Bright 'n' Cheery

A few more things have gone into the shop, so it's time to share.

I found this cute star mold and made several sets of Mini Star Crayons.  They're small, cute, bright & cheery, and they'd make great stocking stuffers when that time rolls 'round, but right now they're great as party favors, "just because" gifts, or a gift for that creative type who's already got everything else.

Each set of 10 crayons, made from only the top brand, is similar to the one in the photo, with crayons in reds/pinks, oranges, yellows/light greens, dark greens, light blues, dark blues/purples, fuscias, light browns/white, dark browns, and black/greys/silver.

These are a lot smaller than the Jumbo Dolphin Crayons, so they're not for the kiddies under 3.

Also new in the shop are two photos.  One is of Blarney Castle in County Cork, Ireland, taken in April of 2009.

The other was taken in my yard in June of 2010, and is of orange daylilies.

Be sure to poke around the shop when you've got a chance.

So there's this chick...

Andrea, from northeastern Ohio.  I met her at the Handmade Artists Forum, which I've written about here several times.  Andrea herself is an amazingly talented bookbinder who has a shop, Blue Highways.

I've been coveting her hand bound books for quite a while now, and I finally own one!  She was creative and generous enough to start a contest at HAF, involving the Handmade Highlights, with one of her own books as the prize!  I created a Highlight based on my favorite song, Castle Walls by Styx, and had the most commenters, so I won my choice of one of her gorgeous mini journals.

I got it on Saturday and was so enamoured with it that I had to share.  First, her packaging is terrific; each book is wrapped in vintage newspaper with twine.  The newspaper around my book was from 1963 and very interesting to read.

Also included with the book was a pretty notecard with a message to me and a book thong, also made by Andrea.  It was blue cord with blue glass beads, my favorite color!  I knew that Andrea included a complimentary book thong with every book she sold, but had no idea I'd be getting one with a book I'd won.  I thought that was just really sweet.

Once I unwrapped the book, I got to see the fabric I'd chosen in person, these awesome batik sea turtles, of course in blue.

The book's closure is a blue ribbon with dark blue beads on the ends.  The flyleaf is fun and also sea-themed, with pictures of urchins and shells.

The binding, though, is what boggles my mind the most.  The book is hand-threaded in this lovely pattern of thread, that I think is the most beautiful thing.

The care and expertise she puts into these books is evident from front to back.  I'm so glad I got it, and know I'll be buying more in the future.

Handmade Holidays, Part 2

Another gift for the nephews, a blast from my own past... chunky crayons.  People have all different ways of doing these, and all different styles.  Some use regular muffin tins and make crayon discs.  Some use shaped molds.  Some melt the crayons in advance and pour the molten wax into the molds so each crayon is one solid color.  Some choose to mix colors all willy nilly.

As for me, I'm a fan of the monochromatic but mottled look.  Hence, these.

So much fun!  I got a silicone dolphin muffin "tin" (Is it still a tin if it's silicone?  I think not.) specifically for this purpose.  I wanted a fun shape that was chunky and easy to hold.  Dolphins are perfect!

And then, two 64-color boxes of Crayola crayons (Only the best!), one for each of two sets.  What I made aren't mini crayons, mind you, these are jumbo crayons.  Each 7-dolphin set took all 64 crayons in the box.

Eric helped me peel and break the crayons.  Speaking of which, what's with Crayola crayons?  Aside from the fact that they "retired" some of the colors I know and love, which I already knew, they have some crazy color names.  Best Friend?  Courage?  Giving Tree?

Really?  What the heck kind of color is "Best Friend"?  (FYI, it was a light shade in the purple family.)

Also, the paper used to be much easier to peel off when I was a kid.  Some of the crayons, the old colors, still are easy.  But there are a whole different group that are somehow stickier.  Or maybe the glue holding the paper to the crayon is stickier.  Or the paper for those is of a different composition.  Not sure, but peeling those was tough.

Once I got 'em peeled, I separated and then broke them.  Reds & pinks in one crayon, oranges and yellows in the next, then greens, blues, purples, browns, and the last was black, white, silver, various shades of grey, gold, and tumbleweed (another new one).

We broke them pretty small, generally each crayon ended up in five pieces.  Then we mixed them up well so the colors would be well distributed.

Since I hadn't made these since I was a kid and Eric had never made them, I looked online for oven temperatures and length of baking.  The blog post I followed said to preheat the oven to 275 and bake for 7-8 minutes.  We did go with the 275, but I think 7-8 minutes was for the mini crayons people seem to be making.  With the size of these, they needed a lot longer to properly melt.  At 8 minutes, they looked like this.

Pretty cool, but definitely not done.  This is what done looks like.

So I just kept an eye on it until they looked like this.  At this point, when the molten crayons come out of the oven, some people choose to swirl the wax further with a toothpick.  I was going for more of a mottled than swirled look, though, so I didn't bother.  Just tapped out the bubbles as if they were melted chocolate, and then let them cool.

And then?  Chunky crayons!

The mold only had six dolphins, so we did these six first, then another set of these same colors, then the two brown ones for two sets of seven, one to each nephew.  Another Chanukah and Christmas gift done!

And these are now also available for sale in the Reef Botanicals Handmade Artists Shop!

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In Honor of the Oscars: A Creative Friend

I have this friend, Paul.  He lives in MA and apparently hosts an amazing Oscar party every year; Eric and I have never been to it.  He's brilliant, though, and based on the "virtual invitation" we received this year, I can only imagine what the real party's like.  With what he sent, though, we're having our own version here in NJ!

Catimus is wearing Eric's glasses, but she's more stylin' than he is anyway.  The fun part is that they flash lights in various patterns.  So fashion-forward!

The glasses were sent by Paul in a whole virtual Oscars party pack that was in this cool bag, which is currently sitting between us on the couch.

In that bag, was also a personalized movie reel tin holding the invitation, explanation, ballot, and our VIP party passes, together with Oscar mints.

And how cute are these awards he sent us?!

And when the Oscars start, he'll be asking trivia questions on Facebook, for prizes.  Awesome!