~ We're Moving ~

We've launched a new blog! You can find it at The Bewitching Nook ~ over the next week or so we'll be working on moving our posts from here(most of them) to the new site but never fear, we won't be deleting this blog or its posts as soon as their transferred, however it will be quite some time before we post here again(haaaa like we were good at posting on a regular basis...) ~ until then perhaps give the new blog a look at? We're loving it thus far and hope that you will too.

<3 ~ The Witches Hearth

Prickly Pear Syrup

Felt a little jibbed on one of these fruits, but still had enough to give this recipe a try.

Taking notes from the Hibiscus Syrup Recipe this is a Prickly Pear syrup using the same recipe, but with one or two slight changes. If you're not familiar with the Prickly Pear this is a cactus fruit. It's quite delicious however it's not a fruit that you can chew, as the seeds are very hard, and as it is a cactus fruit it is as its name suggests - prickly. This is something to be wary of as though the large spines will already be removed from the fruit the small, hair like spines will still be on the pear's skin and are great at getting into your hands(I managed to come out with only three of them, although still uncomfortable, having attacked my hands and I call that a win). Much like with the Hibiscus recipe, I managed to misplace the original Prickly Pear recipe I had so I copied the floral syrup recipe to see if it would work.


Ingredients:

 4 ~ Prickly Pears
1c. ~ Sugar
1c. ~ Water
1oz. ~ Vodka(optional)

Kitchen tools needed:

~ knife and cutting board
~ table spoon
~ small pot
~ whisk
~ measuring cup
~ fine mesh strainer
~ jigger cup(optional)

Four Prickly Pears gave me about a cup of fruit after they were cut into chunks.

It's fairly easy to get the fruit out of your Prickly Pears. Cut the pears in half and they should easily come out with a table spoon. The fruit came out whole with almost zero effort, save for the lone pear that wasn't quite as full of fruit as the other three. With the skins removed cut up the fruit into small chunks(not quite dicing them) and place in your small pot with a cup of water.

This is where the recipe changes slightly from the floral syrup. Bring the Prickly Pear fruit and water to a boil before adding your sugar. Since the fruit is juicy you'll want to boil it down a bit before adding the sugar and thicken it. Once the fruit and water came to a boil add your sugar and whisk the mixture until the sugar is thoroughly dissolved(the mixture should still be at the temperature for boiling). After the sugar has dissolved lower the heat and allow the mixture to simmer. It'll take longer for the fruit syrup to thicken than it did for the floral syrup, around 30minutes, but like with the floral syrup this too will get darken in color as it cooks. The fruit chunks will also get small, as you've cooked them down. When your syrup is ready pull it off the heat and allow it to cool to room temperature.

When your syrup has cooled you have the option to add in an ounce of vodka to use as a preservative. You don't want to add the alcohol in before the syrup has cooled as you don't want the heat to cook it out. Without the vodka expect this to be good for a week or two, and with it expect it to last three to four weeks(remember to keep this stored in the refrigerator). The Prickly Pear syrup will also be lighter in color after you've strained it(a fine mesh strainer will be your bff for this) than it was in the pot as the remaining fruit chunks will have been removed from it. If you don't have a fine mesh strainer for this the seeds will be the trickiest part to get out, but doable with patience. It should also be noted that without the mesh strainer there may still be very small bits of fruit in the syrup as I noticed a lot of it had broken down and lost its color while boiling. This should be fine in the syrup, however do take care on getting those seeds out as again they are very hard and can be painful for your teeth.

This is the side by side comparison of both syrups; Hibiscus syrup on the left and Prickly Pear syrup on the right. The Prickly Pear syrup is a little lighter in person but the Hibiscus syrup is still a rich, dark purple that isn't transparent like the other is.




