Walls - favorite characters

Okay, so it is 30 minutes till the deadline for the June WALLS challenge and I wanted to add something in the form of an idea. My husband's mother is a very creative woman, and when her kids were little, one day she came up with a project for the whole family to do. It was an art project, where each member of the family participated. There are 6 kids in the family, so with the parents they altogether had eight squares made. They are made of hard cardboard, 15 inches on each side with oil base paint (as far as I can tell). As you can see, we have a thing for BATMAN.............

The pictures aren't perfect, the colors and edges don't all match,

JULY CHALLENGE

What to do? What to do? That is the question.....
I have been wrecking my brain the past couple of weeks trying to come up with a challenge for the month of July. I have been pouring over the various posts authored by various friends and this is what I have come up with.

You are all awesome, talented, extremely creative women whose work and ideas I admire and love. I am convinced there is nothing you could not do. So the challenge for you is to find something (this will be the hard part) that you have NEVER EVER DONE before, and give it an honest month's try and see how you do. Maybe something you have always stayed away from; or something you think you are not particularly good at; or something that seems like an impossible feat.
Whatever it is, find it, face it, and challenge it for a duel between yourself and the seemingly impossible completion. But make it worthwhile, cuz "nothing ventured, nothing gained"...

Walls Challenge

A last-ditch effort to participate in the challenge.

A Bold New Design

Last night I sat in front of my bead boxes with the intent of creating something with copper and turquoise. I started stringing on a spare wire, playing with round turquoise beads, large ovals, and nuggets. I tried adding crystals, or other stones. I was close to being done with the design. I held it to my wrist and I felt that the bracelet looked very familiar. I rummaged through my jewelry box, however I did not find its twin in there. Instead, I realized that a lot of my bracelets have a certain characteristic that makes them look similar. I know that's natural. We all develop our own style, whether it is sewing, scrap booking, cooking, knitting or making jewelry. As I sat there, thinking about all this, I decided to try to break out of my usual design characteristics and do something different.

What do you think? Is it a keeper?

Pin Tuck Wave Pillow

THIS POST WAS MOVED HERE

Cranberry Shortbread Bars A La Mode

Cranberries in June? You bet. I always freeze a bag or two  when they are in season and I never regret that I do. Frozen cranberries come in handy when it is hot and humid and we crave a tart, refreshing dessert. The original recipe is on the Joy of Baking site. I tweaked it. You may have noticed that I do that a lot. The original recipe proportions looked too sweet and I wanted tart. Not too tart, just tart enough that eating a spoonful of vanilla ice cream with it would make a perfect balance.

Now let's see if I can recall all the tweaking I did.

Hanging Book Display - WALL challenge

Since we are not living in our own home, I am limited to what we can do with our walls. We are also here temporary and do not want to add more work when we leave. Therefore I was not sure if I could participate in this challenge. We do have one area though, that I have been wanting to cover up a bit.

 Can you see that long line above my son's bed?

Summer kids' craft: Pom pom flowers

Yesterday was another Craft Tuesday at our house, and again I was searching for cute ideas that didn't require a special trip to the craft store.
I found this fantastic tutorial at http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2010/05/how-to_weave_a_yarn_dandelion.html and since I have yarn, forks, and paperclips on hand, we gave it a try. This was a definite winner.

Because it was so simple, my kids and their friends made numerous pom poms.

Summer kids' craft: "Absorbing Artwork"

At our house this summer, every Tuesday is crafts day. Which usually begins with lots of fun, and ends with me shooing all besplattered kids off for a movie at the end so I can think again. But I digress. Whilst searching the internets for fun ideas, I came across this article in Family Fun magazine:

Linen Shirt De-Construction

This post has been moved

>here<

Elf Cape for kids

This fits kids sizes 4-5.

I've been admiring the sweater elf dress/coats on Etsy. I don't know when I will be able to try to make one. I also have seen my daughter use an off-center skirt (longer on one side than the other) as a poncho on her shoulders. I thought about making an 'off-center' circle cape on purpose for my kids, and this is what became of it.

Here is a basic guide to make it:

The fabric I have used is about 54"wide lightweight knit. I folded the fabric so that there were 4 layers. After making the circle and cutting, I opened it an cut an 'off-center circle large enough for a neck and seam allowances.

