We’re On A Roll – recycled gift box – Blog Advent (5)

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Kate Watson

Just a really quick, simple Christmas gift wrapping tip for you all tonight – I can’t even claim it’s original, since I saw the idea on Pinterest a few months ago, but it stayed with me as something cute, and really rather useful!

Here’s a cheap, quick, attractive, and recycled way to wrap small gifts this holiday season, using only things you already have – the cardboard centre of a toilet roll (or kitchen towel roll, or the centre of a roll of wrapping paper), some small scraps of wrapping paper, and some ribbon, raffia, or twine. Yep, a toilet roll centre. Nothing but the best here at the Country Skills Blog!

Start by wrapping the cardboard roll in a piece of wrapping paper – I had some gold tissue paper lying around, so I used that. Tuck in the ends. Now flatten the tube.

This is the cute bit. Simply fold the ends towards the centre to form a small curved box. You’ll need to form the fold along a bit of a curve. It’s worth playing with an unwrapped tube first, just to get a sense of the shape you’re after. Hell, it’s something to do instead of the sudoku while you’re sitting on the throne!

And here’s your completed box. Just tuck whatever special little gift you’re wrapping inside, perhaps folded into an extra piece of tissue paper, and tie it up in a bow with some ribbon, raffia, twine or even knitting yarn! Gift boxes can be so expensive – this one looks a million dollars, is a great solution to the ‘fiddly little package’ problem, and costs nothing!

I was going to show you a bigger one made from a section of wrapping paper tube, but Dave thought better of the idea. He says you all seem like smart people and he’s sure you can work it out for yourselves!

Now I’ve got a little confession to make – last night, while I was writing up the hazel and twine Christmas star decorations, I took my eye off the advent candle and we got a bit ahead of ourselves – all of today’s candle burned and half of tomorrow’s! Oops! It looks a bit sad tonight!

I’m trying to write a post a day during Advent, so, please come along with me while I try to Blog Advent – the Country Skills Way – and forgive me if I don’t quite manage it!

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Star of Wonder – simple twig and twine decorations – Blog Advent (4)

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Kate Watson

Blogging on work nights is a bit of a challenge – but here’s what I’ve been up to the past few days, in bits and pieces, finished off during my lunch break today – some really pretty, simple, twig and twine Christmas star decorations (I wrongly described these as Star of David decorations – they’re not of course, but you could easily make those if you prefer them!).

Mine use some thin hazel ‘whips’ we pruned from our hedge a few weeks ago, but anything would do – willow or ash would be particularly suitable as they tend to grow nice and straight, but a quick scavenge around the garden, park or woods should yield something you can use. The only other things you need are some string (I used jute twine because I think it’s pretty, but raffia or plain cotton or linen string will do just fine), and some fabric glue (I’ll get to this later).

Cut your twigs into even lengths using garden cutters – I wanted different sized stars, so I cut the thicker ends of the twigs into longer pieces than thinner bits.

Now, I’m going to pause the how-to quickly to teach you a little trick you really need to know, and it’s a knot known (to me anyway) as a ‘packer’s hitch’ – I’m informed by my sister, who knows better, that it’s properly called a clove hitch! It’s a self-tightening double loop, so is ideal for this sort of job – or any other situation when you’d otherwise be calling out for someone’s finger to hold the knot for you! I’ve illustrated it below, but basically you form two loops in the same direction, then take the second and pass it behind the first. Anything you pass through the centre of the two loops is caught in your noose, pulling the ends tightens it but because the way the knot is constructed, it’s very unlikely to loosen itself again. Tying a second throw over the top, as in a reef knot, secures the hitch permanently.

Form a packers hitch, and use it to tie the tips of two of the twigs together. Don’t complete the knot with a second throw at this point, you’re just loosely securing the ends. Work your way around all five points of your star.

Now, have a bit of a play with your twigs to make sure you’re happy with the shape, the more even the better, but twigs are an organic thing, so the aren’t always straight or completely even! That’s part of the beauty of these little decorations.

Once you’re happy with the shape, start tying the twigs together where they cross over in the centre. I use a knot which crosses over to stabilise the joint. Make sure you arrange these so that the knots are on the same side as those from the packer’s hitches! Just like these hitches, don’t complete the knots, just tie the first throw.

This is the time to decide which point of your star is the top, if you’re planning to hang it. If so, replace the packers hitch on the top point with one made with a much longer piece of twine, so there’ll be plenty of length to work with. If you want a string of stars, do the same thing with the centre point at the bottom, letting a long tail hang down.

