Happy Post Thanksgiving, hope everyone enjoyed their meals. My personal weakness is Gramma's homemade stuffing. I can never get enough of it. Yum. This week's project is a candle project.

Hand-Dipped Taper Candles

Hand-dipped tapers provide charming light in the darkness of winter.

You will need:

• Beeswax or another type of wax
• Wicking
• A tall dipping container
• A tall container of cold water
• Washers or bolt nuts
• Double boiler (or two pans)
• Newspaper
• Scissors or sharp knife

To begin, cover the area with newspapers as this is one of the messiest forms of candlemaking. Decide how long you want your candles. You will be dipping two at a time, so measure a piece of wicking twice your desired length, then add two inches. Cut the wicking. Tie the washers, bolt nuts or a similar small object to the wick. These will be used to weigh down the wicking and keep it straight during the dipping process.

Beeswax makes the best taper candles, as it adheres to its own layers very well, however, any wax can be used to produce decent result. Heat the wax in a double boiler, or if you don’t have one, make one by placing the wax in a pan that sits on top of a second pan filled with water. Heat the wax until it is melted. It is very flamable, so if it begins to smoke, remove it from the burner immediately.

You don’t want the wax to be too hot for this project or the dipped layers will be too thin to adhere. As soon as the wax is melted completely, remove it from the heat. Pour it into the tall dipping container; the container should be several inches taller than your wicking.

Holding the wick in the center, dip both ends into the wax, almost to the top; just beware your fingers don’t touch the wax. Wait until the wick hardens. Dip the wicking into the hot wax once again, then quickly dip it into the container of cold water. This will immediately harden the wax. When you pull the wicks from the water, run your hand down them to remove excess water, which could cause bubbles in the finished candles. Continue alternating dips in the wax and the cold water, removing excess water each time. Keep your dipping hand steady as possible to ensure straight candles. Keep dipping until the candles reach your desired thickness. Usually about 25 dunks makes a good candle.

Using a sharp knife or a pair of scissors, cut the now wax-covered weights off the bottom of the candles. Once more, dip the candles into the wax, then the water to give them a smooth finish. Drape the candles over a stick or a dowel and leave them to completely harden for a few days. At that point, you can cut the wick in the center. The candles can be made into a lovely gift by bundling several together and tying them with ribbon or raffia.

Kid Wine: A non-alcoholic alternative

With the holidays beginning Thursday, there will be many get-togethers, and many people driving home afterward. Instead of adding to the dangers of the road by serving wine, try this non-alcoholic alternative.

For years, Thanksgiving in my family has been synonymous with two things: listening to Arlo Guthrie’s 20 minute story/song “Alice’s Restaurant” and drinking kid wine. Kid wine is the name my family has for sparkling grape juice.

Sparkling grape juice is a great alternative to alcohol. The white in particular is a dead-on imitation of champagne, but without the alcohol. It tastes and smells enough like the real thing that we have had people believe they were actually drinking the real thing.

Sparkling grape juice can go with any meal as it is available in pink (the big favorite in my family), red and white. It is readily available in stores, but can be easily made at home.

To make your own, create a mixture of half ginger ale and half grape juice. For pink kid wine, use purple grape juice; for white kid wine, use white grape juice; and for red, use red grape juice (in this case, make the ratio 2 parts grape juice to 1 part ginger ale). Served chilled in wine glasses and enjoy.

For some reason, we never seem to get the broomcorn harvested on time. It's always after the autumn season, when the cold wind and rain of November hint at the winter weather soon to come. This year, however, is one of the nicest Novembers I can remember; there hasn't been enough wind and rain to destroy the broomcorn this year. As such, it is perfect weather to make broom ladies. They are perhaps a bit passed the season, but as broomcorn dries naturally, they can be saved for next year just as well.

Broom Ladies

These cute little brooms are functional as well as decorative. Made of broomcorn, they are excellent as hand brooms.

You will need:

• Broomcorn (also called ornamental grass/sorghum)
• Material for dress, face, and hands
• Cotton
• Yarn
• Markers
• Raffia
• Needle and thread
• Glue

Before the invention of nylon brooms, broomcorn was (and often still is) used to make corn brooms. It is not actually a type of corn, but in fact a very large grass. The nickname of broomcorn was derived from the fact that the grass stems are so large they closely resemble cornstalks.

Begin by shucking the seeds from the broomcorn heads (if your broom will be merely decorative, the seeds can be left on for the colorful effect) Tie several of the shucked broomcorn stalks together with raffia just above the heads, and again about an inch from the broom’s top. Form a raffia loop, and attach this to the top tie.

Cut 2 identical dress shapes from material and sew them together. Make sure the neck hole is large enough to fit over the broom handle. Cut a head and a pair of hands from material. Stuff them with cotton. Sew the head to the front half of the dress. Sew the hands to the sleeves of the dress.

