Putzing with Polymer and Other Crafty Pursuits

This has been my summer of crafting creativity, when not attending to Etsy or Ebay business. I've finally taken the plunge and listed a few of my efforts for sale. Mostly Halloween items since I can make them primitive, giving them a rather spooky or witchy effect. I hope anyway.

Fiery Eye Necklace Top

Halloween Slide Bottom

I'm keeping things cheap since my skills are still novice as far as the construction and technique go. I can't imagine what it takes to be a real artisan jewelry maker - far more patience than I'll have.

My process started with acquiring old and beat up vintage jewelry, still an addiction of sorts. In fact, I'll be putting up some batches of jewelry that I've given up on because I either have too much of it or don't have the skill set to alter them properly.

The first efforts I made were to alter the old pieces by removing the ruined paint and stones, usually rhinestones. As much as I love rhinestone jewelry though, I find them extremely difficult to work with the small ones, especially matching size and shapes and colors, then trying to place and glue. Even more difficult is working with pronged stones. I did finally finish a couple pieces by simply painting with gleaming and glittering nail polishes, then finishing.  Here's one that I've put up for sale on Etsy:

I think the glittery paint gives the impression of rhinestones and I love that shade of midnight blue. I plan to put up another one in a few days after I've done some pictures. It is a Halloween Elf, although it started life as something else altogether - I'm not sure what. It is an elf though, riding on a large swan.

My favorite piece incorporates what I've done up to the point of starting to work with polymer clay. This necklace has hand-rolled paper beads (another addictive activity) and glass beads taken from a vintage necklace I bought years ago. The smaller beads are a mishmash of plastic and glass spacer beads.

I put off starting with polymer clay all summer because I knew it would claim a lot of my focus and attention. I wanted to "just" make plain color beads, round or square, of various sizes to include in necklaces like the ones above. Crafting polymer clay properly takes dedicated space and tools plus knowledge that I am slowly acquiring. I've got a lot of beads (using the word loosely) that will go into the trash but I've learned something. Like don't use Modge Podge to coat them after baking, leaves a terrible sticky finish. 

I marched out of the library a few days ago with a pile of books on Polymer technique and then purchased a pasta machine, which elevates me to a serious student. There is no end of doodads to purchase for manipulating clay although I find that a lot of kitchen gadgets work quite well.

Now that Halloween is upon us (at least those of us in online retail), I have to focus on making more themed jewelry and other items. The "other items" is really one particular project that I'm super excited about but haven't attempted to make yet. Components have been assembled though so maybe some pictures will surface soon. Not going to promise exactly when though. 

Recipes I Promised

I won't turn into a real food blogger but I do love to eat. I have to share these easy to make good things that I prepared for our BFF week at Kimble Lake.

First up, Mahnomin Porridge, a recipe from the Hell's Kitchen Restaraunt in downtown Minneapolis. I pulled the picture from Twin Cities Food Finds and below is the official recipe as provided by Food.Com:

4 cups cooked wild rice
1/4 cup pure maple syrup (plus more for serving)
1/4 cup dried blueberries
1/4 cup craisins
1/2 cup roasted cracked hazelnuts
1 cup heavy cream (plus more, warmed, for serving)

Directions:
In a heavy non-stick sauté pan, add the cooked wild rice, heavy cream, and maple syrup, and warm through. Add the blueberries, craisins, and hazelnuts, and stir to mix well. Serve in a bowl with sides of warm heavy cream and maple syrup.

I didn't change much but did substitute Fat Free Half&Half for the cream. This makes a huge batch, so I froze some and left at home. We had two breakfasts among 4 women and still had a bit left over. It gets better with time as it soaks in more liquid. We did not need to add additional syrup as it came out very sweet. Also, I could not find any hazlenuts and wound up using blanched slivered almonds. No on minded.

