Celebrating in November Part 1

I went through the calendar on the wacky holiday website and made note of some of the days that we could celebrate this month (and next month too) on a Google calendar template.  While there are a lot of events to choose from, some of them are a bit more obscure and wackier than others so I tried to stick to thinks that we could pretty easily do and to intersperse the food events and non-food events.

November 1 - Calzone Day - We got calzones for lunch from Trattorio Uno.  And that was plural (calzones) which was way too much for lunch.  One was enough to share and HWNSNBP had the second one over the next couple of days.  It was also Clean Your Brush Day and I did clean my hairbrush, but I won't show you pictures of that.  Short as my hair is, I do use a round brush when I blow dry my hair and it does need to be cleaned out from time to time.  I usually clean our combs at the same time.  And the filter on the hairdryer that collects dust.  Check that off the list also.

November 2 - Look for Circles Day - I signed onto the ornament exchange I did last year again and the ornament I'm choosing to send involves lots of circles.

November 3 - Smart Home Day - We are finding more useful functions of the Amazon Alexa device we have that was a Christmas present last year from our daughter and son-in-law.  It wasn't until they visited this summer that they were able to help us "technically challenged" seniors set it up.  But it is actually quite helpful even with crafting.  If there's a recipe or pattern that has measurements that are not US standard I can ask Alexa to do the conversion for me very quickly.  We set up a smart plug with her that we can control from an app on my phone when we're away.  And we've had a remote controlled thermostat in place at the condo for a few years now which is very convenient.  We just need to get smarter in ways to use our smart devices to make our home smarter.

November 4 - Common Sense Day - It was a running joke at work that you could make a fortune selling common sense at a flea market, but we all know that it's something inherent and not to be bought.  I can see why someone would want to celebrate common sense because it seems like there is a very sad decline in it.  

November 5 - Donut Day - HWNSNBP treated me to a jelly donut from Tim Horton's but not without some aggravation on his part.  He went to the drive-up window and asked for a frosted jelly donut.  They told him that they don't have frosted jelly donuts.  He told them that he had gotten them there before.  They told him again that they were sorry, but they didn't carry frosted jelly donuts, only sugared and glazed whereupon the lightbulb went off and he amended his order to a glazed jelly donut.

November 6 - aside from it being Daylight Savings Day and garnering an additional hour of sleep, it was also National Nacho Day.  So nachos were on the menu for lunch.

November 7 - Hug A Bear Day - I didn't hug a bear, but I do have a bear joke - Why are teddy bears never hungry?  Answer at the end of the post.

November 8 - in addition to being Election Day (we voted by mail earlier), it became known to us that November 8th is also National Christopher Day, so I was sure to reach out to our son and wish him happiness on his day.  I also told him to look it up on Google to confirm that it was real and not something I made up.

November 9 - Chicken Sandwich Day - After a little explorative journey to a store in Morristown called Just Jersey, HWNSNBP and I got chicken sandwiches for lunch.  One from Popeye's and the other from Panera and did our own little in-house taste testing.  They were both good.  The sauce and pickle on the Popeye's sandwich give it a distinct flavor we enjoyed.  And the Panera sandwich comes with parmesan crisps (of which you can ask for more to be added) that add a little extra crispiness and nice flavor. The picture makes one look larger than the other, but when I cut them in half, they matched up in size.

November 10 - Area Code Day - Just a little art journal addition.

November 11 - Veteran's Day celebrated by wearing red, white, and blue.  Also Origami Day and I tried this 6 piece fold which I didn't realize was going to be glued together as opposed to interfolded so it's not officially origami.  And, truthfully, it didn't turn out like the video as it doesn't have the twistability shown in the finished product and seems to have an extra flap.  I did use origami paper, but perhaps it needs something a little heavier to twist easier.  Here is the link to the diretions.

