September Wreath

This is our inspiration pic for the September wreath.  I must admit, I was motivated by a slight case of coveting.  Let me explain--I visited my sister's house right after she moved a few years ago and she had a similar wreath on her wall.  My coveting gene flared up, I just never thought I'd be able to reproduce something like it myself, and no idea where to get one since her neighbor had made it.  Then I got the idea to make a bunch of wreaths this year.  I'm not sure, but the whole wreath-every-month thing might have just been a big ploy to get to make this wreath.  Anyway, I have no intention of giving a how-to, mostly because this woman did an exceptional job.  And here's my version. 

Please ignore my otherwise bare walls.  I'm clearly not a decorator.

But, not to disappoint, I do have a wreath how-to for you.  I have a somewhat unhealthy obsession with school supplies, and since September is kind of a back-to-school month, I thought I'd inable my obsession celebrate with a school-themed wreath.  

Supplies

• Cardboard wreath  free
• 112 wooden pencils  $6
• ribbon
• sparkly fall leaves  $2
• Glue gun

Total  $8

1) Cut out a circle from a piece of cardboard.  Mine is not at all symmetric because I just eyeballed it.  You can use a bowl or a pencil on a string or something, but it does get all covered.

2) After trying a few different methods, I discovered it was easiest to group the pencils in threes and arrange them around the wreath.

3) Spread out the pencils so they are evenly distributed.  Glue them in place.

4) Fill in the gaps with another row of pencils.  I lined up the erasers of the second row with the metal of the first so they'd be even.  And glued them in place.  I also sharpened the pencils--about 56--by hand.  My fingers were black and my thumb really hurt.  I do not recommend doing this.  It's fine if you have an electric pencil sharpener, or some help, but it's really not fun alone.  

5) Add a bow and some leaves for a little pop and hang on your door to enjoy.

Summer Updates

Since autumn is upon us, I guess this is a good time to remember all the fun things we've done this summer.  That I recorded on my phone because I can't seem to bring my good camera anywhere.

Some sibling love in Walmart, on Joy's birthday.  These two are great friends and get along really well most of the time.

The Museum of Transportation

 This is Joy's growling trick she spontaneously started doing this summer.  I finally got a recording of it, though she normally has sound effects to go with it.

Climbing in the engine room

Another future engineer?

Our friend (pictured with The Captain) took us boating.  It was a huge step towards getting The Captain to love the water.

Miss Joy, of course, snuggled in her life jacket and took a nap.

The Captain actually went out on a tube.  He took his squirt gun and was a regular James Bond, shooting people while tubing.

 Joy is getting really good at standing by herself.

She can take like 7 steps in a row, I promise, but she simply refuses to do it when I am trying to record her.  And the last few days she'll stand up and walk without trying to make it to Daddy.  So she'll be running after her brother soon enough.

We went to Charlottesville 2 weeks ago and they had a great play area in the mall.  It was fun for The Captain and Joy climbed all the way up here by herself.

For those who missed it on Facebook, I took this video the other day of Joy making it down the stairs.  She seemed so uninterested in learning to do this, but Johnny has been working with her and it totally paid off.  Now she's talented and speedy.

Projects part 1

For the second day in a row it is raining and pouring, which I am taking as a sign to put off my chores and catch up on the blog. So expect some posts in the next few days.

So, I mentioned back in May that I had a lot of projects lined up to do in the summer, which was true, and of course, I couldn't get through all of them before Seminary started again and my free time was commandeered by teenagers.  But as I also mentioned, not all of them waited until Seminary was over before moving up from the back burner.  This is one of those projects:

I got the idea from Pinterest (isn't that where all current craft ideas are born?) and after about 100 hours of work, it is finally finished, and well before I thought it would be. I was pretty sure I'd be latch hooking this baby until Christmas.

I bought a 36"x60" blank latch hook rug.  I cut t-shirts and sweatshirts into 1"x4" strips.  Lots of them.  That I got for $2 at a yard sale. I counted them -- over 10,000

I dyed them pink and gray and separated them into two very full diaper boxes (that fit 72 size 3 diapers).

The gray one looks more full because it has more sweatshirts in it, but really they were pretty much even.

Then I started filling them in, 31 in every square and after 7 thousand years, I was 1/4 of the way done.

I guess in my defense, I did take a vacation during this part, but still, this was definitely the longest section.  It took me awhile to figure out the fastest and best way to hook things on.

The rug was ridiculously intimidating at this point.

In order to motivate myself into not cutting the rug in half when I reached the halfway point and calling that good enough, I decided to checkerboard.

Halfway done!

And to be extra nice to myself, I left that bonus square for the last quarter.  By this point I learned that doing an entire row at a time was much faster than one square at a time, so things were speedier.  Also, I didn't have bare rug back scratching my knuckles and I had something nice to sit on.  

I learned to bind the rug before you start so you can machine stitch it on.  I had to hand sew mine on and it almost took longer than my patience could stand.  But as you can see, it makes a great wrestling mat.

After this huge project, you would think I learned my lesson, but I bought stuff for a rag rug before I even finished the binding on this.  I think I may have a crafting addiction . . . 

All bets are off

So on Wednesday (why is it always Wednesdays?) two days after turning one, Joy  . . .

got a tooth.

Yes, the front bottom left tooth poked its pokey top through the gumlime.  I guess it isn't technically in yet, but I'm calling it.

Especially since two weeks later she still isn't walking and has another one coming in on the top.  Well, I think so.  She is stubbornly not letting me feel her gums these days.

