Block Printed Wrapping Paper

About a month ago we were asked by Etsy to contribute a DIY blog post to their 2013 International Advent Calendar. Everyday between December 1st and 25th, the Etsy Blogs will feature festive how-to as part of their DIY Advent Calendar Series, and the Beehive is honoured to be a part of it! Our blog post is featured today on Etsy's UK, France, Germany and Australia blogs.  It's fun to see the Beehive in French and German, and we send a big collective hello to our friends in Europe and the Commonwealth!

Check out our DIY blog post below, or visit the following links to see how we look in other corners of the world.

Etsy UK blog: https://www.etsy.com/blog/uk/

Etsy France blog: https://www.etsy.com/blog/fr/

Etsy Germany blog: https://www.etsy.com/blog/de/

Etsy Australia blog: https://www.etsy.com/blog/en/region/au/

 
Last year we were all quite taken with the beautiful wrapping paper that our Scout Bee Jenna made by carving her own stamps and printing them with white ink onto kraft paper. We just had to try it for ourselves! This is a simple, beautiful way to spruce up your holiday gifts with a handmade touch. Using a variety of household objects to create patterns, these instructions will guide you through a few different methods - but feel free to play around, and come up with wrapping paper that really reflects all the thoughtfulness that you’ve put into the gift you’re wrapping. Warm holiday wishes from our Hamilton hive to yours!

Materials needed: 

scissors
kraft paper
ribbon or cotton twill tape
 utility knife or scalpel lino or woodblock carving tools
paring knife
good white glue or carpenter’s glue
scrap pieces of wood, foam board or polystyrene craft foam
string, twine, raffia, pipe cleaners or elastic bands
potatoes!
various found objects such as wine corks, bubble wrap, jar lids
acrylic paint
paint brushes
old cookie sheet/ flat bottomed plate for paint
sponge, paper towels or old towels

Prepare the amount of kraft paper and ribbon that you would like to print onto. We used three different kinds of crafted blocks to print our wrapping paper and ribbon. Scraps of wood, foam board or polystyrene can be used as the base for blocks with foam, string and string-like materials.

Method 1) For blocks with craft foam: cut shapes and motifs and glue them to the block.

Method 2) For blocks with string, you can both wrap the string around the block to create an allover texture, or draw a pattern or motif with glue on block base and lay string into the glue. Allow these blocks to dry thoroughly before using.

 Method 3) For potato printing blocks, first cut the potato in half. You can work with either positive or negative shape on the surface of the potato - cut a basic shape into the potato and cut away excess around your shape, or use the shape of the potato and carve you motif or pattern into the surface of the potato. Using a paper towel, blot off excess moisture from the cut surface and allow the potato to dry slightly before printing with it.

Another idea! Use found objects, such as corks, bubble wrap or jar lids as printing blocks in themselves! Keep your eye out for things that have interesting shapes or textures. See what you can discover...

To print with your blocks, you can either brush paint directly onto the surface of the block, or use a sponge as a homemade stamp pad - just load the sponge up with paint, press your block into the painty surface of the sponge, and print away!

After all of our printing was dry, we wrapped our gifts and tied scrap fabric and ribbon into bows for the final touches. If you don’t print your own ribbon, you can use whatever else you have on hand for this - kitchen twine, raffia, string. You really can’t go wrong - it all looks cute! Play around with different combinations until you have the prettiest patterned packages.

Happy Holidays!

Hexagon Craze!

By now you've likely caught wind of our big plans for a Beehive installation at this year's Supercrawl! Our piece is called Modular Beauty and will be made up of hand-sewn, English paper pieced hexagons that will creep and grow out of unexpected places along James Street, mimicking hives in the wild.



You'll remember that last year the Beehive installed a large-scale art project onto the facade of The Brain, which was the collaborative effort of many, many helping hands. This year we’re back at it with another idea, and community contributions to this installation are not only in the spirit of the project - which celebrates the culmination of multiple efforts to make something beautiful - they are also totally essential to making this whole thing a success!




