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In a new partnership with Lowe's Canada, Mag has produced a video series of fun, colourful projects that families can build together!
Each 3-5 minute episode is accompanied by downloadable step-by-step instructions loaded with extra tips and mini-lessons, so even if parents aren't experienced in building, they can learn alongside their kids!
I've been exercising and working outdoors all spring, in clouds of black flies, and I don't have a single bite. In a normal year, my face, neck and arms would be covered in red welts that itch and burn and swell, in spite of wearing long sleeves AND a ridiculous hat made of netting that the bugs always infiltrate. (Once you've got a black fly INSIDE your net hat, you're just a big meat sandwich to that little dork.)
But this year I've been using a Canadian homeopathic preparation called Mozi-Q (one small tablet dissolved under the tongue a few minutes before going outside).
I have no bites. They don't even LAND. Horse flies, mosquitoes, black flies, deer flies. Apparently it even works on lice and bed bugs. The homeopathic effect is so thorough that you'll think irrational thoughts like, "Well, maybe the bugs just aren't biting this year."
Then you'll make your friends try it. And when they come back to you and say, "My god, I don't have a single bite, even after gardening all weekend", you'll maybe start to believe it really IS working.
I've given it to 3 people besides me and they all said the same thing, "My god, I don't have a single bite!"
So if you're suffering with the bugs this season, give Mozi-Q a try. (where to buy)
P.S. I've been using homeopathic treatments for 30 years and even took courses in homeopathy because it's such a fascinating and cool science. Homeopathic remedies are prescribed extensively in England by physicians. The members of the royal family are huge fans of homeopathy. You can read about the origins of homeopathy in the lovely little book, "Heal Thyself" by Dr. Edward Bach. (available as a free PDF)
I've been caught up in a number of eyebrow-blowing-off experiences lately.
First, my talk at TEDxWaterloo at the end of March. It consumed me. I've never worked harder on anything, yet I still made crucial mistakes, which have driven me crazy for more than 2 months. Until this morning, when I realized that our mistakes become our future strengths so I should respect my mistakes, not revile them.
I also started work on a new season of Lowe's Family Fun Projects. This year we're working with Tweens. The kids have lots of cool design ideas (headboards, WarHammer terrains, treehouse upgrades). It's going to be amazing to watch them work with their hands.
I've been experimenting with getting some cool finishes on furniture. Here's one of them:
And here's another:
I made sheers after the blinds fell apart (employing doorknobs from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore)
Kicked off the 2013 Habitat for Humanity WomenBuild. Want to join me in September?
Walked a lot. (shades of Avonlea)
And traveled to Saskatoon and Vancouver for Skills Canada's provincial and national competitions. More on that this week from Vancouver with the adorable Mike Holmes.
This week's free ToolGirl How-to video gives you a billion options for bone-easy handmade gifts. You'll learn to frame any two-dimensional item using inexpensive materials and a soldering iron...
How To Make A Tinned Picture Frame - step by step instructions
If this crisp cold snap is making you frantic and testy, your hands can calm you down and put you in The Zone where time ceases to exist, all problems turn to vapor, and Winter is just a word that applies to some other part of the world. Here's my curated list of places to find craft instruction online.
Now, if you want a truly in-depth course from a world-class instructor at a fraction of the cost ($20-$40) you'd pay to take the course in person, here's a closer look at my favourite online learning resource, Craftsy.com: (Correction to article: Craftsy won't be offering 'food tech' in 2013, but they will be offering food and cooking courses)
Craftsy offers fantastic classes that show you in REAL time (not fast-forward-big-reveal TV style) how to actually DO something. Grab a cup of coffee and peruse your options for learning how to quilt, weave, sew, crochet, knit, decorate cakes, cook, garden, and even re-finish furniture. TIP: When you're scrolling through Craftsy's Featured Classes, you can click on any of the Free Mini-Classes for a taste of the instructor's style and content.
If you don't have a local independent yarn store or craft retailer that offers classes, Craftsy.com is an amazing virtual resource. You can study anytime, 24/7, talk to the instructor and/or fellow class-mates while the lesson is in progress, record personal notes onscreen, and instantly repeat the last 30 seconds of video if you missed something.
