Organic line fun

Organic line is a line that is found in nature, not a geometric line or straight line.

I know you are thinking HOLY CRAP! I can't do that! Seriously it is way easy and I had my middle school students doing it and they came out great. I did this on a letter size paper and it took me about an hour I think. But you could do them with your kids on much smaller pieces of paper and with different colored markers, maybe do one a day and then arrange them into a bigger collage piece. Way cool!

Here is how you do it.

1. Get your piece of paper and choice of writing material. Draw a curvy line from one side to the other. I would make mine even curvier next time so it is more fun. Place a dot every couple inches on your line. You can adjust that depending on the size of your paper.

 2. Just above that line follow along and then when you get to a dot, dip down to touch it. It is fine if your spacing isn't even, you could even do a pattern like try adding a little more space each time you draw a line and then slowly take that space away, it will become an optical illusion where the lines will appear to pop out of the page. Also try using different colors.

3. Keep adding lines, it is fun to see how they change and progress because of how you draw them.
Make sure that you dip down to touch the dot, otherwise it won't look as good.

4. Take a little break, I took a picture of my chicken salt and pepper shakers.

5. Keep going.

6. You might lose a dot along the way, that is fine, see how my two dots in the middle got connected.

7. When you get to the top make sure to fill in the space even if you can't draw one continuos line.
When you finish one side, turn you paper around and do the other side the same way.

8. And you are done! I am going to try doing these on different materials and with different spacing because there is a lot of variety you can do and they can look really neat. Have fun!!

Mmmm Home made corn tortilla chips.

I got to take home a 100 pack of corn tortillas from girls camp last week and I thought, what am I going to do with all these tortillas? We got together on Sunday for a birthday party and the food was mexican themed so I fried up a bunch of tortillas and they were delicious! If you haven't tried them, they are super easy and way better than store bought chips.

First, chop up your tortillas into triangles, you can do a good stack of them each time.

Get your oil super hot, I like to use the term, burn your face off hot. I just used vegetable oil and I used my wok.

Toss your tortillas in. If the oil is hot enough you will have lots of bubbles and action going on, if it isn't hot enough then pull them out and wait otherwise you will have greasy chips.
I waited till they were golden then I pulled them out, you can use a metal slotted spoon or a small metal strainer, you need something that has holes for the oil to drip out and it needs to be metal so it doesn't melt.

I place them on some paper towel, sprinkle with salt, you could even add some seasoning to them like a lemon salt or some chili powder. Then I put them into a paper bag.
Delicious!!

Make your own lampshade!!

Alright, so it was my brother in law's birthday the other day and they just got a new apartment so they asked for a lamp and they were cool with it being used. I have this awesome brass floor lamp from my aunt but it doesn't have a shade. So, being low on money I tried to think of a way that I could get a shade for the lamp. It is one that uses a glass upward facing shade then I thought, Why don't I make one?

So here it is for your viewing and crafting pleasure.

I love to collect scarves and I have this beautiful scarf that had a radial (circle) design and it looks very antiquey so I thought, that will be perfect!! The shade only cost me 2.25$ to make because I had everything except for the interfacing. OK lets get to it.

First I took a piece of newspaper and folded it into a quarter then made a circle line from one corner to the next. The newspaper is just the right size for my scarf. I tried forming it into a cone and testing it on my lamp to see how it would look.

Here is my lovely scarf. I had to iron it first by covering it with a dishcloth so it wouldn't scorch it. I was doing this on my stainless steel island, yeah, don't do that. I guess the metal is super thin and it started to warp so I had to move onto my glass table.

I bought extra wide interfacing at Joanns, make sure to get the thick stuff because that gives your lamp its stiffness. You place it on the wrong side of your fabric and then iron it from the inside out so you don't end up with creases. I emptied the water out of my iron and set it on the highest temperature because the temperature where it doesn't use steam was too cool.

And here is is all smooth and stuck together.

I placed my newspaper circle on top and when I was testing it out I figured that if you take away a quarter of the circle then join those together it makes a cone.

I left a little extra instead of taking out a whole quarter, looking back now, take the whole quarter out.

I used my little maraca to measure a circle in the center. It is about 3 inches across.

Cut that out.

I'm going to edge the top of my lamp with red satin 1 inch ribbon so you have to fold it in half and iron it so it stays that shape. 

Then I formed my cone, checked it on my lamp and adjusted it. Then I clipped it with clothespins and Warren assisted me in glueing it together. We used an epoxy but I would recommend using gorilla glue or sewing it instead. The epoxy got really hard and where we applied it a little thick it seeped through. Then I placed coasters on it to hold it while it dries.

Ok, cool thing. My husband has been working on his dune buggy and is almost done so when I told him about my project he's like, I have a bearing ring that will work!! Pulls it out, tries it on the lamp, and boom it fits perfectly inside. So I was pretty lucky, otherwise you should check out your local hardware store. You could cut a piece of PVC pipe or you might just find some kind of metal ring that will work. So I placed it on the bottom of my shade and then drew a circle to mark where it evenly lay.

Then I cut snips in my shade that went up to that line. So I can flare those out to fit on my ring.

So then I moved in by my sewing machine and I opened up the ribbon and fitted the shade inside. I made sure to start my ribbon in the back where my overlap is, see you can see in the corner of the picture where the epoxy seeped through. Lovely huh?

