Cool Stuff: Cyanotype Fabric

Photo from Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts

If you've been reading for awhile, you know that I'm not exactly the craftiest chick on the block. But my daughter showed me this project from her beloved and already dog-eared copy of Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts, and even I was tempted to give it a try.

Martha (or, more accurately, Martha's army of people) used fabric that had been specially treated to become photo-sensitive to create textile cyanotypes, which were then used to recover a pair of chair seats.

Photo from Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts

Simply choose an object or set of objects you'd like to silhouette, lay them on the fabric, expose the fabric to the sun for a few minutes, and rinse in water to permanently set the image. Then use the resulting print to cover chair seats, sew up a throw pillow or table runner, stretch and staple around a canvas for instant fabric art, or for any number of other simple projects.

The cotton fabric is from Blue Sunprints, and costs $16 per yard.

P.S. For a similar effect on paper, check out the Sunprint Kit (a small set is $6 at the Curiosity Shoppe, or you can pick up a large set for $13 right here). I bought the paper as another gift for my creative daughter, and am planning to frame a collection of beautiful fern frond prints she made with it.

That's Random: Keeping the Dog Dry, and Other Domestic Pursuits

My daughter, who turns 11 today, spent much of yesterday morning fashioning a raincoat for our corgi, Bonnie. She insisted -- and since it's her birthday, I reluctantly agreed -- that I show it to all of you. She wants everyone to admire her handiwork, but she declined to provide step-by-step instructions for this project (as she has for others in the past), because she doesn't want anyone copying her design. (Hint: It basically involves a rectangular piece of oilcloth lined with cotton and held in place with Velcroed straps at the neck and belly. Shhhh -- you didn't hear it from me.) So here you go: Dog raincoat by Laurel.

Then, at her own insistence, she spent the afternoon baking her birthday cake from scratch. (Lemon with curd and berries -- yum. An overly complicated recipe from my arch nemesis Martha, of course.) While she was doing this, I believe I was taking a nap. Hey, she's been baking cakes with little assistance from me since kindergarten ...

It's a good thing this girl was born at home, because otherwise I'd worry that she'd been switched at the hospital. Still, she did not get this domestic gene from me. (Just curious: Does anyone else's fifth grader beg for a copy of the humongous Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts for her birthday? That's kind of weird, right?)

Anyway, happy birthday, my love! And by the way: That 10-pound package with the big bow on it? I think you'll be pleased by the contents. Me, well, that's a different story.

Green Thumb: Flower Arranging With Laurel

Today's flower arrangement: Calla Lilies in Glass Bowl, by my 9-year-old.

Instructions:

* While your mom is catnapping on the couch, expertly navigate the on-demand cable offerings -- the ones your parents can't figure out at all -- to call up a Martha Stewart flower-arranging special. (Trust me, though you may be only 9, you live for this stuff.) Watch the special with laser-like focus, taking notes as you go.

* Your mom is still snoring on the couch, so go out in the yard and gather up some calla lily blossoms, plus a bunch of muddy gravel and some rocks. Bundle them all up in your mom's favorite white linen tea towel and bring them inside.

* Use the kitchen strainer (you know, the one your parents drain the dinner pasta in) to rinse the mud off of the rocks and gravel. Don't worry about the extra mud and gravel all over the counter.

* Find a circular, clear-glass bowl in the kitchen cupboard. Be sure to leave the other ten bowls on the floor, in the exact spot they were when you pulled them all out in your quest to find the most perfect one.

* Put the gravel in the bowl, and fill it with water. Decide that the gravel wasn't rinsed enough, and that the water is too muddy as a result. Dump the whole thing out and start over again.

* Once you're satisfied that the water in the bowl is crystal clear, arrange the rocks in the gravel just so.

* Take a calla lily stem, bend it into a circle, and place it in the bowl so that the bloom rests above the surface of the water. Repeat with the other lilies until they form a blooming ring.

* Carry the bowl into the living room, being careful to only slosh a little bit of water out onto the floor, and find the perfect spot for it on the coffee table.

* Gently nudge your snoozing mom awake, and present her with your masterpiece.

* Make your mom cry. And not because of the mess in the kitchen.

Next time: Inspired by her other idol and culinary muse, Sandra Lee, Laurel bakes up a storm with canned pie fillings, colored sugar, and melted candy bars.

That's Random: Separated at Birth?

Left: Martha Stewart; right: Siouxsie Sioux

P.S. Isn't it just my luck that my 9-year-old daughter has been inhaling this issue since she begged and pleaded for me to buy it the other day, and has plans to do Every Frickin' 20-Man-Hour Craft Project contained therein?

How does someone with not a single strand of crafty DNA in her entire genetic blueprint give birth to someone who asks for glue guns and sewing machines for her birthday, and who is spurred on to new, impossible, adult-supervision-required craft-project heights by a certain jailbird omnimedia maven?

Curse you, Martha Stewart.