Candle-abra-cadabra

Candle making fun for homemade Christmas presents, one crafternoon at the lovely Miss D and F's pad in the Inner West. Candles were made by heating soy wax flakes on the stove (they are light and fluffy like old fashioned soap flakes), with essential oils or candle-making fragrant oils added. The molten wax is then poured into vessels of your choice - in our case a mix of mason jars, old brown jars (empty marmite jar from when UK family was visiting worked a treat!), lovely Turkish style glass tea cups, and delightful vintage cups and saucers. (This is the ladies watching wax melt - much more fun than watching paint dry)

When pouring, you need to first put your wicks in - different thickness wicks for different size candles. the wick is secured into a little disc of metal that sits flat at the bottom of the container. Bigger candles need thicker wicks, for some clever technical reason I can't remember. To secure the wick you need to secure it to the bottom of your vessel with double sided tape, or if you are brave and wild and free and care to risk all in your candle making ventures you can just poke it in once the wax is pored and stop it from flopping over sideways or drifting away by clever use of things like kitchen skewers. I think that's right, the details are a bit hazy now a few months later - all I remember is the pouring and waiting to set part, plus the joy of the finished product. This is Miss D carefully pouring into an old red metal jug that looks straight out of a 60's Danish Farmhouse. She had some incredibly some funky tea cups lined up as well. Once poured, the hot wax is still transparent, becoming a lovely opaque soft off-white colour when cooled. Here are the ladies watching the candles cool.

And finally, after an hour or two, they are ready! It's important not to poke or prod them while still drying as the wick moving can crack the surface of the not-yet-properly-set candle, messing with that ice-floe smooth surface that is so gratifying. You can see here that even drinking glasses make great containers. Did I mention that soy candle wax has quite a low melting point? This means that at the end of the candle, when there is that pesky stub of wax left at the bottom of the container, you can dissolve it in hot water, then wash, leaving you a nice tea cup/ jar/ tumbler you can re-use.

The final step is to trim the wicks down to say 5mm above the candle, once the candle is well and truly set. Doing it the following day is a safe bet.

Darn it!

This post will be old-hat for some experienced clothes menders, but I am just learning, as I haven't really needed to do this before.
My mother in law recently fixed up some things for us - the knees of some denim jeans that my little boy had worn through but otherwise fit him fine, plus a t-shirt of mine that I disastrously caught on something and tore the day after I bought it! Darn it!

Finished product - iron-on patch stuck on top of darning. I later hand sewed around the edges to secure the patch, which started coming off not long after it was stuck on.

A closer view of my MIL's handiwork. She kind of wove the cotton in and out in one direction, then perpendicular to it.

These jeans will fit him for a while yet, so that's hopefully a fair bit more wear he will get out of them. This has inspired me to fix up a few other things too, and now that my son is doing things like skidding on his knees on astroturf and real turf, I'm sure the skill will come in handy.

Hubby bought some new shorts and virtually the next day, a rivet that was attached to a front pocket for decoration came off and left a hole around 8mm in diameter! You just can't get quality clothes these days... Shorts instantly looked old!

To darn this small, circular hole, I just stitched around the edges like spokes on a wheel, moving around in a circle. Then I sewed one of the spare buttons over the top on the outside to hide it:

You'd never know there was a hole there!

beady little prize - part 1

These beads are from 2 different multicoloured necklaces, neither of which I liked much in their entirety, but I did have a yearning for some beads in the brown register, to go with my brown boots and a few specific wintery dresses. I pulled them apart and separated out the beads I thought would be nice together.

Finished product was put together while I sat on the couch watching tellie one weeknight last week. Photo of finished product to follow.

Riotus fun with ribbon straw

A girl at work's grandmother was cleaning out her shelves, and my friend thought that I might like this one. It's a series of patterns for nifty clutch bags and purses to make out of 'ribbon straw' (which I also know as raffia). Aint they neat? If anyone feels inspired and thinks they can use this pattern to create accessory gold, just answer this question this simple style question in comments to be in the running.

Q. Ribbon straw handbags are:
a) super cool
b) naff and scratchy to boot
c) a great opportunity for reworking old styles using funky new materials and smokin' colour combos
d) way too small for all the crap I lug around daily on my shoulder
e) baffling
f) other (please specify)

Winner to be notified within the week, and I will send said lucky reader pattern in the post. Aaah - is this the first 'making groovy things' giveaway?

I wont take it personally if no-one enters and will assume that a non-answer pertains to an answer of 'b' or 'd'.