Have fun!
P.S. I'm enrolled in two courses (so far) if you want to join me - Scrap Quilting and From Drab to Fab (upcycling furniture).
Here are some of my classmates' furniture projects from our Drab to Fab course...cool eh?
Felt is my new BFF - it's cuddly, uncomplaining and easy to make, plus you can form it into endless cool projects.
The steps are fast and simple. Take a pile of wool sweaters, scarves and mitts, wash them a couple of times in the washing machine so they're good and matted, then cut them up into strips, shapes or blocks and reconstruct them into rugs, blankets, dog beds, soft sculpture, toys and accessories.
[For more details on the felting process, see this week's column, I Felt That.]
You can join pieces of felt together by hand sewing it, machine sewing with a zigzag stitch, or by using a crochet needle.
You can create fast ruffles from strips of felted wool using nothing more than a crochet needle. You end up with a robust and rambunctious spiral that you can turn into a bobble/pompom (like the one on top of the tea cozy at the top of this post). Here are the steps.
Because felted wool doesn't ravel, you can cut it into fringe, too. I'll keep posting pictures of the stuff I'm making for my last minute Christmas gifts. Or if you can't wait to see mine, you can find a lot of cool ideas here.
This really touched me. What a great way to connect kids to their inner brilliance.
It's getting to be gifty season and I've got a hostess treat that's fast and classy depending on your definition of classy. This quick video contains my hard-earned tips for festooning candles with microwave-pressed flowers (or hardware for a more manly version).
Here they are - all of the touching, lovely thank yous to tradespeople all over Canada:
Hi Mag
I am nominating my son, Greg Burrows who is entering his second year of carpentry after 4 years of university. To see the pride on his face after building a project amazes me! He loves carpentry! The pride and patience he shows in his trade makes me so proud of him.He is very lucky to find a career that he loves.
Susan Taylor
East Preston
NS
Morning
I would like to "nominate" john baddelley out of victoria B.C. John has the ability to foresee and understand what you are talking about, while you're saying it.
He puts you at ease immediately, and is compassionate and caring in his demeanor. John helped me out immensely with reno's at my fathers house in victoria when it was determined that mobility was an issue.
Thank you for this opportunity
Dal Cosby
Cambridge ON
Continue reading "Canada's favourite tradespersons as voted by ToolGirl readers!" »
Irwin Tools has declared that today is National Tradesperson Day in the U.S. and Canada. I'm heading out to join CHCH's Bob Cowan to celebrate this morning. Please tune in to CHCH at 9:15 if you get the channel where you live.
When I get back from Hamilton I'm going to publish thank you notes from approximately 200 readers who sent me details about their favourite tradespeople.
In the meantime, show some appreciation today for the people who keep our world humming - carpenters, plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics, welders, machinists, ship builders - by buying them a cup of coffee, calling up to say 'thanks for all you do', dropping off cookies at a local job site, or hugging a tradesman in line at Tim Horton's.
For more info, visit Irwin's salute to tradespeople everywhere. If you're a young person with a great 3D aptitude, visit Skills Canada to explore careers that'll let you use it!
My friend Shyenna (7) has an eye for colour. When there's paint around, she cuts loose. Her choices are instant and fearless. I love watching her because it inspires me to go with my own instincts, even though I've always doubted them.
And this project isn't just about decorating with fabric and paint. We also built the mirror frame from scratch. It's a simple, fun project that any beginner can accomplish. (Plus there's a monster who lives in the mirror!)
Remember the first thing you ever painted with ‘real’ grown-up paint, not kiddie watercolour paint?
Remember the exhilaration of gobbing on that first transforming brush full? Remember the utter lack of control and the hashmark-style brush strokes? Well, you can have all of that back.
Modern painting has become a chore to be avoided. It smells up the house, the prep alone is a lot of trouble, and you have to match the paint to the surface you’re covering, which leads to mistakes (i.e. latex over alkyd, wrong primer, bubbling, blistering or peeling because some genius used Plaster of Paris instead of spackle on the ceiling and the lime goes into solution and starts fizzing under the paint...).