Now, go around all of these knots and put a blob of glue on the knot – I used fabric glue, because it was what I had to hand, but anything which goes on or dries to clear should be fine. Now tie your knots nice and tight, and add an extra throw, if you like. The glue is to stop the knots unravelling when you cut the tails off really short, which is what you’re going to do next. Now do the same with the packers hitches at the points, making sure that you tie everything as tight as possible before securing the knots down with a blob of glue.

Incidentally, I apologise for the classy ‘Costcutter’ bag, it was protecting my table at work from the consequences of my lunchtime activities!

That’s it, you’re done, if you want to be. I think they look great ‘au naturel’, but I’m planning to get out my gold spray paint and just add a slight ‘burnish’ which I think will really add that final detail to the finish. You could spray them any colour (or combination of colours!) to suit your decor. Also consider adding glitter, beads… whatever takes your fancy!

This would make a really good kid’s Christmas craft, I think – no dangerous parts (assuming a grown up cuts the twigs up!), fiddly enough to be challenging without being overwhelming, with a pretty end product, and knot-tying skills to boot! Perhaps one to try with a group of children at a Christmas party, club or youth group?

I’m trying to write a post a day during Advent, so, please come along with me while I try to Blog Advent – the Country Skills Way – and forgive me if I don’t quite manage it!

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All Things Bright And Beautiful – Blog Advent (3)

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Kate Watson

I’ll be honest and say, I’m not a huge fan of outdoor Christmas home-illuminations! Yes, sometimes you see some gorgeous efforts – a beautifully lit tree in a front garden, or some little tasteful icicles adorning a gutter – but so often, they’re really really naff!

This little home-made decoration is my concession to fairy lights around the front door, and hangs in the tall thin window which we have just to the side. I think it’s really lovely, festive and welcoming, don’t you?

It was so quick to make, out of a small piece of left-over silver organza, and a cheap string of LED Christmas lights, so I thought I’d share it with you lot. You can easily adapt the idea to fit any window or door which particularly needs a bit of sparkle!

Construction is very simple, it’s just a tube, closed at the top, and open at the bottom. My fabric was too wide and not long enough, so there’s a join in the middle – this isn’t a problem! The open bottom needs to be hemmed, but nothing else does. I think the seams add a nice additional texture in the way the lights play on the fabric, so I didn’t make any effort to cut them really narrow or press them flat. This is the reason I’ve left the long seam in the middle of the decoration, too, rather than trying to hide it away to one side.

The wire for the lights goes in at the bottom (conveniently, your plug socket is likely to be down there somewhere!), and loops over a few stitches up in the top of the tube before hanging back down again. If you’re making this for a wider window, you could have two or three of these supporting clusters of stitches, and loop the lights over each in turn. Finally, there’s a little loop right at the top to hang the decoration from.

I used my sewing machine, but it’s simple enough that you could easily run it up by hand if you don’t have convenient access to one. This is what it looks like from indoors, it makes a lovely addition to the doorway from both sides, I think!

This is likely to be our only real decoration until we get the tree in a week or two – but it gives us an exciting promise of sparkly pretty things to come!

I’m trying to write a post a day during Advent, so, please come along with me while I try to Blog Advent – the Country Skills Way – and forgive me if I don’t quite manage it!

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No Smoke Without Fire – Boxing Day ham and Christmas bacon – Blog Advent (2)

Posted on December 2, 2012 by Kate Watson

This morning, bright and early (probably a little *too* early after last night’s lovely Christmas dinner with some excellent friends!) and in the freezing cold, I got my smoker out and set up. For the past couple of weeks, my fridge has been half full of partly cured pork products. Well, the curing finished last week, and today it was time for some smoke!

What you can see hanging there is my boxing day ham, and a batch of Christmas streaky bacon. For more information on my DIY cold smoker, you can have a look at the smoking and curing posts, collected here. For suggested UK supplies of smoking and curing ingredients and paraphernalia, have a look at my suppliers list.

The little sawdust-burning ProQ cold-smoke generator has served me very well in the course of the last year or so, but we had a bit of excitement with it this morning, after the tea light which is used to start the sawdust smouldering decided to overheat and do a striking impression of a miniature chip pan fire! You’ll be relieved to hear, I’m sure, that no serious harm was done to the bacon, and that I still have my eyebrows! It was however alarming enough that I’m going to look into alternative ways of starting the smoulder in future.

Boxing-Day Ham

The amazing colour of the ham comes from the same treacle-based cure I blogged about using earlier this year, though in deference to the larger piece of pork leg, and the fact that this time, it has the bone in, I allowed a curing time of 10 days. The only other change was the addition of a couple of fresh bay leaves to the curing solution. The gorgeous 2.5kg piece of pork leg came from our local farm shop butcher, who has wonderful meat.