Both syrups are tasty but some things to note on the Prickly Pear syrup: Like the Hibiscus syrup this is a syrup intend for mixing in small amounts with drinks, This recipe is also very, very sweet! I would have adjust and used more Prickly Pears but the selection at the store was not good so I ended up with only four, however I would recommend trying this with five or six Prickly Pears instead, The recipe as is made a cup and a half of syrup, so with the addition of at least two more pears it would make about two cups.

Hibiscus Syrup

I thought I would give flavored syrup making a try as I intend to get seeds started early this year so I can have a more bountiful harvest from the herb garden and in turn create more with my plant cuttings. One of the projects I want to do, and will probably make for Christmas gifts next year as this was a very simple recipe to follow, is to make garden syrups. With a stash of dried Hibiscus flowers hidden in the cupboard I figured this would be a great chance to give the recipe a try. Unfortunately I cannot remember where I first read this recipe(most likely in a borrowed herb gardening book from our local library) but none the less it is very simple and most likely a common recipe as it's easily adaptable.

Three ingredients are all you'll need to create this syrup: dried herbs, sugar, and water, or more specifically:

Ingredients:

1/2c. ~ Dried Herb/Flowers
1c. ~ Sugar
1c. ~ Water
1oz. ~ Vodka(optional)

Kitchen tools needed:

~ small pot
~ whisk
~ measuring cup
~ fine mesh strainer
~ jigger cup(optional)

For this recipe you'll be placing all ingredients(sans the optional vodka as you don't want to cook the alcohol) together in a small pot and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Whisk the mixture as it cooks to ensure the sugar is thoroughly dissolved. The mixture will start to darken as it cooks and will slightly thicken when it's ready to cool. Keep in mind that the syrup won't properly thicken while still hot, that will happen as it cools, yet it will be slightly thicker than water when it's ready to be removed from the heat and left to cool at room temperature. This took about 10 minutes for the syrup to reach the desired consistency; don't be fooled by cooking floral petals as they made the mixture look thicker than it really was. Mostly they hang out at the top of the cooking syrup so you'll need to stir occasionally to check that the syrup is ready.

When the syrup is cooled(I let it get to room temperature, so not cold and slightly warm) you'll need to strain it before bottling it. This is where a fine mesh strainer would really be handy, I unfortunately had misplaced mine so removing the Hibiscus petals took more time than I wanted to give but in the end it was worth the effort so as not to having floating plant bits in the syrup.

I keep old juice bottles on hand(if they're glass), the more interesting the better and in this case these small glasses were perfect for storing my homemade syrup.

When your syrup is completely strained you have the option to add in an ounce of vodka which will serve as a preservative for your syrup(also you can store your syrup in the freezer if you add the vodka to it). Without the vodka you may only have a week or two to use your syrup but with it you should be able to keep it three to four weeks, but in either case remember to store your syrup in the refrigerator.

 This recipe ended up making a little over a cup of syrup, so not a lot but really a great amount to start with if you haven't made your own syrup before. It's a simple recipe that is easy to double or triple if you want to make a larger batch.

Some things to consider here as well(for the health conscience reader and those who may just be interested): While a cup of sugar may look and sound bad this recipe is intended for mixing in drinks, a little should go a long way. I haven't mixed it in anything yet but am looking forward to using it to make my own Hibiscus soda drink.

One more thing to note, if you plan on doing this with Hibiscus(as I'm not certain with other herbs/florals) this floral is STRONG. With as much sugar as this recipe took it's still very tart but tasty. Now this may be because my dried Hibiscus petals were intended for brewing tea but this floral does have a very unique flavor(great when paired with green tea by the by) that comes out strong. Really looking forward to trying this again with Lavender from the garden.

You can find an alternative to this recipe here using Prickly Pears.

Apple Butter

 We had our first visit to an apple orchard/pumpkin patch in October! We were a little late to nab pumpkins from the pumpkin patch(though there were plenty left that the farm had already pick and set up in their store)but we were able to pick end of season apples from the orchard. We came out with 64 apples in our half bushel of varying flavors and sizes ~ Red Delicious, Granny Smith and Jonathon. While the mix of colors were appealing while preparing all that we were able to make with our apple haul, the mix of flavors worked out very well for our first time making apple butter(credit goes to the husband unit and awesome friend who helped cut and core apples for me to cook with).