OK, now we sew it on. Sadly I didn't do so great in this department because the shade is curved so your ribbon has to curve with it and that means that it has to gather together in areas and I thought it would do it really easy but it didn't, so I had to re-sew  a couple spots where it didn't catch the ribbon. I just kind of squished it up so it would gather it when it fed through the machine. I'm sure my incredibly talented sewing queen Sister in law Sandy, would know how to fix this but I didn't. If you have any tips Sandy, please clue the rest of us in. Thanks!!

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Make your Own Flower Barrettes!!

hoooh, Sorry it is late in the day for my post, I was working on a project for my sewing day and it took longer than I thought. My daughter is switching over to one nap which is really nice but it makes for a long morning with not much getting done. Sooooooo I thought it would be fun to demonstrate how to make some flower barrettes. I really love making these for all kinds of occasions. I like wearing them, my niece wears them, and my daughter wears them, yep they are very trendy. They are super easy to make too, I did a demo for the ladies at my mom's super saturday craft day and they loved them.

Alright, so First I think of a color scheme for my barrette. I like white with some yellow and orange. I pull out flowers that have the same style of petals.

2. Remove all the plant bits on your flowers and throw those away. They are really easy to pull apart but some you have to give a good yank.

Heres my next flower, see how it has roundy petals? So this is good to use with the orange where as the daisy in the background would look weird.

So here are all the pieces, I pulled apart 3 flowers. I like to buy flowers at the dollar store, you just have to look really closely at them because you can tell which ones are super crappy  cheap just by getting a close up look at them.

Now I layer them. I like to alternate colors and make sure that the petals are in different positions so they are fuller not all squished together.

 Next, you need a brass brad. Now you can buy cool brads at the scrapbooking stores but they are super expensive and you get like 8 of them in a pack so what I do is buy a pack of the regular brass brads from an office store and you get like 100 for 3.00$. Then you can hot glue any top you want on it. So, you push the brad through the holes in your petals, then open it up and press the brad back.

Here is the almost complete flower.

Now, there are a couple options for the center of your flower, you can use little rhinestones (I did those for my niece) or you can use buttons. I am a sucker for buttons. I collect them, I have tons of them so I am always on the look out for something to use them on.

 Now you need a hair clip. I like these smooth ones, I don't like the ones with teeth because I always rip out some hairs with those. Then you need some 1/4 inch ribbon. I like to keep a lookout for it in the dollar section at target. That's where I got this kind. You are going to cover the clip with the ribbon. I start on the inside then come over the top, press it into the squeeze part and then end on the underside of the squeeze tab. I don't go all the way around because then the bottom will be kind of thick and it wont hold as well.

Now we will glue it onto the back of the flower.

I glue it to the top of the clip where the ribbon is. I know, you are thinking, why did I just cover this slip with ribbon if you can't see it? Because it is cute Darn IT! and if you do a little flower then you will be able to see the clip.

And there it is.

Week Off

Sorry to my readers- I went to Girls Camp this week and I didn't have projects set up for while I was gone. I'm going to get rid of my gardening monday, since my garden is now dead---So Sad.

Girls camp was awesome! It was my first time away from my 13 month old and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We have awesome girls in my church so it was tons of fun to go. I made my own chips today so I'll show that on Friday, I also have a really cool art idea for kids for Saturday. I might get rid of my photo tuesday because it doesn't interest me as much to show you guys that stuff, unless you want it, then let me know. I think I'll work on some cool flowers or a little dress for my daughter for this week's sewing day. So those are some things to look forward to this week.

I'm grateful for the rain- we got a little here and it smells so nice and cooled things down a bit.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to go to girl's camp, it was a nice break.

Alright, have a great Sunday!

A Sad Sad Gardening Day

So lately some kind of little bug has been eating my tomato plants. They are super tiny and they leave little black spots and then the leaf slowly dies. So I told my mom, who has quite a lot of gardening experience and she suggested that I spray my plants with soap water.  I thought Hey that's a great Idea!! It isn't nasty like pesticides and it doesn't cost me anything except for a little soap. And Heres the result.

Sad Huh.

So yeah, I had 6 plants and I think maybe 2 might recover, the rest are fried. Oh well, guess it just isn't a good tomato year :) 

One cool thing was that when I was spraying my plants I found two more big caterpillars because when you spray them with water they wiggle like crazy. So if you think you have caterpillars spray your plants with some water.

My mom was really sad when she heard about my tomato plants. So the moral of the story is DON'T USE SOAP ON YOUR PLANTS! She said it works with just a little bit of soap, I guess I used too much. 

Sunday Tired and Grateful

:sigh: It has been a tiring week, sorry I didn't put up my kid craft post yesterday I just didn't get the photos done for it. I was feeling kind of anti computer, I just wanted to hang out with my daughter and husband. I haven't been sleeping well so I just lack energy during the day. We are also gearing up for girls camp this week. Luckily I'm just an extra leader so I'm only going up for 2 days but there is still some anxiety about getting everything ready.

I'm grateful for:

1. Sunday Funnies- just got my subscription going again and oh how I missed them

2. Vons chocolate cake that you can buy by the slice so I can enjoy one piece for a couple servings and not eat a whole cake.

3.  Naps- I could use one right now, but I'll do this instead.

3. My viewers and family- Give me great feedback on what they are enjoying, hopefully I can continue with the good stuff.

4. Mario Galaxy for Wii- I like to do one star a day, it is my little escape that doesn't take too long.

5. A clean kitchen- Just got it all organized and it makes me feel soooo much better.

 

I think 5 is good for today, my brain is kind of slow so it is having a tough time processing today. Stay tuned for tomorrow, my sad gardening day. Hope you have a wonderful Sunday.