Books and Materials

These pretty little handmade notebooks are made with collage paper, newsprint, embroidery floss, and greeting cards.  You can use blank greeting cards or used cards to make your notebook covers, giving you a great way to re-use your latest pile of birthday or holiday greetings.

First, take your greeting card and your collage paper and plot out how you’d like to arrange the paper.  Try to cover every bit of the card.  If you’re using a used greeting card as your base, make sure that the paper you are using to cover the card is thick enough to hide any pictures or text.  They will look fugly when they show through.

Scheming the Fold

Next, use your favorite paper glue to cover every bit of the card with your collage paper.  I use a glue stick, since I find school glue or mod podge gets my paper too wet (then it warps!).

Glue Time

Carefully trim the cover after it has dried to make sure all of your edges are even.

Snip Snip Snip

Measure your card, then cut 15 – 20 rectangles of blank newsprint in a slighty smaller size than your card.  I would suggest going at least 1/2 inch smaller on all sides.  You can cut these by hand, but if you have a real paper cutter, it will make your pages come out much more evenly.  As you can probably tell, mine were hand cut.

Fold your pages in half and place them inside your cover.

Using your favorite punching tool, poke holes through the center fold of your pages and cover simultaneously.  I’m crazy, so I use a dremel with a drill bit.  I’ve seen folks use awls, heavy duty paper punches, and a huge variety of other things to poke these holes.  Just choose your favorite and go for it.  Just make sure your holes are all lined up nicely, or stitching it will be a huge pain, maybe even impossible.

Holy Moly

Now take some string and thread it onto a nice big sewing needle.  A tapestry needle would be ideal.  I used embroidery floss to bind my notebooks, but you can use any kind of sturdy thread or string.  Some good ideas would be twine, hemp, or very strong yarn.

Stitch through the holes in the book in one direction, like so:

Stitch Stitch Stitch

Then, turn around and stitch in the other direction.  While you are going this direction, slip your needle through the next stitch over every chance you get, this will make each stitch more even and secure.  See what I mean?

A Close Look at the Stitching

Tie a knot when you get back to the beginning.

Tying the Knot

Fold the notebook back down.  It won’t want to stay closed very much, so you should press it under something really heavy for a few hours, or maybe even overnight.

All finished!

I used the stash as a sort of paper buffet for some time.  I used the pictures and text inside the liner notes to make buttons, magnets, and collages, but it wasn’t until much later that I came up with the greatest use for my old CD books ever, the Album Bouquet!  One day I got my hands on a flower shaped paper punch, some beads, and a spool of floral wire and it all came together.  Here’s what I made:

RadioHead: Kid A

The Misfits: Static Age

PJ Harvey: Is This Desire?

Here’s how you make them.

You’ll need:

• CD Liner Notes
• A Flower Shaped Paper Punch
• A Mini Hole Punch (1/8 inch)
• Floral Wire
• Medium Sized Seed Beads
• Double Sided Tape
• Floral Tape

Directions:

• Start by carefully removing the cover of the album and setting it aside.  This will be used as the vase, or wrapper for your bouquet.
• Cut the remainder of the liner into strips that are just a little wider than your flower shaped punch.
• Punch as many flowers as you can from the liner, then put them together into pairs of two.
• Now punch two tiny holes into the middle of each pair of  flowers using your 1/8 inch hole punch.
• Cut several 5 inch lengths of floral wire.
• Line up a pair of flowers so that the holes in the middle align, then carefully thread a piece of wire through one of the holes.
• Slip a bead onto the wire, then thread about 1 inch of the wire through the other hole in the flower so that the two ends of the wire are underneath the flower.  Carefully twist the two ends together.
• Repeat the last two steps until you have tons of flowers.
• Arrange the flowers into a pretty bunch, then secure the stems together using floral tape.
• Roll the album cover into a cone and secure it from the inside with a piece of double sided tape.  Curl the edges on the outside cover down a little to make it extra pretty.
• Place your bouquet of flowers into the wrapper and present it to your favorite music lover.

If you are wondering what to do with the empty jewel cases themselves, you will be happy to learn that they can be recycled.  However, your local recycling center is unlikely to take them, as they are made of a material that is notoriously difficult to recycle.  But fear not, the internet has come to the rescue.  Visit GreenDisk.com to learn how you can have your cases ethically disposed of.   Or, if you are feeling crafty,  check out the Top 14 Ways to Reuse Unwanted Jewel Cases.  Yet another option is to call up your local used CD store to see if they’d like to take your cases.  Second hand music stores are often in need of extra jewel cases, so your local shop may be happy to take them off your hands.