Here is a trick for making a circle: Tie a sewing marker to the end of the cord. Measure the length of the skirt you need, allowing for waistbands, etc. from the point of the marker. Hold it at the central point (corner of double folded fabric) and carefully draw across the fabric keeping it tight and upright. It's a simple compass!

I used the extra better-looking scraps from around the circle as a hood. (I was looking a book once about medieval clothing construction one time and it suggested that the tailors used the leftovers from around the circle to make the dramatic long-pointed drop of the sleeves. Maybe they did this for their cool hood-capes.)

Make sure to sew large side to pointy side of the hood.

Fold the selvage front edge of the hood to the 'right' side, sew, and cover with lace.

Finished Hood. Yes, it looks a little tall, but that will make it look more romantic.

Cut a slit in the front to allow the head to come through along the grain of the fabric. Fold to right side and use a zigzag stitch to cover the raw edge, and to finish the middle of it. Cover with lace.

Use long stitch and make 2 rows of stitching along collar edge to gather. Gather it until it is the same length as the hood bottom. Pin with lots of pins.

HINT: Maybe everyone does this, but sew between the 2 rows of gather-stitching; it prevents as many folds being sewn down. Top stitch or trim excess if you like.

Sew lace on bottom using a zigzag or creative wide stitch, covering raw edge under lace about midway. Superfast and easy!

Grab the little kid and have them model it!

idealeon

linked up to:

A Handmade House

This post has been moved 

>here<

Playing With Dynamic Views

A couple of nights ago I stayed up too late playing around on Blogger. I happened upon Dynamic Views.  I was debating if I should write about it, but then I saw it popping up on other blogs' posts, so I figured I am not the only one who thought this was cool!
 OK, it is really simple. All you need to do is go to your favorite blog's homepage. For example Show,Tell,Share. Find the URL at the top, which should look like this : http://showtellshare.blogspot.com/  add this right after the URL view/flipcard and hit enter. This is what it should look like:

How about another view? Like Mosaic?

A quick and easy way to change views is to just hover over the current view button and choose from the drop down... (this is timeslide by the way).

I think Snapshot is my favorite:

It only works if the blog author has the right settings... I made sure it works on ours!

You want to know how to make sure you have Dynamic Views on your blog?  Just follow these steps from blogger help:

"These dynamic views will work on your blog if all of the following are true:

Your blog is public. Your readers don’t need to sign in to view your blog.

Your blog has feeds fully enabled. In the Settings | Site feed tab, you have enabled either Full or Jump Break for your Post Feed.

You have not disabled dynamic views. In the Setting | Formatting tab, the option for Enable Dynamic Views is set to Yes.

If any of the above conditions are not true, users who attempt to access dynamic views for your blog will instead be taken to a landing page and redirected to your original blog in a few seconds."

linked up to:

It's an icecream cone, nooo, it's cake!

It's been a busy season. Just about the time I got our temporary rental feeling like home , we were blessed to find a house and we got to move. My sewing/crafts are all in bins on a shelf, but none of the bins are organized. Just to find a needle and thread is a daunting task. So there hasn't been a whole lot of creativity coming from me. But my daughters, who've had way more free time than I, haven't missed a step. When our new neighbors held a potluck at a nearby park to welcome us to the neighborhood (amazing, huh? I love our neighbors), it was time to put our best foot forward. I made German potato salad and charoset to feed an army, but my daughters really stole the show with these:

Following the instructions from Bakerella here, and with Grandma's assistance (thanks mom!), They turned out beautifully! I think they're every bit as cute as Bakerella's. Everyone loved then and oohed and aahhed appropriately, and the girls were very proud of themselves. I'm proud of them too!

WALLS: Kids' gallery

I share Wendy's puzzlement with what to do with some of my walls. The kids' playroom has been a big blank slate ever since we moved into our home. After the painters left two weeks ago, one particular wall seemed even bigger and blanker.



I just happened to be going through all of the end-of-year projects the kids brought home at the same time, and remembered an idea I'd seen years ago about turning my kids' work into a gallery. I bought several cheap matching document frames, chose some of my favorite projects the kids brought home from school, and hung them up in an arrangement.

