Say Cheese!

So, last week I posted about cool new paper crafts and then we did some that afternoon. But I never had a chance to come back and post about them. It has been a crazy week and I am stretched really thin at the moment.
sigh.
ANYHOW.  From The Toymaker (link over there on the right), I bring to you Doctor Skelly's Magic X-Ray camera!!

Have you lost some weight?  You look great!


via Gordon I got another link for seasonal paper craft too...so not to disappoint here they are!
Really creepy gift box concept, don't you think?

If you are into paper crafts, this Ravensblight website has a huge assortment of scary and extremely intricate free paper toy downloads.  SSPOOOOOKKY!!

And here is my neophyte papercrafter tip of the day: Photo paper can substitute for cardstock if you are desperate and too lazy to run out to the office supply store right that minute.  BUT, your fingers will be covered in ink by the end of your project. I should have taken a photo of mine...but didn't think of it until just now.

Week's end undoing entropy wrap-up:
Not a heavy crafting week since last Friday. In fact the general level of entropy in our household has gone up exponentially in the past couple of weeks.  We did start Wild Thing in Kung Fu class and the extra time I've spent picking him up from school and generally rewarding hard work with attention has really been working. He's starting to at least not protest so much about having to go to school.  So the fact that I haven't had time to exercise or create has been very much worth it. Though I feel tired.

I did a little TV knitting on Teen Wonder's hoodie vest which is coming along slowly. I'll post another photo of that soon.

I did some OCD relief shopping late one night and ordered some craft porn, including the new Wee Wonderfuls book by Hilary Lang.

oooohh, I cannot wait to get this! Her stuff is so adorable!  A couple of Christmases ago I made a couple of Pointy Kitties, and for Wild Thing I made a Space Boy and Robot set.

On the quilting front, I've got nada to report in terms of projects - I did some organization of my fabric stash and a lot of planning for new projects. Christmas quilt, baby quilt, Bento Box anime print quilt for Teen Wonder (I did get some coordinating fabrics when I went to the quilt shop last), a couple of skirts, knit wrap dress (will take much courage for me as I wrote about in my serger series), a door stopper for the hall (for which I already bought 4 pounds of dried split peas on sale...), a couple of new pillows desperately needed in our living room...the list goes on and on...

But first I need to bind the big quilt I finished so we can use it.
And next Saturday I will probably get to pick up Megan's quilt if it is finished by then. I can't wait to see it! I also now have a deadline for binding that one and finishing it - October 24th...

Okay, we are off to Tahoe for a long weekend so I need to whip out some clean laundry presto and pack up!!  HAPPY FRIDAY!

taking a day off...sort of

Back from another business trip Wednesday nite, and today I'm taking a day off. Well, sort of - it's a vacation day from work, but it's always a bad sign when you sort of feel yucky and just want to go to sleep, but your mind is racing with all the things you should do that you never get time to do because of work and kids.

So I'm plotting a compromise: some coffee and internet browsing (oh snap! I can already check that off my list!), some yoga, some unpacking and laundry, maybe a nap, and then I've promised to pick up Wild Thing from school. I worked from home and picked him up yesterday, and it really seems like a good thing to try and do whenever I can right now. First grade is tough for a Wild Thing, and he's working on it really hard!

Anyway, I wanted to point out the new link over on the right, because I was browsing stuff to try out on a grey Friday afternoon with a Wild Thing, and stumbled on this:  The Toymaker !!



Wow! It is chock full of free paper craft toys and lovely little projects to print out and make and share.
There are several Halloween crafts, like these:

I strongly encourage you all to take your inner child over there right away! And if you have external children around of any age, share with them too. Just a little cardstock, scissors, and glue required (plus a printer, duh.)

The Toymaker, aka Marilyn Scot, has a new Christmas book I'm planning to pick up down at Books, Inc. if it's come out yet - looks like a great little present! 

experiment with music...

So, if you hate the music thing, just turn it off (player in the sidebar) and leave me a comment. If there were people reading my blog, and they hated the music, then I'll take it off. I'm not sure how much this matters so far. I mean, I do have a follower now (yay!), but not much traffic so far.  

Why the music? Well, I mentioned I've been checking out other blogs...and also adding links to them (also see sidebar). There is a cool one "A La Mode Fabric" where you get music when you go there, and I really like her playlist and also wondered how and where the music was being generated. Which led me to "playlist.com", which led me to create a playlist (stealing liberally from the alamode playlist which you can do with the push of a button) and figure out how to post it here. It's free! And if you like it you can pop out the player and keep listening while you navigate away from my site in a few seconds from now.

it's an experiment, and hey! I am a scientist...

  

Teen Wonder is having a birthday!!

But at the moment, I'm the one with the new present to open!  What is it?
(duh. there are limited choices: fabric, yarn, craft porn, or a real be-lated birthday present)

ta-da!! FABRIC!

(First off, I need to start taking photos with a real camera instead of my blackberry. But it's the fastest path to a post, so for now this is what I've got...)

This is only my second time buying the MODA pre-cuts. I have a Layer Cake of holiday fabric to make a quilt for the sofa during that season (which is by the way a very wierd concept for me, and we certainly don't have any storage space to accomodate a seasonal rotation of throw quilts!).  And these, the charm square "Tweet Tweet" pack, and the Candy Bar pack (wow!) stemmed from the list of baby quilt projects I had. But really I only needed enough to make a specific quilt that needed one+ charm pack plus the muslin and backing (the red and orange floral there). How did I end up with the extra candy bar pack?!

I'm so weak.

Anyway, it really is the Teen Wonder's 16th birthday, so I'm off to get her ice cream cake and wrap presents, because yes I did get her some presents of her own.  Can you imagine my end of that dialog? "hey, happy birthday honey! look what came in the mail for ME?" "oh, make you a quilt?" "yeah, I'll get to that at some point"..."soon, I promise."  But I got her a Flip camera instead. And her stepdad got her some cool t-shirts from some site she loves online (can't remember at the moment), and her brother got her something silly...so we'll have a little party later.  Saturday was spent taking Teen Wonder and her friends to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. That was really fun (though exhausting!)  It has been more years than I can even think since I've been on so many rides in one day. They have THE BEST roller coaster in the world there too. I always have to ride it at least twice.  I had to buy Teen Wonder a new sweatshirt because the fog rolled in and she forgot to bring one (I'm sure this was a trick to get a memento from her birthday party!). It was really cold! But the girls soldiered on (one of them had to buy some jeans!). 

party on!

Good for a laugh

Whether or not you have children of your own, you will hopefully get a chuckle out of this sign posted at the gate of Lake Chabot campground:

I guess it pays to read the fine print in any situation.