The local apple orchard/pumpkin patch we went to was Gull Meadows Farm ~ their Halloween decorations were everywhere and were amazing, and I'm really hoping to visit once more before Thanksgiving.

Being new to making any kind of fruit preserve or butter I went scouting for recipes and settled on giving these two a try: Crockpot Apple Butter and Vanilla Rum Apple Butter

The crockpot apple butter was a really nice and simple recipe that didn't over flavor the apples at all, and the vanilla rum recipe was very strong smelling(I used my favorite spiced rum) but as it cook the smell of the rum gave way for a strong vanilla and apple scent, and the taste is fantastic.

The Vanilla Rum Apple Butter calls for Apple Cider which you will be boiling your apples in first ~ my crock pot has stove top settings so I was able to keep everything to one pot ~ between the apple cider and the rum this recipe calls for a lot of liquids and did not thicken as well as the Crockpot Apple Butter. It is amazingly delicious none the less.

Just going to throw it out there now, I did not read the directions on either recipe thoroughly; I focused more on their ingredient list and just had at it, at least with the first batches. I also didn't remove the skin from the apples since I was going to puree each batch anyway. Leaving the skins on created a really nice apple sauce texture while each batch cooked down and makes for a chunky apple butter(I keep saying apple butter but really I ended up with something more on par with apple preserves, so still delicious)and if you don't want a chunky apple butter pulsing it through a food processor makes for a smooth and creamy texture.

Crockpot Apple Butter does not make a lot of butter once the apples cook down, but the recipe is meant to be easy to make and doing more than one batch isn't hard to do.

So, some things I did differently, starting with the Crockpot Apple Butter: I did not peel the apples nor did I bother to really cut them into small cubes and the butter came out just fine. I also did not stick strictly to the cook times, instead I went for something better for my own pacing as I was making a different batch of apple butter at the same time, as well as cooking another apple treat.

As for the Vanilla Rum Apple Butter, things I did differently started with again not peeling the apples; the peels create a chunky texture that isn't bad as it doesn't alter the taste, and one time through a food processor made everything nice and smooth anyway. Plus the apples were thoroughly cleaned before cooking so it didn't really hurt anything to skip that one step with each recipe.

After bringing the cider and apples to a boiling in the crock pot the recipe's directions were completely forgotten about and every other ingredient was dumped right on top of the apples and boiling cider and then set to cook at the same pace as the first recipe. Because I am a great cook.

The Vanilla Rum Apple Butter makes much more the the Crockpot Apple Butter, but between the two recipes I ended up with maybe around 14 half pint jars worth of butter.

With the amount of apples we picked, I ended up with enough for 24 apple turnovers and almost 30 half pint jars worth of apple butter. Since there were more than enough to make a second batch of each apple butter I did try following the directions a little more closely the second time around, and I ended up pretty much ruining the second batches.

This is just before the Vanilla Rum Apple Butter was the consistency of apple sauce ~ all we really needed to puree were the apple peels.

The Vanilla Rum Apple Butter 'requires' the apples to be blended after they've boiled in cider for the nice smooth texture and then mixed with sugar to slow cook for 8 hours and then be mixed with the rest of the ingredient list to cook for one more hour. Doing this created a really runny apple butter and slow cooking it further to give it more time to thicken did not work. In the case of the Crockpot Apple Butter slow cooking on the lowest temperature did not prevent the apple butter from burning and leaving a scored apple residue on the side of my newer crock pot that I'm still fighting to clean off. I was able to save each batch by mixing them together - the thickness of the burnt apple butter fixed the runny vanilla rum mixture, while the taste of the vanilla rum mixture saved the other apple butter. After lucking out and still getting the same amount of jars worth of apple butter I will probably stick to my lack of reading all instructions method for next year's apple season.