We moved into our house in 1987 and subscribed to Gourmet magazine at the time. I kept the November issue (actually kept most issues for a long time until they piled up but that is another story) because of a recipe for something called White Wine Sangria. I made it for friends in spring of 1988 but no one seemed very taken by it, except for me. I couldn't stop drinking it and offered it to my guests who continued to decline. I've never forgotten that Sangria, which also introduced me to Pimm's No. 1 Cup, one of the most unfashionable liquors until its recent resurgence. Without further exposition, here is the recipe courtesy of Gourmet Magazine's online archives:

PEDRO LIGERO’S WHITE SANGRÍA AZULETE

JULY 1987

Nothing in the 7,000-word article on Barcelona from whence this recipe comes provides a clue to the identity of Pedro Ligero. Whoever he is, he had a nice touch for punch. Look for Fever-Tree bitter lemon and ginger ale for a less sweet, more sophisticated sangría. 

2/3 cup fresh lime juice
2/3 cup Pimm’s No. 1 Cup
2/3 cup vodka
3 cups dry white wine
7/8 cup chilled bitter lemon soda
7/8 cup fresh orange juice
7/8 cup chilled ginger ale or club soda
thin slices of lemon or orange, halved, for garnish

In a large pitcher stir together the lime juice, the Pimm’s, the vodka, the wine, the bitter lemon, the orange juice, and the ginger ale, add the lemon slices and 2 cups ice cubes, and stir the sangría. Makes about 6 cups.

My modifications: I followed the link to Fever Tree only to find out it cost $35 for 6 oz bottle of bitter lemon and ginger ale. Um, no thanks. I love my friends but...I wound up having to use lemon sour instead, which is not the same thing. Otherwise, I pretty much stuck to the recipe although might have sloshed in full cups when it called for 7/8 of a cup. 7/8 of a cup, really? I was not alone in enjoying this Sangria and we sucked up both batches. A salute to Pedro Ligeros, may the lemons be bitter wherever you are now.

The last recipe - or assembly of ingredients - came across on Facebook last spring. I got it copied to Pinterest just so we could have this up north by the fireside. We made a fire on the last night which was cool but still, so the mosquitoes divebombed me as I put these gooey treats together outside.

This looks like a great blog for parents btw, lots of fun ideas to do with your kids. Of course, I always thought that about parenting magazines when my boys were little and nothing ever turned out like the pictures. Here's the recipe from Cometogetherkids.com

• Sugar Cones
• Peanut Butter 
• Mini Marshmallows
• Chocolate Chips
• Bananas
• Aluminum Foil  (to wrap them in)

Here's what to do:

1.  Chop up the bananas and get some marshmallows and chocolate chips ready.  ( I liked using these ingredients on a camping trip because they don't need to be refrigerated and you can easily slice the bananas with a plastic knife ~ oh, and the fact that they're really, really yummy together!)
2.  Spread some peanut butter on the inside of the cone, then put in the bananas, marshmallows and chocolate chips.
3.  Wrap the whole cone in aluminum foil, then put in over the hot coals for 5-10 minutes or so, turning every so often.
4.  Unwrap your cone, check to see that everything's ooey, gooey, and melted... then dig in and enjoy!

Ok, the first read of this recipe leaves you with the impression that these should be awfully easy, although the sheer number of ingredients to press inside a sugar cone is daunting. The banana needs to be on the riper side of ripe. I had doubts about the peanut butter but saw the need for some salty contrast. I took the recipe advice and cut up the bananas first and had everything assembled before I started putting them together. We had a roaring fire but no hot coals so we set them as close to the fire as we dared. This turned out to be a slow method, the first batch took a good 20 minutes or so and could have gone longer. But they were still plenty good! We put a second batch in and had some good embers to put them on. They went much faster and mine burned, making half of it inedible (cone fused to aluminum, watch the dental work!)

So that's that on the food front. Coming up soon, a report on my scientific crafting experiments, unless I wind up on the six o'clock news having transformed into a Toxic Avenger. I'm not trying to attain super-powers though, I swear I'm just trying to create unique and wearable jewelry.

Up To The Lake

Spent the past week with the above lovely ladies up at Kimble Lake near Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. We've had the great good fortune to receive an invitation to spend five days at a cabin belonging to Joanie's brother and his family. From left to right, that is Terry, Joanie, and Annie and we've been friends since high school.

