Let's Do Some Wax'n

In having a go with a few projects and ideas involving fairly common goods it is sometimes a challenge to come up with items that are unique, have a voice, and stand apart while still being able to move about nicely in, out, and around the "crowd".

It is while dabbling in the is idea that the though occurred to me recently to have a little mess about with fabric and wax. Now this is not anything new by any means, but the end use is part of the overall story telling that I think might be quite fun when all said and done. More on that on a later date...

It has been a while since I have done any kind of Process post up. So figured share a bit on some building of a bar of wax for rubbing into some fabrics with.

 Materials needed:
-2 Pots: 1 that fits loosely inside the other to do a little double boiler action. (You don't want to melt wax directly over an open flame it could end very badly with flames and such) Or if doing a small batch could use an old soup can inside a pot.
-Water: to boil in mentioned pot.
-Stove Top: how else you going to boil the water?
-Wax: paraffin and Bee's
-Coconut Oil (optional): Smells nice and for my projects fits in with the whole story thing mentioned above. Also it helps keep the wax soft and pliable for use and adds a little bit "grease" for end use.
-Container or Mold: Use to poor the melted wax into to set up as the bar. I used an old 32oz. plastic yogurt container. 
-Food/Kitchen Scale: To measure out the right amount of wax to mix together. If you don't have one, no worries this is not chem. class it does not need to be perfect.
-Wood or Metal Spoon: To stir the wax as it melts.

Recipe:
2 part Parraffin
1 part Bee's
A few heaping Table Spoons or 1 part Coconut oil (optional)

Bash up your wax into small chunks and measure it out into your smaller pot or soup can. My blend for this round, 8oz. Paraffin / 4oz. Bee's.

Put a shallow amount of water in the larger pot and place the smaller pot / soup can  with the wax chunks into the pot and fire up the burner on the stove.

Low to Medium heat a n bring to a soft boil (not rolling just a few bubbles) As the water is warming up the chunks of wax will start to soften and melt down as well. Once the wax starts to melt you can begin to stir to help melt down the wax.

Once all the wax is melted and in a liquid form remove from heat and add the Coconut Oil by stirring it into the liquid wax until dissolved completely.

Remove small pot or can from the larger pot with togs or oven mit (caution HOT) and poor liquid wax into mold or plastic container and let set for a few hours or over night.

Once fully set, and if you are using a plastic container, like the yogurt container, you need to work the edges to loosen it up and it should, after some working it a bit, pop out. Now youz got a nice bar of wax for some fabric waxing fun.

Stay tuned for the next post, Elbow Grease and hot iron fun...

Back to it.

>>>--"Keep On Crow'N--->
Cheers,
'MrRay'

Mix It Up And Bake It.

As mentioned on the family page i made a chicken pot pie. I was stoked to eat it in Utah and decided that it needed a little something different (like not use frozen veggies, i do not like frozen veggies) So here it is.....


2 cans cream of potato
2-3 cups chicken or 1 rotisserie chicken (I used two 12.5oz. cans of chicken in water)
1/2 cup milk
1/8 t. thyme
1/3 t. pepper
and this is were you add the veggies i decided to use 1 can corn, 1 can green beans, diced carrots, diced celery.
I added a touch of secret spice as well as a pinch of rosemary... so spice to flavor.

Mix it all together in a bowl and place into pie crust and then add the pie top. (i used a pre made pie crust that is found in the grocers fridge by the croissants)

pre heat oven at 350 and then bake at 40-45 min or until golden brown. eat and be stoked simple huh?
Note: since the carrots and celery are fresh they have a bit of a crunch, which Meg. said she liked. Next time I want to try all fresh veg. so will have to soak them to soften them up.

Time.....

Since I do not go out of the house for work anymore I find that I have time to play with my camera more since it is sitting right there.
It was good light the other day so I shot some pics of Aiden running around the upstairs just messing around with the settings on the ol' Nikon.

