Flower Hairpiece Tutorial

One of the great things about this project is that it has a lot of room for creativity and experimentation without necessitating any fore-knowledge.  If you know how to wield some scissors and a glue gun, you are already on your way to creating flower hairpieces.  It's a great way to play with colors and use a variety of different materials.

You'll need:

1. Fake Flowers- the ones I used are made of thick paper (I got them from AC Moore)

2. Glue gun

3. Alligator hair clips

4. Scissors

5. Felt

6. Odds and ends (Sequins, sharpies, a matchless earring, and tulle.  In other pieces I have used buttons and ribbon.)

Cut a piece of felt as your anchor for the flowers.  I have found that a kidney shape works well.  The anchor should be 3-4 inches long and 1-2 inches at the widest point.  These are of course just suggestions, if you want to make more of a statement go BIGGER!

Choose flowers that go well together and arrange them on top of the felt anchor.  Do your best to cover all of the felt.  Try to layer the flowers on top of each other to create depth.  Place sequins and buttons over the flowers, until you are reasonably pleased with the result.  I find that it isn't necessary to reach perfection before gluing.  It's often easier to place one or two flowers, and work around them.

I started gluing on the largest side of the kidney shape, with one two layered flowers, and moved to the other side, gluing a few flowers at a time.

To create some height, I used tulle.  I wanted to replace the height usually achieved with feathers with a more animal friendly alternative.  To create the tulle accent, cut out a circle of tulle, about 4 inches across.  Cut a pie piece out of the circle that is 1-2 inches around the "crust."  With the remaining circle fold the tulle accordion style, flattening out the fan shape.  Put a dot of glue on the tulle underneath the flower petals, then press the "handle" of the fan into the glue.  Spread the fan out, and glue the edges down on the felt, underneath the petals.

I placed glue dots on the tulle fan, and after they dried, colored the glue dots with a sharpie.  An alternative is to glue sequins or beads on the tulle fan.  You can also glue a ribbon bow as an accent.  After placing the finishing touches on the hairpiece flip it over.

Place a stripe of glue on the back side of the hairpiece, and stick the alligator clip down on it.

Carefully open the clip, being careful not to unstick the bottom.  Put another stripe of glue, and place a piece of felt in between the two sides of the clip.  Let the clip close, after the glue dries trim around the edges of the new piece of felt.

When you put the hairpiece up to your head, you will notice that one side sticks up because of the hinge.  To fix this, place a bit of glue near the hinge, and carefully bend the felt around the clip.  Hold this in place for a few seconds until it dries to make the clip rounded.

You now have a beautiful cruelty-free hairpiece.  Enjoy, and add a little pizzazz to your next outfit!

Handmade Laundry Detergent

I hate buying laundry detergent because it's incredibly expensive, especially if you get the good stuff without the nasty ingredients and fragrances.  I've been playing around with the idea of making my own detergent, and I finally took the plunge.  It's actually quite simply and amazingly cost effective.  There are only three ingredients - Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda, Borax, and soap.  I used my own unscented cold process soap I made back in January.  Even if you have to buy the soap, your total cost could be around $8, and this makes a lot of detergent: I would estimate about 100 loads.  Plus, you'll have tons of washing soda and borax left over for your next batch.

Ingredients:  

1 cup Arm&Hammer Washing Soda $2.50/3.9 lbs

1 cup Borax $3/4.75 lbs

2 cups Cold Process Soap* $2.50/~4.5oz

1 tsp Essential oil or fragrance oil (optional)

*When choosing your cold process soap, make sure it's vegan and doesn't contain tallow or lard.  You don't need conditioning oils, so look instead for cleansing oils like coconut oil and palm kernel oil.  

Step 1:  Grate your cold process soap.  I used the medium grade so that the soap didn't get stuck in the tinier grates.

Go ahead and use up the whole bar.  You should have approximately 2 packed cups - if the measurement varies a little bit, that's okay.

Step 2:  Add the curly, grated soap bits of soap to a food processor.  

