Crazy Crayons!

So for one of Harley's Christmas gifts, I wanted to make her a fun present that also was super inexpensive. I decided I was going to make her: "crazy crayons"... pretty much just like what it sounds... crazy looking crayons. I thought she would enjoy them :) For this project, I went out and bought a new crayon pack (although you can get thrifty and melt all of your little crayon nubs lying around for this project.)

I had this silicone baking mold lying around...but from what I remember it was only $2 on Amazon

Then, I got out my 64 box of crayons...

First, you need to peel off the paper wrappers off of your crayons

Next, you need to break up your crayons into little pieces

Then, I put each of the crayon pieces into the silicone molds

Finally, I baked them in a 200 degree oven for about 15 minutes (or until they all melted into one)

Once I took them out of the oven, I let them cool and then I popped them out of their molds!
There we go! Crazy Crayons! Have fun making your own crazy crayons. They're pretty cute, and I think kids would prefer using these than a tiny, used up crayon!

DIY Laundry Detergent!

Every time I need to buy laundry detergent, I get the same thought in my head as I do when I look at contemporary art: "I could do that for about half the cost." (Sorry to my friends majoring in art history!!) I've never understood why laundry detergent could be so expensive-- it's just liquid soap and perfume right? Luckily for me, I found a recipe for make-your-own laundry detergent, and now I'll never need to buy overpriced detergent again! Plus it's so simple to make, it's worth the money you'll be saving.

You'll need:

Two gallons of water

One bar of soap 

Cheese Grater 

Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda

Borax

Funnel

Large Soup Pot (make sure it can hold 2 gallons of water)

Directions:

1. Start by grating your soap into your pot
2. Once all of the soap is grated, add one gallon of water into the pot. 
3. Turn the stove to medium heat, stirring occasionally, until shreds of soap are dissolved.
4. Stir in 1 cup Washing soda and 1 cup Borax
5. Bring mixture to a boil, it will start thickening
6. Once mixture has boiled, take the pot off of the heat, and add in one gallon of cold/room temperature water. 
7. Funnel the detergent mixture into the two gallon jugs.

You will only need 1/2 cup of detergent per load, so I just attached an old measuring cup along with the detergent!

All together, this project cost me around $9, and these two gallons will clean about 64 loads of laundry. Next time I need more detergent, all I have to do is fill up these two gallon jugs with water, and buy a bar of soap. I have about two pounds of the borax and washing suds left, so I've saved so much money! Take that Tide!

On another note, if you have sensitive skin and you're allergic to fragrances, you could use this recipe and make your own gentle detergent if you just use un-scented soap! I don't know the going rate for fragrance-free/gentle laundry detergents, but I bet that's great savings. 

Brie Wrapped in Puff Pastry

Pepperidge Farm

I saw this baked brie online and I thought it looked too good to not try! If you remember, I had used only one puff pastry sheet on the Pomme Du Tarte, so I had another puff pastry sheet left over in the freezer. This recipe is so easy to make and requires few ingredients...try it out and let me know how it goes! Mine doesn't look as spectacular, but it was pretty yummy!

You'll need:
1 Puff Pastry Sheet (I use the frozen Pepperidge Farms kind)
1 Wheel of Brie
1 Jar of Fig Preserves

For egg wash:
1 Egg
1 Tablespoon of Water
**For those of you who don't know what an egg wash is, it's just eggs and water whisked together. It acts like a glue, and binds two pieces of puff pastry together, and also gives your pastry a nice shine.

First, take your puff pastry out of the freezer, and let it thaw. 

Pre-Heat your oven to 4000 degrees.

Make your egg wash by whisking the eggs and water in a bowl, set aside. 

Once puff pastry has thawed, un-fold it. If you don't think the puff pastry is large enough wrap around your brie, take a rolling pin and roll your puff pastry a little thinner. 

Spread a generous layer of fig preserves all over the thawed puff pastry.

Place your brie in the middle of the puff pastry, you do not need to remove the rind.

(I spread more fig preserves on the brie, although this is not necessary!)

Wrap one corner of puff pastry up onto the top of the brie.

Brush your egg wash onto the puff pastry you just folded.

Take another corner of the puff pastry, and bring it to the corner where the egg wash was applied earlier. 

Repeat these steps of wrapping one corner of puff pastry up to the brie and applying egg wash until all four corners have "cocooned" the brie.

Flip the puff pastry wrapped brie over, so that the folded corners are on the bottom.