On Friday night we had opened a few cans of food for dinner and I remembered that I wanted to try and rig up a pinhole lense to play around with on the digi camera so I poked a hole in the bottom of one of the cleaned out cans and slid it over the lens but alas it did not work.... then on Saturday I used up the rest of our apple jelly and decided to try it again by poking a pin hole into the top of the lid...

Like so.

I then placed it over the lens kind of like a lens cap but still no luck then it hit me take off the lens and just use the body and place the cap over like a lens and try it....

Like this.

I then set the camera to BULB setting and manual focus and gave it a go counting to 10 and 15 and so on and

IT WORKED!!!!! so much fun!






Also we cleaned up and re-aranged the studio so here is my new work space.

Now it is time to get to work.

How 2: Copy Machine Fabric Labels.

One of my big projects that I had been working on for most of December was for a few wool ties that I made as gifts for my brother, Dad and good buddy Jon. I wanted them to be as good or better than what they could buy at any men's emporium and that meant that I needed to have labels. I decided that I wanted to have not only the company logo and name but also the care/content, RN# and the number of made. (4 of 4)
I have heard that you can print directly on fabric with a bubble jet printer and thought that would be a good way to get my labels made and still have the custom handmade feel that I want. Well our printer at home is just lame-O, So I figured why not try a copy machine.... Now I guess the reason that you can do a bubble jet printer is that it does not have to go around in drums and get caught or something of that nature... I tried it with a black and white copy machine and it turned out better than I could have hoped. so here is a little step by step... Enjoy!

List-O-Materials:
-Design you want to print. scaled to size and layout (picture, clip art, drawing, etc.)
-Freezer paper (a paper with one sided wax finish found at your local grocer by the tin foil)
-An electric Iron
-100% Cotton Fabric to print on (preferably a light ground color for best results)
-Scissors
-Pen or Pencil
-Ruler
-Fray Check, to seal the cut edges and stop them from, well, fraying (found at local fabric shop in the notions section)

I think that is about it. Now lets get started.

First step: prep the fabric.
If you plan to use the printed fabric on garments that will be worn and washed it is best to pre-wash and dry the fabric to make sure that it will not shrink after you sew it onto another garment, like a tee shirt.

- with the fabric all washed and dried place the fabric wrong side up (the side you do not want to print on) and put the wax side of the freezer paper down onto the fabric. (you can tell which side is the wax side by the glare it gives off in the light)

Next step: Bond the fabric to the paper.
- With your clothes iron set to hot (no steam) iron over the paper slowly working from one side to other until you have gone over the whole thing. The object is to bond the two together with a good hold.

After the fabric and paper are bonded, on the paper side, with ruler and pen/pencil draw the size you want to print (8 1/2"x11", 11"x17", etc.) I did mine at standard US letter size (8 1/2"x11") see picture above.

- Cut the fabric and paper to size.

Next Step: printing.
- now take your bonded paper/fabric that is cut to size, your chosen graphic or art that you are planning to print and go to the nearest copy machine (or bubble jet printer) if using a copy machine it is best to do a test print to know how to place the bonded paper/fabric so it will print on the fabric and not the paper side.
-open the paper tray and mark the top paper with an X (or use the bypass tray and mark the top page of a small stack of paper)
- run one print.
- if the print is on the side with the X then set your bonded paper/fabric with fabric side up to print. If the test page came out with a clean print and the X on the other side then place you paper/fabric with paper side up.


-(be excited!!!!) NOW PRINT YOUR FABRIC!


Next step: Cut it out.
- With your fabric now printed cut out your labels (or what ever you are doing)

Next Step: Frey check.
- after all are cut go around the outside edge with the fray check (follow instructions on bottle)


Next Step: Remove Paper Backing.
-Once all edges have been checked you can peal off the paper backing .

-Now set it aside and let dry and Be way STOKED cause you just printed your very own fabric labels!!!! Congratulations! Now go and do.
(you can click on each picture to see a more detailed and larger image if you have not already)