When Your DIY Doesn't DO

 Not wanting to drive (it's a distance from where I live) to the craft store for more Air Dry Clay, I opted to try one of the DIYs I've seen on YouTube. I tried making a small batch. 

RECIPE

4 oz. School Glue

4 oz. or 1/4 c.  Cornstarch

1 TBS. vinegar or lemon juice

1 TBS. oil (of any type)

1. Mix the glue and cornstarch together until it is pancake batter consistency.

2. Add the vinegar  and oil. Mix.

Place the mixture in the microwave for 30 seconds.  

3. Remove and mix the contents. (It was beginning to thicken)  

4. Return to microwave for 30 seconds. 

5. Remove product. Allow to cool for a few seconds .

6. Turn product onto a piece of plastic wrap and knead.

As you can see it was clumpy and nonpliable. 👎👎👎👎👎😖😖😖😣😣😣Reminded me of chunks of cauliflower. 

This is its final resting place.

I may be  "DONE IN" but I'm not "DEFEATED."

I will find my mistake and try again .  Can you say "REMATCH?"💪 

That's it ***

Wacky Cake/Depression Era Cake aka Crazy Cake

 

Right now eggs are $5.++ a dozen because of bird flu.  For bakers and breakfast businesses that's a problem. 

I happened to come across a recipe that was popular during the Depression Era for a cake that uses no eggs or milk.  Here is the recipe:

Wacky Cake

Wacky cake is made without milk or eggs and is a moist, dark, and delicious chocolate cake. A brainchild of the Depression era when ingenious cooks developed a cake that could be made without expensive and scarce ingredients. Frost with your favorite icing.

Submitted by Mary Knipe

Prep Time:

 

10 mins

Cook Time:

 

30 mins

Total Time:

 

40 mins

Servings:

 

10

Yield:

 

1 (8x8-inch) cake

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

• 1 cup white sugar

• 4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• ½ teaspoon salt

• 6 tablespoons vegetable oil

• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1 cup water

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. Sift flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together in an 8x8-inch ungreased cake pan. Make 3 depressions in flour mixture; pour oil into one well, vinegar into second, and vanilla into third well. Pour water over all, then stir with a fork until well blended.

3. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 30 to 40 minutes. (allrecipes)

4. 
   

   

   1

   
   

No mixing bowl needed. All ingredients can be mixed in the pan.

Here are some websites to view

Southern Living Wacky Cake

Italian Chef Wacky Cake. Eight Variations

Quaint Cooking

Sweet Little Bluebird -Vanilla Crazy Cake

That's it ***

Bottle Heads

As I've told you before I'm a recycler. I couldn't resist making one of these 

Credits : https://www.intimamex.com/paginas/blog;
https://mentootlet.blogspot.com/2018/04/flakonviragtartok.html; 

Aprenda com Edu ; unknown (seen on Pinterest)

when I saw them on Pinterest.
Plastic bottles/jugs are plentiful.

I found the vinegar bottle not to be very strong. The detergent bottle will be done later although it would make a great face.

I decided on an empty bleach bottle.

I cut off the bottom of the bottle as seen in the above vinegar bottle.

I painted it black then brown. There was some resistance in covering a white bottle with the acrylic paint when I tried to paint it brown on the first coat. In hindsight I should have roughed up the bottle with sandpaper or some other gritty substance before trying to paint it. However I still feel I would need to add more than one coat which I did.

After it dried I painted a face with eyes, orange eyeshadow, painted eyelashes and two commas(😉) as a nose.

I always have a stash of ribbons, pom poms and etc. because I'm a person who enjoys crafting.

This orange, embossed  wire ribbon  and orange pom poms fit the look I was  going for. I plan to hang it outside on my back porch indirectly from weather elements although it will incur some of it. 

I  didn't want to use E-6000 so I hot glued and stapled on the wire ribbon and pom poms. 

I KNOW this may not hold up but when I make the green one I'll know what NOT to do.

Besides, I brought the old throat killer out again,

that I warned about in a previous post. This time I wore a mask and gloves. It was better but the fumes were permeating the mask.  It's going in the trash 🗑️for sure.

Inside with makeshift wire loops and yarn cord. 

side view after being spray varnished showing earrings.

