Turning lemons into a new bathroom ... or something like that

They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

And when life takes away your Internet and phone access for most of the day, a mama has to find a way to make good use of naptime on a rainy day.

So I finally cut and sewed a ruffly thing for my bathroom.



Oh, wait. I never mentioned my bathroom redo, did I? This is what it used to look like:



Disclaimer: this was after I pulled off the flowered wallpaper the previous owners installed. Which Fly would eventually grow to despise, I'm sure -- so onto a more masculine-looking bathroom.



I really can't describe the color of the walls waiting for me once I got rid of the wallpaper. Except maybe dingey.

Back to the ruffly thing....

I didn't finish the hem yet because the trim I was going to use ended up being too short. And when JP fixed the rod and hung the ruffly thing up, he slid the rod through the wrong casing so there's no ruffle on the top. (Men!) After I finish the hem, I'll put it up right.



Forget lemonade, I like ivory and black for this room much better.

Oh, and here's a little tip from me: never, ever think you can do one little thing in a room. One little thing snowballs into at least a half-dozen things. Getting rid of the flowered wallpaper led to not just a fresh coat of paint, but also new art on the walls, replacing the towel bar with a hook shelf, and new faucets, lighting, soap dispenser and maybe some towels in the near future.

And a new ruffly thing just waiting for a rainy, no-Internet day.

Last-minute Father's Day craft, or, A card no one throws away

You know how it is when you give someone a gift and feel the need to give the person a card too? Did you ever feel like skipping the card? Because you know it's just going to wind up in the trash. But with almost everyone I buy gifts for, cards are expected along with the gifts. So you spend $2-$5 on a card, attach it to your gift, and feel a little guilty about it because you know that money is just wasted and could have helped Bono fight AIDS in Africa or do a local deliberate act of kindness or something.

Anyway.

For Father's Day, I am giving JP a Snapfish photo book of digital scrapbook layouts featuring photos of him and Fly. Instead of a throwaway card to go along with his gift, though, I made a cool layered card using digital scrapbooking tools.



But wait! Don't stop reading yet if you're not into digiscrapping, because you can make this card the old-fashioned way too. You can make it for Father's Day or any occasion. And who's going to dare throw away a card you made?

To make my card, I used a template created by Sine, a digital scrapbooking template designer. It was a freebie template that's no longer available. But you'll see you don't even need a template. You can use an alphabet stencil or even go freehand.

First, I placed digital paper and photos of Fly on the template, then printed them out on regular office paper. You need a regular-looking letter and one that's backward for each layer.



If you are kicking it old school, you can just trace letters onto scrapbook paper, construction paper, wrapping paper or even newsprint. Spell out any word that you want. For each subsequent letter in your word, extend the look of the letter by about two inches. From the picture, do you see what I'm talking about?

Then, cut all the letters out. This is a good project for older children. In fact, older children could probably do this whole thing by themselves, with a little help.



After that, I traced each letter onto posterboard. The original instructions called for chipboard, but the original intent was to make an album, and I am just making a card.

This is a letter Y below. It's the last letter in the word Daddy, so it's the longest/widest.



Cut out the posterboard letters...





...and then you can glue the fronts and backs of the letters onto the posterboard. I used a humble glue stick.





If you are making your layered card without a computer, this is when you might want to add real photos, ribbons, buttons, flowers, or whatever else to decorate your letters. If I had been smart about this project, I would have put the pictures of Fly on the front of the letters, to the left, rather than across the back of the letters, as you've seen. So, that's an idea for another time....

Once everything is glued down, arrange your letters and spell your word!





I used a regular hole punch to put two holes in each letter, stacked them up and tied them together with yarn. You could use ribbon, twine, or whatever is lying around the house.



Oh, and on the last letter, you can write "Happy Father's Day" and sign the card.

For an even easier digital scrapbooking template, check out the "Father" word album from Scrap Girls. (I used Scrap Girls' Mischief Maker digital papers and embellishments to make this card.)