4 of the jars were mixed with raisins ~ the raisin apple butters are great with peanut butter on toast.

Since we don't have canning equipment I needed to find an alternative method for that as our apple butters were made over a month before Thanksgiving, and we intended for these to be a Thanksgiving Day treat was well as have some on hand for Christmas gifts. The method I found was easy and worked great for sealing the jars. Glass jars heat up in the oven, set to 200 degrees, and jar lids are boiled. While the apple butter was still hot I spooned them into jars, leaving about a 1/4 inch space at the top, dried a lid pulled out of boiling water, twisted on the lid's ring(which I didn't bother heating) and set the jars upside down on the stove where I left them for several hours untouched. After checking the tops I found that every jar had sealed perfectly and stored them away for the holidays.

You can find the canning tutorial I used here.

Dried Herb Jars

It's the end of the season(and we somehow have plants still thriving despite the darker days and lower temperatures) and we had a great herb harvest which became awesome just because gifts once dried and stored in spice jars.

Our outdoor photos were taken around a month prior to when we set up the herbs to dry. Unfortunately we waited too long to collect the sweet, purple Basil as the wind was more than enough to rid the plant of its leaves the day before they were cut for drying.

Most of the plants we did let grow a little too long, and as of now the Lavender plants as well as the Rosemary are all inside to continue growing through the winter. The goal with these particular plants is to have shrubs established by the end of next year's harvest rather than collecting them now and drying them. So far the Rosemary is doing great after 4 weeks indoors. The Lavender has made no particular improvements, but it also isn't dying which we'll take for being good.

The biggest issue we found when bringing in freshly cut herbs to sort and dry were the number of spiders and inch worms that decided to tag along(so much for the peppermint and mint plants driving spiders away). Everything that was to be dried was thoroughly washed in cold water before being tied and many, many freeloaders were set back outside to go find new homes in the plants that we never intend to eat.

Setting up the supplies for herb drying were simple. Wax paper to sort herbs on, a simple string to tie up the ends (make sure you use enough to hang your plants), scissors for your string and brown paper bags; the paper bags are for covering your herb bundles so they remain clean while drying. The green bowl and the purple lid jar pictured here were for propagating some of the herb cuttings. Not all worked out but we did get a few cuttings to grow roots. To propagate your herbs you need a container of water and root powder(I use Take Root). Dip the cut end of your plant in water, then in the root powder and place the plant in a container of water. You should notice roots growing within a few days or a week at most. Once the roots are well established you can replant the cutting into a pot of soil and let it grow.

Now on to the matter of drying herbs. Our plants took about 3 weeks to dry, though some may take longer. If you don't have a month to wait, or just don't want to wait out that month, to let your herbs dry you can always use the oven method. Set your oven to 170-180 degrees, lay your herbs out on a baking pan and let sit in the warm oven 2-4 hours. You'll know your herbs are ready when they crumble easily. Something to note with the oven method versus the air drying method(as we've noticed after trying both methods)is that herbs dried in the oven will darken in color and may loose some of their flavor where as herbs hung up to dry out over several weeks maintain their color much better as well as their flavor. Their scent is also much stronger when compared to oven dried herbs.

When your herbs are dried you'll be able to crush them and store them. We opted for using a mortar and pestle so as to have better control over the finely crushed herbs(between the mortar and the flexible cutting mat used it made it easier to package the herbs after crushing). Not all of the herbs were crushed however, since this year's harvest was used mostly for gifts one of the recipient's herbs were left as fully intact as possible(after being removed from their stems of course) as this particular individual we know loves to cook so we knew she would also love to have the option to crush various herbs gifted to her together while cooking instead of us just crushing them all separately before packaging them.

Just to note: the stone mortar and pestle worked better for this than the wooden one did. The wooden mortar and pestle seems to work best when we're combining herbs when cooking our meals.

We found these simple spice jars at Big Lots for .95 each. Each jar is glass and came with the additional cover so the jar could be used as a shaker.

