Mar.
20
2013
Alternatives to dyeing Easter eggs

Alt eggs decoupage 02

When I was a kid, my Grammy Yocom always had my cousins and I over to dye Easter eggs. I loved it! My favorite part was measuring out the vinegar and hot water into her assorted tea cups and dropping in the little colored tablet. I would sit there completely engrossed as the aspirin-sized tablet dissolved, releasing swirls of magnificent color like smoke rising from a fire. The smell was a heady mixture of cooked eggs (there was always at least one that broke in the boiling water, forming a sort of Quasimodo mutant egg), vinegar, dye, and steam. I remember carefully popping out the little cardboard disks on the back of the box so that we’d have the perfect drying rack, and then pushing a toothpick through the pre-punched hole in the center of the disc to make a top. The people at Paas (the company that makes the dye packs) were brilliant, using every little bit of packaging to create the overall egg dyeing experience. I can still remember the little copper wire egg retriever (you had to bend it just right so you could scoop the eggs out of the cups), the wax crayon so that you could write a secret message on your egg, and the lick and stick stickers (that usually peeled off)!

Nowadays the kits have gone high-tech and you can get everything from glitter to marbled egg kits -- there’s a veritable “egg”-splosion of kits out there on the market!

As an alternative to the traditional method of dying eggs, I thought I’d offer up some alternatives to egg decorating. Remember, you always want to use a hardboiled or blown-out eggs. Never decorate raw eggs, as they could break during the decorating process and cause quite a mess!

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Mar.
19
2013
Ask Sophie: What are some small gifts I can make?

Small gifts 01
The other day I received a very sweet inquiry from an 11-year-old girl that I thought I would share, not only because I was so touched by her generosity of spirit, but because I thought it was a nice inspiration to others. The thought of sharing a little gift for no reason other than to let someone know you are thinking about them is lovely, and the idea of it being something homemade that comes from the heart really appealed to me! Here’s her note and my response...

Hi Sophie! (:

My name is Kaillie, and I'm 11 years old. I make bows and other little things. Recently I’ve been thinking and I have decided to give this little girl with epilepsy some bows, and other cute stuff, mostly homemade... You have really awesome and easy crafts! Could you give me any suggestions for gifts to put in for her?

Thanks,
Kaillie

Dear Kaillie;
What an incredibly sweet gift you are offering to this little girl! I'm sure she will be so excited to receive anything that you make for her, but I might suggest the following from our site...

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Mar.
15
2013
"Peep" T. Barnum Circus!

Peeps tent

My sister is a crafting genius, and her latest creation only goes to further prove that point! The other day, Simone mentioned that the Washington Post was holding a Peep diorama contest, in which folks were encouraged to create miniature worlds inhabited only by Peeps and Peep byproducts (like the Peep bunnies and other sundry marshmallow friends). The light that lit my sister’s Freda’s eyes upon hearing these words could have powered New York City during a blackout! She was on fire! The contest was ending on that upcoming Monday, and so, with a work-free weekend ahead of her, she embraced her inner Peep to create the most amazing “Peep show” ever!

Peeps sign

I will let her explain her inspiration and process, because I wouldn’t even know where to begin! Just know that I think it’s spectacular, and I count myself one of the luckiest people alive to view these Peeps live and in peepson... er, person. The only thing that makes me sad is that it’s very difficult to capture in photos the absolute magnificence of this diorama. It is, without a doubt, “the greatest show on earth.”

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Mar.
13
2013
Bounce House 101

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Bounce houses rank right up there along with balloons as one of my least favorite party elements. At the risk of sounding like an old codger, “those darn things are just plain dangerous!” No matter how many precautions we take, there always seems to be at least one child who ends up in tears. But, kids love them, they come in every theme and configuration possible, and in the great scheme of things they are relatively inexpensive entertainment. So for all of these reasons, I must concede that they are a pretty significant party staple, and something I must therefore embrace, even if it is begrudgingly.

But that won’t stop me from sharing a bit of insight on those dreaded behemoths in the hope that you can avoid some of the pitfalls that come with renting one of these inflatable monstrosities.

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Mar.
8
2013
Stretching your duct tape, part 3: Alternate materials

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In an effort to stretch my duct tape even farther, I have been investigating alternative materials that can be used for the “base” of my duct tape fabric. The issue is when you are creating something large out of duct tape, such as a purse or backpack, it can take upwards of an entire roll of tape just to make the base fabric. For those of you unfamiliar with duct tape projects, fabric is made by overlapping strips of tape to create a sheet of tape. The fabric needs to be taped on both sides, so if you are making a piece of fabric to make a 4 by 6 inch clutch purse, you’re going to need about 15 feet of tape, which is about half of a roll of patterned tape. That’s just to make the base fabric! At $4.99 a roll, you can see how it adds up.

Knowing that my audience using this tape has limited budgets, I thought it wise to start investigating alternative materials to use instead, the idea being that one could embellish like crazy with fun patterned and designed tapes as long as one had a good base that adhered to the tape. And thus the search began!

Fabric can work... I’ve used felt before... but the issue is that the item becomes sort of bulky, and thinner materials such as cottons fray. So what to use that has strength, flexibility, thinness, and will adhere to tape? The answer came to us (I say us because we were all sitting around brainstorming about this... and I believe it was Simone who threw out the final answer) in a flash of brilliance when we were considering some of the reusable bags piling up in the corner of Simone’s office... PAINTER’S TARPS!

DT materials

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