Of course, most of what happens at Kimble Lake stays at Kimble Lake. But a few highlights include: food and lots of it; drinking wine, beer, gin&tonic, and my now famous white wine sangria, recipe courtesy of GOURMET magazine 1987; swimming; games; no television at all; putting a lemon into play over the last two days. The final lemon in play is pictured below:

If Only I Had Some Parsley

The game goes like this: One person takes a lemon and hides it, telling the others that "The lemon is in play". This is directly from a British radio show btw, so not claiming originality here. Once someone finds the lemon, they take a picture of it and email/text it to the others announcing the lemon is back in play. And so it keeps going until it gets too hard. In this case, I begged that the lemon be left as pictured for the cabin's owners to find. Of course, we will have to *tell* them about it before too much time passes and they wonder where the pungent, rotten smell is coming from.

Next up, I will post some of the recipes I brought with me but today I am still too relaxed.

Adventures in Etsy and Ebay

As of three weeks ago, I became the proprietor of an Etsy.com shop named Nostalgicats. I have no particular affection for the name but I was stumped to come up with something on short notice.

My first items up were a set of demitasse spoons and a set of Royal Albert china. I've added a couple of items most days and right now have 15 listings. At first, I didn't think I'd sell anything or that anyone would even see my shop. There are so many listings on Etsy, far more than I can comprehend and I am not willing to spend more money to get my pictures farther up the queue.

I did a lot of Ebay several years ago. Ebay has become more confusing with their charges and listing options. I like the simplicity and appearance of Etsy shops but there are some items that don't belong there and will have to back to Ebay. The best part of all this is that I am inspired to go through drawers and cupboards and haul things out, then make choices. I put things in piles: Keep, Sell, Donate, Trash. Undecided items go back into Keep pile for now.

The downside is that I am cluttering by having stacks of stuff that needs to be photoed and listed, then put away until sold. Packing materials and supplies need to be stored where they are accessible. This okay with me though. I find myself organizing my house around my activities so I use the space, instead of feeling guilty about dirt and clutter piling up in rooms that are intended for traditional purposes.

The danger of Etsy and Ebay though is seeing things that I have to have. I have fallen several times already and racked up a few disappointments so that I am far more careful. It's also fanned the fires of my desire to craft things, particularly involving fabric and embellishments. I already have a huge basket of knitted and crocheted items that no one particularly wants and no, they would never sell on Etsy.

One thing I have learned is research, research, research before listing. (Probably should do that before buying but that's all about the impulse.) I have found several things are actually worth more than I would have thought due to names on the labels. At first, I would look up items like silverplate flatware and find it was worth far less than I hoped, so I was starting to get lax. Then I looked up a label on some cloth napkins my husband bought at a garage sale and found out they were the product of well-known designers (not well-known to me, obviously.) That added a few bucks to the asking price - not enough to make me rich.

Volume is the answer though. I'm not going to sell one or two items and go on a cruise for a year. Lots of little stuff, mostly under $20, will add up. It adds up, or I'm hoping it will begin to add up.

Are there any other Etsy or Ebay fans? Do you sell on either one? If you buy, are you disappointed at times? Share your experiences, please!

Hoarding on TV: Reality or not?

The two shows about compulsive hoarding that I have seen are: "Hoarding: Buried Alive" on the TLC network and "Hoarders" which is aired on A&E. I can't really tell them apart, although "Hoarders" seems to be the bleaker of the two, more likely to let the images tell the story. HBA has a tendency to manipulate a storyline.

I've also seen a couple other series that take a kinder, gentler approach. The one I liked best was "Clean House" which I believe is off the air. "Clean House" wasn't really about hoarding; it was about clutter getting out of hand. Since there is a narrow line between cluttering and hoarding, there were some run-ins with hoarders, but most of the people represented on Clean House were folks like you and me (me anyway) who had simply become overwhelmed by their stuff and too depressed to do anything about it. This would result in a toxic household in which no one would take responsibility for starting the process of cleaning up.

Now let me come clean (oh, so clever) on my household status. We've got a whole lot of clutter and hoarding going but have not graduated to garbage house. In fact, we regularly remove clutter and reorganize the stashes to keep things livable. But we've lived in the same house since 1987 so the problems run deep. I tend to be messy, the sort of person who winds up with stacks of papers everywhere. My husband thinks of himself as a collector, which is what a lot of hoarders call themselves. He is also a natural, ingrained recycler, meaning that he saves many things that could be of use someday. No doubt a handy trait in the pioneer days.

