The Goal is No Girls Injured: Prepping To Lead the Girl Scout Retired Girl Scout Folk Arts IP

 

I DO know what I'm doing. I didn't volunteer willy-nilly to teach seven teenagers how to pour lye into distilled water and molten wax into teacups without a firm base of knowledge.

But dang, there's nothing to make you question your skill set when doing a risky project than volunteering to do that project with seven teenagers! 

There are a couple of reasons why I'm engaging in SO much prep work before I lead this Girl Scout retired Folk Arts IPP that my Girl Scout troop planned. 

1) Left to my own manic devices, I'm not as safe as I ought to be. I run Dremel cut-off wheels centimeters from my radial artery, remove the tips of fingers with craft knives, and I definitely pour both lye into distilled water and molten wax into teacups bare-armed, bare-legged, and barefoot. 

2) Left to my own manic devices, I also veer from the script more often than not and muscle through several iterations of a project to get the desired result. Candle that I poured tunneling? Eh, melt it down, pour it again, and try a different wick. Soap didn't cure properly? Shovel it all in the crockpot to hot-process. 

That's fine for me, because I've got nothing but time and an endless capacity for frustration. But I want these teenagers' projects to work, and work well. They are going to learn the GLORIES of soapmaking, by God, and the ECSTASY that is a properly-wicked, burning-just-to-the-edges-but-no-farther tea cup candle!

So that was my weekend project!

First up, I had Matt (who tested negative for COVID after six days in isolation, so I set him free, which I *think* is okay to do? I guess I'll know when I take my own COVID rapid test in a couple of days!) make his very first batch of cold-process soap, with no information at his disposal other than my verbal instruction. This was great, because I could make note of the tricky parts of the process and the places where I'll need to give specific warnings to the kids (for Pete's sake, don't stick your head OVER the solution of lye and water!!! Why would you even do that?!? It's literally steaming, and I just told you that it's giving off toxic fumes!!!), and I could time about how long the recipe takes to trace. Twenty-five minutes, which is a bit of a yikes, but the kids are all great chit-chatters so I think it will be okay.

Making this batch ahead of time was also good because I can unmold it in front of the kids and show them how to tell if it's cured enough to cut, since they'll be doing that part at home.

On to the flower pressing! I toyed with the idea of having the kids make mini flower presses to carry in their backpacks, something that I, personally, would love the snot out of, but I dunno. Kids' attention spans aren't real long these days, so I kind of doubt that they'd all take to the six-week wait for their pressed flowers. Instead, I hit up the ReStore, found 12 unglazed ceramic tiles for three dollars, and decided to teach the kids how to press flowers in the microwave and send each of them (except for my own kids, who can share) away with their own set of tiles for microwave flower pressing at home. Even a modern teenager has enough attention span to spend one minute microwaving flowers!

And then we can make pretty things with them!

My kids and I loved making these pressed flower bookmarks, and I think my Girl Scout troop would, as well, but a multi-day, multi-step process isn't going to work. These are teenagers--they're going to dump whatever they come home from their Girl Scout troop meeting with on the floor of their bedrooms and not look at it again for three months. If I'm super lucky, they'll be willing to do maybe one more step after that, but definitely not fourteen more steps, some of which require yet more wait time.

So I figured out how to simplify the process!

The grated cheese is not related to the microwave flower pressing...

I'll have to write new tutorials for both the flower pressing and the pressed flower bookmarks, because I feel like I streamlined the process for each of them by quite a bit:

And now I'll have some samples to show the kids!

They will still need to seal them 24 hours after our meeting, but I think I can get away with pouring a tablespoon or so of matte medium into wee zip baggies for them to take home. That should keep the matte medium fresh enough to still be painted on when the bookmarks are discovered on bedroom floors in three months.

The poured candles in teacups was the trickiest project to figure out for kids. Kids will be bringing teacups in different sizes and shapes, and I want them to be able to pour candles that will burn correctly for whatever container they bring.

