What the Kids Are Wearing

It's not often that I attend children's birthday parties but, for some reason, I was invited to two in the same weekend recently. The first, for a newly-turned four year old, was mostly adults so the presents were particularly awesome. The best gift of the day was the "Fart Blaster" gun. I leave that to your imagination. The second party, for a newly-turned three year old, was 50/50 kids and adults so it was a bit more chaotic, but still fun.

The take-away for me was from the first party, at which there was a particularly interactive tween. He was proabably about 12 but not intimidated (or embarrased) by adults. At one point, I noticed that he was wearing a really cool bracelet and I thought, "Wow. That kid's got some style." So, me being me, I asked him about it and, as it turns out, it was made from pop tabs (soda can tabs for you eastcoasters) and embroidery thread.

My crafty brain studied it so I could get an idea of how it was threaded and I immediately started thinking of ways to make it nice enough for an adult to wear.

Here's a tutorial with my first attempt. :)

Step one... save up some pop tabs.

Step two... measure your wrist.

Step three... measure a line of pop tabs to see how many you need to get around your wrist, then double that number because this is a two-layer bracelet.

Step four... lace the tabs together with ribbon. Here's a video (it was easier than trying to capture it in photos):

Once you've laced together enough tabs to go around your wrist, here's how you finish it up:

End with a "bottom" tab as the last one you put on.

Lace the ribbon to the back of the bracelet.

Knot the ribbon on the back to secure the last tab.

Slip the ribbon back through the first tab and tie.

And DONE!

If you have someone in the house to help, it would look really cute with a bow instead of a knot but, you know, my dogs don't have opposable thumbs.

Check out YouTube for inspiration on how to make these even cooler. I plan to experiment some more and see what I can come up with. I think it would be interesting to thread it with different materials - like leather or hemp. I saw one vid where they'd used something stretchy to make a headband out of tabs and another where a girl made a belt... the possibilities are endless!

Happy upcycling, friends.

- Alex

Bounce (but only if you're 21+)

Wisconsin has a lot of proud traditions - most surrounding food and drink (and sports). Some are
obvious, like the Green Bay Packers. Some are lesser known outside of the Midwest, like Friday Fish Fry and brandy Old Fashioneds  sweet. Some are nearly unknown, unless you live in Wisconsin, like Cherry Bounce.




Wikipedia has a tiny entry on Cherry Bounce, which doesn't allude to the Midwestern custom at all.

Cherry Bounce is a liqueur made by infusing brandy with cherries and sugar. Some recipes will use rum, whiskey or vodka instead of brandy.

The English hamlet of Frithsden claims to have originated the Cherry Bounce.

A lane leading off the Old High Street in nearby Hemel Hempstead is named Cherry Bounce and is shown having had this name in maps dating back to the early 19th century.

That's the whole thing...

On this side of the pond, Martha Washington actually had a recipe for Cherry Bounce (which can be found online) and legend has it that George packed a canteen of it for a trip west across the Allegheny Mountains in September 1784.

With the trend in craft cocktails and the resurrection of old, classic drink recipes, Cherry Bounce is making a national comeback of sorts. A Google search yields a lot of recipes from popular and trusted sources like The Beekman Boys, Epicurious, Imbibe Magazine, Cooks.com and more. However, these recipes are a lot fancier than a traditional Wisconsin Bounce. They call for spicing the cherries with things like cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove. They also add a step that Wisconsin recipes don't bother with - macerating the cherries for a period of time before adding the alcohol.

The Wisconsin recipe is simple and calls for a total of four ingredients: tart cherries, sugar, alcohol, and time.

Tart cherries. In our state, there's yet another thing we're mighty proud of - Door County cherries (tm). Yeah... they're probably not REALLY trademarked but they should be. For truly traditional Wisconsin Bounce, Door County Montmorency pie cherries are the ones you want. Fortunately, my backyard cherry tree has Montmorencys on it and it was VERY prolific this year.

Sugar. Get a lot. Cherry Bounce is a liqueur - very thick and syrupy.

Alcohol. Like all Wisconsin cocktails, brandy is the preferred and traditional alcohol for Bounce. I'm not sure what the Wisconsin fascination is with brandy... it's too sweet for me. This is one place where the east-coaster in me takes over and I make my Bounce with bourbon. I've also seen it made with rum.

Time. So, the rule is that you put up your Cherry Bounce in early July when the Door County cherries come ripe and you let it sit until Christmas. If you're smart, you save some cherries in the freezer and put up a new batch of Bounce just before Christmas so that you have some in the early summer just before the Door County harvest happens.

Now, how you put your Bounce together is up for debate. Ask 10 Wisconsinites and you'll get 10 variations (within a small range of variables). Last year, I put up Bounce using unpitted sweet cherries because that's what I had too many of. I used bourbon and I cut the sugar back a bit. The resulting Bounce was good but not great. It wasn't enough of a liqueur (not enough sugar) and the cherry flavor was okay but not great. This year, I followed the more traditional recipe and I have great hopes for a truly excellent Christmas.

