Although it's actually more a Punisher icon.
When my son was 5, my mom made him a Captain America costume. I let mom hit my fabric stash and old clothes stash for the fabric for it and loaned her one of my sewing machines to make it. We didn't know it at the time but it was the last costume she was going make him. The following year she was in California helping out Grandma after surgery, and the year after that, she died suddenly.

Now skip forward 13 years, and I spotted a Captain America costume teeshirt at Hot Topic, so I had to get it for him of course. He still has the same shield from the costume mom made him and he said he would use it. Of course, a shield scaled for a 5 yo William would look like, as Mike put it, a dinner plate. So E and I made him a shield yesterday. Dad was impressed, William was happy.
Also yesterday I wrote an article on how to do nice neat loops for eyepins.
AND cute paper snail craft .
Plus I made up some cinnamon-y goodness shortbread.
Cinnamon Vanilla Short Bread
Pre-heat oven to 375°F
1 cup of butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
Cream together.
Add in 2 cups of flour. Mix for a few minutes and knead lightly with clean hands.
Pat into an 8" cake pan. Sprinkle top with a mixture of 1 tsp white sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and pierce with a fork and score lines to cut it apart.
Put it in the oven for 10 minutes, after 10 minutes, turn the heat down to 300°F and bake for 20 minutes more. Take out the oven and cut apart along score lines. Let cool a bit.

Turned out really good. I think I'm going to go have a piece now.

I like roses. I took a picture of a wild rose while I was walking to the gym yesterday, and used it as a model to draw a rose to put on this box.

The gym was well.. the gym. I felt very strong because all the other girls were lifting a lot less than I was. Funny thing is, I'm not really lifting much. But in one case? I was benching more than one woman was leg pressing. Go me.

Off to go bead! *edit* or you know.. make a beading pattern. You can see that here

This time I did them in pretty close to exactly 1/12 scale.
( want to see a couple? )
The new book page is here

I wish I'd thought of that. I added some ideas meepa offered for 101 Things to do with empty cereal boxes and the list is up to 27! Yay.. 1/4 of the way there!

But here's the idea that just made go.. "Wow.. I wish I'd thought of that.."
Emergency cutting board. Most cereal boxes are fairly food safe (duh) and so I'll cut up some squares to use as emergency cutting boards if I'm taking an apple to school with me or something like that.

Well.. dinner time.

Here.

Mike got me one of these adorable little omelet pans. All the reviews I've read about them and even the packaging agree the handles get very hot, but I can crochet a little happy egg shaped pot holder specifically for it. He also got me the matching whisk and matching mini egg spatula. The cuteness just thrills me.

However, he didn't get me eggs. So perfect tiny round omelets in my perfect tiny round pan will have to wait a day or two.

Kim came by in a flurry of Kimness, and I let her smell my developing vanilla, and she tried to take the bottle. She's planning to order some vanilla beans and making herself a vanilla cologne. Well.. it does smell really wonderful. Waiting to let it develop before I try it is harder than I though.

I posted a cherry print box.

And happiness! My favorite how to make a zine book ever, Stolen Sharpie Revolution, is available for pre-order here, well, actually, this is Stolen Sharpie Revolution 2, which is expanded and niftier I'm sure. If you've ever had an interest in absolutely grass roots self publication, you need this book. It's like a micro-publishing Bible. Yeah.. it's really that good. Or at least the first one is, and I've read a lot of Alex Wrekk, and like everything I've ever read by her. So.. go order it! And some of her coffee. Because you know, coffee is just good, and she makes the only light roast I like.

A summery box, up at Don't Eat the Paste

I use my blog sometimes for my printables list, so this entry has got a little about my terms of use.
( All we are saying.. )

Love love love Martha's glitter. E and I have many plans after we saw how great it looked when we applied it.
( glitter stenciling )

Part 1: How to make record bowls
Making new labels, including a template.
( Making new labels )
Wheee! So now you can hide that extremely embarrassing label on that record you listened to when you were 12, and turn it into a craft you can do with your kids.

I spent yesterday working on an Amazon store with my favorite paper craft books, bead books, cookbooks, and some of my favorite music to link to my paper crafts page. I also designed a full set of Advent ornament boxes, and realized, as I was printing out one to test it, I probably should have tested the template BEFORE I numbered and designed the whole set. Fortunately, it worked out fine. I designed the set as my gift for people who donate to my site until Christmas, and posted the last box, the one I printed and folded, as a sample.
( wanna see? )
Did you know in a pinch, a guitar pick makes a pretty good replacement for a bone folder which I *still* can't find.
Then I did dishes, cleaned up a bit in the house, REALLY started my back spasming really badly, and wound up feeding Mike leftovers for dinner. Fortunately, he likes leftovers, and even said so. "I love leftovers!"
Well.. the leftovers were baked chicken breasts, and homemade mac and cheese, which he had with a couple oranges. Yum yum!
My site is slowly getting self sustaining with mostly donations. So I'm pretty happy. I mean.. sure, in my dreams, everyone who hits my site and uses it donates a dollar, but let's face it,that's now how it works out. For maybe every 1000 hits I get a donation. But people are contributing, and helping with costs.