November 12 - Chicken Soup for the Soul Day - it seemed, at break of day, that it would be a good day for making chicken soup begin a little overcase and cool, so I added the ingredients to our shopping list (Alexa) and sent a copy to HWNSNBP to pick up on his morning coffee run.  But by the time the afternoon rolled around the sun had come out and the temps rose to almost 70º and we got a late visit from our DIL and GS1, however, I had already put all the ingredients in the pot on the stove so I went ahead and made the soup anyway to have during the week.  As it goes, the temps went back to normal and will be thereabouts for at least the beginning of the upcoming week.

And I'll end with today.....

November 13 - Kindness Day and also Tongue Twister Day.  My kindness will be letting HWNSNBP have the tv to watch his Giants football game whilst I disappear upstairs to do some cardmaking.  But I'll drop some tongue twisters here should you decide to celebrate Tongue Twister Day.  We used to have a game called Passout, purchased in our late teens/early twenties at a store in the mall called Spencer's Gifts.  It was effectively used as a drinking game.  It game with a stack of cards, each having a tongue twister on it and if you could recite the tongue twister you had to drink.  Well, needless to say, the more you messed up, the more you drank....... I think you get the picture.  But there were some good tongue twisters in there:

A tutor who tooted her flute, tried to tutor two tooters to toot.  Said the two to the tutor, is it easier to toot or to tutor two tooters to toot?

Of course there's this one:

She sells sea shells by the sea shore.

And this one:

Theophilus the thistle sifter while sifting a sifter full of thistles, thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb.

And if you were of my age and watched Wonderama on Sunday mornings with the host Sonny Fox there's always this one:

Sonny Fox wears funny sox.

Or:

Unique New York (said three times in a row)

Okay, be kind today (as I know you always are) and have fun!

(Teddy bears are never hungry because they're always stuffed.)

Folded Booklet Challenge

I was invited to join a Facebook art group for ICAD back at the beginning of June which I was able to share my cards to.  The group has decided to remain intact going forward but not just for index cards, though some are carrying through to 100 cards with a prompt list they created.

So what has this got to do with this post?  Well, someone posted a little folded booklet that they created using a sheet of paper that they had worked on, which was then folded, cut, and turned into a little booklet.  I thought that it was a neat idea and some of the members decided to take it as a challenge to make one of our own to share.

I took a sheet of watercolor paper and that was the first thing that I added to it - watercolors.  I used a variety of blues and greens.  Not too visible here.  Then I doodled on it with paint pens and gel markers randomly.

The paper was folded in half and into quarters both ways.  Then I cut slits 3/4 of the way alternating direction.

When folded it compresses to being this size.

While I still had it folded I turned the pages and lightly made a register mark so I would know where the bottom of each segment was because I was going to add writing to it and wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to write upside-down.  This was a good plan, if only I had remembered to check the last 4 segments.  I was able to save it by cutting that strip of segments completely off and gluing it down in the right direction.  I added some creativity quotes that I had been collecting in a journal to each page.

When I was done writing out the quotes (and fixing my directional mistake) I used a strip of scrapbook paper to make a "cover" for the booklet by gluing it to the top and bottom.  I thought I was going to get away without having to glue all the pages together and just the ones that were on the side folds, but as you can see below, this wouldn't work to keep the book together in order to read the pages easily.  Luckily there was enough room for me to sneak some liquid glue in between the backs of the pages to solidify it.  

I added a butterfly sticker to the front and glued a length of rick rack around it completely so it could be kept closed.

This came out better than I expected.  

When Blogs Go Away (Not This One)

When I pull up my Blogger Reading List (visible to the blog owner only) I have it sorted to All Blogs which will show me a list of the most current posts from the blogs that I follow.  I can also go through the list of blogs that I've signed up to follow but it makes me sad because a lot of them are no longer posting and some haven't for quite a long time now.  Some have signed off in a post either saying they are moving their blog to another provider or they've decided to stop blogging altogether.  The ones that I am saddest about are those that just abruptly stop with no explanation at all.  It makes me wonder about the poster and whether they are okay.  

