Paper Spinners

These whimsical little baubles are quick and easy to make from scrap booking paper.


Supplies needed:

Scrap booking paper

Scissors

Sewing machine or needle and thread

To begin, cut a piece of 12×12 scrap booking paper into nine equal square sections. Set aside the ninth piece. Stack eight of the pieces back to back (i.e. printed side facing printed side, white side facing white side). Sew a seam right down the center of the stack of eight squares. Tie off the thread ends.

Take the ninth piece and cut it into the shape you want your spinner to be. Lay this piece on top of the stack of eight to use a guide. Cut the stack of eight into the decided shape, being careful not to cut the thread. Set aside the ninth piece again; you won’t be using it any more. Pick up the stack of eight and carefully fan out the edges. Fan only in pairs keeping the white side hidden, while allowing the pretty scrapbook paper to show through.

Run a length of string through the top of each ornament. Hang several together and watch them spin in the breeze. These look great as a garland at summer parties or on a tree at Christmas time.

Little Baby Brock-Brocks

I had to stop at TSC to pick up some fencing today, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that they had newly hatched chickens out (or the "Little Baby Brock-Brocks" as I used to call them). There were also some little baby ducklings. They were all so cute and fluffy, I was thinking to myself, where's a camera when I need one!  Well, not this year, but some year I'll bring home some of those darling little chickens and start my own flock, and hopefully be able to sell fresh eggs on the stand. All I need to do now is finish that solar powered cooler project I've been working on to keep the eggs cold at a farmers' market...

Sherbet Tie-dye

I'm not sure what the technical name for this sort of tie-dye is, but I call it sherbet tie-dye due to the fact that it's part white, part colored, kinda like sherbet ice-cream. This is one of the simplest tie-dye methods to use.

You will need:
White shirts
Colored dye
Rubber bands
Rubber gloves

Start by wetting down a white shirt (this project can also be done with a black shirt for a striking effect). Wring it out to remove excess water, and lay the shirt out flat on a table. Grabbing the very middle of the shirt, begin to twist it in a clockwise direction. Continue twisting until the entire shirt is tightly wound up into the spiral. Secure it with rubber bands.

Next drop the twisted shirt into a vat of dye, and quickly pull it out. (You may want to use gloves for this part to prevent your hands from getting all dye). Without squeezing the shirt and without removing the rubberbands, set the shirt aside to dry.

When the shirt has completely dried, remove the rubberbands and untwist the shirt. You should now have a colored spiral pattern on the white shirt. Wash the shirt on its own the first time to remove any excess dye. After that, the shirt can be washed normally with the rest of the colored clothes.

Rub-on Transfer Garden Wagon

Rub-on transfers can give new life to old wood. They look hand-painted, but are so much simpler.

I had one of those little wooden garden wagons lying around in storage. It was weathered and beat up, not much to look at, so I decided to try a little experiment. The materials required for this project are pretty simple:

Something to paint (in this case I used a wooden garden wagon, but the rub on transfers will work of most surfaces)

Spray paint of your chosen color

Rub-on transfers

Popsickle stick

Spray varnish.

To begin this project, spray your entire item with two coats of paint. You can also paint it with a brush, but the spray paint is much faster, espcially on wood. Let dry overnight.

To use the rub-on transfers (these can be found in almost any craft store, I got mine at Joann Fabrics), cut around the shape you want to rub. It's ok if you have white around the image because most rub-on transfers don't transfer the white part. Lay your transfer picture-side down on your item and use the popsickle still to rub the back of the transfer. Use a circular motion and rub the entire transfer. You'll be able to see through the backside when the transfer leaves the backing paper. Carefully pull off the backing paper.

