Sprinklers in Colorado

Posted on June 30, 2013 by cpeezers

It’s been pretty hot here lately, so the other day we picked up a new sprinkler for Davey to play in. I guess I have never become completely acclimated to Colorado summers. I am not convinced that it is ever hot enough in this state to play in the water outside. It may be bright and sunny, but the air is so dry that when I come out of the water, I am always cold.

I always feel like this:

But Davey got in there and had a good time.

Buster did too. He tried to eat the sprinkler. He didn’t much like the cold water either, and he’s covered with fur!

Still though, it definitely cooled Davey off in a hurry.

David discovered a broken screen the other day, and Davey has had more fun playing with it. He thought it might protect him somewhat from the cold water conditions.

He learned that it really didn’t, but there are endless other imaginative possibilities!

All that Moving Stuff

Posted on June 28, 2013 by cpeezers

I’m making all the calls this morning to end utilities and stuff here. Thankfully, I was only on hold on one phone call and that was with Comcast. I have become a pretty patient person except when it comes to anything that involves an 800 number. It was painless today though. We will even now have internet in our temporary home for the next three weeks. Yay for that!

Up until last Friday we were all set to stay in an Extended Stay hotel for three weeks. It would have been fine, but I wasn’t looking forward to it. Then all of a sudden, I was talking to a friend who we realized was closing on her new house on the same day we are selling ours. They are keeping their condo as a rental, and it has now worked out that we will be their first renters for the next three weeks.

So another Yay for that! The condo is on a golf course, there’s a pool, it’s pretty close to Davey’s friend Olivia, not too much farther from work, and Davey will go to his summer camp for another month. All great stuff considering the stress of moving again.

Then begins the trek to Washington State. Another good friend told me about a website called Roadside America. It is a guide to “offbeat tourist attractions”. You can map the attractions alongside your route. I’ve got to get started on that soon. It’s a long drive, and we will need some entertainment stops! I’m looking forward to blogging about some of those!

So Davey just got a new Harry Potter wand from his lovely Aunt “H. Potter”. (That’s really her name!) I am wishing he could put that wand to some good use and zippity zap us to Washington! It will be a fun experience doing it the “Muggle way” as well though, and by this time next month we should be making our way to our new home.

Here’s Davey and his new wand!

My great Buster has been hanging out with me this morning while Davey’s at camp and David is playing golf.

That’s “some” dog! (We have got to read Charlotte’s Web to Davey soon!)

Sometimes Lace Baffles me

Posted on June 26, 2013 by cpeezers

I started a new little cardigan the other day. The yarn I am using for it is Knit Picks Galileo. I can’t say enough good things about this yarn. It’s a bamboo/merino wool. It’s very soft and has such a pretty sheen.

I am knitting a pattern from a designer whose blog I have followed for a long time. The blog is in French, but I love just looking at the pictures of the beautiful things she designs and knits (fortunately, she provides the pattern in English).

So I started this little sweater. It has lace across the front. I knitted several rows and I saw that the lace was not coming out right. So I pulled it out and started again. I thought I must have been off somewhere, but I basically did the same thing over again. Reminds me of the quote: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” (I thought Einstein first said this, but apparently this may not be the case.) But I like that quote. It’s apt because that is what I did.

I was getting very frustrated and mad at myself. I don’t like it when I just can’t figure something out. Fortunately, there is ravelry. I went through the project notes of several other knitters who have knitted this pattern. Thankfully, one of these knitters enlightened and saved me!

So typically when you knit a lace chart you start on the right side and go left.

(I also figured out how to do put in arrows using Photoshop. I was proud!)

But when you have lace on the front of a cardigan this won’t necessarily work. You have to take into consideration that you are just knitting the front, and also that there is a divide between the left front and the right front.

I was very very very happy when I figured this out with the help of ravelry. Third time was a charm and it’s gone easy as pie since then.

The purple yarn at the top is an indication of something else new that I learned. I did a provisional cast on (so I can add the neck border later). I’d done this type of cast on before, but not quite with this technique. I used the knitting needle and a crochet hook. The video I used made this very simple and easy to understand.

It’s going to be really pretty, and it’s a fun pattern to knit!

Hoodie and Craft Fail/Success

Posted on June 22, 2013 by cpeezers

I follow a knitting group on facebook. The other day someone posted a picture of an iphone hoodie. I had to go find the pattern immediately. I went to my stash, picked out some yarn, and knitted this right up.

Cute cute cute. I loved it. My purse is like a bottomless cavern, so this also helps me locate my phone more easily. This is a fun easy knit.

Davey, David and I have been doing several crafts this summer. Our success rate has been pretty good, but we tried a craft the other day that just didn’t work. It was one of those 3d foam projects. We were supposed to make a pirate ship.

This required glue. So the tricky thing was that we were supposed to connect the sides of the ship with a piece of foam which was also the bottom of the ship and then curved up to be the front. So we had the foam glue. We carefully applied it and then held it in place. and held it. and held it. The craft was designed for ages 6+. Two 45 year olds were holding it in place. One of them was saying “this will never work. this is not going to work.” He was right, but I couldn’t stand to just give up. We needed Super Glue to have a prayer, but Super Glue over a fairly large project seemed potentially hazardous.