After we explained the project a few weeks ago, and let you know that we were looking for lots and lots of hands to contribute, the project picked up steam and we have a lot of interest - which is so great! We hope you’ll consider joining in on our Hive Drive campaign to generate a serious crop of hexagon clusters, allowing us to expand this fibre intervention as much as possible over the buildings of James Street North.


How can you do this, you ask? Well:

In partnership with Etsy Canada we are hosting a Hive Drive hexagon-making party on Wednesday July 4 from 6:00-9:00 (that's next week!). We are so excited to invite you to join us at Low Key Studio (an amazing loft space/artist-run photography studio & art showcase gallery located at 48 Ferguson Ave. S. in Hamilton) for a night of relaxed hexagon making. Zero experience necessary – it is a very simple craft and we’d love to show you the ropes. And trust us, once you start making these little cuties, you won’t be able to stop! We’ll provide the fabric, templates and supplies (though of course feel free to bring your own) as well as refreshments and treats. It’s gonna be a super fun night so bring friends or come on your own and meet other crafty locals! RSVP here!



Can’t make the July 4th Hive Drive or planning on making hexagons at home? We have several super-duper hive drive donation locations throughout Hamilton supporting the cause. At these locations, starting this weekend (June 30th), you can pick up hexagon templates and fabric scraps, and drop off sewn hive sections when completed. If you have some fabric you’d be willing to donate towards hexagon making, we’ll gladly accept it through these locations. Anything you can contribute is MUCH appreciated!

Here are our confirmed donation stations:

Hamilton

White Elephant – 133 James St. North
Needlework – 174 James St. North
The Ship – 23 Augusta St.
The Hamilton Public Library:
Central Branch – 55 York Blvd.
Terryberry Branch – 100 Mohawk Rd. W.
Sherwood Branch - 467 Upper Ottawa St.
Citizen Kid – 188 Locke St. S.
Cake and Loaf – 321 Dundurn St. S.
The Baltimore House – 43 King William St.
Detour Coffee – 41B King St. W, Dundas
Downtown Bike Hounds - 19 John Street North
The Cannon - 179 Ottawa St N


Toronto

Kid Icarus – 75 Nassau St.
Russet & Empire – 390 Keele St.
The Arthur - 550 College St.
The Workroom - 1340 Queen St. W



If you're not in our city and would still like to contribute, please do! You can pop those hexagons in the mail and address them to Needlework at 174 James Street North Hamilton, ON L8R 2L1. We must receive them by August 17th 2012 to make sure that we have enough time to work them into the larger piece.

Lastly, if you plan to make a bunch of hexagons at home, and you're looking for some tips, we've put together a short and simple set of instructions for you. Here we go!

Crepe Paper Flowers

Recently, February 18th to be exact, I got married! I decided pretty early on that I wanted to keep everything simple. So, of course I decided to make most of the décor; the bouquets, the boutonnieres, and the centre pieces.

While never being a huge fan of flowers, despite working in a flower shop, I still wanted to have the traditional bouquets and boutonnieres but made out of something a little different. I scoured the internet looking for ideas. I found bouquets of brooches, of felt flowers and of flowers made from panty hose stretched over wire, but none of them really appealed to me until I saw flowers made out of tissue and crepe paper. Practically all were found on the Martha Stewart Weddings website where I immediately discovered the perfect design was the Tissue Bubble Flower. I altered it to crepe paper instead of tissue because I wanted it to be less delicate.

Crepe Bubble Flowers

Materials: 

Crepe paper

Floral wire

Floral tape

Thin cotton yarn or artificial stamens

White glue

Tools:

Scissors

Needle nose pliers

Golf ball or other spherical object

Making the Petals

The size of your spherical object determines your petal size. Measure the circumference of your object. Create a cardstock template using that measurement for the length and slightly less than half for the width. For instance I used a golf ball that is 5½” making my width 2½”. This accommodates the stretch of the crepe paper as you shape the petals around the spherical object.

Next cut out 5 pieces of crepe paper per flower with the grain running lengthwise.