My sister, Heather, just moved to Austin, Texas.  I helped her move, so I’m here for a few more days.  Sarah, another sister, is arriving tonight,  just in time to grab dinner and hit a Camera Obscura concert.  Fun times are definitely going to be had, but how can our joviality be complete when we are missing one sister?  That’s right.  It’s Flat Friend time.

We decided to go with a new photo this time. Mix things up, you know? Keep it fresh.

Caity's High School Graduation

Unfortunately, this photo mostly just shows her head, and we really need a good portion of body in order to get the Flat Friend just right.  Plus, we need somewhere to stick the popsicle stick.  Not a problem though, with the wonders of Photo Shop, we can easily create the facade of a torso.  Just a few clicks of the mouse, and VIOLA!

Ready to become a Flat Friend!

Isn’t digital imagery amazing? Now to print her out, attach her to a stick, and hit the town!  Yippee Kai Yay, Texas!

Update: Here are some photos of the fun we had with Flat Caitlin in Austin

The Four McNally Ladies in the Bluebonnets

Flat Caitlin Enjoying the Sunset Over Lake Travis

On the bright side, this should be our very last Winter (at least for a while) if everything goes to plan over the next year.  In Autumn 2010 we are planning to pull up our anchor once again and hightail it to Austin, Texas.   During our trip to China we were able to sit back and take a nice long look at our lives, a luxury one rarely gets to enjoy.  While we were looking we realized a few things:

1. We hate Winter.  Every year during the dark cold months, Bobleo and I become fatter and more depressed. We’re done with Winter.
2. One way or another, Bobleo is determined to make music a bigger part of his life.  So, he started practicing like a maniac, and is currently taking private lessons to take his playing to the next level.  By the time we hit Austin, a major musical hub, Bobleo hopes to be in the best musical shape of his life.
3. We can’t afford to live in Fairfield County.  Or at least we can’t afford to live here well, or live here well while saving toward our future, or save toward our future without working 2 or more jobs each.  Another thing we realized is that we’ve missed each other, and we’re tired of working 2 or more jobs each.  We’re taking weekends off from now on.
4. Although Connecticut is filled with friends, family, and personal history, we crave adventure.  Sometimes you can’t see what you’ve been missing until you step outside your life.  When we did, we found out just how happy getting lost, frustrated, and confused can make us.  Sometimes I count the number of exits off of 84 from here to Maine that I have been down.  As the number gets higher and higher, I feel more and more like a goldfish in a bowl.
5. You can always go back home.  No matter how far you are, your family is your family and your friends are still your friends.  Sure, we’ll miss the people we love, but a handful of miles won’t keep us apart forever.

So, that’s why we are moving to Austin.  We’re just not done shaking our lives up yet.  Plus, Austin is full of everything that we like: music, food, movies, art, and crazy people.  Our choice became doubly lucky when we found out that two of my sisters are planning to head down there too!!  So, we won’t be entirely alone after all.

In addition to making big plans, we’ve been making music, Bobleo and I.  After years of pleading, he finally gave in and sat down to write some songs together.  They are not too shabby either, if I may say so.  The first that we wrote involved several beers, lots of yelling, and intermittent mediation by Bobleo’s father.  But after many hours of head butting, we came up with something pretty good.  The second song, (and a half – we have one that’s nearly done) went much more smoothly.  No yelling or name calling at all.  I figure it’s just another of a million things that we need to learn how to do together, so like fighting or running a household of chores, we’re getting better at it.  At this rate, we may even get an EP recorded without spilling blood.  We also learned a few covers, including: Train Song by Vashti Bunyan, Bad Things by Jace Everett, and Back to Black by Amy Winehouse.  We need to streamline our covers a little and add some more stuff that focuses us a little more, but we’re getting there.  We’re going for an alt. country kind of thing, but right now I think we’re still a little dis-jointed.

Tool of the Trade

On Sunday night we played our very first open mic together.  It was incredibly exciting.  I’m such a dork, but it really thrilled me.  I could hardly wait until we went out again last night.  To Bobleo this is cake, old hat, easy peasy, but for me it’s a leg shaking, nail biting, butterfly gutted lightning-fest.  I think we did OK.  If you’re around on a Sunday or Tuesday night anytime soon your welcome to come on down and see the side-show.  Widow Browns in Danbury on Sundays, starting after 9:30, and O’Connors in Brookfield on Tuesdays at the same time.  We’ll be doing each one religiously to get some practice under our belts as we try and complete an EP’s worth of recorded originals.  I’ll keep you updated on the status of our little project.