Slip the dress over the top of the broom handle, sliding it down until the skirt part of the dress covers the heads of the broomcorn. Leave about an inch and a half of the broomcorn peeking out beneath the dress. Using the markers, draw a face on the broom lady. Cut a few pieces of yarn and glue them to the top of the head as hair. Embellish the broom ladies with miniature baskets or tiny brooms of their own glued to their hands.



Read more: http://quazen.com/recreation/crafts/broom-ladies/#ixzz1N8juqs7m

Wheat Weaving: Heart

At the end of the season, I always like to make a few weavings out of rye or wheat.Wheat weavings, also called corn dollies, are traditional end of harvest crafts. They can also be woven from rye, barley, and oats, but wheat is most commonly used due to its flexibility.The Celts used to do this to ensure good luck for the next years harvest. 'Round here we just doing because it's fun.

You will need:
10-12 long stalks of wheat,
rye, barley, or oats with heads
White thread

(For those without access to grain stalks, these can be woven from plastic drinking straws as well.)

In days gone by, farmers used to take the last few stalks of the grain harvest and weave them into beautiful designs in hopes of capturing the spirit of the grain to ensure a bountiful harvest the following year. These weavings were kept inside all winter. In the spring the weavings were unraveled and the heads were the first seeds sown in the fields, as it was believed they would bring good luck for the growing season. Today most people wheat weave for aesthetic pleasure as opposed to good luck for harvest, but the designs are just as beautiful now as they were hundred of years ago.

To begin, soak the straws in warm water for 20 minutes. Tie four straws together just below the heads. With the heads at the bottom, gently pull down the stalks so they splay in four different directions. Leave one gap wider than the others.

Start weaving by holding the gap away from you. Bend the straw across from the gap (second from the right) into the open space. A new gap will form where that straw was. Turn the weaving so the new gap faces away from you. Bend the straw across from the new gap (now second from the right) into the open space. Continue “filling the gap” until the weaving is about 5 inches long.

Do the same with another set of four straws, making a weaving that is 5 inches long. If you break a straw, just insert one of the extras in its place and continue weaving as though nothing happened.

Tie the two weaving together at the heads. Bend the weavings up into a heart shape. Allow the unwoven ends to drape down into the center. Secure the ends to the heads with thread. To finish, tie the bottom of the heart with a festive ribbon. As grain dries naturally on its own, these will last for many years.

I am happy to say that I did survive Halloween in a 120-inch hoopskirt. Although, I did have to ride to the party in the back of a van as it was the only place I could fit! Here is a picture of several months worth of work, and a whole lot of fabric.
So, now that it's after Halloween, the harvest season is officially at an end. As such, I've begun my annual end of the season cleaning. (It is really quite frightening how much accumulates over a summer!) During the scouring frenzy, I came across a few old books that were in less than stellar shape, so I decided to make bags out of them, which takes us to this week's project. If you have any hardcover books lying around, these bags are a great way to put them to use, as the book covers become the bags.

Book Bags

These little bags are named for their construction material, not what they carry. They’re a great way to recycle old hardcover books.

You will need:

• Hardcover book
• 1 yard of material
• Hot glue gun
• Bag handles
• Ribbon
• A large button
• Cardboard

Start by cutting the pages out of an old hardcover book. Cut a piece of cardboard, the width of the book’s spine, and hot glue it to the inside of the spine. Lay the book out flat, with the inside facing up. Measure and cut a piece of cloth that will cover the entire book. Set aside.

Cut four pieces of ribbon that are twice as long as the book’s front cover width. Loop these pieces of ribbon through the bag handles (for extra stability, you can sew the two sides of the halved ribbon together.) Hot glue the four ribbons to the front and back cover of the bag, allow enough ribbon so the handles do not quite touch the bag.

Cut a piece of ribbon a little larger than the circumference of your button. Form a loop and hot glue this the center of the edge of the back cover. Run a piece of ribbon through the holes in the button and hot glue the ribbon ends to the center of the edge of the front cover. This will form a button and loop closure for the bag.

Cut two pieces of triangular-shaped material. The tip of the triangle, should be as wide as the spine of the book, the bottom of the triangle should be several inches wider than the spine. Make the triangle half an inch taller than the book. Glue a triangular piece to each side of the bag, attaching the cloth to the spine, front and back covers of the book.




Take the piece of material that was cut to the size of the book. Glue the material to the book, covering all the ribbons. Make sure this is securely glued.



When the glue is dry, the bag is ready to be used. If you want to get really fancy, you can cut a few rectangles of the same material, and glue them to the inside of the bag to make pockets. Once you get the hang of these, they are really fun to make.