For the last couple of days, my blog reader has been overflowing with some awesome craft and cooking projects I want to try.

Pie in a Jar — I’m completely smitten with the idea of pie in a jar. I love to bake, but having a whole pie around rarely works out well for me. Either I eat too much pie, or I practice excellent self-control and throw half a pie away. Either way, I end up feeling guilty. This recipe solves that problem. Also — CUTE!

Reversible Bucket Hat — I haven’t seen very many Betz White projects I don’t love but this one makes me want to drag out my sewing machine and my huge box of fabric right this second. I’m a sucker for a bucket hat.

Fabric Backed Dry Erase Board — Another easy way to use some of my fabric stash. Cute and functional!

Buckle Clipping Toy — I think Augie would be in heaven if I made him one of these! He loves anything mechanical or gadget-y and this is something that could keep him occupied for hours, especially if I added a couple of zippers to the mix.

Elsie Marley’s Boy Belt Tutorial — Have I mentioned how much I love the Elsie Marley blog before? Oh, I really do! Something about Meg’s aesthetic makes me swoon and I want to try practically every tutorial she posts. One I’ve been really wanting to knock out are these cool belts for boys. I even have all the materials — I just need to drag out my sewing machine and find some kid-free time to pull them together.

What projects have you been dying to try?

Two weekends ago, our family set off on an adventure at the Maker Faire! If you are unfamiliar with Maker Faire, it’s a festival sponsored by Make magazine that showcases artists, crafters, DIY-sters, and other people who do really, really cool things. There are demos, exhibitions, shows, booths and all kinds of fun interactive things to do and see. Here are just a few of those things:

Warning: super photo-heavy post ahead. It might take a while to load.

Just about the first things we saw when we entered were a couple of cupcake cars whizzing by! These have been a fixture at Burning Man and the Maker Faire for a few years now.

And here’s how one looks disassembled:

Zach and Wyatt really wanted to see the mini-boat battle next and I wasn’t so interested in that, so they queued up for the next show and Augie and I hit the Bazaar Bizarre, a hall completely filled with craft vendors. Here were some of my favorites:

The first thing I bought was a two-pack of these felt paper bags beer cozies for Zach from My Imaginary Boyfriend. They just made me laugh, so I had to get them.

I loved these wooden robot cabinets too. The vendor was nice enough to tell me all about them and let me take some pictures, but I didn’t get the name of her business and now I can’t locate it online.

I also really loved these pillows from Eristotle and I talked to the woman who makes them, Erin, for quite a while. She hand cuts the beautiful, detailed animal shapes on the front of each pillow from recycled sweaters. I loved this elephant pillow but it just wasn’t in my budget right now. (Also, I could just see one of the kids smearing chocolate on it within moments of bringing it in the house!)

Sweet Meats was another booth that made me laugh. I love these big cartoon-y hams and steaks. I bought a little ham charm and now I need to get a chain to hang it on.

I also bought this pink robot headband (sorry no picture) from Beyond Wonderland. Her whole shop was full of accessories made from adorable Japanese fabric and I had to stop myself from buying one of each.

When Augie and I came out of crafty-land, the boys were done with their boat battle and waiting in line to go up in this amazing rocket. They waited in line for over an hour and when it was time to climb the scaffolding to enter, Wyatt got half-way up and decided that it was nuts to be that far off the ground so they came right back down.

We were all starting to get hungry at this point, so while Zach and Wyatt waited in line, I zipped off to get some food. There were lots of standard fair food offerings — deep fried stuff, barbecue and more deep fried stuff — but when I walked past this gigundo paella pan, I knew exactly what I was having for lunch.

Augie loved it too!

There were lots of flaming sculptures at the Maker Faire. These were a few of my favorites:

One of the big hits of the day for Wyatt was this big pile of tires that kids could play on. He climbed on them, rolled them, stacked them and knocked them over for at least a half hour.

And when he was done, he was a totally happy, filthy little ragamuffin.

At that point, we decided it was time to hit the big exhibition hall and when we got in there, Wyatt made a bee line for the Lego pit. There was a giant train track and village set up with lots of amazing buildings and structures in it. My favorite was this zoo:

While the boys played with Lego, I went over to the ProvoCraft booth to do their make and takes.

There was a really long line, but I got to see the Cricut Cake in action, silkscreen a tote bag with the Yudu (which I totally want and absolutely can not justify buying), and make a Batman mask for my little Bat-fanatic. You can see how much he loved it.

(He was actually getting really tired at this point.)

We decided this was a good time to head home because, we were all tired and…oh yeah…the Maker Faire was over! On our way out the door we decided we needed to do a little hula hooping. It looks like I’m a really great hula hooper here, but I actually stink. I think I had just let go of the hoop when this photo was taken. Photography is magical.

As we were walking to our car we saw R2-D2 getting loaded into his minivan…er…land speeder so Wyatt stopped to have his picture made with him.

A fine, crafty, making, DIY time was had by all!

