The Newest Apron

I've finally got some sewing finished.  This is a late birthday gift for the younger son's girlfriend--only a little late, though.

Kelsey is in culinary school, hence the culinary queen.  I had to go look up my own apron tutorial created when I made my other son's fiance's apron.  So nice to have a blog to keep all these things.  It's a quick and easy project if you want to try one.  The tutorial is here.

We also got Kelsey a bead for her Pandora bracelet.  That's what is tucked in the little pocket. It's the ladybug bead in red.  Pandora has made my life so much easier.  I can always find a new bead for the girls to add to their collections.

The Stuffed Animal Tree Skirt

Wondering what to do with all those stuffed animals and dolls that the kids have outgrown?  You might want to pack them away.  They make a great tree skirt.  I packed away the stuffies and dolls that my kids especially loved and, at some point, started putting them under the tree at Christmas. There is nothing better during the holidays than listening to my kids reminisce about them.

Keegan's beloved Jeremy Fisher frog,

Kiefer's Bunny and Julia for whom I had to make up countless stories for bedtime,

And Kyle's cowbunnies that I made during his cowboy phase are all part of the collection.  The cowbunnie hats didn't survive but they still have their bandit scarves.  These were bad cowbunnies complete with black hats.

Who remembers Lamb Chop? There is a well-worn puppet version and one from Macy's (obviously with the name right on the hat!) under our tree.

There are couples under there:

Families:

And this menage a trois that resulted from a misunderstanding about who was buying what.  Now that I have seen Sister Wives, I refer to this set as Brother Husbands.

As the collection grew, I realized the tree skirt was wasted--you couldn't see it at all.  The toys became the tree skirt.    They all squash down nicely in a plastic box for storage taking up surprisingly little space, too.  Besides, the original tree skirt while nice,  never stirred up fond memories and got everyone talking.

What are all those holiday tins under the tree?  I started using the too-cute-to-discard holiday tins to store delicate ornaments before packing them into the big boxes.  The ornaments get unpacked and hung,  the tins are scattered in with the stuffies, and they are right under the tree when it's time to put ornaments away.   I know I could refill them with home-made treats to give others.  However, I love baking about as much as I love cleaning toilets.  No, I'd rather clean toilets really.  Holiday baking just ain't happenin' in my house.  Now that I've said that I am reminded that I promised to make another gingerbread house this year.  Why do I do these things?  Must get back to work.

Experimenting with Glitter Ornaments

How cool is that!

I've been filling clear glass and plastic ornaments with glitter using Mop & Glo floor wax as the adhesive.  I bought a giant pack of Martha Stewart's glitter.  This one to be exact:

I like the solid colored balls such as these:

but I decided to try mixing it up as I did with the painted balls such as this on in previous years.

Here are some of the results.

This is with two colors dropped in carefully on each side before
shaking.    I used a funnel at first as most tutorials suggest,
 but found that the glitter drops in pretty neatly with the bottle
 top off.

This had  a number of colors placed in separately.
 I like the swirl that resulted.

This had much more of the purple with another color.
Again.  I put them in separately.

Then I took the bottles with just a bit of glitter left and shook them together in a bottle before putting the glitter in to see how that would work.  Here are a few of those:

These look much better than they appear in the pics.  Some of these are just two colors.  Others are a mix of four or five that show clearly up close.

I was a bit worried about doing this with the plastic balls, but they worked out great.  They have some give when you press on them, but the glitter stays on perfectly.  

Some tips:  

• Mop & Glo works great!  I found that rolling the wax around for a minute, draining it completely, and putting the glitter in  immediately provided much better adhesiveness than letting the wax sit even for a short time. 
• Very fine glitter works best.  I'm sure it doesn't need to be Martha's.  Martha does, however, have the best color choices.  Michael's and Joann's carry it.  With their coupons, you can get it for a great price. Of course, if someone knows of another company with 24 colors including lapis lazuli, peridot, yellow barite, and fire opal, I'd love to know about it.
• I found that letting the finished balls sit for a half an hour before putting the tops on  carefully was sufficient.  I didn't have one incident of glitter being scratched off.  

