Tutorial: quick and easy decorated jar

Every time I finish a jar of something-or-the-other I carefully remove the label, wash the jar in hot soapy water and save it for jam making. I am the owner of a lot jars. And so very little jam.

I've decided to face up to the harsh reality that I am never going to make the indutrial quantities of jam needed to fill all those jars. Instead I am re-purposing some of the stockpile as storage.

Now as we know, homemade jam looks quite attractive in an old jar ... but a pile of dishwasher tablets, rubber bands or rechargable batteries tend to look a little less so. A little simple decoration with fabric and paint is in order!

Equipment and supplies

• Old jar, washed and dried
• Steel wool (preferably not the soapy type)
• Acrylic paint
• Paint brush
• Fabric scraps
• Modge Podge waterbased glue/sealer or similar product

Instructions

1. If your jar lid is painted, strip it back by rubbing it with steel wool.You might want to wear gloves as you may need to apply some pressure and steel wool can hurt your fingers. Take it from one who knows!



2. Using even brush strokes, apply 2 coats of paint to the inside of the jar. Allow drying time between coats and after finishing (I used a hair dryer to speed up the process - but remember to only do this in a well ventilated area).



3. Cut motifs from your fabric. If you have partial prints at the fabric edge, these are perfect for lining up with the top or the bottom of the jar.

I have used a beautiful piece of vintage butterfly fabric (from here). Much better to have the butterflies prettying-up my kitchen than lying flat in a pile of fabric in the cupboard!



4. Hold the jar at its neck and cover the entire surface of the jar with sealant. Working quickly, arrange each motif on the jar, applying a good coat of sealant over the top. If you want a very smooth finish on the jar, make sure you even out the brush stokes over the whole surface, before the sealant starts to dry.



5. Allow the jar to dry fully. Depending upon what you wish to store in your jar, you may want to also seal the inside of the jar. This will prevent the paint chipping. Dry fully again before using the jar.

Now fill the jar and add the polished lid.

Before and after - a lovely jar for storing your knick-knacks.

Note: due to interior paint, not suitable for storing foodstuffs, permeable items such as soap or for full immersion in water

My weekend sewing diary (or how not to try your first Ottobre Design pattern)

Friday 1.00pm
Leaf through treasured (read: never used; often admired) copy of OTTOBRE design magazine. Take leave of senses. Decide to make lined jacket for nephew's birthday. By Sunday. Have never used an OTTOBRE pattern or made lined jacket before. Reality check idea using Twitter. A wise woman replied; something about staying up til all hours. Fail to heed warning.

Friday 8.00pm
Children cooked, meal cleaned and house put to bed. Try to make head and tail of pattern (see below). Decide early on (wisely) to ditch the pleat and welt pockets and leave jacket plain. Trace pattern pieces. Curse fact that pattern does not include seam allowances. Add allowances to pieces.



Friday 11.00pm
Finish cutting last pattern piece. Wonder what I will use to make jacket? Go to bed.

Saturday 10.00am
Set out to shop for fabric and notions. Find chocolate cotton drill for jacket shell at discount fabric store. Become unreasonably fixated on finding chocolate gingham lining fabric like one in magazine illustration.

Saturday 12.00pm
Talked around by very sensible lady at fancy fabric shop. Purchase smart striped cotton shirting as lining. Rush home to launder, dry and press fabric.

Saturday 2.00pm
Begin to cut and sew. Intersperse frenetic work with viewing of AFL grand final, family responsibilities and emergency trip to buy additional top stitch thread.

Saturday 6.00pm
Household in chaos. Bits of sewing strewn from one end of house to other. What's for dinner? And who took other half of my zipper?

Saturday 8.00pm
Altercation with Mr HB after someone's red wine mysteriously spatters on part of lining fabric.

Sunday 12.00am
Lining stitched together. Most of outer shell completed. Start on cuffs. Have never made cuffs before. Did I mention OTTOBRE design does not include diagrams? Just words. Keep re-reading same paragraph over and over. Tell myself: sleep is for the weak.

Sunday 2.40am
Cuffs completed. Fall into bed.

Sunday 6.30am
Woken by children. Pay dearly for going to bed late. Notice I have effectively trashed house in less than 24 hours. Children run up and down. Cat miaows. Household looks chaotic.

