Seriously, I meant to keep up but....

Life is amazing at how much stuff gets in the way of what we intend to do with our days.  I had really meant to keep up with this blog.  I really did.  But, I ended up documenting the progress we were making on another project at this blog:  http://www.frankenshasta.blogspot.com/

So, back to business.  I'm currently culling and cleaning out my craft room, which became a repository for all things "crafty" or anything that needed to go into the garage but couldn't get sawdust all over it.  My sewing / craft room is a room that the previous homeowners made in the corner of the garage for a "hang-out room" for their teenaged kids.  It's 9' by 14', and has a corner cut off one of the short ends to allow a car to be parked in the garage if needed.  There's a window, and hubby and I put countertops around the walls for crafting space.  We reused the cabinets from our kitchen when we remodeled, hanging them over the countertops.  It's a great space, even though it's quite small. 

Hubby uses the rest of the garage as a workshop for everything from woodworking to car repair, though we haven't parked a vehicle in it since we've owned the house.  When we started the renovation on our vintage Shasta camper, we put EVERYTHING that needed protection from dust into my craft space.  Ugh.  Over the months, I grabbed out what I needed, and other things got put into their place.  What a MESS.  I even moved my sewing machine, ironing board and iron into the dining area of our home so that I could sew curtains and cushions for the camper.   

Now that we're done the major renovation on the camper, it's time to put things back and get my craft room in order.  And - get the dining room back in order as well!!  Things didn't get into the bad shape that they're in overnight, so I expect it to take awhile to get cleaned up and put right.  (kinda like the economy, but don't get me started.)

I'm a packrat by nature, and I've fought a battle with the clutterbug my entire life.  I have quite a collection of various craft supplies, for various crafts, and I'm still on the lookout for more.  Organizing them is my task for the next few days.  I'll take any supplies that I can part with to a reuse center that caters to teachers and artisans.  My worry is that I might bring home more than I donate.  Ha.

I'll post before and after pictures when it's done.  I had already begun cleaning when I took some photos for the "before" picture.  I'd removed a big box of countertop laminate, an 82" long piece of foam and my spinning wheels.  Just so I could get INTO the room.  hahahah 

If you don't hear from me soon, send coffee and chocolate.  hahaha.

Long Time, No hear!

Happy New Year!  As part of my resolutions this year, I want to keep up with this blog.  What's new in my world?  Well, the Girl is now 9 years old and in 3rd grade.  She's a Brownie this year, and I have offered  to co-lead her troop.  We are now selling cookies, and things will be hectic but fun!

The Boy has turned 5, and started preschool at the same preschool that the Girl attended.  They are a wonderful bunch of teachers and they adore him.  He's working on social skills and following directions; two things he will need for Kindergarten next year.  It's almost time to register him for school here in NC.

I have begun sewing again.  The Girl got an Our Generation 18" doll like the American Girl doll for Christmas.  And a sewing machine, courtesy of her loving mother.  I hope to instill a love of sewing; she already loves fabrics and has a great eye for color.  Anyway, as a part of teaching her to sew, I found lots of free online patterns for AG dolls.  I've been sewing up a storm, tearing apart old clothes and hunting for little trims to work into the designs.  Lots of Fun!!

TTFN -
Me

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Well, it's a double bonus day...I've been busy making lots of projects lately; here are two of them.

I'd seen an idea for making Leprechaun Traps in an older Family Fun magazine.  My 8 year old daughter helped me with these.  Since leprechauns love all things shiny, we used lots of sparkly trims and tried to lure them into our traps with gold pieces placed on top.  Now, leprechauns also love to break the rules; so we put little signs that told them not to climb the ladders....knowing full well they'd climb right on up there!  The main structure is an old oatmeal container, covered with paper.  We used cardboard for the base then covered it with aluminum foil to make it attractive to the little fellas.  We gathered sticks from the woods behind our house to make the ladders.  I think I had to hot glue those sticks together at least 3 times apiece, since my son kept playing with them and they'd break.  (note to self:  keep fun but fragile things out of reach of little curious hands!)

We placed round pieces of felt on top of the open containers, then delicately put the gold coins on top.  My daughter punched lots of "coins" out of Reese cup foil wrappers.  Isn't she clever??

The idea is that the leprechauns climb the ladder to get to the gold coins, and their weight causes the felt cover to collapse, trapping the leprechaun inside the container. 

We awoke to find that leprechauns had been here, all right!  The tops of the containers had fallen in, just as we had planned.  But the leprechauns escaped somehow.  All they left behind was a trail of gold dust.......  They're sneaky little buggers!  They may have escaped, but they must have been rather weak after their ordeal because they left the gold coins behind!

Guess we'll have to try our luck again next year!



Cards and Silly Putty

I made cards this morning for my daughter's teachers.  She's in 2nd grade and has the good fortune to have a student teacher this year, so I made cards for both teachers.  This year has been a wonderful year for my daughter; she's learning so much and growing by leaps and bounds.

I hand-delivered the cards after lunch when I went in to read to the class.  It's National Reading Month, so each day there's a guest reader in the class.  Last week, the kids were read to by one of the police officers from our city.  They loved that!

After I read a story about St. Patrick's Day and leprechauns, I helped the kids to make Silly Putty.  If you've never tried it, it's a really neat exploration into polymers and liquids, solids, substances, etc.  Here's a link to more info and the directions:  http://www.science-house.org/CO2/activities/polymer/sillyputty.html

We passed out 3 oz plastic cups that we'd premeasured 1 TBSP of white Elmer's school glue into.  The kids each had a paper towel and a popsicle stick to stir their concoction.  The importance of safety was stressed to everyone (don't touch your hands to your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, friends, etc) and I may have scared a few students, but that's ok.  We put some green food coloring into a container of water, and put 1 tsp of the colored water into their cups.  They mixed the water and glue together.  (now they started to get excited...)  Then I cautioned them again about following directions and not touching anything.  I had premixed a solution of 2 cups of water to 2 TBSP of powdered Borax in a clear bottle labelled "POISON - BORAX" and I showed the students the solution.  We talked a little bit about how a solid dissolved in a liquid is called a solution....I think that's right.  Anyway, then I gave each student 1 TBSP of the Borax water mixture and they started to stir it in.  I don't think I've ever heard so many kids going, "Oooh, check it out!" and "Wow...cool!" in unison before.  They removed the glob and mashed it with their hands for a bit before we made them put it into plastic baggies to be taken home.  (along with another cautionary diatribe about not eating anything after you play with it, don't put it in your bed, etc.)  FUN DAY!!!

Hello, there!

After much deliberation and with no further ado, here we go!  Welcome to my little world of kids, crafting, cooking and chaos.  I hope to post a few times a week, sharing ideas and projects that I'm perpetually working on. 

Here's a project that I enjoyed working on; it's a small square journal:

The journal came from Michael's dollar bin awhile back, it originally had a monogram on it.  (Hint:  I picked this up for .25 in their clearance stuff.  Love that!)  I removed the covers by opening up the o-wires, then painted them with olive craft paint, front and back.  After that dried, I smudged on some metallic olive paint, stamped the sentiment and matted it.  The flower is made by smushing (is that a real word?) some orange cardstock, then cutting it out on my Cuttlebug with a Sizzix die "Flower Layers" which looks a bit like a poppy to me.  I used a bit of dry brushing with a burnt umber paint on the edges, then some metallic orange chalk.  Smushed some more, then glued the layers.  I put the whole shebang back together and TA DA! 

Simple cards:

Enjoy and have a blessed day!!