From the middle to the right: Oregano, Basil and Mint. All maintained their colors after drying.

 When all was said and done our dried herb jars became simple, useful and inexpensive gifts. When these were finished the cost to us was maybe $7 as two of the jars have bulk herbs that we didn't grow this year. If we had grown all of the herbs used in this set the cost to us would have been as low as $6, so not bad all things considering. The finished set looks good and the simple look of the jars makes them easily reusable after the herbs have been used, and since dried herbs store very well they can be saved for the holidays, birthdays and housewarming gifts.

It has been too long since my last post, sorry about that! Things have been busy around here(which is good!) and we've had some great shows for the shop, most recently we were at Marcon for their 50 year anniversary in May, which was a great convention to attend. While I have many things to update on here, including garden and recipe trials, those will get posted later. For now though I want to pass along this amazing blog called Rosemary and Thyme ~ my feed was flooded with flowers this morning, and I'm looking forward to seeing more(I love her lilac tablescape from May). Overall it's such a pretty blog to look at. If anyone has more blog recommendations, please feel free to share them! I'm still pretty new at this blogging stuff and would love to see more. In the meantime at least 2 new posts are coming as well as show updates :)

Last Year's Herb Garden

our container garden in the middle of summer, it actually doubled in size from this by the end of August

It may be the winter blues striking, this place is way too grey year round anyway, but I am getting excited to have a container herb garden again. Last year I did a small one but it ended up growing out of control and was so easy to take care of that I'm going to work with more herbs(in terms of quantity of each plant) so I can get more out of it.

By the end of the summer my herbs where almost 4 times their original size and all of the kitchen herbs - at least half of what was planted - were amazing in meals. 

We're planning on giving more berries a try too, all of which were planted and winterized early October. And by winterized I mean we took the advice of Amish friends and through hay on top of them. The raspberries are already good to go and produced 20 pounds of berries for us, not including the hefty amount I was able to give away, and our small strawberry plant did very well by the end of summer. The strawberries were just as easy to take care of and the raspberries were already well established so I didn't have to do anything but freeze those. Also behold our amazing blueberry harvest! The blueberry was a small plant but he was a late bloomer so we didn't get a lot off of him, this year should be better for him though. 

Since I didn't think to start this blog last summer when I could have done more with it in regards to the herb garden I'll be sharing what I've learned and all the new things I'm sure to come across this coming spring and summer. A quick recap of the plants are:

Basil, Catnip, Chamomile, Chives, Cilantro, Citronella, Lavender, Lemon Balm, Lemon Grass, Lemon Verbena, Mint, Oregano, Parsley, Peppermint, Rosemary, Sage, Strawberry, and Thyme 

Chamomile and Lemon Grass did the worst, if you plan on trying those the best I can say is do Lemon Grass in its own planter and maybe plant Chamomile with other flowers - I did the opposite so this is what I'm going to try this year with them in hopes they do better. 

Basil by far did the best and needed the least care - it actually did so well that it more than doubled its size in the course of a few days. We were visiting family and came home to find it over taking the kitchen planter so we moved it to its own planter where it continued to grow like a monster. I ended up letting it get too big too quickly but it became the easiest to dry out for an herbal swag. It also was the only one that dried well enough for said swag so I opted not to finish putting one together because I failed so badly at it. I'll be trying it this year though, just in case I suddenly don't suck at decorating with herbs(herbs make awesome fresh arrangements for centerpieces and gifts by the by). 

Then there are those herbal mosquito repellent planters - those work and they are amazing!! They actually work so well that I'm aiming to set up at least 4 this year if I can. Last year I put 2 together, one which had Lemon Grass, Lemon Verbena and Catnip(which I totally grew for the neighbor's cats who protect our yard so valiantly) and the other had Citronella, Lavender and Lemon Balm. There are more options you can use but I with with these more so as a trial of it and will probably add more of a selection for a more pleasing looking set up in the planters. Beware though that Citronella also does very well with little care and it ended up affecting how well the Lavender and Lemon Balm didn't do; both grew but remained rather small due to lack of space the Citronella allowed them.

