Autumn's Pantry: Stocking The Shelves

With a name like Autumn's Pantry, customers will be expecting a bountiful variety of freshly harvested fruits, vegetables and baked goods. This week's focus has been all about filling the Pantry's shelves!

I had a bunch of great ideas but needed to get them organized and onto paper. Making up a rough plan for each of the nine shelf cubbies helped, and I decided that getting the canning done was a great task to start with.

First, I gathered my supplies. I have two different brands of two part clear drying resin. They call it two part because there is a Part A and a Part B. One is the resin, and one is the hardener. Neither will harden unless they are mixed, in equal amounts, together. I like the results equally well, though the ICE resin smells less than the Amazing, and is easier to pour. Both take pigment (alcohol ink, artists chalk, acrylic paint) equally well, set in 24 hours and cure in three days. I like to use disposable medicine cups because the measurements are embossed and easy to read. I like using coffee stirrers to mix them because there is more stirring surface than with toothpicks.

I have a variety of canning jars and bottles bought from many different miniature online retailers and tend to pick them up whenever I see ones I like or there is a sale. When I make mini foods in them, I tend to make a lot at one time.
Before I mix up the resin, I like to have everything ready to go. I use double sided tape to hold my jars onto a paper plate. I label the paper plate with what resin is going into what jars so things don't become confusing. In French cooking, they call this "mes en place". I call it me's in place! :O)

I always start with a cup for the Part A resin and the Part B resin. This ensures you are measuring the exact amount of each. Once you have them poured perfectly equally into their separate cups, you can add your pigment to Part A. I like to begin with the lightest color, because if you have resin left over for the next color, you can just mix a darker pigment in and not have to waste it. Start with a drop on a toothpick and keep adding until you like the color. Remember that mixing Part A into Part B will dilute the color slightly, so plan for that. Once you like the color, mix Part A into Part B per the directions on the label, usually five minutes. You will generally have 30 minutes of working time before the resin begins to harden, so don't feel too rushed.

You can see below how much the resin lightened after mixing it with Part B. These are jars of honey, so I have some leeway with color. Because the mouths of the jars are small, I fill them by dipping the end of a toothpick into the resin, letting excess drip back into the cup, then carefully moving it over to fill the jar a drop at a time. It's a job for the patient, but I find it fun and relaxing. If you happen to over spill or are a bad aim, do not worry. Continue to fill your jar. After about 30 minutes, when the resin has begun to solidify, simply wipe off the jar with a paper towel, followed by a baby wipe, and you're good as new. Just don't set the jar back into the puddle! :O)

Changing to the strawberry jam was easy. I just added a couple drops of red to my yellow mixture. Tip: if you want some "fruit" pieces in your jam, cut up a strawberry polymer clay cane and add some slices in the jar. Add some resin, mix with a toothpick and then do the next layer. You can also just add in no hole beads of a similar color. This works in pie making, as well. I am saving my strawberry canes for another project.

After filling the strawberry jam jars, I needed to make blackberry jam. Adding in a couple drops of blue turned my resin into the perfect dark purple/red.

I had to start with a fresh batch for the apple butter jam. For this, I used a tiny drop of brown alcohol ink. Because apple butter jam is not clear, I lightened up and clouded the resin with a couple tiny blobs of  buttercream acrylic paint. You can achieve the color you're after in several ways. Using shaved artists chalk in the exact color you want is one of them. That will give you a slightly opaque quality, as well. It's a lot of fun to experiment with many of the mediums in your craft drawers. Who knows? You may just discover the next major crafting breakthrough!

Here are the four different types of jams/honey using just the resin. I set the plate up on an undisturbed shelf to let it set for a day. If you are working in a dusty area or have a larger area of resin exposed, you may want to cover your pieces with a clear condiment cup individually, or cover the entire plate with a large food storage container.

Now for the fun jars! I had collected many different food canes for the Glencroft kit's autumn themed project. Because there are at least two projects in the queue ahead of that one, I decided to pilfer these from that stash.