The finished product tied to a fence post. Later I will adjust the cording so that it will hang from a hook on my porch like other normal hanging plants.

I'm pleased with the results but the next bottle head will be more decorative/ gaudy. 


That's it***
Next week: The other White House. 

Mercury Glass

According to Wisegeek.com , mercury glass is a glass with a silvery appearance but contains no mercury. Whew! That’s good to know since buildings and schools have been evacuated  and closed for several days while HAZMAT teams do their thing all because someone dropped a thermometer.


The real mercury glass never contained mercury because it was too expensive to produce and was hazardous. Instead the glass was double walled and infiltrated from the bottom with liquid silver nitrate. For more views of mercury glass you can always visit PINTEREST.


I really like the look of it so I scouted the NET and went to source after source to see how they achieved the faux mercury glass look. 



I bought this heavy bell shaped vase
at a flea market for 75 cents. It measures
10" x 6"



After faux mercury. The light you see is from
the flash of the camera. (Why do bathroom
photos always turn out so great?)

Just as an experiment I decided to silver glaze a sea shell and a wooden knob I had laying around.

The materials I used were Krylon Looking Glass spray paint, half and half  water and vinegar in a mist type sprayer,  You will want to have droplets on your vase or whatever so that the paint will have the distressed look when it dries.
 If there are streaks, that's good too.



Materials needed

 Paper towels or rag to blot with and gloves (optional). 

Once again number 2 photo is MIAI did this project outdoors because I didn't know how noxious the fumes might be.
Tutorials on the WEB were inconsistent as to whether to spray the paint inside of the vase or outside of the vase,   I chose to mist the outside.

In photo 3 as soon as I misted with water I sprayed the vase lightly with the looking glass paint. 

• After about 45 seconds I lightly dabbed the area just painted. I did this all the way around the vase, left it outside in the sun for about an hour.
• I came back after the hour and redid the entire process.

I took this photo outside under the
 shade of the porch after I'd done the
treatment a second time.



Inside of the vase



The shell turned out great but
the wooden knob not so.



Unfortunately great photos by amateur photographers is difficult but the lamps give the vase a  cozy look.

The paint is a little pricey  ($8 for about 5 ounces)  for the teeny bit you get but  after spending 75 cents on the vase, who's complaining?

I will be trying this technique with more glass items.

THAT'S IT***

Homemade Laundry Detergent

To make the detergent, I chose the recipe from The Burlap Bag. I had no problem locating Borax but washing soda and Fels-Naptha soap was a different story.
Sis suggested that I try ACE Hardware. Low and behold, I found the soap ($1.29) and the washing soda ($4.29) sitting right there on the shelf together.

Here is the recipe for:
HOMEMADE LAUNDRY DETERGENT

1 c. borax
1 c. washing soda
1 bar soap (I used 1/2 bar)
Grate soap into bowl.  Pour in borax and washing soda. Mix until it looks like regular laundry detergent . Store in a plastic tub. Use 1-11/2 TBS per load.

NOTES:

• I grated 1/2 bar of soap instead of the entire bar.
• Mixing it together it still didn't look like regular detergent. If you look at the photo at The Burlap Bag's site you'll see that mine looks pretty much like hers.
• Burlap Bag warns not to use on exposed skin for too long. Good tip because it made my hands dry and itchy. I would suggest using household gloves for any  hand cleaning.
• Also, don't expect sudsing.
• I increased the amount of detergent I used per load
  I made two batches of the laundry detergent. One with the Fels-Naptha soap and another with Lavender scented Yardley soap that I got from the Dollar Store.

These are my dark clothes inside the washer.  I'm using the Fels-Naptha soap recipe in this load. As stated before, The Burlap Bag tells us that there will be little to no suds. Suds don't do the cleaning . They're really just there for aesthetic purposes to make us think the product is reaaaalllly cleaning.

When I did my second load which was lighter clothing I used the lavender soap mixture.

I was pleased with the results of both loads.

My detergent won't last as long as the recipe's author because I used a cup for a large load, 1/4 cup for a small load and 1/2 cup for a medium load.

I plan to begin using vinegar as my fabric softener after I run out of the store bought type. BTW- I have used vinegar in the rinse before and NO there is no vinegar smell left in the clothes.

THAT'S IT ***