We're looking at galvanized tubs to plant in this year, but those can get pricey so here's to finding cheaper and better planter solutions!

This was taken in September, fall was starting and the Lemon Grass, Lemon Verbena and Chives were the only plants to start to dry out before October.

Cheap Fancy Cake - Lemon Blueberry

There was a tasty looking cake recipe on the ye olde Pinterest for a Lemon Blueberry cake. Everything about it appeared to be made from scratch(extra delicious) but I didn't have time for that. So I cheaped myself a variation of it. 

Here's what you'll need. You can switch out the blueberries from another berry, be mindful though that fresh strawberries like to loose their color in baking(I learned that from making a strawberry cobbler. It still tasted awesome). 

Follow the instructions on the box of your cake mix of choice, though I vote for Duncan Hines because it creates moist, spongy cakes. I layered as I went with this so I could have blueberries on top of blueberries(they sink in the batter while baking). Cake batter/blueberries/more cake batter/rest of blueberries - you can cut out the layering and just toss it all together, it'll still be delicious. 

With the blueberries the cakes were a little more moist than they otherwise would have been, I gave them ten minutes to cool before popping them out of their pans and then let them cool on a cake rack for about an hour. 

Topped off with vanilla icing(I don't like the taste of cream cheese so forget that nonsense) and it's done. There is icing between the layers and since I only had one can of the icing I didn't go too fanciful with the cake decorating. One can of icing is more than enough to compliment the tartness of the lemon cake and blueberries, anymore and it might be too sweet. Which I fully plan on risking next time for the sake of fancy icing decorations. 

And there we go, cheap and simple. I'd like to try the from scratch version someday but for now this one was awesome. AWESOME.


The much more fancy Lemon Blueberry cake recipe can be found here.

Glittered Shoes

This post is going to be more of a product review. For a  costume I need red, sparkly shoes and women's 10 is a hard size to find in fancy/fun shoes and since I don't have time to chance shipping an online order for shoes that will work I was left to making them myself. 

I didn't want to just craft glue a bunch of glitter to a pair of shoes; there's no way I want to have to clean up loose glitter in my sewing nook plus it would be nice to be able to walk in this shoes so I aimed for something that was meant for clothing and could move with clothing, and I found Tulip's line of Fashion Glitters. 

I'm not always a fan of their products; their puff paints are fun to play with on shirts but those usually end up making garments stiff and the paint itself tends to crack. There were plenty of options, the loose glitter that came with appropriate glue, there were spray paint options, I debated the leather paints longer than I should since I was using it for shoes but opted out because of the lacking shiny in those particular paints. Then I came across the super fancy glitters. They only came in one size and I lucked out because there was one red tub left. It is a rather small container of glittered clothing paint that was priced at $5.99 and by the time I finished my shoes I had only gone through half of the container. 

The shoes I used were canvas knock off looking Toms. Pretty simple slip on shoes, nothing else was terribly important about them other than they could pass for the style I needed.

It was pretty simple to do, just paint on and let it dry. I used two soft brushes to get a smoother coating of the paint. The larger brush was for covering large amounts of the shoes at a time and the thinner brush I used to cover the smaller, finer areas as well as do any touch ups. 

This project probably took me about 20 minutes to complete and it didn't take long for this paint to dry. I did clean the brushes as soon as I was do so as not to risk ruining them or making it difficult to clean them at a later time. 

It was hard to get their sparkle to show up well with my camera but they do look better in person. I only needed one coat since these shoes were already red(two coats would have used up all of the paint) and they do have a sort of stiffness to them as a result of the paint. However I was still able to get them on and off easily(they did have elastic in them to begin with) and I had no trouble walking in them. The paint moved well with the shoes and showed no tale tell signs that it would crack. Tulip's Fashion Glitter ended up being a great product to use for this project.

