The Twig and Molokie French Book
Like the teen girls of today, my best friend and I were also obsessed with a vampire novel. We found two characters in this book completely amusing. Somehow we decided we were these characters... even though we weren't a couple of undead men running around in a van in New Orleans. Maybe we could've been the adolescent female versions of these vampires? Who knows.
In high school, we used these two characters as an outlet for lots of silliness and boredom. I made a book for French class with Twig and Molokie. This is probably the least weird of all the Twig and Molokie drawings. Click on the photo to see the whole book.
In high school, we used these two characters as an outlet for lots of silliness and boredom. I made a book for French class with Twig and Molokie. This is probably the least weird of all the Twig and Molokie drawings. Click on the photo to see the whole book.
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| frenchbook |
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Snow Storm Outage
Sat, Mar 6 2010 09:30 AM
| thought process, country living
| Permalink
During this latest snow storm, we were out of power for almost 4 days. It was incredibly annoying because our well water uses an electric pump, our stove is electric, and our oil burner doesn't turn on without electricity. uhg!
Things to remember in the event of an impending storm:
1. Fill your bathtub with water for flushing and stock up on drinking water- duh.
2. Have flashlights and batteries, candles and matches, and a battery powered radio on hand.
3. In the event that you're out of power for days, check with your local fire department or community center for dry ice, water, and warm meals.
4. Hot Hands is great to have when it's stupid cold and your heat doesn't work. You can buy them in the camping section of your local store. It works with iron oxidation.
The only outages I've experienced that have lasted longer than two days have been while I lived in the NYC area during the summer. In the city, the water always works and all the stoves are gas. I wish I had known about the fire department/community stuff that goes on during an outage. In the city, the electric company usually reimburses you for food lost during a long outage- so be sure to write a list of the foods and prices before you toss them and take a photo if you can. In the country (and suburbs?), people get dry ice. Without knowing about the dry ice, we put our refrigerated foods in a large plastic container and filled it with snow and left it in the kitchen. Our frozen foods got put in another large plastic container (with lid) and buried in the snow outside.
The first photo was taken with 15 second exposure. My fiance and I played Scrabble by candlelight while munching on pizza we made earlier in the day. We were watching the news about the snow and the news guy said, "Lots of trees will be coming down tonight, expect outages." We mocked the news guy and 2 minutes later we lost power. Boooo to us. The second photo is the morning after the initial storm. You can see the broken tree limbs. It snowed for another day.
Luckily, my fiance had made a very small wood burning stove to warm the basement up while he tinkers. We made coffee and cooked eggs in the living room the morning after the outage. I guess we could've used the wood burning stove in the kitchen, but we were hoping to warm the living room a little. The grate above the stove was taken from our toaster oven. It couldn't take the heat and warped a bit.
This is the third morning after the outage. I've never seen all three cats hanging out this close together. I stuck one HotHands under each of their butts :D
Things to remember in the event of an impending storm:
1. Fill your bathtub with water for flushing and stock up on drinking water- duh.
2. Have flashlights and batteries, candles and matches, and a battery powered radio on hand.
3. In the event that you're out of power for days, check with your local fire department or community center for dry ice, water, and warm meals.
4. Hot Hands is great to have when it's stupid cold and your heat doesn't work. You can buy them in the camping section of your local store. It works with iron oxidation.
The only outages I've experienced that have lasted longer than two days have been while I lived in the NYC area during the summer. In the city, the water always works and all the stoves are gas. I wish I had known about the fire department/community stuff that goes on during an outage. In the city, the electric company usually reimburses you for food lost during a long outage- so be sure to write a list of the foods and prices before you toss them and take a photo if you can. In the country (and suburbs?), people get dry ice. Without knowing about the dry ice, we put our refrigerated foods in a large plastic container and filled it with snow and left it in the kitchen. Our frozen foods got put in another large plastic container (with lid) and buried in the snow outside.
The first photo was taken with 15 second exposure. My fiance and I played Scrabble by candlelight while munching on pizza we made earlier in the day. We were watching the news about the snow and the news guy said, "Lots of trees will be coming down tonight, expect outages." We mocked the news guy and 2 minutes later we lost power. Boooo to us. The second photo is the morning after the initial storm. You can see the broken tree limbs. It snowed for another day.
Luckily, my fiance had made a very small wood burning stove to warm the basement up while he tinkers. We made coffee and cooked eggs in the living room the morning after the outage. I guess we could've used the wood burning stove in the kitchen, but we were hoping to warm the living room a little. The grate above the stove was taken from our toaster oven. It couldn't take the heat and warped a bit.
