Yay, Record Bowls! Tutorial Included

I cooked up a batch of craft fair record bowls this weekend, so I thought I'd write up a tutorial, perhaps for the every single person who comes by my craft fair booth, looks at and lavishly praises my record bowls, holds them up to the light and admires them and talks about what they'd put in them, then says, "How did you make these?" When I give the very vaguest of replies as to how to make record bowls, these people invariably say, "Okay, thanks," put down the record bowl they're holding, and leave. Now I can say, "I have a tutorial on my blog," and hand them a moo business card with my etsy shop and blog addresses. Then, not only will people come to my etsy shop and my blog, but if they read the tutorial, they'll see how much work goes into making a record bowl, and they'll way rather buy one from me for five bucks than go to all the trouble of making one themselves. Score.

How to Make a Record Bowl (or Ten)

1. Take out at least one of the racks from your oven, put a metal bowl upside-down on the remaining rack, and preheat. Depending on your oven, you're looking for the magic temperature somewhere between 200 degrees and 250 degrees--you want the temperature hot enough to soften your vinyl record enough to make it really pliable and you want it to do this in a reasonable amount of time, say five or so minutes, but you want the temperature cool enough that it does not cause the vinyl to noticeably release toxic fumes into your house. The vinyl will always release some fumes when you heat it, but if you can smell it, or you get a headache or burning nose, or your pet bird dies, your oven is too hot. I always use lots of ventilation when I do this, and I never work for more than half an hour at a time--less, if I let the kids help. And seriously, vinyl fumes will kill pet birds.


2. Gather your materials:

You'll need oven mitts to handle the record when it's hot, and a selection of pots, pans, mixing bowls, plates, and cups with which to mold your record bowls. I like to gather a large assortment and then experiment with different combinations for different shapes.

3. Put a record in the oven on top of the upside-down metal bowl. Keep an eye on it, and when it droops down like the record in the photo--

--take it out with your oven mitt and...

4. Plop it quickly in a bowl or pot to mold it into a bowl shape:

If you make a little mark with a Sharpie at the dead center of the pot you're using, you can find that mark in the hole in the middle of your record, and have a perfectly symmetrical bowl. You can also experiment with forming the sides of your record by nesting another bowl, cup, or plate on top of the record in the pot. A nesting bowl slightly smaller than the one you're using, for instance, will form the sides really smooth and flat, and a plate placed on top of a record bowl that you're molding inside a large casserole dish will make a sort of record platter with a nice, flat bottom. Here I used a cup for this somewhat narrow record bowl to keep the sides of the bowl from coming in too much: Remember that you've maybe only got a minute, tops, before the vinyl stiffens back up and you can no longer work with it, but you can always reheat it for another go.

5. When the vinyl is cool to the touch, pop it out of the pot and admire:

Here's the entire collection that I started making yesterday evening while Matt and the girls cleaned out the car in preparation for going to the drive-in and that I finished this morning before breakfast while they watched a little PBS: Man, I wish I owned a record player.

At Last, a Tie-Dyed Quilt!

Finally, I managed to photograph my newest tie-dyed quilt, and as soon as I measure it, it'll be online on etsy. I took the photos just a little later in the afternoon than I'd prefer (magic hour isn't perfect for product shots), but I'm pleased with all of them, really, except the whole-quilt one. Magically delicious:

Bead It

The little kid has been taking these awesomely deep, long afternoon naps lately, giving me and the big kid time to work with materials that the little kid finds more pleasure in, um, tossing about while squealing with joy. Yesterday we strung beads on necklaces, but today we worked with Perler beads.

Perler beads are these crazy plastic beads that you arrange on a pegboard and then iron to fuse together, making flat and colorful shapes. When I first saw them I was pretty resistant to the idea of buying these new plastic materials in all the different colors you'd need, just to melt them, but the big kid worked with them on a visit to extended family and we acquired a large bucket of them there, and I bought the kids a small set on sale at Joann's for a treat one day, so somehow we're pretty well set anyway.