I got a tip from a candlemaking book once upon a time that the best way to test wick sizing in a non-standard container is to pour the candle into the container without a wick, let it cure, then drill a hole to insert a wick. If the size doesn't work, pull the wick out, re-drill the hole if necessary, and try another wick!

I'm glad that I tried this, because this wick that I tested is a hard nope:

I tried a larger wick size, got another hard nope, and finally decided that I'd never be able to burn a candle the width of a teacup with straight beeswax, so I poured a new candle with a beeswax and coconut oil combination:

Better, but ultimately still a nope! Grr!

Syd had the idea to just multi-wick it, which... success!

The above photo is from about half an hour into the candle's first burn. At an hour's burn time it had reached its maximum melt and made it almost completely to the edges of the cup all around. Normally, you'd want a container candle to burn all the way to the edge, but with the way that a teacup narrows to the bottom, I think this wick size and placement is perfect. I don't want the candle to burn too hot towards the bottom.

Add in a lecture on the biology of honeybees and the chemistry of triglyceride hydrolysis, and that's this Folk Arts meeting all prepped!

Now let's just hope that COVID rapid test comes out the way I want...

How to Earn the Girl Scout CSA Outdoor Art Badge (Without Doing Any of the Suggested Activities, Ahem)

Whenever I teach multi-level Girl Scout leaders and we get to talking about badges, I always tell them that a great way for multiple levels of Girl Scouts to simultaneously earn a certain badge is to do none of the suggested activities. 

Your troop of Cadettes, Seniors, and Ambassadors want to earn the Space Science badge at each of their levels? Don't do any of the activities suggested for any of those levels. Instead, make up your own activities! 

So when six of my CSA Girl Scouts wanted to come together to earn the Outdoor Art badge last month, we threw out the badge books and instead used a Shared Google Doc to figure out what we actually wanted to do.

After seeing that the kids were mostly interested in various carving skills, I steered the meeting towards one that would involve exploring our local area's limestone industry, then engaging in hands-on experimentation with limestone art, and expanding into other ways to carve and embellish sculptural art.

We met on the campus of Indiana University-Bloomington, and while standing under the Sample Gates we talked about how and where limestone was formed. Our area is unique because the band of Salem Limestone underneath it is quite narrow and only spans the length of two counties. That's why we see so many old quarries around here--they had to be put close together, because that's where the limestone is! 

Salem Limestone has good consistency and small grains because of the way that the waves constantly agitated the shallow sea that once existed above it. It's strong, easily carved, and holds detail well. And yet, until the rail industry was extensive enough to provide transportation, Salem Limestone was only a local industry. That's why we see so many old residential houses with limestone facades--there was loads of limestone to be had locally, and no outside markets to buy it up!

When railroads came to the area, however, Salem Limestone became a national industry. That's why there are so many train tracks and rail trails in our area--there used to be railroads everywhere to transport that limestone!

Labor reforms were eventually necessary to the industry. Limestone carving was difficult, manual labor, and before reforms, workers would tell stories of how unemployed people would just stand next to the quarries all day. If a manager saw that a worker wasn't working as hard as they thought he should, the manager would fire that worker on the spot and call a bystander in to take his place. Even after reforms, limestone carving remained difficult, manual labor, but it paid a living wage and was the expected career of several generations of families. 

The evolution of architecture styles and building materials eventually tanked the Salem Limestone industry, and now it's mostly used for niche, high-end architecture and university campuses that utilize the "collegiate gothic" style. When the industry tanked, people who'd worked in quarries for their entire careers, after their parents and grandparents had worked in the same quarries for their entire careers, and who expected their children to also work in the same quarries, were let go. They had no other readily marketable skills, no disposable income used to further their education, and there was no other nearby industry that they could easily transition to. Their children were also stuck without access to the careers they'd planned, and even with a university right in town, one whose buildings were built from their parents' and grandparents' labor, they didn't have the income or necessarily the academic preparation for higher education. That's partially why our area has such a weird income/education/culture divide--it economically hobbled whole swaths of long-term residents who now fight for employment and housing and cultural ideals against the hyper-educated residents who are here because of the university.

