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Anything but not everything

I saw a poster on Pinterest that said

"You can do anything but you can't do everything."

So true.

Crafting, reading, exercising, keeping up with friends, cooking, working or, you know, parenting. Options abound but there isn't time for all of them. This month seems to be dominated by dishwashing (apparently we failed in our attempt to fix our dishwasher), reading (Blackout and now All Clear by Connie Willis) and planning/thinking without a lot of doing. 

The only exception seemed to be yesterday when I actually got something done (along with the dishes). A good 10 years after my mom gave me an album to keep all our annual holiday cards/letters I finally started using it.

For the 2011 page I took an idea from Ali Edwards and punched squares out of all the cards we received to make a collage.

This was the perfect solution to my inability to throw away received cards but my lack of desire to store  said cards for decades.

It was kind of a kick to look back on old letters (those I could find anyway)

And to rediscover the card I made in 2003 when I decided to try linoleum printing with an overly complicated design.

This should be any easy album to keep up and it's nice to have that easy project checked off the list.

Now I'm going back to my book. Maybe I'll turn some of the ideas into projects in February.

Musician

Because he's mastered the wooden spoons and pots he's moved on to real baby instruments.

Pretty talented, eh? Super cozy blanket and the pink and blue bell both courtesy of my friend Kristy. Parents drum set was given to Biscuit by my mom. I'm glad I kept it around.

These videos taken on my iPhone are sort of comically tall and skinny. Oh well.

Fruit on the bottom

In case your lunchboxes are in a midwinter slump this is a fun addition:

Freezer jam container, frozen mixed berries, plain yogurt

Fruit, then yogurt, then lid. In the fridge overnight and ready for the lunchbox.

That's all I've got, folks. I'm still coughing up a lung over here. I was living on hot water with lemon and honey (SO GOOD for a sore throat/cough) but I went through all three of the lemons I got at the market. But, wait! As I was typing this I remembered there is a lemon on our front yard tree. I'm off to pick it and make more honey/lemon water. Too bad we're almost out of honey.

I would say I'm at "frustrated"

Biscuit and I came up with a scale, of sorts, of angry words. It goes like this: irritated, frustrated, mad, angry, furious, irate.

All morning I've been trying to play happiness mind games with myself to make myself realize it really isn't that bad (it isn't!) but sheesh that gets annoying sort of quick when you really just want to wallow. So I've got Oscar down for a nap in his crib not screaming and I've made myself a bowl of Cream of Wheat with extra brown sugar and now I will allow myself to list my annoyances. Which I will follow by a list of things I am grateful for. Then I will get off the computer and try to get some crap done.

Annoyances

• Left my wallet in Mr. H's car last night after grocery shopping. He took his car to work.
• Hit bad traffic on the rainy drive to his work compounded by making a wrong turn into worse traffic
• One and a half hours of driving messed with Oscar's morning sleep schedule
• I am still sick. Got sick last Sunday. Thought I was over it Thursday. Am not over it yet.
• Biscuit is sick; I think she has an ear infection.
• Mr. H is super, duper busy. Not his fault but he is really busy and not around as much as I'm used to.
• Girl Scout meeting tonight. Don't have a clue what to do. Was supposed to be a field trip but I screwed up (forgot to plan it).
• Laundry
• Dishes

Ok, that's enough.

Now things I'm grateful for:

• Oscar does not seem to have gotten our cold and his teeth still aren't in but don't seem to be bothering him much. He was very good on the car ride today.
• iPhones with maps programs so even though I was lost and stuck in traffic I knew how to eventually get where I was going
• The coffee was really good this morning
• Biscuit and I woke up early enough today that we got to read in bed together before we got ready.
• Pinterest has a lot of Girl Scout meeting ideas I can peruse
• Biscuit already has a doctor's appointment scheduled for this afternoon so I don't have to make an extra appointment for her ear.

I think that's it for now. Oscar has moved from fussing to crying. Better go rescue him.

Hope you are having a really wonderful Monday.

Power to the babies

Not long ago I thought, "hey, I want to make a cast of Oscar's hand." And a few clicks later I found Casting Keepsakes, had enough in Paypal (I think it was less than $12 including shipping), and a few days later the stuff was on my porch. Gotta love the internet (when it's not blacked out of course).

Extreme close up of that wrist fat roll!

The careful observer will notice the flat spots on his knuckes and his surprisingly thin fingertips so a few tips for ya:

• Don't put the molding compound in a vessel that is deeper than your childs arm is long (ie no 44 oz soda cups for 7 month old babies)
• Don't try to do this at bedtime/with a tired or hungry child
• Don't do this while your child is dressed in a brand new long sleeved outfit
• Do really swirl around the plaster when you pour it in

Other than that I'd recommend the product and the project. It's kind of a fun little doodad and in a few years we can go, "awww, can you believe his hand was that tiny (and his fingers were that flat!)"

Juxtaposition

Every day of 2011 (minus two) I took a snapshot.

And the first week of 2012 I spent all my online time uploading/organizing/captioning/cropping and getting all 363 images into a photobook.

It was a hassle. It was more money than I wanted to spend. But I think it was worth it.

The above layout is probably my favorite. I didn't notice the similar images in sequential days until I was uploading to the book. Hilarious justaposition, right?