Sunday 8.00am
Attach cuffs to sleeves. Feel excited - looking like a proper jacket now. Ooops. Notice wobbly top stitching. Can't have that. Unpick. Sew again. Notice zipper won't do up. Ooops - that's a show stopper. Unpick, unpick, unpick. Finally start attaching lining and shell.

Sunday 10.00am
Stress levels rising. Start to attach shell and lining. Have trouble understanding instructions. Read. Re-read. Say naughty words out of earshot of children. How do the @#%&$ sleeves join? No prior experience to draw on. Stitch in panic. Attempt to turn garment right side out. Have sewn each sleeve and lining as weird kind of tube. Garment WILL. NOT. TURN. OUT.

Sunday 11.30am
Sob hysterically. Make sort of melodramatic statements one expects after 3.5 hours sleep. Need to leave for birthday party by 1.00pm. Still sitting in pyjamas. Its the end of the woooorlddddd. Employ assistance of Mr HB who sees I have been constructing in reverse. I have been skipping over salient point in instructions. Unpick, unpick. Re-sew and top stitch.

Sunday 12.30pm
Done! And it looks like a jacket. Now wasn't that easy? I wonder if I could ask Mr HB for an OTTOBRE design magazine subscription for Christmas?

Thankfully Mr HB never visits the blog - there would soooo be a divorce.



The pattern I used was for the Keyboard Canvas Jacket (pattern #31) from OTTOBRE design 4/2008. The jacket has a stand-up collar, zip front, elasticised waist band & cuffs and is fully lined. Due to my lack of expertise, I omitted the front welt and pleat pockets. The recommended fabric for the shell is canvas, but I used drill to make a lighter-weight jacket suitable for spring and summer.

Eye spy ... something I shouldn't eat but do

I am playing along with Bug and Pop's lovely "Eye Spy" each Sunday. This week's theme is from the delightful Jennifer Rose of Fuzzy Dragons. She has asked us to spy something we shouldn't eat, but do anyway.

I once heard a dietitian say that you shouldn't eat anything that your great grandmother wouldn't have been able to identify.

These more-ish, glowing cheesey snacks - comprising exotic ingredients with names like E160a, E330 and E170 - probably fall into this category. (I opened the box just to take a photo. Honest.)

Thank you to Cindy for hosting Eye Spy and to Jennifer Rose for the theme. To discover other food stuffs, head over here

You call that dinner?

The Thai fish cakes were looking absolutely delectable.
Just up until the point before I started to make them.

My creative space

I am joining in with Thursday's My Creative Space at Kootoyoo.

Clockwise from bottom left:

• Faces from Pippijoe's delightful Kiddy Up print


• Appliqued towels


• Twill tape


• Avery printable transfers

I am midway through making a set of hand towels for Argy's kindergaten.

Each little towel is receiving an appliqued face and a hanging loop bearing the kindergarten name. I'm using the Avery paper to create iron-on transfers to apply the name to the twill tape.

Mind you, I am not entirely convinced of the necessity for all the labelling. Are we stopping towel theft? Tell me - who would knowing choose to use a preschooler's hand towel in their bathroom? Actually, now I think about it, maybe its a warning.

Thank you very much Kirsty for hosting My Creative Space. Its great fun seeing what everyone is doing. To see who else is showing their creative space (or to join in), head over here.

Acid

I'm hooked on acid. Carbonic acid.

It started innocently enough - a small bottle of Skipping Girl-branded vinegar and a bit of baking soda. Its a good cleaning product I was told. And so it was. Handy, cheap and environmentally friendly.

The stainless steel sparkled. The bathroom gleamed. The ancient bolognaise stains lifted from the old high chair tray. The drains smelt sweet. The red wine stains disappeared from the laminex.

But now I can't get enough. I think I have crossed a line.

I am addicted to the satisfying fizz and foam as the vinegar and sodium bicarbonate react. Ahhhh ..... CH3COOH + NaHCO3 ---> CH3COONa + H2O + CO2. I am sprinkling and spraying like there is no tomorrow; cruising the house looking for new cleaning opportunities.

But as I purchased another 4 litres of vinegar yesterday, I recognised that I might have reached excess. Casualties are starting to appear. I implore you: do not clean your aluminium baking trays with this concoction. Or your face. No. Especially, not your face.

It started as good clean fun ... but where will it all end?

I wish I had remembered: its a marathon ...

