Folk Festival ...Here we come - PART TWO.

Well, like I said... I may spend alot of time in the sun with my crochet hooks this weekend. But first I'll have to purchase one, because last night I was planning to take my bag of hooks to house-sit with me. The last thing I remember is wrapping them up nice and tight and in a moment of reverie putting them.... somewhere.
And for the life of me havn't been able to find them since. I've checked my new drawers, my wool bag, my sewing bag and my shoulder bag.
Sherlock Holmes states that once youve eliminatied all the probable places, you are left with the only places left no matter how improbable. So I've checked the refrigerator, the closet, my bookshelf and the piano.
DANG! Where'd I PUT that thing??

Here we come

Hippi-dom ... here we come! Two more sleeps till the Auckland Folk Festival! I can here my Mum nagging from the other room as I write this .... 3 days of freedom! (I'm preparing myself not to spaz-out when I get home to nags-ville... )
Hey... I'm sounding hippy already... "Hippidom and nagsville"... like cool. Can't wait to veg... I'm coming to terms with being a parent (umm yeah... she's F IVE) and I may just spent alot of time sitting and crotcheting. Well see...
And I'm sorted with food this year.. I'm sorting out pre-cut veges into plastic bags. Viola! instant stir fry.
I realised that *he* made me feel guilty about everything...guilty about having friends, going ANYWHERE, breathing and swallowing (I'm not being funny, he thought I was having guilty thoughts when I swallowed) and just basically being me.
Well now I've pinpointed why I havn't been able to enjoy alot of things....um..... now I can!
Folk Festival... HERE WE COME!

PS. not sure how to spell "Viola" .. I googled it but it came up with the instrument...

PPS> hope that wasnt counted as a winge and a moan coz then I've broken my new years resolution already! no... I was just saying....! (?)

Janet's Gems STAMPS

My stamps arrived!! I've bought some custom made stamps from an Etsy seller called "Blossom Stamps".

I Love them... I'm so exited. I can't wait to start putting them on my packaging :)

Flames - 1962 Holden

Funny how I announce I don't enjoy signwriting that much I get inundated with work. My little crochet purses will have to wait.. because I've had four custom decal orders through the Trade Me website. This one is for a 1962 Holden. It's a bit iffy doing it this way, because she can't send me through a picture and I have no idea if shes go ing to purchase them after I've done all the work. The orginal pink flames I did, I ended up cutting two of the same side which made my profit a big fat ZERO... but she was nice enough to take a photo for me, which has generated the extra four jobs, so I guess it was worth it in the end.
And this maybe God's way of giving me the desires of my heart, because I've always wanted to give flames a go... and now I've got about 3 requests! The hotrod style flames seem to be the most popular.

Love God with all your heart

I was a bit worried I'd gone over the top with this, but Catherine loves it. Especially since she's just been to Teresa's flat for a few days and watched Rainbow bright!

I read the words to her tonight and she goes "Teresa has a different God, aye Mum?" "No" I say. " Theres only one God. He's here with you now, and he was with you at Teresa's "

"Oh!... he followed us in his car aye?"

A slight step up...

I've finally finished restoring my Grandma's Rimu drawers. I've sanded them down and replaced the handles. I'm going to use it to store my etsy bags, wool and fabric.

It's a slight step up from what I'd been using....

How to clean a burnt pot

I thought I'd test out a method of cleaning a burnt pot my friend said worked. It worked to a point. It took about 7 minutes.

1. Put vinegar into pot, and freeze in the freezer.

2. Take out, thaw slightly and add baking soda.

3. The burnt bit are supposed to flake off easily.

They didn't. The surface stuff came off but I was still left with a burnt bottom. So...

4. Added some more vinegar and baking soda and scrubbed with a steel mit. After about 5 minutes scrubbing I ended up with a passable pot. (Passable, Janet-standard = good enough is good enough)

200 POSTS

Thats all I wanted to say. I missed celebrating my first 100, so yay for 200 posts !

