the week in review: june 17-23

Woooo-wheeee! The week was packity-packed-packed with all sorts o' fun and good times! The Zameander crew came to visit and so we got crafty making pom poms, cardboard masks, a messenger bag and more, more, more! We ate yummy eats (SLO Donut! cronuts!), made sandwiches, hit up a photo booth and named an ice cream flavor.

We hit two beaches, walked a pier, fed more goats than you can shake a stick at, and sampled piles of the best strawberries we have ever had!

If only they could have stayed longer! After they left, there was more mask making, a smidge of book reading and a bit more than a smidge of Ted Talks watching....such a lovely week!

scrumdilly diy: 4th of july pom pom wreath

Like I have mentioned before I'm think in the frenzy of pom pom making. I'm having too much fun and am making quite the mess. I decided to turn my compulsion into something pretty for July and thus the pom pom wreath was born.

 

I used a particle-board type base found in the floral department at my local Michael's. It was larger, sturdier and less expensive than an embroidery hoop or foam form of the same size. I also like it because it is flat and has hole drilled in it. It's multi-useful! A couple of coats of white paint on my wreath form just in case any part if it shows through and I was ready to go.

 

 

I created a happy pile of independence day-festive poms and popped them into an egg carton for storage.

 

 

 

I began by wrapping red yarn around the wreath-to-be in the style of weaving a dream-catcher. When I was happy with the wrapping, I flipped over the form and added a blob of glue and a clothespin anchor to keep it all in place. To ensure the yarn remained where I wrapped it, I added additional blobs of glue for good measure.

 

To anchor the poms to the form, I used healthy amounts of tacky glue. I find that yarn needs a bit more glue to stick to things and I never have good luck with hot melt glue (my poor poor army of love lost a few troops). My poms were on the larger, shaggier side so needed a bit more glue than usual otherwise the weight of the poms would dangle from the form instead of staying put.

I entertained the idea of layering more poms on one side to whimsy it up a bit, or maybe even adding a bow but I really liked the simplicity of using just poms and red yarn.

Here it is haging on our front door...

and here over the bed...

winner! winner! winner! winner!

Oh how I wish I could give each one of my entries a garland. As there were but only a few of you, it could be doable but my time is so wonky as of late I would never finish and follow through and then it would hang over my head like all the other things that fell through the cracks (I STILL have nervousness projects dangling overhead and I cannot even remember the details but always think about my dropping the ball there. Shoot!)

Four garlands for four ladies, here ya go!

wonderbread

Geri

 Jess

ButterandBuntings

Please email, etsy mail, or FB message me your address and I will get thee a garland out this week!

just in time for solstice, it's a garland giveaway!

Remember these? Leave a comment on this post and one of these lovely festive beauties may be yours!

Along with the three festive garlands I also have this lovely origami papel picado that would look lovely in your home. When you leave a comment, let me know which one is your fave and I'll do my best to make sure it is yours. You have until Saturday, June 22 to enter! Happy almost summer if yer in the western hemisphere!

beliefs

 

I am not a fan of confrontation. I do not hold up well to debate and argument. I get far too emotional. With the way social networking has hit us over the heads, I witness a lot of vitriol tossed about. I read, form an opinion and then talk it out with the mister. I don't generally cotton to the idea that Facebook is a place for personal arguments. Your FB page is your page, your space to write what you will. I may not agree with it but it is not my space, it's your space. That said, or rather, written, I was sadly disappointed to read a comment on a friend's page that changed my entire view of this person. The quandry is that this person is allowed to think what they will and that they are allowed to write it down and I am allowed to read it, agree, disagree and move on. I felt compelled to respond, so strongly compelled. I feel compelled so I am using my space to sort it out.

I know that people operate under all sorts of ignorance. I do. We all do. I'm just baffled about it all. And I want to stress that I'm mostly simply disappointed that I read what I read. I also want to repeat that at the same time we are all entitled to our opinions. I know...waffle waffle. I believe this person is wrong just as I am certain they believe I am wrong. So what do we do? Do I drop this person simply because I find this bit of ignorance intolerable or does that make me intolerable as well? Do I invade this person's space to tell them I disagree? If I do not does that make me a supporter of such ignorance? I know I am writing in code here, I just need to process these ideas and feelings.

What made me want to respond so much was/is that I think this person and a few other commentors believe there is nothing wrong in what they wrote or believe and yet to me, it was rife with hatred. The words themselves weren't violent but the context was. I'm still uncertain as to what to do. Like I said, I hate confrontation. I also have a difficult time with ignorance relating to people's choice of partners. Love is love. Loving who you love and being kind is a good thing when it comes from the heart. I feel sad that people still feel a need to make it something other than what it is.

Sigh. Why can't we really just all get along?

the week in review: june 10-16

If I were to go by this photo collage it would appear my week was all about food. Sadly, in a way, ti was. Not really but pretty food abounded and so I snapped away. It was the last week at the preschool until Fall and so I have a lot of photos of the children eating Otter Pops and mixing paint on a painting lathe. It was also just a busy errand-full week and in between these errands I smooshed in some crafty bits and a tiny bit of reading time.

So here ya go..as a reminder to myself and for the curious...my week in review...

I finally held off on grocery store shopping so I could pick up organic goodies from the farmer's market. We eat a lot of cauliflower in the tiny casa.

scrumdilly-do! got a few Father's Day projects listed and there were two birthdays this week...the mister's was on Monday and the zoe-cat's (my niece actually) was on Thursday. I actually got her goodies wrapped up and mailed in time. Go me!

At the market we picked up some amazing strawberries! Then I made some amazing egg puffs. When one has strawberries, one makes egg puffs. It's just how it is.

Over the weekend we headed over to a friend's for our first official ingredient club meeting. We are trying to come up with a better name but the deal is that two ingredients are randomly picked and you bring at least one dish utilizing one or both ingredients along with recipes. Our first gathering as a hullaballoo of artichokes and cranberries. If you think that is weird, just wait for meeting number two...butter and marshmallow...we gotta git creative so we're not all a sugared out. I've been pinning ideas like crazy. It's enough to keep a girl up all night. Pictured in the collage is our hostess who is among other things a puppet maker.

Along with Father/s Day crafting I put together a July 4th door wreath dealio. I'll get the diy up soon,..more yummy farmer's market groceries, another Father's Day project, painting fun and one of my contributions to the food party....cranberry, cherry, garlic glaze for a wild rice and sauteed artichoke dish. That glaze is tasty!

Along with eating artichoke based foodstuffs we played with puppets and captured bubbles. This little guy is another handmade creation. So cool! Mister had the partner on his hand and is a much better puppet player than I am even if his puppet voice sounds like a mix between Christopher Walken and Ren.

So there ya go, my week in review. A wrangling kiddos, painting paper, mailing packages, reading, movie watching (I watched Endless Love for the first time...for reals!), closet organizing, grocery shopping kind of week.

This week will be a bit more adventurous as I will not be at the school and some of my favorite peoples will be here. Hooray!