I'm feeling a need to get back to making more sock creatures now.  Hopefully I will be able to  post about that soon!

The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women: A Portable Mentor by Gail McMeekin

Bloggers and blog readers are creative people. They just have to be.  Bloggers share their thoughts and ideas and readers are looking for inspiration. Often readers are bloggers or would be if they had more time.   Time.  Therein lies the creative dilemma for most of us.  Finding time, using it effectively, overcoming the guilt we often feel for doing something creative when we think we should be doing more "useful" things. Who hasn't had this problem?

Gail McMeekin's book, The 12 Secrets of  Highly Creative Women, is filled with explanations of how we can nourish our creativity effectively.  McMeekin looks at many things that affect our ability to unleash our creativity including the innate differences in male/female thinking and cultural influences that are so ingrained we may well not realize how they are affecting our decision-making.  Through the lives, thoughts, and experiences of many women who have succeeded in creative endeavors, McMeekin offers countless ideas for setting up our lives to encourage our creative talents.

I don't know how I missed this book before!  The one I just got is the tenth anniversary edition.  There is so much inspiring, profound, and just plain useful information in this book.  I'm getting copies for all the females in my family for Christmas. How great if the young ones begin their adult lives knowing they deserve to take the time to nurture their creativity.  What great things might come of expanding our views of  women's roles in society and what great new cultural traditions we might pass down for future generations.

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Review of Uptown Coat Pattern from Favorite Things

I have a beautiful jacket almost completed.  I'm right down to the buttons and hemming.  Unfortunately, I just cannot make it fit well.  I used my measurements to decide on the size which turned out to be too big on the muslin piece.  I made the next size down, and it still does not look right in the chest area.  It looks great on the hanger--just not on ME.

I do need a better camera.  These fabric look so much richer in person.
 I have no idea why those white spots are there in the photo either!

Other reviewers said it was not for beginners, but I've had luck with a few clothing pieces before.  I am not skilled enough, however, to know how to make the shoulders narrower without changing the rest of the fit down through the chest area. I also think I would also need to put in darts to get rid of the slight bunching in the front armpit area.  Again, I don't know how to do this.  I could probably start playing with it, but I really don't want to put this much time and effort into altering patterns.  

I'm going to finish it and give it to the Goodwill shop.  Someone out there may have the figure for it!  For now I need to get back to my other sewing.  I owe someone an apron and still have lots of dish towels and cloth napkins to get ready for holiday gifts.

Hand Washing Dishes is Dangerous

Who knew washing dishes was a dangerous job! My dishwasher died, and I was a tad too zealous handwashing one of my glasses. It broke in my hand leaving a gash requiring seven stitches.   Everything is taking at least twice as long to do including typing this.

There were some news shows a while ago saying that the "so-called poor" had luxuries including refrigerators, stoves, and air conditioners. Some even had automatic dishwashers!  I'm not sure when stoves and refrigerators became luxury items, nor am I sure an air conditioner could necessarily be considered a luxury for the very young or old in a southern city in the summer months. Now I'm thinking I'm going to have to tell those news guys that automatic dishwashers not only save water, but may also prevent injuries.  That dishwasher is looking less and less like a luxury to me.

Do Your Kids Ever Amaze You?

Each of my kids has done things that have left me wondering how on earth this bright, creative, inspiring being came from me.  With my son Kyle, it is often his writing.  I know I said I would not post until my jacket was finished, but I have to share my son's short piece of poetry that author Claudia Ricci put up on her blog here.

Kyle sometimes shows me his work and sometimes not.  This is one I had not seen before.   It's the kind of writing that makes you stop and think about how you respond in certain situations, how you feel when you are in those situations.  I don't think I will ever look at a dropped glove the same again.   Stop and take a look.  If you, too, can empathize, feel free to leave him a comment!

Sadly this is the ONLY picture I could find of Kyle where he wasn't posing in some outrageous way.

Now back to that jacket.