Autumn's Pantry: Baked Goods & Candles

This week my focus has continued to be filling up the shelves of Autumn's Pantry with things you might find at a fall farmer's market. In addition to homemade jams, canned goods and honey, I like to sample the delicious seasonal baked goods. Yum! Although my shop is small and I can't include everything I'm craving, I did make a couple must haves!

I found a bag pattern online and adapted it to size for my needs. I wanted the finished size to be 1/2" wide once assembled, so keeping the aspect ratio of the original pattern makes the finished height of the bag about 53/64" (just under an inch).

If you want to use the pattern, the one inch square
guide will help you print the pattern to the size that
is right for you.

I also found some cute gingham images in fall colors that I could layer the bag pattern on top of. If you want to print the bag pattern, layered over an image you've found online (rather than printing on scrapbook paper), just set your bag pattern to be transparent.

If you change the line color of the bag pattern to match the color of the background image you are using (recolor, then adjust the brightness), it ends up blending in nicely without being an obtrusive black outline in your finished packaging.
I printed several of them out on regular printer paper. Wait about 10 minutes, then coat the back (non ink side) of your paper with original Mod Podge. This will help set the ink. Let dry and then coat the ink side with Mod Podge. Using regular office paper and coating both sides makes the bags strong enough to work with, yet not too stiff and bulky like cardstock can sometimes look.

I wanted my baked goods to peek out of the bag, so I used a decorative hole punch to create a window. It helps a lot to find the center where you want the window so that you have a guide for the punch. I just used a pilot hole punch to mark a center hole, then centered it in the punch.

For the window material, I always have good luck with pasta film. Just carefully peel it away from the cardboard and then cut into pieces that give you an 1/8" seam around the window hole.

I lay the bag face down on a scrap piece of (waxed) paper, apply a layer of glue stick glue, remove from the scrap paper, then position the window over the window hole. Press gently, clean up any excess glue, then let it dry for a few minutes.

Pre-fold all of the fold lines to create a "memory" in the bag before you begin assembling. I start with affixing the left flap to the right inside of the bag. Let dry.

Then fold up the small tabs and glue under the long front and back tabs. I like to fold the front tab last so that the seam only shows from the back.

Once the glue is grabbing, I insert my tweezers into the bag and apply pressure to even out the glue and make it so the bag will sit nicely once dry.

I used three different plaid style/color images for assorted baked goods and dry mixes.

The green plaid bags will house the pumpkin scones. These are made using air dry clay rolled to 1/8" thick, cut into a 1" square and then cut into eight triangles. Once dry, I use artist's chalk in oranges/browns to color them.
To display them in the bags, I cut a 1/2" x 9/16" tray from cardboard. I arrange and glue the scones onto the tray, then slip inside the bag. Then just crease the upper side portions in half, fold the top down, glue, then add a label.

For the iced pumpkin and iced sugar cookies, I used a silicone push mold with air dry clay. Once dry, I colored them again with chalk. For the glaze, I used Stickles and glitter - orange for the pumpkin cookies and translucent for the sugar cookies. I used the same tray method for the cookies as I did for the scones.

I wanted to offer a scone mix that customers could take home and bake. For the "dry ingredients", I used an old jar of embossing powder that's been floating around in my craft drawers since 2002! It works great - just fill the bag about half way and seal well with tacky glue.

These will make a nice addition to the canned goods on the shelves, and the cost to make them up is next to nothing!

I did have the opportunity to make some real wax miniature jar candles. While I had fun and think it's an easy method, there are things I will adapt and improve the next time I make them. I ordered OO (zero zero) square braid wick to try, but it is backordered. So rather than wait, I just used floral wire which I did not bother to paint white. For my purposes with these candles in the shop, they will pass. For a feature candle on a coffee table, I would have given more effort to make the wicks look white/new/waxy. I intend to have another try with these when my wick comes in. I think it's still worth sharing my experience, because I know you brilliant folks out there will come up with an even better method (hopefully you'll share!)!

I am using an $11 crockpot from Amazon as my melting apparatus. Natasha (my daughter) and I took a candle making class last February and that is what they used (although they had a plastic roasting bag inside the pot which contained the wax). This crockpot will be dedicated to candle making only, as I hope to make real life sized candles from the wax my bee keeping brother saves for me. My other supplies are 32 gauge wire (in lieu of wick), uncolored tealight candles in metal cups, alcohol ink, a glass eye dropper and miniature jars.

My tealight candles just fall out of the metal cups which makes it really easy to remove the wick.

Next I placed the metal tealight cups with wax inside the crockpot. I set the crockpot to low and it took about an hour for the wax to melt completely. I am sure the High setting would be much faster, but I was doing other things so had the time to wait.

Still solid.

Melted.

To remove the cup from the crockpot, I used my tweezers and set it right onto a plastic dollar store plate. Then I added a few drops at a time of alcohol ink and mixed in with a wooden coffee stirrer. The alcohol in the ink will evaporate once it hits the hot wax, so don't let that freak you out. It's harmless unless there is an open flame. I found that the orange ink mixed right in, while the yellow and red took some stirring and still did not completely dissolve. It was fine and did not cause an issue. Once mixed, I sucked up the wax into the glass dropper, then filled up my mini jar. Be careful to go slowly so you don't overfill. Also, if you can get it all in in one squeeze I found the wax looked smoother in the finished candle.

Imagine what happens as the wax begins to cool. Yep - back into the crockpot, even the glass eye dropper (I removed the rubber bulb first). I was able to get all five of each of the different colored candles finished in one round before the wax began to cool, but if you are running an assembly line, be prepared.
Also, no brainer here, but BE CAREFUL! Even on low, everything is HOT and capable of causing burns. Use tweezers, not fingers. :O) A few minutes in the crockpot melted the eye dropper wax and I could wipe and ready it for the next color.

Not horrible for a first try, and I really think this has potential! I hope the 00 wick will look in scale and that a real life replica is possible without spending a whole lot of $$. To be continued...

One other note here. I have heard that using crayons to color wax is not a good idea because the pigment they use in crayons will clog the wick and the candle won't burn. BUT! If you are only making miniature candles and do not intend to burn them anyway, I think experimenting with crayons to color the wax would be fun. I have an old art container full of crayons around here somewhere, and since all my nieces/nephews/godchildren are grown up now anyway, if I find it, those crayons are going to become candle color guinea pigs!

I was able to begin loading and arranging the shelves. Gratuitous photos to follow...

Other than some random crates of food and some treats for the kids, the pantry part of Autumn's Pantry is wrapped up. Next up, I'll be making the home decor goods, flowers, and then the window displays. I have a family wedding to attend, and my parents are coming back to town for the month of September, so the time to finish this project for fall is fading quickly!

Hope you're inspired to take these ideas and run with them in your own fun fall projects! And please share! The more we raise our collective mini consciousness the more skilled we all become!

xo xo,
Jodi

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