reader letters
A craft warning from Lavender:
Hi,
I thought I would try a few of the hand warmers from the Martha Stewart’s Handmade Gifts magazine. They seem really quick and simple to do and would make a few for stocking stuffers. It’s the one you make them with wool and fill with ceramic pie weights. The instructions provided in the article says to microwave on high for no more than 5 minutes. Well, it’s a good thing that I tried it out first. I set the microwave on 4 minutes and now my house smells like burning wool. At 3 minutes & 38 seconds, I began to smell the burning wool. By the time I got the microwave door opened, there was a scorch mark on the wool and spreading. Because I used 100% wool, it didn’t catch on fire. I thought you might want to warn people making these to test them out first before giving them away. I don’t know if there’s any difference in the brand of pie weights.
Antonia from Maisonette sent in this link to Marcel Wanders crochet furniture
Amy from the hive design sent in this link to the toymaker
Hey Whipuppers! I follow your site and am a fellow blogger (although I’m still a rookie). I’m sending you a link to a site your readers may be interested in. This site, by Marilyn Scott-Waters, catalogs a variety of images, templates and paper patterns (downloadable as pdfs) for creating a variety of paper toys. Marilyn’s illustrations are wonderful and clever. This site is fun and FREE!
Melissa {aka the crazy cat lady} sent in a tutorial link on making garlands
And this letter from Stephanie {aka Heesl} from mundane super hero
Y’all wrote about vellum as a medium not long ago and I wanted to link you to one of my favorite author/illustrators. Mr. Hillenbrand illustrated my very young son’s favorite book, Down by the Station, using vellum, among other things. I found his website this week and am blown away by his art process link and I think your
artsy readers would love to see it, too!I am about to campaign to have Mr. Hillenbrand visit my daughter’s school. Cross your fingers for me!
Stephanie (who loves whipup)
January 4th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
I’ve tried wool-and-pie-weight handwarmers before. The pie weights I used didn’t seem to hold the heat very well – perhaps for a minute or so. (And I certainly didn’t nuke them for any more than 2 minutes.) I’m wondering if there’s another filler option that would stay warmer longer? Suggestions, anyone?
January 5th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Thanks for posting the link to my garland tute!
I wanted to chime in on the handwarmers. I wondered about the pie weight version in the MS mag, but I’m glad I didn’t try them! I do recall a version in another magazine that called for fleece, which can melt or burn in the microwave!
Personally, I like pearl barley or flax in a muslin bag, tucked into a flannel case (all safe for the microwave). The former has a nice weight, similar to rice, w/o smelling liked cooked rice. The latter is much lighter weight and holds heat for a long time. I have a tute for heat packs as well, here: http://home.comcast.net/~crazycatladymel/heatpack.pdf
Lesson learned: coffee beans = very bad idea a.k.a. fire hazard. I mean, it sounded great! I don’t drink coffee, but I like how it smells. I thought it would make a great heat pack. Not enough moisture, I guess. At least that’s what the fire in my microwave indicated.
January 5th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Um, I’ll probably go google it right now, but I’m dying for the promised Mr. Hillenbrand’s website!
January 6th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Jeepers! Thanks for the kind words and the link!
Make toys! Play more!
Marilyn.
http://www.thetoymaker.com/
January 6th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
For making warmers:
This is going to sound lumpy, but corn works great! Not popcorn, (heh heh) but whole kernel corn, the kind you get in feed stores to feed to the chickens. When I was in college, I bought a 50 lb bag at the feed store, and fabric remnants, and sewed 4″x12″ tubes in different fabrics for everyone in the dorm and gave them out at Christmas/ Finals Time.
They ended up costing about 1.00 each– cheapest Christmas I ever did, and I know ten years later some of my old college friends still have their “corn cuddly” for a foot/neck warmer. If itdoesn’t get as hot anymore, it has lost its moisture andyou just need to wet it down and let it dry for a day.