Variations on a Theme

After figuring out my original wave bottle earlier this week I wanted to make something similar with corn syrup and thought I’d ask Seth if he wanted to help. Not only did he want to help make one for Eleanor but he almost had a breakdown because he wanted to make a wave bottle for himself. Anna had commented on my earlier post about using different oils for different effects so I tried to encourage a variation for Seth’s bottle. Well, this didn’t go over too well. He was more than willing to make other varieties for Eleanor but he wanted a blue wave bottle almost identical to his sister’s as his own. Alrighty then!

So here you have it. The bottle above was made with corn syrup a little food coloring and more of the bug buttons with the shanks cut off. Again I super glued the cap back on to avoid a spill. I left a little air at the top this time though. I’m not so happy with the color as I meant for it to be light green but accidently grabed the red at one point. The bugs do eventually float in the corn syrup but it takes them some time to slowly make their way through the goo. It’s great for little bug races. We spent quite a while turning the bottle over and waiting to see which bug would make it to the top first.

These bottle were made according to the directions in my previous post but with some variation in the ingredients. Seth’s wave bottle was filled to the brim with blue water, vegetable oil with blue glitter and seashells. We also varied the height of the water. Unfortunately, we did have to make this one twice as we found out you must mix your food coloring with the water prior to pouring in the oil or the oil gets rather cloudy. At least we think that’s what did it.

This last bottle was made with orange colored water, olive oil and a few pretty pebbles. That’s it! We filled it right up to the top and glued the cap in place. I love the color combination and the olive oil makes great bubbles when the rocks go through it.

We haven’t given these to Eleanor yet but I can tell you that a neighbors 21 month old liked them so much he tried to steal them. So I have no doubt Eleanor will find them intriguing. If nothing else it was a great project for my almost 4 yr old. He got to play with color mixing and learn about the density of certain liquids. What more could I ask for?

Swap Update & A Giveaway!

I got a bit antsy waiting to start my swap project before the partners were handed out so I started what I thought was a little something to keep me occupied.  In my normal fashion I neglected to read the directions all the way through before hand and by the time I realized I would need to knit three six foot i-cords I was already too into the project. The above headband is the result. You can see another shot here. I had to run it through the washer 6 TIMES to get it to full how I wanted it. By the time all was said and done I had left over felted i-cords. What to do? Well a Functional Felt Swap giveaway, of course! Here’s what I came up with:

A lovely (in my opinion), light as air bracelet. This giveaway is open to all Functional Felt Swap participants. (Sorry to my other wonderful readers - but don’t fear I have another giveaway planned for the nearish future.) In order to qualify for this giveaway all you need to do is comment about your progress to date on this post, Jen’s update post,  or upload a shot to our flickr group by end of day Monday, May 19th. It could even be simply about the materials you plan to use. If you take a look at the flickr group it’ll be pretty obvious that some go getters are already entered into this giveaway. But don’t let that stop you from commenting. We want to hear what you think of the swap so far. As for me, here’s my progress. I should have put a quarter in there for scale. If I had it would have been about the size of you mouse pointer.

Wave Bottle

Eleanor’s 1st birthday is this week and I’ve decided to go with homemade presents. This is the 1st of hopefully several gifts I’m attempting to make before our little party this weekend. We’ll see how productive I can be in the face of several other commitments, my day job and the fact that several family members are arriving Friday.

I’m calling this one a wave bottle for lack of a better term. I was actually thinking blue sky when I made it, hence the floating bugs. However, you could just as easily do fish in an ocean. We all know oil and water don’t mix but more fun can be had when you add other elements. The idea is that she can shake and roll this little bottle to her hearts content watching the liquids react but never mix. The blue will stay blue with bugs in it and the clear will sparkle with the glitter. Here’s the low down if you want to make your own. I think it’s enticing for babies and toddlers to play with as well as a fun experiment for preschoolers and maybe even grade schoolers to make.

Materials:

• Half full water bottle
• Food coloring
• Glitter
• Vegetable oil
• Trinkets - completely optional
• Super glue

I added a couple drops of blue food coloring to the water and a few plastic bugs. The bugs are actually buttons in which I cut off the shank.

