Has been awfully exciting.
First obviously, the box of goodness from Japan. I still have no idea who from.
Then umm.. I'll put it behind a friends lock in a minute.
And I finally got pictures of goose!
I made a new printable today.
( printable and goose!! )

I modified the pirate chest a bit, so if you downloaded it yesterday, you may want to re-download it. Better instructions, and I changed the hinge. Plus the new version also has a blank one to color in.
Mike made chicken last night, because I had these grandiose plans for chicken and mashed cauliflower with gravy and had Mike pick up a whole chicken instead of breast. Then my back decided I've had it too easy this week and has been a mess of spasms and discomfort. So I made the cauliflower, and Mike roasted the chicken, we skipped gravy. Mike's gotten good at basic cooking, but gravy, he swears, is still beyond him.
So now we have a "What do we have for canned veggies in the house?" chicken soup going. E and I talked soup. See, for whatever reason, my mom, who was an AMAZING cook, couldn't make soup. Not from scratch anyway. So if we were to have a big pot of stew or soup from the time I was about 12 on, I made it. E and I have fun making soups together. Sometimes they turn out just a bit odd though, because I let her smell the spices and season them with very little intervention. Heck.. my first chicken soup? Was green. I went herb nuts. Because the broth was sort of yellow-y, the soup itself became almost a cartoon poison looking green. But gosh it was good.
Fun things.. I quizzed her while I was getting it started..
"Why do I put vinegar in the water while simmering the carcass?"
"For calcium! Vinegar leeches calcium from the bones!"
"Why did I use so much garlic?"
"Garlic is an anti-bacterial with antibiotic properties and can help ward off colds!"
"uh.. and because your daddy really likes garlic.."
Then I started adding pepper. I ground a bit in, she looked at me like I was mad, took the grinder, and showed me how it was done. I give. I surrender. This family needs pepper on everything, and I'm tired of grinding it all the time. I'm buying a coffee grinder just for pepper.
So if anyone wants chicken noodle soup.. come on over!

Well.. I took a break from working on my printables page to work on.. well.. a printable.
Sorry for not updating in 3 days, but you know.. life.
( printable I worked on )
This weekend I learned a lot of unimportant trivia. I also learned that if you absolutely can not find your bone folder to score folds with, a yarn needle works perfectly well as a substitute. I had tried the back of an exacto knife at someone's suggestion a while back, then didn't do so hot, it scored all right, but it almost cut the card stock all the way through. Yarn needle was just right.
AND!!! I got my looms!
HAPPY DANCE!

Because I know there are 2 people who are going to read this and just *flinch*. Last night, Dad asked me if I could use a HUGE calendar from China Airlines I believe? I told him E would probably love it. It's big poster sized pictures of landscapes. Very pretty. Turns out? He's been throwing away these things. And newspapers and magazines from China, Japan, etc.. we had a talk about it.

I pointed out to him that even if we couldn't *read* them, I could use them, and if I couldn't, I had friends who would love them. Because paper artists love things like that. And I have friends who speak Japanese that might enjoy catalogs and magazines from Japan.

So.. I'm sorry. Hopefully he'll listen and start keeping more of it for me. When I send it out,I'll send it media mail, so it will take forever, but if I don't have you address and you'd like such stuff, email me at shala_beads at livejournal dot com.

I got my Crimethink order in today. *happy dance*

Remember my recycled packaging mini matchbooks? I decided the small scale was the perfect thing to try the aluminum foil thing I want to do on comp books with the kids.
( shiny shiny )
I just have to say, I *love* this camera for taking nice close up shots!

Apparently means "Let's put Shala on machines we don't usually put absolute beginners on."
Today I did the cardio part of my work out alone. Which made me realize, I'm a hamster. I don't want to be a hamster. I want to be able to stay in shape and strong through normal activity, but with my back issues, a lot of normal activity is suspended or just really not recommended. So I'm a hamster on a machine that supports my back.
Even with dance remixes, a half hour of being a hamster may not actually make me live longer, but that half hour sure will feel like it. By the end of my life, if I keep with it, I'll have an extra 3000 hours subective time. Of course, that's hours of being a hamster, which really isn't that interesting.

Mike is down another 3 lbs. YAY MIKE!

