Knitting Zeal

How to make a candy bouquet

For Valentine's Day this past February, I made my husband this candy bouquet, filled with his favorite candy, Reese's peanut butter cups!  We were all sick during February, so I never got around to posting this.  I think it would be a fun gift for anytime of year and would make a fun birthday gift or hostess gift.  

I started with a clear glass vase that I already owned.  I large drinking glass would even work.  I wanted the vessel to be clear so that the foil hearts would be seen, but a solid container with some floral foam inside would work as well to stabilize the skewers.

I bought different sizes of peanut butter cups...some singles, some double packs and peanut butter hearts.  I also picked up a multi pack of iTunes gift cards and some vitamin drink mixes since we were all battling colds that month! I used two sizes of wood skewers, the kind I use for the grill.  Thin wood dowels would work too.  I secured each of the wrapped PB cups and the gift cards on a skewer using clear packing tape.  This seem to work really well.  I slipped the end of the skewer into the inside of the candy wrapper to keep it from sliding down the skewer.  After filling the vase with the foil wrapped hearts, I arranged the skeweres into the vase, much like flower arranging.  I adding some red curling ribbon to jazz it up.  Since it was for my husband, I kept it minimal.  I added some foam heart stickers to the packaging to make it Valentine's themed.  

It was a hit!  And enjoyed!  Thankfully we are all healthier now that it's time for spring allergy season!  

 

Borax for crafts: it's not just for laundry!

Borax Laundry Booster

Recently I received a box of Borax, the 20 Mule Team detergent booster, to try out and review.  I have always had a box of Borax next to my washing machine because we have hard water and it is a great laundry booster to make cleaning laundry more effective.  I add about an ounce of Borax per load when I add my detergent.  

What is hard water?  It's water in your home that has calcium and magnesium ions in it. Detergent can attach to these calcium and magnesium granules and settles on the bottom of the washing machine instead of mixing with the water and cleaning the clothes.  What exactly is Borax?  Its sodium teraborate, a natural mineral that results from the perpetual evaporation of seasonal lakes.  There is no chlorine, phosphate or other additives in it.  

Borax is an ingredient in the homemade laundry soap mixture I found on Pinterest and have wanted to make for the past year, but haven't!  I finally have all of the ingredients to make it, so now to finally do it! (And you can too if you read all the way to the end for the giveaway info!)

Crafting with Borax

Did you know that besides laundry and home cleaning that you can also use Borax for crafts?

 

Crystal Snowflakes made with Borax

A while ago we made homemade slime using Borax and white glue.  This time we made crystal snowflakes using Borax and water.  There are many "recipes" for this online, but I ended up combining instructions from several sources.  The first place I found directions was on Martha Stewart Living's site.  

Supplies:

• one quart sized mason jar or similar container per snowflake...we made two.  
• pipe cleaners 
• scissors to cut pipe cleaners
• two cups of boiling water per jar
• 1/2  to one cup of Borax per jar
• food coloring if desired
• string
• pencil or tape

Directions:

1. Shape pipecleaners into snowflake patterns.  We got a bit too fancy.  Simple works just fine! We used sparkly pipe cleaners instead of food coloring. The color shows through the crystals. 
2. Tie string to the snowflakes.
3. Boil water in a large mixing container.  I used the microwave.
4. Add the Borax to the water and stir well to disolve. 
5. Fill the jar or container with the Borax/water solution. Suspend the snowflake into the solution so that it is completly submerged.  I had to add a bit more water to my jars to get the snowflakes covered.  To keep the snowflake suspended, tie the string around a pencil and balance it on the top.  We used tape and attached the string to the side of each container.  
6. Sit the jars in a safe place overnight. Check them the next day and you'll find crystals will have formed on the pipe cleaners! 

Take out your snowflakes and let them dry a bit before hanging.  Clean out the jars with hot sudsy water to break up the remaining crystals that are on the bottom of the jar.  Experiment with all sorts of shapes, not just snowflakes! 

Win it!

Want to win big?  Enter the Borax Fresh Year, Fresher Laundry Sweepstakes!  It's your chance to win either $1500 or coupons for Borax from Borax.  You can't win if you don't enter!