Brush egg wash all over your puff pastry.

(Optional: you can use any left over puff pastry trimmings to make a fun design on top-- I tried to make a flat bow, but I was in a rush, and it didn't turn out too hot. Just make sure to attach it on with egg wash.)

Now bake your pastry for about 30 minutes...the oven I used wasn't too amazing, so it was hard to tell how long to keep it in there for... keep it in the oven until the puff pastry takes on a golden brown color. 

I wasn't even able to get a decent picture of mine! It was instantly torn apart and eaten right up! Guess that's a good sign ;)

Jazzing up a Bookshelf

Okay, in this post I'm not actually hands-on doing any crafting, but here is a cute idea I found online where you can spruce up an otherwise boring bookshelf. It looks so easy! Just take the shelves out of your bookcase, and glue on wrapping paper (or staple on fabric) to the back. Now just slide those shelves back on, and your bookshelf has an instant makeover! Try it out, and let me know how it goes:

     

Project: Solar System

For those of you who don't know, I tutor a fabulous fourth grader named Diamonique once a week. Her mom, Erica, is one of my very good friends, and is a police officer at my school. Diamond had to create a project about the solar system, but Erica was working from 4pm to 12am the week the solar system project was due, and Diamond needed someone to help her put her project together. Erica enlisted my help/crafting abilities to help Diamond get an A+. I had Erica pick up some styrofoam balls from the Wall-Mart crafting department, and had her bring a coat hanger. (I don't have any wire hangers lying around ever since seeing: "Mommie Dearest" haha). I had the rest of the supplies we needed-- paint, glitter, fishing line, and brads.

We decided we were going to make a hanging mobile, so I used pliers to re-shape the hanger. First I straightened out all of the: "kinks" and then shaped that into a "circle" shape and twisted it all together.

 I had Diamond start with the sun-- she painted it with gold paint and then rolled it in gold glitter. The gold paint acted like a glue, and covered any spots that the glitter may have missed.

We also painted the other planets with fun colors using acrylic paint.

Diamond's brother Tyreek was patiently waiting for us to finish Diamond's project-- and borrowed one of Lauren's books to pass the time. Pretty impressive reading for a seventh grader! haha. I don't know how much of it he read, but he looked pretty awesome reading Flannery O'Connor.

I covered the wire hanger with black, satin ribbon. I attached the ribbon to the wire using hot glue to get it to stick to the wire. I twisted the ribbon around the wire so that all of the wire was covered, and then when the wire was completely covered with the black ribbon, I cut and glued four ribbons on so that the project could be a mobile. If you pretend the wire circle is a clock, you should place the four ribbons at the 12:00, 3:00, 6:00, and 9:00 areas of the of the "clock." Then I tied them together into a nice bow at the top so that Diamond could hold onto it.

 Next, we pressed one brass brad in each of the Styrofoam planets and then double knotted our fishing line around it. Then we tied the other end of the fishing line onto the wire hanger. We then attached all of the planets and the finished product looked like this:

Hopefully Diamond gets an A+!! If she doesn't, I don't know what an A project looks like!

Pomme Du Tarte

Gosh-- sorry I've taken absolutely forever to post! I've been so crazy last/this week. The few weeks before finals can be really crazy! Last week, we had a Student Government Association potluck, but everyone was supposed to bring desserts. Great right? I decided to venture out of my comfort zone of brownies or cupcakes, and I attempted to make a Pomme du Tarte (French apple pie). This is what the finished product looks like (without the glaze):

The French have delicious pastries, and they don't have many ingredients to them. Although this Tarte doesn't call for many ingredients, it is extremely important to use the finest quality ingredients. Definitely do not use vanilla extract, use a vanilla bean or a vanilla bean paste-- it really does make a difference in cooking.

This tart has many steps, but first you have to prepare the French Cream

French Cream:

Ingredients:
2 cups heavy cream
5 egg yolks
6 to 8 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons corn starch
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise (or 1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring)


Preparation:
In a saucepan, heat the cream with the vanilla bean almost to boiling. 

While the cream is heating up, mix the egg yolks and sugar together in a bowl, then whisk in the flour and cornstarch until the mixture is smooth. 

Remove the vanilla bean from the cream, and gradually whisk the hot heavy cream into the egg mixture. Make sure to not add the hot heavy cream too fast, because you don't want scrambled eggs!

