Growing Alum Crystals and Treasure Chest Display

Alum Crystals

Brian and I have been experimenting with growing different types of crystals.  We started with a dollar store crystal kit, then tried growing table salt crystals.  Neither of these crystals grew as well as we had hoped they would, but then we tried growing alum crystals and they came out pretty well.  I'm including a link to the video I worked from in addition to my own, slightly modified directions. 

Materials:
*1/2 cup of hot water
*2 1/2 tablespoons of alum (a pickling spice available in most grocery stores)
*7-10 drops of food coloring (optional)

Directions:
*Add alum to the hot water and stir until it dissolves.  If you end up with a little bit of alum that won't dissolve it probably will not make a difference, but you can always heat up the solution a little more and the remaining alum should dissolve.
*Add food coloring to the solution.
*Let the solution sit undisturbed for some time.  I made my solution before bed and let it sit overnight and observed crystals forming by the next morning. 
*Let the crystals sit in solution until they reach the desired size.  If they do not grow as much as you would like them to, you can remove the large crystals from the solution, heat up the solution and dissolve any remaining alum, and then place the large crystals back into the solution once it has cooled.
Note: Food coloring may hinder the growth of crystals some, so if crystal size is more important to you than color, you may want to leave out the food coloring.

Treasure Chest Display

This craft can serve as an excellent way to display your alum crystals, but there are many other possible uses for it as well.

Materials:

*Jewelry box

*Gold paper

*2-3 sheets of paper with wood pattern

*Round hole punch

*Rhinestones

*Faux pearls

*String

*Glue

*Scissors

Directions:

*Cut out a rectangle of wood patterned paper equal to the size of the bottom of the jewelry box.

*Punch out gold circles and glue them to the wood patterned rectangle to make it look like the floor of the treasure chest is covered in gold coins.

*Add rhinestones and strands of faux pearls as you wish.

*Remove the jewelry cushion inside the box and set it aside.

*Cover the inside and outside of the jewelery box and lid with wood patterned paper, except for one side on the lid and one side on the box where you will be hinging the lid to the box.

*Cut two strips of wood patterned paper and use them to connect the lid to the box.

*Cover the rest of the inside of the box with wood patterned paper.

*Place the jewelry cushion back inside the box.

*Place the decorated piece of paper on top of the jewelry cushion.

*Arrange your alum crystals inside your treasure chest display. 

One Year of Crafts

     Today marks the one year anniversary of my craft blog.  To commemorate this anniversary, I decided to make some scrapbooking pages showcasing the crafts I've blogged about this year.

     Looking at the pictures, all I can think is that those are a lot of crafts.  I can hardly believe that I made all of them.  I'm pretty sure the number of craft projects I've made this year has far surpassed the number of crafts I've made in any other one year interval, which is awesome.  My personal favorite crafts were Melted Crayon Art 2.0 and Remaking Childhood Crafts.  My second melted crayon project came out sparkly and pretty and makes very nice wall decor and remaking the pages from my childhood book really pushed me in my papercrafting.
     Now for some statistics, just because I'm a math geek.  My blog has received 2,432 views this year.  My most frequently viewed craft was Fuse Bead Bowls, viewed 161 times, followed by Memento Board, viewed 117 times.  Last month I had a record number of blog views, 369 views in one month. 
     Now for the moment you have all been waiting for: the winner of the prize package is Katie H. from Veazie.  Congratulations, Katie!  I am immensely grateful to all of you who have been following my craft blog and everyone who has taken the time to look at my blog posts.  I hope that the next year will prove to be as awesome as this one. 
     So, what do you think?  Which blog posts have you enjoyed most?  Let me know in the comments or email me at hathaway.amber@gmail.com.

Experimenting with Scrapbooking Techniques and Contest Reminder

     I have been scrapbooking since I was about sixteen.  Over the years I have tried to improve upon my scrapbooking and to add more techniques to my scrapbooking repertoire.  Here are some of my latest attempts.  Let me know what you think at hathaway.amber@gmail.com.