Obviously, what I want to make most from Perler beads is old-school Nintendo stuff,  like coasters or magnets or just the little figures that you could probably do a lot of stuff with. Old-school Nintendo and Atari images are extremely well-suited for crafts like beading or cross-stitching, because you can transfer the image pixel-by-pixel. Ah, 8-bit video! 

I haven't yet used my Michael's gift card plus 40% coupon to purchase one of these versatile large pegboards, however, so the big kid and I made ourselves a beautiful heart and star on the smaller pegboards. I thought the shapes, with coordinating colors, might make interesting decorations in the house--stars in the kids' bedroom, for instance, with the ceiling painted like a sky, or pink/purple shapes in the playroom, with its pink/lavender walls. These here are my first attempt, though, and I realize now after actually, you know, reading the instructions that I didn't iron well at all--you're supposed to only iron for 10 seconds and in a circular motion, whereas I ironed for more like 30 seconds, just bearing down hard, and I didn't flip the shapes over and iron the other side, which you're also supposed to do--and I'm not terribly pleased with the color choice in my creation, the heart, but the big kid's creation is awesome. Can you tell what it is? 

A turtle, of course! 

The big kid doesn't yet have near the manual dexterity to actually manipulate these teeny little beads (they do sell Big Beads for preschoolers, which would be cool if we ever found them at a garage sale or thrift store), so she mostly handed me beads and told me what to do with them and lost herself in bead reveries while pouring them through her hands like water, but you can clearly see the turtle's eyes, the color and placement of which she directed, and the legs and tail and shell and all. Such the artist.

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, foster kitten antics, road trips, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Felted Wool Cupcakes--I'm Obsessed!

Today was Willow's first day of summer vacation back here at home, and so we spent the morning riding the bus to the library for storytime and a craft, playing in the playroom, picking out books, getting lectured by a really mean librarian at the Circulation Desk because Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World: 75 Dairy-Free Recipes for Cupcakes that Rule and are overdue (seriously, you should have to pay the fine OR listen to a lecture, not both), eating a picnic lunch outside by the bear statues, and riding the bus home, and then the afternoon playing outside, stringing beads for necklaces, reading a thousand books, playing Dinosaur Bingo, walking to the playground, walking home in the rain, playing outside in the rain, reading more books, cooking macaroni and cheese for dinner, eating dinner, taking a bath, and watching a Trout Fishing in America DVD. As Willow is laying on the study floor drawing a picture and I am cajoling her into getting ready for bed, she says, "I wish summer vacation was over. It's boring." Sigh.

So while Matt was bathing the girls, I stitched together yet another felted wool cupcake. I am obsessed! I don't know how many felted cupcakes the girls really need to have in their pretend food collection, but I do know that I've got at least another half dozen laid out on the study table to cut out and stitch up. But come on, they're sooooooo cute:

I thought they needed a little something, so I tried adding bows...I dunno. Tips if you're going to make these, though:

• Cut the cupcake wrapper at an angle so that the bottom comes out narrower than the top, since real cupcake wrappers look like that, not straight cylinders.
• If you're making these for kids, skip the part in the instructions that asks you to glue the bottom of the cupcake wrapper on. It's not noticeable, and obviously much sturdier, if you hand-stitch it.
• If you're making these for kids, also forget the part where you stick pretty straight pins into the frosting as decoration--seriously, no. I'm thinking about stitching beads on for the same effect.
  

And, of course, here's the action shot, in which you can see my lovingly crafted felted wool cupcakes at play:

"Look, Momma! Cupcake smashes the other cupcakes, and then they fall over, and then the cupcake shots them. Shot! Shot! Shot!" Sigh.

Me! On the Web!

One of the things I did a few weeks ago that is pretty cool is enter into a consignment agreement with Handmade Collective, a new web shop. I think their site design is quite lovely, and my goal is to get more and better-quality publicity for my work than I've so far been able to manage myself. Etsy is a terrific way to sell online, and it's still my primary outlet, but it's easy to get lost in the huge masses of beautiful products at Etsy unless someone has conducted a pretty specific search or they're willing to do a lot of browsing. So Handmade Collective is kindly hosting one of my denim quilts, and I hope it sells.

