Poet-tree Display

Hey its April which is Poetry Month! Here is a bulletin board display I did last year to celebrate...

It was a pretty simple display, as you can see. All I had to do was make a bare tree trunk. I invited the kids to make this tree full, by adding their own poems. I made up a leaf template and made copies on scrap paper (I'm all about recycling) Then I left some blanks out with a sign inviting them to either create their own poem or write one of their favorites  To get the tree started I made my co-workers all write a poem. To top it off, I made up some giant letters that I think add to the quirkiness of the display. 

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Sunday snapshots.....

Hello everyone. Welcome to another Sunday. Hope you had a lovely week! Here is mine at a glance....

Monday night I hosted another craft night at Crazy Beans. It was fun and we drank butterbeer (it was magical) You can read all about craft night and learn to make stamps here.

I have been trying my best to run frequently and not be a lazy bones. I downloaded a few apps to help out. Then my friend Morgan told me about Zombies, Run! The premise is this: You are Runner 5 for Abel Township and you go out on missions collecting supplies all the way. (like Glen on the Walking Dead) It tracks your movements and they'll pipe in telling you when to run real fast because a zombie horde is nearby! Its a lot of fun and my first time I was knee deep in fresh undies.

I really love my Batman bookmark. So much so I decided to photo document it. Tim received a bunch of D.C. themed book marks with cheesy little sayings. Batman is my favorite because this just looks ridiculous. He is perched high a top Gotham and he thinks to himself, "You know this is a great time to break out 50 Shades." Maybe its because he's embarrassed to been seen reading such a saucy book.

I live right near the water, but I never realized how close it actually is. I took Gyspy for a walk (which she freaks out over!) and we kept walking through the neighborhood until - BAM! is a bluff with an amazing view of the Long Island sound. I'm pretty lucky have something like that within walking distance. Last night we tried looking for the Northern Lights, but we were not successful  I blame the neighbor who keeps their porch lights on ALL OF THE TIME!

Friday was a very dreary day. Despite the rain I went and walked around to make a stop at Starbucks. I needed a little pick me up.

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Foam Stamps - Tutorial!

So I had another craft night at ye olde Crazy Beans. This time around we made some stamps using our imagination and some foam.


It's a simple little craft, however the hardest part is thinking of a design! Some folks made some really great stamps! I was excited to meet some other whovians so some really awesome doctor who stamps were created.







Materials & Tools:

• Scrap paper 
• Tracing paper
• Pencil 
• Foam shape 
• Wood shape 
• Ink pad
• Paper do decorate! 

Instructions:

• Break out the scrap paper and think of a design. It could be anything! A saying, a shape or even a silly little doodle. Go nuts! I made a purdy leaf. 
• Once you have a design idea settled then lay over the tracing paper and trace! 

• Flip over the tracing paper (with your design on it) than lay it on top of your foam shape. Trace yet again! This time you trace the imprint will be on the foam to make for stamp-y greatness. 

• Glue your foam shape to the piece of wood. (If you used adhesive foam just stick it to your piece of wood)

• Take your stamp and ink it and begin decorating frenzy! 

Spring, sprang, sprung!

So I have been enjoying the first days of Spring! One the first day I kept singing this song from Willy Wonka as I went for a wonderful walk around the block. Gyspy was very excited to go exploring in the  Spring time air.  Then we had snow for the next few days which was certainly NOT COOL! 

Aside from nice weather time, a few different things have been going on. I have been working on updating our living room pillows. The pillows were kind of blank so I decided to spiffy them up a bit. I used the freezer paper stencil technique and made some arrows and chevron patterns. What do you think? 

After making some pillows, I started working on a new bag. I used some techniques learned from Craftsy and came up with this fancy bag. I like how it came out, however I have to make the from pockets taller. It also features an interior pocket and a TARDIS. This is part of a new line I am working. Its for the fashionable professional geek. Fun fact, I used one of Tim's dress shirts to making the lining. 

I learned this past week that I was featured on the Crafts for Kids blog, woo hoo ! Thanks to them for featuring my Sharpie Mug tutorial.  Speaking of being featured, I was also excited to see that one of my bowties made it on a treasury list called Primarily Yours. My crafts are getting around! 

I also did something kind of crazy, I signed up for a 5k.....thats a muddy obstacle course.... and I'll be trying to escape zombie hoards. Yeah you heard that right, ZOMBIES! Its Matt's birthday and this is how we are celebrating. Our team is called Z.E.U.S. (Zombie eradicating utility squad) and hopefully we can escape the grips of walkers! Yeah I don't know what I was thinking but its too late now but hopefully this forces me into some healthier habbits. 

