Saturday, January 10, 2015

Crafternoons #1: Sushi Candles

A lot of my regulars have aged out of library life this year--once they get cars and jobs they stop by and say hey once in a while but are mostly busy doing other things.   That means this year will be a year of finding NEW regulars.  My fall lineup of programs is focused on things that will appeal to the middle school crowd.  One thing I just started is a series of "crafternoons", a once-a-month program with a different craft each time.  I do not anticipate a large turnout for these, but another focus for me this year is remembering that small programs are successes too. 

I used these instructions: http://www.instructables.com/id/Beeswax-Sushi-Candles/

For my materials, I purchased all of the beeswax on amazon.  I got two large boxes of white and green, because I figured those would get the most use, and then a smaller box of assorted colors.

http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Own-Candle-Kit/dp/B004Q0JCXG/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1420907672&sr=8-2-fkmr1&keywords=white+beeswax+sheet+candles

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004QW0ID2/ref=od_aui_detailpages01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001N05ZLU/ref=od_aui_detailpages04?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This is a LOT of supplies, I'll be able to do this craft more than once, for sure.  I plan to take whatever is left from the crafternoon to the next meeting of the Anime Club. 

I tried the California Roll first.  There's no way i'm giving teens kitchen knives, so I used regular scissors to cut the wax and it works just fine.  Also, I didn't bother with a blowdryer, I just held the wax in my hands and breathed on it a little to make it a bit more pliable and that seems to have worked fine.

I cut strips of pink and white...
and smooshed them together for the...crab? I don't eat sushi.

To make the cucumber...
I rolled up a bit of white
Smooshed it down into a sort of wedge shape, and then put a bit of green on the wider end of the wedge.  Pretty good! Later cucumber bits looked a little better.
Some crab and a couple of cucumbers were smooshed together wish a wick in the middle, then wrapped in green (nori) and white (rice!).  I later added another layer of white to make it a bit thicker.  Not bad!  It looks much better than the few times I've tried rolling actual sushi!
I made a couple of other simple rolls. The tuna is just some red rolled up, the other one is some leftover pink (mystery fish!) with carrot, cucumber, and avocado.  Once I got in the groove it was pretty easy to make these!  I'm going to take one home tonight to burn to see how that goes.

At this moment I only have one teen signed up, but she's my favorite teen so even if it's just her, me, and the new intern we'll have a great time.










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