Strain the mixture back into the saucepan, and place over medium heat, whisking constantly until the mixture starts to thicken and boil. Continue cooking for a little more, whisking constantly to keep the pastry cream smooth. Keep whisking so that it doesn't only cook only on the bottom.

Remove the pastry cream from the heat. Place a layer of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pastry cream to avoid a skin forming, and leave to cool.

The pastry cream can be used once it cools down, or you can cover it and refrigerate it until you need it. Stir chilled pastry cream before using.

Apricot Glaze:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup apricot preserves

2 oz of Grand Marnier

Preparation:

In a medium saucepan, bring apricot preserves and Grand Marnier to a boil. Lower the temperature so that the apricot preserve mixture is simmering. Continue stirring the apricot preserves mixture for about 5-7 minutes, then take saucepan off of the burner and set aside.

Ingredients for the tart:

Butter, to grease your pan

As many apples as you need to fill the tart (around 7, but I used around 9)

1/2 lemon or lemon juice 

1/4 cup sugar

1 package of frozen Pillsbury Puff Pastry

About (two/two and a half) big handfuls of slivered almonds

• Take out one puff pastry sheet and allow it to thaw

• Find yourself a tart pan and liberally grease it with butter

• Make sure to poke LOTS of holes into the puff pastry so that it stays flat like a pie crust and doesn't puff up like a croissant.

• Dump out all of your slivered almonds on top of the puff pastry and spread them around so that they evenly cover your crust.

• Pour the pastry cream out onto the layer of almonds, make sure to spread it so that it covers up the layer of almonds

• Preheat your oven to 400 degrees 
• Take your lemon and juice the bowl (rub the lemon juice all around the inside of the bowl). Use an apple peeler and peel paper thin slices of apples. Place them in the bowl with lemon juice and peel all of your apples.

• After you have peeled all of your apples, roll an apple slice into a tight curl (this will be the middle of your first flower)

• Put your tightly curled apple slice in the middle of the tart. Work your way around the tight curled apple slice and work your way outward, so that each new apple peel forms a new: "petal".
• When you make the desired sized flower you want, place another tightly cured apple close to the flower you just made and add more apple "petals". 

• Continue making these apple blossoms until you cover up the top of your tart. 

• Put your tart on a baking sheet, and place it in the oven. 

• Cook your tart for approximately 40 minutes-- or until the crust of the tart is a golden-brown.
• Take your tart out of your oven
• Reheat your apricot glaze on the stove, and bring it to a boil.
• Slowly pour your apricot glaze onto the tart, so that the top of the tart is completely covered with your apricot glaze.

Sorry I didn't get a final picture of the tart with the apricot glaze! Just know that it looked really nice and it was ALL eaten!! Have fun making your own Pomme Du Tarte!

Unique Card and Matching Envelope

Recently, one of my grandmother's close friends/long time friend of the family, had a stroke. I wanted to send her a cute card in the mail, but unfortunately, I don't have the budget to go to the papyrus store and have a spending spree. Just my luck, as I was shopping at Target this weekend, I stumbled across a pack of scrapbook paper for only 99 cents! There was eight sheets of paper in the pack, and each paper was different in it's design. Even better, all of the pieces of paper followed the same gray/light blue color scheme.

First, I picked the paper I wanted to make my envelope with. This paper had the blue and white image on only one side of the paper, and nothing but white on the back,  so I was able to make a white envelope with a "peek-a-boo" pattern that is visible when a person opens the letter.

First, I gently took apart another envelope to use as a tracing template for my new envelope.

After I had cut out the template for my new envelope, I made the necessary folds, and glued it all together. Voila! Your own envelope! 

Next, I made the card. I got the measurements right by tracing the shape of the notecard that corresponded to the envelope I used as a tracing template. I used a strip of paper left over from the envelope cutting step, and glued it down the middle of my notecard as an accent. 

Now I had a matching envelope and notecard set!! However, I thought that the card still looked a little plain, so.....

I glued little cut out butterflies I have lying around! (I've been working on a: "butterfly chandelier" that will debut online later this week, and these are some extras left over from that craft.) Martha Stewart makes a lovely butterfly punch that can cut out perfect little butterflies each time.

After personalizing the letter, I sent it out! There you go: an inexpensive, one of a kind card. I would encourage anyone who tries this craft out to go with a heavy-weight card stock paper. The paper I used was cute, but it was just regular scrap booking paper, so it was a little flimsy and not as professional looking.