Homemade Popcorn and Handmade Garlands

I love decorating my living room with food things during the Christmas season:  Popcorn garlands, painted gingerbread cookies, strings of colorful Cherios, and candies candies candies!

So the week after Thanksgiving, this is probably what I will be doing on my free time at home:  Making a giant batch of popcorn, and stringing and eating this giant bowl of popcorn while watching Christmasy movies.  This year, my boyfriend and I just started a low-carb diet 2 weeks before Thanksgiving (and then we cheated hugely on it for a week surrounding Thanksgiving), so I limited myself as to how much I ate out of my popcorn bowl!  So far we have watched the first and second Die Hard, Jim Carrey's Christmas Carol, Home Alone 1, and Miracle on 34th Street while putting up and preparing Christmas decorations.

The popcorn garland is super fun to do and it looks so adorable especially if you hang it on your tree along with some Gingerbread cookie ornaments.  I am still working on my ornaments, but those pictures will come later in the season.  But here is how to make homemade popcorn whether you want to eat them or string them!  Its much better than the stuff you get from the microwave bag!  Not as good as movie-theater popcorn though...

Things you need:
- Deep pot with a lid (Heavy pots work better than light pots.  The best tasting popcorn will come out of a well-seasoned cast iron pot; However a heavy cast iron pot will require stronger arms because you have to pick up the pot and shake the popcorn during one of the steps.)
- Canola oil
- Unpopped popcorn kernels
- Butter
- Salt

Directions:


1.  First you pour canola oil to the bottom of your pot - just enough to have a thin layer throughout the entire pot bottom.

2.  Put the stove on medium high setting while you throw in some kernels.  How much kernels?  Just enough to cover the bottom of your pot with a  single layer of kernels.  Now give it a good quick stir with a wooden spoon so that all the kernels are evenly coated with the oil.








3.  Put the lid on!  You should start hearing popping sounds start within a minute.  It will first be slow, then it will go crazy in the pot!

4.  Once you have heard popping sounds for around 20 seconds, LEAVE THE LID ON, put on some oven hits, pick up the pot and shake it up a little.  Repeat the shaking ever 15 seconds or so so that popcorn doesn't stay at the bottom of the pot and get burnt.

5.  Turn off the fire and remove pot from heat once you hear the popping slow down.  Cast iron pots hold their heat better than lighter pots so if you have a cast iron pot you might want to turn off the heat once it gets to 1 pop every 1 second.  For a regular pot you can turn off the heat once you get to 1 pop every 2-3 seconds.  (Its hard for me to say exactly when you need to turn off the heat because it really varies depending on the heaviness and type of pot you are using and how hot your stove is, but experiment with it and you will find that perfect timing for your perfect batch of popcorn).  But once you turn the heat off, don't open the lid yet!  Keep shaking the pot with the lid on until you hear one pop every 5-6 seconds then you open the lid and pour the popcorn out into a bowl.

It is shockingly easy to burn popcorn.  At first you might be leaving it on the heat for too long resulting in burnt popcorn or taking it off too soon resulting in lots of unpoped kernels; but keep playing with it because its worth it!

6.  Melt some butter on the stove or in the microwave (how much?  How buttery do you want your popcorn?!  Generally I use about 3 tablespoons of butter).  Pour the melted butter over your popcorn while gently tossing the popcorn so that the butter is evenly distributed.

7.  Toss some salt in there!  Toss the popcorn to mix.  There are also a bunch of different popcorn flavorings you can pick up from the store (we got a bunch from William Sonoma for Christmas last year from a friend), but just butter and salt is delis!!!

8.  Want to make a garland?  Needle and thread and just string it up!

Playing with Wires

So I just spent several days compiling a big shopping list, loading my virtual shopping cart and finally checked it all out yesterday.  Now all I have to do is wait for my big box to arrive before having more things to experiment with.  Meanwhile, I still have that little box of limited start-up jeweling supplies that I bought a couple weeks ago.  Thus, the topic of today will be wires!

