Lark Crafts

I LOVE the idea of gingerbread houses, but I don’t really like the reality of rolling out stiff dough, dealing with a flour-covered kitchen or cursing at crumbling soft gingerbread walls. So as I was sharing these thoughts with my best friend, Tera, she said, “You should make a pretzel log home! It looks really cool and you’d just stack the pretzels and use graham crackers as the roof!” Tera’s so smart. Everyone should have a go-to friend like her. (She made my red velvet wedding cake, too.) Anyway, she forwarded me a recipe online that I used, and I’ll share my experiences in case you want to try this recipe.

First off, this is a PERFECT recipe to make with friends and/or family as a weekend project. The recipe says it’ll take you an hour and 40 minutes. Yeah. If you’re Martha Stewart or have some sort of crazy cake show on the Discovery Channel it might. So dedicate a weekend to this since time is spent waiting on parts of the pretzel house to dry.

1. INGREDIENT TIME: Basically, I bought a big tub of pretzel rods (for the walls), a package of vanilla and chocolate wafers (for the doors and windows) and a box of graham crackers (for the roof)  at Aldi (it’s cheaper for this stuff). Then at the regular grocery store I got 2 small packages of Meringue Mix (each has about 6 tablespoons) you can find near the spices. I already had the green food coloring and powdered sugar. This is important: Buy enough for TWO BATCHES of icing (12 cups of powered sugar)- the online recipe doesn’t make enough for gluing and decorating. (Then you can buy whatever candies you want to decorate with- pecans for shingles or peppermints, etc.)

2. GET MESSY: First, you’re going to make a mess making the icing. (Make one batch at a time- two total) But it makes the PERFECT glue. Mix it first with a spoon to wet the powdered sugar and meringue mix. When you’re done, keep a wet paper towel over the icing bowl when you’re not working with it. (it’ll dry out otherwise). The recipe is confusing about how to stack the pretzel rods: make the first square of the walls flush against the ground (aluminum-covered foil) with one of the ends of each pretzel rod jutting-out a 1/2-inch and the other end pushed against the other pretzel. Then ALTERNATE the rods so the ends LOOK like a Lincoln-log cabin. Use the pictures for reference.
-I used my fingers to apply the icing between the pretzels because applying it with an icing bag was actually TOO messy. Also, once you glue together your graham cracker pieces together and ice them, WAIT so they harden together before trying to move them to place them on top of the cabin. And when you do, use cans or corn starch boxes to prop up the roof before it dries.

3. DECORATE IT! This is the fun part. Get a small icing tip or cut the corner of a plastic bag and fill with icing to pipe icicles off the roof and to make trees, use sugar cones, turn them upside-down and pipe green icing onto them. (I bought the peppermint tree at Aldi.) For “snow”- I just sprinkled powdered sugar over the whole deal.

4. SHOW IT OFF! I was really lucky to have nothing break or fall during the construction, so I took many pictures of my cabin before it gets picked-at/eaten. (I even eventually added 2 figurines I coated in chocolate to the front porch of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler.)

If you want to try this or have any questions, post a comment and I’ll try to help! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Halloween is almost here so bring out the scary! Halloween is my favorite holiday, and Asheville is home to some great events to celebrate, the best of which (in my humble opinion, anyway) is the Asheville Zombie Walk through the streets of downtown.

A group of friends and coworkers decided we just had to join the shamble. First up, visiting the local thrift stores for that perfect outfit to destroy and cover in fake blood. Some of our finds included a bridesmaid dress, a whole bin of golf clubs, and a great bathrobe covered in teddy bears. We then met up at Lark to zombify ourselves using makeup, fake blood, bandages, and my secret ingredient: gelatin. Gelatin is great for making homemade zombie inflicted wounds. Continue reading to find out how…

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I found this hilarious video posted on KCRW’s Good Food website/blog. This has been circulating here at Lark this week—lots of mirthful, shrieking, devious, laughter up and down the halls. (Great insight into this group’s brand of humor.)

Here is where I get to tout Good Food with Evan Kleiman. It’s a radio show from KCRW in Santa Monica. They podcast the shows on their site or you can subscribe via iTunes (and there’s now a KCRW & Good Food App). The show is a weekly news magazine on seasonal foods (seasonal to LA, enviable and fascinating for an east coaster like me), sustainability, cooking, dining, along with bites of food history, trivia, and antics. My best resource to keep up with the emerging food trends.

One last thing. Evan has taken on a near Herculean challenge to post a Pie-A-Day, both sweet and savory. Yummy inspiration/temptation every day!

Check out KCRW’s Good Food after the vid

This interview was created by Kathy Sheldon, the development editor of Craft Hope: Handmade Crafts for a Cause.

A year and a half ago, I was tooling around on the Internet, half goofing off from my then-job as managing editor at Lark Crafts and half hunting for book ideas. I wanted to do a book that offered both beautiful craft projects and a way to make a difference in the world, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to do it. I googled “craft” and “charity,” probably for the 20^th time in months, and this time I landed on the recently launched Craft Hope site. As soon as I saw the Craft Hope logo, I knew I loved the aesthetics of Jade Sims, the site’s creator. Part way into her description of the first project—sewing pillowcase dresses and bandana shorts for a children’s shelter in Mexico—I knew I loved Craft Hope and had found my author. What I didn’t know was that I’d also find a friend.

