Plastic Wrap Alternative - DIY Cotton Beesewax Wraps

Plastic is everywhere and it's so daunting that most people seem to decide, "What's the use?" and not bother trying. For a lot of people plastic wrap is an item receiving every day use in their household. How can you kick the habit of using something that has become so integral? By using beesewax cotton wraps.

I learned about this source post from My Healthy Green Family for todays craft while I was perusing the My Plastic Free Life Facebook fan page.

Although I can happily say that we do not use much plastic wrap in our house I can't say that we don't have a regular use for it. How can that be? I've never really bought it so there's never any in the house, but my husband tends to be a lot of leftovers in the fridge completely uncovered. By creating a plastic wrap alternative to provide a man that I sometimes have a hard time getting to put things in our recycled plastic containers I stand a better chance of not finding a bowl of baby cereal/food all dried out on the top shelf of our refrigerator.

I started off with some fabrics that this seemed like a good job for.

The directions say to pre-heat your oven to 185F, but I had to cope with 200F.

Place pre cut fabric on cookie sheet.

Sprinkle evenly and lightly with grated beeswax.  You don’t need a lot!

Place in preheated oven.  Watch carefully!  This should take 5 minutes or less.

As soon as the beeswax is just melted, remove from oven.

Spread wax evenly with paintbrush to cover over any spots that are not yet coated.

The directions say to hang on makeshift clothes line with clothes pegs, to dry. That wasn't really much of an option for me so I laid them out dry on some foil.

They ended up pretty stiff. The author says that once cooled, you can use these wraps. I felt a bit compelled to wash mine before use to see if that loosened them up a bit.

The results after washing were not positive. The wax was piecy, uneven, and cracked. I actually considered throwing what I had left away! But that would go against my feelings about needless waste. I'll have to find another use for this fail.

Pintesting - Heart Hot Pads

One of my oven mitts has a really nasty hole in a terribly inconvenient place for anyone who has no desire to get burned. I plan to fix it - but haven't decided what method I want to use to do so. Meanwhile .....

Today's pintest comes via this pin and the info found here.

The directions say you will need to make your own template or that you can print out the one provided. I'd printed it out but then lost it so I made my own.

I started by taking a manilla folder that wasn't being used and traced the outline of my hand. Try to center your hand over the fold.

Once you outline your hand fold the folder in half

and free hand a heart design that you find pleasing and that should encompass your hand.

 Following your own guideline, cut out the heart.

Et viola - you have your template.

Place your template on the fabric you intend to use to make your hot pads and pin it in place. I layed my fabric in a way that would leave me cutting 4 pieces out at once - you can do one at a time or fold like I did.

Cut around your template.

 You should now (or very soon depending on if you're cutting one at a time) have four hearts.

Get out your insul-bright.

Lay it out so that you are either cutting one or two pieces at a time. Pin your heart template to the insul-bright.

Carefully, once again cut around your heart template. You should now have two pieces of insulated fabric.

Cut one of your two pieces of insulbrite in half. Take one of your pieces of heart fabric. Place the insul-bright inside, fold your heart over and pin in place. Do this to one more of your cut pieces of heart fabric.

Take one of your pieces of heart fabric and set it with the right side facing down. Place a piece of insul-bright in the center. Place your remaining piece of heart shaped fabric on top and pin all three pieces together.

You should now have three pieces pinned together and nearly ready to sew. This was the point where I decided to trim all of my edges. Then remove your pins and get out whatever you choose to use to get that Valentine's day feel. The original pin says ricrac but I used some lace.

Lay it out on your heart shape and pin it in place. You're going to want all the lacy bits that you want to poke out around the edges to be facing inward.

Then pin the other two pieces in place. Make sure that all pins you are using can either be sewn over or are far enough in to hold things in place and not interfer with your sewing.

Sew all around the edges.

Flip the heart so that it is now right side out.

Then top-stitch all around the edges.

DONE! A pin well worth trying!

Etsy Trade Tuesday - Janine Basil

If you haven't heard of Janine Basil, frankly, I won't be surprised, frequently people don't know the name behind something they may very well have seen out there in cyberspace.

Janine Basil makes "retro and geek style hats, fascinators, headpieces, headbands and hair accessories for women with a twist of glamour and glitz! They are all handmade, by me, in my flat in London, UK."

She was one of those people who had so many goodies in her shop that I could never make up my mind what to buy.

At the beginning of this year I launched, The Dalek Project, which failed miserably. I tried my hardest to round up Etsyians to participate so that I could help not only further the name of Etsy but help out handmade.