I think it fills in the space nicely, but I was unprepared for my kids' excitement at seeing their work on display. The first few days I caught them standing alone, admiring their art. One son even made a placket describing his masterpiece like he's seen in museums.

This has "motivated" them to create new masterpieces for me to display, so I plan on rotating the work displayed as new pieces are created. And after spending one long, hot week at scout camp, I'm glad to encourage an inside, air-conditioned activity for a change!

The Truth

The truth is, the projects you see from me posted on a weekly basis are usually 1 or 2 (or 4) weeks old. I always have a few draft posts going at the same time, to have a ready supply in case life gets busy. Most bloggers already do this. We all juggle many things, activities on a daily basis. But we cannot balance everything at the same time. Sometimes you have to drop a ball or 3 in order to get things done. You have to prioritize. What is more important on any given day? Laundry, dinner, clean bathrooms, work out, sweep, vacuum, dust, pick up, teach kids (I home school), Cub Scout stuff, bills to pay, errands to run, errands I want to run (trip to Hobby Lobby for example), blog, edit pictures, sew, knit, spin, cut fabric out, browse Internet....I cannot do it all. I usually pick a few and the others I have just let go. Home school is a given, I do it everyday. Cooking? Nope, every other day. Cleaning? Depends on how bad things are in which area of the house. For the last 2 weeks I did not have time for any of my hobbies. Life got busy with sick kids, Cub Scout Day camp, toddler refusing to nap and too many spilled juice cups. I managed to keep up with the house, laundry and cooking thanks to our break from home school, worked out most of the week and cooked, but I had no energy left for sewing or jewelry making.  I also used up all my draft posts. Plus I did  not clean my craft area, which is in our bedroom and I get a creative block when it is a mess.

Here is a picture of my bin where I keep all sewing projects that I need to work on. Mending, already cut out fabric, clothing waiting to be refashioned etc. And my desk. Where I am supposed to cut fabric, sew, make jewelry and so forth. This is the good angle by the way.

Even the drawers where I keep scrap fabric and notions was in a huge disarray. By Saturday night I knew I had to do something. So I spent  a couple of hours (yes, it took that long!) to clean up.

Much better. I had to go through the bin and pull out stuff I knew could wait. Like the flannel pj pants I cut out and started sewing for all the boys. Those can wait until the fall.

And my desk is cleaned, drawers organized, ready for projects. So, maybe next week, I will have a post for you. Until then, enjoy my mess, hope I made you feel better about yours :)

WALLS: Perching Birds

I saw this adorable hand crafted shelf at Maple Shade Kids and loved the look. I didn't want a shelf or a peg rack, just the owls and birds. I thought they would look cute hanging out on top of the window frame in my girls' room.

For this project I used maple wood. What I love is that it felt free, it was left over from another project of my husbands. Once I drew, traced and cut out the shapes, I sanded them nice and smooth. I used an oil based varnish (also "free") only on the edges. Once that dried I taped the edges with painters tape to protect them from my sloppy Mod Podging skills.

 The only thing I didn't have on hand was the paper, but that was ,"cheep, cheep, cheep" I had to trace the wood onto the paper, then cut them smaller, since I wanted them to purposely be smaller than the wood. (I had also rounded the edges of the wood with sandpaper.)

This is the only picture I have of the process. I was trying to decide on what paper to use for the birds. I sent this to my husband to show him what project I was working on while he was out of town. I also sent it to my sister, seeking her opinion. I had envisioned using the darker blue on the left, but was leaning towards the lighter, she agreed, except she thought they both looked green:). Using both blues came later, a choice I am very happy with.

I attached the wood birds to the wall using 3M Command poster strips. Once they were up on the wall, they actually looked lonely above that big window. That's where phase two of this project was created. I designed the branch and leaves myself. The leaves obviously are done the same: sides varnish, top mod podge paper. For now the branch is just the raw maple wood. I am trying to decide whether to just put a clear varnish on it or stain it a dark branch color. I didn't want to wait till I decided before I showed off my handiwork. "HOO" knows, I may leave it the way it is.

linked up to