FINISHED Sugar Skull Mask

After finishing the paper mache and lightly sanding with fine grit sandpaper, I sketched a face and some decorative accents.  I painted the eyes and teeth first, then added the leaves, colored flowers and dots (which you can't really see in this picture).  I had pink, silk Gerber Daisies leftover from my Over the Top Headband project, and I cut them apart and hot-glued them around the eyes to make that sugar skull floral look I love so much.  You could maybe alter this for a Halloween mask if you cut eye holes in the black areas and hot glued a couple of elastic bands across the back.  Not bad for a first attempt, if I do say so myself.

Unless this is your first time reading this blog and you never look at post dates, you probably realize I'm in a post drought.  I found out at the end of this past school year that I was being transferred to another building in September. I felt a bit like my work-world tipped onto its side and stayed there.  It's not terrible, the people are nice enough and I still have a job, which is what really counts, but you never realize how much you depend on your work friends until you no longer have them around every day.

I've offered to help my friend troubleshoot ideas for costumes for the play she's doing, and I also somehow volunteered to help out with the next play at my daughter's former school.  I'll be honest, I was going to volunteer anyway, but it seems I had signed up before I was sure what I was signing up for.  Not complaining - it's nice to be appreciated. Work has not started on either play, however.

In the mean time, my husband alternates between complaining and being extremely tolerant of my "art shit" (I like to call it, "craft crap") around the house.  There must be a lesson in here, somewhere, I'm just not sure what it is.

So I go about my business, adjusting to a new school year, my new work digs, and an undefined blog focus, and I try to finish projects I start, which is a new rule for me.  Keep going, even when you hate it.  I'm getting better at that.  Sometimes I even like the result, even though it's not what I thought it would look like.

Hummm… maybe that's the lesson I was looking for in this.

Turn Back Thursday - happy childhood memories

This is the fountain in my Italian grandparents' backyard. This picture is from June of 1979.  I loved this yard, especially this fountain.  My dad designed the shape of the pond at the base - it's a circle and a square combined - and together they made the mold and poured the concrete.  People tell me it's an Italian thing, the working with concrete.  My grandfather kept gigantic, fancy finned goldfish in the pond that he brought in the house and kept in a basement tank each winter.  One spring, before he put the fish in the pond, he let me walk around in it while it was filling with water.  It was icy cold, but I ran around the pond, taking advantage of the fact that after admiring it for years, I was finally able to jump into the water.   On one of my laps, I scratched my leg the pedestal in the center; it gave me a scar that I'm happy to still have, because it's attached to that wonderful memory.

The garden was set on a steep hillside.  On the very left of the picture, the garden ends, dropping off down a fairly high cement wall that backed the neighbors behind.  I'm sure my grandfather built that wall as well.  Huge leaved ivy covered the back of the house, which was just outside the picture's view to the right.  Bees used to hide behind those ivy leaves in summer, so I tried never to disturb them as I ran past, on that walkway that you see moving toward the back of the photo.  The walkway ended with a wooden gate that always swung open and closed in complete silence until the latch clicked, courtesy of the contraction skills of Uncle Pat, whose real name was Pasquale. Beyond the gate, a right turn, a few steps and stairs - just one or two.  Then, after a short walk on a curved pathway of grass lined with giant dahlia plants, you would come upon a decorative cement tub with a wall attached, and a spout coming from the wall that would pour water into the tub when turned on.  It was a magical little place, like something you would find in a book like the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

And all over, there was the spicy smell of tea roses.  My grandfather would cut them, and my grandmother would put them in a bowl on the dining room table…

Excuse me, I have a fountain of my own to build...

MOM, GET RID OF THIS HUGE-ASS BUG!!

A few minutes ago, my (almost 15 year old, taller and stronger than me) son comes downstairs to tell me there is a HUGE-ASS bug in his room, and can I please take it out?  He hates bugs.  It's one of the few things that will tear him away from a video game trance.