Centre the golf ball in the piece of crepe paper and pull paper up the sides of the golf ball slightly stretching it into shape. Then twist up the long ends one at a time much like you would twist up a candy wrapper, but making sure you twist it all the way to the end.

Once both ends are twisted carefully remove the sphere and put a dab of white glue at the base of each twist. This will hold the twist and the shape of the petal once assembled.

Repeat the above steps four more times, you will need 5 petals in total for each flower, and set them aside in a safe place for the glue to dry.

Making the Stems

I made my stamen using 2” lengths of yellow cotton yarn. I needed six lengths that I would divide into pairs and tie small knots into either end. You can use anything that you have on hand like yellow tissue paper or ribbon, let your imagination be your guide.

Cut a length of floral wire the desired length, I cut mine to 10”, and wrap with floral tape. This base of tape helps later on when assembling.

Fold over ½” about 120o from one end of the wire, centre the stamen in the fold and pinch the wire around the stamen. Fold the stamen up and tape around the base to hold them in place.

 Assembling the Flower

Position the first petal with the stamen centered in the petal and secure with floral tape.

Position the second petal so that it is hugging the first petal, so roughly half of the first petal is covered by the second and secure with floral tape.

Continue adding the petals in the same way. The last petal will be over the fourth and under the first. Now that all the petals are in place wrap the base of the flower with floral tape several times to make sure that the petals stay in place.

Clip off the twists at the tops of the petals and gently pull and twist the petals to open the flower.

Voila!

Pea Preparation

Several weeks ago a few of us were able to get up to the farm, and after an evening of much needed weeding we rewarded ourselves by pick some peas. We ended up with so many peas (about a bushel and a half) that I decided to take the opportunity to bring a little over half a bushel home to freeze some so that we could have tasty peas all year round.

First you need to shuck the peas. We did this while watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 to get ready to see Part 2. I have to say that fresh peas might be a better movie snack than popcorn.

To properly prepare peas for freezing (and most other vegetables and fruit) they have to be blanched to kill the enzyme that causes the peas to lose their freshness. To blanch the peas they need to be submerged in boiling water for 90 seconds.

I put a few handfuls of peas into a metal steaming basket to contain them so that I didn’t have to chase the loose peas around with a slotted spoon in a boiling pot of water.

Once the peas had been in the boiling water for 90 seconds I dropped the basket into a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process.

After cooling in the first bowl of water for about 30 seconds I would dump the peas out of the basket into a second bowl of cold water. I would keep the peas here until the next batch of peas had come out of the boiling water.

The peas would then be poured into a strainer, then onto a paper towel to blot off the excess water.

(To me it looks like the peas are in the shape of North America, anyone else see that?)

Once the peas have been dried off they can be spread out on to a cookie sheet to freeze. When the peas have frozen solid they can be collected into sealable container. Freezing them this way allows the peas freeze separately, not stuck to their neighbour so you can take as many as you want to add to your meal.

I had so many peas that I had to make a second layer on both my cookie sheets with tin foil.

How do you use your peas throughout the year?

photos by Courtney Lakin

Craft Books for the Masses

If you've driven through our beloved city recently, you've probably seen the beautiful new building that is our public library. The central branch was recently renovated, and it's absolutely stunning! It's attached to the new Farmer's Market, and has become such a hotspot in our downtown core.

Want to know a few great things about the library? First - it's just a nice place to sit! You can grab a coffee from the market (try this!), find a seat and spend the day catching up on reading. It's cozy and comfortable and nice to look at!

Second - you can make new friends! Every time I go to the library, so many people say hello and ask me about what I'm reading. A lot of times it's really easy to find yourself in a great conversation with a complete stranger, talking about all the exciting new developments happening in the city. When I was there taking pictures, I had a nice conversation with a gentleman who just couldn't grasp the invention of digital cameras. He insisted that film was better. I don't know that I disagree...

Another great thing about the library (and the real reason I'm writing this post!) is the amazing selection of craft books they have. Have you ever thought 'Boy, I'd like to learn how to _____'? If so, you need to go to the library. Knitting? Crocheting? Calligraphy? Natural dyeing? How about sewing? Needlepoint?

