Tuestorial - BOO! Halloween Costume Ideas

Happy Tuesday to all my Witches and Goblins!

Halloween is less than a week away...and if you're like me, finding the time to get costumes ready is just one of those things that gets pushed to the back burner until just before it's time to go out and get some candy! Not only that...I'm a cheap crafty lady...I'd much rather spend my money on craft supplies (and bite-sized Snickers) than a pre-fab Halloween costume.

As I was brewing up my spooktacular costume idea...other ideas popped into my head and I thought...self, this would be a great Tuestorial.
I sketched out some ideas for you... just in case you're still on the "haunt" for something easy to build just before you head out the door.

Don't mind my sketches...ha ha... they are meant to give you a little smile AND get the basic idea across for each costume.

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BE A BUNCH o' GRAPES! (for a kid or an adult)



Materials:
Purple Balloons
Black or purple extra large shirt
purple leggings
purple beanie

What's Great about this?:
if you get an extra large T-Shirt... you'll have some more room to maneuver around during the evening.

How To:
All you have to do is staple (or hot glue) the balloons onto your shirt. That's it!

- Extra credit -
Be a bubble bath! all you have to do here is wear all white, use white balloons and attach a yellow rubber ducky to either your "bubbles" or the top of your beanie!

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BE A PIECE OF SUSHI!
Okay, so this would work as an adult costume (if you just wore all white), but can't you see how cute it would be if it were on a baby?! And technically, this costume is a piece of Nigiri Sushi (just in case you get that hard question). :)



Materials:
White Onesie
Black felt
Orange Felt (the "salmon")


What's Great about this?:
Babies don't need to overheat in a large pumpkin for their first Halloween...and everyone will just love these creative idea!

How To:
hot glue the felt orange rectangle to the front of the onesie
Then, wrap the black band loosely around the onesie (measure the band on your baby first, so you know how big around you need it).

I think it goes without saying...you want to make this costume when the onesie is NOT on the baby... but I'm just sayin' that as a blanketed legal footnote.

- Extra credit -
Take a black baby headband and glue on a bright green piece of "wasabi" felt to the top of it. It will be the perfect accessory.


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BE CANDY CORN -or- A GNOME!

What's funny about these two ideas is that they are basically the same thing... just a different arrangement of colors! This means, you can look at what clothing you already have...and go from there!




Materials:
Long sleeve t-shirt in either orange or light blue
Pants in either dark blue, brown or yellow
Construction paper in either white or red


What's Great about this?:
Like I mentioned before, these two ideas are basically the same thing. AND they are made from very basic materials...so, if you needed to get one of the items quickly, you can easily get them at Goodwill or your local store.


How To For the Candy Corn:
Look at a piece of candy corn - as you can see...the candy goes from yellow(or brown) at the bottom, then to orange for the middle, and then white at the top. That's basically it. All you have to do, is where those colors and make yourself a hat.
For fun, you could glue candy corn to the hat (maybe just at the rim)...then people will know exactly what you are. Super comfortable and SUPER easy!


How To For the Gnome:
Similar to the Candy Corn...all you need for this is to wear a light blue top, dark jeans or brown pants (brown would be like David The Gnome) and then make yourself a red cone hat out of paper. Then, use a belt or a piece of felt to wrap it around your waste for that extra-gnomey look.
For the beard, you can just paint white on your face like a beard or leave yourself as-is for that young-gnome look.

- Extra credit -
Think of other costumes that you can spin off of this same idea... such as, a crayon! Make a hat, just like for the above costumes and then wear a matching shirt and pants. Using felt, cut out the word "crayon" and hot glue it to your shirt.
One of my favorite colors is pink... but maybe you'd want to be green or even magenta!



We are all very creative people... but sometimes, we have to push ourselves to think a little outside of the box during Halloween with very little time to take away from our Etsy businesses. Hopefully these few ideas have given you some inspiration.

PLACES TO GATHER SUPPLIES IN THE BAY AREA!