Never let it be said that I led a single Girl Scout meeting without bringing up politics and social justice and the price of long-term rentals in town!

So after we were all inspired to seize the means of production and legislate universal pre-K and build low-barrier shelters for the unhoused, we went on a walking tour of the IU campus to see some examples of limestone architecture. The kids were asked to bring binoculars--

They did look at interesting architecture with their binoculars, but spent a rather shocking amount of time also looking at innocent passersby...

--and cameras, and were instructed to take photos of interesting architecture as part of their badge activities. 

Here's Franklin Hall, which began as the university's library:

It's been extensively renovated and turned into the home of the university's Media School--

--but the John Milton quote remains relevant:

This is the Student Building:

The clock tower has 14 bells that chime every 15 minutes, and can also be played live. In 1990 that whole tower burned down and had to rebuilt using the original 1905 plans.

We walked around and photographed a few more buildings and the campus cemetery, although the kids were definitely more excited about the non-architectural things that we also saw, like squirrels, a wedding party trying to take photos in the rain, a random couple of students breaking geodes on the street, etc.

After we had seen all the awesome limestone things, we settled down to make our own awesome things! With such a diverse cast of characters, I'm never entirely sure who knows what, so I started with a basic lesson for everyone on pocket knife safety, how to hold a knife while whittling and carving, and how to sharpen a knife. Then Matt and my co-leader and I set up stations so the kids could explore various carving and embellishing skills.

Here's Will at the limestone engraving station:

Hoadley Quarry gave Matt several pieces of limestone for hand carving and engraving. I brought my workhorse Dremel and a set of engraving bits, and only lost one to an over-zealous Girl Scout!

We set up a separate station for limestone hand carving, with the larger pieces of limestone, a sandbag and old towel to brace the limestone, and my set of stone carving tools that's similar to this one. 

These two stations also had safety glasses, because nobody likes a corneal abrasion!

The kids could use their own pocket knives or my set of wood carving tools to carve soap or twigs:

I showed the kids these super cute twig gnomes, and some of them tried it out, while others did their own thing.

We had a couple of stations set up with wood burners. The kids could burn details into their wood carvings, or wood burn a wooden spoon. It was a little early for holiday gift-making when we met, but a wood burned spoon would make an awesome gift!

I also brought my acrylics, brushes, and water cups and set up a station in case a kid felt more like surface decoration than carving, and a couple of kids used this space to paint their twig gnomes or experiment with adding detail to their limestone engraving.

Overall, this was a super successful Girl Scout meeting! The kids all tried new things, all found something they liked doing, all learned some useful things and still had time to chat and mess around. I feel like the relevance of studying a local industry that's so visually apparent in their daily lives added meaning to the badge work, and hopefully helped them contextualize some local issues.

And if nobody's parent gets a wood burned spoon for Christmas, it's not my fault!

Pumpkin+Bear Shop Update: So Many Candles!

The kids and I have apparently been making candles for a decade, which...

Time has been flying in a horrifying way, lately.

Candlemaking is not only something that I can do quite well now (not surprising, since I've apparently got a decade of experience at it!), but something that I've been finding very meditative and comforting lately. I took advantage of my mental renaissance to finally photograph and list in my Pumpkin+Bear shop the many different styles and sizes of candles that I've been making for the past ten years but just never got around to actually selling for money.

Ahh, it feels so good to stop procrastinating!

I now offer just about every size and style of beeswax candle that a person could possibly long for.