I am really liking wires.  They are colorful, doesn't fray, shiny and makes the jewelry pop!  And I imagine it takes a lot for the wire to fade so your jewelry will keep its color and luster.  I lucked out when I chose this one-tool-does-all thing when I bought this pliers/round-nose/wire-cutter/loop-closer tool when I haphazardly selected what I should include in my start-up stuff.

This is my first wire bracelet:  I think it looks pretty cool even though the lack of views on my Etsy account fails to support my opinion!  And its neat because the wire will let you bend and readjust the bracelet size with a 2cm leeway yet the pattern and overall shape of the bracelet will stay intact.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/85810444/wirey-friendship-bracelet

Perhaps there are other tools out there that I still need, or maybe some metal gloves because as awesome as that tool works, my finger tips are still a little bit sore after making several bracelets

So now I am just waiting for my half-hard wire to arrive so that I can start making shapes, letters, and names with wire!  Keep checking back because things will get more exciting when my big box arrives!

Trials, Errors, and Creativity

Since I am only weeks into jewelry making, I am doing a lot of experimentations with different textures and products to find what would allow me to produce jewelry I could try to attempt to sell on my newly opened Etsy.com account.  I have only put on 5 of the 50 things I have made because .... *sigh*.... not everything is a winner!  My account is HandMadeByEle (are you shocked) if you are interested in taking a peek.

So today, I began to play with stainless steel wires.  The picture on the left looks blurry right?  Well, its not blurred: the wire comes wrapped up in plastic such that I had to carefully glide a pair of scissors through its entire length of 5 feet of wire to get to the stainless steel.  I don't understand the purpose of the packaging... if someone knows, please indulge me, thanks.

I had chosen these tiny little clasps to go on the ends of my wire for the bracelet I was making.  That is my 5 pound kitty's paw beside the clasp, and below is a picture of the clasp.  You see that little circle in the right num-chuck (not sure that is the correct terminology)?  Well, thats the tiny little screw that you have to screw and unscrew in order to tighten your wire to the clasp!
Crazy small screws! I got out the screw driver kit my dad gave me when I moved out, and they had some pretty small screw drivers in there that are less than 1mm wide, but thats way too big still.  I was not intending to go to the craft store and pick up another screw driver before starting my project so I searched the house, and luckily found scalpels!  So I used the thin end of the scalpel to unscrew the screw!  SUCCESS!  Right?

I quickly put in the wire and now its time to rescrew the miniature screw.  So I grab the miniature screw and it took 10 suspenseful seconds to place the screw in its hole.  I reach for the scalpel and gently jab the screw with the scalpel, and OH MY GOODNESS I GUESS I JABBED TOO HARD because the tiny screw rolled off the table and being smaller than a grain of dandruff that thing is gone into the abyss.  There goes a 2 dollar clasp!  Thank goodness the package was 4 dollars for two because I am really not heading back to the store on a note of defeat.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/85740864/glistening-compass-bracelet?ref=v1_other_2

So I completed my bracelet with the second clasp in the package.  Then I went to shop and found that the company that makes these clasps has also manufactured little tiny screw drivers to prevent the beading world from haphazardly playing with scalpels.  And guess what?  The screw driver comes in a package with 6 spare miniature screws!  What a day!

Playing with Hemp

I love colors.  So I decided to buy a bunch of colored mother-of-pearl beads to make bracelets or something fun.  Because I prefer more natural materials I decided to buy a bunch of different colored hemp to experiment with.

Stringing beads to make it a bracelet seems so much easier than it actually is and I am just finding that out after having spent way too much money on beads thinking it would be easier!  I always thought, "Okay, just get some beads, get a string, string them and then put a clasp on the end.  Easy peasy." ... I guess in reality that really is just that but it really TRULY is a lot more difficult that it seems.

Perhaps my decision to string with hemp is what made the stringing process so difficult because of how much it frays!  Turns out there are some things to consider about hemp, and that there is more to consider when choosing a stringing material than just what seems pretty. So here are some thoughts and tips I have for those considering hemp:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/85566559/colors-galore?ref=v1_other_1

There is colored hemp and uncolored hemp; guess which one looks funner?  The thing with colored hemp is that the coloring process actually weakens the hemp and so it is recommend to use uncolored hemp along with colored hemp to strengthen your jewelry.  As for the bracelet above, I used uncolored hemp to string it, but because I am clumsy and I wanted to make it extra durable I actually strung in an unnatural clear string along side the hemp!