And finally, my crafty attention has been to creating this adorable little baby quilt for my favorite CB.  She is so very preggers, and will be delivering an amazing bundle of joy (or as I call her, CB Jr.) sometime next month! My friends, CB and Brian are going to be the funnest, cutest, most lovable parents ever, I just know it, and I can’t wait to meet tiny CB.  Anyway, the QUILT.

CB Jr.'s Baby Quilt

The Quilt was made with a Hello Betty Charm Pack by Moda, and backed with a Pink Plume Fleur de Lis print by Tula, both of which I purchased from Quilt Sandwich on Etsy.  The pre-cut squares made the patchwork a total breeze.  I don’t know if my cheating heart will ever go back to cutting quilt squares by hand.  This was too devilishly easy for me not to repeat.  I hand quilted the blanket with pink embroidery floss, and sewed a pink fuzzy bias tape on as a lining with the same floss.  The binding took FOREVER, but the perfection was well worth the extra time.  This was definitely my best quilt to date.  It had no puckering, no funky diagonal lines, no mis-sized squares or random holes.  All in all, I think it was pretty well made, especially for me.  I hope baby CB will enjoy it.

I’ve also been cooking my head off, but unfortunately I have not been good about blogging my meals since we came back to CT.  I have to find a way to take good photos in the Leonard’s kitchen, which also means stopping to plate before throwing the meal on the table, which also means not shoveling the meal into my face as soon as possible.  I so lack self discipline.  Here’s a peak at what eventually became sausage and pepper calzones earlier this week.

Chicken Sausage and Roasted Peppers Tossed With Fresh Basil

I’m having serious photography frustrations, as you may be able to surmise from the photos in this post.  The walls in my office are sky blue, which makes (I’ll give you one guess, no wait. I won’t) BLUE!!  It also has the best light in the house – which continues to tempt me into taking pictures in here, despite the blue-ness.  But then, I wind up with an irreversible blue tinge to EVERYTHING I photograph.  Must stop.  Must relocate.  What’s the definition of insanity again? Oh yes, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Right. On that note, I’ll leave you all panting and heaving for the next installment of MaryHelenOrama. G’day mate.

Cotton Cookies, Ice Cream Cone, and Cupcakes

To make creme filled cookies, start by cutting some shapes out of construction paper.  Cut two 3 to 4 inch circles out of brown paper, then two more out of black paper.   With a brown marker, draw chocolate chips onto the brown circles.  Using a white marker or a white crayon decorate the black circles to resemble a chocolate cookie.  Take two cotton balls and gently pull them in every direction.  Try not to pull them completely apart.  Instead, try to just stretch each cotton ball into a wide, flat circle.  On the wrong side of each paper cookie, spread school glue evenly.  Sandwich the cotton ball circles in between two paper cookies and gently press them together.

Next, try making some cotton ball cupcakes.  Start with a candy cup, or small cupcake wrapper.  Coat the inside of the cup with school glue, then drop a cotton ball inside.  To make your cupcakes look more realistic, try shaping them into a ball first.  Top each cupcake with a small pom pom and a drop of glue.

Another faux food you can create using cotton balls is ice cream!  Begin by cutting a 4 inch square from construction paper.  Carefully trim one half of the square into a round edge.  Using a brown marker, draw criss-crossing diagonal lines across the paper to make the paper resemble a waffle cone.  Now roll the square into a cone shape and secure it with glue.  Next, grab a cotton ball and carefully pull the cotton up from its middle.  Twist the cotton gently to give it a swirled look.  This step may take a little practice.  Once your ice cream is ready, use glue to secure your ice cream inside the cone.

Make sure you allow your cotton ball crafts to dry completely before playing with them.

Fields of Thread

Goggy's Button Box

I’ve been stitching away for the last two weeks.  Making little fabric flowers and hand stitching linings into pouches has been filling most of my time.  Meanwhile, it’s been a treat sorting through all of the vintage fabric and notions that my Mom has stashed on her shelves.  Hordes of shiny buttons, metal toothed zippers, and funky upholstery fabrics.  Be still my heart!

Supplies! Craft Paper, Empty Canisters, and Glue.