Giveaway!

Want to try out Borax for free?  Leave me a comment on this blog post telling me you want to win a free box of Borax and/or leave a laundry tip.  I'll select one comment to send a coupon for a free box of Borax!  US addresses only. Coupon giveaway ends February 1st, 2013.  Winner will be contacted via email and will have 48 hours to respond, so be sure to include a way for me to contact you!

Disclosure:  Borax provided a free sample of their product for the purpose of this review.  No monetary compensation has been received and opinions expressed here are my own.  

Homemade holiday gifts: Rosemary sea salt

Every year I have grand ideas for homemade gifts, but reality takes place and I don't get to make much.  This year I've made two kitchen gifts to give to friends who are cooks and bakers.  The first is Rosemary Sea Salt.  I first saw the recipe in the book Food in Jars, which I borrowed from the library.  It's a great book that I would love to own someday.  I then later found instructions online about how to make a batch on Dreadlock Girl's blog, who has some beautiful photos in her post.

I harvested some rosemary from my backyard herb garden just before the first frost was anticipated.  I decided to do a small batch, just to see how it turned out.  I used some little jars I bought at Ikea to package the salt for gift giving.  I still have to design some little labels for them.  I have used some when roasting a chicken.  I also think it would be a nice topping to rolls or bread.  

 The salt smells good and I think it turned out to be a nice little gift.  

Lego Pops for my Lego loving five year old

My son has fallen in love with Legos, so we are embracing this new passion.  He could play with them for hours.  For his birthday party this year, we held it at Bounce U, so most of the work was done for me. (YAY!)  I did embrace the Lego love theme for him with the invitations, the cake and the favors.  It was fun!

I made Lego Minifigure head pops to give out.  Inspired by Pinterest, of course!  These were fun and easy to make. To make, I used a bag of Jumbo sized marshmallows, a bag of regular sized marshmallows, yellow candy melts, lollipop sticks, and a square of dark chocolate.

I melted the candy melts in a mini crock pot.  It was easy to keep the candy smoother than heating in a bowl in the microwave.  The candy melts have to be stirred regularly or they will burn.  Guess how I learned that! 

While the melts were heating up, I cut regular sized marshmallows in half and stuck the sticky side to the center of the jumbo marshmallows.  Then I stuck the lollipop sticks in the bottom.   Once melted, I dipped and swirled around the marshmallow pops in the yellow candy melts, using an offset spatula to help keep a smooth surface and knock off drips.  It helped to shake the pop a bit to get the excess off and then smooth the surface.  This took a bit longer than I anticipated, mainly because of drying time.  I should have bought a large block of styrofoam to use as a drying stand, but instead I went the free route and just punched holes into the bottom of a cardboard box.  It wasn't as stable as I thought it would be, so I couldn't make as many pops at once, as they needed room to dry/harden.  The box was too large to stick in the fridge!  But, it still worked out with only one or two casualties.  

Once all of the pops were dipped and dried, I lined them up on the table and went to work on giving them faces.  The Lego minifigures are known for having expressive yet simple faces, so I wanted to try to give the pops a variety of expressions.  I had planned to use an edible marker to make the faces, but I wasn't able to find just a black marker, only sets. I didn't want to spend the money on a big set when I would only need one, so instead I melted a square of extra dark chocolate on a saucer in the microwave.  I used a clean, tiny paintbrush to paint on the faces using the melted chocolate.   I wrapped them up in candy bags with twisties, and they were packed in the party-goers gift bags!  I also used one to decorate the cake (post to come later!) 

End of the school year: Teacher's Gifts

My son has one day left of preschool this year!  I can't believe it's almost over.  Back in September he looked like this:    I have to remember to take a photo of him in this spot on Friday.  He had a blast this year at school!  It was the right place to send him and he really discovered so many new things and made some great friends.  I know he had a good year when he told me how sad he'll be when school is over on Friday. 