And between the teething and the almost walking, she has been waking up multiple times at night.  I don't go in to get her or anything, but it has made her an unreliable alarm clock. Unlike The Captain, she will sleep in later if she is not sleeping very well.  This is why we were late to church last Sunday.  We don't normally set an alarm on Sunday, and she woke up at 8:45, an hour later than usual.  Church starts at 9 and we live 17 minutes away.

So we ended up sitting in the foyer for what was left of Sacrament Meeting.  I'm not planning on doing that ever again, but it did have it's advantages.

Anyway, Tea is the winner so she has bragging rights, and that email I promised to send out months ago.

Hooray!

One year older and wiser too

Well, this post will probably end up quite lengthy, and we're just going to pretend that I didn't take a long hiatus from posting.  We have been spending our summer getting ready for pre-school by having alphabet days.  We take one letter on school days, mostly, and try to do one activity and eat one food that starts with that letter.  It has been great practice for my creativity.  I only mention this because Joy's birthday fell on our S day.  I may have finagled things so that it would because she likes many things that start with S.

After her first nap we went to the park and played on the swings.

Hmm. Does she love her swings?

I think she does.

Although she is not walking yet, she is close.  She can stand up with one hand, or just a tummy for support.  Also on her birthday, she stood up with no help for the first time.  Exciting stuff.

 She pretty much refused to take an afternoon nap, so after some crying in her crib while I got stuff ready, we picked up Johnny from work and went out to dinner (at the same restaurant I went to in labor last year and haven't been to since, ironically enough) and then swimming at the Aquatic Center since this girl loves her some water.  I didn't get any pictures, because, well it was water.  But one day I promise I'll get a picture of her in her swimming suit.  It's really cute.  We all had a good time once we got adjusted to the coldish water.  Even The Captain ended up jumping and laughing, so I call that a success.

We got home too late to do cake and presents so we saved that for the next day.  It was kind of rough for Miss Joy that next day--she had a doctor's appointment with shots and then we had to go to the lab at the hospital for a blood draw, which of course took two tries and lots of crying.  I was so exhausted I almost didn't make a cake, but I figured that after her day, Joy could use a little chocolate.  So I made a cake, and cupcakes.

 Waiting so patiently for us to sing.

 Yes, we did actually let her eat it.

 Then it was time for presents, which apparently means tackle Daddy.

 Opening the card from Grandma P.

 Oh, it was so sweet.

 But Joy didn't miss the REAL present.

 Opening Grandma L's present.

 She loved her cow.  It walks and sings "Bust a Mooove".  It's been a huge hit.

 Then The Captain got to give her his present.  He picked it out himself on Amazon and everything.  He is now convinced that he will get a bouncy ball for his birthday, too.

 And this present is from us . . . well kind of.  I got it at my baby shower, but I knew Joy wouldn't appreciate it and The Captain would commandeer it if I gave it to her right away, so it made a nice 1 year gift.

The day after this she did one of the two things we were betting on, so stay tuned for that revelation.

August Wreath

Here's our inspiration for the August wreath:

Supplies:

• One 14" grapevine wreath  $4
• Artifical flowers -- mine were 40% off @ Michaels  $6
• Ribbon  $1
• Wooden letter  $1
• Spray Paint -- I already had some, so free for me
• Hot glue gun & glue

Total

$12

I kind of wanted to put my house numbers on this wreath, but I couldn't find any large wooden numbers.  I found some when I went after-Christmas shopping, but wasn't smart enough to get them then.  Oh well.

1) While your hot glue gun is warming up, tie your bow.  

2) Cut the steams off your flowers. That is an accurate length, you want to leave only about 1"-1 1/2", just enough to poke into the wreath, but not enough to stick out the back.

3) Position everything on the wreath to decide where you want things.

4) Start gluing things down.  I started with the letter, then glued down the leaves.  I really liked them, so I decided to add them to the wreath.

 5) When gluing the flowers, I found it best to position them, finding a good spot in the grapevine wreath to stick them through, then coat them with glue and stick them back in.

Sorry this picture is out of focus.  It was challenging to hold stuff and take pictures at the same time.

 6) I put my bow on last and used wire to secure it on the wreath.

 7) Add ribbon to hang it on the door.  I think we agreed that gluing a loop on the back was the best option. I put wire around mine so that if I get in a situation were the hook is not all the way at the top of my front door, the wreath can look like it's hanging without any ribbon.

Here are the others from the group:

I think she out Bob-Rossed me on this one.

 And here's my finished project.

Frankenstein Tomatoes

We planted our garden this year, just like we do every year, but this year something was different.  This year a strange beast started taking over.

 A giant tomato plant sprung out of nowhere.  Unencouraged by human hands, it plotted it's revenge on the world through excessive tomato production.

We understood the dangers of letting the beast remain uncontrolled, so we caged it with 8 foot bamboo poles.  They were barely enough to contain the monster.

But in all seriousness, we have no idea where this giant came from.  I guess the plants my friend gave me last year weren't hybrids and came back.  Which bods well for next year since plenty of tomatoes have fallen to the ground.

In other news, I have tried unsuccessfully for two years to grow pumpkins here.  I am determined to do it, so this year I planted them all alone in our little unused triangle patch by the door.  They seem to like it.   

 We've already had to loop the vine back into its area a few times because it tends to keep venturing onto the lawn.

I love watching the flowers uncurl in the sunshine.

 There are lots of flowers so I hope we'll have lots of pumpkins.  If you look closely at this picture you can see some orange from the big one we already have.

 The other day The Captain came in telling me about big caterpillars he had seen outside.  I maybe only halfway believed him until he pointed them out while I was photographing the pumpkins.  They were huge.  There were four in all.  They don't seem to have destroyed my parsley, but I can't say it would have minded being eaten a little, it's getting slightly out of control.