Between now and Boxing Day, once it’s rested for 48 hours to let the smoke flavours permeate, I’ll wrap it up and put it in the freezer. I’m expecting that, once boiled and glazed, it will look a lot like this – I can’t wait to see what difference the smoke makes!

Christmas Bacon

The bacon is mostly intended for gifts (except for the biggest piece, which is mine-all-mine!). It was a great success last year, and seemed popular with its recipients!

It’s been curing over the last week, using a bacon-in-a-bag technique I’ve been refining over the last year. Nearly all my home-cured bacon is made this way now, and I’ve settled on an 8% cure for most purposes, made up with between 66-75% curing salt and 25-33% sugar.

This total batch was about 2.5kg in weight. In addition to the meat, I used –

Supracure – 133g (see my other curing posts for more information about this pre-mixed curing salt)
Mollasses sugar – 66g
Aromatics, consisting of 4 bay leaves, 20 juniper berries, 40 allspice berries, one clove, and about 1/4 of a whole nutmeg
Two large strong freezer bags

Grind up all the spices in a spice grinder (except the nutmeg, which you’ll probably be safer grating by hand), and then mix the spices into the salt and sugar. Prepare the pork belly by trimming it if required and then slicing into the appropriate pieces.

Now rub about half of the cure generously over all the surfaces of the pork, and pack it into the freezer bags. Put these in the fridge and turn them over at least once a day, alternating which one is on top if you have more than one bag.

In two days (three if you’re using pork loin rather than belly), pour off any liquid which has accumulated in the bag – this may be very little if you started with excellent quality meat that hasn’t had water added! – and apply the rest of your cure mixture before returning to the fridge for a further 3 days, turning daily as before.

After your 5 or 6 days in total have elapsed, take the bacon out of the bag, rinse it carefully under cold tap water, dry with kitchen towel, and place on open racks or uncovered on plates in the fridge for another day (or ideally two) to allow the pellicle to form – this is a sticky glossy surface which will develop on the surface of the bacon.

Then, you can eat your bacon, or, as I did today, smoke it.

I’ve used a mix of beech and apple sawdust for todays smoke run, it gives quite a strong, aromatic smoke which I think will stand up well against the robust flavours in both the ham brine and the bacon cure.

The bacon will be frozen, wrapped as individual pieces in waxed baking paper, until we use ours to make our pigs-in-blankets on Christmas day (it was amazing last year!), or give it as gifts.

I’m trying to write a post a day during Advent, so, please come along with me while I try to Blog Advent – the Country Skills Way – and forgive me if I don’t quite manage it!

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Like a Candle in the Dark – Blog Advent (1)

Posted on December 1, 2012 by Kate Watson

It’s the first of December, and secular Advent is with us at last. Kids (young and old!) all over the world have broken open the first window of their Advent calendars this morning, and the countdown to Christmas is well and truly on!

I started candle making last year, in a very small way, and mused at the time whether my advent candle, this year, might be home-made. Well, here it is! I’m quite pleased with it!

Candle making is a great little craft, though it can be a bit time consuming. I’ve had an Advent candle for many years, and it’s such an important part of my pre-Christmas traditions that I wanted to get it right.

Incidentally, these instructions are equally relevant to making almost any sort of pillar or taper candle. My consumables (wax, transfers etc) mainly came from Making Your Own Candles (see the suppliers list for more details).

To make a candle like this one, you’re going to need the following –

A taper candle mould (mine were cheap, plastic, and came from eBay – more sophisticated models are available!)
Appropriate candle wax – I used 90% of a paraffin pillar blend, and 10% beeswax
Candle dye and scent (optional)
Waterslide transfers for the Advent days (you can skip this if you’re just making dinner candles!). You can buy waterslide transfer papers for laser printing yourself, or buy the transfers already printed from a candle supplies shop.
Wick – I used LX8 for these taper candles – wick sustainers and mould seal
Basic candle-making equipment – some sort of double boiler (mine is a large tin can in an old pan), a jam thermometer, an a stirring stick of some sort. These should not also be used for food!
Kitchen scales, hob, fridge and freezer.

First, assemble your moulds if required, and then work out their volume (I filled them with water, and then weighed the water). This will let you work out how much wax they will take to fill. Wax is about 10% less dense than water, so reduce your weight by 10% and that’s the amount of wax you need.

Each of my taper moulds took about 60g of water, which I adjusted down to 55g of wax made up 50g of paraffin and 5g of beeswax. I also added a 1g chip of fudge-coloured dye to the 110g of wax (that’s the orange thing you can se in the wax tin). Now warm the water in your double boiler up until the wax starts to melt. This should start at about 65C. Try to keep the water below 75 to ensure the wax stays safely below its flashpoint (the temperature at which it’s at risk of catching fire). The lower the temperature you keep your melted wax while working with it, the less shrinkage will happen as it cools, which is likely to give you a better result, so be patient and let it melt slowly!