Here's a traditional pillar candle, eight inches tall and 1.25" in diameter:

And here's a tapered version in that same size. It's the same 1.25" at the base, but tapers to just .25" at the tip:

And here's my absolute favorite style of that taper candle--it's STRIPEY!!!

I also now sell a miniature version of that stripey taper. It's still 1.25" at the base, but it's only four inches tall:

I also make striped pillars! These have a regular pillar candle at the core, and I cover them with strips of different colors of beeswax.

I also finally offer a third size of my rainbow taper candles. This one, too, is only 4" tall:

And because I already have the holidays on my mind, I made a 4" Christmas tree taper!

I still offer all my old favorites, the Waldorf ring candles and the birthday candles:

But the whole family is just a LOT bigger now!

Shh, don't tell, but that family portrait, above, does show a favorite candle of mine that I still don't sell!

The Apple Orchard and the Pumpkin Patch

 

Unless Will goes to our local university, this will probably be her last autumn visit to our favorite apple orchard and pumpkin patch for a while.

Time to make every moment count and then cry about it!

We did all our favorite things, including wandering around instead of picking apples--

--sitting around instead of picking apples--

--picking apples but putting them directly into our mouths instead of the bag--

--and then accidentally picking more apples than will fit in the bag and so panic eating some:

Oh, and MY personal favorite: lying on a giant blanket underneath the apple trees, working puzzles, eating and drinking delicious things, and listening to spooky podcasts:

We took our family portraits and then wandered around until a mean bee stung Luna's paw, then Matt carried her back to the car and we drove over to the orchard's pumpkin patch:

Oddly enough, Luna seemed to feel a lot better once there were elephant ears and apple fritters around, so I might be doubting that bee story of hers a little bit...

The pumpkin patch leads on to the next magical family memory that a Will at a far-away college will miss:

For the past seventeen years I've lied to myself that next year I'll really splash out and splurge on one of those fancy professional-looking pumpkin-carving kits, and every year I just dig our exact same most basic kit possible out from the back of the junk drawer. It really holds up!

I swore that I was not going to go to the trouble of roasting pumpkin seeds this year because nobody eats them but me, the kids swore that they'd eat them this year if I made them, and so I went to the trouble of separating seeds from guts, soaking them in salt water, and roasting them with spices:

So far, nobody has eaten them but me.

But the Jack-o-lanterns are epic this year!

We're looking forward to the reinstatement of of some of our out-in-public Halloween traditions this year, including declaration that yes, my 17-year-old IS going to be one of those trick-or-treating teenagers that the memes talk about:

It feels like it might just be one last season of normality before our world gets shifted on its axis again next fall, and I'm so grateful to have it.

Make a Treasure in a Bottle Charm

This tutorial was originally published on Crafting a Green World in 2016.

If you've got something small that you want to show off, but don't want to get damaged, keep it safe AND on display. Make a treasure in a bottle charm out of it! 

 My kids and I have done this craft before with lots of little treasures, but on this particular occasion, we are going to make a treasure in a bottle charm or two out of some small fossilized shark teeth that we collected ourselves. We love fossils, and we love sharks, AND we love things that we do ourselves, so there's no way that we weren't going to show these beauties off!

Make a Treasure in a Bottle Charm

This project is a little unusual for me, as you do need a couple of special supplies that you likely can't upcycle or find in nature, so don't be afraid to spend a little time shopping around. 

  very small glass bottle. I prefer a real glass bottle--not plastic!--with a real cork. You may have to look around for this, as a lot of the jewelry findings that you'll come across will be plastic.

  glycerin or sand. There are a couple of different ways to do this project, one with glycerin and one with sand. Beach sand will work unless you want to add water or oil to make the scene look like an ocean in a bottle; if you want a mini ocean, I have learned--from experience!--that you really need to use clean craft sand, not beach sand, alas. 

  treasures. We used a shark tooth plus a couple of tiny shells for each bottle. 

  eye pin. If you're going to keep your treasure in a bottle on a shelf, you won't need an eye pin, but if you want it as a charm or pendant, you'll need this plus a pair of jewelry wire cutters. 

  epoxy glue. My favorite is E6000.

