Sarah Jane's Craft Blog

Earlier this month we went camping for a week. Every time we go camping, we try to cook something new or unique. A couple years ago we had some success with campfire quesoritos (a burrito quesadilla hybrid cooked on the grill) and a few years ago we tried out campfire eclairs . This year's wildcard was loaded french fries cooked with onions, cheese, and bacon and cooked over a campfire. You'll need: a tin foil pan  (I got a pack of 3 at the local grocery store for 99 cents--just make sure it doesn't have a nonstick coating or any plastic bits since it will be over flames) vegetable oil (or canola or peanut oil--anything that can handle the high heat) frozen fries bacon bits  chopped onions  your favorite shredded cheese (I used cheddar) long handled tongs and turner/spatula a pointed knife or skewer optional: fire gloves  (these are really helpful when cooking over a fire) I didn't include exact quantities because I didn't measur

Earlier this month, we spent a week at Backbone State Park . We had a great time. It's probably one of the largest and most interesting Iowa State Parks that we've stayed at so far. It has rocky outcroppings, a river, a lake, a freshwater spring, a cave, lots of hiking, historical buildings, and even rock climbing and trout fishing. I look forward to staying there again. Our camping excursion gave me the perfect excuse to test out our new campfire starters  that I made a couple weeks ago. We had three types of fire starters (all made by filling cardboard egg carton s and then pouring wax over): colored pencil shavings (top left), pistachio shells (bottom left), and dryer lint (bottom right). We set them up on some flat-ish logs and set about time testing them. We had already used all three fire starters with success during our camping trip. They all work great! So we had to test them...you know...for science! All three lit easily and created large flames tha

This project all started with a Scrabble board. I went to the Goodwill Outlet earlier this year (if you've never been to one, it's rows and rows of bins with stuff that didn't sell at regular Goodwills dumped in...you have to dig through them to pluck out the good stuff) and picked up a really nice Scrabble board. It was one of the ones with the raised edges to hold the tiles and a turntable underneath so it can face each player. Of course the catch was that the rest of the game was no where to be found. There's a pretty decent resell market for Scrabble tiles for crafters and scrapbookers, so they usually go pretty quickly. Between that and the fact that it takes a miracle to find a board game intact at the Outlet (pieces usually get strewn about very quickly), I wasn't terribly surprised to find just the board. On the upside, I had already thrifted like 3 or 4 sets of Scrabble (for crafting) and knew I had at least one complete set of tiles and severa

It's that time of the year again. The time where I begin to prepare for a season of camping and fires in the backyard fire pit. Each year I try to experiment and expand and perfect the process of making homemade fire starters . Last year I made my original dryer lint fire starters (which are a tried and true standby), but I also made some fire starters by putting pencil shavings (colored pencils to be exact) in paper cups (and then covering in wax). There were some flaws in the design. It was hard to get them lit--but once they were lit, they burned forever. So this year, I decided to use the good old egg carton method (it catches fire easily and you just break off a chunk to light). I didn't have a ton of pencil shavings, so I used a half carton (I bought 6 eggs this way at the grocery store). Of course the end of the carton wasn't closed, so there was some drippage. I usually cover half of my stove top with parchment or wax paper and heat up my wax on the oth