Meanwhile, prepare your moulds, feeding the wick through the wick hole at the bottom and plugging this with some mould sealant (I use generic white-tack of the sort you’d use to fix posters to the wall, and this seems to work fine). Then turn the moulds the ‘right’ way up, and secure the other end of the wick to a wick sustainer, again using some of the tack.

If you’re adding scent to your candle wax, do this now, just before pouring, to reduce the amount of scent you will lose by evaporation from the hot wax. I added a few drops of sweet orange and ginger essential oils to give a gentle festive scent – but there are lots of commercially prepared specialist candle scents, which, unsurprisingly, you should use according to the directions that come with them!

Once your moulds are ready, you can start pouring the melted wax. Do this carefully but steadily. You can see that I placed my moulds in a tin just in case the mould seal failed, to avoid molten wax going all over the kitchen. Fill both moulds all the way to the top. You will have some left over wax, if you’ve calculated right. This is good news. Put your filled moulds somewhere cold such as the refrigerator, or outside, for about an hour.

Meanwhile, either keep your wax melted (this involves watching it carefully all the time) or pour it out into a container like the tinfoil tray and let it set for now. After about an hour, retrieve your candle moulds. You’ll notice that there’s a massive great ‘well’ in the centre of your candles. Give this a bit of a poke with a kebab skewer to make sure there aren’t any hidden voids, then re-melt the wax you have left over, and use it to top up the moulds again, right to the top.

Return the candles to your cold place to finish setting for a few hours. When you get them out again, they should look a bit like this. Now you need to release them from their moulds. Shrinkage is your friend here, so I stuck mine in the freezer for about half an hour. Then I could pop the cap from the bottom of the mould and gently ease the candle out – well, that’s the theory at least.

As you can see from this next photo, on this particular candle – the first I made, I ended up accidentally breaking the rounded top of the candle in the process. Well, you live and learn, and subsequent efforts were more successful! Freezing is a big help, as is giving the mould a brisk but gentle tap before gently pushing up from the ‘pointy end’.

You can tidy up and ‘finish’ the bottom of the candle by trimming the wick and then melting the bottom against a hot iron or any other hot surface to melt it down flat. Obviously, choose your hot surface judiciously and don’t use your laundry iron or anything that’s for food use!

If you’re just making a dinner candle – congratulations, you’re done! If it’s an advent candle you’re set on, there’s just one more step to go.

Applying the waterslide transfers turned out to be surprisingly straightforward. Cut these to size, if required, then soak the transfers in a bowl of tap water for about a minute. This will allow the clear film which forms the transfer itself to come away from the paper backing.

Then, very gently place the film on the surface of the candle and smooth it out. It won’t stick down fully for a couple of minutes as it dries, so you have plenty of time to straighten it out and get rid of any bubbles or wrinkles, I found wiping it gently with a damp piece of kitchen towel was very helpful.

I’m really happy with mine – isn’t it gorgeous! It’s a lovely warm honey colour, and has a gentle fruity scent from the essential oil additions.

Of course, many people prefer an Advent calendar to a candle – those of you who were early readers of this blog may remember my fabric Advent calendar project from last year. You can see more photos and instructions for the calendar over here.

I’m trying to write a post a day during Advent, so, please come along with me while I try to Blog Advent – the Country Skills Way – and forgive me if I don’t quite manage it!

Read more from the Country Skills blog >>

Holidays Are Coming… and it’s very nearly Advent!

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Kate Watson

There’s no escaping the fact that winter has well and truly arrived, and that Advent, and Christmas, are just around the corner! Christmas is probably my favourite time of year, which is a bit odd, I suppose, as I really really don’t get on with winter. The cold, and especially the long dark months, seem to sap my energy. I’m sure I evolved from a creature that hibernated, because honestly I could curl up under a rock in the middle of November and not come out until March. But Christmas – Christmas is a bright, beautiful jewel in an otherwise dark and barren winter landscape. The lights and sparkles, the food, the drink, and above all, the laughter and joy of loved ones, friends and family.

Every year that goes by, I seem to spend less money on a ‘commercial’ Christmas, and more time and effort on home-made, food and drink, gifts and decorations. So the next few weeks are going to be really busy! Never mind the inevitable – welcome, but time consuming – increase in social commitments, works parties, people visiting. Of course, what everyone needs with all this going on is an extra time-sink.

