If I Can make It: Granny Squares

October 20, 2008 at 8:39 am (Crafts)
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Well the no-sew piano book is still stumping me, so I’m falling back on an old stand by.

Crocheting is one of the easiest skills to pick up.  I learned to crochet in an hour, sitting in a booth at a local family restaurant in Edmonton, AB, 12 years ago.  Using that one lesson, I’ve managed to crochet pretty much every pattern I’ve picked up since.  It’s not that I’m a crochet savant, it’s just that crochet is THAT easy.

I posted in the spring about crocheting granny squares for the mackerdoodle.  She still plays with them, and they’ve never become the blanket I intended, but the time spent making them was certainly not wasted.  She LOVES them.  Granny squares work up quickly, and because they are small they can be done a few at a time in brief intervals.  They can be sewn together into blankets, scarves, purses, hats, baby building blocks, table clothes, . . . the project list goes on and on.  Once you’ve mastered granny squares you can move on to other crocheting projects, but even master crocheters come back to the granny square.

PurleBee has a fantastic Granny Square tutorial that assumes you know NOTHING about crocheting, and has excellent pictures to accompany each step.  I think once you try crochet, you’ll agree with me that it’s quick, fun and easy.  And If I can do it, so can you.

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I Couldn’t Make It

October 13, 2008 at 6:10 am (Crafts)
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Over the last few weeks, I’ve been posting crafts on Mondays.  I have several lined up to begin, and one in a stage of partial completion because it was a LOT harder than it looked in the tutorial.  But I have finished nothing this week.  I hope that my newly discovered pregnancy will count as my craft for this week, and that you will tune in next week to see if I managed to complete the way-harder-than-it-looks, non-sewn piano hinge book.

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If I Can Make It: Pretty Oil You Can Cook With

October 6, 2008 at 6:41 am (Crafts)
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I’ve been doing this craft for more than a decade.  It’s not only pretty, it’s practical and it makes a great gift for anyone who enjoys cooking.  If you spend any time at all in kitchen stores, or even in the kitchen aisle at discount stores like Ross and Tuesday Morning, you’ve seen those beautiful bottles filled with herbs and oil.  Even on discount, you can make your own for MUCH less than the sticker prices you’ve been seeing.

Step One: Find a clear bottle with a good pouring mouth.  I happen to keep all of my bottles and jars for purposes just such as this.  This bottle is an old olive oil jar.  I chose it because it was the first bottle I pulled out of my cupboard with the lid actually on it.

Make sure the bottle is clean and any labels completely removed.

Step Two:  Gather your ingredients.  Here I am using fresh basil from my herb garden, dried rosemary, a habanero pepper from Terri and Buddy’s garden, and (not picture) a clove of fresh garlic.

Here are some tips to choosing ingredients: Use a combination of fresh and dried ingredients, and at lest two colors.  I have the green in the rosemary and basil, so I’m using the orange pepper and a white garlic.  I have often used fresh rosemary and dried red peppers with fresh garlic.

Remember to use herbs you would actually use together when cooking.  Star Anise is beautiful, but it doesn’t taste that good with garlic or peppers.

Step Three:  Prep your ingredients.  If using fresh peppers, remove the seeds and the membranes.  Leaving them in will cause far too much heat and will mask all the other flavors in the oil.  You’ll also notice I’m wearing gloves.  The oils from the pepper clings to the skin and can cause serious problems.  It’s just safer to wear gloves.

I sliced the pepper into long narrow spears, then changed knives and cutting boards, and sliced a large garlic clove the same way.

After this step, the battery in my camera went dead, so you’ll just have to trust me for the rest of the steps.

Step four: begin layering the ingredients into the bottle.

Begin with the loose, dried herbs.  Pouring them either directly into the mouth of the bottle, or through a funnel, pour in enough to lightly cover the bottom of the bottle.

Then put in the fresh garlic.  Don’t add more than two cloves of garlic.

Now add the pepper slices.

Finally, take the long stem of fresh basil, and slide it, intact, into the bottle.  You’ll have to push it all the way to the bottom with a bamboo skewer, or table knife, then take the same tool and fluff out the leaves a little.

Using a funnel, pour the oil of your choice – I used Wal Mart brand vegetable oil – into the bottle.  Pour slowly, allowing the oil to slip around the basil and down to the other herbs.  You’ll notice the dried herbs not attached to the peppers or garlic will begin to float.  Continue pouring unti the oil completely covers every part of the fresh herb stem, stopping only when the bottle is completely filled.

The oil will stop the fresh herb from wilting, and will eventually saturate the dried herbs, causing them to filter back down to through the other ingredients.  The oil can now be used for cooking, or as a center piece or a piece of kitchen decoration.

As you use the oil, you can continue to refill it, and the herbs will continue to infuse the oil with flavor for months.

You can do the same craft with potpourri, essential oil and baby oil to create a beautifully sweet smelling bath/massage oil as a gift, or to decorate your bathroom as well.

If you have a craft idea up on your blog, leave a link on the Mister Linky.  If you linky, I’d appreciate a link back.

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If I Can Make It: Handy Hanger

September 29, 2008 at 6:25 am (Crafts)
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This project was so quick, I finished it in less than 30 minutes, and it’s one of those great “shabby chic” things you can do yourself.

Step One:  Find an old set of shutters.  I bought these at a yard sale this weekend for two dollars a piece.

Step Two:  Remove the hinges from the center to create two separate panels.  I used a drill, because I am lazy, but you could use a screw driver.  It would take longer, but would be easier on pre-teen hands.

Also remove the handle from the front of the shutter panel.