Continue this process using as many rub on transfers as you need to complete your project. When finished, coat the entire project with a layer of spray varnish. This will help prevent the transfers from getting scratched off. If you plan to you item an an outdoor decoration, the varnish is especially important.

thewoodlandelf.com

Fruition. It is a word that describes what happens when you plant a seed and carefully tend it until it last it bears fruit and all the hard effort of your labor are rewarded. At long last, I have reached fruition with my website. I had a simple one for several years and never really liked it, but never had the time to finish it. It was always been on the back burner, I only worked on revamping it when I had spare bits of time, when I wasn't working on sites for other people. Well, it's finally done! Now I can breath a sigh of relief.

I think I finally have it the way I like it (at least until tomorrow when I decide something's not quite right). Building it was the easy part, it was writing copy that I didn't hate that took up most of my time. I finally elected to write everything in 1st person because droning on about yourself in the 3rd person is just too creepy. I tried to keep it lighthearted and down to earth...I'm a country girl, after all. 

Check out the new design at www.thewoodlandelf.com

Heroes

My family usually has the television on the night of the Oscars, and we watch in between doing whatever work we're doing that particular evening. I'm kind of the geek of the group though. While most people are waiting for the best actor/actress/picture/director awards, I'm eagerly awaiting the announcement of the costume design award which usually goes to someone only I've heard of. Reason being of course, that I make costumes, so I actually care about the people nominated, whereas the rest of my family is just waiting for it to move on.

While I was personally rooting for Sandy Powell, one of my costume design heroes (she was up for the Tempest), the award actually went to Colleen Atwood for Alice in Wonderland. While I was disappointed that Powell didn't take it, Atwood is still in my top 5 favorite costume designers.

As far as my favorite costume design heroes, my #1 spot is a tie between Sandy Powell who gets a large percentage of the good ones (Rob Roy, Young Victoria, Gangs of New York) and Ngila Dickson who did my all time favorite movie Lord of the Rings, not to mention The Last Samurai, the Illusionist (which I never saw, but the costumes were nice), and was one of the designers for Xena: Warrior Princess.
Then the #2 spot goes Jenny Beavan (Everafter, need I say more?). And at #3 comes tonight's winner Colleen Atwood (She did the costumes for Memoirs of a Geisha, and while I never saw the film, I studied the costumes like there was no tomorrow). So there we are. Four costume designers who greatly inspire me and keep me working hard on my own costumes.

As far as the Academy Awards themselves, I just have one question, how come nobody ever shows up in a gown or a tux they got at the Goodwill?

Winter Harvest

I made it up to the beeyard today. In all honesty, I'm not sure you can really call it a beeyard, it's more like a "beewood," as I keep my box up up in the forest, so the bees don't bother my cows and horses (or us for that matter). But it is a "Bebox Approved" beebox. (Long story, but my younger brother once made this creepy little doll thing that he named Bebox, so ever since then, we've said my beebox is "Bebox Approved")

Anyway, I got my wax harvest in today. I still haven't gotten any honey out my hive in all the years I've had it because the bees usually have it pulled down by the time I get around to harvesting. I know you're supposed to harvest it in the spring and the fall, but I always wait until winter, because I have more time to do the harvesting. Besides, I figure if the bees have taken it, they probably needed it, and if I leave them their honey, at least I don't have to feed them through the winter. It's unconventional, but it seems to be working out pretty well, as my bees have survived several frigid winters when a lot of the hives in the area died. (One year, they even survived an ice-cold winter after someone had knocked the top of the hive off!)

In any event, I have wax, so it's time to dip some candles!

Wheat Weaving: Dreamcatcher

Traditional wheat weavings designs had many meanings in ancient times. Some were used as courting favors, some were meant to bring luck, and many were used to ensure a bountiful harvest in the next year. Traditional designs abound in plenty, but even with the multitude of classic wheat weaving designs, it's still fun create one's own patterns. I created this dreamcatcher to blend the Celtic tradition of wheat weaving with the Native American tradition of dreamcatchers.

Begin by soaking a few dozen wheat or rye straws without heads.

