Stuff I Make

The Canon

July 29, 2009

I’m finally finished organizing my recipes. Well, as finished as I’m ever going to be. I like experimenting with new dishes too much to ever just cut myself off completely and say, “Nope. I’ve got the 30 recipes we like to eat. That’s enough for me.”

Since it’s been a while, let me catch us up in a nutshell.

Bear’s Aunt Liz wrote a cookbook, and the real genius of it is in the meal planning. She has a theme night for every night of the week to narrow down the options and make it easier to decide what to cook from every single recipe in your repertoire.

I decided on the theme nights I wanted for us, and then I made notebooks to help me organize everything. Then I set about on a mission to fine tune all my recipes and get them just the way I wanted them, then I would add them to their proper categories and the recipe would enter “The Canon.”

I created a whole bunch of word documents, and every time I got a recipe just right I’d type it up and copy paste into whatever categories applied. Once I got all the recipes I make on a regular basis all typed up, then I printed them all out, put them in page protectors so that I can clean up any spills, and sorted them into their little categories.

I even did this with my side dishes and it saves me so much time. Now I can turn to one section for veggie sides, and another for starchy sides.

Some meals are so simple that a full-on recipe is overkill, so I have an “Ideas” page at the beginning of each book for things like Fried Chicken (that I could make in my sleep) or Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (that anyone could make, but often doesn’t get considered as meal-worthy).

The Pizza Night notebook has the occasional recipe in there – crust, sauces, etc. – but it’s almost more a selection of shopping lists, or reminders that when I get sick of BBQ chicken pizza, I can throw bacon on the top and all of a sudden it’s a whole new thing.

I also keep a notebook full of magazine clippings and internet printouts – recipes I want to try. The mistake I made last time was including in my cookbook every recipe that looked interesting and that led to a lot of wasted flipping through and some very unpleasant discoveries when those recipes didn’t work out.

Filed Under: Stuff I Cook, Stuff I Make

The Long Form

July 24, 2009

I don’t really know if it’s because I’m a mom now, or because I’m getting older and (hopefully) maturing, or just a new attempt at mindfulness inspired by this wonderful craft blogging community, but for the first time in my life I’m actually attempting to sync up with the rhythm of the world around me.

I’ve never been an outdoorswoman. I’ve never really been one to watch the seasons change and marvel at Mother Nature’s chaotic order. Or seek out that version of order in my own life. But now, now I’m trying to be aware of time. Aware of what I’m missing when I get caught up in my own head. Aware of the tender mercies and spots of beauty presented to me with every new morning.

It doesn’t help that I really don’t care for summer. I’m a total wimp about the heat, I’m a dark-haired red head with red head skin that does not appreciate the sun, and I’m afraid of deep water. Summer doesn’t have a ton to recommend it to someone like me. But I’m trying.

So we’ve been busting out the grill whenever we can bring ourselves to face the heat of the backyard, lounging on the outdoor couch, eating warm tomatoes from the vines, making homemade lemonade, and I’ve been trying to pay attention to the rhythm of these summer days and follow their example.

Summer is long slow languid days, and so that is what I’ve been working on. Long, slow, projects that I get to work on while reclining.

Hand binding some quilty projects – with the bulk of the fabric pushed as far off to the side as I can manage so that none of it actually touches me.

Knitting projects on a small scale – so none of the knit actually touches me. It is hot here, y’all.

And stitching stitching stitching until my eyes go as crossed as my stitches. I can’t put this down.

It makes for uneventful blog material when I go weeks without finishing any projects, but working on those long-term projects just seems to fit with the flow around here these days.

Filed Under: mama musings, Stuff I Make, The Good Life

Taking my show on the road.

July 23, 2009

Next month I’m going to be speaking at the Sunstone symposium. Sunstone is a fantastic magazine that focuses on the Mormon experience through academic scholarship, literature, and addressing of social issues within the church and without. It doesn’t seem to have the rule that everything it prints has to be strictly devotional, so you’ll often find articles inside that make you think deeply about your beliefs and how you apply the gospel for yourself. Since my own faith is more of the searching, questioning type, as opposed to the humble obedient type, I so appreciate the forum Sunstone provides to learn and grow and deepen my faith in the open and sometimes messy way that seems to work for me.

I’ll be appearing on three different panels. One on raising a child with special needs, another on online resourses for Young Women’s leaders (thanks to my work at Beginnings New), and another on “mommy blogging” (oh that term makes my skin crawl – it just sounds so dismissive to me) with my friends at Feminist Mormon Housewives.

