book marks and paper mache

Rain, rain go away, come again some other day. It is raining here today, if the wind were coming from some other direction besides the East that would be okay - but Eastern Rains mean leaking at the window. We are closing in on the repair; the replacement window has been ordered.

C made this bird using K's Perler Beads - I am not sure how long the top knots will last but I did my best to iron them well.

We made these bookmarks for the craft at our homeschool group. I made samples of these woven bookmarks (the two original samples are the bookmarks on the right) and the corner bookmarks in the next photo. When we met, the kids kept making bookmarks and didn't want to stop for poetry. 



They all had plans to make more when they went home - K made the one on the far right that same day; she has since made several more. The narrow one is one I made after an idea one of the boys in our group had. His Mom says that he has come up with more variations since our last meeting.  

My sample bookmarks for the corner bookmarks were the map bookmark and the green monster bookmark. C's monster has the stalactite teeth that are kind of hard to see and K's monster has the tongue.  One of the boys thought that these bookmarks would work for a Totoro so I made one. :)

Bookmarks in action. 

I finally finished a large scale Celtic Knot Paper Mache Project. My FIL cut out the foam core shape for me since I am notoriously bad with box cutters (or sharp things of any sort, to be honest) and I used egg cartons to cover it.

gratuitous hubby shot (he would hate knowing I put this on here as he badly needs a haircut)

Scale for the paper mache Celtic Trinity Knot that I made. I never took a scale shot of the large cross I made so I made sure we that we took a shot of this one before this item was hung. I might get a chance to to take a scale shot of the cross sometime soon since we will be repainting the living room after the window is replaced. 

I took a few more shots this morning to see if I could get a better shot of the paint and texture on this thing. I wanted some beauty shots and that can't happen with me in the photograph. ;)

I've recently finished two paper mache projects. The Totoro pinata and this baby. Next up, the White Tree of Gondor. :)



 

Totoro, Totoro, Totoro!!

I think that I've mentioned my intention of doing a photo booth at K's party. I made this Totoro hat as one of the props. 

We will probably use K's Christmas hoodie for one of the props as well. 

I also made this pinata for the Totoro birthday party. Three things are commonly said about home made pinatas: they are quick, easy, and cheap. Easy and cheap are true - quick...not so much.

Pinatas are a lot of fun to make and the party-goers always enjoy smashing them so even though it is time consuming, it is a win-win in my book (especially since it is fun to photograph the smashing process). 

This is a sample of the party favor bags I made for the party. I made eight but we just added a guest so I guess I will make one more (I just hope I kept my template). I roughly used the instructions I found on this site. 

piano recital 2014

The girls had their piano recital last week Saturday. They've been taking piano lessons with Mary for three years now. Mary always likes to do something silly to introduce the kids, so she has them fill out a little questionnaire before the recital which she uses to introduce them.

The girls did a good job. However, I do think that I will make sure there is no gum in their mouth when they perform next time!! 

Mary's students. 

Mary and the girls. C does a lot of plastic canvas and she designed the piano key heart all by herself. So I found a perler bead pattern for a treble clef and the girls both made their gifts for Mary. 

The gift bag is a decoupaged detergent box. I used a Little House on the Prairie book for the papers. 

If you want to listen to the girls perform here it is (Mary's performance is at the end).

soot sprites and a sigh...

Soot sprite bookmarks for K's Totoro birthday party - which I need to set a date for. I think they are cute - what is it about google eyes that make everything so darned cute?

Two weeks ago, we got around ten inches of snow when we were supposed to get about 4 inches. 

Fortunately, it was warm and gone within several days. It was pretty and because it was so late, we knew that we would not need to shovel it. 

Today we are getting a sleet rain mix. It is coming in from the north - which is significant. Yesterday and Sunday we got rain from the east - which is significant. I will explain why in a bit.

Last Friday, we went to Banfill Locke to sign the girls up for some Summer Art Day Camps. Banfill Locke is awesome, it is 30 dollars per student for a four day week of two hour lessons (all supplies included). Last year, K made the ostrich piggy bank you see above in one of her classes.

After we signed up, we explored the trails around the museum.

It was a beautiful day with lots of singing birds and the beginnings of greenness: trees with fat buds or drooping catkins.

The river and the trees are lovely with lots of photogenic locations - especially in the areas with subsiding flooding

We saw several groups of fishermen. I was polite and did not photograph them. I was wearing the boots that Tim bought me for Christmas. See?!

The girls did climbing and got dirty. And C found our first dandelion stuck in sunny spot in a crack in cement where there was lots of sun and splashing water. 

Saturday night the rains came...from the east. Soon the window was dripping. If you remember, I mentioned earlier this year that semi-circular window at the front of our house has gone bad. By Sunday, we realized that besides a rapidly dripping window (we found some narrow container to sit on the ledge and catch the drips), we had a soaking wet carpet. We are not entirely sure what is happening there. So for the past three days, we have had a fan blowing and a heat lamp on. I periodically use the shop vacuum to vacuum up the water too.

Our contractor isn't responding. The difficulty is we know him personally and we don't know where to begin to get a new one.

Now there is a very real chance that in addition to replacing  the window and doing sheet rock work in the living room, we will now need to redo the carpet as well. Sigh.

This morning the wind shifted to the north so now the wet spot above the fireplace is growing. Kira was the first to notice it - 'Mom it has a mane now.'

Sigh.

Totoro!!

After I finished the never-ending blanket, I started another blanket. This one took one Saturday morning.  This is a Totoro blanket that I plan to use as a prop for K's Totoro themed birthday party. I want to use him for a photo booth prop so that kids can lay on him for a photo like this one of Mei in the movie. As you can see, the scale isn't great but it works to convey the idea.

