homemade herbarium

The C.M. Barker covered knitting box made me think of this herbarium I made for my daughter some years ago. This is really the easiest thing to make, but here's a little how-to. It makes a great gift for a little friend as summer is approaching.

You'll need:

• two heavy pieces of cardboard about A4 size 
• decorative paper/cut outs or the like
• glue stick
• Stanley (or other sharp) knife
• satin ribbon
• contact paper

First, cut your cardboard to two A4 sized pieces, or a different size of your choice. You will make two identical pieces; the front and the back.
Make 4 small cuts to each piece (see photo). This will be where the ribbon will go. The ribbon is used to tie the herbarium  together.
Decorate as desired. I chose to glue pretty paper to one side of the cardboard (using glue stick), just wrapping around the corners, and some heavy white paper to the other side, which hid the corner folds.
Cover both cardboards with transparent contact paper, making sure that every fold is neatly done. Cover both sides. This is to protect your herbarium from moist.
Find the four cuts you made with your fingers (easy, as the cutting will leave textured 'wounds' that you will feel through the paper), and cut through the contact paper and decorative paper as well. The reason why I do this in two steps is that it will look much better, with minimal 'cut wounds'.    

Use the tip of your knife to push the ribbon through the cuts. 'Weave' the ribbon in and out of the cuts as shown, thus connecting the two cardboard pieces. Look closely at picture no. two, and you'll see the ribbon that constitutes the back of the herbarium. It's not glued or fastened to the cardboard in any other way, as it's meant to expand with the content of the herbarium - so make sure you cut the ribbons  long enough!
Place 10 - 20 pieces of heavy paper inside (grainy paper texture is better than smooth), fold, tie the ribbon - you're done. The rest is up to the lucky recipient!

Here's a picture of the prototype I made (which of course ended up being my daughters' - 'the pretty ones' are always leaving our home as gifts, like the knitting box. She thinks it's bloody unfair. I agree.)

When you attach your pressed flowers, do not cover the whole page with contact paper (as I was taught at school when I was a child) - use only small pieces of transparent tape or contact paper and fasten here and there. Or else, the whole flower will soon turn brown. 

how to make a knitting/sewing suitcase

Remember the suitcase I made for my daughter for x-mas?
I thought I'd show how to, as I had the pleasure of making one more for my girls' best friends birthday.

I bought the ready made cardboard suitcase at a craft store and decorated it using decoupage - I used a big piece of Cicely Mary Barker gift paper. It was quite thin, so it might originally have been intended for decoupage. I hadn't done much decoupage before, and wasn't quite happy with it. All the tiny curves and corners, the glue that left white stains on the metal lock, but most of all, how the glue made the lid of the suitcase slightly bend. But all in all, the result was good.

In this box I've put two pieces of linen for embriodery (I had previously given the girl an embroidery hoop), a woollen pencil case filled with embroidery thread, and two balls of wool yarn. In the lid (an extra piece of cardboard glued on to the proper lid) I made room for scissors, measuring tape, a pair of knitting needles and a crochet needle. I also sewed up a tiny needle book.

You'll need (the pictures are pretty self explanatory, but just in case):
A cardboard suitcase
Decoupage paper or the like and glue for decoration (if you like, that is - the one I made for my daughter had very little decoration)
Gluegun (cheap, fast and super efficient)
Elastic band, about 1/2 cm wide (1/4 inch)
Stuff to go inside the box - knitting, sewing or other craft stuff
A piece of cardboard to make up the inner lid. It should be sturdy but thin - it must be able to hold the tools and the glue that fastens it to the suitcase lid (gluegun type), but you don't want it to take up too much space inside the lid.  

Start by decorating the box as you please, then move on to the real work; the inner lid. I decorated this one with a single cut out - a fairy sewing tansy buttons on to a shirt (pretty pleased with that one, I admit!)
Cut the cardboard to fit inside the suitcase lid. Easiest way to do this is to place the suitcase lid on top of the cardboard and draw around the edge, then cut off a bit to make it fit inside.
Place the tools you want attached to the lid in a manner so that they fit together, making a visual before you start cutting.
Mark with a pencil where you want the elastic bands to go. Keep in mind that you'd rather want the bands to be tight than loose, or else your scissor/measuring tape/what have you might fall out.