So finally we gave up. I told Davey that we were just going to have fun with it. So we have lots of packing tape right now. Davey and I just taped the heck out of that ship.

It looked terrible. It’s supposed to have about six billowing sails. I love Davey’s expression as he gazes at it.

Davey and David have this funny exaggerated voice that they use to say “Gilderoy Lockhart” (as he is so pretentious and thinks he is awesome – Harry Potter – Chamber of Secrets). Davey applied this voice to the ship. It is the “Lousy Pirate Ship.”

He is developing a great sense of humor. He makes us laugh all the time.

So it was a craft fail pretty much in the sense that it looked terrible, but we had a great time, so I guess it was actually pretty successful!

Father’s Day 2013

Posted on June 18, 2013 by cpeezers

Great Father’s Day weekend. Saturday evening we took David to Benihana. He has always loved it. Davey loves it too. He thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment and the food!

We made special Father’s Day cupcakes for David. Pinterest of course was the source, although I found them through my friend Carol. We decorated the cupcakes with lawnmowers sitting on half-mowed grass. Not that David, in a million years, would leave the lawn half-mowed.

I will say that his first guess was that these were wagons. I can see it.

We used Wilton melted chocolate disks as the “glue” which was a little messy. Those lawnmower handles were very tricky, but overall, they looked pretty cute. I also made David a key lime pie. I’d take a picture but it was GONE too fast to be photographed. It was a great recipe. It called for plain Greek yogurt, and it was a reduced fat pie. It was the best recipe ever as you’d never guess that it was a “healthier version.” I’d like to say that Davey discovered that he loves key lime pie and that he really laid into that pie. But that ain’t so – it was all David and me.

We had a nice Father’s Day afternoon as well. David and Davey played with the playdoh outside. They were probably having a discussion about Harry Potter here. It’s always a safe guess these days.

And the picture of the day may be this:

Davey, as always, loves a celebration. We had a nice one.

Avocado Egg Salad, Aerosmith, and Airmail

Posted on June 14, 2013 by cpeezers

Miscellaneous things today.

David and I have been making this really good egg salad lately. 4 hard-boiled eggs, 1 smushed up avocado, a little red wine vinegar and mayonnaise. It’s really really good!

Davey had a Father’s Day party today at his pre-k Summer Camp. They’d made some fun father’s day crafts for gifts. They decorated the tables, and they had donuts. He also made a craft with David. It is a pet rock. David texted a picture of him to me. I replied “that’s awesome” but I messed up and the auto-correct replaced it with Aerosmith. Aerosmith? Turns out it’s a fairly fitting name for this little pet rock. He reminds me a little of Steven Tyler. David and I have officially dubbed it Aerosmith.

And finally, I’m once again trying to actually write little notes, put them in an envelope, add a stamp and send them off the old-fashioned way! I found the cutest little Mary Engelbreit notecards today at Michael’s. I came home and wrote notes to my 3 oldest nieces. It’s kind of fun to write a little note and send it off (I did this promptly before I got sidetracked!). I also think it is very fun to receive a little note in the mail too. I’m going to try to be better about occasionally doing this!

All Harry Potter. All the Time

Posted on June 13, 2013 by cpeezers

We are the house of Harry Potter. We just finished reading the first book to Davey, and he loved it. We had to tone down just a couple of parts so they wouldn’t be too scary, but overall the first book was really fun.

We are well into the second book now. Davey is Harry, I’m Hermione and David is Ron (he began as Hagrid, but Davey re-dubbed him as Ron). Oh yes, and Buster is Hedwig. Davey says, “Mama. I don’t mind spoilers. I want to know EVERYTHINGGGG there is to know about Harry Potter.” Fortunately, I can’t deliver on too many spoilers, because I just don’t remember! It’s been too long since I read the books. I’ll remember this time. We have discussed the first book thoroughly.

So today we pretended to have Potions class. The potion we made was actually another Dollar Tree find: a little sand art craft. Davey and I carefully mixed up the potion which consisted of pouring sand slowly into the little plastic bottle.

Davey very carefully mixed his potion. Then he said he had to go show it to Professor Snape. He already finds Snape to be quite a complex character, and he loves to discuss his relative “badness and goodness”. Davey is convinced that he is more good.

This is the finished rainbow wizard potion. Not quite sure of its magical purpose yet.

A Simple and Fun Craft

Posted on June 12, 2013 by cpeezers

I went by Dollar Tree this morning to see if there were any fun craft possibilities. I’d intended on going to Michael’s which was next door, but I thought I’d check Dollar Tree first. Davey’s attention span on crafts can be iffy, so I thought inexpensive options would be great.

I found some great stuff. One of the little crafts I found was a bumblebee foam picture. We made the bumblebee with what looked like little foam sprinkles. Those little foam things get everywhere, so we took the craft outside.

Davey has little patience for drawing, coloring or painting, but he enjoyed this craft a lot. We just pulled off the paper to reveal a sticky surface, and then Davey started dropping the sprinkly things onto the bee.