And let's not forget that modern paint comes in 28,000 colours, only 27 of which actually look good in any known home.
Well, I found a paint that is so fun, relieving, gorgeous and smart that I'm painting everything in the house, including the most avoided task in the DIY roster: the kitchen cabinets.
Annie Sloan Chalk Paint is finally available in Canada. And it only comes in 27 colours (the ones that look good in houses), which can be diluted with Annie's Pure White or Old White to create lighter shades if you desire. (I covered Annie's paint in my column today. But I didn't have enough room to tell the whole story, so I'm adding some more details here.)
The paint has so little odour that my insanely smell-sensitive husband couldn't even tell I'd been painting the kitchen when he came home from running errands.
And I'm painting right over 30-year-old alkyd. No prep. It's so easy to work with this paint that I can do a little bit every day rather than shut the kitchen down for a week while I remove all of the cupboard doors, sand them, prime them, roll on a couple of coats, and then replace all of the hardware and re-install them.
(I went with Versailles green, the colour of the kitchen cabinets in Jasper Dale's kitchen on Road to Avonlea.)
Annie encourages Chalk Paint users to brush the paint on with abandon, crisscrossing the brushstrokes to add texture and depth. The paint lends itself beautifully to arty effects like layering and distressing. Even on plastic! (This is a thick base coat on my plastic iPhone case)
I was going for 'rustic barnboard'. This is how it turned out...
I had a lot of fun painting a beat up old table made from Douglas fir...
(table top was painted with Versailles green and then immediately rubbed with a rag to create a pickled effect)
I experimented with mixing some concrete pigment into the paint (Old Ochre) because I hadn't bought enough colours. Concrete pigment tends to be lumpy so it creates streaks in the paint. I found that using a sponge to apply the paint helped reduce the streaking. I just swabbed it around till the finish was even.
(Shiny urethane be gone!)
Chalk Paint creates a very soft, velvety matte finish that you can gloss up with Annie Sloan's soft waxes. They come in clear or dark shades. Both buff to a silky sheen. The dark wax is great for creating various grunge effects or for aging a piece.
You can check Annie Sloan's web site for a dealer near you. The paint is so loaded with pigment that it covers most surfaces quite nicely with one coat. If you're in the Greater Toronto Area your closest dealer is Kathie Jordan in New Hamburg, Ontario. Kathie will ship paint and/or wax to you if you don't want to make the drive. You can also place an online order for Annie Sloan paints and waxes from The Melon Patch in Bath, Ontario.
It's worth the visit to Kathie's shop if you're in the GTA - she's lovely!
TIP: The online palette looks darker than the paint actually is (on most monitors). The best way to experience the colours is to go to a dealer and see for yourself, or do a search for the glorious projects that people have posted online.
OTHER TIP: This is the recipe to use if you want to try creating DIY chalk paint formula using PVA (white glue) and chalk whiting.
Photo by keltickelton via flickr.com
This just in from Irwin, makers of some of my favourite hand tools. (I've upgraded the term 'Tradesmen' to Tradespeople in a few places and like it better!)
The second annual National Tradesmen Day will be held on Friday, Sept. 21, 2012, and IRWIN® Tools encourages all Canadians to make plans to recognize Canada’s tradespeople – the men and women who are the backbone of our nation. The country’s skilled craftsmen should be proud of their incredible skills and talents. And they deserve to be recognized for their hard work, which is often performed in difficult environments under stressful conditions.
National Tradesmen Day, held each year on the third Friday in September, is a day when the nation pauses to thank skilled workers like auto mechanics, roofers, bricklayers, plumbers, woodworkers, electricians, carpenters, and others who help keep Canada running. During last year’s inaugural National Tradesmen Day festivities, many people found ways to show appreciation and gratitude for tradespeople by holding celebrations, recognition events and activities throughout the country.