I started with the pepper canes. When I ordered them, they were out of the green pepper canes and I forgot to go back and reorder them. So these jars will have only red and yellow peppers. I tinted the resin with a yellow/orange alcohol ink. Often, the liquid in real life canned jars will become slightly colored by the leaching of pigment from the vegetables/fruits in them. Tinting the resin slightly looks more realistic. I slice the canes in half and then keep halfing the pieces until they are as thin as i think they should be. Sometimes, letting the canes warm up in your hands for a few minutes makes them easier to slice.

Filling the jars can be as simple or as complex as you like. Doing a layer of resin then a layer of fruit/vegetable allows you to arrange them, while other things like blueberries can be dropped and mixed right in. For detailed fruits/vegetables, I like to arrange them a bit.

From the top center clockwise there are black olives, two pickle jars, two pepper jars, two jars of figs, orange slices, lemon slices and carrots. At this point you'll want them to cure completely before adding on the tops.

Some of the tops for these jars have really long stoppers. This means you'll either have to fill the jars lower than looks natural or make an adjustment. I have resorted to breaking off the glass stoppers with pliers (please be careful of the glass!) or replaced the tops altogether with cardboard and fabric covers. This is also a great solution for the jars that come with corks instead of lids. I like the look of both and in combination on a shelf with one another. This is what you'll find in a real life pantry because who has a totally matching set of canning jars? You use what is available when whatever you're canning comes into season. Trust me, I spent many an August helping my grandma can everything grown on their farm in Montana!

For my fabric tops, I chose some fabrics with extra small prints, then cut 5/8" circles from cardboard packaging.

Then I cut a one inch square piece of fabric.

Glue the lightest side of the packaging circle onto the center of the wrong side of the fabric. Add a line of Tacky glue to the rim of the jar.

Center the jar, upside down onto the circle. Let dry.

Once dry, round the corners.

My hemp cord has three strands. I like to separate them to be more in scale. You can also use embroidery floss or tiny rubber bands topped with raffia strips ripped to size.

Tie and trim excess fabric.

Viola! A tiny jar of jam!

How do you know what's in the jar? You make a simple label. I always feel as though I am being redundant with my tutorials, but if anyone wants a really in depth graphic making education, I will be happy to do my best. I use free images and programs that most everyone already has. I know some simple tricks such as setting the background transparent or exactly matching colors that may be helpful to those who are new to graphic work. Just lmk in the comments.

There was a time when I was going to make a wine shop with one of my Street Of Shops kits. Why not? I'd already done a Starbucks! But that idea has hit the waaaaayyyy back burner, so I decided to use these really large, cheap wine bottles and turn them into apple cider. The old labels were stubborn, so I decided a night soaked in alcohol might make them more cooperative. You should have seen their faces when they realized that by "night soaked in alcohol" I meant the isopropyl kind. :O)
It worked great, and they no longer argued about getting naked!

So here's part of the gang that will be going onto the pantry shelves. I hope every customer will find a seasonal delight to take home with them!

And next week, I hope to share how I (successfully) made real wax jar candles!

Have a great week, everyone!

xo xo,
Jodi

Tasha's Kitchen - Molds, Bottles And A Love Story

A lot happened over the weekend on Tasha's kitchen - I am super excited about all of the progress being made! But it was so much, in fact, that I think it's too much for one post. I broke it down into three topics, two of which aren't quite completed. I will present one of them here for you today: Molds.

Tasha and her fiancé Brent like to entertain. They are both hard working professionals, but when the weekend comes, they are a fun loving and jovial couple to be around. For this reason, I knew any dream kitchen for Tasha would have to include a wet bar. For a wet bar, I would need a lot of different types of bottles - wine, liquor and mixers. I had several of these types of bottles in my supplies and decided to make molds of them.

When you mold an item with a flat back it is pretty simple: Just place the item in a similarly sized container and pour the mold material over the top. But when your item has a more complicated shape, like a skinny neck and a wide bottom, you have to think creatively. The clay method for the wine bottles seemed like a good solution.