 1. Thoroughly clean the glass bottle. You want the opening, especially, to be squeaky clean, as that's where the glue will adhere, but you'd be surprised how much dust can be found on the inside of a brand-new, unopened bottle, sigh. I use rubbing alcohol on a q-tip, but if you don't like to use rubbing alcohol, vinegar will also work. 

  2. Add your treasure. The most frustrating thing for my kids is the fact that the mouths of the bottles are so small that not every treasure will fit inside. If you're going to suspend your treasure in a bottle, you don't really want one that's very large, anyway, so just keep this fact in mind for the purposes of expectation management. 

  3. Fill the bottle up to the neck with glycerin. I use an eye dropper, and try (mostly in vain) to keep the glycerin from touching the inside of the neck. If you do drip--and you will!--wipe it down again with your cleaning solution. 

 If you've got shells in your bottle, it's a good idea to let the bottle rest for a day before the next step. The little air pockets in the shells will gradually work their way out, and if you don't want bubbles in your bottle forever, you want them to do this before it's sealed. 

  4. Glue the cork on. Put a small amount of epoxy glue around the outside of the cork, then push it into the bottle. 

  5. Cut an eye pin to fit. You don't want it to poke out of the bottom of your cork, so trim it with wire cutters. 

 6. Insert the eye pin. Again, put a small amount of epoxy glue around the outside of the eye pin, then push it into the center of the bottle. 

 This treasure in a bottle makes a lovely pendant for a necklace, but also a beautiful Christmas ornament, especially for a tabletop tree. I think it looks equally pretty, though, just sitting in a shadow box, ready to be admired by all who walk by! 

Our Shell Collection is Also Pretty Grand

 

The shell collection was in storage in the same place as the rocks and fossils, so if Will and I were going to spend a day playing with, organizing, and displaying her favorite rocks and my favorite fossils, we might as well do the same with our favorite shells!

I love Will's organization of shells in this Riker mount:

My favorite of the displays, though, is this one:

Remember that day nine years ago when the kids and I spent an afternoon playing with the shells we'd collected in Florida?

We also did a little identification then, labeling plastic sandwich bags and sorting shells inside. We researched some shells further, and pinned slips of paper with more details to the baggies.

Obviously, then, I had to use one of our precious Riker mounts to preserve some of our work. Look at that sweet little Syd handwriting labeling the Atlantic Kitten Paws! 

In the ensuing years, our crafting collection of seashells has been well-loved. We've made seashell pendants, glittered and painted them, used them in sailor's valentines, and incorporated them into all kinds of other projects. We've got shells on the Christmas tree, and shell mosaics on the walls. Our scientific display will be in good company!

When I look at our other scientific displays, the fossils from Penn Dixie and the rocks from here and there, I mostly think about how cool my specimens are. Even the Penn Dixie fossils, the gathering of which are some of my most pleasant memories, mostly inspire in me awe at my little trilobite pieces, not reminiscences of how contentedly I chipped them out of the rock.

But when I look at these Riker mounts full of shells, labeled or not, I remember walking on the beach with two little girls wearing swim trunks and surf shirts, their sandy hair in their faces, Dollar Store plastic buckets in their hands. We collected all the best shells, used most of them to decorate sandcastles, then the kids ran out to float on the ocean in their pink and blue inner tubes while I played lifeguard. A storm was coming, but was still far out on the horizon as we played, just enough to make the edge of the sky look interesting when I took my photos. We had a hotel room booked for the night, in which we'd eat Easy Mac and peanut butter sandwiches, and we thought that in just a few days we were going to watch a Space Shuttle launch. 

It was peaceful, and pleasant, and I've never been happier.

Anyway, that's what I think about every time I look at these Riker mounts of our shell collection.