I don't think this step is completely necessary, but it will ensure that the soap dissolves easily in your washing machine.  It does turn the soap into smaller bits that mix better with your other ingredients.  I also added a bit of the washing soda so that the soap wouldn't stick together as it was getting shredded.

Step 3:  Mix your 2 cups soap bits with 1 cup of A&H Super Washing Soda and 1 cup Borax.  If you would like to add fragrance, add 1 tsp essential oil or fragrance oil by droplets to the mixture.  I recommend mixing in a large, lidded container.  I used a 1 gallon container with a snap top.  All you have to do is shake it to mix.  If you don't have something similar, you can always stir the ingredients in a large bowl. 

Step 4:  You're done! Use 2-3 tablespoons per load.  I've also heard you can use vinegar in the rinse cycle as a fabric softener, but I've never tried it.  Let me know how your detergent works, if you have a different recipe, or if you've got other laundry tips to share : )  Enjoy!

Rachel

Earth Day Tomato Tutorial

Happy Earth Day!  To celebrate, I planted my tomato seeds.  I know it's really late to start them inside, but ya know, sometimes life gets in the way.  Anyway, I decided to try upside down tomato planting this year.

Last year, we planted heirloom tomatoes and they looked gorgeous until late June, then they got a nasty late blight, which I've heard is getting worse along the east coast.  The leaves turned yellow and fell off, and by fall, most of the plants were dead.  We tried Serenade, an organic fungicide, but it didn't seem to help.  The cucumbers and watermelons didn't fare so well either.

Anyway, it was my hope that by planting this year's tomatoes far away from the garden and in the air, maybe they wouldn't get the blight.  After all, summer isn't summer without tomatoes!

To be frank, I couldn't really afford a topsy turvy.  Plus, the reviews on amazon are actually quite horrible. Instead, I made my own upside down planter from a regular old pot.  After I finished planting the seeds, I realized I should have just turned it right side up and had tomato hanging baskets, but I was trying to mimic the upside down topsy turvy.  

1.  First, I found two old planters.  They already had holes in the bottom, but I cut them with scissors and made them a bit larger.

2.  Next, I flipped them upside down and filled them to the top with potting soil.  It's a good idea to leave about a 1/2" of free space at the top.

3.  I covered the planter with a scrap piece of wood.  It's not exactly pretty, but it works.  Once I had the wood on the top of the planter, I flipped the pot back over.

4.  Lastly, I planted the seeds in the top of the container.  I sprinkled about 5 seeds in each hole, covered them with dirt, and lightly packed them down.  Later I'll see which seedlings start out the strongest and pull the others out.

5.  And we've got a taker!  The first little seedling makes an appearance.  Some of the other seeds are starting to sprout too.  Once the plants get around 5"-10" high, I'll flip the planter over so that the plants are growing upside down.  I'll use the hooks from a hanging basket to hang the planter on my porch.

6.  I started some more seeds inside.  I'll probably transplant some to the ground, and the others into planters.  I hope to also have a few tomato plants in hanging baskets (the right way up, not upside down!).

I really hope some of these tomato plants produce.  I'll update this post as the plants progress.  In conclusion, happy Earth Day!  Go plant something!

: )
Rachel

fat crayon tutorial

 My sister Rachel made these cute crayons for our nephew Jackson.  He'll have to wait a little while to use them, he's only 3 almost 4 months old right now.  I'm so excited to see what he'll draw with them in just a short time!

She was nice enough to make a little tutorial for the blog, and send me these awesome pics.  Enjoy!

Materials: 

Newspaper

Old crayons in a variety of colors

Glitter (optional)

Silicone baking mold (oven safe)

Heat gun or double boiler (I don’t recommend the microwave.  It takes way too long to heat up the crayons, and you don’t have as much control over combining your colors).

1.       These crayons are perfect for little hands; however, due to the extreme temperatures needed to melt wax, I don’t suggest letting little hands help you out when you make these crayons.  Heat guns get incredibly hot, so it’s best to keep children far away from them.  