Sunday Snap Shots

 

Yay its Sunday again! I another fun filled week. Let me tell yas all about it. Its another link up so feel free to add your link and check out what everyone else is up to!

Last weekend Tim came across some information on terrariums. So he decided to make one with some succulent plants. It looks really nice and it looks great on our coffee table.

While Tim was making terrariums, I was working on some pillows. Laura and I went to a discount fabric store and stocked up on fabric. I bought some stuff to work on bags and make some new pillows for the couch. After I made the first pillow it was really 'Blah' so I decided to paint some arrows on it to spiff it up. What do you think?

The past weekend we got something pretty awesome, a fooseball table! It was a dream realized for Tim. I however am horrible at the game. It was a gift from my Mom's boyfriend. They have a tiny house and don't have room for it so they offered it to us. We also got a sweet new dart board, a nice upgrade from our crappy electronic one.

Laura got me hooked on a new app. Iconmania is an addicting fun app in which you have to use the visual clues to guess what it represents. I couldn't help but chuckle when this one came up. Did they really need to include the cigar ?

While listening to Doug Loves Movies one of the guests mentioned that he had a YA novel out. It caught my attention. The guests was comedian D.C. Pearson and the book is called Crap Kingdom. It's about a kid who is upset about how normal his life is and yearns for a miserable existence so that he can be taken to a magical world and be its phrophesized hero. To his surprise he does get taken to a magical world but its kinda...crappy. Its really funny and you should check it out.

This week also marked the first day of Spring. YAY! I took Gyppers on her first walk of the season. She was very excited. It was nice to get some fresh air. Unfortunately it didn't last long! The next morning we woke up to more snow!

Dice Bag

Tim and I have been really having fun playing D & D. We have a rag tag bunch of friends really making it a lot of fun. Tim is taking his role Dungeon Master (DM) seriously and a few days ago he asked if I could make him a bag for his dice. Less than an hour - BOOM! - new dice bag. I was surprised that I figured it out quickly! It came out very snazzy. All of our fellow players were a bit jealous, but I'll probably make them all pouches.

Here is a glimpse of our D & D adventures!

If you also want your own snazzy dice bag just follow this tutorial and you'll have a sweet new dice bag in no time.

Materials & Tools

• Fabric A (exterior) 
• Fabric B (lining) 
• Drawstring (yarn also works) 
• Ruler 
• Tailors chalk (or any other tool for marking) 
• Scissors 
• Safety pin 
• Sewing notions 

Instructions

• Cut the body part of the bag. Take both fabric A and B and cut your size. I made them 5 X 11 inches
• Cut bottom of the bag. Make a circle out of both fabric A and B. I made my circle have a 3 inch circumference. 

• Take fabric A and measure in inch from the top make a mark then another mark a half inch from the other mark. Fold your peice in half, pin and sew along the edge (with a 1/4 inch seam allowance). You will leave a hole on the marks you had just made. This is where the drawstring will be fed threw. Just do this step for fabric A!

• For fabric B and fold in half and sew along the edge (with a 1/4 seam allowance)
• You made a little tubes, congrats! Now take the circle part, pin and sew to the bottom of your bag for both fabric A and fabric B.
• Turn fabric A inside out then place it inside fabric B, pin around the edge and sew, but leave a hole about 2 inches. 

• After sewn up, but the bag inside out through the 2 inch hole. You can press your bag so it looks crisp and nice. 

• Before you insert the string you need to sew another little line (under the open hole) this will help keep the string in place. So start underneath that open hole and sew around the bag.

• Now we insert the drawstring! Take a safety pin and attach it to one end of the string and feed it through the hold until it goes around the bag. You can cut and adjust your string as desired. Give it a pull and see how you bag is now a drawsting sack thing! 

• Ta - da! Be proud you made something fantastical!

 

St. Patrick's Day - Meme for Monday

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day. Its a holiday I usually feel 'meh' about. However, this year was our first year as Rocky Point residents, attendance to the big St. Patrick's Day parade they have in town was mandatory. A few friends came over and we were able to walk down to 25a (the parade route). Afterwards were snacked on some noms and watched Syfy's Leprechaun marathon until our corn beef and cabbage was ready. 

This is also the time of year I share one of my all time favorite meme's which will probably get busted out every year around March 17th. It's an old news report about a neighborhood in Mobile, Alabama that has a close encounter with a Leprechaun (but it could be a crack head)