The thought occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that it would be really fun (fun?!?) to try to blog daily, from December 1st to Christmas Eve – about my Christmas preparations, food and drink, making and doing, building up to the big day…

So, please come along with me while I try to Blog Advent – the Country Skills Way – and forgive me if I don’t quite manage it!

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Relight My Fire – DIY recycled wax and wood-shaving firelighters

Posted on September 29, 2012 by Kate Watson

The chimney sweep came this week, and with the equinox just passed, the nights are palpably drawing in. We use the wood-burning stove in our living room for an awful lot of our heating in the winter – the alternative for us, living off the beaten track (and off the gas main!) is our oil-fired boiler, which is both expensive and not terribly environmentally considerate. But even if you’re not using your fire daily, there’s nothing better than a real wood fire as the nights get colder and darker!

We have a fire most nights in the winter, and that brings with it a requirement for firelighting. We cut our own kindling wood from our log supply (well, I say ‘we’ – Hubby does it!) so it’s not as tinder-dry as the bags of kiln-dried kindling sticks you can buy at great expense. While I’ve succeeded in lighting the fire with newspaper, cardboard and kindling, it’s a frustrating exercise, doesn’t always work first time, and we tend to use a firelighter to get the kindling going nice and quickly and conveniently. There’s only one downside – the white firelighter blocks you get from the co-op or the garage *stink* of kerosene. I don’t want them in my living room! And while I occasionally see the nicer wax & sawdust type for sale locally, I can’t buy them reliably.

But they gave me an idea – with the waste-wax I have available from old candles (believe me, I’m really bad at throwing things away, even stuff like this!), the really grotty old stuff that really can’t be recycled into new candles, from melt pools, stained with soot, with old wick and ash and even match-heads in it, in different colours and scents, could I make my own?

The answer is resoundingly *yes*, but with a caveat…

You want about equal volumes of wax and closely packed wood shavings. I was hoping to use some wood-shop waste, to make the whole thing completely free and recycled, but the stuff I could get hold of was too fine and dusty and mixed with big chunks of ‘stuff’. I think the shavings produced when hubby breaks out the wood-turning lathe would be ideal, so I’ll save those in future.

For this batch I used a cup of wood shavings I stole from the supply we keep for the henhouse, it’s a tiny amount and probably cost a couple of pence at most (and technically I suppose is a recycled by-product, anyway!). You also want an egg box (I had a few old dozen-sized egg boxes that have been damaged beyond useful re-use), and a double-boiler arrangement for melting your wax, preferably with an inner container you don’t want to use again for ‘clean’ candle-making, and a thermometer for safety.

Take your dirty grotty old wax and put it all into the double boiler, and heat the water up to about 75 degrees celsius. This should allow you to melt the wax down without getting too close to the flash point of your wax. I’ve used an old can which previously held malt extract for home-brewing, it’s about the perfect size for melting candle wax. Really, any dirty old wax goes here, and don’t worry about trying to remove old bits of burnt or unburnt wick, wick sustainers, matchsticks, or anything like that. Add more wax in stages as the contents of the can melt down, until you have the sort of volume of melted wax you need (it was about 1/3rd of the can, once melted, for me).

This part of the process is where my caveat comes in – it took a bit over an hour to melt down all this wax, during which I couldn’t really leave the wax unattended on the stove (though I did get the chance to have a nice chat on the phone with my little sister). The time investment in making these as a standalone project probably, for me at least, make the cost / benefit of this project a bit suspect! There may be ways around this, more of which later!

Once all your grotty old wax has melted down (it will smell quite peculiar if, like mine, it contains fruity, citrussy and maple-syrup scented candle-waxes!), add your shavings in batches, stirring as you go. You want most of the wax to be absorbed into the shavings, leaving just a little bit of ‘free’ wax to set the mix as it cools. Pack the mix into the wells of the egg boxes, filling them to the top, and squeeze down the contents with your fingers (wait for it to cool partially before doing this, if you like).

My mix made an almost perfect dozen firelighters (I also made two ‘experimental’ lighters with rolled-up cardboard in the well). Allow the firelighters to cool, and then separate them (tear, or cut into the underside of the egg carton to get things going). Mine look like rather suspect pink raw minced beef products because of the red waxes that went into the mix! There’s a very subtle smell about them if you stick them right up to your nose, but nothing unpleasant.

So far so good, right? But it’s all ‘for nowt’ if they don’t actually light fires! Would they do the job? Would all the wax melt and dribble out and make a mess of my lovely newly-serviced wood stove?