I've decided over the holidays not to use my blog to winge and complain. 2009 was a bit of a nonity for me... and I have big plans for 2010. (Don't we all...).

I've got a few plans in the making, especially for my Etsy shop, Janet's Gems. I've just decided to go for it, and not worry too much. I've ordered a custom stamp for my tags and packaging, and some little fabric tags to put in my bags. I have two shops, one for stickers, and one for sewing and crotchet. I'm not gonna give up on the stickers coz its my bread and butter, but I don't enjoy it that much but I could crotchet all day (and sometimes do, oops).And I've heard it said, if youre gonna choose a job, choose something you would do all day whether you got paid or not... so this is an experiment and I'm gonna put my all into it, without giving up this time!

(I obviously had more to say than I thought!)

Leprecauns!

I thought I'd share a picture of a couple of leprecauns I made for a couple of sister-friends of mine. The pattern comes from this etsy shop .

Her patterns are awesome!!

Jesus Decal

Made another little decal for my shop

. Looks good on my Datsun. May leave it there :)

My Decals have moved

Hey. I have moved all my decals to www.definedesign.etsy.com
.This is to keep all my decals under the same name. Define Design.
My etsy shop www.janetsgems.etsy.com will be for handmade things.

How to scale up a picture for a wall

This is how signwriters transfer large images to a wall. They use a pounce. This is one method.

You will need:

Picture you want inlarged

tape measure

Charcoal or chalk

Pencil

Paint

Steps 1-4

1. Take the picture you want and divide it into squares. The squares must be square.

2. Measure your wall. You will divide this into larger squares. My drawing was 5 squares by 4 squares. My wall was 100 cm high so I divided it by 4 to get the height, then multiplied it by 5 to get the width. The total was 100 cm x 120 cm. You do this to keep the squares 'square'.

3. Get a large piece of paper and draw the squares on it. (So mine was 5 squares wide by 4 squares deep. Each square was 20 cm square)

4. Now using the squares as a guide, transfer the image to the paper. The more squares you have the easier it will be to get a nicer drawing... especially if you are not that good at drawing.

5. Now turn the paper over and put charcoal or chalk on the back. I could see through by paper which is why my charcoal lines follow the outline closely. If you cant see, just scribble over the whole area

6. Tape it to the wall, with the charcoal side against the wall

7. Draw around your outline with a pen or pencil

8. Once you take you pounce off the wall it should leave the outline on the wall. You may need to fill in the blanks with a pencil. Your image is now transfered to the wall!

9. If you are doing a cartoon with a blank outline, it's easier to roughly fill in the colours first... then just tidy it up with the black outline last!

Peasant blouse

Being trying to think about some folky clothes for the Auckland Folk Festival... so I've made this peasant blouse out of an old mens shirt. I found the tutorial here. I didn't get the neck quite right, but it doesn't matter. I'm happy with it overall.

HOW TO MAKE PLUM JAM

You will need:

Kitchen scales (up to 2 kg)

Chopping board

Knife

x2 Large bowls for fruit

x 2 Large saucepans

Pouring spoon

tongs

x 6 clean jars (with lids, or use cellophane circles with rubber bands)

RECIPE (Edmonds cook book)

2 kg plums

1.5 cups of water

7 cups of sugar

METHOD:

Stew plums untill they are pulpy with the water. Add sugar and boil rapidly for 15 mins or until set. Pour into hot sterilised jars and seal.

JANETS TIPS :P

1. Set up 2 bowls. One for the fruit one for the discarded bits. Measure the weight of the bowl before you put the plums in so you can minus it from the total.

2. While you are cutting up the plums, put the jars to soak in hot water to remove labels. There is a product in New Zealand called Desolve it which is good for removing label glue. I think its made from citrus.

3. Start stewing the plums and put the jars in a saucepan of hotwater at the same time. It doesnt need to be full or it will take too long to heat up. By the time the jam is ready your jars will be too.

4. Put your pouring spoon and tongs into the saucepan with the jars to sterilise them as well.

HAS MY JAM SET????