Scrap - a great resource for cheap craft supplies - all proceeds go to the Unified School District of SF

Our Craft Swap - THIS weekend!!! - This weekend, if you're feeling REALLY last minute...come to the Craft Swap and see if you can't swap someone for that last minute supply you couldn't find anywhere else!

Boneflowers! - a wonderful woman by the name of Jenna owns this great shop with amazing vintage finds and steampunk jewelry. She's also a great stylist and would be happy to help you find that perfect Halloween costume.


And for a final giggle:
This is one of my costumes I'll likely be wearing this year. My friend Astra Brinkmann (also the photographer) and I built this dress from an old prom dress I had laying around. Lots of hot glue to put that skirt together. Which comes to my final point... look around your house. Do you have a old prom dress you've been hanging out to? Maybe you can be a zombie bride... that's always a great go-to.

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If you're an Etsy seller in the San Francisco Bay Area, contact Jen from Mama's Magic Studio about joining SFEtsy!

Tuestorial - Pucker Up with Homemade Lip Balm

It's been a while since I posted...and for that, I apologize! But I hope you enjoy this week's short tutorial on making simple homemade lip balm. This project would be great for small Christmas gifts or a stocking stuffer...and it's a great introduction to what goes into lip balm for someone who is interested in taking some of the mystery out of this type of project.

Gather your materials!

- Pots or Tubes for your lip balm (20 small pots or around 12 tubes)
- lip balm base (see breakdown of this below)
- flavoring
- colorant (if desired)
- disposable eye dropper
- microwave safe bowl

STEP ONE:
To start you'll need a lip balm base.
Now - for mine, I just got a finished lip balm base from Brambleberry.com
BUT! here's a basic lip balm base which would be easy to also make if you wanted to buy the ingredients separately.

-2 tsp. beeswax (chop or grate it, then measure)
-2 1/4 tsp. jojoba oil

I've talked to a few friends who like to make their own lip salves and they say that getting the texture and balance right for your personal taste is the hardest part. If you want a softer lip balm, add more oil... a waxier lip balm is from less oil.


STEP TWO
Melt your base on a microwave safe container until it's melted. Some say you want to leave it in there for about 1 1/2 minutes...but it really would depend on your microwave. You don't want to boil your base...because if it's too hot, it will crack and break when drying in your pots. I just kept an eye on my base until it was melted all the way through.

STEP THREE
Add your flavoring and colorant.

1 oz. flavoring of your choice. (check out all these great options here... all food safe and yummy!)
.25 oz colorant (or a few drops)... also needs to be food safe.. like these

STEP FOUR
Using a disposable eye dropper, dispense your melted base into your lip balm base before it cools. You have to be a bit quick on your feet here so that the base doesn't cool before you've transferred all your lip balm into their finished pots.

TIPS & TRICKS

- I wasn't fast enough during Step Four, so my eye dropper got filled with lip balm and my lip balm started to cool in my bowl! Eeek!!! But... I'm a little smarter than the average bear so I just put that bowl back in the microwave for about 20 seconds until the material was warm again and kept going until I had used up all my base.

- To fix my little eye dropper, I did the same thing...just popped it in the microwave for a few seconds so that it would release some of the lip balm that was stuck inside. You don't want to cook any of the dropper for too long or you'll melt your eye dropper...and probably burn your little fingers when you touch it. So be careful!

- I think this would be a great little project for kids - ages 6 and up who can understand the concept of dangerous hot liquids. Kids would have fun choosing the color and flavors and giving these to friends at school for Christmas presents. For me, this project made about 20 little pots of lip balm.

- Total cost for this project is around $20. So it's truly an affordable gift giving idea.

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If you're an Etsy seller in the San Francisco Bay Area, contact Jen from Mama's Magic Studio about joining SFEtsy!