Build your kindling ‘jenga pile’, and nestle the fire lighter in the centre. Then set fire to the cardboard edge of the lighter with a match, and watch it go! It burned amazingly well, cleanly, with no wax dripping, and got up to a really good temperature, the kindling wood was snapping, fizzing and crackling almost immediately and the fire got off to a roaring start!

I suspect actually about half the total volume of firelighter would have done the job – a whole egg-well seemed a bit generous. I might under-fill the wells a bit in future and see if it still does the job.

But ‘in future’, if the process is this time consuming? Well, if the performance of these firelighters weren’t quite so good, I suspect I wouldn’t be making them again. I think it will be a task that I do ‘in the background’ in a second can when I’m using the double-boiler for clean candle-making anyway (I’ll be doing quite a bit of this in the build up to Christmas!). If you’re doing any similar candle craft, and have space for a second melting pot (or if you have one of those natty thermostatically controlled wax melting gadgets that you can set-and-forget to a greater extent) then I can thoroughly recommend making these free, recycled little firelighters.

Enjoy your fires this winter, folks (and have a look at my useful little tip for cleaning the glass on a wood-burning stove, while you’re at it)!

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Waxing Frugal – making a recycled scented chunk candle

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Kate Watson

Everyone loves a candle, they cast a lovely warm flickery light, and, chosen carefully, can fill a room with beautiful scent (sure, sometimes they can fill a room with the scent of cheap pot-pourri, but this is a matter of taste!). After Christmas, we had several left over candle ends around the house, and rather than throw them out, I wanted to do something creative and recycle them. But while there are lots of great candle-making kits out there, I didn’t really want to spend any money on the process. So this is a candle-making project that, with the exception of some wick and a wick sustainer, you can do entirely with things that you already have around your home and kitchen.

For this project, you will need –

Two old candle-ends, preferably one coloured & scented and one plain, total weight 300 – 400g
Empty Pringles tin (I recommend starting with a full one, and working on it!)
Large saucepan, a trivet (or an old saucer or side plate), and a large empty tin can (I used an empty malt extract can from home brewing, but any large catering size tin can will do)
Stirrer (I used a large wooden lollipop stick, anything will do but not something you plan to use with food!)
Chopping surface (again ideally not one you plan to use for food use in future)
Large knife
6in length of appropriate wick, a wick sustainer, and something to use as a wick pin (a kebab stick is ideal)
Kitchen hob
Scales
Jam / sugar / preserving thermometer, old tea strainer (recommended but not absolutely required)

Gather up your equipment, starting with the knife and the pringles tin. Cut the Pringles tin down to about 4″ high using your knife, and make a couple of ‘notches’ in the top on opposite sides of the top.

You’ll need to get an estimate of the capacity of your candle mould, so put a sandwich bag inside the Pringles tin, put it on the scales to zero, and then fill the bag with water to about a 1/2″ below the top. The weight in grams of water is a good estimate of the volume in mls, as wax is slightly less dense than water (it floats on water, after all), you can reduce this estimate by about 10% to get the weight in wax required to fill the mould to this level. I came up with 300g and used around 270g as a target weight of wax.

Now, cut up your coloured candle. Try to cut it into even cubes a bit bigger than half an inch cubed, but it’s likely you’ll struggle, and if the pieces are a bit rough, don’t worry. From what you’ve chopped up, sort to one side and weigh all the sensible chunks, leaving the dust and small fragments aside (wrap these up for another project). Weigh your coloured chunks (mine weighed about 140g) and put them in the mould to check how high up they come. Ideally this will be about the target ‘fill’ level. Now roughly chunk up your white wax candle. It doesn’t matter what size and shape these pieces end up, but the smaller they are the faster they’ll melt. When working with old candles, try to avoid including the ‘melt pool’ from the candle as this will be dirty wax and may well include bits of old burnt wick and suchlike, which you don’t want in your shiny new candle.

A word about wicks, before we go on – the size and construction of wick you need depends on the chemistry of the candle-wax and the width of the melt pool you want in your candle (which is closely related to the diameter of your candle, usually). When working with recycled waxes, the chemistry involves a fair bit of guesswork. I assumed the waxes were a basic paraffin pillar blend, since this is the most usual situation for commercial candles manufactured to a price point. There’s a useful wick size guide here. (See my suppliers list and library for more reading.) I used an LX16 wick which should have been a good match for the ~70mm diameter Pringles mould. Secure the end of the wick into the wick sustainer using pliers.

Now, start melting your wax. Put the white wax into the large tin, and put the tin inside your saucepan on the trivet. Fill the saucepan with water so that it comes up the side of the tin about an inch and a half. Use the thermometer, if you have one, in the water. You don’t want this to boil, but ideally it should stay around 75 degrees centigrade, which should be enough to melt the wax without risk of overheating. The flash-point of wax is quite close to the melting point, and at the flash point the wax is at risk of catching fire, particularly if you have a naked flame in the vicinity (for instance, if you’re using a gas hob), so be careful and heat the wax very gently.

