Bubble, bubble, no toil, no trouble - how to make your own bubble solution

We are going through a lot of bubble solution in our house and thought there must be a better way to keep a good supply than buying tiny bottles for between 2 and 5 dollars each that are simply poured on the ground by little hands. After an easy web search turns out there are easy ways to keep ourselves in soapy film at what looks like cents per gallon. A great selection of recipes is on an online shrine to bubble blowing devices and machines.  Here is a distillation of them.

All involve water, dishsoap, and either glycerin, cornsyrup, or sugar. Glycerin is the more popular choice but I guess the others serve the same purpose of extending the life of the water layer. For more on the science of bubbles click here.

Dawn and Joy seem to be the leading brands.  Looks like you can’t go wrong with these recipes.

2/3 cup Joy dishwashing soap
1 gallon water
2 to 3 tablespoons of glycerin

1/2 cup of dishwashing liquid (Dawn or Joy)
2 cups of water
2 teaspoons of sugar

For hardcore bubbling, the kind you might do dressed in tie-dye at a festival or get paid to do, you should check out a link to Big Bubble Magic for variations and adjustments for climate variations. They have a recipe for one with beer.  If you do master this contact us and perhaps we will hire you for a party. I say perhaps because these people seem to also be the type who would have bumper stickers that say “Big Bubblers for those that have discovered that size does matter” and we just don’t have room in our garden for your unicycle too.

There is also a lot of advice on making your own bubble wands and bubble makers.

• use pipe cleaners bent into interesting shapes
• cookie cutters
• yogurt lids with the centers cut out
• tin cans with the top and bottom cut off and edges smoothed
  
• For giant bubbles a string and a dowel. Instructions here.
  

Dutailier Glider makeover

Not much to say about this one in terms of instructions. A very ugly, though admittedly comfortable chair, was the focus of much disagreement in our household. Throw it out or keep it. Finally Bryony recovered it with fabric from Ikea and it is now a really welcome piece of furniture. Willa likes to sit in it and rock back and forth as well as lie on the ottoman. The new fabric sits like a slipcover over the original with new velcro strips to hold things in place, and we got rid of the padded armrest/pocket things.

Appliqués aren’t just to cover holes

So I’m here to talk to you about appliqué. And when I say appliqué, I’m talking about iron-ons. And when I say iron-ons, I don’t mean those denim squares with round corners that you or your mom may or may not have used to patch the knees of your jeans. If you’re even that old. But anyway. What I’m going for is not that, but a totally new, now, updated, customized version of the iron-on of yore, which far cooler while sacrificing little in simplicity.

The basic concept is this:

• Identify an item you would like to adorn, patch, cover a stain on, or otherwise modify.

• Pick some fabric that would complement it.

• Cut a shape out of the fabric.

• Use Fray-Check to seal the edges. This stuff is great –as the name would suggest, it keeps stuff from fraying.

• Cut iron-on stuff in the same exact shape.

• Follow instructions to iron the fabric on to your item.

Some thoughts about fabric and patterns:

You can find a pattern with large and interesting shapes and let the pattern define the shape you will cut. This circle pattern on the t-shirt for Willa at the top of the page, is from an old Ikea apron

You can cut whatever shape you like from a smaller, more overall pattern. For the bag, I picked a fairly simple lozenge shape, but I know you can do better.

You can use a solid fabric, so it’s really all about the shape. I’m thinking about trying a pillow cover with something like a damask cut-out.

A few technical pointers:

The iron on stuff you use makes a difference.

• Pellon Wonder Under (really!) is lightweight but needs high heat to set properly. Not good for synthetics.

• Heat n Bond is super heavyweight and durable, and can be done at lower heat, but it gets stiff. You also can’t sew on it after you fuse it.

• Steam a Seam Lite seems to have it all: lightweight, fairly durable, and doesn’t need high heat. You can sew on it too, if you’re not lazy like me!

And a bonus question:

What should I iron on to my olive green coat to cover up the hideous North Face logos on front and back? Criteria: subtle, durable, unlikely to show dirt easily. Any suggested fabrics, shapes, or general style concepts are welcome.