Cleaning Copper

Awhile ago I was looking all over Pinterest for tips on cleaning copper. I have an antique copper sign from my parents' place, which originally came from my Great Aunt's place, which was probably originally purchased by my great grandparents or someone even earlier than that! I just don't know. But it's copper and it looked awful. My parents had this sign for quite some time, and I do remember that it almost gleamed with a nice coppery finish. Unfortunately the house my parents downsized to had some serious damp problems in the basement and a lot of their stuff got mildew and was quite ruined. The sign had got stuck in their basement, and this is what it looked like ...

You can see where I tried to clean it up with a chemical cleaner in the upper right corner, but it didn't seem to be working well.

Someone on Pinterest suggested an unlikely copper cleaner using ketchup! Well, what the heck! I had some ketchup, so I slathered it all over the sign and let it sit for some time, but not long enough for it to dry out.

After wiping off the ketchup and washing the sign as best I could (it's mounted on a wooden board so I didn't want to submerse it water), it came out looking like this ...

Not perfect, and not quite as coppery and shiny as I would have liked, but it's better than it was. At least now I can hang it up somewhere. I like the style of writing ... sort of "arts and crafts" stylized lettering. 

And here are some photos from my garden this afternoon :)

My son's climbing rose, which doesn't have anything to climb up!

the bumblebees are frantic to get in the last of the pollen from my turtlehead flowers

turtlehead patch

Everything is fading and browning around the edges despite the fact that the past two weeks have been in the high 20s!! Yesterday and today were quite unbearable with the humidity, and I confess I've been hiding out in the house where we have the airconditioner humming away. I think the a/c has been on more in September than it has been all summer. 

In a few days my husband and I are back camping in Algonquin Park where the colours are at their peak! Can't wait! I hope it's not too hot as we want to hike Centennial Ridges, which is a rugged trail. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Wendy

hoping for a whole lot of this on the weekend ...

Canisbay Lake

Christmas Looming

With Christmas looming, all my time is being manipulated to completing handmade gifts. I finished the scarf I was working on in the last post, and have started on the next one (nothing really to show just yet). I know I'll get it done, but at this point I think it's going to be tight!

My son helped me drag the Christmas tree and boxes of ornaments from the crawlspace early last week. He then helped me get the tree assembled and it sat unadorned in front of the living room window for a week. This past weekend I picked up some clear lights and set to decorating it in a style that we don't normally do. Normally we just pile all the decorations we have ever purchased onto the tree complete with many coloured lights with a programmable lighting sequence. Each year the tree looked more and more chaotic! I was determined to try something different this year with the hope that less really is more, and I quite like it! Although I do miss that personal touch of all those familiar decorations, and the clear lights seemed foreign at first, everyone seems happy with the result. Now I have added a few very special ornaments that have been gifted to me or have special meaning. I like it a lot better now.

One thing I have been working on feverishly were these little dolls to send out as gifts. They are fairly easy to make, and I got them completed a few weeks ago. The tiny flower pots weren't meant to be part of the dolls, I just popped them in the pots for the photo shoot. I kind of like the flower pot base though :)

The sad part about this story is that when I took them all to the post office to be mailed out, the bead I used for the head wouldn't fit through the slot to measure "letter post" which would have cost $1.80 for each envelope. Because of that the envelope was bumped up to "parcel post" and would have cost me $9.00 for each envelope I had to send out! I wasn't about to spend $45 on this. Needless to say I didn't send them, and I had to start on the gifts all over again. I didn't have the heart to rip off all the doll heads to rework them because they're very well secured onto the dolls, and I think it would have ruined the entire doll. Anyway, the new gifts have been made in a complete frenzy and are now off in the mail. Lesson learned.

I've been unable to post or visit anyone properly with all stuff I've been working on and I'm quite busy with the daycare kids as well. I also chose this crazy time of year to advertise for new daycare kids, and have been busy with interviews. The difficult part about having interviews for daycare is keeping my house really clean and tidy all the time! The whole house is open for inspection which becomes tricky when I have kids in the house all day and Christmas stuff threatening to take over. I don't know what I was thinking.