I think I've touched on this before but it came into focus again today with a post from another loved blog that they were no longer going to update (The Owl Barn).  I will keep them in my list because there might be some things that I might want to look back on as long as they haven't completely shut down. Recently I found the ingredients to a project that I had started quite a few years ago and couldn't find the instructions.  I had a picture saved on Pinterest but I was distressed to find out that the blog stopped being readable a few years ago so I had to do some more investigating on other sites to be able to continue the project.  

See the date - 2011 was when this was originally posted to a blog that had all kinds of paper projects on it.  I may have saved the directions but I couldn't find anything in all the files that I had transferred with my new laptop so, being that I had all the pieces cut out and a small portion of the stars already completed I had to try to find something that gave similar results.  Luckily there are a lot of origami sites out there now.

Each star took 5 squares of paper.  Once folded into the appropriate shape, they were glued together to form the star.  There were 5 different patterned papers used to make 6 stars of each.....only 150 segments to fold.  I think I put this aside after finishing the first 5 stars because the glue I was using at the time wasn't as quick drying as I would have liked.  I found that what worked great was Tombow Mono Multi Liquid Glue.  I put the glue on each piece, stuck them together, and then added a paperclip to keep them together to dry.  It only took a few minutes before the glue dried and the paperclips could be removed.  And now that I have the stars done, I'll have to find the ribbon that I'm sure I bought to go with this so I can put the wreath together.  

 

The original post of this project on the original blog listed it as a Christmas wreath but I think these colors would be fine for Spring too.  

End of Origami Week - Who Knew?

I just saw in my favorite blog feed that Every Day is Special posted that today is End of Origami Week.  Of course, I didn't know that, but I just happened to have some origami that I was going to post soon.

There was an old cardboard cheesecake box dated use by 1999 in our "storage room" that wasn't labeled (of course) with what it might contain and it felt very light but when I shook it I knew that there was definitely something inside.  When I opened it I found a bunch of little origami pieces.  Specifically a rainbow set of cranes and gold stars. I remember that when I was subbing I used to carry a little pack of origami paper in my go bag and when I had some time prep time, I would fold something.

What could I do with the cranes?  It just so happens that another bag of stuff that I had recently found had some gold beads and drapery rings in it.  This bag of goodies came from one of the teachers that used to work in my school.  When her parents were being moved into senior living quarters, she was cleaning out their house and would bring me the craft supplies.  Some of it I knew that I would never use, but I didn't take the time at the time to go through it and just stuffed it into that room.  Well, in this case I was glad that I held onto this stuff.

Because with a little sturdy quilting thread, those beads, the drapery ring, and the cranes became this...

It's not staying outside.  Right now it's hanging in the kitchen, but I have to find a better place for it.

And here are the foil stars.  I don't remember what I had in mind for them either, but I'll come up with something.

And just for the heck of it, a little more rainbow color from yesterday.  Sitting at my computer in the dining room my view to the kitchen window was rewarded with the sun catching my gypsy rod and illuminating some of it.  Funny, when I stood up, it wasn't as bright and beautiful.  I guess I was in the right place at the right time and just happened to be transferring pictures from my camera so I had it at arm's reach.  (And you can see the new glass dragonfly that we just added this week.)

 

I hope you find a rainbow today.

The Christmas Elf Strikes Again in 2016

I know I don't have to, but each year I try to make something small for the staff at my school to sneak into their mailboxes.  Since there are about 60 in our building, it is sometimes a conundrum trying to come up with something that won't take long and also that won't be that expensive.  

While I've been rearranging my craft space I've come across many things that I had been saving for future projects and as luck would have it, I found a passel of keys that I had asked for when our school changes all the classroom door locks several years ago.  I got this idea from Crafts by Amanda.

I started by having my elf helper-in-residence spray paint them white for me.

Then I took some Posca Pen markers and put faces on them.

I purchased the pompoms (with a coupon) and grabbed a bag of t-shirt scraps cutting them into little scarves.

The pompoms became earmuffs.  Amanda used bits of pipe cleaners for the band part of the earmuffs. I mistakenly picked up a package of sparkly white pipe cleaners which didn't stand out enough against the white snowman and since the opening in my keys was large, it already kind of looked like the connector so I let it go at that.  (I'm thinking now that I could have used a paint marker to make it a darker color, but then again, that would have taken more time and effort.)