I got a couple promotional rubik's cubes which I plan to turn to photocubes this weekend. I went ahead a broke down and got a can of spray adhesive. Not my preferred brand. I like 3m spray better, but they didn't have that. So I got Elmer's. Which will work. I'm going to try my model of the notebook today before going away for the weekend.

I updated my personal site and BellaOnline. Same thing on both. Printable Earring Boxes.
Now.. it's time to go take a really hot shower.

to make myself an exercise icon.
Mike used to be a pretty serious body builder. Before I met him, but even when I met him he was all muscle-y. Wanna know a secret?
I think bulgey muscles and ripped abs are deformed and gross looking. Mike's personality and sense of humor won me over the absolute turn off of the muscles and super straight cop look. He didn't take all that seriously. Sort of an "I'm not dating so I might as well do pushups" thing instead of a strong desire to prove he really was a He-Man.

Well.. skip past 12 years, and my cooking, plus a car accident with a long recovery time (he wasn't seriously injured, but his legs and shoulders were injured, which meant no weight lifting) and he wasn't ripped. He's still way strong, but not all big and muscle-y. He was 348 lbs. His new workout that he's lost 60 lbs on is heavy serious cardio and lots and lots of salads. It's for health reasons though, not to get back to the shape he was in 12 years.
Anyway.. I'm exercising more then just pt now too. Not to get back into the shape I was in 12 years ago either. 12 years ago I was a stripper working 6 nights a week. No. It's to get stronger so I can hopefully be less dependent on flexeril. I'm working with a trainer who is also an RN, and she's really wonderful. She's very carefully not hurting me. Pushing me, but not actually making hurt so bad I give it up. I have a few more appointments with her while we work out a good work out for my damage, then I start working out solo in a very quiet "wellness" center", which is to my mind, a lot better then a gym full of hardbodies.
So.. I needed new shoes. I had a pair of unworn pink chucks. Because.. I love pink shoes. But Mike who was Mr. Fitness said that I needed something with support. Because all of you who love chucks know, they aren't the best for support. Not that I'm standing much, part of my back injury means my workout means not working out on things like ellipticals. But I am doing a lot of weight training (which he isn't doing at this point, just straight fat burning cardio) including leg presses to help strengthen my knee and hopefully put a few more years between me and that knee replacement my drs have been saying for years I'll need in "4 more years". Yesterday we hit the clearance racks at Fred Meyers.
Hmm.. shoes. I love shoes. In a big unhealthy way. I have lots of shoes, but I'm pretty firmly convinced you can't have too many. Anyway, I tried on a few pairs, and one pair was lots of support, but I didn't love them the way I loved the cute white and pink pumas. Mike said to go ahead and get the pumas, they were more support then the chucks, and again.. I'm not on my feet on the treadmill or anything like that. We also saw a pair of clearance priced Sailor Jerry chucks. In my size.
I don't need another pair of chucks. Really. I have 3 pairs. But tattoo chucks???
Mike saw the utter desire on my face, and got me them. Yippee! So now I have 4 pairs of chucks, and a cute pair of shoes to exercise in.

Funny thing about chucks, everytime I ask Emily to grab me a pair, she will grab me one black and one pink shoe. She loves it when I wear mismatched shoes.

I'm working on some new printable boxes. I'll post it here when I update the page.
Hmm.. I don't even have any of my shoe icons on this account. So I think I'll use Lamb Chop, which has nothing to do with the subject matter, but I never get the chance to use it.

I love origami, and today while we were getting groceries, Mike spotted packs of translucent origami paper in the clearance section. They were marked down to 4.16 with an additional 50% off the clearance price. Happiness! We dug through the bucket of various paper products and found 4 packages total.
( a scan )
The cd under it to show how translucent it is at least on my scanner is Ernest Cline's The Geek Wants Out, click on the second little icon to hear/download samples off it. Mike loves it in a big huge "I don't normally like poetry but this stuff makes sense" sort of way. If you like the mp3s, and he's got a good selection off the album, get the album. It's worth it.

If you're an intelligent woman is interested in breaking into the adult film industry,
and if you can tell me the name of Luke Skywalker's home planet,
then you are hired.

It doesn't matter if you think you're overweight or unattractive.
It doesn't matter if you don't think you're beautiful.
You are beautiful. . .
And I will make you a star.