Anna was even able to get books on how to decorate pysanky for our last Beehive project! They have such a great selection, and it's actually really inspiring to see all the possibilities in terms of projects you could try out.

(The Sewing Book by Alison Smith)

Just a few examples of what I pulled off the shelf when I was there most recently:

(The Natural Knitter by Barbara Albright)

(Glorious Inspirations by Kaffe Fassett and
Quilting, Patchwork and Applique by Caroline Crabtree and Christine Shaw)

(Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross)

Honestly - that is just the smallest taste of what you can find. You really need to get down there and check it out if you have the chance. We plan to do some book reviews on the Beehive blog, spotlighting some of our favorites. If you have something you want to recommend (see: 'mother of all craft how-to books' in this post)...please leave it in the comments!

Photos courtesy of Hollie and Meg

Pysanky!

Last Monday evening Hollie was kind enough to welcome us around the harvest table in her lovely home to try our hand at traditional egg decorating. Since I was a kid, Easter has been my favorite holiday. There's very little pressure, it comes with spring AND there's chocolate...what's not to love! With spring - and a late Easter, for those inclined - around the corner, eggs were on our brains and had us thinking of the very impressive craft of pysanky (pih-SAHN-kee). Traditionally, Ukrainian woman would create effortless-looking decorative eggs by drawing resists in beeswax on the surface of eggs and successively dipping them into various dyes, layering intricate pattern over intricate pattern. While some of us remembered childhood attempts at this or similar egg dyeing crafts, none of us really knew what we were doing at all. And let us tell you...it's hard! We were not as instantly expert at this as we thought we would be, but it was a lot of fun!

The endeavor began with a trip to The Ukrainian Store in Dundas. When you go in it's hard not to get distracted by all the fresh locally made specialty foods, after all, they boast the "best perogies in town"...a statement that has since been tested by Beehive members and met with much satisfaction. The owners were extremely friendly, fully stocked in every thing we needed and willing to patiently translate the directions on the bright packages of dye.

The supplies needed were candles, dyes, beeswax and kistkas (KIST-kuh - a simple stylus made from a cone of metal fastened to a small wooden dowel with wire). The Ukrainian store has a variety of sizes of kistkas that produce different thickness of line with the beeswax. They even supply electric ones for the expert hand! Dyes can also be made naturally using plants and vegetables like beets. We gathered onion skins to make a yellow dye using just the same method as for fabric dye.

The Hamilton Public Library was full of beautiful books on the subject, and proved invaluable for inspiration.

We mixed the dyes according to instructions and laid out everything we needed to get started. each of us had a little candle in front of us and our egg to decorate. Some times you can blow out the yoke in your egg ahead of time or - as per tradition - leave it to slowly dry out over a few years.

You start by heating the metal part of your kistka until you can easily scoop out a little beeswax, filling the larger open end. With further heating, the wax should run down into the cone, getting ready flow out onto the egg's surface. I found I had to heat my tool often to keep the wax flowing and TOO often we would heat it too much and a large flow of wax would blob out the end of our tool, muddying our attempts at perfect designs! We had to ditch our pride and realize that straight lines and symmetry come with years of practice.

Where the wax is drawn on a resist was made on the egg so that those areas were left white when we dipped them into our first dyes. After you take it out and pat it dry you can add more wax before dipping the egg in a second color, and so on. Wherever the wax has been put on, the last color dyed will stay resisted until the end. We worked from light colors to dark ones. When we finished, we gently scraped or melted off the wax resists revealing all the bright colors we had captured in our squiggly patterns!

I think we were SUPPOSED to be having a meeting too...but I'm not sure we ever got round to discussing anything.

Some of us have since become addicted to the beautiful end results of this craft, and this week for Knit Night we left our needles and hooks at home and filled a whole table with dyes and candles and set to work on some more eggs. I love our folksy (albeit a bit wonky) attempts!

Photos courtesy of Hollie