Tag: crafts

slice of life

Here I am rushing to post before midnight once again. It’s not that I forgot so much as I have had a busy day.

I just got home from helping a friend to celebrate a big moment in her life. (Namely, her divorce.) She served blood orange sangrias, with slices of blood orange for a garnish. The slice above looked like stained glass to me.

One of the reasons I ran out of time to write today was that I was inspired to make my friend a gift. A number of years ago (where that number is almost 20) I made some gifts for friends writing out messages in morse code using beads. I had big plans to make many more such pieces of jewelry, and stockpiled various tube and oblong beads (needed for the dashes). I spent an inordinate amount of time agonizing about which color scheme to use, and digging through my supplies. And changing my mind several times. And then it turns out I’m out of practice with bending the wire to make the chain, so the whole process took far more time than I expected.

I also neglected to get a decent photo of the finished project. (Namely, a necklace spelling my friend’s name in morse code.) Here are the beads I used: rainbow fluorite tubes (for the dashes), and two sizes of roundish glass beads for the dots and the letter spacers. (See also the finished product in poor lighting, and on an appetizer plate at my friend’s house.)

wfh: Peep chaos edition

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I’ve been wanting to make a Peep diorama for years. I remember making a diorama (of the Peepless variety) for a 6th grade school project, and I really enjoyed the process. (Wish I photos of that–it was of a scene from a Nancy Drew book.) Anyhow, I may possibly not have made another diorama since then.

A few weeks ago, I decided this was the year. And I had the idea I wanted to go with. I may have told a few people that my biggest fear* was that someone would beat me to the punch with the idea. (*Not actually my biggest fear.) And I’ve been working on it here and there for about the 3 full weeks. (I ordered the Peeps on Amazon, since I wasn’t sure we’d be able to go out to get them.)

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It was really quite therapeutic to work on the little details. I made these bunny slippers one morning while everyone else was still sleeping.

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I made the portraits on the wall by photographing the “family” in front of a landscape painting.

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An early stage of the diorama. This box appeared to be an excellent size for a Peep desk.

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The coffee cup was one of the final details. I just made it this afternoon. You can sort of make out the cookies (made from felt) and the colored pencils (made from toothpicks.)

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The curtains are made from some old torn pajama pants. Rather fitting, I guess.

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I was also quite pleased with the armchair, which I made from cardboard, foam, and fabric from some long-departed corduroy pants.

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I couldn’t  quite capture the whole scene from one angle.

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Yes, I did walk around the house taking photos of peeps in different locations for the zoom meeting.

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I was rather inordinately pleased with my grocery bag, amazon box and laundry basket.

One of the things that also pleases me about this project is that is was almost entirely made from materials we had around the house. The only new items were the Peeps. There are a few items that were small toys, but most of the things I made from materials from our recycling and scrap fabric.

look whose stocking (again)

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On Friday, I helped out in my son’s classroom holiday party. We were encouraged to share holiday traditions. I organized a craft making little felt stocking ornaments, and shared the story of the time my family made our own Christmas stockings. (It’s amazing to realize that I wrote the post about that 10 whole years ago.)