Back to the salt mine....

So here is the finished bowl, using salt dough recipe from earlier post. In case you don't want to look back, its 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt, and 1 cup water.  I like to show you the finished piece first, so you know what we are going to be doing and I think its easier to follow along.  So mix your dough up and roll it out.

 Again, the dough is about 1/4" thick and was rolled out on a floured surface.  I didn't use a whole batch of flour to do this bowl, I'd say about half, but if you are doing a large bowl, you will want to make more.  Just play with it and see what works, this is meant to be FUN!!!

 I thought a bowl this size would be kind of a good size to begin trying.  Your bowl will need to be oven safe.  I made sure I used spray on the bowl, so the dough would slip off when I was done with the baking process.  I thought about aluminum foil, but wasn't sure if the folds would make the inside of the bowl kind of wrinkley (I don't think that's a word, but I think you know what I mean) 

 I put the dough over the bowl, and cut away what was extra.  Kind of like a pie crust, if you make pies that way :)  And you are ready to put this bad boy in the oven,  bake it around 200 degrees, so it won't burn and it may take several hours. 

 Once the salt dough is baked, you can finish it however you like.  I used off white paint, I know it looks kind of white, and did an under coat.  Then because I didn't want the paint solid, I rubbed a candle over the outside of the bowl.  Then I painted the outside with brown acrylic paint.

 I put a sealer over all of the bowl, inside and out.  The inside of the bowl, did this crackle looking thing!  It's kind of cool, but I'm not sure why it did that.  The good thing about this process is, if you don't like it, you aren't out a lot of money.  But if you do like it, it's kind of cool. I'm using mine  as a catch all for "stuff"  Hope you have fun and let me know how yours turn out. 

Salt dough? who knew it could be so much fun!

Remember doing salt dough ornaments as a kid?  We did a lot of Christmas ornaments cutting out shapes with cookie cutters and painting them.  Well, salt dough has made a come back with folks doing all kinds of things with them.  The next several posts will be about some of the things you can do/make with this inexpensive dough.  There are several recipes you can find, but the one I go to is 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt and 1 cup water.  

 So find a bowl you can mix those ingredients up in and let's get started.  I love working with this dough, but it does dry out your hands.  Just a warning.

 Sometimes you will need to add a little more water, remember this isn't rocket science!  and have fun!  I do knead mine some, I don't know that its necessary, I just love kneading dough, its like therapy to me!

 Roll the dough out evenly, on a floured surface.  The thicker your dough the longer it will take to dry, but it does tear easier.  I'd say this was maybe 1/4" thick.  I wanted to make the buttons you saw in the first picture.  My idea was to make them into coasters, for a button loving woman I know. 

 So to cut the circles as big as I wanted them, I used a plastic storage container.  It had a slight lip on it, which was just perfect for cutting through the dough. I cut 5 circles from the dough.

 For the button holes, I used a straw.  You can do several holes, before the end of the straw gets plugged up and you need to empty it to make more holes.

 I didn't measure mine, just eye-balled them.  If you want to measure, feel free to do so.

 I knew that I was going to use jute as my "thread" when I had them painted.  I thought if I gave the jute a grove before I did the baking, there would be a nice place for the jute to lay. (More about this later!)

 I also knew I wanted the buttons to have an indent a little ways from the edge, like some buttons do.  So to achieve this, I used a piece of stemware that was about 1/4"-1/2" away from the outer edge. When I had that centered on the button, I pushed it down to make an indent.

I put these on aluminum foil and baked them in the oven.  I used the convection feature in the oven, to hurry the process along.  You don't want to burn them but you want to make sure they are good and dry.  These took several hours.  Finishing will be another post!

Recyled mittens

 This is a pair of mittens that we have made from a wool sweater. The sweater had a lot of detail work on including french knots.  You will want to wash this sweater before you begin the cutting. Depending on what you are doing with the sweater, it wouldn't matter if it was mostly wool or not, but I would suggest when making mittens, that you do use a sweater that is made of wool. The mittens will be warmer.

 I forgot to take a picture of the sweater before I began my cutting.  Sorry, sometimes I just get so excited with what I am doing!  So here you can see the sweater after I did some cutting.

 The pattern is a free down load from www.hobbyfarms.com, they have two sizes.  I do think once you got the concept down you could make them any size you like. You will want to have the bottom of the mitten pattern against the edge of the sweater.  This way you mitten will have a finished edge when you are done with your sewing.