This clay is a non hardening clay - it is made specifically for mold making. For this type of mold, press a level layer of the clay into the bottom of the mold container, press the items in only deep enough for the clay to hold them steady, then pour the mold material over the top.

When you de-mold, you remove the clay from the top of the mold and store it away for the next use. You can keep using it until it has become too gross to want to work with any longer. 

Sometimes you have to destroy the container to get the
mold out. Use disposable condiment containers whenever possible.
This is a good excuse to eat more takeout!

Now you'll pull the items you've molded out of the new mold. They are hard to get out sometimes - I use my teeth!

Once the molds are ready, the exciting part begins - making the bottles with resin! You'll need some two part resin, disposable medicine cups (1 oz size works great), disposable stir sticks and pigments.

For the resin, I recommend something that has a working time of about 30 to 40 minutes. This gives you enough time to mix the resin, let it gas off a bit to reduce the bubbles and still gives you time to get it into the molds. I like Ice Resin, but it is about twice as expensive as other comparable brands. If you are going to color your resin, you really don't need to pay a whole lot more for "non yellowing" resin. If you are going to sell your items for a bunch of money, then you have to be more cautious. I have bottles in my Starbucks project from 2013 using Amazing Clear Casting Resin and they still look great.

The Amazing brand comes in clear and white so be sure to get the one you intended. Amazing Casting Resin White only has a working time of 10 minutes, so it is only good for small, quick, NON CLEAR pieces. It can be pigmented, though. Amazing Clear Cast, though clear, takes 24 hours to harden.

I discovered that both brands of my on hand resin was solidifying. The manufacturer recommends that you use them within 6 months but mine are much older than that. I made a valiant effort to stir them, and then gave them a try in spite of the warning signs. Surprisingly, it still produced usable bottles - it just took overnight to harden! Waste not, want not I always say!

Meanwhile, because I wanted to get a replacement supply ~F~A~S~T~ I tried an inexpensive brand that had same day Amazon delivery. It is called FanAut and gets high reviews. It seems to have worked fine, though it took overnight to harden, too. It says it has a 40 minute working time, but I suspect that adding in the Epoxy Pigment can extend that time. As long as I end up with usable bottles, overnight is fine with me!

For my previous post on using the Mold Star 15 rubber molding product, See This Post.

For more on working with resin and pigments, See This Post.

As far as how the bottles came out - some were better than others. I seemed to have had trouble getting the resin all of the way down into the neck of the bottles in the molds. It happened first with the red wine bottles, which told me that I needed to make a specific effort to be sure the resin was not stopped by an air pocket when I poured the white wine bottles. In spite of my effort - taking a toothpick, plunging it in and pushing the resin into the hole, I still did not end up with great necks on my bottles. In the interest of not wasting my efforts, I tried to find a fix for these bottles.

Though the extent of each bottle's misfortune varied, I was missing an average of 3/16" on each of the necks. I decided to try gluing dowels or toothpicks to the ends to see what I could salvage. I cut the dowels to size, put a bit of Tacky Glue on the bottle, a small amount of cyanoacrylate glue (super glue) on the dowel, then held them gently together.

Once the extensions were dry and set, I sanded and shaped as carefully as I could (probably should have shaped them first!), painted them black to simulate the cork labels, then coated in Mod Podge.

Before I show you how they came out, let me tell you a love story... Some of you know that Tasha has always been a really smart kid. She always tested highest in her classes in school, was in the Spectrum and Running Start programs where she attended college classes while she was in High School, and has always worked super hard to do her best at everything she tries. I know I am her mom and am supposed to say nice things about her, but truly, she is an extraordinary person.