From Nerd Porn Auteur.

I still owe Mel big for pointing this out to me.
I gave E a package of the paper, and she asked me why my models always turn out so neat and not crooked like hers. Of course, she was going a LOT faster then me, so I pointed that out. "I've been doing origami a lot longer, and I'm slower, I take my time with the folds." She said "BLAH!" which has been her way of saying "Enough already" for the last few weeks. BLAH BLAH BLEH BLEH BLAH. So there.
She's decided painted small bubble paper makes excellent carpeting for cardboard box dollhouses. She's right.
We've been discussing alternatives to dragging her baby blanket with her whenever we go to the hotel or when she knows she's going to be at grandpa's for a while. The current leader is the idea of making a fleece quillow together with buttons on the pocket that handles can be attached to.
Check your listings on your local PBS station tonight for "The Way of the Warrior", it's new, the first showig was a couple days ago, and it's good. It's about Native Americans in war from WW1 to Vietnam. Well.. you don't have to. But I'm watching it again.

( And the text matched up perfectly )

Did you know some paint samples are adhesive? How cool is that? Since you know they come in colors a lot of paper doesn't. Quick easy stickers with punches!

( the last couple of days )
Valentines was nice. Mike took me to a local bar I enjoy, which was just a bit odd because we forgot about the poker tournaments they have. Three of his co-workers were there. It was just nice being with him without the kidlets.Of course, my pulled shoulder still hurt pretty bad, and maybe sitting so long was a bad thing. I ached badly when I got home, but it was still a lot of fun.

Things I need to do

• write book reviews
  
• post article
  
• Put up some new boxes. Anything.
  
• finish E's hat
  
• finalise the cup cozie pattern
  
• finish the Bag of Holding
  
• Make the ninja vs pirates earrings
  

I feel like I haven't gotten nearly enough done this whole week, because I'm not being as productive as usual.
I did post some new boxes to my printables page, so hopefully my viewer will see them, since I don't have an update list like I used to have. I was thinking of just creating a yahoo group for that, then I can just email the group when I update.
Emily's hat is still sitting at 50% done. The cup holders, well, I've made several, and finally got one I really like. I'm giving Kim one, and my son asked for one as well. My son is greedy for crochet or handknits because it's hard to come up with things appropriate for a nearly 16 yo young man. (yeah, wanted to say boy, but he's really not anymore is he?)
I graphed out some ninja vs pirate earrings, and I have the beads for them, so I was thinking of making them instead of the Bag of Holding right now because they would be quick, although with the Bag of Holding, I'd have the geekiest set of beaded jewelry possible wouldn't I? Didn't I graph a Geek bracelet at some point? Yep I did.
Part of it is the muscle relaxers, they do a great job of keeping me from hurting, but the sedative affects also keep me from being very productive. I'm trying to find a balance point between being able to think and being able to do. I got a pill splitter to cut them in half.
Hopefully I can start doing more soon.

( all from one box )
Yeah.. I'm having way too much fun.
Limited to supplies on hand. Which means number of bookmark sleeves. I've got lots of random crap to laminate.

You all remember this bracelet right?

From my post on Craftster when I made it..
"Super easy to make.

Measure your wrist, add an inch for the overlap where the velcro dots are, then add two inches, cut a piece of duct tape that long. Fold over one inch on both ends. Cut a picture from a comic book or magazine or print out something nifty to fit, and put it on the sticky side between the folded over ends.
Put clear packing tape or clear duct tape over that.

Use two sets of Velco sticky dots, and the rough side to the soft side so you have them in matched pairs. Peel of the backing from the rough side and position them on the upside (graphic side) of your bracelet, then pull the backing off the soft side, and wrap the bracelet around to place them on the other side. (perfectly placed to match up now!)

Okay.. very easy. But I'm going to go through my messed up comics and make more. The picture on this one was from the 25¢ promo copy of Red Sonja. I bought a few of them to cut up for stuff.

There's a technique people use sometimes for ATC backgrounds, they cut a window out of a piece of cardstock the size of the ATC and position it around until they find the section they want and then use a craft knife to cut it out, so once you know the measurement for center piece you can make a template to cut out your pictures."

