Breadwinner

This Sunday was all about preparation. We're attempting to give ourselves a deadline each weekend e.g. 3 hours, in order to remain productive, rather than spending too much time procrastinating or chatting (although we've found we're very good at multi-tasking with that one).

Firstly we whipped out the man tools by sawing and drilling some wood pieces, LD forgot the main ingredient to this one though, so you will have to wait until next Sunday to see what this turns out to be.

We then moved on to Veeni's home-made silk screen, unfortunately the tricks for this one weren't quite right for the trade either so we will have to wait til V's dad can give us a hand with this one - stay tuned.

Lastly, we went on to a craft that LD's mum used to do with her when she was a youngen, it's called bread clay. Some of you may be familiar with this, but for those that aren't: it is a mixture made up of white bread (crusts removed), white craft glue and acrylic paint. The acrylic paint gives it a vibrant colour and the clay can be used to make almost anything from decorating photo frames to Christmas tree ornaments. It also air dries, making it a 1980s mummy's dream.

There are a number of ways to make bread clay but we thought we would try the cleanest way by preparing it all in plastic zip lock bags. The problem we found with this was that the glue doesn't get tacky easily, the mixture gets stuck in the corners and it seemed to take ages to form a ball. So, being an impatient bunch, we decided to do it the old fashioned way and get dirty. Mixing and kneading the dough saw much quicker results and, although LD had a moment of panic when she couldn't seem to get black goo off her hands (watch how much glue you use) it did eventually form a pretty, plasticine-like ball. 

Another thing worth mentioning is that though some suggest to add the paint after forming the ball, we actually found it easier to add the paint at the same time as the glue. The first batch we added the paint later on but we found it took a long time to work the colour through the mixture, you'd think it was done and then push down on the dough and see more white in the middle. Adding the paint with the glue removed this issue.

Making a few different colours of the dough took up the majority of our time but, as it can be stored in the fridge until you're ready to use, it will be great to jump straight in next Sunday.