He had great teachers this year and together we picked out thank you gifts for them.  He really helped with the idea and even made the choice of what kind of gift card to give them (Starbucks, he knows how much coffee is appreciated!)  My idea for their gift was inspired by a picture I saw on Pinterest.  I took the idea a step further by adding a gift card and thank you note that my son helped write.

We bought each teacher a straw cup and added some lemonade packets and an instant iced coffee packet.  Then we added Starbucks gift cards.  I like how they turned out and I hope the teachers enjoy them!  

Teacher's Gifts

Friday is the end of year program where all the kids sing songs to the parents.  I'll be the one crying behind the camera, from the cuteness of it all!  Summer is right around the corner.  Let the fun begin!

Crafting a spring ribbon wreath

I used to make wreaths frequently, back when I had more time on my hands than I knew what to do with, you know, before parenting!  I forgot how much I enjoyed it.  This year I've been working on finding my lost creativity, slowly.  I made a fun pompom wreath for Valentine's Day/month that I really hated to put away, I liked it so much.  I replaced it with my latest creation, a ribbon curlicue wreath in spring colors. 

I was inspired to make this after reading some posts by Nikki of Nikki, in Stitches.  She posted a how to for a really great red and white Valentine's themed ribbon wreath a while back and the concept just stuck in my head.  I love ribbon, especially grosgrain ribbon, and always wondered how to make those corkscrew curlicues with it.  She posted great instructions for how to make them that I loosely followed and had great results. I chose to make my wreath a bit different than hers, using hot glue as opposed to straight pins for assembly, and I loved the results I had.

Spring Ribbon Wreath!

ribbon and trim detail

love those curlicues!

I debated about adding something like bunnies or colored eggs to the wreath, but I didn't want it to be an Easter wreath, as I wanted to leave it out for all of spring.  I found these butterflies at AC Moore and they were a perfect addition.  They even just clipped on!  I'm thinking about doing another pompom wreath for the summer in bright summer colors.  My son wants me to make him a rainbow pompom wreath!  I have to dig through my yarn stash to see what colors of yarn I have on hand.  I think a red, green and white ribbon curlicue wreath would look great for Christmas time.  So now I've discovered two new ways to decorate wreathes.  Thank you Pinterest!

Rainbows for St. Patrick

It's a week late, but then I just realized that the cold/sinus infection I've been nursing is going on week four, so I clearly have lost all track of time.  

I was not up to making a rainbow cake or cookies to celebrate, as in years past.  But, there is always time for jello, which is ridiculously easy! The kiddo even helped a bit with the mixing. We made a rainbow out of jello using six different colors/flavors.  Normally, I limit his consumption of food dyes, but make an exception from time to time.  Silly me thought he would find the rainbow jello delightful!  Nope!  He said there were too many colors and he didn't like it.  He's not a jello kid.  Oh well, it still looked pretty and I enjoyed some of it while feeling blah.

A is for adorable craft with crayons

So my Pinterest addiction has inspired me to be much more crafty lately.  I love it for giving me ideas of craft projects or even reminders of things I had seen but never made.  Back before Christmas I saw an idea to make an initial/letter out of crayons.  I think the originaly pinner was making them as teacher gifts, but I thought it would be a great decoration in my son's room.  I have a certain love for the Crayola crayon and the alphabet.  I have a slight obession with the alphabet, and it helps that my son is at that age where he knows his letters and is just starting to write them.  We are also in the planning stages of redoing his bedroom, so I wanted to make him his initial in crayons.  It was supposed to be a Christmas present.  Then it was going to be a Valentine's gift.  Well, now I just finally did it, so it isn't a gift, but was well received, nevertheless.

 

To make, I bought a new box of 24 Crayola Crayons, a box style square frame from Ikea, and made a template of the letter A on my computer and printed it large!  I used plain white glue and a piece of cardstock.  I used the letter template as a means to measure and cut the crayons into appropriate sizes, scoring the crayon with scissors and then snapping it.  It was a bit more difficult to get the crayons in the right sizes than I anticipated, but certainly this was not a challenging project.  

 

Once the glue was dried, I added a written line and framed it in the box frame.  I love how it turned out and my son was excited to see his 'A" in crayons.  I may make some as gifts now!