The conference is August 12 – 15 in Salt Lake City, so if any of you are planning to attend I’d love it if you said hello! I could use the support. It’s a little intimidating to come into such learned and accomplished company with just this little blog to recommend me.

Meanwhile, I have to get busy writing three different speeches, but the harder thing is going to be trying to find something to wear. This post-baby figure of mine has not budged in 18 months, and nobody seems to make nice clothes for the post-baby body. I would really like to find something that isn’t too tight in the wrong places without hiding all my right places. So I think I’m going to have to make it myself. With the perfect jewelry of course.

Filed Under: Grand Schemes and Other Plans, Stuff I Make, The Good Life

Happy Nurses Week

June 20, 2009

Bear runs a skilled nursing facility, and this is national nurses week, which is a big fat deal in his world. This is his first holiday with this staff, so we wanted to do something good to get off on the right foot.

We went to Bath and Body Works this weekend and it happened to be their massive semi-annual sale, so we stocked up on all kinds of lotions and candles and sweet smelling things, but I had to make them something from me too.

These eye masks came from Amy Butler’s In Stitches, so it was only appropriate I use her drool-worthy fabric too.

The pattern calls for the whole mask to be quilted, and I just left off with two rows of topstitching, and a ribbon closure. I’ve used loads of these eye masks over the years and while you can’t beat it in the looks department, ribbon doesn’t really keep it on your head very well while you’re sleeping. I used elastic and made a casing, basically like a scrunchy that I sewed into the mask instead of into itself.

I think they turned out great. One of these days I’m going to have to make a bunch more to keep in our super sunny guest room. Wouldn’t it be delightful to walk into a guest room and see a bowlful of these?

Filed Under: Stuff I Make

Summer Projects

June 11, 2009

Atti’s slowly but surely gaining enough mobility that we can start to hang out in our little backyard now. We splurged on a fancy exersaucer knowing that he’s going to be spending a lot of time in there while he masters standing on his own, and now that he’s through throwing tantrums every time I put him in it, we can take it outside and all hang out together in the sweet breeze.

This is heaven right here. Sleeping Bears and Kitties, a little boy hard at play, and I’m sitting back in my chair with an ice Cold coke and hands busy with the rhythm of stitching up and down.

This will eventually become Atti’s Christmas stocking. So far all the stockings I’ve done for us have come from this book. I really love the dense, illustrated patterns that almost look like needlepoint canvases. A blanket of tiny cross stitches just looks beautiful all finished up, and the intricacies of the pattern with all the different shadings keeps me interested the whole way through. This pattern is a little boy sitting in a rocking chair in front of a fireplace, reading a storybook. At first I thought it would be a little too old fashioned, but Bear insisted. He thought Atti absolutely required a stocking with a boy reading a book.

Between this, my 12 Days of Christmas ornaments, and a whole lot of projects I have up my sleeve for the new trees, I have a lot of stitching ahead of me. But that seems to be what’s calling to me this summer, so I guess it’s about right.

Filed Under: Over the Top Christmas, Stuff I Make, The Good Life

Laurel Headband

June 10, 2009

At church I teach the 16 – 18 year old girls. This group is called the Laurels. Off the top of my head, I don’t remember why they got that name, but that’s the way it is. I’ve been looking for a good way to welcome the girls into my class as they turn 16, and I came up with this so-simple-why-haven’t-I-thought-of-this-before idea. I know a lot of my readers are LDS, so I know you guys will be able to put this to use, but once I saw my girls were wearing these headbands to school, I figured that the rest of the world might be interested in crowning themselves with laurels too.

All I did was get a couple of different colors of green wool felt and cut a million little teardrop shapes out of them.

Then, starting at one end, I started hot gluing them on to a regular old headband so that they overlapped each other and covered up the color underneath.

Continue this way until you reach the middle of the headband, and then start again from the bottom of the other side.

You can embellish this with glitter or little flatbacked rhinestones, or just leave it the way it is. I think this would also make a great finishing touch for any of you upcoming toga parties.

Filed Under: Matters of Faith, Stuff I Make, Tutorials

Paper Mache Party Lights

June 1, 2009

Once I got started with the paper mache, I couldn’t quite stop myself. I came up with a technique for the big decor balls that worked really great – Mixing the paint right into the glue. It gives a super saturated color and saves another messy step and more drying time. So I had to keep going with this other idea I had.