I then added a bunch of glitter and filled the bottle to the top with vegetable oil. The glitter will stay suspended in the oil for a bit when the bottle is given a shake. Interestingly not much of the glitter will mix with the water. I then covered each and every thread on the top of the bottle with super glue and screwed on the cap. I have no desire to clean oil out of the carpet so I wanted to make sure the cap was on for good. You could also add a strong tape for good measure but I think I’ll tempt fate.

Now, on to a few more presents or I’ll end up at a toy store right before the celebration. Wish me luck!

[Update - to see more variations on this project click here]

Collage for the Old and the Young

I created a travel project for Seth involving sandpaper with yarn and set it out to see if he would have any interest. After feeling the sandpaper and twirling the yarn he asked for paper & scissors, which I gave him. After cutting up a few pieces he asked for crayons and green glue (his term for a glue stick). And after a couple more minutes he had whipped up this lovely collage of his own design with his own chosen materials. He even got some tape and chose what wall to put it on. I was thrilled. I was also reminded that I really needed to work on getting his art supplies where he can reach them whenever inspirations strikes. Mind you, I also have to consider how far Eleanor can reach now, which makes this a bit more complex.

Meanwhile I’ve been working on my own collages since early December. I’ve posted on the one I made my sis earlier. I was able to finish that one because I had a deadline of a trip to see her. These other two are mine. Which means there was no motivation other than my desire to complete them. Although I really wanted them done, it’s the sort of thing I push off because the kids need caring for, the dishes need washing or any number of daily chores. “I’ll do it next weekend” was always at the tip of my tongue. Not only did life get in the way but I kept making silly mistakes. I forgot to attach hardware to the back before affixing the ephemera even though Jen had warned against this in her mini tutorial. Then I used inappropriate adhesives to put the drift wood on causing it to fall off a day later. Finally, when putting it up on the wall with 3m picture hook adhesives I neglected to take into account that the hook might be longer than the actual piece. Twice. Geeze! Could anything else go wrong? Well, after about 5 different attempts at putting it on the wall I finally realized I could use 3m’s command strips. To the close observer you’ll note that means I didn’t have to attach hardware to begin with as these little strips stick to both the wall and the art piece with no need for traditional picture hanging hardware. They’re like heavy duty removable Velcro. Yes, I realize I could have just pounded a nail in the wall but as I have old plaster walls this can be a dangerous proposition. So, even though I apparently could only take crappy pictures of these pieces I just had to post that it’s finally done!!!! They are complete AND up on my wall. Hip, hip hurray!!!

Here I give you my Duluth memory collages made from dirty 2×4 scraps, digital photos printed on plain recycled paper, gel mat medium, epoxy, beach sand, stones and drift wood. Phew, that was a rough one!

Sewing

I’ve been thinking a lot about sewing lately. It’s consuming my thoughts. I used to sew quite a bit about 15 years ago when I worked in a fabric store. Not sure what happened but the sewing machine got tucked away and forgotten. I’ve seen so many great posts on sewn items it’s got me thinking. Then my parents showed up with a long forgotten box of memories including this bag. I made it when I was in Jr High. It was in Home Ec and probably one of the first sewing projects I ever completed.

Remember that gift I mentioned from Kristin? It’s this great pin cushion. See the flowers on top? They’re actually the tops of pins. Very clever. I love it! The picture doesn’t do it justice.

So it seems the cosmos is trying to tell me something, don’t you think? I mean, how can I ignore these signs? So if that’s the case I better dust off the old sewing machine. I suppose it’ll need a tune up. But where in the world do I go to get that done?

Anatole

Other than me getting a wicked sunburn we had an excellent weekend. Seth and I went on several adventures including picnics, parkS, coffee shops with play areas, walks and even a giant puppet parade. The puppets were giant, not the parade. Some had to be held by almost a dozen handlers. Our all time favorite activity of the weekend was going to the MIA on Saturday for a puppet show of Anatole and Anatole and the Cat. In case you’re wondering these puppets were normal sized. Following the show there was a scavanger hunt to find a mouse in a painting, a craft project of making an Anatole puppet and a “french” snack. Even without a 3 year old I would have enjoyed this. But it’s nice to have a youngster around as an excuse. I would have gotten odd looks otherwise.