She and Brent met on OkCupid in 2009. If I told you that I was horrified that she had met someone online (this was back when it was not as common and horror stories pervaded Dateline NBC), and that the same day they met he took her 60 miles away from home to hike in the woods, I would be underselling my panic. Of course, I did not know these facts until after she had safely arrived home. After they were already on the hiking trail, she finally had some misgivings about the situation, too. In her realization of the potential danger she had put herself in, she decided the best way to discourage her murder was to steer the conversation to forensic science. She told Brent that with modern forensic science methods, her DNA would be all over his truck and probably on him too. He just thought she was weird. Luckily, Brent turned out not to be a serial killer, and instead is the most amazing, smart, kind, loving, and perfect partner that we could have ever hoped for, for Tasha.

They are truly poured from the same mold.💗

They knew they would always be together, but wanted to be finished with school and in good jobs before they got married. They got engaged in 2019 and Brent graduated with his electrical engineering degree last year. They had already waited for so long and were finally planning the wedding, then Covid happened.

Brent popped the question while hiking the trail of their first date.
He designed the ring, too. Blue topaz is his birthstone and teal
is Tasha's favorite color.

So a long love story just to say that during Covid, to keep them busy and focused on their future plans, they began making wine for the reception - banana and watermelon. Tasha graduated Magna Cum Laude in Science, is a total chemistry nerd, and making wine is all about chemistry. Her labels look like elements on the Periodic Table - of course they do! And I knew I had to make replicas of the wine bottles to be included in her wet bar.

My bottles came out pretty well, considering I had to add the tops. But I wanted another try. More on that in a minute...

The other bottle blanks I had just needed labels. I looked online to find actual brands in the colors and shapes of the bottles. I saved the pictures and then resized them to fit on the bottles. 

Once they were printed, I applied a piece of packaging tape over them, cut them out with a ruler and an Xacto knife, and applied them to the bottles with Mod Podge. I like it better than glue because the excess is easily removed with a toothpick and leaves no residue.

I wanted to give the wine bottle mold another try. I knew what the problem was - trapped air. Now I just needed to find a solution to get the air out.

Using my pilot hole punch tool, I pushed it through the mold until it came out of the bottom of the mold. Then, using that hole, I pushed a toothpick up into the mold from the bottom.

Look closely and you'll see the toothpicks in the holes.

Toothpicks pushed up into the bottom of the mold.

When I filled the mold with resin, about three quarters of the way full, I gently twisted and pulled the toothpicks back out the bottom. The theory was that by doing so I would pull any air pockets out while also pulling the resin into the bottle necks in the bottom of the mold. It seemed to work, as the resin level dropped as I pulled. Was this just displacement from the toothpick, or was it going to work? I'd have to wait overnight to know for sure. 

While I was at it, I decided to cast a few more things.

When I woke up the next morning, I raced to the dining room to check the results. Success!!! The resin didn't even leak at all from the hole in the bottom of the mold. The rubber just sealed right back up!

Much better bottles and no toothpick tops for this batch!

And I even made the watermelon wine in green bottles like Tasha did. A little black paint and Mod Podge for the cork paper, more labels and viola! These are going to work great!

Now I am repeating my experiment with a batch of red wine bottles. I'll have to race down again in the morning to see if my luck scientific reasoning is verified! And, if this weekend is as productive as last weekend, I might even be able to finish the wet bar!

Hope all your mini experimenting and love stories have happy endings, too!

xo xo,

Jodi

P.S.

Speaking of happy endings... Birgit, the creative genius and inspiring artist behind the hugely popular BiWuBären blog, is known for her incredible generosity and thoughtful Christmas Care Packages. She is also very diligent, and so mailed all her packages from Germany in early November. A couple of us U.S. residents just received them within the past week! Poor Postal Service! Those guys have a lot of challenges to overcome in these Covid times! But whether late or not, the kindness is no less joyously received! And as usual, the package was a trove of treasures!

We ate the marzipan before it made it into the photo! Yum!

Just look at this darling little house that Birgit made! There are real windowpanes and you can see into the house! Look at the tiny wooden porch posts! The teeny-weeny porch planters and that tin roof! 

Amazing! I love it, and most of all I love that Birgit sends her heart out across the world and makes it a much more special place! 

Thank you Dear Birgit! You are a treasure!