Once the wax is melted, you need to prime the wick, which just means dipping the wick into the wax so that it can be absorbed onto the surface of the cotton. Also dip the sustainer in the wax, and use this to secure the sustainer to the centre of the bottom of the Pringles tin. Stretch the wick up vertically and wrap it around the wick pin to keep it centred in the mould.

Now, arrange the chunks of coloured wax in the mould around the wick, trying to make sure you don’t close off any pockets which would prevent the melted wax filling all the gaps. When you’re happy, pour about 90% of the melted wax into the mould, pouring through the tea strainer if you see any ‘bits’ in it. Keep the remaining 10% over a low heat to keep it liquid, and continue to keep a close eye on it.

The wax will shrink as it cools and this will form a dip or a ‘well’ near the wick, which will affect the candle as it burns. Encourage the candle to cool by putting the mould inside a plastic bag and immersing it into a bowl of water. You will need to weigh it down to keep it immersed, I used a marble pestle, but anything heavy will do. This is of course quite faffy, and if it’s a nice cold day, you’d probably do as well to put the mould outside for half an hour or so.

As the wax sets and you start to see a well forming near the wick, make a couple of holes in this area with a skewer. Once the surface of the wax is springy but not hard to the touch, pour over the rest of the wax tapping the mould to make sure it goes into the holes you’ve made near the wick. Now set the mould somewhere nice and cold to set – in the fridge if it’s a warm day, or outside if it’s January in the UK.

After a couple of hours the wax will have set hard. I was expecting to have to sacrifice the Pringles can at the end of the moulding, but the wax had shrunk back nicely from the sides, and I was able to ease the candle out without having to destroy the mould – however your results may vary and I wouldn’t lose to much sleep about it if you have to break the mould away from the candle. Trim the wick so that about 1cm is proud from the surface of the wax.

I’m thrilled with the results, which I think are very pretty for a first effort. The white wax is a little bit ‘dirty’ which I probably could have concealed by using a little bit of ivory or honey-coloured candle dye. I poured the bulk of the white wax in two ‘goes’ and you can see the line between them, which is something I’d avoid in future.

My only real criticism of the finished candle would be that I chose too small a wick – the melt pool the candle produces is quite a bit narrower than the body of the candle, and stops short of the sides by about half an inch all the way around. I suspect this is to do with the chemistry of the original white candle, which we stopped burning for a very similar reason – lesson learned! If I re-make this candle with the remains of the white wax from this batch I’ll use an LX20 wick which may give a better result. The melt pool is very pretty though, a lovely dark pink colour from the mixed waxes and gives a gentle berry aroma. For the cost of a new piece of wick, and a little bit of kitchen chemistry, it’s a beautiful, and extremely thrifty, scented candle.

Read more from the Country Skills blog >>

Handmade Christmas – cracking crackers!

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Kate Watson

Christmas crackers are great, and an essential part of Christmas dinner in my house. I mean, what’s not to like about adults wearing silly paper hats after a lovely meal and plenty of wine? But the ones I’ve bought always seem to contain absolute rubbish which no one would ever want. How about making your own, with the traditional silly paper hat and motto, but with the added bonus of a small, thoughtful gift, an after dinner chocolate, or both? Well, it’s simple and fun, here’s how!

You will need:

Some cracker ‘blanks’, these are widely available from craft shops and on the internet in various sizes, colours and pack sizes. I chose plain silver ones.
Cracker ‘snaps’, if these aren’t included with the blanks, one for each cracker you plan to make.
Ribbon, wool, raffia or string, for tying the crackers up, as decorative as you like.
Decorations for your crackers, if you want. I used metallic leaf skeletons, some ribbon and a couple of small jingle-bells, all glued in place, but be creative, anything from the card making section of the craft shop is a good place to start, or how about some decoupage with last year’s Christmas cards?
Finally, cracker gifts! I found some quite cute keyring gadgets of various kinds and also added a nice after-dinner chocolate. If the gifts are for specific guests, put name-labels on the crackers.
Scissors, sticky tape, and clear glue.
Make hats and mottos yourself!

Making them couldn’t be easier and is a crafty relaxing way to spend a dark December evening.

Start by sticking one end of the cracker snap onto the cracker blank with sticky tape. Then roll the cracker blank using the tabs (cracker blanks have slightly varying designs, so follow the instructions that come with yours!). Pinch, twist and tie up one end of the cracker with the string, ribbon, or other thread you’re using – I used silver paper raffia.