 

 

Crafting a pompom wreath, an easy Valentine's day project

My addiction to Pinterst has led me to be more crafty lately, which is really a good thing.  I have neglected my crafty side for too long.  I saw a variety of different wreaths on Pinterest and came up with an idea to make a pompom wreath.  Eventually I found one very similar, in different colors, on Pinterest too.  I used to make wreaths all the time, and even sold some for a while at local craft shows.  That was at least 18 years ago.  More recently I made Christmas wreaths.  I have not made any Valentine's decorations lately, so this project was overdue!

See, I have a love for the pompom.  There isn't much use for them in daily life, especially when you are an adult.  I'm not sure why I love making them so much, but as far back as I can remember, I always enjoyed wrapping yarn and snipping, snipping, snipping the ends until I had the perfect pompom ball.  

So, after deciding my color theme for my wreath, I dug through my yarn stash and added a skein of very inexpensive yarn from the craft store.  Then I dug out my Clover pompom makers....they are a great little tool for making various sized pompoms.  It took about a week or so on and off in my spare time at night to make all of the pompoms.  Sharp scissors are really important!  I ended up with around 40 pompoms in various sizes and colors.  I also had lots of yarn dust everywhere from all that snipping and shaping.

 

Starting to assemble the wreath

 

Using a styrofoam wreath form, I wrapped it with a single strand of red yarn until the entire wreath was covered.  I tucked the end in, although I suppose it could have been glued too.  At first I thought I would pin the pompoms on the wreath, but then decided to hot glue them instead.  It was quick and easy to do and it turned out great. Before gluing, I decided on placement of the largest pompoms, then added more and more going from largest to smallest, filling in the gaps with the smallest ones.  

 

Once all the pompoms I had made had been attached, mainly to just the front surface of the wreath form, I hung the wreath and decided it needed more pompoms.  Seeing it on the door at a different angle helped me see the gaps where I needed to add more.  It cost under $10 to make and looks great!  My son has requested that I make him one for his room in rainbow colors.  Time to search the yarn stash again!  

Valentine's Day Pompom Wreath!

 

Crafting FAIL!

So, I had the brilliant idea to make heart shaped crayons for Valentine's Day.  I figured it would be a good way to use up the big box of broken crayons we accumulated and the kiddo could give them out at school to his classmates for V-Day.  I found decent sized heart shaped ice cube trays in the $2.50 bin at Target.  

I spent Sunday morning peeling off labels and chopping up crayons.  

chopping up naked crayons into bits

(Tip:  use an exacto knife to score the label of the crayon and then peel the whole label off in one piece.  It will protect your manicure too!)

I then filled my heart molds with chopped up crayon bits, set the tray on a foil covered toaster oven sized cookie sheet, and preheated the toaster oven to 250 degrees F.  Then I baked the waxy bits for about 15 minutes or so, until they looked melted enough.  I've made molded/repurposed crayons this way many times before.  It smells like melted crayons.  This time it smelled a little stronger.  I chalked it up to using mostly non-crayola brand crayons.  (We had an assortment of brands and non-brands from various restaurants, along with washable toddler crayons mixed in.)

The first batch of heart crayons turned out ok.  Once they were melted I swirled the colors around a bit with a toothpick, then let them harden.  They were not shiny like crayons I've made before.  Again, I figured it was the result of inferior crayons.  (Really, Crayola brand crayons are the best.  They melt well and they color the best, in my opinion!)  

Melted wax ready to solidify into crayons

So, I made a second batch, since I still had a good amount to chopped up crayon bits. This time, thankfully I was still in the kitchen, there was a lot of smoke along with the bad smell.  My mistake: using an ice cube tray!  It felt like silicon, but apparently was not!  The tray melted.  

Notice the melted mold/ice cube tray! FAIL!

So, after opening windows and turning on fans to ventilate probably toxic fumes from my kitchen, I learned that I should suck it up and spend the extra money on acual silicon molds that are definitely oven safe.  

We did end up with some crayons, but I'm not sure of their quality at all.  They will be used here, as they are not gift-worthy!  

heart crayons!