I made it from a thrift store Army Surplus Blanket and a thrift store grey jersey sheet and some bits from my stash. I didn't use a pattern. I found an image of Totoro I liked and traced half of it on a double width of freezer paper that was ironed to the blanket. Then I folded the blanket in half and cut. I eyeballed the rest. I cut duplicates of his ears to reinforce the ears on his head as they are clearly a weak spot.

K was sick the morning I made him and she immediately wanted to crawl beneath him. So my first shots of Totoro are of him in use.

We are not sure but we think that whatever took K down the weekend I made Totoro took the rest of us down the following week when we were in Duluth for the Mache Homeschool Convention.

On our last morning there, C passed out on the bathroom floor. It was truly frightening, she fell beneath the sink and her eyes were open. She had just vomited. I was struggling to get her up when she started gagging and her eyes seem to roll back in head. I swear the child is all arms and legs, knees and elbows between the limbs and the dead weight of her body it was hard to get her out from under the sink. When Tim and I finally got her up, she opened her eyes and asked "What happened?" We told her she had feinted and she responded with a very characteristic statement "I always wondered what it felt like to feint. I don't like it."

By that evening, I was vomiting. By the next evening, Tim was sick. The girls are better but Tim and I are taking a bit longer. My stomach still bothers me a lot but Tim and I attribute it to the fact that I threw-up far more than anyone else. It is a great way to start the summer diet. :)

I am sure you all wanted to know all the gory details. Unfortunately, it is my way of throwing myself a pity party.

...late Christmas with Mom and Dad

Mom and Dad came up two weekends ago to enjoy a belated Christmas with us. They were going to come up earlier this year but Dad ended up in the hospital with heart concerns. Unfortunately, he had another angiogram instead of coming up to visit. This time, much to our relief, they made it up. While they were here there were crafts, food, walks, and gifts.

K and Mom made a rag doll together. Mom first made this project with my brother's daughter Hannah who needed to make a hand crafted colonial doll for a school project. So Mom helped both Hannah and her friend make this doll. She must have enjoyed the project because then she decided to do it with my girls (C passed). K loved working on this project with Grandma. She named her doll Charlotte (bonus to anyone who knows where she might have got the name from).

I have a stash of inexpensive books that I keep hidden to give the girls gifts out of when I want a spur of the moment gift (they both have giving and receiving gifts as a love language - one that I don't understand since it isn't my love language). I recently gave K a book on desert biomes. She found a paint with sand art craft in it and decided she really wanted to do one. Yeah for Amazon Prime. I was able to order the sand and have it here before my parents came so that she could do it with my Mom. I got out some maple syrup bottles to use for their art. They had a blast doing it and Mom plans to do it with my sister's daughters when she goes out to visit them.

K thrives on doing things with other people.

I think Dad may have wanted a chance for a bonding moment with K like those that Mom was having. He was perusing a cookbook that I found recently at the thrift store (an awesome cookbook that I had bought as a gift for him and then decided I liked so much I had to buy one for myself) and found a recipe for Cowboy Beans that he wanted to try out with K.

The cookbook in question is Heritage of America Cookbook by Better Homes and Gardens, the description for the book reads "Rich in heritage, historical detail, and lore, this volume includes more than three-hundred regional recipes gathered from people all over the United States." When I first was looking through the cookbook, K (for reasons, I am not sure of) decided to make a recipe from Rhode Island, so now she regularly makes us Corn Chowder. I found a recipe for Apple Cider Syrup, which has turned out to be a life-saver on pancake night (for as long as we've been married, Tim has made pancakes on Sunday night). Kira doesn't like pancakes but she eats them much better with Apple Cider Syrup.

Frying the smoked ham and onions for the Cowboy Beans

While they were visiting, we also celebrated my Dad's birthday. His birthday was on the following week. He looks a lot like his Dad in these photos.

In the photo above, you can see Dad opening his gift. His copy of the Heritage of America Cookbook.

Mom tries to make all her grandchildren pajamas once a year. The girls always look forward to their new pajamas from Grandma.

This year, Mom made all her grandkids stocking hats like the ones that she has crocheted for her and Dad for many, many years.

Then came the most amazing gift. Mom made special dresses for the girls' American Girl Dolls. The dresses are replicas of a day dress from the 1860's. Mom wrote a letter with loads of history about the time period and how the different articles of clothing were worn.

She even crocheted these little vests that they used to wear!! Based on this photo I just looked up, they are called sontags.

For those who are curious, the patterns come from Home Sew Inc and Newark Dressmaker's Supply and is the Little Women pattern.

 

I took three nice long slow walks with Dad. On Sunday, we were joined by Kira and Mom. I took lots of photos. It was a great opportunity. As you can see we still had lots of snow on the ground but it was melting very rapidly. We got a snowstorm later the following week but that is all gone now. However, the news last night suggested the possibility of accumulating snow again later this week.

My girl's ponytail looks right in place doesn't it?

On the walk, we met a group of women on horseback. They had stopped to let people pet their horses and to answer questions. They were wonderful and we had a mutual admiration party while we admired their horses, they admired Kei and Yuuko. It is always startling to me to take Kei and Yuuko out for walks. I get used to them and don't find them unusual but we get tons of questions about them.

During Mom and Dad's visit, Charis acted the part of a pre-teen. She had a youth group event one evening and the next day, she was very tired. She couldn't sleep after the party because she drank two Mountain Dews while at the party. :)

Hopefully, sometime in the near future, I can tell you more about this past weekend. We all went to Duluth for the Mache Homeschool Convention. I learned a lot about homeschooling through highschool.  I also got to meet and listen to a man whose work I admire (Jim Weiss). We also experienced a fright when C feinted in the bathroom after vomiting. Now the rest of us are ill too. It will be a quiet week in the Howard home. :)