Now fill your cracker with all the bits and pieces, and tie up the other end of the barrel in the same way. Once you’ve tied this up, stick the second end of the cracker snap into place. You can decorate the crackers now however you like!

‘But what about my hat and motto’, you may be thinking? I did see hat-and-motto sets for sale, but they’re awfully expensive considering what you get, a cheap tissue paper crown and a small slip of paper.

Making the hats couldn’t be simpler. Get some Christmas wrapping paper, I used the end of a roll of white and silver metallic paper which I had knocking around. First, measure the circumference of your head (unless it’s unusually large or small, in which case perhaps find someone with a more ‘representative’ head to measure – then again, you’ve made them, so perhaps it’s only fair to claim the perk of a cracker hat which fits for once!). Now cut some pieces of wrapping paper twice as wide as the finished hat you want, and about 1cm longer than the circumference you’ve measured. Using clear sticky tape, stick the paper into a loop.

Now fold the loop flat (image 1), then in half, then fold each of the halves into three, so that you’re now on the central panel of the film-strip above. Now fold this in half one last time, then make a single diagonal cut half-way up the paper. Unfold your two zig-zag topped crowns. It’s like being back in primary school! And since they’re neatly folded, tie them that way with ribbon or a small elastic band.

For the mottos, anything goes! Good (or bad!) jokes, limericks (or haikus?), brain teasers, interesting facts, or even thoughts for the season or personal wishes for your family and friends’ year to come – make them pretty in a word processing package, print them out, cut into strips and fold them up with your paper hats.

Crackers needn’t just be for Christmas – they’re a lovely creative way to package small, special gifts. An unusual way to wrap a special piece of jewellery, perhaps even a surprise ring? Or consider using crackers to package wedding favours?

Handmade Christmas – decorated glass baubles

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Kate Watson

I have to confess to having a bit of a ‘problem’ when it comes to Christmas tree decorations – I love them. Every year I try to add one or two (ok, sometimes a few more than one or two!) new pieces, to go on my tree year after year. In recent years I’ve tried to make some of these rather than buying them, and this year I’ve bought nothing, which is a first!

What I added to my tree this year were four lovely clear glass baubles which I already had, but which I have filled with wool fibres, giving what I hope you’ll agree is rather a lovely effect.

Making these is very simple – you will require:

Some plain clear glass baubles, any size but I used 6cm ones. I bought them from a website a couple of years ago, but I gather they’re often available in craft shops before Christmas.
Wool scraps, as pretty and colourful as you can find. I begged these from a friend who’s a keen knitter.

First, gently remove the top from the bauble. With the normal design of blown glass bauble, you do this by squeezing together the sides of the metal hanging loop, which moves the ends together allowing you to (very carefully, broken bauble glass is sharp!) lift the metal crown from the bauble.

Now take your length of wool – about a foot (30cm or 12″) is probably quite enough depending on how thick and fluffy it is. Cut this into approximately 5cm / 2″ lengths.

Then tease the wool apart gently into it’s component fibres. Depending on the thickness and spinning type of the wool this might be more or less difficult, the wool I had was quite a loose structure and came apart very simply. At this stage you need to assess whether you have enough fibres, since you want enough to loosely fill your bauble.

Finally, use something like a chopstick or a pencil to gently push the fibres inside your bauble, and re-attach the cap.

That’s it, all done in only a minute or two, and the colours and effects you can achieve are only limited by your imagination (and wool collection!). It’s so simple to create a colourful, textured, unique bauble for the price of a plain clear glass one, and these would make lovely gifts, too! I’ve also seen pretty things done with ribbons, fabric scraps, or glitter inside clear baubles, so why not get creative!

Updated for 2012 – why limit yourself to wool, there are other things you can fill baubles with, too!

See more crafty ideas for a Handmade Christmas >>

Read more from the Country Skills blog >>

Country Skills for Modern Life

Some of the cool and useful food, craft and sustainability skills that your grandparents knew, but probably didn't teach you!

Tag Archives: Christmas

We’re On A Roll – recycled gift box – Blog Advent (5)

Star of Wonder – simple twig and twine decorations – Blog Advent (4)

All Things Bright And Beautiful – Blog Advent (3)

No Smoke Without Fire – Boxing Day ham and Christmas bacon – Blog Advent (2)

Like a Candle in the Dark – Blog Advent (1)

Holidays Are Coming… and it’s very nearly Advent!

Relight My Fire – DIY recycled wax and wood-shaving firelighters

Waxing Frugal – making a recycled scented chunk candle

Handmade Christmas – cracking crackers!

Handmade Christmas – decorated glass baubles

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