2.       Lay out a newspaper over your work service.   

Choose a mold for your crayons.  The younger your intended user, the bigger your rebatched fat crayons need to be.  Choose big molds for very young children, and smaller molds for older children.   

The absolute best molds are those trendy silicone molds than you can bend.  You can get them really hot, but they don’t hold the heat for long (which means no burned fingers).  It’s also really easy to pop out the finished crayons when they are ready.  You can often find them in the Target dollar bins (as ice cube trays), and I know they carry a wide selection at Michael’s.       

3.       Amass a collection of old, broken, yucky crayons.
We certainly have plenty of these from our childhood; an entire pink bucket full.  We loved our crayons!

4.       Separate the crayons into color-coordinated groups.  Each group will make one fat crayon.  I chose to do the primary (red, blue, and yellow) and secondary (purple, orange, green) colors, plus brown.  Make sure you include a variety of shades in each group.  For example, in my group of red, I included brick red, red, pale pink, maroon, and fuchsia.  This will give you pretty swirls when you melt the crayons down.         

5.       Peel a skinny vertical strip of paper off the length of each crayon, then remove the whole sheet of paper in one fell swoop. 
Can't you tell Rachel's an English teacher?  "One fell swoop," so beautifully descriptive!


6.       The number of crayons you need for each rebatched fat crayon will vary.  My molds were approximately 1 inch deep and 2 inches wide.  I used 10-12 crayons for each mold.

7.       Chose a couple of darker shades in one of your groups.  Place them in the bottom of your mold, aim your heat gun at them, and fire.  Use a low setting, and do not touch the mold, it can get hot.  

Once they are melted, throw in the lighter shade.  Try not to mix the colors too much because you want a pretty swirly pattern.  To make sure I did this, I held the lighter crayon in my hand and aimed the heat gun at just the end.  That way the crayon dripped softly into the mold.  

* If you do it this way, make sure to keep a safe distance between your hand and the blast of heat.  Heat guns WILL burn you!*   

Once both colors are in the mold, they will mix naturally, but you can use a toothpick to swirl them as well.    

8.       Cool.

9.       When the rebatched crayons have hardened, use your heat gun to melt the topmost layer of the wax.  Throw in a couple more crayons in different shades and melt.  Feel free to throw in different colors of glitter into the hot wax.  You can also add white, silver, or gold to your color groups.  
 
10.   Cool.  Repeat process until mold is full.

11.   When your rebatched crayons are completely cool, pop them out of the mold and you’re done!

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial for today.  Rachel said that it involved quite a bit of trial and error involving microwaves and including multiple fire alarms!  We hope this tutorial will make creating your own crayons easy for you without all the drama.  Time to make beautiful crayons of your own!

Cloth Covered Magnets

Birthday Magnets

 Today is my roommate, Lily's 22nd birthday.  We usually try to make each other at least a little something, so this year I made a fabric covered set of magnets.  My process is a combination of  what I thought to be the best aspects of a number of tutorials I found on great blogs and how-to sites.

You can also make buttons, if you simply use buttons with a shank.  You may also want to turn under the edge, but that's up to you.  With magnets there is no need to, since the magnet goes over the messy part.

Another way to dress up and personalize your magnet would be to embroider your fabric circle.

They're very simple!

Here's what you need: 

• batting
• thread
• needle
• buttons
• scraps of beautiful fabric
• small magnets
• super glue

First, I glued 3-4 layers of batting to the button.  The only thing about this step is to be careful not to get too much glue on the top layer, so it doesn't have hard bumps.  A few of mine had that problem.  

Cut around the batting

Second, cut a circle with a diameter ~2 times the size of your button.  Don't worry about being too precise, it works just fine a little bigger or smaller.  

Then using a straight stitch, sew around the edge of your circle without knotting either end of the thread.

 Third, place your fabric face down.  Put the button batting side down, in the center of the circle

 

Fourth, gently pull the two ends of your thread

 

Fifth, carefully pull tight and knot the two threads together.  Trim.

Sixth, cover the magnet with glue and press onto the back of the button for a few seconds.

There, you're done.  I told you it would be easy!