Cut slits for the elastic band with a Stanley knife. Cutting from the right side will make a prettier result.
Push the band through. This photo shows my 'scissor band'; where the scissor will be.
Photo below shows the back.

Do the same for the rest of the tools - here you see my 'knitting needle band'.

Photo above shows the back.

Turn the lid around, backside facing up, and glue one end to it using a glue gun. 

Place the tool in question underneath the band, tighten, and glue the other end to the back. Cut off excess band.

With the needles, I didn't glue the 'inbetween band' to the back. The band is sufficiently tight to hold the needles in place.
Remove the tools and glue the inner lid to the suitcase lid, again using the glue gun.

Put the tools back in place, fill the box with crafty goodies, take a step back and admire your work!

See the teeny tiny basket with the teeny tiny scissor and thread? :)

(Please let me know if I've invented some new words or am using the wrong ones, or anything that might make this tutorial better. Thanks!) 

green: pee, poop & paper

how green are you willing to go? are you willing to substitute your highly pollutive toilet paper for washable cloth wipes? only for #1, or #2 as well?

i first read about cloth wipes here, and thought at the time it sounded like a brilliant idea. it just didn't sound right for us. for several reasons, i don't want to use them for #2 (there's a link at the bottom of this post that will answer all your questions about cloth wipes, and yes, also the hygiena questions). and the paper used for wiping pee in this house is minimal. but the thought of this wouldn't go away, and after a fortnight i'd had enough time to observe our paper habits to make up my mind, and...we use a tremendous amount of paper in the kitchen. add that up to the tp used for pee, and it's too much. kitchen paper will probably be the next challenge. but for now, i'm going with the toilet cloth wipes for #1.

a quick search through my fabric stash revealed an old piece of flanell sheet. wash, iron, cut, zig zag. couldn't be easier.

34 heavily zig zagged, pretty, purple cloths, ready to work for us :)

i cut the squares approximately 15 x 15 cm (6" x 6") - some smaller, some bigger. i have yet to find out whether that's a suitable size, and whether i've cut enough. the biggest challenge will be to prevent my girl from dropping them in the toilet after she's used them. that specific movement is a pretty established embodied habit :)

if you want to learn more about cloth wipes, head on over to these posts at crunchy chicken - the Lady of Eco Challenges (and my newest source of inspiration).

(tip: if you plan on doing this yourself, and haven't talked to your sewing machine for a while, this is the time to flatter her with some nice words and some oil. she's gonna do a lot of zig zaging for you. alternatively, you can take the time to hem them and sew with straight seems instead. the total amount of time spent on making them will probably be the same either way, and you will save a lot of thread!)

shoe tutorial; part 2

fellow deviantARTist raymond has requested the last part of the viking shoe tutorial, so - here's how to make the heelcap. beware of bad pictures, messy windowsills, more bad english and a very worn shoe.

as you see, there are five holes in the side flaps, and four on each side of the middle piece.

pull your leather string through the two bottom holes in the middle section, as shown, so that the string have equal lengths on both sides of the cap. i cut my own leather strings, but you can buy pre cut strings for this.

then, from the inside, pull the string through hole number one in one of the side flaps. next, twist it to the inside and pull it back through hole nr two in the middle section, as shown below.

push the string through hole nr 3 in the middle section, and at the same time, through hole nr 2 in the side flap:

then 'sew' back through side flap hole nr 3 and middle section hole nr 4; pull tight and it will look like this:

repeat on the other side and cross the strings:

cross again on the inside of the cap, and pull through the last two holes. inside view:


tie a knot, and you're done.

(the front part of the shoe is 'unstringed' in this picture, that's why the sides are sticking out.)

if you make a pair of these, i would love to see them!

iron age shoes: a tutorial, sort of

EDIT march 2011: due to tons of comments (over at instructables.com) on the historical correct period for this shoe, i've changed the name from 'viking' to 'iron age' shoes. i've also closed the comment section here, due to spam.