Natural Yarn Dyeing Tuestorial - Part One

As I mentioned in my Button Blog Post a couple weeks ago... my family is a crazy crafty bunch - I wouldn't have it any other way. And you'd think I would have learned my lesson with the button "situation" but I sparked another craft project that's quickly becoming a huge family project. Like Whoa.

Just over 2 months ago I was at Green Apple (my all time favorite SF book store) searching through the craft books. To be truthful, I need another craft book like I need a hole in my head, but I looked anyway and ended up picking up a book called Harvesting Color: How to Find Plants and Make Natural Dyes. The imagery is captivating in this book. I walked home while thumbing through this gorgeous book...only slightly tripped on the sidewalk a couple of times...no big deal.



I had my nose in the book the rest of that evening. Each chapter is organized by season...as in the season best to forage for that natural wild flower/plant. And each plant has AMAZING photos of the yarn after dying, the plants, a recipe for each plant dye and an illustrated chart which shows exactly where this plant might be located within the USofA.

I had been planning a road trip to Montana with my boyfriend at the time and I thought...self, let's go walk in the middle of the woods and pick up some supplies.

Just pick up some Supplies?! Not really as easy as that... but at the time I was just really excited about the concept that I could find natural dye on my own, and just POOF, dye something.

Really the process ended up being much more complicated than that. But for all of the work...Natural Hand Dying is possibly one of the most rewarding things you'll do.

Knowing that I couldn't do this on my own...I very "casually" gave my mom my book that I found.... "Hey Mom...thought you'd like this... maybe we can go pick some plants while we're in Montana this summer". I handed the book to her with pages already marked of all things found in Nevada, Idaho and Montana since that's where our trip would be taking us.

The next thing I knew, my mom had called me to say that she'd been to her favorite store in Oakland to obtain the first part of the materials we needed. The game was afoot and before I knew it we had all that we needed to dye yarn on our vacation. Yes, a vacation isn't really a vacation in my family unless we have a serious family project.

BASIC PROCESS:
1 - Gather Materials Needed
2 - Prepare the Yarn for Dying
3 - Forage for Supplies
(Okay, you could do this with step #1, but I separated it out into it's own section)
4 - Preparing the Dye/Extracting Color from Materials
5 - Dyeing the Yarn
6 - Finishing Touches & Tips


STEP ONE: Gathering Materials Needed
Yarn
Strainer (small one (around 6" across) will work well for this)
A Wooden Spoon
Measuring Utensils, like cups and spoons
Small Kitchen Scale
Rubber Gloves
Thermometer
Plant Materials (foraged)
Water
At least 2 Large Stainless Steal Stock Pots - and I mean LARGE

STEP TWO: Preparing your Yarn for Dying



First, you gotta remove the oil from the fiber. For 1 pound of raw wool: fill 3-4 gallons of water in a pot with detergent (like Dawn). Put the wool in and slowly simmer for 45 minutes. After cooling your yarn, be sure to rinse it as well. This will help to make sure you have no contaminants in your yarn.

In order to bring the most life out of the color you'll be dying your yarn, you should likely consider using a Mordant first on your yarn to make sure the yarn takes the color. Using one of your large stock pots (marking it as your Mordant Pot so you don't cross contaminate later), you want to fully submerge and soak your yarn for the time stated within the recipe you've chosen. Mordants are needed to set the color when using natural dyes. Different mordants will give different results.

Alum: (Aluminum Potassium Sulfate)
This is the most widely used mordant. Be careful not to use too much with wool, otherwise you will get a sticky feeling that doesn't come out.
Solution is 4 oz. Alum to 1 oz. cream of tartar.

Consulting a book like the book I mentioned above will teach you the differences between the multiple mordants that you can chose. Your local yarn supply store should carry some mordant or be able to guide you in the right direction.

STEP THREE - Forage for Supplies

What's funny is that when I first thought of doing this...I thought this was the bulk of what you would be doing...and in reality, preparing your yarn takes MUCH longer than the actual foraging. OK...so maybe I got lucky. My cabin sits in a mountain by a lake...we had 3 different types of plants that were running a muck up in the mountains of Montana. If you're a city girl...you might want to consider a short road trip for some of the materials you'll need for this...or you can get some natural dye from your local yarn shop and skip this step all together.

