Paper Portraits

I made another pair of paper portraits for our bedroom. I made the previous two long enough ago that they've grown a ton since then - and we really wanted some more current ones. I especially like the way the one of Carter came out.

Hotwheels Racing

Last weekend the kids and I took all the empty flooring boxes from the work I did in the master bedroom and built a Hotwheels racetrack in the kitchen. It was all very spontaneous, while we were waiting for Mom to finish her shower.

Leather Tooling – Wallet Attempts

As a small, simple leather tooling project I've been trying to make myself a simple card wallet out of some lightweight tooling leather. The first attempt was an octopus - but I wasn't quite satisfied with how it came out, and the tooling got too close to the edge of the leather and I wouldn't have been able to sew it. The second attempt was a koi - which I left enough margin for sewing. I even put in the interior pockets. I used too big a punch for the holes, and too small a thread for sewing it, plus I accidentally stained the spine with something in the shop without noticing - so I'm not totally pleased with that one either. The third one is a bunch of Hawaiian flowers, borrowed from the pattern I made up for my electric uke's pickguard. The tooling came out decent for my beginner status, but I have yet to put in pockets and sew it - so a lot can still go wrong. But hopefully the third time's the charm!

Melted Crayon Art

Carter and I saw this project online, and decided to give it a shot. We tried using felt stick-on letters to mask the canvas where we wanted her name to show up, but it didn't quite work. The hot wax soaked through the stickers and colored the canvas behind them. You could still see the outlines of the letters from the raised ridge of wax around them, but there wasn't enough contrast for our liking. So we painted the letters within that ridge instead. Carter was quite proud of it.

Leather Tooling – Uke Patch

I've been thinking about picking up a new 'indoor' hobby for the winter - something I haven't tried before. I decided to give leather tooling a try. As an experiment, today I tried to make a patch for my backpack. I still need to stain and seal it, but I think it came out half-decent. This winter I think I am going to try to make a few things when it is too cold to go out to the workshop - a belt, a wallet, and maybe a ukulele strap. The kids have shown some interest in giving it a try too.

Halloween 2013

Both kids decided to go with scarier costumes this year - Sean's was so scary that we decided to get him a different one for school so he wouldn't freak out the Kindergarteners. He made at least one little girl cry during Trick-or-Treat last night - not on purpose, of course. And when I was putting on Carter's face paint she kept stressing that she wanted me to make sure there was 'blood' dripping down from her mouth. So much for the days of princesses and Pokemon!

I Feel Old

"You didn't have the internet when you were a kid? Wow - that sounds like a pretty boring life."

- Something my son just said to me