Harts and Crafts Blog | Creative Jubilee

Happy Thanksgiving!

By Christina Lee| November 26th, 2020|Holiday Fun, Humbling Hobbies and Habits, In the Kitchen|

If you’ve got loved ones, a roof over your head, and food in your stomach, you’ve got more than many people around you. With the unforeseen circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic and the unsettling increase case count, this Thanksgiving will not be like any others. Friends, family and loved ones may or may not be able to pull up a chair at the dinner table, and thus, it’s so much more important to find meaningful ways to stay connected with the people you care about most. Inspired by safety and health precautions, I spent this year’s Thanksgiving with my Mom and sister.

While we missed out on our usual 30lb turkey and my Dad’s famous sticky rice stuffing, we did make it up with cornish game hen and sides of brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes and candied yams. And because no meal would be complete without dessert, we (over-) indulged in an apple and persimmon crumble along with pumpkin pies from Petaluma Pie Company (worth the extra trip!).

Today was all about being thankful for good health and being able to spend time with family. I am ever so grateful for these blessings and having my loved ones humbly share this holiday with me. Staying safe for a better tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Floating Vases

By Christina Lee| November 12th, 2020|Creative Inspiration, DIY Home|

As the seasons come and go, so do the flowers in your home. I can’t remember the last time I replaced the flowers in my bathroom, but it’s time to lean into the Fall season and fill the room with luscious Fall colors. I headed over to Michaels to peruse the Flower aisle, and a sea of forest green and nutty brown pigments caught my attention. And what looked like freshly cut succulents with its purple tips would be perfect to make my floating vases pop. Sitting in a bed of moss greens, oatmeal and century old rice (I got creative with the food in my pantry!), these earth-toned succulents were exactly what I needed to breathe life into my living space.

Scrap Blanket Edging

By Christina Lee| October 20th, 2020|Crocheting, Yarn Addict|

Now that I’ve made all the colored panels for my scrap blanket, it’s time to pick up the crochet hook once again to create a border around each of the panels. Because all of the panels are unique in color and texture, but have the same pattern (single crochet), I leaned towards a neutral color to do the edging. I went back and forth on the color: navy blue, dark gray, black or perhaps a lighter shade of ivory, sand or white.

In the end, I landed on black since many of the panels had similar colors and I really wanted each one to stand out and pop. When you lay them next to each other, it almost looks like a mosaic.

Virtual Team Building: Terrarium Making Kits

By Christina Lee| September 29th, 2020|Craft Day, Creative Inspiration, Humbling Hobbies and Habits, Oh My Crafts!|

With over six months of shelter-in-place orders in effect, the Covid-19 pandemic has taken both an emotional and physical toll on our well-being. The extreme work-from-home measure has left us craving human connection, mental sanity and work/life balance. While we aren’t able to get together as a team, we try to keep things normal — even if it means doing our team offsite virtually through Zoom.

Over the last two days, we blocked off a total of six hours (three hours per day) on the calendar and did what we could to connect as a team. Introductions, planning sessions, work break-out sessions, guest speakers, and of course, ice breakers made up the two day agenda. Never had I imagined the possibility of conducting these team activities online. But we did and it was fun.

One of our team activities came in a box which contained everything you need to build your own terrarium. A glass bowl, soil, moss, charcoal, rocks, succulents and even trinkets like sea shells, glass jars, and dinosaurs came in this terrarium kit that my manager found online at Etsy.

We emptied all of that good stuff out of the box and began building it together. Does the soil go in first or the rocks? What do you do with the moss, and does it go above or below the soil? How do you insert the succulents? While everything came packaged up nicely, by the time we poured out all the contents, the table was covered in dirt and my hands were black.

It was fun talking through the process and interesting to see the unique spin that each of us took designing the terrarium with the exact same kit. I now have faith that we can have fun and do great things as a team even if it is online.

Now, to find a home for this little guy.

Stepping up my soap-making game

By Christina Lee| September 13th, 2020|DIY Home, Handmade, Homemade Soap, Humbling Hobbies and Habits, Oh My Crafts!|

With the soap charms I made earlier, I mentioned I’d be doing something special with them. Now that I have an abundance of these little guys hardened and sitting ready on my countertop, I am stepping up my ‘melt and pour’, soap-making game and taking it to the next level by embedding them in more soap. If all goes well, you should see the fine details of the flamingo, palm leaves, cacti and ice cream inside a clear glycerin base. If you can’t see them, well… something didn’t go quite right.

As a hobbyist, we all know it takes a few wrongs to get things right, so the sacrifice of a few flamingos and palm leaves were highly likely. The first batch of soap charms sat ready in their molds and I heated up the glycerin soap. The soap was near a boiling point, so I stirred out some of the air bubbles, then began to pour. Wrong move.

