Artist’s charcoal

On July 11, 2020 By CarynIn art, Craft

I have found a wonderful book: The Organic Artist: Make Your Own Paint, Paper, Pigments, Prints, and More from Nature by Nick Neddo. This is right up my alley! I haven’t read it all yet, but we had the opportunity to try making our own charcoal for drawing when I needed to make some wood ash for the dust bath for the chickens.

Grapevine, metal container, and steel wire

I had a grape vine wreath that I made over a year ago. It has been aging in the woods for awhile but was readily available for a new purpose. I also had a steel container that I used with my kiln that was a great shape for making charcoal (and it was already seasoned!) My eldest and I used pocket knifes to scrape the bark off sections of grapevine, and then we packed the container with the sticks and closed it securely with twists of wire.

We used the bark shavings as tinder, and built the fire around the steel box. I love it when I can light a fire with one match (it helped that I also used a bacon grease soaked paper towel with the bark shavings). We let the fire burn down, then cool before we checked the box. The charcoal sticks were perfect! Solid black all the way through and a nice texture for drawing.

Grape vine charcoal (unprocessed sticks shown below)

I just had to try drawing with it, so I did a quick sketch of some grapes on the concrete (Nick Neddo makes drawings of the source of his art materials, so it seemed appropriate).

Doll House bed

On July 5, 2020June 29, 2020 By CarynIn Craft

So I saw something on Pinterest (I think this phrase is to crafters what “Once upon a time” is for fairy tales), and my youngest asked for a bed for her doll house, and have been wanting to try weaving a cot. (Pinterest is both the boon and bane of my existence.)

I had extra wood from the doll house construction, so made a frame. I found some bamboo and cotton fingering weight yarn in my stash and wrapped the warp with two lashes between each warp thread, and repeated for the weft. This was much more straight forward than I feared! The wraps kept the sides straight, and I could easily hide the ends by running them through the wraps on the back side. I used more scrap to make a base for the cot, which I glued on after the weaving was done.

I knit a small blanket for the cot too, out of the same yarn, but my youngest said it was too big and she didn’t want it to match, so now it is a rug. I used scraps to make a kind of table too, but it also is even smaller and more fiddly than making the doll house. No thank you, especially when Melissa and Doug makes such pretty doll furniture.

Dura-craft Ashley doll house

On July 3, 2020June 29, 2020 By CarynIn Craft

Done! It took me a week gluing and waiting, gluing and waiting, but the doll house is complete and my youngest is happy that she can play in it now without worrying about wet glue or paint.

By the way, artist’s acrylics do a pretty good job as caulk for doll houses, since the consistency is nice and thick. It is very difficult to get a crisp joint on that tiny trim. Touch up paint was definitely my friend.

Most of the house is painted with acrylics. The roof and stairs were spray painted metallic silver. The pink was mixed by hand, and I tried for a lighter shade inside than outside (note, a little red goes a LONG way). The wall paper on the ground floor room was designed in Photoshop, printed on office paper, and decoupaged to the walls. The whole thing looks much better in photographs. I’m not a huge fan of the press board construction. Time will tell for the durability.

Mask variations

On June 30, 2020June 27, 2020 By CarynIn Craft

My cotton fabric stash is gone, transformed into masks and donated to a local children’s hospital and given to friends. I had to break down and buy fabric (gasp!). Good quilting fabric is expensive, by the way. Although I liked the pattern I used for the donated masks (they were relatively easy to make, stored nicely, and had filter pockets), they were bulky with the pleats and after washing were a bunched up mess because the wire was sewn in. So I started mixing and matching patterns to see if I can come up with something better. Looming on the horizon is the potential for my kids to go back to school with masks. I need something easy to wear and wash.

One of the top features I like in a mask is tie sleeves, so that it is easy to trade out kinds of ties. This is important for us as we move forward because ear loops work for one kid, but not the other. And if the ear loops start to irritate, we can switch to a different strap method. Here is a quick video on using a U shaped wire to thread the ties. In the mask above, I used this basic pattern, but extended the sides to give room to make the sleeves (thanks Mom for that idea!). I also printed two more copies of the pattern and made overlapping mouth and cheek sections to allow a filter to be slipped into the mask. I like this filter pocket better because the cotton is between the filter material and the mouth of the wearer. The idea for this came from this pattern.

The other thing my masks need is a removable wire, so I can take the wire out before I wash the mask. As it turns out, by making the inner layer with three pieces, then sewing along the edge (wider at the top to accommodate the wire), it forms a pocket with two access slits. It takes a little wiggling to get the wire in and under the cheek sections, but once in it stays put. Getting the wire out isn’t terribly hard either, just fiddly. A wire slightly longer than the mouth section with the ends curled works well.

3/8” elastic with buckle and figure 8 slide

The final thing we are testing is an alternate strap method to ties or ear loops. My youngest wears glasses and hearing aids, so ear loops are out. Tying straps behind the head is also fiddly. So we are trying 3/8” elastic in a loop. The loop is adjustable with the use of a figure 8 slide, and clips together with a buckle (although once at the right size, the elastic has enough stretch to just pull it into place).

No, I don’t think masks can guarantee not catching a virus, but they do a great job reminding me not to touch my face!

Oh, what did I get into?

On June 28, 2020June 27, 2020 By CarynIn Craft

Box cover for Dura-Craft Ashley doll house

It seemed a good rainy day project, maybe stretching to a few days. The instructions said easy assembly. My youngest was enthused and helped me paint it her favorite color: pink. I convinced her not to have the entire thing a solid pink, mainly by promising to paint all the trim white myself. Oh so much tiny trim.

My grandmother gave me this dollhouse after I was married. My husband found the kit recently when he was cleaning out the garage. I’ve had it for probably 24 years. The Dura-craft dollhouse company went out of business in 2005. The copyright date on the instructions is 1992. I discovered these last two facts after the project was spread over two tables and a bench in the middle of the house.

Cutting the oh so tiny trim around oh so tiny windows

I discovered on day two, after the painted parts were dry, that the company and I have different definitions of “easy assembly”. Each piece of tiny trim needs to be cut to size. I have some good wood glue, but even that needs some time to set before going on to the next step. So it will take awhile to get everything assembled using a stop and go method. My youngest does come by and show interest and helps, which keeps me going. I may also be getting a wee bit obsessed. My youngest wanted wall paper inside, “Pink flowers” wall paper. I designed a repeating pattern in Photoshop and then shrunk it down to doll house size and printed it. I then used Modge podge glue to attach the paper to the wall, and other coat of glue on top to protect the paper. Maybe a little obsessed…

Critters and Craft

Category: Craft