Step Three:  After cleaning the wood with wood floor cleaner and a dry rag, pre-drill small holes along the same side of the panel that contained the handle or latch.  Here’s where I would recommend taking a little more time than I did, and measure out a straight line, drillng holes at even intervals along that line.

Step Four:  Insert hooks, cabinet knobs, or pegs into the pre-drilled holes.  I used oiled bronze cup hooks from Target.  This size was 9 hooks for $0.99.

Add some picture hangers to the back of the shutter panel (which I forgot to purchase, and thus cannot illustrate here) and you have a decorative rack on which to hang any number of things.  This one is going to be hung beside my front door for car keys.  I’m going to make another one with larger pegs – probably drawer pulls – to hang in the mackerdoodle’s room for coats.  The possibilities are endless.

A little sanding, and you could paint them to match your home before adding the hooks or the pegs.  Fortunately I have dark wood bookshelves, so the shutters matched already.

Do you do crafts?  Would you like to share them with the blogosphere?  I’m thinking of putting up a Mr. Linky on Mondays so others can share their craft ideas too.  If you’d be interested, leave a comment and let me know.

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If I Can Make It: Chinese Star Book

September 22, 2008 at 7:04 am (Crafts)
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I can’t post a tutorial on this one, because the pattern is copywrited, but it was so quick and easy – and better yet, it looks hard and laborious.

This one pictured was a birthday gift for my mother.  It is the second attempt, because I didn’t have the correct thread the first attempt, but once I rectified the thread issue, it came together in an evening.

It folds together like a photo album, or pocket book, for easy mailing, or transportation, but expands to this star shape when fully opened cover to cover.

The middle “rays” of the star are sewn together, but the remaining pieces, including the cover pieces, are glued together, making it a fairly easy project for an eager young crafter.

The inside pockets can be cut straight and used for any number of purposes, but because I was displaying photographs, I cut the pockets at an angle to allow the photos to peek out for display purposes.

The pattern is in Book Arts:Beautiful Bindings for Handmade Books by Mary Kay Seckler.  Frankly, I think this one pattern is worth the price of the book, but there are several more I am eager to try.  I’m sure I’ll be posting them here.

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If I Can Make It: Paper Beads

September 15, 2008 at 7:36 pm (Crafts)
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This is an “easy-peasy” craft that looks great, but can be done by kids.

I used the tutorial at Paper University to make these blue beads out of long strips of blue paper I happened to have in my craft cupboard. The tutorial recommends using a plastic straw, or stir stick. If I were doing the craft with children, I would do so; however, I used a toothpick, sliding it out from the center of each bead while the glue was still wet.  As you can see from the picture on the right, there is a large enough hole through the center of the bead to allow stringing  on all but the largest of threads.

Use a standard white glue and wipe the excess back on the outside of the bead as you wrap it.  This creates a glaze on the outside of the bead, and stops the edges of the paper from fraying and rippling.

Be sure to use a strip of paper that has a good width at the widest end.  If you start with a narrow strip, you end up with a stubby little bead, like these on the left.  However, if you keep the strips a good width at the top, these beads are a pretty craft that can be decorations on cards, strung together, or any number of other uses.

So, a simple craft, but a fun and easy one, and a great way to use up those long pieces of paper left over from other crafts and scrap booking pages.

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If I Can Make it: Card Alternative

September 8, 2008 at 6:42 am (Crafts)
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This summer, our favorite craft store went out of business. In the weeks before it closed its doors, we cashed in on the 60% – 80% off deep discounting of the stock. Among my purchases was a collection of 1/8″ plywood hearts purchased for 7 cents a piece. My plan was to sell them on e-bay. That didn’t work so well, so over the summer I dabbled in heart shaped crafts.

Here’s one of the successful ones:

Thank you cards

Thank you hanger

I drilled two small holes in the top of the heart with the smallest drill bit we had.

Then I used two different stamps and black ink to stamp the pattern directly on to the front and a journaling block onto the back of the heart.

I threaded craft wire through the holes and let the ink dry for several days. (The second time. I learned my lesson after the first time)

After the stamp ink was completely dry I wiped on some polyurethane coating to set the pattern and I was done. If you don’t let the ink dry, the poly coating makes it smear a little.

If you happened to be thinking how pretty that one in the picture looks, you can click on the picture and a set of three are available for purchase in our etsy shop.

Journaling Block on Back

Journaling Block on Back

These heart shapes are available at most craft stores for around 30 cents a piece. That makes this a great and inexpensive alternative to a card stock home made card. It can be hung on an awkwardly shaped gift, or incorporated into the wrapping of a gift, or tucked into an envelope and just given by itself. I did one with a pink “B” for my niece’s 2nd birthday. There’s just a lot of possibilities, and it’s really easy.

So that’s my first craft idea for the If I Can Make It . . . craft corner here at the blog.

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Thrafty Thursday? Thnazzy Thursday?

September 4, 2008 at 6:47 am (Crafts)
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There are a lot of snazzy, alliterative titles for weekly blog events out there.  There’s Wordless Wednesday, Thursday Thirteen, Frugal Friday . . . and many more.  I’ve been thinking that I want to begin posting some of the crafts I made over the summer, but I’ve got two dilemmas.

The first is that Michelle at  Scribbit posts really cool crafts.  I have NO DESIRE to post my crafts on the same day that she posts hers.  It would be like displaying a cheap rhinestone at Tiffany’s.

The second, is that I can’t think of an alliterative title.  I was thinking of “Too many hobbies Tuesday” or “That’s Crafty Thursday” (which should be “That’s a Cheesy Title.”) or . . .

So I guess I’m just going to post some crafts periodically and you’ll know it’s a craft because it will have things like pictures.  You know, of the craft.

If any of you have a great craft title, let me know.

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