How To:

• Find a canister you’d like to remodel.  You can probably find some likely candidates in your pantry.  Tea tins, tobacco canisters, coffee cans, and powdered drink containers are just a few examples.
• Remove any problematic packaging from the container.  If it has a paper label, you may want to leave it on.  As long as it is smooth and well adhered, it will actually help to keep the decorative paper attached.  Things you may want to remove include stickers, pamphlets, or oddly places labels.  The best thing to use to remove them is a adhesive remover solution, but if you don’t have one handy, you can try mayonnaise, hot water, nail polish remover, or even vegetable oil.
• Carefully cut a piece of decorative paper to fit around the container.  It is best to use thick papers like card stock or scrapbook paper, otherwise you may be able to see the original packaging underneath.
• Using School Glue or Elmer’s Glue, spread a thin layer of glue evenly across the wrong side of your paper.  I like to spread thin circles instead of spreading it flat, but the choice is up to you.
• Carefully attach your paper to the container and hold it firmly until it has dried enough to hold its own shape.
• You can add a line of ribbon in a corresponding color to the paper’s edges to give the container a more finished look.  Just measure it out and attach it with a very thin coat of glue.

All done!

Your finished canisters can be used for about a million things.  Try using them to hold any number of little doo-dads. Take the lids off and they can hold paint brushes, pencils & pens, silverware, or faux floral arrangements.

By the way, these types of dumplings are called Jaozi (pronounced sort of like jow-zuh, but not quite). They are quite a bit like Pot Stickers or Japanese Gyoza.

So, without further ado, here is a crash coarse in dumpling making, ala me, based on what I learned at The Hutong.  I won’t repost their complete recipe, but I can give you a pretty in depth run down.  If you have any questions, please let me know!  I’m happy to help.

Dumpling Ingredients

Fillings
When we arrived, our teacher, Sophia, had laid out a spread of ingredients in small white bowls.  We were encouraged to sniff and taste each ingredient (expect the raw meat, of course) and learned a little about each one, and how it was prepped for inclusion in the dumplings:

Pork: The raw pork was ground, like hamburger meat.  Sophia told us that it is best to find pork that is heavily marbled with fat when making dumplings, as the fat is necessary for a smooth texture.

Eggs: These were scrambled in a hot wok with a little salt and oil, then chopped finely.

Tofu: Sophia used a very firm, but in all other regards, basic white tofu.  It was crumbled, then stir fried in oil to reduce its moisture.

Carrots: The carrots we used were minced in a juicer, but you can also use a food processor, or (heaven help you) a veggie peeler and knife to achieve the same, finely minced texture.

Pepper Oil: Pepper Oil is made by infusing dried flower peppers (red or green depending on personal taste) in oil.  Sophia uses a plain Soybean Oil and Red Flower Peppers and heats them over a low flame in her wok.  You can strain the Flower Peppers out of the oil when it cools, or leave them in it for visual flair.  But don’t let them wind up inside your dumplings. That would not be so nice.

Pepper Flowers

Black Wood Fungus: Also called “Wood Ear Fungus”, these mushrooms are purchased dried and then reconstituted using room temperature salted water.  The dried fungus looks like a black rose, but after it is hydrated it looks more like a squashy pile of seaweed.  Mince it finely after it is hydrated for use in dumplings. On a side note, according to Sophia, these mushrooms are used to cool the body, and cleanse the digestive system in Chinese medicine.  They can supposedly help with gall stones and other various digestive issues, but should be avoided if you are an overly chilly person.

Dark Soy Sauce: A thick, dark, and intensely flavored soy sauce that is usually used on meats. This is used only with meat dumplings, as the flavor is too strong for veggies.

Glass Noodle: Sophia had a good time making us guess what these stiff, white noodles were made of.  Our guesses included: rice, radish, and vermicelli, but were all totally wrong.  These special noodles are made from green beans and peas.  They become totally clear when cooked, and have a very unique, elastic-like texture.  They should be boiled for 3-5 minutes, or until they become totally transparent, then drained, but not rinsed.  When they cool enough to handle them, chop them into little, 1/2 centimeter bits.

Ginger: We used fresh, finely diced ginger, but Sophia assured us that you can also use dried ginger or crystallized ginger according to your taste.  An interesting note, the preparation of ginger, as well as the part of the ginger root used, affects is purpose when it comes to Chinese Medicine.

Shitake Mushroom: In China, these little brown mushrooms are readily available both fresh and dried.  According to Sophia, the dried mushrooms have a better flavor for dumplings, so we used the dried kind.  These are hydrated the same way the Black Wood Fungus is – in room temperature salt water.

Scallions (Chinese Leeks): In China they have these enormous scallions, which they call either chives or scallions in English.  I am not sure, but I think they might be closer to leeks in actuality.  They use them constantly in Chinese cuisine.  For dumplings, they chop them very finely.  You can also use regular old scallions if you prefer.

