Home-made Jam

This is now the real stuff made from fruit, not a savoury jam (remember Bacon Jam?). When I was a kid, I didn't even know you could buy jam at the store because this is all I remember growing up.

It's very simple with only four ingredients - fruit, sugar, Certo, and lemon juice. This is the "no cook" version and there are fourteen options listed in the package insert. You can check it out now to see what you need before you get started and how much it makes.

I made raspberry jam this time as the raspberries were free from my brother's house and I didn't even have to put in the work since Mom and Jess picked them for me.

I needed 2 cups of mashed raspberries and that took about 4 cups of berries. Half of them I put through a sieve to remove the seeds. That's an optional step, so feel free to use all the seeds if you want.

Then add the 4 cups of sugar. It pretty much overwhelms the raspberries, but with that much sugar you can't really pretend that jam is healthy.

But somehow the raspberries do manage to dissolve all that sugar. I did this in the evening so this could sit overnight to make sure all the sugar crystals are gone. If there is too much sugar left, it will crystallize your jam. All you have to do to tell if the sugar is dissolved is to rub a little between your fingers as you'll be able to feel any sugar crystals remaining. If you feel more than a few, pop it into the microwave for about a minute. You don't want to start cooking it, but just warm it up a little.

The next morning, I added the lemon juice and the Certo.

Stir for 3 minutes and pour into jars. This particular recipe makes 4-1/2 cups (other fruit options make different amounts), so it filled the 2 jars I used with a little leftover that I just put into a plastic container. If you used tasty fruit, this is delicious jam!

Raspberries - Free!
Certo - $3.49 (but comes with 2 packs, so really $1.75)
Lemon - $0.99
Sugar - maybe $1.50 (gets cheaper as you buy bigger bags of sugar of course)

So two jars of jam for $4.25. Cheaper than the store!

 ~Lisa

T-Shirt Tutu

Every little girl needs a tutu....or two!

I made this t-shirt tutu dress for a little friend celebrating her Italian heritage.

 Here's is an easy way to sew a t-shirt tutu dress perfect for any event or even just playing dress up. 

Start with a t-shirt to fit your little girl and some tulle in your chosen colours. I picked a 2T toddler shirt in white and one meter of each green, red, and white tulle. 

Measure where you want the "waist" of the skirt to start and put a mark there. I marked at 5 inches from the bottom with a pin.

Now to make the tutu skirt, just measure how long you want the layers to be, making the underskirts longer than those on top. 

I cut the green at 15 inches. 

The white at 12 inches.

And the red at 9 inches. 

Now there are many ways to make the ruffles in the tulle for the skirt, you can do a long basting stitch and gather it together, or you can used a "ruffler" foot on your sewing machine, or you can do the easy way like I did. Just find the middle of the tulle and pin it to the middle of the t-shirt. Then pin each side of the tulle to each side of the shirt. 

Now you can find the middle of that section of tulle and pin it to the shirt in the middle of those pins. 

See how it's starting to ruffle up and look like a tutu skirt?

Now just sew it the t-shirt using a simple straight stitch. Sorry, I didn't capture an image of the green getting sewed on, but here is the same thing repeated with the white layer. 

Now you have two layers on, just repeat with the red. Pin in place and sew the ruffles down. 

I know you're not supposed to sew over pins, but sometimes I'm wild like that. If you are going to rebel like I did and sew over them, just go slow and be careful, it's not worth losing an eye over!

Now you have a puffed-out-fully-layered-and-ruffled-up tutu skirt sewed to the t-shirt!

Cute hey? Now you can add some additional flare...

A red ribbon bow in the middle and some tulle puffs on the sleeves. 

Layered Photographs

I heard a description of doing this and thought it could be a really neat way to display a picture. When it's put together, I think it's a great way to showcase what doesn't fit in a single image. A bit of a panoramic view, depending on how wide you go. The materials required are really quite simple - several photos, some double-sided tape, background paper, and a frame.

Mom loves flowers and toward the end of summer there are flowers flowering all over the place and walking up the sidewalk to the front door almost requires a machete to get through them all! But it's really beautiful and since this has been "home" for more than a quarter-century now, I wanted to use this as my muse.

I actually took the pictures a few years ago, so that's why my final framed image doesn't match what the outside of the house actually looks like now. It's surprising how much bigger the trees got behind the house.

Start by taking several photos. Just stand in one spot and move the camera around, taking both horizontal and vertical shots. I wish I would have had more vertical pictures to use. You're going to want to err on the side of too many pictures than not enough. You'll never be able to stand in the exact same spot and have the same amount of light again if you discover you're missing the top of the tree you really like.

Now get your images printed. From a digital camera, I'd recommend submitting the photos online to wherever you get photos printed instead of doing the instant-print kiosks. When I had photos printed one time, I started with the instant kiosk and didn't like how they turned out. The lady told me that the machines "in the back" are of a much higher quality than those that will print them instantly, so I'd say it's worth the extra wait.

Once you've got the photos in hand, overlap the photos to create the single image. Play around with which ones you want to end up on top. The last one I put on was the bottom centre because the dog was curled up there on the lawn and I wanted that to show.

Then separate them again so you can start gluing them together. The same double-sided glue tape that you use to make cards can be used here. If you don't have that already, you can buy it at craft stores or a well-stocked dollar store. 

I started with a small piece of scrap paper at the back to glue the first few photos together, but after that there will be enough of a base that each photo will be attached to a couple others. When it was all put together is when I figured out the size of the photo frame I'd need. This one ended up as an 8 x 10. I'm not sure I'd make it smaller than that as what's the purpose if you're just going to cut it down so it fits into the size of a regular photo anyway?

Last set is to mount it on the background paper and frame it. I think if I was to try it again, I might take pictures to fill in more of the sky and the trees at the side so there is less empty space in the frame.

Note that if you try to go too wide from the centre of what your image will be, the picture will really start to curve and get a bit distorted (think of how things look on Google Street View). You can see that happens on the left side of my finished piece and I didn't really realize it until I had mounted it on the final background. This will be more noticeable with straight lines (like the edge of the driveway in mine), so depending on what you're shooting, this may not stand out too much. Wikipedia has some good information here.

Now your turn to showcase a favourite location!
~Lisa