Acrylic Paint Stain

Creating a wood stain with acrylic paints is easy to do and great for crafts. Using acrylic paints makes it cheap and gives you a wider variety of colors to use. I used a simple brown paint for this tutorial on a scrap piece of wood for a sign project I'm working on for a gift.

You don't need much to get yourself started. If you are using scrap wood and not a store bought already cut and sanded piece of wood(or box, picture frame, dollhouse pieces, etc.) then you may want to consider sanding it out before you stain it if you think it's needed. My scrap piece of wood was already good to go for this project so I am not including a step on sanding.

Supplies you'll need are:

• Paint - any color should work, though I have not tried this with glittered acrylics
• Brush - I used a sponge brush, but really any type of brush will work
• Water - the amount isn't specific, the more water you use the softer the color and vice versa. The amount used is up to you. 

Be liberal with the paint. The brush I used to mix the water and paint was not what I used to paint my board. Remember to check that you mix the paint and water thoroughly, there will be chunks of paint at the bottom of your glass(or whatever you use for your mixture).

Don't be afraid to go heavy with each coat. The wood is going to soak up your stain, and when it dries it will not be as dark as it was when you applied it. The above photo is a comparison of the stain wet and dry.

You'll want to wait for each coat to dry before you apply any more coats. The number of coats you do is again up to you. If you think you've made your stain too light you can either add more paint to your mixture or just apply more coats. If you find you've made it too dark, then aim for fewer coats.

This is my project after three coats of stain. The close up is a better representation of the final color out come. Any more and it would have been too dark for my liking, but this shade is pretty spot on for what I wanted.

On a final note you will need to watch out for your project warping since you are using a water based stain to color it. If you purchased a wooden item to stain it may not be as much of a worry, but wood scraps are scraps for a reason. The piece I used was already slightly warped and after I finished staining it the warping became worse. I did find am alternative use for my thread box and sewing machine however and both are working great at weighing down my board. If you do have a warping issue and you are able to weigh down your project make sure to do so while it's still wet. Using my thread box ensures that if it makes any marks on my drying project I can easily fix it or work with it when I finish painting my board.

I'll link the finished project here later.

***This is my finished project, it was a Harry Potter themed sign I made as a gift for the husband unit. I did a combination of metallic gold, acrylic paint and a gold paint marker from Sharpie to keep the lettering neat(I did go over it with the gold acrylic to match the colors).

What to Pack in Your Sewing Kit

Simply put this is a guide of what tools are useful to pack in a travel size sewing kit. It may vary person to person as to what an individual finds more useful to have on hand, and this list is based off of what things were helpful, and what I wish I hadn't forgotten, for costuming at conventions. Cut down on what you need to pack for your cosplays but making your sewing kit neat, small and full of the essentials without the extra 'just in case' items. I'll start with the general basics for a small kit and then move on to the items I wish I had packed on several convention trips.

Start with your box/bag. The size of this is going to determine how well stocked your kit is. For a smaller kit you can find the perfect sized box at your dollar store. Look for the lunch boxes/food containers. This purple box(other colors were also available) is currently on sell, but it most likely is only going to be carried with their spring seasonal items, however back to school sales(pencil/crayon boxes) are also a good route to go, as well as cosmetic  and travel bags.

If you don't already have tools and supplies on had you can always grab a small, and cheap, travel kit but these kits are really limited(don't be fooled by the assortment of thread colors) and really aren't made to last. Better options for your starter kit are to go with either the Dritz Start-to-Sew Kit or Singer's 1512 Beginners Sewing Kit. These kits include a sewing gauge(both), tracing paper and a tracing wheel(Dritz), and a needle threader(Singer). A sewing gauge, tracing paper and a tracing wheel may not be particularly necessary in your travel kit but they are very useful to have at home. A needle threader is also not particularly necessary unless you have a harder time threading your needles, then you'll want one around. There are of course more starting kit options you can go with, but these two are fairly basic and not necessarily overstocked with items that would be more useful at home. 