This was by far my favorite part of the process. After reading and practically drooling over that Natural Yarn Dye Book...we had already found that there was lots of Goldenrod and Sage to dye from.

By the time I got up to Montana with my boyfriend, my parents had already found a field about a mile away from our cabin that was speckled with goldenrod wild flowers. The recipe called for basically a whole stock pot full of flowers... knowing that we wanted to do a couple rounds of dye with this plant material... each of us gathered around half a bag full of flowers. Additionally...we did keep in mind that it would be better for the plant if we didn't snip off all of the flowers so that we weren't hurting the environment around us.





TO BE CONTINUED...
I hope I left you in suspense!
Because of the complexity of this project, I have written this blog entry in two parts. Part Two will come next Tuesday the 6th of September and will consist of steps 4-6... stay tuned for more amazing results!

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If you're an Etsy seller in the San Francisco Bay Area, contact Jen from Mama's Magic Studio about joining SFEtsy!

Inspired by a button.

In 2006, I was procrastinating my Master's Thesis project by endlessly browsing the internet. One day while on Ebay, and I found a tin of vintage buttons that I ended up winning for just under $5. I didn't know what I wanted to do with these things... but the uniqueness of each button captivated me.

I sifted through my tin for hours...and hours. Thesis-Shmesis...my creative juices were flowing... buttons just seemed much more important.
I started to collage the buttons together... I made pins and hair accessories for my friends... sold each for $10 and gave all the money to an organization that raises money to give scholarships to women.



Soon, my family started to take notice of my new "obsession" and a line of jewelry was formed. My mom found a "recipe" for crocheted button bracelets that my Great Grandmother made during the depression. Meanwhile, my dad started to sculpt bracelets out of jewelry parts and beads that he would purchase at the local bead shows. The tin of buttons I started with turned into over a million buttons, fully organized between shank and non-shank styles...color coordinated, labeled and stacked neatly in a button-jewelers dream workshop.

One tin of buttons... turned into a button-jewelry business!
Just one little spark of creativity...from a basic search on the web to pass the time...lead my family and I down a path where we've raised a lot of money for an organization that we all believe in.

Do you remember when you first had your bright idea? What pushed you to keep the business going and what inspired you to start selling on Etsy?



HOW TO MAKE A BUTTON HEADBAND!
This is a great project to make for any little ones or to spice up your workout headband.

Materials:
hot glue
elastic headband
buttons (vintage is better than buying new ones...just any extra buttons you have laying around the house)
beads



STEP ONE:
Create a color story. This can be the most challenging part...but basically, you want to chose a color story. There is a great site called Color Lovers that you can find some interesting color combinations made by users and inspiration.

STEP TWO:
Glue your largest buttons first as a base.
I found that two large coat sized buttons work well for a base.
You want to get the type of headband that has the metal clasp on it...otherwise, you would have to glue straight to the elastic and eventually your buttons will fall off.
The metal clasp is the most secure place to glue since it doesn't flex like the rest of the headband.

STEP THREE:
Working from largest button sizes (the base) to the smaller beads...continue to glue onto your base. Be careful of your fingers and the glue...working with such small objects and hot glue can burn a bit... this may not be the most kid-friendly craft project. Also, I tend to use odd numbers of everything (minus the two buttons for the base)...this allows the finished piece to have a very beautiful asymmetrical look with little to no brain work on your part.

STEP FOUR:
I like to use beads to give some character to my button headbands. I will find some stone beads and use them first and then use some cheap smaller beads as accents.

When layering with hot glue and your materials...try to use as little glue as you can. These small buttons and beads don't need much. Luckily, this craft is pretty forgiving. If you use too much glue...quickly place a bead or two on the glue area... your accident will end up looking like a genius cluster of sparkles!

Enjoy!