Mystery Greens: There is a very dark green leaf that is minced and added very commonly to dumplings in Beijing.  Our teacher, Sophia, called it Dill at first, but after we all smelled it we decided it definitely could not be dill.  She used the word “fennel” next, but I’m still not 100% percent sure it was fennel.  It had a slightly herbaceous, lemony aroma, but has a texture similar to spinach once its cooked. Up until the class I had assumed it was spinach or the dark leafed baby Chinese cabbage that I saw everywhere I went.

The Fillings
To make Veggie Dumpling Filling, you simply mix and match any non-meat fillings you like, then top them off with some Pepper Oil and a little salt.  (Tip: Dark Soy Sauce isn’t very good in veggie dumplings, AND if you are not a vegan, you may want to add a little egg white and whip the mixture up to make it a little more firm.) For meat dumplings, the process is a wee bit more standardized.  First, stir in a few teaspoons of Dark Soy Sauce into the meat, followed by the minced scallions, and some salt.  Crack an egg white into the mix and stir (in only one direction) until the egg whites whip up and get the mixture nice and sticky.  Once the mixture has gotten nice and firm, you can add your Mystery Greens and some Pepper Oil.  Add more Salt and Soy Sauce to taste, and maybe a little ginger if the mood strikes you.

The Dough
The dough is very basic, just flour and water, kneaded into a soft, but not sticky ball.  After you finish kneading the dough, set it aside covered with a bowl or in a lidded dish for about 10 minutes.  You can enhance the nutritional value of the dough (as well as the appearance) by using vegetable juice in place of water.  We used carrot juice and spinach juice, but there are countless other juices that could be used as well.  Beet juice, for instance, would create lovely purple dumplings.

Dumpling Dough in Three Colors

Once the dumpling dough is ready, it is rolled into a tube that measures a little less than an inch in diameter.  The tube is then chopped into 1 inch nuggets and dusted with dry flour.  We rounded the nuggets, then flattened them into discs using the palms of our hands.  You could probably use a cup or a mallet to get more perfect discs, but I’m not sure that’s really necessary.  The tricky part comes next.  You’ll need to flour your work surface, and get yourself a very small rolling pin.  Pinch one edge of your disc, then roll firmly into the center on three sides, (rotating each time).  Continue to roll the pin in very deep on each turn until you get your disc to be about 3 inches or so wide.  The goal is to make the inside of the disc thicker than the outside, so that the bit that holds the filling is strong, and the excess dumpling isn’t too chewy.  This took some practice, and for later inspiration, I took a short video of Sophia rolling her dough like an expert.

Stuffing and Folding
Another slightly tricky part, filling and folding the dumplings is a delicate art.  To a perfectionist, this activity could be maddening, but if you simply want to get that sucker closed, it’s not so hard.  Lay the wrapper flat in your palm, then use your other hand to scoop the filling into the middle. Not too much, not too little.  Pinch the middle of the wrapper closed first, then carefully pinch one of the edges together, and fold the remaining opening in the same direction that you folded the edge.  Repeat on the other side, and viola! Your little joazi is ready to go.

Cooking the Jaozi
After we had a platter full of dumplings which ranged in beauty from flawless to lumpy and weird (“Sexy Ass Dumplings” as Sophia says) we boiled ourselves a wok fill of water and dumped those suckers in!  This part excited me, can you tell?  I love boiling things in woks.  The steam!  The danger!  It’s really pretty thrilling.  Anyway, we boiled them until, and I quote, “they sink to the bottom, then rise to the top, then sink to the bottom again, then rise again, then sink and rise once more.”  Another clue to tell that they had finished cooking was to look at their shape.  Dumplings puff up while they cook, and when they’ve finished they shrink up like saran wrap.  You can also poke at the meat ones a bit to see how firm they are.

Cooking Dumplings

We also pan fried some, which were really really delicious.  To pan fry the dumplings, you heat oil in a wok, then place the raw dumplings in the pan, standing on their little dumpling bottoms.  Let them cook for a bit, until they become golden down below, then add a generous portion of water, and cover then pan.  You’ll know their finished based on the aforementioned saran wrap and poke tests, but you cannot, unfortunately rely on the sink and rise test this time.

Dipping
Jaozi are meant to be dipped!  They are most commonly, if not always, served with malt vinegar.  Most folks toss some hot chili pepper and sesame oil into the mix. (Myself included) And some people even like to add a little plain soy sauce to the equation.  Any way you dip them though, they should be pretty ding dang tasty.