Items you'll want to have in your kit:

• Hand Needles - have a small assortment of sizes
• Pins - colored, ball point pins are easier to spot when dropped versus straight pins
• Pin Cushion/Pin Box - keep those devils together!
• Safety Pins
• Seam Ripper
• Scissors - if you can fit a regular sized pair of scissors go with embroidery scissors(or both!)
• Buttons
• Hook and Eyes
• Thimble
• Band Aids - pins suck
• Measuring Tape
• Thread - stock white and black thread since they're easier to pick from for small fixes, but if you have spare room don't forget to include thread that matches your clothes/costumes

That is the very basic you'll want for your sewing kit, however here are the items I've been able to learn the hard way are really good to have on hand for conventions:

• Tailor's Chalk
• Markers 
• Elastic - I aim for at least two sizes
• Hem tape - you will need an iron to use this, but it's amazing
• Liquid Stitch - this is available in a variety of options for different fabric needs
• Fray Check
• Crafters Glue - Tacky glue can dry quickly and can be used on almost anything
• Velcro
• Tape - while masking tape and scotch tape(double sided) are good ideas, duct tape is very handy as is fabric tape(double sided hem tape). For taping down costumes to skin try Hollywood Tape.
• Paper - small journal, post its...
• Pen/Pencil - these last two bullets are not so much for sewing purposes but are still good to have on hand

These items will give you a much more thorough sewing kit and have you ready for any clothing/costume/prop emergency, and of course for those last minute stitches Friday night at conventions. Now let's talk a little more about a few things.

 Tailor's chalk/pencils! Also know as Dressmaker's pencils/markers, you have a few options for this, you can get the chalk(the squares), pencils or markers(not pictured). In my experience the pencils have not worked well, the markers do well however if you have to make some marks for quick fixes before an event you will not be able to get the marker off of your attire. Chalk works best, it's easiest to see and easiest to remove without using water. While I do think Tailor's Chalk works well, I still keep regular chalk on hand since it's just as easy to remove from most fabrics. Pro tip: a white crayon works surprisingly well on the wrong side of fake leather and suede. If you have to draw out your costume design because a pattern isn't available, white crayons can come in handy if you don't have tailor's chalk. 

 Markers! Sharpies come in a variety of colors and are great for quick fixes on just about anything, plus they are available as paint markers which is great for your props. You can also look into getting fabric markers if you need to do touch ups on your costumes. 

Meet: Hem Tape. This stuff is amazing and you'll want it in every size ever. On a realistic note hemming anything sucks and if you're in a crunch for time hem tape is quick and easy. You will need an iron to fuse it to your fabrics but you can have your garment hemmed in the time it would have taken you pin and swear about sewing it. When you're picking out your hem tape(also known as stitch witchery) keep an eye out for water safe hem tapes. If you're using it on a costume that you won't be able to just toss in the washer then you're pretty well set for whatever size will meet your needs. This goes for heat fusible interfacing: some interfacing you will have to sew in place but if you're opting for a heat fusing one then you'll need to keep in mind that they aren't all safe to be washed; this should be marked on the label. 

On the subject of irons, since I'm such an advocate of taking the easy way out with hems, if you can bring your own iron with you to conventions, do it. Chances are the irons that are available in hotel rooms are not maintained or properly used, are most likely filthy and tend to be 50/50 if they're going to burn or ruin your fabric. If you are left with what's available to you at a hotel make sure you aren't using it on the right side of your clothing/costumes' fabric. Applying it to the wrong side saves you from the risk of leaving an unsightly stain, mark or burn on the good side of whatever you're ironing. 

On one last note I'd recommend looking into the Dritz No Sew Kit - this kit includes the Stitch Witchery, fabric tape, Liquid Stitch, Fray Check and a small amount of pins. I usually find it on sale at my go to fabric store. 

Anything else you include in your own kit? Feel free to share in the comments!