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If you're an Etsy seller in the San Francisco Bay Area, contact Jen from Mama's Magic Studio about joining SFEtsy!

Tuestorial - BOMB Stress AWAY!

Once a week I take 45 minutes to exit the stress of my week...
I set myself up a soothing bath...grab the latest DIY magazine and (most times) bring a cup of tea, or a beer, or a glass of wine in the bathroom with me. (or all three...ha ha)
It's my once a week ritual that has been helping to keep my stress from eating up my creative soul.

This all started when I went to Lush with my Mom a while back...but at over $5 per bath bomb or bubble bath...I just couldn't keep up with the cost of my baths. So...I decided to learn how to make my own aromatherapy baths. I also wanted to make something that was good for the environment...it's nice to know that what goes down the drain after my bath won't hurt the environment.

Making them is SUPER easy...so easy, that Sunday night I made a half dozen of these with my boyfriend's daughter who is 6 years old. She is very excited about taking baths this week. I guess if your kids hate taking baths - you could try to do this to get them a little more pumped about gettin' in the tub.

Finding the ingredients in San Francisco...surprisingly NOT easy (for me) so I did write down some tips for finding all of the bits and pieces here in San Francisco...which hopefully will help you out wherever you are.

Recipe:
1 cup Baking Soda (This is what will make it fizzy)
1/2 cup Citric acid
1/2 cup Corn Starch
2 Tablespoons Witch Hazel
3/4 tablespoon water
2 teaspoons Essential oils
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
3 drops food coloring (optional)

Here's how I did it.
Put all the dry ingredients in one medium size bowl
put all the wet ingredients in a smaller bowl
combine the two once measured...

put your mixture into molds. Fill the mold all the way up and then press down firmly to make sure the mixture is solid and will not crumble once dry.

keep your molds out of reach of yourself for a few days...then release from the molds and put into an air tight container for use later!

To use: fill up your bath with water... drop in a few bombs and watch them fizz away all the stress of your day.

TIPS!

- Finding the molds shouldn't be an issue...but if you want something Fun... you can make a bunch of mini bombs in those crazy rubber ice-cube molds that come in every shape you'd ever want.

- Pay attention to the details of the recipe: Normally, I'm the lazy kind of DIYer and I usually just dump everything in all at the same time...but since this recipe really is combining chemicals together...I take the separation of dry and wet a lot more seriously. I don't want to fizzle out my fizz by putting the wet ingredients in too quickly.

- What if your bombs never set in the molds and they crumble all over the place? NO worries! Thing is...you could just put all the good stuff you made above and just put it all in an air tight container if you wanted pretty much...spooning it into your bath instead of pressing it into a mold will work just lovely as well. Don't you worry...you'll be fine. However, if you're gifting these...perfecting the molds is a plus. I bought some cloth bags for cheap which make great companions to the bombs.

- Finding Citric Acid - the hardest to find. This was the hardest thing to find for me. the recipe I had found said that you could get this at any craft store or drug store. no...no you can't. But then someone said to me that citric acid is in foods, so I should try a food supply place. The light bulb went off. I ended up purchasing it at San Francisco Brewcraft. I got 5 pounds of it and when I got home I felt so silly since you only need 1/2 a cup. ha! If anyone needs any...I have some extra to go around, clearly.

- Essential Oils and you! A while back I found this gem of a place called The San Francisco Herb company. You know all those bulk teas you see in stores? Yeah...they pretty much all come from here. So knock out the middle man and check out this place. I got my essential oils from here because if you're a business, they GIVE YOU A DISCOUNT! Hollar at my money saving techniques...what what! ha ha... but really...they have pretty much all of the oils you'd want to see there since they also have pretty much anything you'd want to put in a killer potpourri. For just under $20 I got myself some vanilla, peony, jasmine, honeysuckle and spearmint. I have been able to use my oils many MANY times since then...a little goes a long way.