Honestly, when you mail people for freebies or trades on Etsy, you can pretty much *expect to be totally ignored and never hear back from the seller. Janine Basil is NOT one of these people. I spoke to her about the specifics of the project and was lucky enough to have her on board.

She made these three "Exterminate" headbands for the project, which I tried to remember often to work into shots of my Dalek of the day.

It's easy to jump on board to something that is a success but it takes a special kind of person to lend a crafty hand when you're trying to build something.

*There are TONS of people just out there to get something for free, or people who genuinely WILL review a product but don't have an audience the size a seller prefers to feel it's a worthwhile trade.

Wordless Wednesday - Wonder Dress

I've Been Up To Things Again

How To Use Up The Yarn You Don't Want Or Use

Recently we got new neighbors, a family of five with one teenage girl, one teenage boy, and one little boy. The father is former military and the mother is a stay-at-home, self-proclaimed, redneck-tomboy. These are not DIY parents.

So when the family saw my house full of crafts it lit a spark in them, each in a different way. The spark was most noticeable in their teenage daughter. A lot of people ask me if I would be willing to teach them to knit, but to date, no one has ever followed up on their request.

A few days later she came to the door, late in the evening; my husband answered the door. She wanted to know if I would teach her to knit. I was busy with laundry at the moment but of course my response was yes. She came back one or two more times while she waited for me to finish putting away clothes. Finally I was finished. I pulled out some pink Red Hart I was letting my daughter play with for a while but that she had lost all interest in and a pair of size 10 straight knitting needles.

She caught on quickly as I suspected she would and I sent her home that evening garter stitching herself her very first hand-knit by herself, for herself scarf. Towards the end of the lesson her mother came over and she excitedly and repeatedly showed her mother her progress.

Before evenings end I had the whole family in my living room. While the adults talked my little student happily clicked away, marveling at her progress and reveling in how relaxing the practice was. Eventually it was time for the family to walk the few feet to their half of the town home, but before leaving I was met with another request. The teenage son asked that I teach him to knit as well. His sister offered to show him what she'd learned that evening. His parents, anxious to get their brood tucked away in bed suggested he come back for yarn and needles rather than send me off into the bowels of my makeshift basement which is actually just our spare room for yarn for him. After they left I did a quick scan on the extra bedroom that I am properly full of southern shame about and found the skein of tan, Red Heart yarn I felt would be best for him. I took the yarn over with the size 10 1/2 straight needles he'd clutched only a short time earlier when he asked for some yarn.

I couldn't think of a better use for a yarn that I'm nearly as ashamed to own as I am of my makeshift basement.

However, the next afternoon my doorbell rang, it was the boy. He handed me the yarn with the needles still poking out as I had them the night before and said, "I'm not allowed." I asked if this was, "Because it's too girly?". Instead of a verbal, "yes", I was met with a forlorn, red-faced, nod of the head and he walked slump-shouldered away.

Refashioned Friday

Recently I mentioned I was obsessively ripping, cutting, and preparing to sew. Here are the results of my refashioning a too large shirt I won years ago. After I had already cut the shirt and sewn the top I started to worry that the shirt was too wide and not long enough to have this work out correctly. My worries turned out to be unfounded because the results were satisfactory. My too large shirt went from this

To this.

This free crafterhours tutorial is one I intend to use again and again.

Play Mat Purse Versions Two & Three

I hit the sewing machine hard again and worked on fixing my design flaws from the previous portable play mat purse. Here's what I ended up with. €

I've Got The Sewing Bug!

My mother-in-law has the kind of house that children run away to, literally, local kids have told their parents that they were running away to her house. Why? Because there are tons of animals and things for kids of most ages to play with. Sadly the majority of these toys are not age appropriate or even safe for my little girl. Tired of always having to specially load the car for trips to her house, my husbands grandmothers house, or the sudden need for a trip to the emergency room I looked for something to make life easier. Enter, the portable play mat. It's both a play mat and a purse. Throw it over your shoulder throw some toys in and you're ready to go. At your destination? Set your bag on the floor and unfurl it - BAM! clean area for your little one to play.

The other day I made a test version of the idea/design and this is the result.

A playful, somewhat gender neutral pirate fabric that I thought her uncles may get a particular kick out of on the bottom/outside of the purse.

Inside is a fabric I found that I thought could give the impression of water.

The bag is lightly quilted so that there is a nice squishy place for my little ones adorable squishy booty to sit.

My little Lamb decided that she also really liked having it wrapped around her. I guess a cape is now on my list of thing to make in the near future. Now that I know the flaws in my design I plan to fix and refine it.