this is an attempt to make a tutorial for making your own iron age/viking shoes. i don't have a pattern for these; i learned to make them by using my own foot as a template. therefore, all the measures given here are highly approximate. if your foot diverges a lot from mine (size 39, long and narrow/slender), some sewing experience might come in handy. that said, there's no reason to be too specific in making these. as you can see, the 'laces' can be loosened or tightened to fit, and the basic idea is really very simple.
the picture above is of my own, good old shoes, made in 1997. i always use them with these thick, felted socks inside; to me, they're part of the shoe. they are soft, comfy and i simply love them. based on my original 11 year old, several times altered, water damaged drawing, i have made a kind of template as a sort of guideline - sort of. you'll find it at the bottom of this post. i had to scan it in two operations as it was so big, then paste the parts together on my computer, so this adds to the imperfection. you should go for the thick, black lines and not pay too much attention to the rest :)

by following the description, you should end up with something that looks like this (above. never mind the red dots in the picture - they will be explained later). the uncut shoe is my left foot (wrong side out), but the cut, dark one is my right foot shoe (right side out). (i'm sorry for the bad quality photos. i don't know what's wrong with my camera - the top photo was taken about two years ago; crisp, clear and fine. all the photos i take these days come out pale and grainy).

look through all the photos before you start drawing!
you start by purchasing some good leather about 2,5 - 3 millimeter thick. thinner than this will be like wearing a thin but stiff plastic cover on your foot. not good.
start with drawing a line around your foot.

then mark the center point under your forefoot; the part that you use to kick off when you walk. (wow. pay attention. more bad english will follow). using a ruler, draw a vertical line through this as shown.

draw another line under this one. using my foot as a measure, this will be approximately 2,5 centimeters below the first line. yours might be different, but take a look at where the line is placed on the foot; just below the big knuckle on the inside of your foot. the top line is just above it.
draw a line about 1 cm outside the foot line, around the toe area. omit the bumps (your toes...)
mark several points about 5,5 cm outside of this again. draw a line through the points (i forgot to do it at this point and did it later on, see below. it's hard making a tutorial; you have to think in logical steps instead of doing the messy thing you usually do!) .

draw the heel cap, about 2 cm wide and 4 cm long. mark three lines (the dotted red lines) - these points mark the end of the heel part (the bottom line), and also between the 'ears' that comes next (the two upper lines). again, there is little point in giving measures here, but look again at where the lines are placed on the foot. and remember it's all very approximately. the shoe can be made with both two or three 'ears'. these are made with three. if you're good at eye measurements (?), this step can be omitted completely.

here comes the free hand drawing. sketch up the 'ears' using a soft pencil. i have given measures here; again, only guidelines. i have marked the outer most point of the ears with red dots. you can (barely!) see here where the three lines from the previous photo are; in between the three ears, and at the end of the heel ear.

when you are happy with your drawing, make a more solid line.

the next step can also be omitted, but is helpful as a visual guide: using a ruler, draw a fan from the middle point of your forefoot to the line you made 5,5 cm outside your toes. in addition, you will draw lines in the 2,5 cm area below the toe area, as shown. this will be the 'fingers' that wraps around your toes. as you can see from picture #2, there is some space between some of the 'fingers' in the top section of the fan. there's no rules to this; the point is just to make them fit nicely around your toes. the only thing i would make sure of, is not to cut the fingers slimmer than 1 cm. but differing somewhat from each other in size is not a problem.

start cutting.

and here's why drawing the fan can be omitted (at least by me); you might just decide to ignore the lines while cutting. but they're good as a visual aid. cut he fingers up until the 1 cm line, as shown by the red dot at the tip of the knife.

cut the fingers so that they seem functional, with a little space between some of them. you might wish to round off the tip of the fingers just a little by cutting the corners, but this is optional.
in this picture, i have tanned the leather, rubbed it with beeswax, and punched holes in each finger, ear and along the heel cap(s). EDIT: i'm lying. there's no holes in the heel caps. go back to picture #2, click to enlarge, and use the red dots as a guideline to making the holes. i also realise that there's no pictures of the heel cap with string. i'll be back with that. EDIT: part 2 of this tutorial has been added here.

draw a leather string through the holes as shown here and in picture #1, and try the shoes on (preferably on your own foot :) )
the worst mistake you can make is cutting the length too short (too long is not a problem; just cut the heel to fit) or make the fan fingers too short so it won't wrap around your toes. if this is the case, sell them to someone with a smaller foot and try again :)

shoe tutorial; part 2