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If you're an Etsy seller in the San Francisco Bay Area, contact Jen from Mama's Magic Studio about joining SFEtsy!

Inspired by Handmade - Pack it up, pack it in

This weekend I'm on a short trip to see family in Southern Idaho.
Although this trip is short...a summer trip to Idaho is something I've grown fond of. Born in Blackfoot, ID but raised in The Bay (and having a summer cabin in Montana)...road trips and airplane travel is part of my summer vacation each year....traveling is where I learned how to crochet...it's where I learned how to cross-stitch, I drew in my journals and it's where I found the most pleasure listening to Operation IV and Rancid as loud as I could (without my Dad hearing my music).

Packing up my things I thought of our Etsy team and how many of our members have such great items that are perfect for a road trip or a couple of hours on a plane with nothing else to do but waste a bit of time.

So this week, I'm in inspired by things you can bring with you while you travel. Functional pieces...things that I could use each year on my voyage to Montana and Idaho. Some of these items are from team members and some are just from our local community. I think you'll be inspired to get on the road to new adventures with these great finds!





1. bring a hat...buy something small that you can stuff into a small corner of your bag... this Cashmere Wool blend Handmade Cycling Cap by alloneword is a great travel companion! it will keep some of the sun out of your eyes while also keeping your head warm. The nights up in Montana can get really cool and I could also see myself using this on a morning hike around the lake.

2. a pillow is a must have! But not a huge pillow...come on...no need to pack yourself a large pillow... if you're on a plane, having a pillow to rest your head on while you take a little snooze is a luxury... have one that is totally AWESOME like this Day of the Dead pillow from MiVidaCreations just makes you look like that totally awesome traveler that you are.

3. Keep a log! I like to make Sketch Diaries of my trips. It's a way of being in the moment for me and also a way to remember how many great memories I have without being tied down with a camera in hand. punkrawkpurl makes some great little moleskin journals that are perfect for taking with you on a vacation! She's at the Hecho Local Event this Sunday...so save on some shipping and visit her if you have time.

4. pack an extra bag! I now what you're thinking...an extra bag? More stuff?! But seriously...putting a small tote into your suitcase will give you some flexibility on the road. What if you wanted to stop by that fruit stand you saw a mile back? All you'd have to do is have a tote like this one from jenspillydesigns and you're good to go! Not to mention, if you're anything like me...I always end up with too many things on the trip back to fit into my suitcase.

5. Pack the First Aid kit! Okay...so maybe you dont' need one of these if you're flying...but how great would it be to have one of these handy when on a road trip? I love that this particular one by ReCultivation is vintage. Seriously, I'm one of those people who gets headaches from too much sun and also burns easily...having some aspirin, aloe and sunscreen by me on a road trip is a must! (can you tell I'm Irish? ha!)

6. A gift for the hostess. Packing a small gift for the hostess will make your vacation all that much sweeter! I like giving handmade soaps or scrubs to my hostesses. This one is just lovely to look at and doesn't break the bank! Plus, this soap by ettaandbillie is Rosemary Lemon... Mmmmmm... it'll make the clothes you pack it by smell that much sweeter!

7. Kill the boredom! I was pretty excited to see that Even Howard (nadene) had some great little DIY Kits on her Etsy. Yay! Her things are so beautiful and now I can work on killin' the time with something creative to keep my hands and mind busy.

8. Rock ON with ya bad self! Don't forget your iPod for some tunes along the way... when we drive out through Nevada, it's really VERY important to bring something to break up the trip and the radio stations are pretty much not happenin'. I love the iPod cases that EvelynX makes... she even has some that are made to order! Maybe you can get it personalized also so everyone knows how prepared you are for some rockin' out!! :)

What types of activities did your family do while you went on road trips as a kid? What traditions do you now have with your kids? I'm curious how many of us learned some of our go-to crafts while we sat behind our parents at the wheel.

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If you're an Etsy seller in the San Francisco Bay Area, contact Jen from Mama's Magic Studio about joining SFEtsy!