This is the third morning after the outage. I've never seen all three cats hanging out this close together. I stuck one HotHands under each of their butts :D
watch where you dip that paint brush
Wed, Mar 3 2010 10:40 PM
| wedding, other crafts
| Permalink
I'm getting married in September. My fiance and I are the crafty, thrifty sorta folks (if you haven't already noticed) and want as much of a DIY kind of wedding as we can handle.
For centerpieces, I bought those $4 wooden birdhouses at Michaels (I waited til they were on sale). I'm painting them all sorts of colors because I don't want to have a particular color palette. I was going to put moss or leafy vines around the houses, but I think I'm going to figure out a way to make our (undecided) favors as scenery.
As you can see in this photo, my pink lemonade is the same color as the paint I am using. I felt totally weird drinking the lemonade.
We found a large, old chalkboard on the side of the road and have used it for various purposes- making the TapeScape and drying handmade paper. Now it has a home on the wall as our wedding to-do list. It's easier having the list on the wall for both of us to see instead of tucked away in a folder... or rather, it's easier for my fiance to be involved if he can see the list more readily. :P
For centerpieces, I bought those $4 wooden birdhouses at Michaels (I waited til they were on sale). I'm painting them all sorts of colors because I don't want to have a particular color palette. I was going to put moss or leafy vines around the houses, but I think I'm going to figure out a way to make our (undecided) favors as scenery.
As you can see in this photo, my pink lemonade is the same color as the paint I am using. I felt totally weird drinking the lemonade.
We found a large, old chalkboard on the side of the road and have used it for various purposes- making the TapeScape and drying handmade paper. Now it has a home on the wall as our wedding to-do list. It's easier having the list on the wall for both of us to see instead of tucked away in a folder... or rather, it's easier for my fiance to be involved if he can see the list more readily. :P
Buns on Parade- super grip on bunny slippers
Sat, Feb 13 2010 12:32 PM
| crochet, other crafts
| Permalink
I really love Debbie Stoller's The Happy Hooker book. In fact, I really love crocheting! Sometimes it's difficult to count the stitches on crochet, but I love how things whip up faster and with an added texture in crochet. I guess there's all sorts of cool things you can do with knitting as well, but I find knitting to be a slightly more advanced art than crochet.
I decided to make the Bunny Slippers in The Happy Hooker book for several friends of mine. If you ever want a pair of super nice bunny slippers, you should try out this pattern. Beware though- one slipper is 5 pieces!
The pattern is pretty easy to follow and also easy to adjust for feet sizes (just add stitches to the starting chain for longer feet, and/or add extra rounds for wider feet). My main beef with the slippers is that I had to sew 5 pieces together (bottom sole, upper sole, toe part, two ears) for each slipper, but I guess I shouldn't have tried to make 4 pairs of slippers in a row!
When all the slippers were done, all the button eyes were sewn on, and all the noses were satin stitched on, I was ready to apply some sort of traction to the bottoms. I read a few different options online for this- mold builder, puffy paint (dimensional paint), and rubber that you use for dipping garden tool handles. The puff paint was already in my stash, but when I tried it out it didn't feel like it would be very durable on the bottom of slippers. So I went out and bought the expensive mold builder (I forget the exact price, but it was over $10 and under $20- maybe it wasn't that expensive a price to pay so your friends don't slip and break bones I guess).
The gold puff paint in squiggle lines looks great but felt like you could still slip if you were a
super clumsy person (my friends are). The mold builder looks kinda like snot, but it was just like adding a rubbery layer to the bottom of your slippers. Here in the northeast, most of the houses/apartments have wood floors. It was very important to me to give slippers with traction.
To prep your bunny slippers, I recommend hanging them on a line. I used some scrap yarn and clothes pins. Use a foam brush to apply a layer of mold builder on the bottoms of your slippers (mold builder is white but it turns translucent tan when dry). Wait for the layer to dry (mine took about 5 hours for each layer) and apply another layer... and then another. At least, that's what I did. And under no circumstances should you wash your brush in the sink right after using the mold builder. I know the directions tell you to wash it in cold water and such, but it's best to let the brush dry, then remove the latex and then wash the brush. I think I made the sink drain a little slower because of this mistake :P
hippity hoppity...
I decided to make the Bunny Slippers in The Happy Hooker book for several friends of mine. If you ever want a pair of super nice bunny slippers, you should try out this pattern. Beware though- one slipper is 5 pieces!
The pattern is pretty easy to follow and also easy to adjust for feet sizes (just add stitches to the starting chain for longer feet, and/or add extra rounds for wider feet). My main beef with the slippers is that I had to sew 5 pieces together (bottom sole, upper sole, toe part, two ears) for each slipper, but I guess I shouldn't have tried to make 4 pairs of slippers in a row!
