.  Here's all the reasons I will never buy paper-backed sandpaper for hand sanding ever again:

1. The flexible sheets don't crease, which means you can fold them into the exact shape you need over and over again without wearing out your paper.
2. They last forever compared to regular sandpaper.  I used three sheets because there's a lot of surface area on 50 spindles, but I probably could have gotten away with 2.
3. It doesn't clog!  I never had build up of sanding dust get in the way of my sanding.
4. They're a whitish-gray instead of dingy brown or ugly red.  We didn't want red dust all over the yellow crib, and while the more natural brown probably wouldn't have discolored the crib too much, the light grayish-yellow dust that was produced from these sheets only dulled the color a little bit instead of changing it entirely.  

In order to get as much of the sanding dust off the crib as possible, I actually used another hack.  I didn't want to risk raising the grain again with even a damp cloth, and I didn't want to expose myself and Cletus the Fetus to the nasty fumes of mineral spirits on a tack cloth, so I grabbed my handy Gal Pal Deodorant Remover Sponges, and they worked GREAT.  These things were yellow by the time I was done lightly wiping down one piece, but it was easy to just shake the dust out and get right back at it.  The soft sponge was also great at helping me identify any places that should have gotten a little more sanding, as it snagged on anything rough enough to upset a baby's delicate fingers.

Step 3: Shellacking
To try and prevent color transfer and a jaundiced baby as much as possible, we decided to finish the crib with spray shellac.  We opted for shellac over linseed or tung oil because it has a slight yellow tint, which we thought would help deepen the yellow color, and it dries with a shiny finish like the painted Jenny Lind that was my original inspiration.   We opted to use the Zinsser Bulls Eye Spray Shellac because a sprayed application would be much less time consuming and easier to apply than a brushed on finish.  While anything in an aerosol can isn't really recommended for pregnant ladies and babies, once the shellac is dry it's technically food safe (shellac is what gives M&Ms their hard candy coating), so baby should be able to chew on it as much as baby likes with no ill affects.  We just wanted to make sure it had plenty of time to fully cure and off-gas before baby arrives, which is why we aimed to complete this project at about the halfway point of my pregnancy.  We completed it during week 24 after delaying this step for 3 weeks because of 90+ degree weather despite it being June in Minnesota. 

 

This stuff smelly, so Carl donned an apron and a respirator and went to work applying 2 even coats.  Other than helping him flip the pieces between coats, I hid out in the house after snapping a quick photo of my man at work.

  

Step 4: Sanding, again

The spray shellac didn't dry to a perfectly smooth finish, which we expected, so we lightly sanded the entire crib again before final assembly.

Step 5: Assembly and voila! 

Assembly was fairly easy.  The two of us completed it in under an hour without any major headaches, other than not finding the instructions in the pocket on the mattress support until AFTER we'd finished putting it together with the help of the online manual.  It feels very sturdy, and I'm so happy with the finished product.  I dressed it up with a handmade crib skirt with easy felt animals and called it a night.  Now it just needs a mattress and a baby!

DIY Nursery Part 1: Nursery Room Walls

This post is Part 1 of a series on my DIY nursery.  Click here for Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Baby is coming soon and the nesting urge is strong.  I'm going to be spending a lot of time in baby's room, so I want it to be a happy, comfortable place.  I also don't want to redecorate in two years, so I want something bright and colorful that will last baby for at least 5-6 years.  We don't know if we're having a boy or girl, so we opted for a gender neutral woodland animal theme.  Most of the rooms in our house feature a bright accent wall, and baby's room will be no exception.  I found adorable birch tree vinyl clings on Etsy, but holy cow are they spendy!  I wasn't going to pay $90 for a tree or two, so I Googled DIY birch tree mural and found  this great tutorial from Better Homes and Gardens and somehow convinced Carl and myself that this would be "easy."  Ha ha.

Step 1: Tape and Spackle

Ok, this was clearly an obvious step I didn't need to include, but it gave me an excuse to post an adorable picture of Barley "helping."  It also gives me an opportunity to vent about the crazy track marks that were all over my walls.  Seriously, what could have caused these marks about 4 feet off the floor?