... not a sprint.

You see at just Day Two of the school holidays, I panicked. Poor Argy and Bargy both have croup. So I wheeled out the craft supplies. All of them. At once.

The boys worked frenetically: cutting, pasting, drawing. folding, bending, colouring, threading, sticking. Think locusts and crops. Piranhas and .... well, I think you get the picture. Mountains of supplies laid to waste used in one fell swoop sitting.

Day 3 is looking grim.

Sneaky

Mr HB suggested a utilitarian neoprene sleeve for our netbook computer. I came up with daisies and a bow.

Its a subtle strategy; some might even say underhanded. But I can't see him making off with the computer quite so often now, can you?

Next up: a patchwork TV remote control cosy and embroidered car seat covers.

Beautiful Daisies print on cotton/hemp blend by Pippijoe.

Redwork

This is my contribution to Kirsty's community redwork quilt.

My square is (um, supposed to be!) a cherry tree. I appliqued it using red silk dupion, red silk thread and red shell buttons.

Red is such a lovely colour to work with.



I have really enoyed being part of a community project. You should see the amazing creations people have come up with. Take a look over here.

Granny fashion

Those who have met me might know that I am relatively clueless about fashion trends. I have my old wardrobe staples and rarely budge. I am a virtual stranger to the fashion "knock-off".

That was, until yesterday. That's when I saw the beautiful Cate Blanchett on the red carpet, at the launch of the Screen Worlds exhibition in Melbourne. She was wearing a statement piece. A garment that said crochet; with a nod to the the iconic granny square, that we novice crocheters so love.

I thought it was fun. And just had to get my hands on one.

But as is so often the case, the rushed copy is never quite the same. The fit seems a little odd. What do you think?

(What do you mean she wasn't holding hers closed at the back with one hand? And can anyone tell me why mine was displayed on a bed?)

My creative space

I am joining in with Thursday's My Creative Space at Kootoyoo.

This week I am completing frantic last minute stitching for my contribution to the Redwork Quilt. In the foreground are the embroidered silk leaves I am about to attach to a cherry tree applique.

Can't. Stop. Now.
Must. Keep. Sewing.

Thank you very much Kirsty for hosting My Creative Space. Its great fun seeing what everyone is doing. To see who else is showing their creative space (or to join in), head over here.

The great transposition fiasco of 2009

Now I know I vowed and declared not to write of scones again, but this story is about closure.

If you have stopped by previously, you might know that I decided to enter my scones in this year's cookery competition at the Royal Melbourne Agricultural Show. I've never done anything like this before. It was all meant to be for fun. But as the time went on, the amount of practice and refinement (and ridiculously large scone store in the freezer) suggested things were getting a little more serious.

Anyway this Sunday past was the Big Day. I rose at dawn to bake a large quantity of scones, before selecting and ferrying my best 4 to the Showgrounds. The craft pavilion was awash with ladies bearing Tupperware containers and people with pens and clipboards. It was all quite exciting. I checked in my best 4 on a paper plate and left my entry to be judged.

This morning the results were announced. Part of me was a tiny bit hopeful. Hopeful in the same sort of way that I might hope to win the lottery. Or that both my boys might sleep in until 7:30. You know - possible, but oh so unlikely.

Yup, no prize for me. Never mind. That's just the way scone crumbles ... right?

Then I noticed, the small matter of a four and a zero. You see, it appears that when I placed my entry, that I transposed these two numbers. Instead of entering myself into the Novice class 204, it seems I inadvertently competed in Class 240. And Class 240, dear reader, is for the scone heavyweights - previous prize winners.

When I looked at the list of prizes and commendations, it was dominated by people with just two surnames. Could it be that there are two families who monopolise Class 240 annually? Are there close relatives who compete fiercely against one another each year? Family bake-offs?

Oh hot buttered scones (or some less printable swearing), I thought. I never stood a chance in that class. I wonder what would have happened if my scones were in the novice division?

Who knows? Not me. I'll just have to have another crack at it again next year.

On lizards and other life lessons

Recently this little fellow turned up in our garden.

Apart from being sans tail, he was the most beautiful little lizard. He had lovely markings and sparkly jet black eyes. He stayed for a numbers of days, soaking up the sun and the warmth from some paving.