It’s vitally important that we say thanks and find ways to encourage skilled trades as valuable career choices for young people. Without these hard working men and women, Canada’s infrastructure and our way of life would come to a screeching halt. Despite the fact that these jobs are so important there is a looming skills shortage in Canada. The Construction Sector Council projects that over the next 8 years there will be a shortfall of 156,000 skilled workers across the country. This shortfall is driven primarily by expected retirements. Between 2012 and 2020 there are 219,000 workers expected to retire and not all of these jobs will be filled through expected workforce growth. The projected gap of 156,000 workers is a serious issue that could create project and service delays in many important areas of the economy.
This year, IRWIN is coordinating multiple activities throughout the nation and is partnering with retailers and community groups for National Tradesmen Day celebrations. IRWIN offers some ideas Canadians can use to show their appreciation of skilled tradesmen:
For more information visit www.nationaltradesmenday.com or http://www.facebook.com/nationaltradesmenday.
If you have an oven and a collection of old LPs, you can have as much fun as possible with your clothes on.
The PVC vinyl that old records are made from becomes pliable at extremely low temperatures. Here are some creations you can try. For complete instructions, see my weekly column.
Note: The vinyl melts in just a few minutes and is warm to the touch when you pull it from the 200-degree oven (don't use a hotter oven or the vinyl will start releasing toxins). You can form it by hand immediately, but use leather gloves if you're nervous.
All beginners in Record Upcycling should try a bowl.
Pressing the vinyl between two bowls will give you a more predictable outcome:
But why be all conventional with your bowls? Squeeze the vinyl for a more extreme effect.
Or cinch it down into a desk accessory:
Cut the vinyl into strips and form the strips into napkin rings that suit your musical friends/family:
Or form the strips into hooks for towels or jewelry:
While it's warm, cut a record in half, then reheat it and form it into a sconce:
Here's how to fasten the sconce to a wood base; first, use a regular drill bit inserted through the record's hole to drill through the two layers of vinyl that form the back of the sconce.
Next, use a screwdriver to drive a short screw into the wooden base:
You can form the vinyl into a cylindrical sleeve to slip over a bud vase. (Wrap it around a rolling pin or a piece of hardwood dowel)
I'm experimenting with painting the vinyl in case you don't have a penchant for shiny Seventies-looking vinyl accessories. Whatever the case, isn't it fun to know how to upcycle your vinyl records into a funky personal statement?
I've been experimenting with making my own interior and exterior non-VOC paint this week after reading about the durability of 9,000-year-old paintings found in Asia and Egypt.
I didn't have room for all of my findings in my weekly column (recipes included), so this is a little addendum.
Using concrete colourant, which is available at hardware stores, I tinted my first small batches of paint. I got some nice golds and reds (one coat).
Then I added a little titanium dioxide (available at pottery supply places for less $ than art supply places) to some of my skim milk/Borax base and got a beautiful 'pickling' stain, which I rubbed into a rustic cricket bench. The pigment built up in the rough texture (it's a little hard to see in the photo). This formulation would look great on an urban fence or deck.
Next, I used an exterior grade formulation made from cottage cheese and lime (which I learned about here) to coat this bench top (tinted with 'medium buff' concrete colourant). On the buttermilk-coloured legs and base I used a two-layer cross-linking alkaline/acid formulation that I learned about from this very smart person. (To get the warm colour on the legs/base, I tinted the acidic topcoat with titanium dioxide and a tiny bit of 'lemon yellow' concrete colourant.)
I literally did NO PREP on this bench - no brushing, scraping, or even wiping with a rag. Okay, I removed one old coccoon, but that's it. The bench had been outside for about 10 years and the original 5 coats of water-based urethane had flaked into oblivion. Note to self: never use water-based urethane for exterior applications; it can't hack the Canadian climate.
This is the bench after a borate-laced coat of casein (milk) paint, which I made from skim millk and Borax laundry additive.
After all of the experimenting, I think the milk/Borax formulation is the easiest to work with. It produces a clear matte finish on bare wood (bye bye forever water-based urethane) and can be tinted easily by making a paste of water and concrete colourant and then mixing it into the milk/Borax base.
You can make the milk/Borax stuff into an opaque white by adding lime and titanium dioxide till it's nice and thick.
