FasterCraft

For Earth Day: Dyeing with natural dyes from the kitchen

Shannon — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 15:07:47 +0000

It’s Earth Day! Which is odd only because normally Easter happens much earlier in the season, so it’s rare for the two to overlap. I’d love to talk more about Earth Day, but I’ve got to start on my own Easter dinner plans and decorations, so today I’m going to sit at the junction of both holidays and talk about natural dyeing.

There are a lot of advantages to using kitchen and garden-based dyes. They are generally easy to find and inexpensive. They are safe, meaning you can have them around kids and pets with little concern. You can use them in your regular cookware. When you are done you can compost the leftovers, and you have the assurance that anything that ends up in the water supply is safe. The colors may not be as bright as the artificial dyes, but they generally lovely and closer to actual spring colors.

One of the interesting things about dyeing with natural ingredients is that it can be done on a lot of materials. Yarn, roving, some fabrics, possibly hair, and definitely eggs. If you try eggs, please remember that most methods have you boil the eggs for 15 minutes in the dye, so if you want hard-boiled eggs you can kill two birds with one stone.

There are many different options, but for almost all of them you’ll want to have some vinegar handy. Below there are a few lists of suggested materials for dyes, but play around as well. You may find that the thing you were sure would be red ends up green, and the surprises are (pretty much) always fun.

About.com has a great list of materials by dye color.
What’s Cooking America has another list with more options.

Many thanks to our sponsor this month, SimpleScrapper.com

Easter egg dyeing

Shannon — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 15:07:34 +0000

Easter eggs! Egg salad! Deviled eggs! I’m getting ahead of myself! Before we talk about the wonderful things you can do with Easter eggs you have to… well, Easter-ize them. Here are a few of my favorite methods for getting pretty eggs:

Photo courtesy of Marielle Jordan

Dyeing using silk – In the above photo my friend Marielle used silk ties for the bottom three eggs and silk blouses for the top three.

Image courtesy of MarthaStewart.com

Napkin decoupage on eggs

Washi paper covered eggs – See a beautiful example at http://www.flickr.com/photos/12163087@N04/2692105345/

Many thanks to our sponsor this month, SimpleScrapper.com

Quick and easy Easter decor

Shannon — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 15:07:29 +0000

Easter is coming! It fell so late in the season this year that for weeks and weeks I’ve been thinking that it was too soon to worry about it, and now suddenly it’s 5 days away.

photo courtesy of Make and Takes

Make and Takes has a cute and easy bunting made from plastic Easter eggs. The eggs she used already had holes in them, which would make stringing them much, much easier.

photo courtesy of MarthaStewart.com

MarthaStewart.com has these fun surprise carrots. (The surprise is what’s in them, not that they are carrots.) They can be filled with all sorts of little trinkets and baubles. Maybe some plastic army men for the boys, or earrings for the girls? Lots of options. I’m failry confident that you could make these with regular old glue, and don’t really have to have a hot glue gun.

Many thanks to our sponsor this month, SimpleScrapper.com

Weekend reads… for January 30, 2011

Shannon — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 16:07:53 +0000

Here are my favorite links on creativity, crafting, charity, etc. this week.

MSNBC story on the importance of creativity in healthy ageing
Afghans for Afghans – This charity takes hand-made blanket, sweaters, vests, hats, and socks to the Afghan people. I don’t know much about politics, but it strikes me that building good will towards America in that part of the world can only help us all.
Simple Scrapper article with some ideas for organizing paper crafting supplies
Project Linus – This charity collects blankets for ill and traumatized children.
Fiskars CHA preview

Many thanks to our sponsor this month, SimpleScrapper.com

National craft store ads, November 15-21

Shannon — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 04:07:37 +0000

Here are the weekly ads from the national craft stores chains I could think of:

Hobby Lobby
Michael’s
Jo-Ann Fabrics
AC Moore

Many thanks to our sponsor this month, SimpleScrapper.com

Paper Frames

Shannon — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 16:07:14 +0000

I saw these paper frames on Design Sponge and had to share. If you look at the post you’ll see that some are used over chalkboard paint and some are used to frame photos. I could see this as a fun project for the holidays, done in holiday colors and used to showcase photos of previous holidays, or to hang up pretty holiday cards. They also, for some reason, remind me of The Royal Tenenbaums. I love that show.