Anyway, yesterday I didn't have any kids in as two are sick and two were not coming because they had hockey games out of town. It snowed heavily Sunday night, so it was a good day to knit ... and clear the driveway :[  If I can squeeze a few photos out of the camera (which I mentioned earlier is not working properly), I'll share some Christmas pics and snow pics. I'm sure you're all dying to see those ha ha! Today is again going to be spent on my own with the two littles still ill at home. I can't say I'm sorry for another unexpected day off (who would!). Back to knitting and clearing away empty Christmas boxes and cleaning house and generally getting all ready for Christmas!

Thanks for stopping by today, and I hope to be able to visit everyone very soon!

Wendy

Creative Wednesday

I'm linking up today with my friend Kathy at Hummingbird Woodland Studio for her first link party of Creative Wednesday! Thanks for hosting this party Kathy :) Please stop by Kathy's blog to see what others are sharing, and since this is her first link party, maybe you have something creative you have made recently that you can share.

This summer we made one of my favourite projects with the kids ... Faux Sun Prints. These are pretty much fool proof sun prints you can make easily with plain cotton fabric, watered down acrylic paints and various leaves of plants around your garden. We have experimented with different leaves, with some good and some not so good results. The ferns work particularly well, and I just love the patterns we get from them. I have a full tutorial here if you are interested.

Basically, you paint the fabric with watered-down acrylic paints, press fresh leaves into the paint and set this to dry in the sun. The kids love seeing the results, and we've done different things with the results.

Waiting for the paint to dry.

Revealing the image once dried.

 Last year we picked up some cute frames made with slices of real wood from the dollar store. 

It made a nice combination for the nature prints.

Look how nicely the fern turned out.

Another sample of the leaves drying on painted fabric in the sun ...

 ... and after it was dry and the leaves peeled away ...

Here are the pieces that the kids completed this summer ...

One of the kids didn't want anything done with his finished piece, but his sister asked for it to be made into a bag. I finished the bag last week for her.

On the reverse side I used another project she created making a stencil from freezer paper.

She was happy with the way I put them all together in a bag for her. 

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Wendy

Easter Greetings!

These days I don't do a lot for Easter ... my kids (no longer "kids") will still get their chocolate bunny, and we'll still have a nice dinner together, but that's about it. The crafting days with my own kids are finished, and I no longer suffer from headaches brought on by blowing out eggs to decorate! However, I still work through a few crafts with the daycare kids for them to take home. I chose this idea from Pinterest. I liked the handprint wings. These are popsicle sticks painted yellow and everything else is construction paper.

These next little chicks are made from pinecones. We painted the pinecones yellow, then stuffed them with tiny bits of fiber fill and a couple of feathers for wings. Google eyes and paper beaks complete them. 

For my card and tea exchange group, I made some cards up with some fabric bunnies. I drew the silhouettes of rabbits onto "Heat and Bond", a double-sided adhesive. I then ironed that onto the wrong side of fabric. I cut out the silhouette from the fabric and ironed the final piece onto the blank card. This method works really well, and I was quite pleased with the results. I used the same method to iron on bunny heads on the envelopes as well.

These are some little rabbits I made up with pretty cotton fabric on one side, and burlap on the other. Fronts and backs were stitched together around the outside edge, and they were stuffed with a small amount of fiber fill. Some tiny buttons were used for the eyes. 

They're rabbits, so they multiplied very quickly!

Today was our last farewell to Winter! I know Spring has officially arrived on the calendar, but in reality Winter decided to throw us one final ice storm to bid us adieu. Thank you Winter, but you really shouldn't have! It started with rain, then snow overnight. This morning the snow turned to freezing rain and everything was encrusted in ice for the morning commuters. 

I tossed lots of bird seed out for my feathered friends, and the patio has been a flutter with activity all day long ... even the squirrels and rabbit came to enjoy a little treat. Later this evening after supper, the Coopers Hawk flew into the mix and almost flew into my patio door ... again!!! After watching the little birds all day, I can't say I was sorry that Cooper missed his mark.

I worry for the flowers that were just coming out of the ground and the buds on the trees and bushes. Hopefully, everything will survive. The poor plants have started to come up a few times during this unseasonably mild winter, only to have the tender shoots frozen in snow again. The ice wasn't too thick today, and some of it melted away as the day wore on. It certainly wasn't nearly as bad as the ice storm of 2013. Take care out there if you have to drive in it, and hopefully things will be cleared up again by Saturday when we can expect a high of 8C!

Here's a sample of how thick the ice was in 2013 ...

... yes, I'd say we got off easy today.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Wendy

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