Of course you can order milk paint powder from either of these two places if you don't want to go the wet 'n' wild route:
The Real Milk Paint Company (U.S.)
HomeStead House Milk Paint (Canada)
I'm aiming to paint 400 feet of fence with my own homemade milk paint later this fall. Anybody want to help?
Canadian blogger Kat at MommyKatandKids built our camp stools project with her two little ones and they did an awesome job! She's offering a $50 Lowe's gift card to a reader who wants to try one of Lowe's Family Fun Projects with their kids or grandkids. Check out the contest here.
In case there's any doubt in your mind about whether someone as young as 4 years old can use a drill or a saw, just watch these faces...
(See 15 easy building projects for kids 3-9)
Who doesn't love a fort? Especially if it looks like a medieval fantasy pavilion! I made this little castle with my 3-year-old friend Charlotte using four 10-foot lengths of 3/4-inch PVC pipe. Charlotte loved fitting the pieces together and painting her own banner. Instructions and video available with other kid-friendly summer projects at Lowe's Family Fun Projects.
Last week I built a cool growth chart with my 4-year-old friend Quintyn (with some help from his little brother, Kai). The design has sandy beaches (made from sanded caulking), sea walls (made from pea gravel), tiny houses (made from 2x2 poplar scraps with sandpaper roofs) and the metal tape from a busted tape measure, which acts as the yellow line going up the middle of the road. Magnetic cars slide up and down the tape to measure kids' heights. SO FUN! I'm learning so much from these little kids with their fearless approach to design and colour. No hesitation, EVER! A video and free plans for the growth chart are available now at Lowe's Family Fun Projects.
Great news for hackers and fixers - Sugru, the mouldable silicone putty that air-cures to resilient toughness so you can repair or improve ANYTHING - is now available in primary colours that combine to create ANY SHADE on earth!!!
As spring sneaks in, it’s fun to go through each room in your house and create a punch list of things you’d like to change, add or replace. The list can hold all of the items that bug you, from minor to major, not including relatives.
Don’t hold back; put everything down on that list, from faucet repairs to paint jobs to pictures that no longer give you a happy feeling. If there’s anything you see that messes with your well being - ping! (magic wand sound effect) - it goes on the list.
If your list reveals lots of holes in the furnishings department, don't be bummed. It’s never been easier to build stuff. And try not to feel overwhelmed if you've got a long list; here are a few of my must-builds for comparison:
So, what are the chances of any of these projects actually getting built, whether in your house or mine?
Pretty darn good. Even if your desire level is way higher than your budget.
It was standing room only at the Real Home Show in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I had 5 packed shows and we gave away more than 500 free packs of Sugru (not an affiliate link), the silicon putty that fixes, improves and customizes just about anything. Lots of people brought busted stuff for me to fix, and we had some great laughs. Thanks to Herald Homes for inviting me to speak, and to Sugru for supplying the free samples for all of our show visitors. And it was great to meet some of you there!
One of my favourite repairs was Margie's hose reel, which had a cracked housing.
We reinforced and buttressed the bejeez out of the plastic base, which had split around one of the screws. Naturally we did our best to complement Margie's colourful personality using orange, blue, green and marbled black and white Sugru!
Plus, I learned (well, sort of) to step dance at the opening night party, courtesy of Herald Homes editor Claudia White! Toe, heel, toe, hop, bang bang...
I've developed the possibly weird hobby of spinning newspaper strips into 'yarn' using a homemade drop spindle. (Sometimes, for the dessert course of spinning, I use strips of plastic food wrap instead. It's easier to spin and makes a really tough, clear yarn.)
When I saw drop spindles for sale for $50 at the local wool shop, I came home and made one with some doweling, a picture hook and a chopped-off bit of old candle stand (the circular part). I fastened the parts together with Sugru, the mouldable silicone putty that air cures to a resilient, springy toughness.
Bottom view:
We're All In This Together
Based on four years of interviews with Steve Smith, Mag's unconventional biography reveals the personal stories, sorrows and joys that continue to inspire the man behind the Red Green legacy.
How Hard Can It Be?
Mag's quirky and entertaining book of home improvement projects for beginners.