Traditional Wisconsin Cherry Bounce
makes one quart

• Fill a 1 qt Mason jar half full with pitted, tart (pie) cherries (Montmorency)
• Cover the cherries with 2 C white cane sugar*. Screw on the lid and shake vigorously until the cherries are coated.
• Add 1/2 qt of brandy (or bourbon, or rum, or even vodka) to fill the jar.
• Screw on lid tightly and shake to mix well. 
• For the next day or so, shake the Mason jar occasionally to finish dissolving the sugar.
• The cherries may settle a bit and it's worth opening the jar back up and adding enough pitted cherries to fill the entire jar.

 Put the jar in a cool, dark place and let it sit until Christmas.  Open and enjoy as a shot, mixed with club soda, or with hot water for a cherry toddy.

*I used a cup and a half of sugar. I simply couldn't bring myself to add that much sugar to the jar. We'll see how it turns out.

Last week, we got blueberries in our fruit CSA and my friend Kristine got really creative and made Blueberry Bounce with them. She used vodka as her liquor (which I think was a good choice for blueberries). There may soon be some jars of blue nectar curing in my closet with the red ones.

- Alex

Seeing Signs in San Francisco

As Alex mentioned last week, I was fortunate to have just attended the HOW Graphic Design Conference (this year held in San Francisco). There were so many opportunities to learn a new trick or two, but I've decided that my favorite sessions at events like this are when a seasoned or popular design professional simply discusses their body of work or creative process. Maybe it's because I've been in this business over 20 years...egad!...but I feel a kinship with other designers who feel it deep in their bones. The creatives who couldn't imagine doing anything else for a living. No matter what point in their career, those impassioned designers have the ability to make me sit up and take stock of my own creative path.

I've been back home for a week and I'm actually haunted (in a good way) by what I saw and heard in San Francisco. In order to exercise these demons, I've made some resolutions and promises to myself. Sorry to be cryptic (I hate when people are cryptic) but I'm a superstitious type. I don't want to jinx new endeavors by speaking about them too soon. You will be the first to know when things are ready to be talked about..pinky swear! Sufficed to say, I am creatively juiced up.

The other thing that got me revved up in San Francisco were the vertical vintage neon business signs EVERYWHERE. They give the city amazing character. I took picture after picture of ones that struck my fancy. Here are a few of my favorites....I hope they inspire you too!

I love having periods of intense inspiration. It refreshes my creativity and really gets me back on track. What's your source of inspiration?

Cassandra
(fired up designer)

Friday Finds: Strawberry Country Cake

It's finally getting hot out around here, and that means strawberry shortcake tastes extra good! Instead of the lazy usual way I make it, (sugared strawberries and whipped cream atop store-bought pound cake on individual plates) I am going to try something more home-made.

After doing some web searching, I found this great recipe from The Barefoot Contessa. I'm trying it this weekend! It doesn't look too time consuming for this lazy summer girl.

Photo courtesy of Barefoot Contessa.

Have a great weekend!

Cassandra

Home, Home At Last (Part Two)

If you missed part one, you can catch up here.

Finally. After 8 days in the bee condo (the cardboard nucleus box that the bees came in), my new "pets" moved into their permanent home.

The "old" pet checking out the new pets.

I picked up the bees on a Sunday. The following Thursday I was on a plane to Florida with a return on Monday. I knew that I wasn't supposed to bother the bees for about a week (most people advocate weekly hive checks) and leaving town was the best way to keep my nose out of their space. It was all I could do (and, honestly, still all I can do) to keep myself from poking at them constantly. They're infinitely fascinating and, in that first week, I just wanted to sit and watch them do their thing. Unfortunately, poking around the hive kind of stresses them out so an out-of-state trip was the best way to give them the peace they needed to settle in quietly.

While I was away, the hive I ordered arrived in one giant box - which I found on my front porch when I got home late Monday afternoon. Needless to say, I put down my suitcase, changed my clothes, and immediately unpacked the box.

In the end, after months of research, discussions with veteran beekeepers, and online searching, I went with a medium-frame Langstroth hive instead of the less-standard top-bar or Warre hives. This gave me a lot of options to purchase both locally and from the web. Most hives are made from pine and painted (on the outside). I found a place in Indiana called Legacy Apiaries that makes the most gorgeous, high-quality hives from western red cedar. They promised quality and they delivered! I adore my hive and I hope the bees will too. The crazy part is, this beautiful, cedar hive was no more expensive than a pine one...

Yes, this beehive is set up in my living room. It's empty.