The proper method to test if jam is set is to place a bit on a saucer. Once it has cooled you should be able to run your finger down the centre and it will leave a ridge. I have found that by the time its cool enough to do that your jam has been boiling an extra 15 mins. Also, last time I boiled it long enough for it to set straight away it had turned so dark it looked black. I like it to keep its pretty red colour so I don't mind if my jam is a bit jelly-ish. I have found that after disolving the sugar I will boil it for 20-25 mins. On the plate it is still runny but a bit tacky. Once I've poured it into the jars and it has cooled, I find that the jam on the plate has set enough for me to be happy. Really, things like this are an art and they take practice, so don't give up if it doesn't work out. Put it down to experience and try again another time!

Impromptu shorts

Well, I'm broke. Well, I can't afford to spend $15 on the cheapest pair of shorts I cou ld find in Kmart... so I made these! I took the pattern for a pair of pants I drafted, cut them off mid-thigh and sewed them up in a scrap of fabric I had. I also bo ught a HUGE roll of elastic for three bucks. So these were basically $0 shorts... which is about what my budget allows for.

The pattern pieces shown are not perfect. The back seam comes out lower than the front and needs to be trimmed. The black lines are my adjustment lines if I make these again.... going to take the sides in to make them more surfy. I worked out they take less than a metre of fabric, so if I go to the fabrics seconds shop I found in Otara, that's $3 for a pair of shorts! O-some.

Hows this for embarrassing

I have trouble socialising at the best of times... but I rang up Julia's husband, Nigel, to ask if it was ok for me to come over and stick the decals on there van because they were ready. Off I went. Arrived. Family everywhere. "They're so social" I think to myself. Spend 2 hours sticking on the decals. Chat to a few people INCLUDING Julia. Leave. Get home and check facebook and see piles of birthday wishes for Julia. It was her birthday and I didn't even know! and I was at her house putting stickers on her car!!!

OOOOps.

I'm not gonna make too much of it ( I could spend the next 6 months fretting), but I'll send her a belated gift instead... a picture of her son, Nathanael.

Smurf Cake

I made Catherine a smurf cake. I 'm pretty pleased with it and I'm going to share the instructions for making a picture with different colours on a cake.

I HAVE REDONE THIS TUTORIAL WITH PICTURES. YOU CAN FIND IT HERE.

Ice the cake with icing. I used butter icing which was quite hard to get flat and smooth, but I managed to get it ok by dipping the knife in a mug of boiling water. A plain icing of only icing sugar, water and a teaspoon of butter may work better. Anyway, here the...

Recipe for butter icing.

150g (5oz) butter

275g (10 oz) icing sugar

(1 Tablespoon cocoa)

vanilla essence

2 tsp boiling water.

_ heat butter and icing sugar in a bowl placed in a sink of hot water. Wait until butter has just softened and beat. Add water.

1. Then I drew a picture of a smurf on a piece of paper to fit the size of the cake. A template can be found on my website here.

2. Once the butter icing had set a bit (takes a bit longer when youve dipped your knife in hot water), I cut out the smurf and traced around it with a pin. You may need to also dust the back of the paper with icing sugar just in case.

3. Then I free handed the eyes with the pin.

4. Then I made a stiff chocolate icing. A cup of icing sugar and a table spoon of cocoa and adding tiny ammounts of hot water until I have a very stiff icing sugar. One that looks like it will hold its shape but soft enough to go through an icing nozzle.

5. Ice the outline of the smurf over the pin drawing leaving NO GAPS in the outlines (as you will be filling these in).

6. Once the icing sugar has set (15 mins?), make a VERY RUNNY icing, using icing sugar and water only. If you are using white, do that first, then add colouring to the remaining.

7. Use a teaspoon and tip in the runny icing to fill in the pieces.

NOTE: the outline needs to be heavy enough to hold the runny filling.

DONE.

the dato...

Playing around with ideas, not sure if they will ever eventuate.