Everyone was really excited to start off our craft day with some glass etching. Everyone planned out a wonderful project and they all turned out perfectly :) One of the most straight forward ways to get started is to find a rub-on pattern from the glass etching section of your local craft store. Using this technique, Ina made a beautiful suncatcher of falling leaves, Lorene added delicate butterflies to an elegant mirrored coat rack, Kathleen created a matching set of imposing votives with bear motifs and I decorated an oil and vinegar bottle with lacy ferns. Etching can also be very flexible for those who would like to create their own designs (as long as the designs are not too detailed- this is due mainly to the difficulty of cutting out the design). All you need is a pen or heavy pencil to trace out the design on some rubber shelving paper. To ensure that the sticky side is protected, just roll out as much of the paper as needed and lay the sticky side on a piece of waxed paper. Following this method Maleeha embellished a beveled mirror with cascading ivy from a stencil patter and Kristen created a ring of fish around one of her husbands beautiful green bottles.
Meanwhile, while we were all enjoying our craft day, there were three attempts to make taffy. We endeavored to create an old fashioned taffy pull utilizing new technology- mainly the microwave :) I had this memory when I was a little girl that I had made taffy with my Mom and friend Tarra. The most difficult part seems to be the heat of the taffy- after our first attempt, we learned it was important to start pulling the taffy while it was still hot. Well, our hands couldn't handle the heat so our first attempt ended in a rock hard brown glob of sugar. Mark, not to be discouraged, remelted the mass in the microwave and started pulling... and we started to see the infamous glistening strands of taffy... as the heat became too much I donned my heavy William-Sonoma cleaning gloves and pulled with all my might... everything seemed to be going so smoothly... then I got distracted... we ended up with a beautiful mass of hard candy (which turned out to be a wonderful treat for all).
The second attempt was using cream to create a creamy vanilla taffy. Ina and Kristen were very helpful in this endeavor, but unfortunately, right at the end, the whole mass turned deep brown. When we poured it out on the table and started to work the creamy sugar, the mass broke up into small clusters... but tasted great. This time the rest was used to garnish a delicious apple topping for pancakes the next morning :) Fortunately, taffy seems to have a variety of uses even when everything doesn't work out as you expected.