You could even scrap (hee hee) the idea that this is just a card and give this as a gift! Oh, uh, but then you might need to give a card....

Tumbleweed of memories

I have been known to make baby blankets. I am not the best at sewing. I can't call myself a quilter. But I enjoy it.

Since my brother and sister-in-law added an adorable Guatemalan boy to their international family, I have yet to make him a blanket. I have been shying away from my sewing machine. Not only that, but I wanted to give him a blanket that matches his heritage the way I made a blanket that matches his older sister's Chinese heritage. I couldn't find any Central American-looking fabric. I fell in love with a Noah's ark-themed bolt recently, though, and knew it would be perfect for him.

Looking at the fabric, I knew I needed a soft blue thread to put into the machine so the color of the stitches would match. I took out the bobbin in my machine to roll new thread onto it. But the bobbin was full. I started unrolling the old thread. Magenta came off -- a quick bag JP wanted me to make to hold a tool of his. I had to pull out the white -- was that Fly's baptism outfit? Pale green -- part of the quilt I made for him? Slate blue -- I can't remember; I don't wear that color. Navy -- gosh, was that the tiered camisole I made for our trip to Naples before Fly? Each thread rolled off the bobbin and I took a little trip back in time, thinking about how my projects have linked themselves sentimentally to my past. Even though my projects have ranged from laughable to passable, I have spent considerable time at the sewing machine, thinking and dreaming as the needle went up and down.



Left with this tumbleweed of memories, I was glad for the time spent sewing -- on the surface nothing more than putting together pieces of fabric with string -- but actually a time capsule of our needs, wants, celebrations and our lives.

Mushy Valentine pleasure

I am posting this because I am a sucker for all things made by children. Completefoolsucker. I still have a picture on my fridge made by the daughter of a woman I did a project with three years ago.

Now that Fly is (sort of) able to make me things, my heart does a little flip-flop when "makes" things.

I am going to need lots of picture frames and keepsake boxes and maybe a second refrigerator.

Fly made me a Valentine's Day craft in the church nursery. It's a flower made out of a paint impression of his hand, with a heart in the flower.

For your mushy Valentine's Day pleasure, here is the poem glued to the Valentine:

A piece of me
I give to you.
I painted this flower
To say "I love you."

The heart is you,
The hand is me,
To show we are friends --
The best there can be.

I hope you save it
And look back someday
At the flower we shared
On this special day.

A first on this blog! Cocodoodles

These are cocodoodles. They aren't snickerdoodles because they're made with cocoa. And they aren't labradoodles because that's a dog (but just as fun to say). They're cocodoodles.

About 6.7 minutes after I came home from the supermarket today, I heard JP tell Fly, "Darn! I forgot to tell your mom I wanted some cookies." (Nice hint, eh?)

To JP, the only kind of cookie that exists is a chocolate chip cookie. But this house hadn't seen chocolate chips since....

However, I knew we had cocoa, so I pulled out the basic things that go into cookies and made these dark little beauties.

JP approved.

So if you make these cookies and enjoy them, that's my story. But if these cookies poison your whole family, well, then, I got the recipe from some old 1970s fundraiser cookbook. And if you make them and people go wild for them -- donations via PayPal are accepted!

Damselfly's Cocodoodles

1 stick of butter, softened
1 cup of sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup cocoa (I used Hershey's dark chocolate cocoa)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with nonstick spray.

Cream the butter and sugar together. Then add the egg and mix it until it's creamy. (Add some vanilla if that floats your boat.) Blend the flour, salt, baking soda and cocoa together, and slowly add it to the butter mixture, beating it well.

Roll the cookie dough into 1-inch balls and put them on the cookie sheet, fitting about one dozen on the sheet at a time.

Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes.

This cookie recipe should make about 2 1/2 dozen cookies.

If you're at a high elevation, I can't help you out because that whole elevation/baking thing mystifies me!

I think these cookies would be even better dipped in chocolate, or maybe even frosted.