Although I still haven't managed to find enough peace and sun to photograph and post my latest Etsy creations, the tie-dyed bibs I've been making a ton of and the tie-dyed quilt I'm pretty happy with since I learned how to use a bias tape maker for it, I did manage to find the sun and peace to at least photograph and upload/revise some listings for the felted wool pins I made last month and the essential oil soaps I posted a while ago with some then grumpy photos. I think these photos are much nicer:

Cupcakes, Dinosaurs, Pink Chucks, and Arkansas

Since it's craft fair season, obviously I've been spending almost all my time this week working not on record bowls, T-shirt quilts, and melted crayon hearts, but on cupcakes, dinosaurs, pink Chucks, and Arkansas.

The girls and I have been way into , which I swear is, along with my other great favorite, , the only cookbook I have ever cooked from in which what I cook actually comes out even remotely similar to the photo in the book, and even remotely delicious (I'm a disastrous cook, with a near-manic tendency to make ill-advised substitutions and a certainty that all measurements are only approximate). So far we've made the chocolate mint cupcakes twice and Matt has made, of all things, the margarita cupcakes with them once. Margarita cupcakes? Awesome.

I've also been, during Sydney's precious afternoon naptimes, watching Dexter - The First Season on Netflix and making the girls a bunch of the felted wool cupcakes I found in . They stopped looking like cupcakes to me once I got deep into making them, the same as when you say a word over and over again it loses all meaning, but out of the three I've made so far, there's one that even I'll admit is just darn cute.

And then there are the dinosaurs--I promised the girls a dinosaur quilt this summer, and I am darn well going to deliver a dinosaur quilt, so for a couple of days I put the iron and the dishtowel in semi-permanent residence on the livingroom table (I got so used to intoning, every time I heard little feet thud by, "Don't touch the iron. The iron is hot," that I started even warning Matt as he went by. This is similar to, when I'm laying out a quilt on the livingroom floor, my intonations of "Don't step on the quilt. Walk around the quilt") and knocked out these sweet babies: I'm not a hundred percent happy with the frame conceit, and I doubt that I'll do another one just that way, but hey, it's dinosaurs. The more, the merrier.

The vegan cupcakes are ostensibly a rehearsal for the girls' big summer birthday bash next month, and one of the things I've been trying to do all month, only it keeps raining two out of three days, is take a photo of the girls in their matching candy pink Converse Chuck Taylors to put on the invitation. Finally, a break in the weather, and I managed to find matching socks for everyone, and I only once had to fiercely threaten Willow with not going to dance class if she didn't sit down for this picture for five minutes (I know, I know, but usually I am the kind of mother you don't want to call Social Services about), and I got this photo:

It's so cute it kind of makes me feel sick to my stomach a little. Of course, I cropped off the part where they're sitting with dirty faces cramming their mouths with Quorn nuggets and pineapple.

In upcoming news, today is Willow's last day of school for the summer--I blew her mind yesterday by informing her that when she comes back to school in August, she'll be a MIDDLE-GROUPER! (As opposed to the Youngest Group and the Kindergartners, the other kiddos in her class for those of you not in tune with Montessori lingo). So after school, and after dance class, and after stopping by a party for my friend Tim, who has just successfully defended his dissertation (I sigh, because I can no longer attain the academic single-mindedness it takes to get a PhD), we're all trekking down to Arkansas for the long Memorial Day weekend. Papa and my mother have been talking about taking the girls to McDonald's for their collective birthdays, and hopefully the city pool will be open, and I'm eager to look through my Mama's collection of old recipe books from the various elementary schools and churches she was involved in throughout her life, a collection that is both beloved to me and awesome in its ingredients and preparation methods (7up cake! Jello molds! Oleo!). Willow and Sydney are begging to take their new favorite toy, which Matt bought for them at Goodwill for five dollars on Sunday. That favorite toy is this:
Whew! What did you do this week?

