Necklace (or key) hanger {tutorial}

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I finally decided that I can't have all my necklaces hanging on the same old broken sunglasses frames. So as my final project before starting up my Dietetics Honours course, I made a necklace hanger.

I used a piece of scrap supawood (from making these wooden pendants), plain fabric, left-over paint (I'd recommend fabric paint though), 5 screw hooks, sticker paper, wood glue, swivel knife, sponge. I also used 2 plastic rings, needle and thread, saw and drill (not shown in picture) - technically my dad used the saw and the drill, but hey!

First, to make a stencil I printed the design that I wanted straight onto a piece of sticker paper. This was a gloss sticker paper, so one should print with a laserjet printer, rather than an inkjet.

I could only find gold screw hooks so I dipped each one into the paint that I was using. Colour-coded is good :)

Cut the wood to the size you want. This piece was 18.5cm x 7.5cm. Measure where you want the screw hooks to go. Drill a small hole (1mm) and screw the hooks in and then take them out again, to make it easier later.

I decided to use the same stencil twice (non-classic version: the inside of the stencil, painting the outside, and then the classic stencil, painting the inside gaps). To make the bird part of the stencil easier, I first painted the branch of the classic stencil version onto the fabric.

If you look by the bird's legs, you will see that there are sections that are completely surrounded by black. If you don't do the branch first you will have to cut out those surrounded sections separately and then try stick them in place on your fabric. This will still work it is just a little tricky-er to get right. 

As you cut out the birds stick them onto the fabric of your non-classic stencil version, with a sticker branch. Once all birds are cut out stick the big sticker onto the branch that has already been painted.

With the sponge paint over the stencils. For the non-classic version I tried to leave a mottled effect. It made the end product look old and rustic, which I think turned out great!

Pull off the stickers.

Trim down the size of your fabric a bit and stick down the bottom section of the back. Then stick a pin or needle through the holes, from the front, to mark them. This will make it much easier to find the holes later.

You can attach it to the wall however you like, The best way we could come up with, using stuff I had, was to sew these plastic rings onto the top of the back. They are sewn on the sides and bottom and act as hooks for screws that are put into the wall

Glue down the sides. I didn't worry too much about neatness here, because the top flap was going to cover it all.

Screw the screw hooks into the holes.

Once the top flap is glued down, this is how the back looks.

Rainbow cake with crystal white icing {recipe}

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Last weekend was my 21st birthday party. The theme: black and white with a splash of bright. Being a sweet-toothed girl, my focus was on the puddings.

I made two batches of cake and did three colours (South African spelling) in each batch. A good gel food colouring gives a nice bright colour.

For 1 batch:

2 1/2 cups sifted flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
180g unsalted butter, at room temp. (I only had salted butter, and it worked fine)
1 1/2 cups castor sugar
3 eggs
1tsp vanilla essence
1 cup buttermilk
food colouring

Preheat oven to 180C. Line 3 baking trays with baking paper or grease and dust with flour.

Sift flour, baking powder and bicarb together. Set aside.

Beat butter and add castor sugar gradually. Keep beating until mixture is very light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating in between. Add vanilla essence and beat again until light and fluffy.

Reduce mixure speed to low and add sifted flour mixture alternating with buttermilk. Begin and end with flour. Mix until almost smooth, you will still mix a bit when you add food colouring.

Divide the mixture between three bowls and add a few drops of food colouring to each. Mix as little as possible to get the colour evenly distributed.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. (If making a second batch make the next batch while these ones are baking.)

Crystal white icing:

1 cup castor sugar
80ml water
2 egg whites

Dissolve sugar in water over low heat, then bring to boil and leave uncovered for 3 minutes (mine took much longer), until syrup is slightly thick and makes a soft ball (drop some syrup into a cup with cold water and then try form a soft ball with your fingers. If you can't form any ball it hasn't boiled enough.) Do not let syrup colour.

Remove from heat and allow bubbles to subside.

Beat egg whites to soft peak (Peaks just bending over when you lift the beaters out the mixture).

Add sugar mixture to egg whites while beating and beat until thick and cool (a few minutes).

Ice cake soon, otherwise the icing will set too much ice nicely.

Enjoy!

Clay pendant {tutorial}

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I saw some clay pendants at the Grahamstown festival last year and so I asked for some air-dry clay for Christmas. These really took a few minutes each to make and I think that they come out really cute.

Most important is the clay (you could use any kind I guess, but this one doesn't require a kiln and doesn't leave a powdery mess on your clothes). I used the jar to roll the clay out flat. Collect any random things (such as lace) to be used to decorate your pendant.

First off, roll a little ball of clay flat. I rolled it onto an old piece of tile, but anything smooth and relatively non-stick is good.

Mold the piece into shape. For the heart I cut out the basic shape by using the side of the stick to pull away the extra, then shaped it gently with my fingers (a little bit of moisture on your finger helps to smooth it out). You can also use small cookie cutters (see below).

Press lace gently into the clay to leave a lace impression. The lace must not be so fine that it leaves no impression.
For the version shown in the top picture, I pressed the flat end of the kebab stick gently into the clay to make the heart impression. I think it turned out quite nicely :)

I then made a small hole to allow a jumper ring through, using the pointy end of the kebab stick.

Card set using paper cut-outs

As thank you and christmas gifts I made some sets of cards. The antelope were cut using a swivel craft knife (a very useful tool!) and silhouettes found from good old google search.

I used a slightly stiff cardboard to make the boxes and normal white paper for the envelopes.

A little bit of lace finishes it off nicely. Presentation makes ALL the difference.

The mess that ensued:

Blackboard labels for jars {tutorial}

 

Painting blackboard paint onto a jar is a lovely way to spice up a normal jar and allow an easy way to adjust the label.

What you need:
Jar
Blackboard paint (Stick to stir paint)
Painbrush
Masking tape or electrical tape
Scissors

Tape a border around the area that you want to paint and then paint a smooth layer within the borders. If you want a shape inside, cut the shape from tape and stick it in position.

Once dry carefully remove the tape and you are done!

As a christmas gift I made the jars into a chop chip cookie mixture. Wrapped them with a bit of ribbon and attached a recipe and a piece of chalk.