Those party lights you see at the store are so expensive for what you get. 30 little lights for $25 doesn’t go very far before adding up to a whole lot of money for a festive atmosphere. These party lights are removable, so you can use an existing string of Christmas lights and then just take them off when it’s time to use on the tree. If I did the math I’d guess that for a string of 30 lights, I spent about $3.

Start with some water balloons, blown up just big enough to be round. I used two pieces of masking tape to prop it up – one secures the tail to the table, the other pushes against that little knot to keep the balloon from touching the table. Make sure you tie your knots are good and tight, these little balloons leak pretty easily and you want to make sure that you get all your layers on and dry before these balloons start shrinking. Working in small batches makes this a lot easier.

Mix up your glue. It should be about 1 part paint, 2 parts glue, and 3 parts water. But that is no where near scientific. Just water your glue down so that it’s easy to paint with, and then add enough acrylic craft paint to get it the colors you want.

Add the paper mache. You want to use white tissue paper for this so that the light will still shine through after you add all your layers. Tear it into small little bits. The smaller the bits, the fewer wrinkles you’ll get, but it will also be a whole lot harder. So choose your poison.

After a little experimentation, I think that three layers is just right for this project. Let them dry a while between layers, but not overnight until they’re all on. You will be fighting the clock against the strength of your balloons, so you’ll need to get all three layers on in one day. A blow dryer on the cool setting works great in a pinch.

Once all your layers are on, let it dry overnight. In the morning, pop and remove the balloon, then cut a nice smooth hole just under an inch in diameter.

Using a hot glue gun, make three little dots of glue around the perimeter of the hole. Do not surround the hole with glue, you’ll need to leave yourself space for the steps coming up.

Put a plastic ring in your hot glue, making sure that there are spaces in between the ring and the paper mache. These rings are used in crochet, so look in the aisle with the knitting needles, or the sewing notions. I found these ones at Michaels in the section with the quilting supplies.

The next time I make these I’ll take the rest of my paint and glue mixtures and paint that ring at this point to make it blend it. It’s not an important step, but those white rings are bugging me now.

Take a little bit of florists wire and thread it through that space we left so that it wraps around the plastic ring. I used green because it will match the string of lights I’m using. Put another bit of wire on the other side of the ring.

Insert one of the lights into the center of your party light, and wrap those two wires around the string of Christmas tree lights. All done!

Since lights made for Christmas trees tend to have their lights closer together than the strings of party lights, I put a paper mache bulb on every other light on the strand. I think this actually adds to the effect, it makes it sparkly and festive at the same time.

Filed Under: Stuff I Make, The Good Life, Tutorials

Paper Mache Decor

May 29, 2009

Like most homes in the west built past 1980, my house is filled with all kinds of random niches. These thing just plague homes I’ve seen through California and Utah, I don’t have too much experience with new homes outside those two states, but within my experience I can’t tell you how many people I know struggling to find something to fill the big random hole cut into their wall.

For the past two years I’ve been looking at a collection of vases and other tchotchkes, but my problem was always scale. At it’s tallest point this niche is four feet high. A vase that big is going to run me $100 easy, and that’s just for one. Since this isn’t the house we plan on staying in forever, the thought of moving in a few years and being stuck with $500 worth of 4 ft tall vases was really unappealing to me. But so was a big fat empty cubby hole in my wall.

I’m always inspired by solving a problem, but I have no idea where the impetus for this project began. I hadn’t seen anything that looked like this, it just seemed to pop into my head randomly one day as a way I could fill a huge space for pennies, and then throw it away in a few years without losing sleep.

Here’s what I did.

You’ll need to get a mold. You could use a balloon, but I was going for big here, so I used beach balls. For my paste I mixed together 1 part acrylic paint, 2 parts glue, and 3 parts water. You can add more paint to get the color you want, but don’t water the mix down too much. You want the whole mix to be about the consistency of acrylic craft paint.

Rip white tissue paper into chunks, and then paint the chunks onto the ball with your paste mixture. The bigger the chunks you use, the more crinkles you’ll end up with, so if you’re going for smooth then use tiny pieces.

To get that aged mottled look, I painted each piece of tissue paper on with a different color of paste mixture. I used all metallic colors, and then a green to add a little of that copper like patina effect. Let each layer dry before applying the next one. You’ll need at least four layers for it to be strong, but you could also do as many as six.

After you’ve applied your last layer, let the ball dry overnight. You could try just letting the air out of your beachball, but I ended up having to cut it out each time. Then trim up your opening so it’s nice and neat.