With lots of help from Lark Assistant Editor Beth Sweet, Jade and I spent the next nine months reaching out to designers, contacting charities, gathering and photographing projects, editing instructions, checking illustrations, marking up layouts, figuring out the legalities of having our publisher donate one dollar to Global Impact every time we sold a book (turns out giving away money is complicated), and generally making a book—in about half the normal time! Meanwhile, I was in the process of leaving Lark to start a new life in Charleston, SC, and Jade was in Texas, raising her two young children, having a third baby, keeping up her chikaustin.com blog, and processing the hundreds and sometimes even thousands of cloth dolls, baby blankets, sock monkeys, knit scarves, quilts, etc., that poured in for Craft Hope. After countless phone calls and emails, we finally got to meet in person this summer, when Jade, her husband, and three kids came to Charleston for some well-deserved beach time.

Jade, how did you get started blogging?

I’ve been blogging on chikaustin since October, 2006—so for almost four years. In my past life I was a teacher, but now I was a stay-at-home mom. I started blogging as a way to connect with other mamas. What I found was an incredible community of women, some mothers and some not, that quickly became friends. I also wanted a good way to document the day in and day out of life with my kids.

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A series of seasonal market recipes
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Beets are the most beautiful vegetable on earth, I think. When in the company of beets I think of what Tom Robbins said in Jitterbug Perfume: “The beet is the most intense of vegetables.” In that book a mysterious and sexy quest culminated with beets. In my own quest for the sexiest salad ingredient, Beets command my undying devotion.

This salad is a simple as can be. It’s the other recipe I make for covered dish dinners when I don’t make my Cucumber Wasabi Soup. This intensely colorful salad, using perfume terminology, is a graceful blend of zesty top notes, sweet middle notes, and savory base notes. I serve it with grilled or poached salmon, along side yellow corn on the cob, for the most colorful, perfectly blended summer meal that can be assembled on a plate.

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Congratulations to Sue of Doral, Florida, for winning our fourth and final week’s sweepstakes prize: 15 of Lark’s latest and greatest craft titles! Sue commented on our new Lark Crafts site, and her name was drawn at random from the list of everyone who had commented so far.

We wanted to hear from Sue about her crafting/creative endeavors and WOW, she’s a creative dynamo! Here are her responses to our questions:

Lark:  How do you like to spend your creative time?

Sue: I’m currently a student at Florida International University majoring in sculpture, so some of my creative time is spent doing assignments for drawing and sculpture classes. I love to work with the wood shop machines, to carve stone, and to shape metal. At home I work on jewelry, glass casting, knitting, and needlepoint.

Lark:  Where do you find inspiration in your life?

Sue:  All you have to do in South Florida for inspiration is walk outside and look at the wonderful birds, trees, flowers, fish, etc. that we have here.

Lark:  Now that the long, sunny days of summer are here, do you have a creative to-do list that you’re working on?

Sue:  I’m finishing a wood and metal sculpture from last semester, finishing my first designed-by-me needlepoint, working on needle felting (to use for next semester’s sculptures), casting glass jewelry parts, knitting a pair of socks, reorganizing the art room, making a Christmas ornament from a kit that I bought about 15 years ago, and sketching ideas for new pieces.

Read about the other winners of our sweepstakes:

Sweepstakes Winner Week #3: Bonnie!

Sweepstakes Winner Week #2: Lynn!

Sweepstakes Winner Week #1: Debbie!

A series of seasonal market recipes
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This weekend at your local market you will experience a crescendo of cucumbers. It’s their time and they will be abundant. Cucumbers are the flavor of summer. They taste cool and green and shady. And they satisfy both thirst and hunger. In our house, when it’s really hot, the kitchen flag flies at half mast and we’re only “cooking” cold food, so cucumbers get eaten every day in some way, shape, or liquidy form—cucumber salad, cucumber sandwiches, quick-pickled cukes, cucumber martinis, grilled veggies with cucumber dressing, cucumbers stuffed with pimento cheese, and in our favorite summer concoction, Cucumber Wasabi Soup. Which is one of the best things I make, I’m told.

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One of my favorite things about social networking is that it not only affords us the opportunity to be inspired by people worldwide whom we might not have ever crossed paths with otherwise, but also allows us to directly connect with them.   Such was the case with how I (virtually) met Canadian multi-media artist, Joan Rzadkiewicz.

While perusing Flickr one day, Joan found me asked if she could use one of my photos in her next installment. Although in hindsight I’m not really sure she needed me (she could’ve easily manipulated an unpainted light), I am thrilled and honored to have been a small part of what is truly a fantastic work!

Joan says, ” It was necessary to find the right objects to bring into each composition. As well as using borrowed images, I was photographing all kinds of things at home. I couldn’t always find what I wanted so it was sometimes necessary to drastically modify or construct entire objects from flat textures so I could get the right material quality, shape and angle. ”

A little background: the picture of mine she inquired about is of a chandelier I painted last year for an I Love to Create article. I’d been looking for a cool light-fixture for my the, unborn daughter. After being underwhelmed by the choices out there however, I decided to just funkify a boring one with a little paint. But I digress.

Ladies & gentlemen, may I present Joan’s digital composition series: Calling Planet Earth! Look closely my friends, to fully explore the dioramic worlds she’s created using found photo’s set inside re-imagined, television skeletons.

“Television, as it has been known for so many decades, is undergoing some change, merging into dynamic networks of technology, no longer confined to a single piece of furniture. I found myself looking at an old television set and for the first time began to realize the nostalgic side of this object that has been long associated with the push to the future. Recalling how young children sometimes thought that there were real people and places inside their home TV, it seemed like an interesting project to actually set up a little microcosm inside a television.”

Interesting Joan, indeed.  Your work is amazing!

Craft.Rock.Love,
Vickie