It's HUGE, he tells me, it's a cicada.  I'm not even sure there are cicadas around this year, but he's swearing up and down that it's a cicada because "It's clicking so loud I could hear it through my (video game) headset."  You know, there comes a time in every kid's life when you turn over the bug-getting directly to your child.  Mostly because you are just DONE with bug killing.  To complicate matters, this bug is in the "too big to squish" category.  According to my definition, bugs are too big to squish when I can actually hear them crunching if I step on them.  It's not really fair for the little bugs, but the big bugs get a break here because the crunch noise they would make would give me an automatic picture what's going on under the tissue or my shoe, and I just can't deal with that.  Anyway, I try to explain to my son that he can put a cup over it, then sliiiiide a paper under the cup, and walk the bug outside to freedom.

NO WAY, he tells me.  It might attack me if I do that.  YOU have to do it.   By the way, this is the same boy who tells me he wants to join the marines.  

So I grab a plastic cup and a perfume ad from the kohl's flyer, and I head up to his room.

Ok, so it was pretty large.  Definitely not the largest bug I've ever seen around here - that distinction probably goes to the nasty beetles that fly into the window screens on summer nights and sound like bees on steroids.  I've had them fly into my head once or twice before and they FREAK me out every time.  No, this guy was definitely prettier.  A nice green color body, about 3 inches long and flattish. Reminiscent of a praying mantis, but with a much bulkier body.  He was perched high up on the wall next to my dear child's unmade bed.  Excellent.  So if I accidentally killed it, bug guts would fall into the sheets and blankets and the complaining would just change to a different topic.

I stepped up on the bed with my cup, eyed my prey and aimed for complete coverage.  But I didn't realize he was looking back at me.  He took off toward my head, buzzing like an electric fan, and I tried to simultaneously keep my shit together, wave him off, and not drop my cup. Success, except for the fact that now he landed on the ceiling.

My second try achieved full bug-coverage.  I slid the perfume ad between the ceiling and the cup and removed the cup from the ceiling.  He was very quiet in there (unlike those NASTY big beetles -  you have to keep shaking the cup to keep those guys off-kilter or they'll climb right up the cup and ATTACK you when you remove the paper on top.  HATE those things…) which was a relief.

I walked this pleasant enough green guy outside, stopping to get my phone on the way.  I 'd take a picture of him and post it on Facebook - HA!  I thought, that's what he gets for asking me to take care of a bug for him when he's almost 15!      

I put the cup on the porch railing, got the phone ready and aimed it at the top of the cup.  I took the perfume ad off the top and peered into the cup to see the subject of my photo.  Was he still in there?  I snapped a picture and then he flew out, right at my head.

Here's the picture I took.  He was already climbing up the side of the cup,  getting ready to spring...

I'm sure the neighbors heard my screech…

The bug-getter in the house never gets any sympathy.

Don't Be Jealous of My Harry Potter Wand Pens - Make Your Own!

When you work in a highly trafficked area, you need pens that stand out - pens that would look foolish in anyone else's hands.  Hence, the Harry Potter-like Wand Pen.

I found a tutorial to make these pens on YouTube.  I'm not very adept at putting links in here, but if you copy this and put it in your browser, you'll get to the right place…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMXyZohgmo4

NerdECrafter gives a decent description of how to make your own wand-pen, but I made an improvement to this procedure, and I think it's worth noting.

The disposable pens featured in the video are Bic pens with opaque plastic casings.  I've used these pens before to make polymer clay covered pens, and I was successful.  See this post:

http://flyingbytheseatofmycreativepants.blogspot.com/2013/03/someone-took-my-pen.html

I did NOT use aluminum foil to hold the opening for the pen ink, and I did also take out the ink tube itself.  I used the plastic casing in the baking process, and it didn't melt.  HOWEVER, I could have just been lucky - who knows!

THIS time, I purchased Bic Cristal ball point pens and I had a problem with my first batch.  I removed the ink tube but left the crystal clear plastic tube inside the polymer clay before baking.  The 275 degree baking temperature for my clay also melted and SEVERELY SHRANK the plastic tubing, causing it to crack the polymer clay covering.  That batch went into the trash.