So yeah.. easiest thing in the world. Anyway.. to get to the point (you knew there was one somewhere in this right?)
There is a promo issue of the Battlestar Galactica comic out. It's a quarter and has a *great* panel for bracelets.
Cylony goodness
Isn't that great?? So I'm going to have a cylon bracelet too. Happiness is 25¢ comics.
-Shala

Today I got very little accomplished crafty. I had a drs appt with my brand new dr. He's nice. I liked him a lot.
Then we went to the bakery outlet, we've got a couple locally, one has all the hostess products and breadsticks and such, and is terribly popular and well known, the other, hidden away over by Sourdough Mining Co has Cafe Del Mundo coffee and Entemanns. Yum yum. I resisted the cheese filled coffee cakes, but did get donuts. Which Emily will eat most of. They have coffee and donuts out usually, and Emily always very politely asks if she can have one.
Then we went out for dinner.

I got home, and thought about that simple traditional butterfly I like to make, and realized it would be very easy to write instructions and make a colorful printable version, so I folded one, and colored in the areas so I could see where I needed to put color and patterns on a printable version. I'm thinking, possibly I could make a small version that would work for earrings that I could post on BellaOnline, do you think anyone would be interested? It's ridiculously easy to fold, and with the paper all patterned out you could see easily if you were messing up the couple of folds.

Going through my origami books, I found a nifty triangle fold that measures angles, not with the accuracy of a protractor, but the base angles 15, 30, 45, 90 and a couple others it does nicely. I'm going to teach William that fold.

Also finally managed to not only remember *how* to do a frog base without checking my books, but to fold a frog. It's a cute traditional Japanese model, a bit more complex then the simple jumping frog folded by schoolkids, but not super complicated, the part of making this model that just cracks Emily up isn't making it jump, but like a water balloon, you have to blow it up to give it it's final shape, and you blow it up by blowing in the "butt". Watching me inflating the paper frog by blowing up it's butt sends Emily into hysterics. Mike says he's not ever making that model. It's too undignified.

I knit a couple more inches on the Alice band I'm making myself. It's just garter stitch on size 3 needles, but it's practice. Eventually I'll get used to two needles rather then a hook.

Also at the day old bakery- packets of pizza sauce, the kind that usually comes with boboli for 5¢ each, so Emily and I are going to make English muffin pizzas soon, but I'm also planning on trying to make mini pizzas using some of that pepperoni sausage like the slim jims sliced up. I want to see how tiny I can make a pizza. I'll cheat the crust though, rather then making a huge batch of crust, I'll use Pillsbury Crescent Rolls cut to size.

Weirdly, even though my time hasn't been posted yet, I seem to still have all my icons?

-Shala

Hey! A song line that has something to do with what I'm posting!

The black paper I'm going to make a mobile out of using Nick Robinson's bat model. I love his diagrams for beginners. I've got one of his books and it's one Emily uses a lot. Simple and incredibly elegant designs that are mostly *very* easy to fold.

errata: I was mistaken about the book in the origami post. It was actually Eric Kenneway's Complete Origami but if you actually ordered the first book, it's worth it. If I have 2 origami books I'd be completely unwilling to part with,those are the two. The first one has a lot of the math of origami explained in ways that make sense, a lot of very simple traditional and useful models that can be adapted and some just plain fun models. I'm not sure which one has the pinwheel design I like best, but it's nifty, balance it on the tip of a pencil or a piece of wire and it works! I use to make them for Emily when she was little enough to be terribly impressed with a pinwheel.
Speaking of origami! I found black paper. I'm so happy.

Happiness is.. getting a book I've wanted for a long time in exchange for some graph paper. I do sell some work sometimes, but prefer (oh so definately prefer) barter.

I've got a spaghetti squash simmering because of Regina. She mentioned it and it sounded so good. I'm going to back a couple chicken breasts with olive oil, lemon juice and pepper, then saute up some mushrooms and onions with lots of our favorite seasonings and cook up some whole grain noodles, mix the noodles and squash together with a can of Italian seasoned tomatoes and serve the rest over it. Emily's not a big fan of mushrooms and onions so that way I can not feed them to her. I got real parma to put on it. I sort of wish I'd picked up mozzarella as well, but I just didn't think of it. I also have a loaf of a very fragrant asiago bread to serve with it. It's not really a recipe, but I tend too often to think of recipes as guidelines and just cook. Hopefully it turns out okay. I know the last time I made spaghetti squash it was a hit, and these particular whole grain noodles (it's angel hair) are soo good. I think the only reason why spaghetti squash is about the only veggie Emily will eat willingly cooked is because she always gets to help me do the scraping and she thinks that's big fun.