Take a length of bailing wire (or a wire of  similar thickness) and bend it in a circle. Cut it to your desired dreamcatcher size. Unbend the wire and slip a piece of straw over the wire, add a second if needed, until the wire is completely covered. Tie five long straws to one end of the straw-covered wire, bend them out at an angle, so that one straw points north, east, west, and two straws point south. Take the left-hand south straw and bend it over the right-hand south straw so that it lies flat next to the straw pointed east. Then take the original east straw and bend it over the new east straw so that it lies flat next to the north east straw. Continue on in this manner, with the left-hand straw always bending out the right-hand straw (rotate the weaving so the straws you're bending are always south if it makes it easier). When one straw gets short, just put another in its place.

Continue until the entire wire is covered, then bend the entire design in a circle and secure all the ends with white thread. This is your dreamcatcher hoop. To make the "string" peel the leaves off a few straws of wheat or rye and soak them. Twist the wet leaves together to form a string (keep adding leaves into the twist until the string is about 3 feet long). String the dreamcatcher as you would any normal dream catcher. (See here if you need instruction). For the hanger, take two wheat straws with heads and tie them together. Bend them down so they are at a right angle to each other, and proceed to fold the two straws over one another until the chain is two inches long.

Do the same with two more straws. Tie both ends of each chain together to form a loop, then tie it to the top of the dream catcher hoop.

The feathers are each made by braiding 7 straws together, then slowly cutting them off one at a time, so that the ends taper away. Twist the remaining two ends around each other and tie each feather to the dreamcatcher. It's a bit harder to make than a traditional dreamcatcher, but I'm sure it keeps nightmares away just the same.

Churning Butter

It was a butter day today (yes, at my house we still actually churn our own butter). My cousin has a dairy farm where he sells raw milk, so every few weeks someone in the family makes a milk run to his farm. We end up with four one-gallon jars of milk, each with a 1-2 inch layer of cream on top, which of course becomes the butter.

There are several different ways to churn butter. There is the old churn and dasher method, but few people have enough cream to fill one of these. There is the butter bowl method which involves stirring the cream in a large wooden bowl until it becomes butter. And then there are the shaker jar and the paddle jar methods. These two are probably the most convenient.

If you only have a relatively little bit of cream, the shaker jar method works well. Simply fill a canning jar with the cream, screw on the top and shake the jar until the cream turns to butter. The drawback of this method is that your arms generally feel like they're going to fall off from exhaustion long before the butter begins to form.

The paddle jar is a much easier method. The paddle jar is basically a glass jar with a set of paddles that churn the butter as you turn the handle. The one we use belonged to my great-grandmother, so it's probably over a hundred years old, but it still works great. However, since the majority of people probably don't have their great-grandmother's churn hanging around the house, there are several companies that still make jar churns. A quick Internet search can locate them.

To churn butter, leave jars of milk in the refrigerator over night. This will allow the milk to settle, so all the cream is easily accessed at the top of the jar. Use a measuring cup to dip the layer of cream off the top of the milk and put it in the churn.

Begin to churn the cream, moving the paddles at a relaxed rate. You'll be there a while so don't wear yourself out by trying to go too fast. (If using the shaker jar method, just shake as hard you can for as long you can, then pass the jar to a friend and have them do the same).

The cream will go through several stages. First it will slosh up and down on the sides of the jar like milk. Second the top of the cream will start to bubble and suds-up. Then the bubbles will subside and the cream will become smooth again, but as it sloshes against the side, it won't slide away cleanly; it will begin sticking to the jar. When this happens the cream is beginning to "butterize."

Keep churning, stopping periodically to check the cream inside. When you see thick clumps form, you can celebrate. Spoon out of the clumps of butter into a bowl, and save the leftover liquid for any recipe calling for buttermilk. The butter is best best kept in the refrigerator until you are ready to use it as it will go bad faster than store-bought butter, due to not having the preservatives.

Once in a while, for some reason still unknown to mankind, the cream will refuse to turn to clumps of butter. It will instead form a light and fluffy layer of whipped butter. Don't despair. Although it may not be traditional butter, that fluffy stuff is the sweetest tasting butter you will ever have.

Cream ready for churning.