Lastly, I raided my ribbon supply and gave them hangers. 

The Christmas elf also likes to send a little something to the secretaries and clerks in the district.  And again, cleaning the craft space made me realize that I have way too much paper hoarded, so I looked for a quick paper project.  

I raided my Christmas paper box and cut several sheets of paper into 2 1/2" squares.  I also cut 1 1/4" squares from red card stock.  I needed 18 of these, but they went quickly.

Each 2 1/2" square was folder first diagonally, turned over and then folded in quarters on the opposite side.  I glued 5 of these folded squares together on the square sides.  I added a length of ribbon to the opened end of each outside corner and then covered the ribbon and that square with the red cardstock.

The only thing that I purchased for these was the beads and they were on a 70% off sale this month.  I slid a glass bead down the length of folded ribbon to the top of the square and then put a knot in the top of the ribbon so the bead would not slide off.

Here they are all folded up.  I wrote Merry Christmas on the red squares.

I slide these each into an individual envelope labeled as follows:

Slide bead up and stop at knot

Bring two red ends around to kiss

Slide bead down and stop at top

Now you are a star at this!

(I tested the directions on HWNSNBP and he got it so I knew they would.)

When you follow the directions you get a paper star ornament.

Colorful, Scientific, Textural, Edible

I don't know how the subject came up, but I happened to be talking to someone during dismissal one day last week and our afterschool aide was nearby at my counter and saw me showing my little paper crane that Clare had sent me (see this post) and mentioned that she also did origami.  Then, this week she brought me these cranes and box that she had folded.  

Our school Science Fair was held this week.  I took a quick walk around the gym and checked out some of the science projects.  

The teacher in charge was really "charged up" about this one that used a set of batteries and hemostats to turn a length of pencil lead into a filament creating a makeshift lightbulb.

The hemostats hold the lead and you touch the other ends of the wires to the batteries.  When the lead begins to smoke you gently place the cup over it to limit the amount of oxygen available.

Gradually the heat of the lead intensifies until finally...........

It glows white.  And then it snaps.  But the short-lived effect is brilliant.

And speaking of short-lived.  We awoke to snow again yesterday morning.  Walking gingerly to the garage to get the car I was watching my step on the pavement and couldn't help but think that the snow on the driveway had a very leopardlike appearance.  It was a bit of a balancing act as I carefully put my travel mug of tea down next to me, took off my glove, found my glasses, then my camera, and snapped a few pictures.  

When I pulled into the parking lot at work it was still lightly snowing but the snow had liquified on the car parked next to me which also looked pretty cool.  Once the sun came out, all that was left of the snow could be found in the shadows.

We had a few errands to do today but that didn't stop us from celebrating National Cheese Doodle Day.  We shared a small bag with our hamburgers for lunch that we picked up from Joe's Meat Market on our journey.  It was delicious and also left us with the tell-tale orange fingers!

I'm sharing this post with Our Beautiful World this week - the prompt being "Colors".  

Strawberry Origami

HWNSNBP says that I need a nickname.  I told him that I already have one - Princess Origami.  He doesn't think that's good, but I like it.  I think I'm even going to make myself a Princess Origami crown and possibly costume to wear for Halloween.  Of course, no one will know who I am, but that's okay. 

When I saw this card-fold I knew I had to give it a try.  There's a very good tutorial by Wendy Weixler here.  The one difference that I made was to score my first scores at 3 1/4" to center the those diamond shapes a little better. 

This card was destined for a co-worker along with a strawberry coring tool that I had been telling her about.

But before I sent it  Rachel needed a Thank You card for someone and this was the only one I had with me that would have been suitable so I gave it to her to use and made another.

Just a little bit different on the outside.

I like this fold.  It's not hard at all and is a good way to use some of the accumulated dsp that I have. 

For both cards I used Tart n Tangy for the strawberry and Vintage Vogue for the rest.