But anyway, these are easy, chocolate cookies to make -- no chocolate chips required!

The playhouse's the thing

Early December. JP decides he's going to give Fly a gift from the heart -- a gift only he can give Fly, something he's made.

He is going to make Fly a playhouse!

Because JP's motto is there's nothing he can buy for $100 that he can't build for $500.

JP starts to draw up plans. He gets out a calculator. I find scraps around the house here and there.

Then JP asks me for ideas.

"Well, you want to make it interactive, I suppose," I say. "Fly likes that. If it's just a box, he's going to walk in and walk right out."

I happen to find some playhouses (the plastic kind) in a catalog and show them to JP.

"See this one? It has a table and chair. This one has different levels. Fly likes stairs, so he'd like something like that." I show JP playhouse after playhouse and point out their features like I'm some kind of Realtor for the preschool set.

JP isn't satisfied.

So I start dreaming.

"I know! Make a playhouse with a hidden room. Like in those old Scooby Doo cartoons. The playhouse could have a wall that spins around and put you in a hidden room!"

JP stares at me.

But I'm just getting started.

"Or you could make a tiny crawlspace in the wall so only little people could get into the hidden room. Of course, you'd have to have a back door on the playhouse so Fly wouldn't get stuck back in there. Yeah, this playhouse definitely needs a hidden room.

"And a lookout tower! Have some steps so he can climb safely to the top of the playhouse, open a little door in the roof, and look out. You'd have to design it so it would be impossible for him to get on the roof, of course.

"Or how about a skylight? Maybe like the one in the old Swiss Family Robinson movie, where you just pull down on a door in the roof to see the sky.

"Fly likes to push buttons and turn knobs. Maybe you could make part of one wall inside like the play wall at the library. But make it look like our stereo. With lights! Things that light up. Fly loves that.

"A mailbox. Now that would be cool. Fly doesn't get any mail, but I always take him to the mailbox with me and show him how to put the flag up. He would love his own mailbox.

"So how about those ideas?"

JP is awestruck.

"I'm just making a little cabin. It's not going to be big enough for all that."

"Well," I say, "You asked for ideas...."

A few more days go by. JP has been to the hardware store. He discussed with a hardware store guy some options on how to finish the outside walls. The hardware store guy rejects one of JP's ideas as being "too ghetto." That phrase is all JP and I need to brainstorm even more ideas while we have dinner one night.

"Too ghetto?" I ask. "What does he think you're building, a crack house?"

"Maybe I should install a little lab inside the playhouse?" JP ventures.

"Ooh, and then you can build a dealer house on the other side of the yard. With a tunnel between the two of them!"

"Or a live steam train that goes back and forth!"

"You could build a whole little crack town out back!" I say. "One of the playhouses could have graffiti on it!"

Fly, sitting between the two of us, is luckily too young to realize what kooks he has for parents.

We are kooky, yes, and that may be why we are insane enough to think we can create and accomplish some of the things that we take on.

Like JP's playhouse for Fly.

One week before Christmas:


After I helped JP use PVC pipe to roll it into the backyard because it was too heavy to carry. This thing meets hurricane building code!


Fly already likes playing in it.

Yesterday:


Half of a roof!


Fly, the building inspector, giving his approval to continue with the work.

Any bets on whether the playhouse will be finished in time for Christmas?!

Thanksgiving cards

Thanks to my friend Roo, who has a closet dedicated to nothing but Close to My Heart scrapbooking and cardmaking supplies, I have gotten the cardmaking bug. I thought I'd make some Thanksgiving dinner invitation cards to start, just from a mishmash of supplies from a local craft store.

I know the cards could have been better and more interesting (read: I could have used more supplies), but I had to stop buying stuff to create the cards. They're $2 each as it is! You can't tell, but the border and the colored leaf have a metallic shine to them.

I ordered a couple kits for making Christmas cards, and those will be a lot more economical. (And because I didn't hobble craft junk together, they'll look better.)

Do you make cards or other crafts for the holidays?