Melt, Pour, & Repeat

Second Post of the Day

The blackened beeswax ornament making continues apace. There are ornaments in various stages around the house - in the kitchen, the dining room, the laundry room, and the garage.

I've never made so many at one time that I needed the dining room to hold them, but I am on a roll and hoping to get all the ornaments needed for Christmas and Kalamazoo made now rather than later.

That has required a two page spreadsheet (I have 72 molds) and a count of everything I have left from the Feast.

I found the 7 fleur de lis (bottom left) and the baby bear (top right) as I unpacked from the Feast - they'd never gotten put out in my tent. Including those, the total left in stock was 33 ornaments.

I've made a count of them and added them to a fresh spreadsheet, and then added the amount of ornaments from each mold that I want to make.

That included the Christmas ornaments I needed to complete before Thanksgiving for my grands, their parents, and other family members.

When those ornaments were finished, I logged them into the spreadsheet, washed the molds, and set them on racks to dry before putting them away.

The family gift ornaments are all completed, wrapped, and ready to be packed up and mailed. 

Unfortunately for me, the weather here finally got cold - it is below freezing this morning. I spray a sealer on the ornaments when they are finished and that step is always done on a covered table in the garage. If the garage gets below 55, then I cannot do the final step.

The garage is well insulated and even on the coldest days of winter, our garage never gets below freezing. But, when the garage door is opened as happens several times a day, it will drop below 55 degrees, the lowest temperature recommended for the sealer that I use. 

As I prepared to head to the hardware store to get an outdoor thermometer to monitor the garage's temp, Craig offered to go do that so I could keep working. (Thanks, Craig!) 

Thus far the garage temp hasn't dipped below 60 degrees so I have been able to continue to work.

I do that step in batches as the ornaments are finished one side at a time. These are nearly done and ready to come back in the house and be logged and put away,

and these are waiting to go out to the garage for the final step.

Thus far I have made 149 new ornaments, 29 of which are set aside for the family and leaving 120 for Kalamazoo.

Midweek I ran out of beeswax and had to order another 5 lb bag. It arrived last night, so today I will be back in the kitchen pouring more ornaments.

There are 37 molds that I have not yet used for this pouring, but I have them on my spreadsheet and know how many of each that I need to make.

It's going to be a busy day.

Stay 'tooned! 

A Pour & Pop Marathon

By 10:00 yesterday morning, my back had calmed down (again) and I decided I would go ahead and make the beeswax ornaments as I'd intended.

It's a big undertaking, one that takes over the entire kitchen. I get the wax started melting, and then pull out the molds I plan to begin with.

And when that's done, I wait for the beeswax to be fully melted and ready to pour.

That's a good time to cut and tie the thread hangers.

Accompanied by my best girl, as always. Who is lying right next to my chair, making it difficult to get over to the island where the ornaments are actually created.

Almost ready to pour. That round, lighter orange disk is unmelted beeswax at the bottom of the melting bowl.

Soon things are happening quickly. While a new batch of beeswax pellets begins melting, the previous one has cooled enough so that it's time to pop the ornaments out of their molds and blacken them with beeswax.

I generally pour 7 - 8 ornaments per each melted batch.

By the time I have blackened a batch, the beeswax is melted and ready to pour. And thus begins a cycle of pour and pop. Or pop and pour depending on where I am in that cycle! LOL

Usually I pour and pop for three hours or so and then stop for the day, but with the Feast only three weeks away and my back being iffy, I decided to go until I'd made all that I'd planned to make to ensure that I had a good selection for the Feast.

I worked until 5:30 and then was still pouring and popping a few throughout dinner.

I was exhausted when I finished but the pour and pop marathon was worth it. I have 65 new ornaments completed for a total of 166 blackened beeswax ornaments to take to the Feast of the Hunters' Moon.

Checking that project off my Feast to-do list felt good!

Stay 'tooned!

Derailed!