For those of you that don’t know who Anatole is, he’s a charming mouse living in Paris. He is the lead character in a little set of books by Eve TItus geared at the 4-8 yr old set. Anatole makes an honorable living as a cheese taster instead of stealing his food from others. It was by pure coincidence that we had brought home Anatole and the Toy Shop back in December. It had been the hubby’s book as a youngin’. I had never heard of Anatole, but now find him quite delightful. Even though the original book was written over 50 years ago they’ve held up well. There was only one marginally sexist remark in the 1st book about the fathers going out to gather the food. Why can’t the mothers provide for their family I ask you? I’ve decided to chalk it up to a possibility in the animal kingdom. Am I kidding myself because I find the rest of the story so utterly charming? It’s better than Rudolf needing to get the women folk back to safety which makes me cringe but I still let Seth watch it. I consider myself quite the feminist but will these subtle messages influence my son or will my role modeling conquer all?

Friends

What has surprised me the most about blogging is the community. I’m sure this doesn’t surprise most of you, but I’m still a newbie. My original goal had more to do with motivating myself to complete more projects than anything to do with friends. It was rather selfish. Prior to starting my blog in January I had been a reader (aka lurker) seldom commenting but always being inspired. I want to start seeing more completed projects of my own as well as with my children. I thought committing to post about them would help. And it has. What I didn’t count on were the friends. Who would have thought this little venture would strengthen a current friendship, rekindle an old one and create a new one in so short a time span. Actually, many new friends. Too many to mention here. But the fact that I’ve now met one of those new friends blows me away. Kristin and I spent a lovely morning on Friday at an art museum. It was a strange mix of I’ve known you forever but am just meeting you, and I was very pleased with the outing. I did feel a little out of my league as she dresses better than me, has a better behaved 3 yr old and is more thoughtful. (Why didn’t I think to bring a gift?) Just as pleasant as getting to know her was watching our boys get to know each other. I’m not sure whether it was cuter, watching them hold hands while they walked through the museum or when they were sharing an umbrella on the walk to the car. You should know that the mamas were getting drenched while these two were cozily inching their way up the street. This picture was taken at the beginning of the walk. Before my hair was dripping and every other sentence out my mouth was “hurry up guys”.

I hope to meet many more of you that I have come to consider my friends. As I know I will never be able to travel the globe and meet all of you, please know that I still treasure our friendships. I look forward to many more exchanges, be it through postings, comments or craftiness. Thank you for being my friend.

A World of Color

Hmmmmm……. I went macro again. Blue was harder than I expected. Maybe the world needs a little more blue? Of course, ask a potter and they’ll say glaze in blue if you want to guarantee a sale. Then why did I have such a problem finding blue items to photograph? As I look around I see a lot of blue, but it’s not stuff that I want to photograph. Maybe I need to do something about this.

Thank you to Curious Bird for a fun colorful week.

Red vs. Pink

When it comes to red, I had a lot more success at stepping back from the macro view. Yes, the pedal was with the macro setting but none of the rest.

Pink on the other hand… Not only do I tend to not be a big fan of pink but I had a rather hard time finding interesting pink things today, especially ones that didn’t involve a close up shot.

I took that pink sidewalk shot WHILE driving. Shame on me! The rest of these shots were taken on a couple of walks. I’m glad the rain has held off but it looks like there’s no avoiding it tomorrow. Good thing I have indoor museum plans with a certain someone!

The Big Picture

Orange Wednesday is upon us and I now realize I’ve been stuck in macro mode. After creating the above mosaic this morning I drove to work and saw color themes everywhere, particularly orange. Things that normally would have looked junky had appeal. The caution tape wrapped around a tree and blowing in the wind, the sidewalk barricade surrounded by cones, the repetition of street signs and banners. It was amazing and it made me see the world in a completely different way. I’ve really enjoyed the macro challenge and want to thank Orange Flower for organizing the event, but it’s time to move on. Maybe even take a few shots from a distance.

(This isn’t a good shot, but it was orange and made me think. If only I had extra time this morning to get out of the car and properly shoot this color coordinated semi.)