Hemp makes stringing beads difficult because it frays pretty much on contact.  I tried licking the tips to make it come back together.  After my mouth got dry I tried dipping it in a glass of water.  Doesn't work.  And by the way, putting water on your hemp is not good for the hemp - makes it less pretty. I also kept cutting the string to create a neater unfrayed end only to find I would eventually end up with a tiny baby bracelet.  Maybe someone out there has better advice for working with hemp but speaking only from trial and overnight experience I have discovered that this is the only thing that worked for me:
1) Put a piece of clear tape at the end of the hemp.
2) Twist the hemp around inside the tape so that the curls become tighter.
3) Keep twisting and twist off the piece of tape.
4) Then use your finger tips to twist the hemp end into a  finer tighter tip at the end.
I found that the little bit of glue from the tape really helped hold the hemp tips together and kept it from fraying while trying to put the thread through the beads.

After discovering the little bit of glue helped, of course I went to experiment and tried using super glue (Why?  Because its the most gung-ho of all glues).  DO NOT DO THAT!  Not only does the super glue get all over your finger tips making them rough like a construction man's, it also gets all over your nails, and everything else if you are clumsy like myself.  If the super glue gets on your beads it makes your beads look less shiny - and gracious forbids that that happens!  And lastly, don't do it because it doesn't work.  It makes the end of your hemp really rough and hard and poofy - so its actually even more difficult to get it through the bead hole especially if you have natural beads that sometimes have corners inside that tiny bead channel.

Lastly, I read somewhere that you can use bees wax to decrease fraying and to keep your hemp looking pretty.  I personally will never tried that because I will break out in hives from bees wax but please leave comments on whether bees wax works for you, or what other methods you have to keep your hemp from fraying.

The Artsy Bone

I was not born with an artistic or creative bone, but over the past couple of years I have developed an itch to do artsy things because of unexpected run-ins while shopping.  I have somehow ended up where I am now: often having the inkling to bead or sew something.  And thus this blog is created because I now wish I get new ideas and share my ideas for projects.


I think this all started when I moved into my current duplex where I needed an extremely small curtain that I could not find but instead had to make on my own.  My aunt brought me to a fabric store where I found my love for looking and feeling the different patterns and textures of fabrics.  I needed up buying some cheap burlap and used a hot glue gun to put together my little curtain: no sewing needed!


But then my aunt built on my interest of fabrics by bringing me to more fabric shopping and lunch dates, and very soon I was hooked.  I started with making a simple pillow that required sewing one long straight line, flipping it over, and then just tying the ends off with ribbons.  Then I moved to sewing matching curtains which required sewing 4 long straight lines.  And then it got more complex as I experimented with ruffles, trimmings, and et cetera.  I still have long ways to go.


That started a year ago.  Beading only came to me two weeks ago.  I was at dinner with my friend's parents who came into town, and her mom had just gone to a jewelry show.  My friend's mom said a few things about the jewelry show at dinner so my friend and I decided to go the next day.  We went to the jewelry show expecting to come out with some necklaces and bracelets, but instead - maybe we started at the wrong end of the show room - we were not able to find any pre-made necklaces and bracelets, instead I found myself spending over 300 dollars on just beads.  Why?  Because I do love shopping and buying pretty things even if I would not know what to do with them.  So the 300 dollar worth of beads sat in my cupboard for a couple days until my guilt of spending money on irrelevant things got to me and I got up and bought more art supplies and started making necklaces and bracelets.  I was immediately hooked!  There are so many different clasps and threads and beads and colors and textures.   Extremely exciting stuff!


So here I am!  I'm ready for you beading world!  I will try to post what I have been doing and PLEASE if anyone is reading my blog, PLEASE SEND ME comments and ideas of where to explore in the beading and sewing world!  ARTSY PEOPLE OF THE WORLD PLEASE INVITE ME TO BE ARTSY TOO!