 Second Post of the Day

It's October and just three weeks from today, I'll be out at Fort Ouiatenon and speaking to the children at School Day about horses in the 18th century.

One part of me feels like a kid waiting for Christmas ("It'll never get here!") while the other part of me is wishing the clock would slow down. ("The Feast is three weeks away?! Nooooo!")

I'm nearly ready, and honestly, if the Feast were tomorrow, I could set up, sell, and be fine. But still, there are some things I'd like to complete.

Today's plan was to make the first batch of blackened beeswax ornaments but that's on hold at the moment. 

Yesterday, I had just hung this newly completed petticoat on the mannequin and turned to grab my phone to take pictures, when the muscles in my back began spasming.

Out of the blue, no warning, no idea why. I spent the rest of the day on a heating pad and taking painkillers.

This morning I felt normal and was pain free when I got up at 5:15. I let Pepper out (Tammo prefers to sleep in) and when we came back into the house, my back suddenly seized up again. Badly. More pain killers, more time on the heating pad, and a late breakfast for Pepper. (Meanwhile, Tammo continued to sleep on, even as I write. He hasn't poked his head out of the covers yet. But then, neither has Craig. LOL)

It's only 7 AM and I am able to sit here at the computer and write. I am hoping to get into the kitchen and make a batch of ornaments later today. Currently I have 101 ornaments made and ready to go. (Like I said, I could set up and be ready to go.)

But I am completely out of the cardinals, my best seller, and very low on other favorites. And if you won one of the Highland Cow ornaments in the Give Away last Spring, I haven't forgotten about you. Making those are high on my priority list.

The spasms are still present but I am feeling better. I am going to lie down again and hope for the best for later today. Wish me luck and stay 'tooned.

A Christmas Tradition at Thanksgiving!

 First Post of the Day

This weekend I did some Christmas prep. I like to give ornaments I've made to family and friends. They might be embroidered, they might be beeswax, or they might even be sewn. It doesn't matter - it's a family tradition that goes back to when my mom began giving my kids an ornament every Christmas.

Her goal was that, when they became adults and left home, her grandchildren would have a "starter set" of ornaments that already were a familiar part of home and past Christmases to hang on their own Christmas trees. She succeeded beyond her wildest dreams, and as their mama, I love to see her ornaments on their trees, too.

My mother gave her ornaments out on Christmas Day, but every year when I took down the tree, I felt sad that my kids would have to wait a whole year to see their new ornament hanging on it.

So, I tweaked the tradition; I give my grands and kids their ornaments at Thanksgiving if we are together, or the first week of December if they have to be mailed. (With a note, "Open now!" on them.)

I also give ornaments to my siblings and their families on Thanksgiving, too. All in all, I hand out 35 ornaments each year.

When I began making beeswax ornaments, the goal was to sell them at events. Then I realized that they would be a unique and very unusual gift for family members.

Knowing how wonderful it is to see my kids' ornaments from my mother on their trees, I am excited to know that, long after I am gone, my kids and grands will have ornaments from me hanging on their own trees.

Maybe my kids will look at their adult children's trees and see my ornaments. A smile, maybe a tear, but most certainly, a flood of happy memories.

Busy as a Bee(swax)

Making blackened beeswax ornaments is not a difficult process, but it is complicated and takes time.  

Time to heat the beeswax (using pelleted beeswax instead of block beeswax speeds up the melting process),

time to measure, cut, and tie the strings for the hangers,

 and time to prepare the molds for the hot beeswax. 

Once that's all done, the actual process proceeds quickly.

I pour a batch, replenish the pellets in the double boiler and begin melting those, prep some new molds, and then pop the just-poured batch of ornaments out of their molds and dust them with cinnamon.

I set them onto paper plates for cooling, and by the time all that is done, the next batch of beeswax is fully melted and ready to be poured. I repeat this process over and over until I am satisfied I have made enough for the next event.

