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Lunchbox napkin (and tapioca)

I just finished my second bowl of tapioca pudding in a row. I was going to type this while eating tapioca pudding but Firefox froze. Then iPhoto. That gave me time to finish my pudding and decide on a topic for this post. Right after I finish discussing pudding. I've been making rice pudding for a while now thinking it is as good as tapioca but I was wrong. Rice pudding is a sad, bland excuse for warm, rich, vanilla-y tapioca. I use the recipe on the side of the Minute Tapioca box (it's a red box). Exactly as written but it's even better if it sits for more than 5 minutes in the beginning. Mr. H hates tapioca. Weird, huh?

In related news, I had the tapioca out in the first place to make a strawberry rhubarb pie in celebration of pi (pie) day which is tomorrow (3.14) but we celebrated on Sunday. The pie looked impressive but was not as good as the tapioca pudding.

And 156 words later, the topic of the post--napkins.

This was a totally fun 10 minute project.

I didn't put anything in the paint (like you would to paint a wood chalkboard). The texture of the napkins (both cotton and linen blend) was sufficient for the chalk to write. I used freezer paper for the stencils.

I tried to rub off/erase the chalk and it just smudged (see above) but that was fine with me since cloth napkins get washed a lot and the chalk came right off in the wash while the paint held up just fine.

Biscuit is a big fan of notes in her lunchbox so here's one more way I can do that for her. Fun!

And now I'm considering bowl #3 of tapioca......

 

Hearts + river rocks

Last weekend we collected rocks at the river.

Biscuit painted hearts

Then added initials to the back and we sprayed them with a clear acrylic.

And, in typical Biscuit fashion, she wrote notes on envelopes and enclosed a stone and a package of smarties. All set for Tuesday.

Unrelated to giving folks rocks for Valentine's Day but related to love, we got this Knock Knock brand note pad from a friend for Christmas.

It's really perfect for lunchbox notes. If you like to put notes in lunchboxes I'd recommend it.

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.

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!)"

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.

Miniature

Inspired by the work of an artist we saw at Renegade who used model train miniatures in her work, I made some little scenes in glass vials.

They're ornaments.

Those little figures are so expensive at the model train store so I was glad I could make a second ornament for friends representing their two boys on the scooters they got this year.

The top one is for us. Biscuit in the blue dress and a more grown up Oscar on our tire swing. The bit of branch is from the tree our tire swing actually hangs from. The moss is from our sidewalk. I wonder how it will dry? I was too impatient to dry the moss before assembly so we might have mold by next Christmas.

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In other news, still 24 hours to enter the book drawing (I mis-wrote yesterday--it's open through the 23rd). It's so fun to see all the comments and I'm sorry I'm so lame about responding.

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I just finished a Christmas present that came out exactly like I wanted. It's so funky/cool. Can't wait to share it post holiday.

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Hope you're ready for Christmas if you're celebrating. I'm off to wrap and figure out what the jolly red guy is bringing Oscar.

 

Better Sweet Peas

LAURA--do not keep reading this post.

Here's a cousin photo--gotta love that autumn light.

And Oscar practicing his sitting (on a wine tasting trip--he wasn't tasting)

Ok, so the real post!

I made a Kindle cover for the Kindle I got my sister for Christmas. It's inside a book I found, discarded at work. Better Sweet Peas. For some reason the title tickles my funny bone. I cut out the pages and just used the book cover.

The whole thing is padded and zips closed--my sister travels A LOT so it needs protection.

This was the project I posted about a few days ago under the title "Fail." This is the FOURTH zipper I used and it still isn't perfect. But it does work. And if she doesn't like it, she still gets the Kindle so I think it'll be alright.

And with that, we conclude 30 days of making something every day. Gotta say, this was a good kick in the pants. Despite the many (many) cop out projects I got several gifts done and I forced myself to get off the computer/couch every night to make something. Hooray!

Alphabet board book

I got a 4 inch board book for a dollar at Target.

Then I pasted trimmed snapshots of all our family members over the alphabet. I used a very thin coat of Mod Podge.

Yeah, could have done a better job with the trimming but I didn't have much inspiration tonight so it is what it is.

As always with this "make a thing a day" deal it was hard to get going late at night after work but I'm glad I got this done. It really only took 30 minutes and it'll be a fun little gift for Oscar under the tree.

What a cutie!

Magnets, carrots and PVC (not all in the same project!)

Thanksgiving break is over. But wow has it been nice while it lasted.

Today Biscuit participated in projects galore! She and I painted tree branch pieces. Anyone who's been around here for a while will know that I've got a lot of tree branch pieces around.

We hot glued magnets on the back to make....wait for it.....magnets!

Before our painting adventure, Mr. H and Biscuit were busy in the woodshop making something for Oscar (photos to come) and then they ran to the hardware store and before I could turn around they'd made a soccer goal!

Biscuit is suddenly very interested in learning about/playing soccer. She says that "once she knows all about it" she might be interested in playing on a team with uniforms.

In the meantime she's working on my signature move from my soccer playing days. The preparatory cringe ;)

And Oscar was busy turning 6 months old.

Following my family tradition we made him half a cake. A delicious carrot cake which we enjoyed without him. Sorry kid, maybe when you turn 1. Happy Half Birthday to Oscar!

All in all, a good day and I've got the messes all over the house to prove it.