Bargain Hunting Begins!

After the successful conclusion of my part in the Craft for My Kids swap, it took me about five seconds to sign up for the Bargain Hunters swap. Basically, I have a budget of ten dollars, with which I am to find as much awesome stuff that my partner will love as humanly possible, and with which I am also to make her a good-sized craft. After a slight misunderstanding in which I thought for a couple of days that she ONLY wanted decorative wooden boxes, we are now on the same page and I realize that she is going to be fun, fun, fun to shop for.

I have to say, I am going to be GOOD at this swap. In case you're local, here are the places to hunt bargains in my town:

1. Post-season at Target and Jo-Ann's, when holiday stuff gets marked down to 75% off (in late January, Target will mark Christmas stuff down to 90% off, but you have to be watching for it, because it gets picked over fast). These are good places to buy twinkle lights to make your house look awesome, shaped molds for soap or crayons, goth stuff or costume stuff or face painting stuff, etc.

2. Goodwill at two locations, the College Mall one being more of the college student Goodwill, and the much bigger west-side Goodwill being the townie store. Frankly, I find Goodwill a little pricey--a T-shirt there is two dollars. Two dollars! However, each week a different colored tag is 50% off, and the tag color changes on Sunday, so if you go Sunday or Monday, you get the best pick at the half-off goods. These are good stores for board games for jewelry or altered books; sheets, pillowcases, and blankets with which to sew; china for mosaics or jewelry; and themed T-shirts for a quilt.

3. Salvation Army--this store is dirt-cheap, with one tag color being half-off each week and one tag color being 25 cents, and another clearance rack up front at 25 cents. I recently got a ton of wool sweaters there for 25 cents, including one with dinosaurs(!) intarsia knitted in. Their selection of adult T-shirts and adult jeans sucks, however, and they only take cash or check. This is a good store for wool sweaters for felting, record albums for record bowls and album cover boxes, weird children's picturebooks for framing or altered books, and I bought Willow an awesome pair of rollerblades there for two dollars once.

4. Dumpster behind the Salvation Army, which is my all-time favorite place to dumpster-dive, on account of the Salvation Army closes at 6:00 pm on Saturdays and doesn't open until 9:00 am on Mondays. All weekend people come by the loading dock and either dump stuff off or pick through stuff. We usually go by on Sunday afternoons after my partner's softball games, and if it's a rainy day and we don't go, I feel sad. The pro about this place is that it's totally free; the con is that it's technically illegal. This place is good for children's clothes and toys, books, clothes with unusual patterns for sewing, work shirts for my partner, and just really odd stuff. Yesterday we found a six-foot artificial tree, which we took, a huge blonde wig in a Kroger bag upon which someone had written, "NEVER BEEN WORN," which we did not take, several puzzles--still sealed--of dogs or cats or elephants, some of which we took (the girls and I have been working/crawling over and rolling in and throwing around the dog puzzle off and on all day), two wool sweaters, which we took, one orange work shirt for Matt, which we took but it's a little too short so we're taking it back next week, and several still-packaged little hearts that are supposed to grow 600% when you immerse them in water, one of which we took and which is now sitting in a glass of water on the bathroom sink right now.

5. Our Recycling Center (which is the most terrific Recycling Center in the nation, as it recycles plastics #1-#6, including bags, offers donation drop-offs for a billion different items from shoes to bottle caps, and encourages you to drop off materials that they can donate to children's art programs) has a sidewalk exchange, where you can drop off stuff you no longer want but is still good (no electronics!) and which you can visit once a week and take up to four items per person. The girls and I bring a bag of stuff here about every week, and take in turn a bag of stuff. This place is good for records, magazines, Nintendo stuff, jeans for denim quilts, and children's stuff. I usually leave Sydney in the car here, since the exchange is right in front of the parking spaces, and Willow's special job is to choose a toy for Sydney and a toy for herself.

Where do you bargain hunt where you live?