After pulling out all my equipment, I fired up the smoker, donned the veil and gloves, tucked my pants into my socks (so the bees can't crawl up your leg), and I set about moving the frames from the condo to the house. Here, in photos, is my adventure:

This is the new brood box. Notice it's not made of red cedar.

The one thing that threw a wrench into my plans for the most beautiful hive ever, is that the bees came to me living on "deep frames". That means that the box I transferred them into had to be able to accommodate their frame size. My cedar hive is made up of medium boxes (they're shallower) so I had to go out and buy one deep box that sits at the bottom of the totem pole.

This is what it looks like with one deep (on the bottom) and one medium.

My tools: A smoker, a "hive tool" to separate and lift the frames, and an entrance reducer.

You can barely see it but the smoker is working!

This is what the frames look like inside the cardboard box.

Me, loosening a frame to take it out of the box.

My bees, hard at work.

This is what a frame of honey looks like. Very yellow and very heavy.

Whereas brood comb (where the babies are made) is dark brown.

Nucleus frames in the center, new frames on the outside. In the new hive!

For the most part, my first hive check and move to the new home went well. I was able to identify the work that was being done, the bees were amenable to the process, and they settled in right away. The one hitch was when, while observing one of the frames, I accidentally dropped it on the grass. The bees didn't like that much and there was a lot of high pitched buzzing and flying about. No stings though!! I stepped away, blasted them with a few puffs of smoke, and then moved the frame back into the box. I had to scoop some confused bees up off the grass but it didn't seem like any harm was done.

Three weeks later and the bees seem to be in great shape. They love their home and are busy building new comb and making more bees. Lately, they've been building new comb on the "empty" frames in the lower box and every day I see more bees exploring the upper box.



The bees permanent home, nestled in the mint.

 My goal is to build a strong hive that will live through the winter. Honey production will have to wait until next year. So far anyway, I feel like we're off to a good start. Hopefully, this will be home, sweet home for a long time to come.

- Alex

Breaking Out The Vintage MD

Cassandra is off being inspired at the HOW Conference in San Francisco this week so we invite you to enjoy a post from last fall on how to make your own hand lotion bars. (Alex admits to selfishly choosing this post because the recipe employs beeswax.)

===========================================================

Originally published on October 29, 2012

Making Your Own Hand Lotion Bars

Guess what I did? I made my own solid hand lotion. It was something that I've wanted to try for a while (and actually had the supplies sitting there waiting) but I kept putting off. I thought it was somehow going to be complicated or take forever.

Au contraire mon frere. It was simple and quick. (I think start to finish was under 30 minutes.) And the results yielded the best hand lotion I have ever used. It was even superior to similar natural ones I purchased.

Pretty little pots of awesome.

There are many, many tutorials out there and I'm pretty sure I looked at most of them in my research. In the end, the recipe I decided to try was this:

4 oz shea butter
4 oz beeswax (I used pellets)
4 oz avocado oil
essential oils for scent (I used a lovely blend from Lucky Mojo)

To get started, you need a double-boiler setup. You can purchase a proper double-boiler but I used a metal mixing bowl over one of my saucepans and it worked great. You just have to make sure you have the proper heat-resistant tools to lift the bowl off the saucepan easily when you need to take your concoction off the heat. Practice taking the bowl on and off the pan steadily before you heat anything up. The last thing you want to do is spill the hot lotion. It will result in a trip to the emergency room for burn treatment or a kitchen counter that will forever seem waxy and smell like rose geranium.

Another thing I need to mention is that once you heat up this concoction in a pan, bowl, or whatever...it is now contaminated. Don't use it for food anymore. My metal mixing bowl is now marked "lotion only".

The next thing you need are containers to pour your hot lotion mixture into. If you have soap molds you can make lotion bars. Once cooled, you just pop out the lotion bar and rub it on your hands like you would a bar of soap. These are so fun and if you can find a cute container to fit them would make great holiday presents. I chose to use 4oz glass canning jars. I have to sort of "scrape" the lotion out of them...but it's not big deal. I sort of have a thing for little glass jars with something gorgeous inside. It's my hang-up, most people would probably prefer a bar. Whatever you use should be heat-resistant though.

Now get started....

On a counter a few feet away from your stove, put down some newspaper and lay out your jars, molds, etc. ready to be filled with the hot lotion. (I used about 6 jars for the recipe above.)

Then, get water simmering in a pan. Make sure that when you put your second pan or bowl atop the pan with water that the water is not high enough to touch the bowl/pan above. Here is a great tutorial on double-boilers.

In your top bowl/pan, put the shea butter and the beeswax. Once the water is simmering, put this bowl/pan on the simmering water pan and stir constantly. Because you won't ever want to use this utensil again for food, I found that a disposable wooden chopstick worked awesome for stirring.

