Handmade Harvest - November 3rd & 4th - Almonte Old Town Hall

This weekend past I had the awesome opportunity to do some social media work for Handmade Harvest. 

For those of you who have never experienced a Handmade Harvest, it is emphatically the best craft show in the Ottawa Valley Region. This particular show had over 80 vendors spread out over two days, with over 2000 shoppers perusing and purchasing! 

To get a sense of just how insanely busy it was over the weekend here's the two days condensed into a 45 second video thanks to timelapse technology! 

Also! Apparently the Almonte Bank of Montreal stocked their ATM with $85K on Friday night, and by Sunday it was empty! Jinkies! That's a lot of handmade stuff being purchased! 


Want to know when events are happening, or when calls for vendors go out? You can 'like' Handmade Harvest on Facebook, and you can also follow them on Twitter, which will provide get up to the moment information, and the play-by-play at shows! Also, make sure you're on their mailing list so if you aren't on social media a lot you don't miss any important information.

Here's a link to all the photos I took (and then subsequently tweeted) over the course of the weekend. So many awesome vendors; so many terrifically awesome people! 


I can't wait to live-tweet the next Handmade Harvest (which is rumoured to be happening on December 1st in Carleton Place)! 


Cheers, 

- Melissa

Official Pinter*Mel Project #9: Linen Refresher Spray

I'll admit, for YEARS I used Febreeze liberally around my house. Not unlike Sriracha, I put that sh*t on EVERYTHING. Then a wise friend pointed out that Febreeze is chocked full of nasty chemicals, and that I was only covering up stink with said nasty chemicals, and not getting rid of them. 

So at that point I phased out the Febreeze, and started just washing anything that smelled a little funky. I mean, usually something smells a bit off because there's bacteria lodged in there somewhere, and no amount of "anti-bacterial" Febreeze is going to get that out. 

Anyways, fast forward to this year, I share a bed with a dude and two dogs EVERY NIGHT. They all kinda stink (but not me, never), however washing the sheets EVERY SINGLE DAY is just not feasible...we don't own that many sets. So I started looking online for a simple fabric/linen refresher spray that I could make at home; and I was pleasantly surprised with all the super easy, and super basic recipes out there. 

I used this one from Casa Sugar. 

I grabbed a few 2oz bottles from the dollar store, and instead of vodka I used witch hazel in one bottle, and rubbing alcohol in the other in order to compare. 

I pared down the recipe to fit with my 2oz bottle, mixed it all together, poured it in, and then let it sit for 48 hours to set. 

My observations are that the witch hazel disperses the essential oil a little more effectively than the rubbing alcohol, however as long as you give the spray bottle a shake before you spray it's no big deal. 

Spray liberally! 

Cheers, 

-Melissa

Whimseybox #1: Pinter*Mel's First Whimseybox Adventure

There's this rad company in the called Whimseybox, (you may remember my blog post about founder Alicia DiRago) which will send you a box each month filled with items you'll need to complete an awesome DIY craft. 

I had the pleasure of receiving my very first box at the beginning of October. It's packaging was absolutely splendid. 

And the box itself is a VERY useful storage container for this project and the rest of my stamps. 

The craft this month: Hand-carved Stamps. Within the box there were a set of instructions, a piece of rubber, ink, 5 cards and envelopes, a spatchula thingy, and a very nice carving gouge. 

First order of business was to find a design that wasn't too intricate so I could actually manage to carve it out of the rubber. Having never used a carving gouge before I was skeptical I could pull this off. 

I decided to go with my tried and true toilet paper roll flower, which I've done before here and here. 

Firstly I traced the rubber block on a piece of paper. 

Then I placed the centre of my flower using my trusty hole-punch and a paint sample. 

Then I started tracing (must be with pencil!) the petals with a piece of folded toilet paper roll. 

Then you have to go back over all the lines with your pencil so they're really dark - this will help the design to transfer onto the rubber. 

Then cut it out. 

Place design-side down on the rubber and "burnish"...which after looking up I learned meant "hold down and rub vigorously". So yeah, do that. 

When you remove the piece of paper, the design should now be transferred onto your piece of rubber! 