Step 2: Pick the paint colors

After going to four different paint stores to pick up paint samples and spending far too many hours reading about allegedly-pregnancy-safe Low and Zero-VOC paints, we eventually decided on Sherwin Williams SW 6425 Relentless Olive.  I'd read good things about their Harmony paint, and the color matched the green in our crib sheets almost perfectly, so it was a great match.   Only problem - I was convinced we'd only need a quart of such a "high quality" paint to do the single wall, and the Harmony didn't come in quarts, only gallons.  Rather than trust Carl and just get the gallon, I was silly and we opted for a quart in the same color of another Sherwin Williams low VOC paint, Duration.  I regret this decision.  The Duration paint covered really poorly.  One quart barely covered a single coat of the wall, and then dried with sickly yellow streaks.  My last painting project, Indigo's room, used Behr Marquee in a super-saturated purple color.  That paint is a dream to work with and costs less than the Duration, so I was really, really disappointed with the Sherwin Williams paint performance.  We weren't sure what color we wanted the rest of the walls when we picked up the olive paint, but we did pick up two samples.  I painted test swatches of those and decided I didn't like either of them.  I swear there are two different test swatches painted on this wall.  One was just so close to the original light tan that it's almost indistinguishable.

So, needing more paint and to make a decision, we trudged back up to the Sherwin Williams store and went back to the wall of color swatches.  It was at this point we realized that there were recommended coordinating colors on the back of each of them, and found the SW 9165 Gossamer Veil we ultimately went with.  We probably should have gotten a sample, but I really didn't want to make another trip to the paint store, so we just went for the gallon right away.  

Step 3: Painting the room

The second coat of the Duration went on better than the first, but there were still some light spots.  I wish I'd just gone for the gallon the second time around as well, because I have barely enough left to do some touch ups, even after making sure the trees covered the lightest spots.

I also hadn't done the math on the Gossamer Veil when we picked that up, so, of course, we needed two gallons and had to go back, again.  The Harmony paint covered a lot better than the Duration, but the second coat definitely helped even out the coverage.  I still wouldn't buy it again.  

Step 4: Taping the trees

Next step was to mask off the outline of the trees.  This took a little trial and error to get it right.  The good news: Trees aren't perfect, so your lines don't have to be either.  We got some of the really expensive painters tape for this so it wouldn't bleed as much, but even in the places it did, it kind of adds to the character of the trees, so I wouldn't worry too much about getting your tape lines perfect.  That said, as you can see in the pictures above, sometimes you'll decide the first outlines you taped aren't quite what you wanted.  I can't count the number of times I stepped back, looked at the wall, sent pictures to Carl, then repositioned my tape a bit until I was happy with it.  This iterative process resulted in a look I'm really happy with, but it was slow and tedious and made feel feel like I was spending too much time as a pregnant lady in a paint fume-filled room (Rest assured my doctor said latex paint was ok and we had a ton of fans going for circulation.)  If I ever did this again, I'd probably sketch out what I wanted the trees to look like first, then try to transfer that approximate design to the wall instead of using the wall as my experimental canvas.

I didn't want just any trees on the wall - I wanted birch tress, and birch trees have those characteristic little birch marks.  To do those, I tore my painters tape in half or sometimes even in thirds lengthwise to get narrow strips.  I then randomly positioned them going up the tree.  To make little tree knots, I took a wider piece of tape and placed it parallel to the tree trunk, then made smaller outlines with thinner pieces of tape.  The intersections between trunks and branches were harder.  This required tearing the tape precisely so it lined up nicely.  Some of these didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, and will be touched up with a small paint brush later.

Step 5: Painting the trees

Next came painting.  I used a 3" roller and the same Gossamer Veil paint as we used on the walls.  I used two coats to get a nice bright white tree, even though I also liked the suggestion of using a single coat for more muted trees.  With the darkness of our background, I felt like we needed the brighter trees to help brighten up the room.  Once the paint was dry, I slowly and carefully removed all the painters tape.  This was easier said than done.  The tiny pieces of tape shredded as I tore them off, especially pieces that had been the middle third of the original tape pieces.  I unfortunately never did come up with an efficient system for effectively getting all the tape bits off the wall, and I can pretty much guarantee there's still some in my trees.

Once the tape is removed from the trees, you're done!  Time to clean up and admire your work, and then *maybe* build a birdhouse night light to live in one of the trees.  We'll see if we have time for that one.

What's that half yellow stick next to the door?  Oh, only the dye sample for my next nursery DIY: RIT Dyed IKEA Sniglar Crib