And honestly, I’m not even showing you half of the fun things we made, saw and did. We’re already looking forward to next year!

This weekend I was struck by the desire to do a fun and totally easy scrapbook project. I’m still obsessing over the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone and over the last couple of weeks I’ve collected a fine assortment of photos that I really like. These photos have very little in common thematically besides the fact that they were taken with the Hipstamatic, but I decided that was a strong enough thread to tie them all together and put them into a small album.

For those of you who are not into scrapbooking as a concept — or who have preconceived notions about what scrapbooking is — you can think of this as a “photography project” if that terminology makes you more comfortable. But you should do this because there couldn’t be an easier way than this to get your photos off your phone and show them off.

Gather Your Materials

Start off by gathering your materials. I had decided to make my little album because that way I’d get exactly what I wanted for an end result. I also am the sort of person who enjoys making little albums and I have lots of scrapbook supplies and tools on hand. If you aren’t that sort of person, you can use a purchased album.

You will need:

• A pile of Hipstamatic prints  — I just printed mine at home. If you print them with a service, be careful that they don’t try to crop off the cool borders because they’re one of the best parts of the images.
• A paper cutter or a pair of scissors

If you’re making your album:

• Several sheets of black 12 x 12 inch cardstock (or the color of your choice)
• 2 6 x 6 inch pieces of chipboard for the cover (this is optional, but will make your album more sturdy)
• Some way of binding your album. I used a Bind-it-all system, but you could also use:
  • staples
  • a hole punch and binder rings or ribbon or string
  • a needle and thread to sew it together

If you’re not making your album, you’ll need:

• a small album

Make Your Album (or not)

To make your album, cut each sheet of paper into 4 6 x 6 inch squares. Then fasten them together using the method of your choice. I really like the 6 inch size because when you trim down the Hipstamatic prints they’ll be 4 x 4 inches and that will leave a 1 inch border of black all around the photos. The one inch border really puts the focus on the photos and it makes them look hella cool.

Make an Intro Page (or not)

I decided that I wanted to make an intro page for my album to give the photos a little context. To do this, I took a photo of a blank wall using my Hipstamatic. I then typed the word “Hipstamatic” with a grungy font and added a paragraph about my Hipstamatic obsession on top of the image using Photoshop Elements. I printed this intro page out along with my other photos. I also took a similar photo of my kitchen table using a different film/lens combo, added a title to that and used that on the front cover of the album.

I liked how these pages turned out so much that I went completely nuts and took a whole bunch of photos of my walls, couch and kitchen table using all sorts of film/lens combos. Then I went even crazier and I added the word Hipstamatic to some of them so they can be used as title or intro pages. Then, I uploaded them all to Flickr so that anyone who wants to make their own version of this album could download them and print them or add stuff to them in a graphics program or what have you:

Click the mosaic to go to a Flickr set with all of these images in them. You can download them from there. These are all licensed under a CC non-commercial license so follow those rules if you plan to use them, please.

Put It All Together

Alrighty then! Now it’s time to put everything together. Trim all your 4 x 6 prints down to 4 x 4. Then stick them in your album using the adhesive of your choice. I like using a tape runner, but you could also use a glue stick or any other dry adhesive you like. I wouldn’t use a wet glue on this project because it will cause the paper to buckle.

Add captions to the photos. I used a white pen, but you could also use a silver pen or a gel pen to show up on the black paper.

Keep the captions simple because this is a simple project. You don’t need to write a book.

Show off your Hipstamatic album to all your Hipsta-friends!

(Please excuse the extra-rambly nature of these instructions. I have a terrible head cold and my brain is all scrambled up. Let  me know in the comments if something isn’t clear and I’ll try to expand or completely rewrite it so it’s coherent.)

A few people have asked about the labels I used on my Lemon Ginger Marmalade, so I thought I’d share the graphic files I made for people to download and print. I’ve created orange, yellow and green labels to cover the full marmalade spectrum.

If you end up using these labels, I’d love to see what you do with them! Shoot me an email or leave me a comment below so I can send people over to your blog to see the labels in action!

Download:

Orange Labels — Download JPG Download PDF
Lemon Labels — Download JPG Download PDF
Lime Labels — Download JPG Download PDF

To use these labels, you’ll need:

• Self-adhesive paper or regular paper
• Tape or a glue stick (if you use regular paper)
• 2 inch diameter circle punch
• Pen or a software application to write the name of your delicious citrusy stuff
• Cans of preserves to stick the labels on

Here’s what you need to do:

Print the labels onto label paper. You can also use regular paper and glue the labels down, but the self-adhesive paper saves a little time. If you want a really nice, sharp image you can also print the labels onto photo paper (which is what I do).

Your paper punch probably won’t be able to reach the image straight from the printer, so you should cut the paper to get access to the images. With my punch, I need a maximum of 1/8 inch between the edge of the paper and the design.