You will only stir for a few minutes before this mixture is completely liquified. Once this happens, pour in the avocado oil and keep stirring. As soon as it looks mixed and right, take this off the heat and pour into your molds/jars. You do not want to overheat the mixture or your ingredients can start getting weird on you. But don't worry, it's obvious when it's time to get off the heat. The oils will be completely liquid and a light golden color. 

Now is when it's handy to have a friend helping you. This mixture begins to cool quickly, so as one of the molds/jars gets poured, someone needs to follow behind and add the scent oils in and stir in well (but fast) with a toothpick. You don't want to heat essential oils so they get added at the last. As far as how much essential oil to add is up to your preference. I was generous with mine and have no regrets.

I let my lotion cool for about 10 hours before I deemed it ready for use.

Some recipes call for alternate ingredients like coco butter or jojoba oil, but this recipe felt right to me. What I might add next time is some vitamin E. (You can buy it as oil or just squeeze the contents of capsules right in with your essential oils.) This is supposed to act as a preservative from what I understand. You can order all the materials you need online or if you are as fortunate as me, buy them at a local natural pharmacy.

Sorry there are not more photos here but I was making these on my own and needed both hands. :)  But please take my word for it, these are simple and fun to make. This is the best lotion for crafters whose hands take a lot of abuse.

- Cassandra

Home, Home At Last (Part One)

Today, I begin the tale of an epic journey taken by a colony of bees - from the wilds of Middleton, WI to the urban jungle of Madison - a long, arduous trip of ten whole miles.

On a sunny, Sunday afternoon, I headed to the west side of town, past the little airport and into an area that is somwhere between suburban and slightly rural. There are lots of spots like that around here - farmland that was sold off to developers and turned into communities with names like Golden Prairie Estates. The land still has a country feel to it but the horizon is filled with houses that all look vaguely similar and every yard is cluttered with Fisher Price toys.

The veteran beekeeper who so graciously agreed to sell me some of her bees lives in one of the older communities in this area. Not converted farmland but a long, winding street where every unique house is on about an acre of land. Her lot, in particular, was extremely impressive - with a massive garden, well-chosen trees and plantings, a pond with a duck, a few chickens, and (of course) beehives. The place felt a little bit like paradise and, as much as I wanted to, I felt like it was an intrusion to ask to take pictures.

Most swarms head into a tree.

There are two ways to buy bees - by the pound, in a shoebox sized screen box with a queen in her own, seperate queen box, or already established frames of bees. I was getting the already established kind. Here's how this happens: when a beehive gets "full" of bees, the bees will naturally split themselves into two groups. The queen will leave the hive, taking about 1/2 the workers and the drones with her. This is called a swarm.

The bees that remain, create a new queen and continue on. However, a conscientious beekeeper can intentionally split their hive before the hive swarms on it's own, creating what's called a "nucleus" or "nuc" for short. The beekeeper will then sell the nuc to late-comers like myself. It's a great way for the hobby to pay for itself.

The nuc comes in a "nuc box", which is just temporary housing until you get them into their hive. I called it the condo. My supplier uses cardboard nuc boxes that each hold five, established frames of comb. I was given four frames of "brood comb", which is where the queen lays eggs and the workers feed the babies, and one frame of honey comb so the bees had something to eat.

The bee condo (aka: nuc box)

My new mentor (we became fast friends, bonding over bees, knitting, quilting, and upholstery!) taped the top of the box down and I loaded them into the back of the car. After fumbling around with some twine in an effort to secure the box so it wouldn't bounce around on the way home, I bid goodbye to my new friend and headed home.

I had already prepped the area where the bees would live - in the space that used to be occupied by the rain barrel - so it was just a matter of carrying the box to the spot, setting it down, and opening up their entrance hole.

My dogs were fascinated. I think they could smell the honey and the sound was driving them nuts. The first casualty was my dog Caesar who, in his intense curiousity, ended up stepping on a bee and getting stung on the foot. It gave him the perfect opportunity to limp around acting like it was the end of the world for the remainder of the day.

Caesar was the first casualty.

Lilly was less impressed but felt the need to get involved.

Air vent for the condo

The condo was great - sturdy and perfect for transporting the frames I was given. But, as we all know, cardboard doesn't hold up to rain and we had a couple of doozy thunderstorms over the week that they were in it. After the first rain I realized that I had to cover the condo somehow so I bought a tarp and some twine and went home to fashion an awning over their area. I didn't take any pictures of the finished product because, frankly, it looked like a crazy person's tent but at least it did the trick! (Just to give you a visual, It was staked with a variety of implements including three of those tall, curly tomato stakes, a black plastic fencing stake, and a random assortment of tiki torches.) During the worst thunderstorms, the condo stayed dry and the bees stayed safe. Thank goodness!

In part two of Home, Home At Last, we'll look at the move from the condo to the permenant home - a beautiful western red cedar hive from Legacy Apiaries in Indiana.

- Alex