Photo courtesy of Design Sponge

Many thanks to our sponsor this month, SimpleScrapper.com

Holiday baubles

Shannon — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 16:07:34 +0000

I have often seen what I refer to as “christmas balls” covered in crochet, and while I figured I could suss it out, I’ve never known exactly how it was done. Until today. Pip at Meet Me at Mike’s has a tutorial for creating these baubles and it couldn’t be easier. Click on the image below (hers) to go to her tutorial, and if you need crochet help, scroll even further down for some help.

Don’t know how to crochet? Forgot how since grandma taught you? Get it confused with knitting? Here is a series of videos from Lion Brand that explain the fundamentals.

Many thanks to our sponsor this month, SimpleScrapper.com

Impending holidays

Shannon — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 16:07:30 +0000

It’s a fact of crafting. While other people around you are complaining about the early season you just can’t relate. Yes, Home Depot has been selling Christmas decorations since mid-October, Hobby Lobby since the beginning of October, and a local radio station started playing only Christmas music on November 1st. Those may seem early, but I think many of us start thinking about Christmas gifts in September.

Someone on Twitter today pointed out this online ‘zine full of Christmas crafting ideas. Check it out at http://inspireco.blogspot.com/2010/11/inspired-ideas-christmas-issue.html. I’m particularly smitten with the felt leaf garlands.

Many thanks to our sponsor this month, SimpleScrapper.com

Caps for Good – Save babies all over the world

Shannon — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 15:07:51 +0000

Nearly 4 million babies die each year in their first month — half within their first 24 hours — mostly from preventable or treatable causes.

This weekend is a big one at my church, and as we have 4 meetings (viewable at home) it’s a great time to get some knitting and crochet done. Since keeping your hands busy can help you better retain things you’re learned (see this interesting study, for example) and also can help you stay awake when it’s 90 degrees and the room is dusky, I always keep a few projects on hand. I can’t speak for everyone, but for me one of the better accompaniments for spiritual instruction is doing some good in the world.

There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of charities that need knit and crocheted (and sewed) goods. One that I’m particularly fond of is Caps for Good. It’s a project of Save the Children, and along with their many other projects to improve healthcare and survival for babies and children all over the world, they have a specific project to help underweight babies. If you can knit in the round or do some basic crochet you can help.

If you’d like to find out more about the project please see the Action Kit which contains information and some basic patterns to get you started. You can also use any other baby hat pattern that has a 12″ circumference at the crown.

Many thanks to our sponsor this month, SimpleScrapper.com

Freezer paper stenciling

Shannon — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:07:13 +0000

My inspiration for this post comes from How About Orange’s post on freezer paper stenciling. I think I was too intimidated by the very fancy (to my eye) design featured there and so I didn’t dare try it for a while. But finally I found myself with some freezer paper, a little time, and a desire for some fancy-type linens.

My materials:
Freezer paper (purchased at the grocery store)
An X-acto style cutting implement (as with everything else on the list, purchased at Hobby Lobby)
What Hobby Lobby called a “kerchief” and I’m calling a “napkin”

This was a big project for me for one simple reason. I’m terrified of X-acto knives and their whole family. This is a perfectly practical phobia. For the projects I enjoy I can almost always get around knife use by using a really sharp tipped pair of scissors, but sometimes you just have to face that fear, you know?

I washed the napkin before I started, just to make sure that any shrinking that would be done would… be done. I also ironed the cloth before I tried to work with it. I looked up teacup in the Google Image search and found one I liked. I was going to print it out, then trace it, but after a second I realized that I could save a fair amount of time and trouble by just putting the freezer paper on the computer screen and lightly tracing with a pencil. I cut the tea cup with the knife (I did it!) and made sure to save all the parts, both the cut out image, the outline, and the little bit that I cut out that forms the handle.

I ironed the cup in one corner and ironed the outline on the opposite corner. I had overestimated how hard it would be to get the little piece inside the handle in place. I played with it for a second until it looked right and then touched down the tip of the iron to give it an initial sticking place, then ironed the whole thing. I put my iron on the cotton setting, and went over the design a few times. The key is especially to make sure that all of the edges have been secured so that paint doesn’t seep under them.

I put a ribbon of paint around the tea cup and at the top of the outline.

While there are fancy paint spreading squeegees you can get for this kind of thing, but I used regular old sponge brushes to do it and they worked just fine. I made sure that I had good coverage where I wanted it and used the brush to sop up a little extra paint. I then left the whole thing to dry for a few hours.

I was worried that it would be difficult to peel the freezer paper off, but once the paint was dry I just had to get a finger nail under the edge and it peeled off quite easily.

Not bad, huh? I’m dying to try it on a t-shirt.

Many thanks to our sponsor this month, SimpleScrapper.com