That was, until the fateful afternoon. The one when I found Argy and Bargy crouched over the lizard. There he was: lying prone; eyes shut tightly and mouth agape. Mum, look the lizard is sleeping. Now, admittedly my mouth tends to hang open like that when I am kipping, but it was clear that this guy had shuffled off the mortal coil.

Mum should we get him a drink of water? Or maybe put him in the sun? The boys proffered. How can we cheer him up?

Poor lizard. I wondered what had happened.

I took a breath: I knew I was going to have to explain death. I felt a pang of sadness, as another little piece of innocence was about to be lost. The conversation was short and factual. I don't think Bargy understood too well, but Argy was upset. A large tear rolled down his cheek as he realised that the lizard wouldn't be waking.

:: :: :: ::

Fast-forward to a different time and place - and a discussion about families. Argy was asking me about my grandmas and where they were.

Since we'd had the previous conversation, I thought I could gently explain that they had both died. You know, like the lizard.

Oh said Argy with curiosity ... Who stood on them, Mum?

Well, I guess that solves the mystery of how the lizard met its demise.

Wired

Who said Mr Hoppo Bumpo isn't the creative type?

Just look at the back of our telly. See? This is quite clearly a cable knit.

Eye spy ... seasons change

I am playing along with Bug and Pop's lovely "Eye Spy" each Sunday. This week's theme is from the gorgeous Lisa of The Princess and The Monkey. She has asked us to spy a season's change.

In my part of the world we are heading into Spring: the season of the annual school fair. There are some absolute beauties around Melbourne.

This afternoon Argy and I kicked off the fair season, by travelling to an inner city school. We admired the beautiful grounds, patted baby animals, perused student artworks, rummaged through bric-a-brac and - most importantly - consumed pink sugar spun to the size of our heads. Perfect.

Thank you to Cindy for hosting Eye Spy and to Lisa for the theme. To discover other season's changes, head over here

My creative space

I am joining in with Thursday's My Creative Space at Kootoyoo.

Sunday is judging day for scones at the Royal Melbourne Show and this is my second last practice batch. I am taking them to the park this morning and inflicting them on my friends at Mothers' Group. There are some mums and tots who have eaten a lot of scones recently.

After Sunday I am hanging up my scone cutter and getting out the sewing machine. And it is my solemn oath that I shall not utter the word scone again.

Thank you very much Kirsty for hosting My Creative Space. Its great fun seeing what everyone is doing. To see who else is showing their creative space (or to join in), head over here.

Kiddy (clean) up

Hello, my name is Liesl and I am a kindergarten mum.

My house is filled with objets d'art constructed from cereal cartons. I have been know to wear jewellery fashioned entirely from string and bottle tops. I prepare snacks in consultation with a hallowed list called all-the-time-foods. I spend a lot of time cleaning sand out of shoes and pockets. I am a dab hand a differentiating abstract scribbles; telling the self-portraits from the diggers. I volunteer part-time as the kindergarten treasurer and do the books whilst sitting on teeny tiny chairs. I think life's greatest mystery is why its only the aqua poster paint that won't wash out of clothes.

I do most of this with a smile on my face and a (children's) song in my heart ... and frequently with unbrushed hair and teeth and food splattered track-pants.

But I have a secret. Being a kindergarten mum is not all beer and skittles. Each week at our kindergarten, families take turns to do a huge load of laundry: table cloths, smocks and hand-towels. Don't tell anyone, but I detest doing the washing. You see I know the sorts of things pre-schoolers do ... and it aint pretty.

When I look in that laundry bag, all I can see a giant petrie dish; a big festering bag of e coli.

The once-colourful little hand-towels that someone's nanna so lovingly machine embroidered, look crusty in that laundry bag; a deep shade of brown-grey. So I've offered to make a new set. I have a piece of Pippijoe's sweet Kiddy Up print (pictured above) to applique a cute little kiddy face onto each towel. The new towels will be bright and fluffy and untainted by a the wipe of a hand, nose ... or something altogether worse.

Lost for words

There's no denying it. Its been nine days. Nine long days. And not a thing. A good dose of castor oil and a sturdy plunger have failed to rectify the problem. Its most awkward.

Yes, it seems I have developed Blog Block*.

Do I call a doctor or a plumber?


* This condition seems to be accompanied by fatigue, woolly thinking and a lack of craft. Oh ... and a two year-old who has a predilection for singing at 4:30am.