Shortly thereafter, the flamingo and palm leaf began to melt and ribbons of pink and green laced the soap tray. And not long after that the flamingo and palm leaf began to dissolve. Oh no, caught up in a frenzy, I tried to save it by scooping back parts of the pink and green ribbons to try to keep it intact. Was I successful? No. That first one was a goner.

The second time around, I heated up the next batch of glycerin soap and this time, I stirred and let it sit. I didn’t have a thermometer handy nor did I know how long to leave it out for. Every now and then, I poked my finger in. Too hot? No clue! Moments later, I began to pour the soap base in the tray only to find it thicken, cloud up and gel. It sat out too long. Doh.

Third time’s a charm, right? Back to the stove, I stirred in another batch. I let it completely dissolve, then took it off the stove to stir out the air bubbles. I knew not to pour right away since it would melt the soap charms and now I knew not to leave it out for so long or it would thicken. It’s around that five minute range from what I could estimate, so then I dipped my finger in, acknowledged it was hot, but not overly hot. I took my chances and poured into the soap tray. It didn’t melt! However, I still didn’t know whether it would melt in time so I acted quickly. I poured in the rest, sprayed it with alcohol and transferred it to the freezer for three hours — all while hoping for the best.

It worked. Ta da!

Chocolate, fondant or soap?

By Christina Lee| August 21st, 2020|Homemade Soap, Oh My Crafts!|

Chocolate, fondant or soap? You tell me. If you guessed soap, you are correct. We’re whipping up soap charms in the Creative Jubilee kitchen. While you typically find silicon molds in the baking aisle at Michaels, there are so many creative ways you can use these silicon molds and one of which is making soap charms to embed in soap or to accompany larger soaps.

A few of these silicon molds caught my eye. Who can turn down popsicles and ice cream cones in the summer? And flamingos, leafy greens and cacti, oh my!

You approach this as you would with any Melt and Pour project. Pick your favorite base, grab your essential oils and some dye. In this case, I am using what’s left of my Oatmeal and Goat’s Milk soap and blending in some pinks, greens, blues and browns. You want colors that will pop and really show off the fine detail of each piece.

Pop it in the freezer for a few hours and then you end up with these fun soap charms. For those of you who have kids at home or friends coming to visit, make sure to label them as S-O-A-P, otherwise… they’ll learn quickly that it’s neither chocolate nor fondant.

All it needs is a little bit of love

By Christina Lee| August 9th, 2020|Craft Paper Scissors, Knitting, Work Hard. Play Hard. Knit Harder., Yarn Addict|

My sister has been working on this decades-long knitting project for some time now. I taught both my mom and sister how to knit years ago, and they each worked on their own knitting project. My sister pursued the Stockinette stitch and worked on this coral pink scarf. Back and forth she went, knit on knits and purl on purls. She made it through two balls of yarn before she got stuck (binding off) and left it in her desk drawer… for the next TEN years.

With a little summer cleaning, she was able to fish out her project. It came rolled up like a fruit roll up binded with rubber bands on each side to keep it from curling up at the ends. The problem with the stockinette stitch is if your knitting tension is too tight, it curls.

To finish this up, I casted-off since the scarf was already at a good (foldable) length. Then I laid it flat on the table and ironed it to reinforce its natural shape and form. And finally, it was time for the fun part, the part that everyone seems to like and want on their scarf — the fringes. Snipping away, I cut the yarn at around a length of 10 inches and adhered two pieces of yarn per stitch. When you fold it, it’s about 4.5 inches long.

Bouncy, plush and full, I returned the scarf to its happy owner.

Homemade chicken jerky treats

By Christina Lee| July 19th, 2020|Humbling Hobbies and Habits, In the Kitchen|

If you’re willing to spend a day making sourdough bread, you better believe I’m equally willing to spend a day making chicken jerky for my dog. It’s what we as dog moms do. Plus it’s healthier and more cost effective.

If you know me, I’m not that big of a meat-eater. If it’s there, fully cooked and prepared well, I’ll eat it. Otherwise, I don’t normally go out of the way to make it unless it’s for a special occasion or it’s for my dog. But since I’ve given him a meat-only diet (with a side of kibble), I spent a lot of time in the meat aisle. Chicken, beef, pork, turkey, cornish game hen, shrimp and salmon. None if it is off the table for this little guy. Out of them all, hands down, he’d prefer chicken over any of these, unless it’s a prime rib.

When it comes to buying chicken, lean meat is healthy, but secretly, we both prefer a little skin on the bone, so it’s rare for me to buy the chicken breast. But the chicken breast is great for making chicken jerky. It’s meaty and plump, and you can make a whole bag of chicken jerky with four hefty chicken breasts.

Now, we just need to wait 12 hours.

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