As I've mentioned before, I've got stacks of torn comics. I can't stand to throw them out, but some of them are torn past being able to read. Usually I try to make sure the comics get into boxes, but when they don't, they get stepped on, or the cats run across them or whatever and they get mangled. Plus whenever there is a 25¢ or 75¢ preview comic I get several copies to cut up.
A lot of these have images I can use for duct tape stuff like duct tape bracelets, purses, and mini comp notebooks, and my offer is still open for anyone in the purse swap who wants me to turn some into stickers with my handy dandy xyron, but there will still be unusable pages. I think I'm going to use those for lucky stars.
Emily is a catalog/magazine junkie. She likes the shiny pages for origami, paper airplanes, for cutting out to make her own wish books, and for cutting out images to glue to ANYTHING. She's so totally my daughter that way.
The pages from old phone books are also ideal for a lot paper folding things because they are so thin they work wonderfully for making smaller models with.

Earlier I was looking at a snowflake Emily made and thought to myself that half of a snowflake would be pretty to make a crown out of. So she and I will be playing with that later.

Well, presumably just about everyone on my flist knows about my printables page right? Anyway, I put together two templates and some finished printies that you get to see first (still no second harddrive and I haven't been willing to download my webpage so I can edit it yet)

( Tea Box )
If you cut and paste, you can fit 2 of these on the bottom of the page you print with your tea box.
( Diamond Matchbox art templates )

I hope your holidays were wonderful.

Lots of entries today yes?

Emily misplaced it, but my clever little girl made a waterbird in foiled origami paper last week and came to me and asked for a barrette back. (yes, I actually do usually have any craft supply she asks for. It's a bit scary but I am that well stocked), she taped the bird to the barrette and popped it in her hair.

LOVED the idea. Couldn't figure out why I'd never thought of it. I love barrettes, I do origami when I'm watching tv sometimes. I have a mobile made of cranes over my desk, and probably hundreds of nested masu boxes I make just to see how many sizes I can make with one size of paper. So I had been looking for small models that would work well for earrings, and now I'm looking for flat models that can be used for barrettes. There is a classic butterfly model I'll diagram later or look for instructions online for that works *great* for barrettes.

An awful lot of things, but good deals make me incredibly happy. I got some really great deals shopping this weekend.

I picked up a couple copies of a goffy type magazine for 50¢ each that have neat art in them for my duct tape projects, plus pages of white print on black that will make nifty stars for bracelets.
I got my dad a batman comforter for 15.00 which made me insanely happy. He's been complaining he needs new blankets and I haven't finished his yet. So why does it make me so happy? For a very silly reason. He's nearly 60. I know he will NOT bring a woman his age into his room where she might see that Batman blanket. Not that he's shown any interest in dating really.

The memory part of Saturday.

I thought about bringing the children to a nice sit up straight restaurant, but instead after LOTS of shopping, we stopped for Mexican near the hotel and brought Mike something from there. For the special treat part of the day, we stopped at my favorite coffee/tea shop downtown where I let the kids each pick a mini tin of cocoa and got them each a teaspoon. When we got back to the hotel, I let them make their cocoa, and coincedentally enough, for whatever reason, I had both a starlight mint and a butterscotch in my purse, Emily had picked candy cane flavored cocoa, and William picked butterscotch, so both dropped a piece of candy in their cocoa cups. We sat around the table discussing books and proper teas, and I apologised for not getting them bicuits to have with their cocoa.

Poor Mike worked harder then he does in the summer on one of these weekends. There was a major dinner that night, so he was up for about 20 hours. We were both incredibly happy to be home. We stopped by the grocery store to pick up something for me to make for dinner (after a weekend of hotel food he was SO ready for my cooking) and I got a bribe so my cat would forgive me for leaving. It worked.

I didn't work on my hat all weekend. i had the best of intentions, but got caught up reading and being terribly self indulgent. Hopefully I can get it finished this week!