Next, I used the aluminum foil method proposed in this video, HOWEVER, I wrapped the foil around a bamboo shishkebob skewer, noting that the ink tube was just lightly smaller than the bamboo skewer. I got a perfectly sized hole for my ink, but when I tried to insert the ink, the aluminum foil squished inside the tube and clogged the chamber.  CRAP!!  I suspect even if I hadn't used the bamboo skewer, this still would have happened, since the aluminum foil seems to stick to the clay during baking.

The Good News:  Finally, I decided to cover my bamboo skewers with petroleum jelly INSTEAD of aluminum foil and I had success!! After baking the skewer slid right out of the polymer clay covering with just a little bit of twisting.  I left the skewer inside the clay for the next baking, when I added the decorative tops pieces on top.

I also think it's worth mentioning not to over bake the clay on the first baking round.  The black pen split, I think in part because I had made it too thin, and also because I over baked it a bit.  I covered the split area with more black clay and when I baked it a second time, it covered the cracked area perfectly.

After they were completely baked, one pen required a very slight  amount of drilling to make the hole just a tiny bit bigger to accommodate the fat part of the pen ink. The other two fit perfectly.  If the hole from the bamboo skewer is just a bit too big, you can wrap the end of your pen ink with a layer or two of clear tape to make a tight enough fit that your ink doesn't fall out.

People will be too intimidated to steal these pens from your desk at work.  

Especially if you shout "STUPIFY!" at exactly the right moment.  

Guest Post: New York Summer Fancy Food Show at the Javitz Center

I am happy to be a guest blogger about my trip today to the New York Fancy Food Show at the Javitz Center with my friend Robyn Ettorre, who is a chef.

We got there when the show opened and were there all day and we could have spent two days looking around there was so much to see. The show was organized for the most part according to the country of origin of the food products so as you walked through the various displays you could see what each country had to offer.  Most of the vendors had samples to try, so of course we did some damage as we walked around… 

One of our favorite things was a very interesting infused rum that was there from Trinidad it was Chai Rum and it was infused with the spiced tea... we loved it. 

There were a lot of cheese vendors there from many different countries and since Robyn works in a cheese store she was interested to see what they had and also to see their displays. We were very happy when we came up on the Bloody Mary table which was giving out free, pretty good sized Bloody Marys.  As a matter of fact, we made the most of the cocktails during the day, sampling Greek wine, lemon drop and pomegranate martinis and lemoncello in addition to our Bloody Marys, which brings me to the only down side of the day - my Three Advil headache, brought on by my sampling.  Oh well…  YOLO!  

We also sampled many different coffees, and all kinds of foods.  Another really good thing that we tried was a kale pot sticker from one of the Asian vendors.  I'm not sure which country it was representative of, but it was very very good  ..  I think maybe it was from Thailand .  We had a great day couldn't believe how much there was to see there - it was a little bit overwhelming but we loved it and hope to go back next year.

Wen Does the Hair Miracle Begin??

Unless you live under a rock, or are totally impervious to persuasive advertising, you've probably seen Wen infomercials or this product's presentation on QVC.  It's going to make your hair silky, shiny, bouncy, manageable, healthy, blah, blah, blah.  It will be like your hair on steroids and going to the gym 7 days a week - whoo hoooo - it will be BUTT kicking hair!  Ok, so I'm exaggerating a bit, but you get the point.  Your hair will look like a shampoo commercial 7 days a week.  Like water torture working its way into my thick skull, I finally caved to the hype and bought the stuff.

And how I want to know, WEN will I like this stuff?  I was so excited to get my order.  I had planned to keep one for myself, give one to my daughter one to my mom, etc.  I casually mentioned it to my mom and she said, "Oh I bought that stuff already and I really don't like it that much. Do you want mine?"  Hummm….  What don't you like about it?  I asked her.  "It makes my hair look greasy."  Greasy?  Really?  I took her bottle - maybe it was the formula she got?  Her hair type?  But the infomercials said it worked on all types of hair. Oh well.

