The tin man made his debut today at his school's fall festival! Everyone liked his costume, and people were surprised that it was homemade! A success!
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October 30, 2008
October 29, 2008
Day 19 - 30 Days of Creativity
Yesterday (for Day 19), the little guy picked out a pumpkin at the pumpkin patch at school. We were sent home with the directive to decorate the pumpkin. I picked up some paints and a brush at hobby lobby and just let him go at it! This was our result...
I also worked on his costume. He tried it on and did not want to take it off! It was hilarious! So, hopefully, he'll feel the same way about it on Thursday and Friday, too. I just have to add the rest of the joints to his elbows and knees, and we should be complete, which is good since he has to wear it tomorrow for his school parade!
I was also inspired by this December Daily scrapbook idea, and hit the craft store for supplies since they were having a sale! I got the book and papers and stickers, now I just have to put it all together, so that will be a future creative project! For now, I just want to finish this costume and finish re-organizing the craft room!
October 27, 2008
Day 18 - 30 Days of Creativity
If I were to title this post, I would have called it eyecandy. Ha! I'm so corny! Ha again! Sad thing is, I wrote the second one before I even realized it was a pun. Pardon the ketchup face, we had just gotten back from dinner and this was the first time I was able to catch him wearing the hat, and taking it off, and putting it back on...which is what he prefers to do with hats. At least he's learning "on" and "off".
Today was all about the Halloween costume again. I made the hat (minus the funnel) and the pants (minus the bottom hem). I have to try it on him before I can go any farther. So, tomorrow night will be his final fitting and then I'll finish it up! I've decided that he may look more like an astronaut or the king of pop, but it will be fun either way!
Day 16 & 17 - 30 Days of Creativity
Day 16 was pretty busy. I had to work most of the day and when I got home, I was wiped out. But, that night was the cooking club that a group of friends has put together. The theme was casseroles, and they were all really good. The most interesting recipe was Paula Deen's Pineapple Casserole (and yes, it has butter in it). It was different, I mean pineapples with cheese, but it was good. We helped the hostess make Hot Chicken Salad (seen below) and it was great. We decided that the main ingredient for a casserole is cheese!
Day 17 I was on kid patrol all day, but he mostly wanted to play in the living room and I mostly wanted to sit on the couch, so I was able to get some knitting done! Inspired by Wendy's (aka bookishgirl) candy corn hat, I made one for the kiddo. It's actually cool enough for him to wear it this week, so that's exciting. I had elaborate photo shoot plans for this one, including a picture with actual candy corn, though it appears someone ate my candy corns, and a modeled picture on the little guys head, but he has more fun taking hats off than keeping them on (this does not bode well for the tin man costume). So, this is all I've got...
October 24, 2008
October 23, 2008
Days 13 and 14 - 30 Days of Creativity
Day 13 we went out to dinner with a friend for her birthday, so not a whole lot of creative activity actually happened, but I did prepare for tonight's creative festivities!
Day 14
Tonight the kiddo got in on the creativity with me! He loves to try to color, but he also likes to eat the crayons, so when I found an idea for edible finger paint, I thought that would be a good compromise. Vanilla pudding + Food coloring = Fun for all that washes off! I was a bit worried that it would dye his hair (after he started smearing it in his hair), but it came out. I don't know that I would really call this fingerpaint because you can't keep the finished product, it is pudding, it doesn't exactly dry. But, it was a fun experiement!
I also created a scrapbook page tonight. I don't want to say too much about it, as it is a surprise, but this is basically a template for pictures to be added to later. This completely reverses my usual creative process. My starting point is always the pictures when making a scrapbook page, making this a bit of a challenge to me. I tried to leave it simple enough so that it can adapt to any pictures that are available. I used red ribbon to trim out the patterned paper and I really liked the effect.
October 22, 2008
Days 9 through 12 - 30 Days of Creativity
I knew this would happen at some time during this project, but the tin man has officially taken over! :) Before I dive into that story, I will tell you that we've been working on our family vision that came out of this project. We've also implemented a schedule to help us get our chores done and give us more time to be creative! Tonight, I started on two new projects, but I'm not far enough into either of them to say much, so I'll save them until I get a bit farther.
On to the tin man...
I spent a good portion of the weekend on those little pieces that will become the joints at the elbows, shoulders and knees. You can see one of the shoulder joints in the picture of the finished shirt. The husband helped me by spray painting the funnel that will be a part of his hat and the buttons. I couldn't find any good silver buttons that weren't too expensive, so we decided to spray paint some cheap black buttons, instead. That's what I love about sewing Halloween costumes - they just have to last a few hours so I can use things like spray paint and liquid stitch (which reminds me a lot of Elmer's)! At this point, the shirt is finished, minus three of the joints, and the pants are seamed together, I just need to do the waistband and the hems. Then there's the hat, which I seriously doubt he will wear for more than five minutes, and I'll be done! If I had to guess, I would say I'm at least 50% finished. I'm just aiming to do a little bit each night so that it's not too overwhelming!
The husband thinks he's going to look like Michael Jackson, so maybe I should look make him a sparkly glove.
October 16, 2008
Days 7 & 8 - 30 Days of Creativity
Day Seven - Last minute knitting
I realized yesterday that my friend's daughter's baby shower was only 2 full days away and I hadn't though about what I would give her. This friend is great about making homemade treats for us at work, in fact, she's the one that made my awesome birthday cake that I showed here. So, I didn't want to only send her a store bought gift. After a quick search on ravelry, I was in business with a cabled baby hat project that I should be able to complete in two days. I started it yesterday and finished it today (not the greatest picture since I finished it after dark).
Day Eight - Oh to have smell-o-vision
Around this time each year, I start to like cooking again. There is just something about cooler weather and the holidays that make me enjoy the art of cooking. Today, I made homemade bread, more specifically, monkey bread. While it's not a new recipe (it's my mom's recipe that she shared with me about four years ago), it is one that requires a little bit of luck (the primary instruction is to add flour until the dough feels right, soft but not too sticky), so I'm counting that as creativity. In case you are unfamiliar with monkey bread, you take the dough, dip it in butter and a sugar/cinnamon mixture and throw it in a pan. It makes great cinnamon bread. We glaze ours before serving with a little bit of powdered sugar glaze. My house smells SO good right now. I'm going to enjoy the smell as I spend a bit of time with my sewing machine starting the actual sewing of the kid's costume.
October 15, 2008
Day Six - 30 Days of Creativity
Oh Shauna, when I started this project, I sure didn't think it would result in this! Spending time focused on being creative has shown me how much of my life is routine. How much I do every day just because I always do it. How much of what I do does not fulfill any of my life goals or how I want life to be. Don't get me wrong, I realized during the hurricane that I like my little routine, but we've had a lot of tension in our family lately and I think it's largely because we lack vision for the future and we are not working towards making life the way that we want it to be each day. We are merely surviving. Clearly, we operate within a set of circumstances, but we are responsible for what we do within those circumstances, not merely with accepting those circumstances.
So, my creativity for today was to "create our life". I made a list and asked the husband to make a list starting with "I want life to include...". I took the first word from each item on my list and made the wordle above. We are going to have a family meeting this weekend and talk about the things on each of our lists and hopefully create a list that will reflect our priorities and our vision for our family.
