Creativity!

Okay, so while I do love being home, there are a number of things I do NOT love about Arizona:

1.  Holy Cow, it's hot enough here that Satan would be hard pressed to survive.
2. I don't know anyone here, so I sorta have to entertain myself.
3. Since I don't have a car because it died in Utah, this means it has to be in either: a.) my house or b.) walking distance.  (Note: please read #1.  This is a HUGE factor in what is considered "walking distance".)
4. Our pool is gross and kinda cold.  I would have to spend hours in the hot sun trying to clean a palm-frond, bird feather/poop, insect infested pond to swim in it.  Yuck.  Not worth it.
5. Did I mention it's HOT?

So with this in mind, I've been trying to entertain myself while the two younger skisters are in school and the elder sits on her computer looks for a job.  (hm.)  The other day I walked to our library and hiked about 50 lbs of books back, but I'm not really looking forward to trying that again anytime soon, so I'm gonna make my books last.  I've gone through tubs of old papers/pictures, and organized our family book collection.  I was looking for my next project, when I realized I've been craving doing some crafty things.  I made one of these:

and hung in the youngest skisters room, however, I did not have 8 sheets of tissue paper all the same color, so I had to make a rainbow.  Decidedly less cute than these.  It still looks good in her room though, so whatever.  It entertained me for 30-or-so minutes.  If you wanna know how to make it, look here!

So after a thrilling bout of tissue paper, I wandered around my house, threw a bouncy ball against all the walls in my house, and suffered a "Lilo Moment" (Yes, it's in Finnish....deal with it.)

In a flash of brilliance, I suddenly knew how I was going to spend my time.

I was going to make flowered headbands/clips. 

I made two different ones in about 45 mins/ 1 hr.  They're super easy, and now you can make them too!

You'll need:

• A hot glue gun
• Fabric Scissors
• Matches/a Candle
• pearls, buttons, jewels etc.
• at least 1/8 of a yard of costume silk in different colors
• Felt (I used white)
• Headband, clips, etc.

Step 1:  choose your fabrics.  You can go to a local fabric store (JoAnns, Michaels, Hancock, etc.) and look for "Costume Silk".  You just need something that will melt when heat is applied, not just go up in smoke.

I got 3 different colors just as a preliminary, buying about 1/8 of a yard for each one.  I'm probably going to go back and get more colors tomorrow, but for now it was MORE than enough.  :)

Step 2:  Using various cups, candles, tins, medicine containers, etc. laying around my kitchen I traced 3-4 different sized circles on the different colored fabric.  (just make sure your pencil's sharp and it works fine.)  Don't worry too much about how nice your circles look - it won't matter once you take some fire to it. I varied my size depending on how many I was going to put on my clip.  The smallest circle of my single flower is still bigger than the biggest of my triple flower barrette.


Step 3:  Take your circles and hold them above a flame.  I just used a candle we had lying around our kitchen.  This way, I didn't almost burn myself or have to light a different match every few seconds, plus it made our house smell good.  Double whammy.  Holding it just above the flame should cause it to curl and fold up in a more flower-like style. Do this to each one.

Step 4:  Use the glue gun and put a dot in the center of the petals and nestle them inside each other.  In the smallest circle, glue beads, jewels, whatever takes your fancy!  I had a string of costume jewelery pearls, so that's what I used.

Step 5:  If you want to put more than one together, glue them on your felt.   Cut around your flowers so the felt can't be seen from the front.  The felt can then be glued on to what your headband/clip/whatever.

Step 6: Glue away!  I used barrettes just because it's what I had, but you can get all kinds of crazy with this!

Step 7: Wear and enjoy!


So yeah! That's what I did.  I think I'm going to get a little ambitious and try doing petals and leaves for my next ones.  If you guys have fun craft ideas that I should try, let me know!  I need something to do for next few weeks.

Blogs, Blogs, Blogs and more blogs!

Okay everyone, I admit it.  I'm actually obsessed with blogs!! Wedding Blogs, Photography blogs, all blogs of every shape and kind.   I also admit that I am not so good at keeping a blog.   (Of course, I've never really tried, so there you go.)  I'm sitting here in hot Arizona with nothing to do, so I decided that I'm gonna blog my little heart out.  I love stalking everyone else, so I feel that I need an excuse of some kind in order to justify spending as much time looking at blogs as I do. *sheepish grin*

Anyways, I wasted spent a bunch of time messing with the layout of my blog, and now I feel ready to actually spread my thoughts to the world!!!!! (.......you know I've had such a hard time of doing that before.  : p)  I have a month of nothingness before I leave for camp, so I think this is going to be one of the ways I fill my time.  Until I have something to post however, here are some photos I took.  Ciao!