Lots of Crafting

Since my last post about my orange pomanders I have been busy.  I made another pomander only this time I covered the orange in a special concoction of cloves, allspice, and nutmeg.  I did not add orris root, which seemed to be a common theme in more and more tutorials.  My friend Wendy and I were having a conversation on Facebook about it.  She brought this common ingredient to my attention.  After further investigation orris root is a fixative.  Basically, it helps keep the scent around longer than if you don't use it and supposedly it keeps the orange from getting moldy.  Orris root can be hard to find in these here parts so I just left it out.  If my pomanders loose their scent oh well they are still great to look at.  I also have not had an issue with mold so I guess I'm OK. My camera died just as I was going to take a picture so I'll post it another day.

You all know I don't do hearts.  Well, at least not very often anyway.  Sunday was a crafty kind of day so I made several things.  First off, I used up some of my old wax and re poured it in some old molds I had.  These are scents I can't burn because A. I can't do cinnamon or B. Steve doesn't like the smell of the candle..." it smells like someone threw up."  I, personally, loved it.  It was a sugared pecan. YUM!!!! I then smeared cinnamon on them without thinking it stuff my nose up completely.  Grrr.... it was worth it because they look awesome and smell great too!!!!

I had a customer request I make her some of my salt dough ornies for her year round tree. This is where I am today on those.  I just need to let them dry and add hangers.  I used different finishing techniques on them to see if they worked.  I used a doily and rolled my rolling over it on a couple of them. Then of course I painted and stained them.

Then she also wanted stuffed hearts for her tree.  I sewed these up yesterday despite the pain I have from falling at work on Monday.  I'm such a klutz! LOL.  Anyway I have pain from my right shoulder down to my knee.  It was a pretty hard fall and with my fibromyalgia the pain is amplified X10.  Luckily I didn't work yesterday or today to rest it before I go back to work tomorrow.  All I have left is to coffee stain and put hangers on them.  NOTE:  I traced around my heart shaped cookie cutter to make these.  I can not draw a heart so this is a quick and easy way to get a pattern for just abut anything!

I also got adventurous on Sunday and tried to come up with own awesome smelly bowl fillers.  Ummmm... well... I better stick to recipes I find on the internet. LOL.  I combined a whole bunch of stuff from my kitchen to make these molasses, cloves, allspice, instant coffee, cinnamon, flour, and salt.  I made my dough and it was very sticky... so I kept adding salt and flour until I got a dough I thought I could work with.  Ughh... still really sticky I'm assuming due to the molasses.  Anyway, I added some dried orange peel to a few and note to self and you DON"T DO IT!!!!! It smells awful in the oven. :-(  I also put whole cloves in the one.  But anyway this is how they turned out.  They really didn't keep their scent very much but the deep dark brown color is nice. LOL.  This picture doesn't show the beautiful color.

 Well, I better get cracking on coffee staining so I can finish up the hearts for my customer and get them sent out.  Have a great day!!!!