I gave up my background to explain my interest in Hoarding as an issue. My "domestic matters" are deeply affected and so the subject will come up on this blog a lot. But not every post, I promise.

Back to the Hoarding shows on television -- the situations and people appear to be real. I can only manage to watch an episode or two every few months. I watch because I think I might learn something about the process of change, but I never do. Somehow, if it happens at all, it seems to happen off-screen.

Both shows follow a similar formula. A hoarder reaches a critical point in her or his life where they must change or lose everything. Eviction, condemnation, health issues and so on are the usual reasons. In some cases, the hoarder's house has deteriorated beyond restoration and has to be pulled down. One episode, the landlord was trying to evict a man who could only get into his house by going to a neighbor's apartment and crawling out onto the fire escape to climb the stairs and enter his own kitchen window.

Obviously, these are the most extreme cases which make the best television. As the episode unwinds, the family and friends of the hoarder (sometimes victims) come upon the scene and try to offer help and support. Often the support from close family members (siblings, children, parents, spouse) deteriorates into rage and recriminations. A therapist becomes involved to oversee the situation and to be honest, appear to be wretchedly ineffective, no matter how experienced.

The camera lingers lovingly on the worst of the clutter. Given how extreme these cases are, most rooms are piled with junk so high that no one can walk in them, much less know what lies beneath the piles. Garbage hoarding is the worst, with long shots of vermin skittering around and slime growing up the walls. Generally the hoarders themselves have reached a point of wanting to change or understanding they need to change but simply cannot. Once in awhile, a stubborn hoarder will be featured who will declare themselves problem-free and claim to like living as they do.

After establishing the dysfunctional household and family group, the next phase of the show is the clean-up. This is the part where I pay attention and feel I have learned the most as far as what not to do or say to a hoarder. Usually a volunteer group is brought into clear since the volume of garbage and clutter is staggering, beyond the capability of being cleared by just a couple people. They are led by a professional organizer, who always claims to have experience with hoarders.

The cleaning day might start well, with the hoarder enthused and energized,until they discover that someone threw away something of value. Might I mention here that this is inevitable, since hoarders value things for unfathomable-to-the-rest-of us reasons. Pandemonium ensues as the hoarder wants to inspect every plastic bag that has left the house. OH NOES! Treasures are being stolen! Everyone must back off now and sit while the hoarder tries to start hauling items back into the house.

The therapist dithers around the hoarder, offering up socio-speak that the hoarder usually ignores. Close family members lose it, shouting in rage, initiating confrontation, trying to browbeat the hoarder into recognizing how their behavior has stifled the entire family, that there are other victims involved here. None of this works. The organizers pops in repeatedly to berate the hoarder about time running out, the volunteers need to go home, the truck needs to leave etc.

Will the hoarder succeed or not is the big question as the show cuts to a commercial break. How will this painful mess get sorted out? When the show returns, the hoarder will have given up or...the house will be cleaner to some degree, at least livable again. Sometimes the family is enjoying a meal in their kitchen that is now functional again. But oftentimes, as in reality, the hoarder returns to their home after the meltdown and remains mired in their trash.

I would like to see what takes place during that commercial break (kidding, I know that what goes on takes a lot longer). How did the hoarder come to the point of letting everything go? This is the most important thing that I and many other viewers need to know. I know they didn't clear the house in a single day or even a weekend, so how long did it take? Did the therapist convince the family to get into group counseling instead of just treating the hoarder? I have these questions and many others.

Maybe I expect to much from a "reality" TV show. Just typing that sentence and looking at it makes me feel naive. These shows are sensationalizing and exploiting families that need help. But at least hoarding awareness has increased extensively, resulting in a lot more study and resources for information. That's a good thing, as Martha would say, and is helpful to me and my family as we struggle to bring order to our home.

Questions for readers: Do you think you are a clutterer and in danger of sliding into hoarding? Or are you a super-organized person who loves nothing more than sorting everything into its proper place? Where do you fall on the scale between compulsive hoarder to OCD organized?

Where To Begin Again?