2011 was a really awesome year. But I'm just as excited about 2012.

And, no, I'm not doing a snapshot-a-day this year. Fell off that wagon around January 3.

Things are good

We got a new car. Almost a week ago now. It's a Honda Fit and is not the new truck Mr. H ultimately wants but is a great commuter car with good gas mileage that fits the carseats. Biscuit was super excited which was fun. Having a new car is also fun even if Mr. H usually drives it.

On the crafting front, the brain is full of ideas and projects but project doing time competes with project blogging time and I've been trying to start running again so blogging has been sparse. Plus Mr. H is teaching a super hard chemistry class again so he needs the computer a lot.

I've got a wonderful baby who will pose for photos in a crate and a fabulous six-year-old who has to be a part of any photo session and, really, things couldn't be better.

Real post coming soon, just wanted to check in and remind myself that things are good.

But they'd be better if Oscar would sleep through the night....

Crazy (awesome) silhouette art tutorial

Because I'm a week behind on everything, including New Years, I'm still working on my resolutions. But I think one will be to post one tutorial here per month. But then the internet is FULL of AWESOME tutorials whereas mine tend to be a bit more...hmmm... homespun? Novice? Crappy? So I'm also considering a resolution of making one thing per week all year.

Either way, this Crazy (Awesome) Silhouette Art project totally fits the bill.

Supplies:

• a piece of wood or plywood or some other smooth surface (I used a square of 1/4 inch masonite about 14x14 inches)
• photo of your subject in profile
• Contact paper
• Scissors or really, really sharp exacto
• spray primer in black (or some other cool color)
• assorted acrylic paints and brushes
• spray on clear coat (if desired)
• string and glue gun (or some sort of hanger)

Process:

1. Take a photo of your subjects in action. Aim for a neutral(ish) background and faces in profile. Convert to black and white and crop as desired. Print out on regular typing paper the size you want your silhouette to be (I printed the image below on 8.5x11" paper)
2. Spray your wood with primer. This will be the color of your silhouette. You only really need to spray the area where your silhouette will be. see how the wood below has primer on one side? And the photo is printed (ignore the blue stripes--printer issues!)
3. Tape your contact paper sticky side up to a self healing mat. Tape your photo on top and cut out image using exacto. (notes: you might want to outline with a pen first to ensure you know where to cut. If your exacto is anything less than razor sharp use double stick tape or a glue stick to adhere the photo to the back of the contact paper and cut out with scissors)
4.  Peel it all apart and stick your contact paper silhouette to your primered wood. Press down the edges really well.
5. 
6. Here's the trick I learned about on HGTV at some point....spray paint again over the contact paper mask. This should help keep the edges clean as they'll be sealed down with matching paint!
7. Now go to town with the acrylic paints. Choose colors you like and don't worry about it. I recommend employing a child to help--it'll force you to be spontaneous and to not try to do anything too fancy. Or you could just paint it a solid color (if you're booooring....)
8. 
9. That red smear looked vaguely heart shaped so I made it a bit more heart shaped. That was about it as far as trying to do anything planned.
   
   
10. Watch your paint dry. (in our case, force your child to take a bath with the promise of peeling off contact paper when she's done.)
    
11. PEEL! Carefully peel off the contact paper with fingers crossed. Yay! I hope it looks awesome.
12. If desired, spray on a coat of polyurethane or acrylic clear coat. If you're hanging your work attach the fastener. For this light masonite a hot glued a piece of ribbon to the back and it seemed to work fine.
13. Hang and enjoy!

Family tree

A gift for my mother-in-law with finger and thumb prints of her children, children-in-law and grandchildren. Even little Oscar put a smear on there.

Concept seen here. I like my addition of the names in the wood grain but those "leaves" are way better.

Year long projects

Whoa (or as Biscuit would say, who ah). It's tough getting back in the school/work/daycare routine after two weeks of sleeping in. Biscuit has been reading Judy Moody books nonstop (when you put books on your Santa list in our family, odds are you'll get what you ask for. Or, in her case, six of what you ask for). She was reading aloud to me and I discovered she was pronouncing "whoa" phonetically. It is "who ah" if you sound it out. And gross really should rhyme with moss and toss shouldn't it?

So, whoa, we survived our first day back. I'm still plugging away at New Year's projects here on January 3 trying to wrap up 2011 before too much of 2012 goes by. I must admit, I was rather proud that I completed my Snapshot-a-Day challenge. I think I only missed two days all year. Granted there are a ton of terrible photos but I did it. I'm trying to compile them all into a (very expensive even WITH the half off deal snapfish is running) photobook by January 6 when this particular half off photobooks deal ends. It's tedious but sort of fun to look back on little bits of the year. I'm up to August.

My other year long thing which wasn't a project and wasn't exactly planned was my notes book. My sister gave me a recycled cover blank book last year and all year long I used it to jot down anything and everything. I also let Biscuit write notes in it and pasted in some of her little notes and scraps I find lying around.

Lots of grocery lists, menu plans, to do lists and the like--completely haphazard but sort of an interesting record of the year. I was almost out of space so I got a brand new book for 2012. Thanks, Laura!

I'm not sure if I'll do any year long projects for 2012 (other than the haphazard book) but so far I've taken a photo-a-day just in case. Anyone seen any interesting year long stuff?