Finally, I tried my Wen, and I was…  underwhelmed.  I tried the apple whatever-it-was.  My hair seemed somewhat more hydrated  (I have naturally curly hair that ALWAYS seems at least a bit on the dry side) but it was nothing spectacular.  Oh, wait - but I didn't use the recommended 16 pumps of product.  16 pumps.  yes, that's right, I'm not making that up.  My hair was pretty much saturated at around 8-10 pumps - why did I need 16? just to give you an idea of how much product this is, 16 pumps is probably somewhere near 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup.  If I was using my good old standby shampoo and conditioner, Dove, at about 3.50 for 12 ounces (and cheaper in Costco!!) this would be ok.  But we're talking cleansing conditioner that can afford to host its own infomercial.  This stuff is currently selling on QVC for 177.00 a gallon.  Yes, that's right, one hundred and seventy-seven dollars a gallon. that's more expensive than Godiva Chocolate, I think.  In any case, I'd rather have the chocolate.  Or some Kona coffee.  Just in case my husband reads this post, I want to state for the record that I didn't pay that much.  I also didn't buy a gallon of this stuff. BUT GOOD LORD, IF YOU'RE GOING TO BUY SOMETHING SO EXPENSIVE, YOU WOULD THINK IT WOULD WORK LIKE NOTHING ELSE ON EARTH, RIGHT?

I wanted to like this stuff, I really did.  My friend loves it.  But to be honest,  I think it's only so-so. It seemed to hydrate my hair a bit more, but then, it also seemed frizzier.  And the bottle I got from my mom?  I noticed the greasy look too.  My daughter had the same experience.  We tried rinsing it out REALLY well, but then, if you're going to do that, it's really not working as a leave-in conditioner (one of it's multitude of uses, according to the advertising) is it?   I watched some of the infomercials again… maybe I wasn't using enough of it?  I used more.  Nope, that wasn't it.  Maybe I wasn't giving it enough of a chance?  But then the more I used it, the more my scalp felt like I had my hair pulled in a tight rubber band for hours on end.  The only way I could describe it is to say that my hair roots hurt. I read reviews from people saying it had made their hair FALL OUT, and I got a little freaked out.  I washed with regular shampoo and the feeling went away.  But really, this is not the shampoo commercial hair I was expecting.  Plus, I also want to say for the record that one of the bottles pictured above is the only shampoo I ever used that prompted my husband to ask me, "What is that stuff in your hair?  It smells weird.  I don't like it." … And that was NOT the Fig, which is the one I thought was absolutely the worst meant-to-smell-good-shampoo I had ever smelled.  I grew on me after a while, (like a fungus) but still - Herbal Essences kicks its ASS in the scent department.   IEWWW.  

So, WEN does my hair miracle begin?  Apparently, the answer is never.  At least not with this product.

Painting New Life into an Old Nightstand

My daughter and I have been arguing over this nightstand for the past year or two.  My argument is that she should use it in her room until we get her the furniture she wants.  I admit, that could be a very long time from now.  I say it's better to put your stuff in some sort of organizational item (such as this very useful nightstand) rather than to leaving it in piles on the floor.  Or on the top of a speckled formica topped kid's play table that was old when I was a kid.  Yikes, now THAT'S old.

Her philosophy is that it is better to use nothing to organize her things than it is to use something ugly that you don't want.  After all, your mother might use that as a reason to continue to not by you the furniture you want.  It is better to hold out in stubbornness than to cave in.  

Did I say that she takes after her dad? 

Anyway, this little nightstand is very well made, it's just a little past its prime in the design arena.  It had very colonial looking handles on it, which I removed earlier today.  My plan is to paint it in funky patterns that my daughter may or may not like.  I'll get new handles that go with the new color scheme and designs.  If she likes it, great.  If not, I guess I'll see if I can sell it.  In the mean time, I have another craft project.   So far, I can't even settle on a color scheme, but I plan to start painting tomorrow.  Wish me luck!