When all the slippers were done, all the button eyes were sewn on, and all the noses were satin stitched on, I was ready to apply some sort of traction to the bottoms. I read a few different options online for this- mold builder, puffy paint (dimensional paint), and rubber that you use for dipping garden tool handles. The puff paint was already in my stash, but when I tried it out it didn't feel like it would be very durable on the bottom of slippers. So I went out and bought the expensive mold builder (I forget the exact price, but it was over $10 and under $20- maybe it wasn't that expensive a price to pay so your friends don't slip and break bones I guess).
The gold puff paint in squiggle lines looks great but felt like you could still slip if you were a
super clumsy person (my friends are). The mold builder looks kinda like snot, but it was just like adding a rubbery layer to the bottom of your slippers. Here in the northeast, most of the houses/apartments have wood floors. It was very important to me to give slippers with traction.
To prep your bunny slippers, I recommend hanging them on a line. I used some scrap yarn and clothes pins. Use a foam brush to apply a layer of mold builder on the bottoms of your slippers (mold builder is white but it turns translucent tan when dry). Wait for the layer to dry (mine took about 5 hours for each layer) and apply another layer... and then another. At least, that's what I did. And under no circumstances should you wash your brush in the sink right after using the mold builder. I know the directions tell you to wash it in cold water and such, but it's best to let the brush dry, then remove the latex and then wash the brush. I think I made the sink drain a little slower because of this mistake :P
hippity hoppity...
Late Christmas Gifts
Last Christmas I didn't spend much time on my parents' gifts. In fact, I bought them some kind of kite-like lawn ornament (they love their garden). This year I figured I had enough time on my hands to make them some things, but I put a little too much on my plate for handmade goods. They got their gifts late, but at least they liked them.. or so they say :P
My parents live in sunny California, but they still get chills. The green shawl was made from the Splendid Triangle Shawl from Lion Brand. It was super easy and I sped through it. Bulky weight yarn and using large needles is freaking awesome! The red, purple, brown scarf is called Diva Scarf, also from Lion Brand. It was also pretty easy, but it took forever to make. I used larger needles so that it could be shawl-like and not too warm for my mom to wear.
My dad got three hats. Both the beanie and the fedora are from the Happy Hooker book. The fedora hat was actually a cowboy hat pattern but I added the blue stripe and didn't make the brim as large or with the wire, like the pattern suggested. My mom told me my dad sleeps with a hat on 'cause his head gets cold (he's like 70 years old), so I thought I would make him his very own sleeping cap. Funny, huh?
If you know my brother, you must know that he's got some weird infatuation with unicorns. I'm not talking the kitschy unicorn stuff that's been out the past five years. He's been into unicorns for at least 10 years. Maybe more. Anyway, my sister had given me the idea to make hoodies with extra pockets on the inside so you can take all your stuff with you that way. I decided to try this idea out a bit on my brother. I bought a regular hoodie, three yards of flannel for warmth, and this amazing horses fabric online. I painted the gold horns on all of the horses on 3 yards of this fabric. I used the hoodie as a pattern for the fabric, stitched the pieces together, and made the pockets before sewing the lining into the hoodie. ALAKAZAM! I only wish I used a hoodie that was one size larger. Apparently it's a snug fit since I used flannel for warmth.
My parents live in sunny California, but they still get chills. The green shawl was made from the Splendid Triangle Shawl from Lion Brand. It was super easy and I sped through it. Bulky weight yarn and using large needles is freaking awesome! The red, purple, brown scarf is called Diva Scarf, also from Lion Brand. It was also pretty easy, but it took forever to make. I used larger needles so that it could be shawl-like and not too warm for my mom to wear.
My dad got three hats. Both the beanie and the fedora are from the Happy Hooker book. The fedora hat was actually a cowboy hat pattern but I added the blue stripe and didn't make the brim as large or with the wire, like the pattern suggested. My mom told me my dad sleeps with a hat on 'cause his head gets cold (he's like 70 years old), so I thought I would make him his very own sleeping cap. Funny, huh?
If you know my brother, you must know that he's got some weird infatuation with unicorns. I'm not talking the kitschy unicorn stuff that's been out the past five years. He's been into unicorns for at least 10 years. Maybe more. Anyway, my sister had given me the idea to make hoodies with extra pockets on the inside so you can take all your stuff with you that way. I decided to try this idea out a bit on my brother. I bought a regular hoodie, three yards of flannel for warmth, and this amazing horses fabric online. I painted the gold horns on all of the horses on 3 yards of this fabric. I used the hoodie as a pattern for the fabric, stitched the pieces together, and made the pockets before sewing the lining into the hoodie. ALAKAZAM! I only wish I used a hoodie that was one size larger. Apparently it's a snug fit since I used flannel for warmth.