Patterned Paper Scraps

 

 

 

     I love using patterned paper in my scrapbooking, but sometimes using a sheet of patterned paper just looks too busy.  In this Thanksgiving scrapbooking layout I tried using a few strips of patterned paper rather than an entire sheet.  I also used an old favorite cropping technique on one of the pages, imitating a photo booth photo strip.

 

 

Plain Paper

 

 

 

 

     I have come to rely very heavily on patterned paper and stickers in my scrapbooking.  In this layout I used two lavendar sheets of cardstock for my background paper and created all of my embellishments and frames from cardstock.

 

Creative Lettering and Holographic Paper

 

 

     One thing that I still have a lot of difficulty with is lettering.  I usually wait until the end and then try to throw letters onto the page in some way that does not look entirely hideous.  Rockland is a coastal Maine town and it has rock in the name, so for this page I thought it might be cute to take some images of rocks that I had on my computer and place letters over the rocks, which I did using Paint.  Also, I love holographic paper, but I never thought I could really find a way to use it in my scrapbooking.  Here's my first attempt with that.

 

Contest Reminder!

 

     Just a reminder that I will be doing a special 1 year anniversary blog post on August 25th, which will include the winner of the lovely prize package pictured below.  If you have not yet entered the contest, you still have today, tomorrow, and Saturday morning to enter.  All you need to do to enter the contest is send me (my email is hathaway.amber@gmail.com) your name, your address (so I can send you the prize package), and tell me which of my blog posts you liked best, found most inspiring, or whatever else.  It's okay if you have more than one you want to write about :).  I will number the entries according to when they reach me and then use a random number generator to select a winner.  This contest is open to anyone in the United States. 

 

     This prize package features a scarf knit by my mom, Julia Hathaway, a pair of candy earrings handmade by me, and a fuse bead bowl I made.



Remaking Childhood Crafts and a Contest

     This week's craft project will be a little bit different because it's not something that I can give step-by-step directions for.  Many of us creative adults started out as creative children.  We probably had some great ideas, but lacked the supplies or expertise necessary to execute our ideas as we wished to.  Wouldn't it be cool to be able to make your childhood creative dreams a reality?  As I was looking at a lift the flaps book I made when I was about 8, I realized that I had some pretty cool ideas as a kid, but I hadn't had the materials or the artistic skills to really showcase these ideas.  I decided to redo this book, using my improved artistic skills and greater resources.  So far, I have made three pages of the book, and here are the results:

Original page

As you can see, it's a pretty basic lift the flaps book.  My real problem with this page as a kid was that I wanted to make it so you had to unlock the door to open it, but I didn't really know how to accomplish that.



New page

Here as you can see I've made it so that you actually unlock the door.  Childhood dream realized :)  Also, the monster behind the door pops out a little, though it's difficult to tell from the picture.



Original page

When I designed this book, I drew closet doors that looked like the closet doors in my bedroom.  However the doors I had in my room slid; they did not open like the doors I made in the book.



New page

First of all, note the holographic wall paper.  I would have loved that as a kid (I still do).  Secondly, I now have the sliding doors.  Also, I made it so the toybox opens up.



Original page

I really like the overall design for this page, but I don't like the fact that you open up the water.



New page

In this version you pull the monster out of the swamp instead of lifting up a flap in the water.  Also, sparky butterflies!

     I highly encourage you all to try this too.  Take a piece of your childhood creative work that you particularly like (or perhaps something creative one of your children has done) and redo it.  If you like the results, share them with me at hathaway.amber@gmail.com and I'll show them in a blog post.  

Contest

     On August 25, my blog will be one year old.  I decided to celebrate by having a crafty giveaway.  The prize package includes a fuse bead bowl, a pair of Halloween earrings, and a scarf (made by my mom, Julia Hathaway).  To enter the contest, email me at hathaway.amber@gmail.com before August 25th your name, your address, and which craft project you liked best and why (I'll be sharing these when I announce the winner on the 25th).  Also, if you only would want certain items in the prize package, let me know so I can hold a separate drawing for the items you don't want, should you win.  The contest is open to anyone in the United States.

