A Dirty Smile

So this is our dining room table on this grand lazy Saturday. We do plan on being productive but later on in our own timing. This picture above provides a challenge for me. I want to clean it. I look at it and think, "Whoa! I'm a bad house keeper! That needs to be put away... why is this on the table anyway? Who put that there? What in the world is the toilet paper on the table!?" Yes there is toilet paper on the table it's beside the hole puncher, hidden by the laptop screen. In fact between the time I took this photo and posted this blog the table has gotten messier! I could go on and on about how this picture makes me cringe. I'd love to have a model display home. One of my favorite things to do while building our home was to browse display homes at a home builder sites. It made me smile, sometimes. It made me laugh at times too. Mostly I got ideas of how I'd like my dream home. Everything was in place. The house was clean, it smelled good and it looked good! Even if I wasn't keen on the decor, the house was clean. I like a clean home. I struggle with that. In fact it's a new phenomenon with me. When my kids were toddlers I wished for a clean home but rarely had one. Now, I wish for one and its become a slight obsession at points. It's not at the mysophobia stage but a unclean home still bothers me. So as you might get by now, this picture above would make me miss what it actually means.

Yes the dining table is messy. My girls are making crafts and busy with doing their things they find fun. They are smiling, talking, amusing themselves in a healthy way. No they aren't sitting reading a book, or making the whole world change. They are making my world change for the better. So when I take a second look at this photo, it makes me smile. It makes me laugh too. Oh it will be cleaned up at some point today but for now I'll let it be.

I originally meant for this to be an entry on this blog but didn't notice which blog I was posting to when I clicked "publish post" so this entry is also on my photo blog. It's not the greatest quality of photos but I've decided to leave it since it sort of works.

Jedi Tutus

I recently made a tutu for our little one. The no sew tutus are great and easy to make. I used this tutorial for mine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5QO_OI1t70. I got my tulle from Hobby Lobby for about 4.99 a roll. These rolls are 6 inches wide and 25 yards long. I liked this tutorial because it used the rolls I bought. The others are fine but they used the bolt of tulle that I did not buy.  For this tutu I used  3 rolls. I used 2 rolls of a darker pink and 1 roll of darker pink. I counted about 10 or 11 knots and switched to the lighter color pink for 5 knots, then back to the darker pink and so on. She was sleep by the time I finished it so we waited till the next morning to let her try it on. She seemed to like her tutu. It was so darling to see her around the house in this cute thing. When her big brother came down in his Jedi robe and light saber she became quite interested...

Is this how you turn it on?

Betrayal! 

 lol He's such a great big brother! Watching these two play can sometimes bring tears of joy to my eyes. I don't mean to get mushy but I love seeing the kids enjoy one another.

So the tutu might be a little big but she liked it. I do plan to make more. My older girls want them too! Fun easy thing to do. Make one. :)

Knitting needles

So I've decided to make my own knitting needles. It was just a fun thing I thought I would do since I just learned to knit. I prefer the wooden needles so I bought some wooden skewers and used a pencil sharpener to sharpen the ends. I painted them, put a gloss on last and super glued a wooden ball to stop the yarn from slipping off the end. Here is a photo tutorial of what I did. This is my first tutorial so please bear with me.

Here are the things I used. I went to my local craft store and purchased wooden skewers. There are a variety of sizes so choose which ever size you prefer to use. I used a pencil sharpener to sharpen the skewers. I use basic acrylic paint, clear gloss top coat and a basic paint brush. I used super glue and wood beads for the ends of the skewers. I used a styrofoam to help glue on the wooden bead.

Sharpen one end of the wooden skewer like a pencil in a pencil sharpener. 

I like for mine not to have a really sharp end because I find that it catches the yarn too much.

After sharpening, paint the skewer from top to bottom. Here is a creative canvas to make your knitting needles personal and one of a kind. I painted the needles at the top left corner a bit more creative. Let the paint dry. If you don't wish to paint designs, using thin stickers may be an option. I've not tried so I can't say that it's a successful option. 

After the paint has dried apply a couple of coats of the gloss for a top coat. Let the gloss dry. After the gloss has dried, stick the skewer in the styrofoam to balance it. Use the super glue to glue the wooden beads to the end of the skewer.

That's it! I've made a few of these just for fun of different sizes.

Hope you've enjoyed this little tutorial. Thanks for reading.