Hi, my name is Maggie and I'm a blog-a-holic. Not a compulsive reader of blogs, but a compulsive creator of many abandoned sites. For the past year, I've had a good excuse for this: I was diagnosed with breast cancer last April (2012) and have been hoeing a long row ever since. I am not restarting a blog for that reason though, although the subject is certain to come up.

My brain function, due to various upsets, has been recovering in fits and starts so that consistency in writing ability has been slow, to put it mildly (and with a cliche.) But there are many topics that I have been interested in writing about yet hesitated, not wanting to deposit yet another tiny droplet of my thoughts into the vast oceans of cyber-space. Since my current life is currently about domestic pursuits, it is here that I have chosen to start again. This time around though, the domestic matters will delve beyond recipes and knitting -- although those are still important too!

I'm keeping this entry short and sweet so I can to work on my next planned entry - the topic of hoarding and its impact on my familys' life. No promises on when I'll finish that one.

Easy Overnight Oatmeal

I'm working on making my daily diet more fiber-rich and plant-based. It's been easy for me to eat way less meat than I used to, but getting the "right" foods in has always been problematic. Eating steel-cut or old-fashioned oatmeal with fresh fruit is a delicious breakfast, but not as easy as popping waffles into the toaster!

I started googling various shortcuts to preparing the steel cut oats, which my father prepares quite deliciously by simply cooking them on the stove. His method isn't particularly hard but still more work than I'm willing to put in on a daily basis. Here is how he does it:

Boil quantity of water per directions on oat package.
Chop up an apple or two, depending on how many servings. (He peels them too, but I don't think you would need to)
After apples are soft and cooked, add the oatmeal.
Stir and cook for about ten minutes, until oats are soft.

Now here is the magic ingredient he adds that elevates it:

Spray a nice dollop of whipped cream into the mix.

The result is outstandingly delicious, especially since he serves it with more cream and brown sugar to add. So not quite as healthy as could be.

A few months ago, I found many recipes that called for assembling the oatmeal in a slow cooker or crockpot and then cooking overnight at low heat. This sounded appealing and there were some fruit additions, like cut up apples or blue berries. However, I found that I was never interested in putting it together in the crockpot when it was late at night, especially since I'd have to make a large quantity. Although honestly, it is supposed to be reheatable even if no one else was interested in it.

Finally, I came across some easier methods. Placing the oats, liquid, and other flavorings in a glass jar overnight. In the morning, swirl and eat it cold. Sounded perfect for this time of year, as hot oatmeal isn't so appealing as summer moves in.

So I conducted a few experiments using this method shared on the blog The Yummy Life, which has six different suggestions for ingredients, but follows the same basic method each time. Here are my results so far:

Peanut Butter Banana: I made this and almost liked it a lot. What was wrong was that I used Smart Balance Peanut Butter which doesn't really have the best flavor. It would have been better with Skippy. Also, the peanut butter clumped a lot, although vigorous stirring helps, but didn't eliminate the blobs. As for the banana, I would recommend holding that out for the overnight process and adding it in freshly cut before eating. (There is an oddness is the flavor of bananas that bothers me anytime I eat them raw but not immediately.)

This recipe called for 1 tsp of honey, but I added at least two. That wasn't sweet enough so I have to say it takes about a TBSP of honey to make it sweet enough for me. Possibly that would be resolved by using a sweeter peanut butter and adding bananas as I suggest.

The second experiment was with berries. I had fresh strawberries and blackberries and I liked the results a bit better, although again, some of the fruit just tasted off. I think I'd add this type of fresh fruit just before eating.

My last effort was my own ingredients with the same method. I used canned light coconut milk which was leftover from another meal. I also added some fat free half and half and a tbsp of rock sugar. It came out with good flavor (assuming you like coconut flavor) but the texture didn't work at all. I stuck it in a microwave bowl and microwaved for about a minute and that was much better.

My conclusions on this experiment are this. It is easy to assemble the oatmeal, liquid, and some sweetners in a jar to eat the next morning. You don't have to do it late at night as with the crockpot method, because the mixture is good for several days. If you eat it the next morning, it is rather chewy, which I don't mind. However, microwaving it a minute or so will soften it up nicely and be a warm bowl of oatmeal, which some might prefer. I will stick to adding fresh fruit before I eat, rather than overnight for the time being, but might try again with applesauce or canned fruit in the winter.