Stale Coffee + Melty Crayons

+ those teeny canning jars that jelly comes in and that are too small to reuse for anything useful =

COFFEE CANDLES! HOORAY! (btw- do I say ‘hooray’ too much, do you think?  hmmm…) Anyway.

I ground up my stale coffee, poured some in the bottom of a jar, & used it to stabilize the wick.

It's very scientific. I used about *that* much.

Then, because I am so crafty and full of awesome, I melted down some icky crayon bits I forgot to take out of my trunk during that heat spell we had a bit ago and poured them into the jar. I am so smart!

Some of the coffee grinds floated to the top. Groovy.

It's a green candle! (see what I did there?)

And… VOILA! A coffee scented candle! Hoor…uhm… I mean… Yeah, it was okay.

I had some stale coffee left, so I just put it into another one of the jars and hid it under the shoe rack by our front door.  It’s really nice to smell something other than feet when you get home. =)

How do you use up stale coffee?

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Stained Glass Awesome

*whew*  I made it back to Crochetlandia.

I also worked up this awesome stash buster, which started like this:

 

NO SUCH THING AS TOO MANY GRANNY SQUARES!

And ended up looking rather like a stained glass window:

 

Groovy, man.

I love how patchworky and rustic it looks… I think the fuzzy dark blue yarn (left over from my granny sweater, dontcha know) really adds to the effect. I don’t usually like things with this many different colors, but for some reason I really like this combination.

Anyway, it’s not big enough to be a blanket, but the only color I’ve got left is the dark blue.   Maybe it’ll be the front of a pillow or something.  We’ll see.  In the meanwhile, Nina thinks it’s the perfect size for her.    =)

 

Smells like a nap to me!

 

Free Pattern Friday: Bar Stool Cover

I’ve had this stool since…mmm… high school, maybe:

See that water stain?  Doesn’t it just accent the ugly 70s faux-leather perfectly?  I also had a stash of several balls of partially used yarn – not enough to actually make anything, but just enough that I felt bad tossing them.

 

Something had to be done.

 

Soooo, I channeled my inner Lucy (the mastermind behind the color explosions over at Attic 24), and came up with this:

Pretty Groovy, eh?

 

You’ll need the following stitches:

Double crochet, double crochet increase, double crochet decrease, back post double crochet

Here’s the pattern:

1: Using a J-sized hook, ch4. sl st to form a ring.

2: ch3 (counts as 1st dc), dc 11 times into ring (12 total).

3: dc inc around

4: (dc, dc inc) around

5: (2dc, dc inc) around

6: (3dc, dc inc) around

7: (4dc, dc inc) around

8: (5dc, dc inc) around

9: (6dc, dc inc) around

10: (7dc, dc inc) around

11: (8dc, dc inc) around

12: BPDC around, SLST TO JOIN ROUND.

13: dc around, sl st to join.

14: (8dc, dc dec) around, sl st to join.

15: (7dc, dc dec) around, sl st to join.

16: (6dc, dc dec) around, sl st to join.

17: (5dc, dc dec) around, sl st to join, FO.

 

An appropriate pattern for a New Year’s Eve post?  You betcha!  Be safe this weekend, friends.  })i({