Now here comes the difficult part; and it was only difficult because I had never used one of these gouge tools before. It reminded my of my first foray into using a razor to cut out intricate design. 

Start carving out all the negative space; so anything you don't want ink to get on. 

Yeah, things got pretty messy

[Pro Tip: Clean up the mess before you get into the ink. You don't want chunks.]

Take a spare piece of cardboard or a paper plate, the ink (provided), and the spatchula thingy (provided) and distribute an even layer of ink on the surface the size of your stamp. 

Grab a couple spare pieces of paper to test on. Put your carved stamp design-side down into the ink, press firmly everywhere so make sure that the ink is distributed evenly and that any air bubbles get lost. 

I used the spatchula to apply ink to any areas on the stamp that may have gotten missed. 

Then test! 

Press down EVERYWHERE!!!

Meh, could be better. I tried a few more times; trying to perfect the paint-to-stamp ratio until I felt comfortable enough to make a card with the cards provided! 

Before: 

After: 

Yay!!! It worked! There were only a couple air bubbles/areas where I didn't press down hard enough, but overall I like the look, although I think I used too much ink.  

Once it dried enough, the this ink does dry pretty quickly, I took one of my pre-fab stamps and made sure everyone knew this was my handy work. 

Tada!!!

I just have to decide who to send it to! 

This was a super fun project, and I can't wait to get my second Whimseybox in the mail in early November.

If Whimseybox is something that appeals to you I highly recommend signing up! AND, they just dropped their monthly box price back down to $15! These supplies would cost you at LEAST that much at Michael's or Deserres, and you don't get a kick ass box at the end to store all your stuff in! DO IT!!! 


Happy Crafting! 


Cheers, 

-Melissa

Official Pinter*Mel Project #8: Halloween Edition - Screwdriver Pumpkin Carving

After recovering from the woe that was my first attempt at a creative pumpkin, I picked up this beauty from Farm Boy to carve. Of course I couldn't just carve a traditional jack o'lantern...  

The Inspiration: Carving a Pumpkin with a Drill 

My partner helped to scoop out the guts, and while he was doing that I separated out all the seeds and roasted them! 

They can have guts on them, in fact it adds flavour, just make sure to remove any large chunks. 

Preheat oven to 300F. 

Mix pumpkin seeds, olive oil, salt, and garlic powder together. 

Then spread them out as evenly as possible on a cookie sheet. 

Throw it all in the oven for about 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes or so. Once they're done let them cool off a bit and enjoy! 



Okay back to pumpkin carving...

Firstly, I was forbidden by my partner to use the drill for pumpkin carving purposes so I had to improvise. 

Amongst our tools, I found a screw, and a random drill bit that didn't seem to go with our drill set. 

I used a bistro chalk marker to draw the design on my pumpkin. I used the chalk marker because it's hella water soluble. 

Once I had my design plotted out I started to go to town with the screw and the hammer. 

I very quickly realized that this method was tedious and not producing the size of hole I needed. 

So I went back downstairs to the tool box to look for inspiration...

and I found it. 

#2 Phillips Screwdriver to the rescue. 

I didn't even have to use the hammer. Just poked the screwdriver through the pumpkin. 

After I was done poking what seemed like a million little holes through the pumpkin, I grabbed three tealights to place in it to see if the holes worked as I'd hoped. 

I was mentally preparing myself to be dazzled...

and then this happened...

WTF IS THIS SH*T??! Turns out when I pulled the screwdriver back through after poking it into the pumpkin the stringy side of the pumpkin pulled through too and covered the hole back up. 

SO, I took the drill bit and threaded it through EACH AND EVERY hole in the pumpkin to make sure the hole was clean and free of pumpkin innards. 

I tried lighting it again....

and....

It worked!!! Woot! 

I did, however, have to take the lid back off after about 2 minutes because not enough oxygen was getting to the candles. 

PRO TIP: If your partner forbids you from using the drill for pumpkin carving purposes, IGNORE HIM/HER!!! Use that drill FFS!!! 


Have a safe and happy Halloween! 


Cheers, 

-Melissa