Posts for category ‘Blog’

I’m teaching this free class at the Highland Square branch of the Akron-Summit County Public Library .

Iris Paper Folding Wall Art

Come use recycled paper and Iris Paper Folding techniques to make a 5″ x 7″ frame-able wall art. Iris Paper Folding is basically layering paper in a pattern and using it as a background behind a shape cutout. Participants are welcome to bring their own recycled papers such as envelopes, junk mail, greeting cards, or discarded books to use, but a selection of papers will also be available. If attendees have a paper trimmer, they are welcome to bring it, as cutting paper strips will be much quicker.

Sign up is required, and begins August 16, at 330-376-2927.

If you can’t make it to class, I also wrote a  tutorial for this project.

After our Book Swap on Saturday, my family went to Art on the Square with Colleen and her family. There were quite a few craft vendors there, some food vendors (we had yummy wasabi sliders from somewhere, but I forgot the name. Sorry!) and live music on mulitple stages.

We were walking down the street, enjoying the weather, when I saw one of my favorite local Makers: Toony Jewelry. I keep running into Barbara and her wares ever since my first time vending at Oddmall where she was my booth neighbor. I have picked up, put down, and picked up and put down, etc. her jewelry a thousand times but had never been able to make a choice. But this time I was looking out for something craft-related and that made it so much simpler to decide. This necklace came home with me, and I must say, it love it.

As hard as it is for a former English Major to part with books, I’ve managed to gather some up for the Book Swap.It’s so much more managable to say good bye when I know I can bring home some new books, and eat some tasty goodies, and hang out with my friends and meet new ones.

It’s true. I love swapping.

Here’s the info! See you all tomorrow at the Fabulous Craft Akron!

For those of you in the NE Ohio area, you must make a trip to the Farmer’s Market at Stan Hywet. It’s Thursday’s from 4-7pm through September 23.   We bought fresh wheat bread, grass-fed cow cheese, and plumbs.  Everything tasted fresh & flavorful.  I was especially amazed at how creamy & rich the cheese was.

As a bonus after the market, you can walk the estate gardens for free.  I took lots of pics of my son running across bridges, next to fountains, & through the grape arbor tunnel.

I made these beads from pages of an old poetry book.  My inspiration is from a similar project in Playing with Books-The Art of Upcycling, Deconstructing, and Reimagining the Book.  The only difference was that they rolled up triangles & I rolled up rectangles, so my finished beads have more of a tube shape.  With either shape, the basic idea is to roll up a long strip of paper (leaving a hole for beading wire to go through), use adhesive to secure it closed (I used decoupage glue), cover the outside of the bead with glue (for a protective finish), & let it dry.

Here’s one of my i-can’t-type-well posts. I found the pattern for this jacket in a bag of handed down linens. It was cut out of a grocery bag and only had the words “5/8 inch seam all around” written on it.

After a little puzzling it out and I came up with this jacket in a 3-6 month size. I graded it to a 12-18 month and made one for my sweet Cressida.

It’s because I broke my collar bone playing soccer last Saturday.

For the sake of keeping blogging short (I have trouble blogging left handed) I will be mostly sharing links and photos until I get my right hand back. In the meantime I’ll be sporting this fashionable sling I altered by hand sewing a panel of upholstery fabric to the blue hospital sling. Yes, I used my left hand for this, and no, I don’t plan to do any more sewing until I can use my right hand again.

Today while making banana bread, I was thinking about how long it takes to bake.   A loaf of bread takes 60 minutes, while muffins take 25 minutes.  I opted to put the banana bread in muffin tins not only because my house was 80 degrees before turning the oven on, but because I’m thinking about energy use.  There is no good reason to keep the oven on an extra half hour so my bread can taste exactly the same.

By the way, my recipe is Banana Banana Bread from Allrecipes.  I made the following changes:

-instead of 1/2 cup butter, use 1/4 cup butter & 1/4 cup apple sauce

-instead of 3/4 cup sugar, use 1/2 cup sugar

-add some spice such as cinnamon, vanilla, or nutmeg

It’s tomato time! I grew “lemon boy” and “ruffled yellow” tomatoes this year to change up my usual early girl, cherry tomatoes and romas. The harvest has been quite prolific, actually quite a bit more than I can use in just salads and sandwiches. Rather than freezing them, I decided to try to use them fresh as often as possible, and that’s how I started making my Simple Salsa.

It’s very mild, since I am always sharing it with the girls, but you can easily add a jalepeno or other hot pepper variety if you like some fire in your salsa.

The recipe is as follows:

Simple Salsa

about 6 tomatoes diced

2 small red onions diced very small

2 green peppers diced

1 clove garlic minced

1 T sugar

2 tsp salt

1 tsp cumin

black pepper to taste

Stir all ingredients together, let it set a bit for the flavors to blend together. I’ve had it 5 minutes after making it and it is great. It is even better if you can manage to wait until the next day. We can rarely wait that long!

We were attending a wedding last weekend and I really wanted to dress up my outfit since it was  a friday evening wedding. I thought about a necklace, but my blue dress had a ruffled neckline so that seemed a bit too much. Then I thought I should wear a slight veiled pillbox hat, but I don’t have one! So since I know how to make fascinators, and I had some blue crinoline in my stash I went to work on this beauty.

To make it was a piece of cake. I cut a 10 inch circle of crinoline and folded it in half so that the edges did not quite match up. Then I fanned the folded side about 4 times to give it dimension, leaving the ends straight. I stitched through the fan folds and used the stitching to attach the crinoline to a head band.

Then I decided it needed more drama, so I used acrylic paint to tint the edges navy blue, and used a vintage broach as a focal point. The bonus was that the broach covered my stitches that held it onto my headband.

Apart from drying time, this really only took me 15 minutes. And I let the paint dry while I got dressed and did my makeup. It was a really fast way to dress up a simple dress, and make a subdued statement. I can’t wait until I can wear it again!