Craft Gossip

The largest independent craft review site since 2007

Rowenta Focus Iron {Review & Giveaway}

by

In celebration of National Craft Month, Craft Gossip is offering its readers 2 chances to win a Rowenta Focus iron! A good iron is an essential tool for a wide variety of crafts, so I was happy to receive one of these irons to review. I use lots of fabrics, trims, and ribbons for my mixed media art, so I gathered a pile of vintage lace trim, a variety of ribbons, along with a piece of freshly laundered cotton fabric and started ironing!

The Rowenta Focus has several crafter-friendly features:

A non-auto off function that allows the iron to remain on for extended periods of time at the same temperature. This is very helpful if your project takes a little extra time or has lots of details.

An extra large water tank with a covered filling inlet: a great feature that allows for plenty of steam, while the covering prevents water from being spilled on delicate fabrics or other craft materials like paper. Best of all it uses tap water, so it’s very easy to refill!

A high precision tip that makes ironing tiny details incredibly easy.

One of my favorite features of the iron is the precision tip. It proved very effective for smoothing out even the most crumpled of my vintage trims and restoring them to their original beauty. The burst of hot steam helped remove stubborn wrinkles from cotton fabric, but there were no problems with leaking when I turned the steam feature off to iron some delicate silk ribbon. I found the Rowenta Focus to be a valuable addition to my crafting tools. For a chance to win your own iron, please visit the giveaway post on Craft Gossip for all the details. The giveaway ends March 31, 2011 so enter soon!

Read These Next

Have you read?

Hanukkah Unit Studies for Kids

Learning about Hanukkah is important for people of all faiths as a reminder that December isn’t just about Christmas and that their are many other important holidays that happen during this time. Hanukkah unit studies can give you ideas for incorporating the holiday into your holiday studies that happen in December, or to use at home for learning about people of different faiths.

Homeschool Superfreak has a lot of basic ideas for how to build a Hanukkah unit study, as well as FAQs about what Hanukkah is and why it is celebrated. This list is a good stargint point but doesn’t include all the details you’ll need. For example it says you can play the dreidel game but doesn’t explain how to do that or why it’s important. (If you need that information, this post from Mama Smiles is a good source.)

Teachers Pay Teachers has lots of great lesson plans and activities if you’re willing to pay a little bit to get some good content. Two I really like are this Hanukkah PowerPoint presentation from Shelia Melton, which provides a good overview of traditions, food and the history of Hanukkah; and a virtual field trip to Jerusalem from MagiCore, which includes lots of videos showing the city and activities like playing dreidel, drawing a menorah and making latkes. It’s a Google Drive folder and also includes writing activities and more for kids in second to fifth grade.

Kids Activities Blog has some simple printables with facts about Hanukkah and things kids can color in like a Star of David, sufganiyots (jelly doughnuts) and a menorah. These are great for learning the basics.

Homeschool Giveaways has a printable ebook about Hanukkah complete with questions kids can answer after they read. This would be a good one for older kids with good reading comprehension.

NurtureStore’s Hanukkah unit study includes a printable mini book, tons of crafts, as well as math and writing activities. I love the dominoes game that’s part of the unit.

And check out our previous posts for more Hanukkah crafts and learning activities!