Once in a while I do run into a problem. Long molds can be tricky - the ornaments sometimes break when I am removing them from their molds.

And since I unmold the ornaments over a pan of cinnamon, then their wax is contaminated and cannot be reused. (I often pour ornaments and things that I do not plan to blacken, so my wax has to remain pure and not have cinnamon or other impurities in it.)

These beeswax hearts are an example of something that I do not blacken. Used for waxing thread by sewists, you sure don't want cinnamon on them.

I got some new molds for Christmas that I had been looking forward to using.

The Madonna and Child is beautiful! 

And this unusual design is really nice, too. (I'm not sure what it is, but I like it!)

Soon the plates of cooling ornaments begin stacking up on my counters.

Plates one and two.

Plates three and four.

Plates five and six.

Plates seven and eight.

The unmolded sewing cakes.

After four hours, I stopped. My body was reminding me that I am still healing and enough was enough. I'd made fifty ornaments and with what I still had in my inventory, that should be enough for Kalamazoo.

I turned off the hot plate, laid down on the couch (Pepper cuddled against my legs), and fell asleep for an hour!

The ornaments aren't done yet, though. Today I will put several coats of sealer on them, let that dry overnight tonight, and then I will pack them up tomorrow in preparation for KZoo.

I also have to put the kitchen to rights - wiping down all the counters as the cinnamon often drifts when I dust the ornaments, washing and air drying the molds, and cleaning out the double boiler pot. (Always a messy job.) 

Tired as I was, we never did get to Dog N Suds. We ate leftovers and then I fell into bed early.

Still, I am pleased that, despite not even being two weeks post op from a very major surgery, I got so much done, more than I thought I would, and the next morning (now) I am feeling good. Clearly my body is healing and I am grateful.

 

Making Blackened Beeswax Ornaments

First Post of the Day

Yesterday, Lisa brought her dogs over for the day, something she does a couple times a week. We love having them here and Tammo gets especially excited; his best buddy is Nash. Playtime! Whoo hoo! (Pepper will play with him, but she plays much more sedately than Nash.)

Craig usually cooks himself eggs for breakfast, and the dogs know that he can be counted on to fix them an egg, too, when they are visiting.

Sometimes the wait for egg-time is hard, and his entourage follows him everywhere.

The wait is always worth it, though.

Yesterday I was waiting, too. I'd decided to take a break from sewing and make blackened beeswax ornaments for the Feast. I take up most of the kitchen to do so, and I want to have 100 to take to Feast (they sell really well) so it was going to be an all day project.

So, after everyone had had their egg-time and the dishes were cleared away, I got set up in the kitchen and started melting beeswax for pouring.

I use pelleted, triple cleaned beeswax and melt two cups at a time in a double boiler on a hot plate.

While the wax is melting, I get the rest of the project set up.

I pull out the molds I plan to use and cut and tie brown string for hangers. I clip these in place using fabric clips.

Then I prepare a pie plate of cinnamon for blackening, paper plates for cooling finished ornaments, set out a face mask, and put everything on wax or parchment paper. (I learned long ago that wax cools quickly and has to be scraped off with a knife if it gets on my countertops.)

The first melting always takes the longest because the water in the double boiler must heat up first in order to melt the wax. Once that water is hot, though, the wax melts quickly and there is little delay between each pouring.

Poured and cooling ornaments almost ready to remove from their molds. That's cinnamon on the molds - after I blacken the ornaments, my hands get dusted, too! (I wear a mask so I don't inhale the cinnamon.)

I repeat the process over and over - generally I can only make 5 - 6 ornaments at a time, depending on the size of the ornament.

As you might imagine, my kitchen and house soon smell like mingled beeswax and cinnamon. Heavenly!

I ended up adding a second pie plate of cinnamon as the ornaments were cooling quickly and needed to be unmolded and dusted quickly.

Six hours later, I had gotten 61 made. I'll spray them with sealer today and let that set, then make more on Friday.