I have to admit, I took some shortcuts that cost me a ton of grief. Don’t skimp out on those layers, especially the bigger you go. After doing so many of these and having my whole dining room table covered for weeks, I just reached a point where I couldn’t take it anymore and called it done. I think I was able to rig it together enough to satisfy me, and I ended up digging those dents (I think it makes it look more like metal than paper mache, since these things are never seen closer than 15 feet away), but I think I would have been happier if I’d just done it right the first time.

If you don’t happen to have random holes to fill around your house, you could use this technique for making pinatas, lampshades, or for the really really cool project I’ll show you on Monday. It’s a doozy, and perfect for summer.

Filed Under: My Dreamhouse in Progress, Stuff I Make, Tutorials

12 Days of Christmas Crosstitch

May 28, 2009

I’ve been spending a ton of time crosstitching lately. With the year nearly half over and Christmas threatening to arrive before I know it, I’ve realized that if I want a stocking for Atti and to finish 12 ornaments for the Christmas tree, I’d better get the fingers flying. Plus it is just a fantastic portable project.

I’ve been sitting outside in the sunshine, or sacked out on the couch at the end of a long day, and just letting my brain shut up already while the meditative rhythm of the stitches lull me into a twitch-free state. That’s as close as I can ever get to truly relaxed.

These patterns come from a set called My True Love Gave to Me by Cross Eyed Cricket. They’re obviously intended for my 12 days of Christmas tree, if I can ever get them finished.

My friend Nicole, who I met right here on this very blog, turned me on to a message board of crosstitchers, and I can’t even tell you how much I’ve learned from(not to mention how much I’ve loved and been supported by) those women. They turned me on to a ton of fantastic designers and extolled the glories of working with linen so I can delve into my love of the craft but get away from the plain jane patterns and gross aida cloth I was finding at Michaels.

Crosstitching was the first craft I ever picked up, I’ve been doing it since I was 10, and until I became a part of this community I had no idea that there was a whole world out there of beautiful fabric and modern designs, and a lot more awaiting a finished project than the top of a jelly jar.

It’s funny to me, the deeper I get into all my different crafts, the more I discover just how similar crafters are. It doesn’t matter if you’re a scrapbooker, a quilter, or a crosstitcher, we all have the designer whose work we could pick out anywhere, our stashes full of projects we’ll get to some day, the wish list we pine after. That creative impulse pushes us all joyfully towards that expression, the only difference is the medium.

Now, I have to get back to work. If I’m going to make it in time I have to crank out one more of these every month until Christmas. I’m probably not going to make it. But it won’t stop me from trying.

Filed Under: Over the Top Christmas, Stuff I Make

Weekend Plans

May 15, 2009

I’m staring down the calendar and doing a little math in my head, and realizing that this year is already getting away from me. It’s time for me to start making some plans before I look up and I’m knee deep in November with nothing ready for Christmas. So I need to finish up some of these projects that are in my way before I can pounce off in a new direction.

Long time readers may remember this craftastrophe affectionately referred to as my “Quilt of Hate.” I’ve been working half heartedly on it for three years now, basically only pulling it out when I felt especially productive, but it’s nearing completion.

The top is finished, the back is finished, I’ve basted it, and at this point I think those accidental swastikas aren’t the first thing you see. Maybe the second or the third, but not the first. I was tempted to rip the whole thing out when I first discovered the problem, but I’m using crepe backed satin so there really isn’t a ripping it out option. Just more like a ripping it up. I decided to follow the advice of the internet and keep plugging along, figuring that once it was all put together you wouldn’t notice it anymore.

What do you think? Do you they still jump out at you?

I’ve pretty much resigned myself. I’ve gotten emails from quilt experts who tell me that these are not swastikas, they face the wrong way, and are thus a very common traditional quilt motif. But I’m still hampered by my modern sensibilities. I think it actually looks way worse in photos than in person because of how the satin catches the light.

Once the machine quilting is finished I think it will be even better. I’m using a freehand pattern I got from this site. There’s **so** much good stuff there, but I don’t know how far I actually want to get into this machine quilting part. I’m still deciding.

Whether I ever shake that swastika image or not, it’s getting finished and getting used. The satin is truly stunning, and it probably won’t be the last quilt I make out of it. I think in person the first thing you notice about the quilt is just the sumptuousness of the fabric and the pattern goes into the background. I hope.