Turn your paper punch so that the hole is facing up. This will allow you to see the image through the punch hole and you’ll know exactly where to punch. The punch I use is the X-Large Fiskars Circle Punch which I like because it’s squeeze handle is easy to use and it gives you a little more fine-grained control.

Slide the paper into the punch and center the citrus slice inside the circle.

The images are slightly larger than 2 inches to give you a bit of a buffer, so after you punch there will be a little bit of the image left behind.

Write the name of your preserves on the labels. I’ve never actually made key lime marmalade, but doesn’t that sound good? Maybe some nice person reading this post will send me a recipe so I can make some. (hint! hint!)

Peel off the adhesive backing.

Fetch one of your jars of preserves. These labels will fit perfectly on a normal sized lid, but they work OK on wide-mouthed lids as well. My jar is empty because I didn’t have any filled jars and I needed something to use as an example. You will want to put these on jars that have already been processed, of course. I don’t think they’ll hold up through a hot water bath!

Center your label on the jar and stick it down.

Voila! You have cute and clearly labeled marmalade now!

Want to make it fancier? Add the name of your preserves before you print the sheet. Open the file in your favorite graphics program. I’m used Photoshop Elements. Type the text you want to appear, centering it over one of the labels. I like the look of a more modern, sans serif type face with these labels. I’m using Avenir here but other nice choices might be: Arial, Helvetica or Trebuchet.

Add the text to all of the graphics, print, cut out, and apply to your preserves. Ooooooh, fancy!

Please feel free to download these labels for your personal projects. Everything on Wendolonia is made available under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial license.

Edited to add this: Coincidentally, my friend Shae posted about her technique for making canning labels at almost exactly the same time that I put this post up! If you aren’t so into the computer thing, I recommend you check out her crafty technique using ink and rubber stamps.

As if it weren’t crazy enough that I’ve taken on two huge challenges for myself this year (photo a day and my 73 goals), I decided to go completely nutso and I signed up for Lain Ehmann’s Layout a Day Scrapbooking Challenge for the month of February. Actually, one of the main reasons I signed up for this project is to help me accomplish Goal #21: Make at least 30 scrapbook layouts. So far I’ve managed my one layout per day which would make me happy even if that’s all I did for the month. I think I made around 4 or 5 layouts in all of 2009 so I’ve already tripled my output in comparison to last year. Here are some of the pages I’ve made so far:

Click on any of these links to see a larger version of the page: 1. Right Now, 2. Squish, 3. The President, 4. Sleepy Bear, 5. We <3 Mythbusters, 6. Wyatt’s 5th Birthday, 7. 25 Random Facts About Me, 8. the last quiz, 9. She’s Crafty, 10. Twins, 11. My friend Lisa, 12. SAHM

We’ve been having a lot of rainy weather around here and the kids have been stuck inside for over a week now. The other day, the five-year-old and I stumbled upon an easy activity that kept him busy for over an hour. OVER AN HOUR, PEOPLE! If you’re the parent of a five-year-old, you know how awesome that is.

We ended up making these things that I am calling: Tie Dye Window Decorations.

I’m pretty good at naming things, don’t you think? Also, I know it’s starting to look like we’re a bunch of hippies, but we really aren’t. It’s just that tie dye crafts are easy and fun and they give you pretty results with a fun surprise factor at the end.

All right, so here’s what you need to make these totally easy Tie Dye Window Decorations:

• A cheap-o kids water color set
• Paper towels

I bet you have those in your house right now! Sweet.

Start off by filling each of the water color thingies up to the top with water.

I found an easy way to do this is to fill up a big glass of water and then transfer the water to the paints by doing that thing where you put your finger over the end of the straw to trap the water inside and then let it go over the paints to get it out. Wyatt liked this part almost as much as the actual dyeing. You can also just fill them up at the sink, but you’ll be running back and forth a lot more often if you do it that way.

Stir the paints up to get more of the color in the water.

Now, take a big paper towel and cut it into quarters. You’ll want your pieces of paper towel to be about 6 inches square. If they’re bigger, they’re harder for little hands to handle and the paint doesn’t saturate as easily.

Fold your square of paper towel in half.

Then fold it in half again.

And then fold it in half on the diagonal, kind of like how you’d fold paper to cut a paper snowflake:

You can just leave your towel as is, or if you want it to be more of a circle, cut the end off the towel like so:

Instead of folding the towel on the diagonal, you can also fold it in half again so it’s a rectangle shape which will make the end design different, but equally attractive.

OK, so now that the paper towel is all folded, you get to start the fun part — the dyeing! Dip different parts of the paper towel bundle into the paints and let it absorb the color. The corners are the easiest.

You can fold it in half again to get the colors into the middle sections. You can also dab paint on with the paint brush.

Keep dipping and dabbing until the paper towel bundle has as much paint on it as you’d like.

Then unfold to see your beautiful creation in all its glory!

Lay towels flat to dry (we used a cookie cooling rack) and then hang them in a sunny window to catch the light!