Weekend accomplishment

Over the weekend I did actually manage to get some crafting done. Woohoo!!

I just love these. They're relatively quick to make and the results show up really quickly too, as you're going along.

Unfortunately this is only the third one that I've finished from my mat of the month membership. I'm only behind by about four or five. lol

Wyatt has knee surgery on Thursday so I'll have some time in the waiting room to get some stitching done. It will help to keep my mind occupied anyway....

Busy

Last week was another busy week with class projects.

You know, those are bad enough when there's only one to have to push a child to complete, but when it's all four at the same time it's just insanity.

At least at my house anyway.

The kids had to write a story for their English class and it had to be about an experience in their life and then they had to make a project to go with it.

I only managed to get pictures of two of the projects though.

Wyatt's story was about the people that own the land next to ours and a time when the kids got in trouble by those land owners for being on their property. His project had the guy that yelled at them in his truck. I dyed coconut green for him to glue down for grass, he used brown sugar for the dirt, and got some rocks from outside for some of the landscaping. I didn't think it was too bad but he wasn't thrilled with it. Hmmmm.......maybe he would have had more time to 'perfect' it if he hadn't kept putting it off until the last minute. Now that would just be crazy!!  Anyway, he told me it wasn't the best one there but after I asked he had to admit that it wasn't the worst one either. lol All of that to say that I didn't get a picture of his.

Addison wrote about a time that we went to the movies (the first time her and her friend got to go sit by themselves) and how these people sitting close to them kept bothering them by talking to them during the movie. So her project was inside of a shoe box and was a dark movie theatre. It was too dark to get a picture of.

Kirsten wrote about the cruise we went on a couple of years ago. (Gaaahhhh! I can't believe it's been that long already!) Anyway, she made a cruise ship.

 I thought she did a pretty decent job.

Abigail wrote about the time she fell in p.e. and cut her head open. Her Dad picked her up and took her to get stitches, and then passed out while they were doing it. That's him on the floor in her diorama.

I just had to laugh. Do you see the cut on her head with the blood oozing out? And the doctor going to help Dax and leaving her on the table? If I could have gotten a picture of her clay face the eyes are really big and the mouth is open in a circle. Too funny!

At least there was a little laughter in the stress of pushing to get these projects done, right?

Contemporary art

Many of the UIL competitions were held a couple of weekends ago. Kirsten's art teacher had really liked one of Kirsten's projects and entered it into one of the many divisions in the art category.

The good news is that she won 2nd place!!! Woohoo!

Here she is with her medal...

We are so proud of her!

The not so good news.....

The schoold did an awards ceremony that was BEFORE school started in the morning. We got there about 5-10 minutes late and they had ALREADY called her name! I felt sooooooo bad that she missed having her name called. At least she gets some glory by having me post about the good job she did.

Bracelet making

I made a quick little bracelet.

I liked the way it turned out, but it's too big. I wasn't paying close attention while I was making it. Duh!

I didn't have the heart to take it apart though and start over. lol

The beads for it are from a necklace that I really liked, but haven't worn it in years. So, last night I closed my eyes and cut into it. I think I probably have enough beads from it to make another couple of bracelets. It was a rather large multi-strand necklace (which could be why I haven't worn it years.)

Besides, I just love making something new without having to go spend money. Don't you?

Valentine Cards

I just love all of the options out there now days for things. Thank you internet!!!


Have you looked at some of the cards on Etsy?


This one made me ACTUALLY laugh out loud.

It's from the shop Julie Ann Art and you can find this card here. She's got a lot of other cards, too.

I've seen several others that are just too funny. I just love the simplicity of this card.

I made a mark

A bookmark that is!


I had started stitching on this little heart that I had cut out with no real purpose. I was just playing around really, but then figured I should probably do something with it.

I decided that my quickest finish would be to make it a bookmark.

And since I love to read that makes it useful too.

Although, I'm going to have to make sure to not leave it unattended because all three of my girls want it. :0)

It was really simple too. I stitched on the front piece. Then you can see by looking at it from the back where I actually attached to two together, leaving an opening to slide over the corner of the book pages.

Bowls

I've long wanted to try making the a bowl out of a vinyl record, but only recently actually got around to doing it.

I have several records in my garage that I had painted on one side. I was going to use them to make big polka dots on my daughters' bedroom wall to match their bedding. However, before I got it done, their grandparents game them new bedding that didn't match my dots. lol

And, if you're wondering why I didn't just paint the dots on the wall, it's because I was pretty sure I couldn't make a nice edge on my circles. By using spray pain on large vinyl records I eliminated that worry completely.

Okay, back to the bowls......

My first one was a fail because I didn't know it had a crack in it.

That crack became glaringly obvious once the record started to melt.

 The second one was much more successful.
(sorry for the blur....I really need to wear my glasses when I take pictures.)

Side view....

I made the bowl tighter and more upright than most I see because I want to put it in the girls' bathroom to hold some of their hair stuff.

So, to make it here what I did.

Preheat the oven to 200 F. Then, I took a small glass mixing bowl, turned it upside down on the oven rack, and placed the record on top of it painted side up. Turn on your oven light so that you can watch what is happening. It takes less than 2 minutes for the record to start softening.

Once it starts to droop take it out and push it around the bowl. Since I wanted mine to be more closely formed than that I quickly put it into the next larger mixing bowl and pushed on it from the inside.

This must all be done quickly because it only takes about 30 seconds for the vinyl to cool and start hardening back up. If that happens, just put it back in the oven for a little bit and keep going.

That's the beauty of this. You can keep reshaping until you're happy with it.  Unless, of course, there's a crack in it. :0) And, this whole project took less than 5 minutes - and that includes waiting for the oven to preheat!! So why in the world did I wait so long to do it??

Let me know if you give it a try. I would love to see what you come up with.

Oh, and just in case you wonder.  I was nervous about how the paint would react with being in the oven. I had just used regular old pink spray paint. And, to my delight, it worked fabulously. I didn't have a problem with it cracking, bubbling or peeling. Woohoo!!

Not even close

I tried to be all cute with the kids this morning and make ground hog pancakes.

Remarkable likeness, huh? LOL

I think it's very important to let other crafters know about the things we try that don't come out anywhere close to what we intended.

Ha! 

See how I did that? How I turned this epic fail into some kind of noble act. Bahahaha!!

Hope you got as good a laugh from that ground hog pancake as the kids and I did. :0)