He was very happy with the result.

I’d packed away the glue so I found some glitter paint. Davey liked squishing the foam down so the glitter paint peeked around the edges. Nice sparkly touch.

This was a lot of fun for $1.00!

Arm Knitting!

Posted on June 11, 2013 by cpeezers

Arm knitting. I’d never heard of such a thing! My friend Carol posted a link about it to my facebook the other night. This was something I had to try.

So arm knitting is what it sounds like. Your arms are the knitting needles.

I looked around a little and found a blog where there were tutorials for both an arm knitted scarf and an arm knitted blanket. Of course, I wanted to jump in and immediately knit a blanket. But then I actually stopped to think for a moment and decided that maybe I should not begin with quite such an ambitious project which would also require me to buy yarn. I realized that I had the yarn in my stash to knit a scarf. I found two skeins of chunky cotton/acrylic and a skein of worsted weight cotton.

I sat down with the videos and followed her guide. She walks through doing a long tail cast on with her arms. That was a little tough on my brain, so I had to turn off the video and visualize my arms as knitting needles. Once I did that, I was able to figure out how to “cast on”.

After that, it was pretty easy. It was a little hard at first to manage the three skeins of yarn, but then I put them on the floor so they could bounce around, and it wasn’t difficult at all.

David kindly helped me with the pictures. I tried by myself, but with yarn loops on both arms, that wasn’t happening. At all!

I’m pretty happy with my first result. It takes awhile to visualize what’s going on. For awhile, I thought I just had a long stringy mess. This is looser and more “hole-y” then I would like. It looks a little like a fishing net to me.

Davey modeled for me.

I want to do this again with more skeins of yarn. I’d like to make a blanket that looks more like the rug from the first link where I learned about arm knitting. He’s using at least 5 skeins of yarn I think, and his rug is much more solid looking. However, I am currently in a “knit from my stash” mode, so this will go on my to-do list! It’s really fun though. I’m not sure what you do when you want to take a break. I did this in about 30 minutes or so, but I had to carry my 3 balls of yarn with me and leave the scarf on my wrist. It probably wouldn’t be a big deal to run some yarn through the loops to hold them if I wanted to take a break.

It’s really relaxing though. I liked the motion of moving the yarn loops from arm to arm.

Time to google more arm knitting ideas!

Playing with Photo Transfers – More Pinterest!

Posted on June 9, 2013 by cpeezers

Davey and I began another pinterest inspired craft the other day. Davey had fun helping me with the first step, but he wasn’t too interested after that. It’s a little tedious though for a 5 year old. I, on the other hand, am having way too much fun with photo transfers.

We followed the tutorial provided by Elsie Flannigan on her blog. She has a really fun blog. I used to follow her more when I was scrapbooking. I’d not checked it out in quite awhile, but then I found her photo transfer tutorial on pinterest. She had such a positive response that she wrote a follow up FAQ to photo transfers which you can find here.

She provides great photos and explanations of how to do a photo transfer. It’s not too hard to do; you just need a little patience. It requires only gel medium, a photocopy of a photograph, and a canvas or, as I found out, just a piece of wood.

Davey helped me apply the gel medium to our first canvas.

After we applied a thick coat of gel medium, we took the photocopy and placed it face down on the picture. I read that the photograph should be copied onto just cheap copy paper. I have experimented just with black and white so far. I want to try color next.

We waited several hours for the gel medium to dry. I even let a couple of them go overnight. Then I took a spray bottle and sprayed the paper. I let it soak in a little and start to loosen up. Then I carefully started peeling and rubbing the paper off. The image stays behind. I had to be careful though otherwise, I’d pull off some of the photo. I did this a few times, but it just gives it a kind of aged look – I like it. This is the tedious part that takes awhile. I had to keep respraying to get off all the small bits of remaining paper.

I was pretty happy with my first transfer.

It’s kinda wrinkled at the top and it’s a little messy still around the edges. When the photo is wet, it’s hard to know what it will look like dry, and so I missed a few spots. While it was still damp, I finished it off with another coat of gel medium.

At this point, this became my fun project for me. Davey wasn’t too interested in the delicate process of pulling the paper off. It’s not too easy. He’d rather be goofy.

Next I tried another favorite photo. This is my current header photo for my blog page. I love my little heart shaped tree. I took this picture in Boulder at Chautauqua Park last summer.

I like the beat up edges. It’s still kinda wrinkly. I need to make sure and smooth the photo even better.

So for my last transfer, I tried a little 97 cent wooden plaque. I think it might be my favorite so far. The wood gives the picture a little bit of a warmer hue, and I liked that. I just plain love this picture anyway, so it was fun to see how it would transfer. It was not anymore difficult to transfer to wood. I think it might have even been a little easier.

This transfer is a little bit beat up around the edges, which I like, but it’s not too wrinkly – came out pretty smooth.

I’m just having a lot of fun with this! I’m looking forward to hanging them up in my craft area once we move.

Cpeezers

Family, School and Yarn

Monthly Archives: June 2013