A close up of the earrings:

The Rug that Rules

I was looking through a craft book a little while ago when I came across an outdoor rug made from wooden slats.  The wooden slats reminded me of rulers and, being the math geek that I am, I decided that it would be cool to make a rug out of rulers.

Materials:
*12 rulers (or more if you would like a wider rug)
*Ribbon
*All purpose adhesive

Directions:
*Arrange your rulers as you wish.
*Loop ribbon through the holes in the tops of the rulers.  Knot the ends of the ribbon so the rulers cannot slip off.
*Carefully flip over the rug and two glue lengths of ribbons across the rulers, one toward the top of the rulers and one toward the bottom.  This will help to stabilize your rug so that your rulers will stay in place.

Personalized Magnetic Paper Dolls

When I was a kid, I had a set of Edwardian era paper dolls that I enjoyed playing with and sometimes my mom would draw paper dolls for me.  I used to wish that I could have a paper doll version of myself, though.  Here is a way to provide your child or another individual in your life with a personalized paper doll.  Also, by magnetizing the pieces it may make it easier for your child to play with (I always found the paper tabs annoying) and easier to keep track of all of the pieces.

Materials required for both options 1 and 2:
*Printable magnet sheets (preferably without a gloss finish, especially if the intended recipient is young, since glossy images will scratch more easily)
*Camera
*Computer and printer
*Scissors
*Sheet of printer paper

Materials required for option 2 only:
*Pencil or pen
*Markers, glitter, and other imbellishments

Directions:
*Photograph the individual you intend to make a paper doll of.  If you are planning on including shorts and T-shirts in the paper doll wardrobe, it works best if you photograph your subject wearing a swimsuit or shorts and a tank top.

Option 1: Photographed clothes
*Next photograph your subject wearing a variety of different outfits that you would like to include in the paper doll wardrobe. 
Note: This option works well for shorts, T-shirts, and billowy clothing since the subject will not need to replicate their original position exactly for these garments to fit the paper doll, but can be quite tricky with long pants or long sleeved shorts.  To make the jeans fit my paper doll, I widened the legs of the jeans using Paint.  As another option, you could leave white space around the garments, as I did with the shoes, so that it won't matter if the garment would not fit the paper doll body exactly.
*As a test, print the paper doll and the clothing garments onto a sheet of paper.  Cut out the garments and make sure that they fit the doll.  If they do not fit, try some of the remedy techniques mentioned above or try photographing your subject again.
*Once you are certain that the clothes will work for the doll, print out the doll and clothing onto the printable magnet sheets.
*Cut out the doll and garments and your doll will be ready to use.

Option 2: Draw your own clothes
Note: This option is easier than option 1 and can give your intended recipient an avenue for creative expression.
*Print out the photo of the subject onto a printable magnet sheet.
*Print another photo of the subject onto a sheet of printer paper.
*Cut out the photo on the printer paper.
*Place the photo onto a printable magnet sheet and trace around the outline of the subject to create garments that will be the right size for the doll.
*Decorate the clothes as you wish.  If you are giving this doll to a child, s/he might get a kick out of designing her/his ideal wardrobe for her/his paper doll.

Clothes Dyeing

Have a plain colored shirt that you would like to liven up or shirt that has started to fade?  Here's a way to give bland or old clothes a new life.

Materials:
*Light colored shirt or other garment
*Fabric dye
*Salt

Directions:
*Fill a three quart saucepan with water, 2/3 cups salt, and a few drops of fabric dye.  Stir until the salt has dissolved.
*Heat water on the stovetop until it is boiling, then reduce heat.
*Put the shirt or other garment that you are dyeing into the water.
*Stir constantly for half an hour.  This step is essential if you want even coloring.  I did not stir constantly and I ended up with uneven dyeing, but I liked the end result anyway.
*After the shirt has been in the dye for 15 minutes, turn off the burner.
*At the end of the 30 minutes, remove the shirt from the dye solution.  Rinse with warm water, then wash in your washing machine.
Note: There are a number of different dyeing techniques, each rquiring varying levels of effort and difficulty.  This is the one that I chose to use, but there are many others you can choose from, some of which you can find here.