 You could open the sleeve and try and get a pair out of there too.  I wasn't sure how pressing that sleeve would work out, so I didn't give it a try.

 I opted to have the inside part of the mitten a different color, I'm glad I did.  I think it adds some interest, plus stretches the pretty sweater farther. I can only see one pin- but you will want to sew from pin to pin.  These directions are included in the patterns. Once you have sewn this part together, you will want to put the back and front together, and sew them.

 Start at the bottom edge, to begin your sewing. You are going to need to sew up to where the thumb part is and then stop sewing. Flip the thumb and finishing sewing the mitten.

 So here we are sewing up to the thumb joint.

 Flip the thumb and finishing sewing to the bottom edge.

 It should look something like this.

And when it's turned right side out, you've got yourself a really warm mitten.  When cutting out your mittens, I found it very helpful to use the color pattern pieces.  When the red was up, I got the one mitten, (left)  color down the other side (right)  Hope you have as much fun as I did.

More recycle-this time a sweater

 If you haven't seen this before, you are going to want to do this, we've added a little something extra that we did as well.  Many times, when people talk about recycling sweaters, they are looking for wool only. This was a cotton sweater, with a beautiful cable stitch design to it.

 So here is our sweater, after it is washed. This was a ladies size large, and we used a 18" pillow form for what we did. You can change this how ever you like, and whatever size sweater that you want to use.

 I checked to make sure the pillow form fit in the sweater, before I started to cut anything.  Now you will want to make the sweater square, we are using a square form.  Feel free to make it whatever shape you like, circular-rectangular, you get the idea.  We measured up from where the side seam and the sleeve meet, keeping this measurement the same on both sides.  Using a marker you can see, mark the sweater, so you will know where to cut.

 Once it was cut we zig zag stitched it twice to make sure it was going to hold when it was stretched. Because of the sides and sleeve being in the stitching, we took a little off the sides as well. The bottom edge was left open for stuffing the form inside the sweater. Turn sweater right side out.

 Here the pillow form is inside the sweater.

 We pinned the bottom edge so we could hand stitch this closed.

 We used a blanket stitch and matching floss to close the bottom edge.

This vase was made by using one of the sleeves. We cut it off the remaining sweater and placed it outside a glass cylinder.  Add a belt and here you have a cute little vase. 

Recyling a new way!

 These are pop cans that have been cut and painted. So let's gather our supplies and get going.  You will need a pop can, black acrylic craft paint, paprika, scissors, (hot glue gun and pliers-if making scoop)

 Wash out your pop can, we drink Pepsi, but any kind of can will work for you.

 I kind of made a paper template that looked something like this, I was sure if I didn't have some kind of a cutting guide I'd be in trouble. 

 You will want the rounded end toward the bottom of the can. I used a marker to give myself a cutting guide.

 Remember you will want to leave yourself about 1/2" or so from the bottom.

 Using a knife, cut a slit that you can put your utility scissors through.  I cut the top off, right by where the can tapers. Then you can cut your can following your cutting guide. If you are making a scoop, save the part you have cut off, take make the scoop handle.

 So from the side, it might look something like this.

 Here is the part we used for the handle.

 Fold the sides in with a pliers.  Someone ask if these edges are sharp.  I guess you could cut yourself, I've made several and haven't, but maybe not a craft I'd suggest doing with small children. 

 Here both edges are folded in and I folded in the ends too.

 Form it into the handle shape.

 And if you were making a scoop, here you would glue the handle on with hot glue, and then the finishing is all the same.

 Take your black paint and paint the inside and outside, while it is still wet, you will want to sprinkle this with Paprika. 

 I tried cinnamon as well, but I really liked the color and texture of paprika.  The cinnamon was more powdery, and it kind of disappeared in the paint, but the paprika made it look rusty.
We were able to punch a hole in the top center, with a paper punch, I was surprised at how easy it was to punch through.

We added some pine and homespun tie, and a little timer candle.  How cute would these be for on your Christmas table by your table settings.  Also would be great for bridal showers, with different color paints.  Hope you have fun and we would love to see your version of this project!  Merry Christmas!

Bowling pin fun!

 Do any of you have bowling pins around the house? Ever wish you could think of something to do with those 'bad boys'?  Well how about turning him into a snowman?  A little felt, hat and wreath- and there you go!

So much prettier than this!  Or how about taking some old sheet music and use Mod Podge to attach it to the pin?  I think that would be pretty too.  Try it out and share your ideas with us.