I think.. since I have to go to Costco in the morning, I may ask Mike to stop at The Flying Dutchman for a cream puff. I've been in the mood for a while, and they've got such good cream puffs there. I wish I had an excuse to buy one of their cakes more than once a year!

Recently, I ran across instructions for making a divider for the masu boxes I love folding nested sets of, so of course I had to try it.
( origami is fun! )
I posted a new printable on my printies site today.
( click here to see it and download it )

One of the nicest things about Mike being in the luxury hotel business is that I get the opportunity to get a lot of packaging things that I wouldn't normally. Like Crown Royal bags, wine crates, and bottle caps.
I told Mike to talk to the bartenders and have them save bottle caps for me. I haven't gotten them yet, but he asked me how many I can use.
I told him that scrapbookers buy "plain" ones to use for scrapbooking that cost 2.50 and up for 10. He looked at me completely baffled. But a lot of scrapbooking as a craft baffles me. Crafting to me means frequently, thrifty and creative re-use of things.
I want them to use for part of the sound chamber for whistles, and we don't buy bottled drinks often. More often if we get soft drinks instead of frozen juice, we get cans so I can re-use the aluminum.
Well.. still waiting for the bottle caps, and I told Mike I can use a lot. Some for the whistles, some for jewelry, and of course, I've used them for buttons before. So I guess I need to start a bottle cap list too to go with my plastic bag and cereal box lists.

I'm working on a printable box to keep adhesive strips in after getting some entirely too cool Justice League ones. So I can keep them in my purse for those inevitable boo boos.

I woke up this morning with a very clear image of an archway, and an imperfect metaphor for life and choices in my mind. That experiences and previous choices create new archways, paths to new choices, and an epiphany or defining moment creates the keystone that makes it remain, that makes it a life lesson you keep. You can't have the moment without the experiences that lead up to it, a keystone without that would fall on your head, but with all of it together, you have a new path.
It's imperfect. But it was sort of a neat image to wake up to.

Last night at the gym, I watched Martha's podcasts for Halloween, and some of her projects were great, some.. well.. a lot less so. The Styrofoam and glow stick spiders come to mind as incredibly bad for the environment. Disposable chemical glowsticks. STYROFOAM. Oh well.. so even Martha isn't perfect. But one of them was for a window silhouette of a witch, which I thought was just nifty.
I decided to make a wall decal instead, using the bat that I drew years ago and have in a couple of my dingbat fonts.
( picture, and download )
Other then that, working on an article for BellaOnline. More bats.

You know.. other then hacking, coughing, blowing my nose, and telling my husband if he cut off my head I would feel much better..

We watched Dr. Horrible of course. Because that's what almost everyone did this weekend. We also watched Babylon 5 and Deadwood. Mike was very very patient about me being his patient and cranky and put out.

Anyway, I made really simple origami hearts from Origami Note Cards by Florence Temko. The book has got a few super simple projects, pretty far below my level as a folder, very non-intimidating, and it comes with 48 sheets of 8x8 patterned origami paper.It's a fun book, and one I recommend to beginners if you want simple embellishments or note folding ideas. Really too basic for advanced folders though. I still recommend Origami Omnibus for anyone serious about folding. It's a great book, and one I go back to a lot, but it does seem to lack hearts.
I also made a copper and black bead wire bangle, and some little paint chip notebooks.
( wanna see the pictures? )
The notebooks are pretty easy to make, although the spiral bound ones are a bit time consuming if you don't have a spiral punch, which I don't, or spiral coils, which I don't.
For the one on the left,you'll need a paint chip that's twice the size you want your finished notebook to be, elastic cord, and paper. I cut paper to just a bit under the size of the paint chip, and stacked and folded in half, and then I folded the paint chip in half, and then used a hole punch to cut little rounded divots out of the edges of the corners, like a little bite out of them, then I trimmed the folded signature of papers at the corners, assemble the notebook, and tie a piece of elastic around the center to hold the papers in place. Thinking about it afterwards, I could have actually made the elastic a bit longer, and tied a second knot about an inch and half from the first one, and used that second loop to hold it closed.
The spiral bound ones, well.. that was time consuming. I used a 1/8th hole punch, and a piece of plastic canvas to mark equal distance holes.. then I punch 3 sheets at a time, using one sheet from the previous set to mark the holes for the next set, then punch the covers one at a time using a sheet from the pages to mark the holes. I wound a bit of 20 gauge craft wire around the end of a size K crochet hook to make the spiral, then just twisted it through the layers of papers and covers. Yep. Time consuming, but it worked. I also told Mike repeatedly I want a spiral bunch. A rubi coil machine.. something!!

So yeah.. really simple projects.. that all seemed to take 3 times as long as they should have. But today I feel vaguely like living isn't a bad thing. Which is an improvement over yesterday when I just wanted to crawl into bed and forget the world and my nose existed.

Speaking of tracing paper.. to Jehanna..
*nods* half as thick, twice as much seems to be the standard.
it's worth then women's lingerie where you pay more the less there is of it.
worse not worth.
I'm lisping in text!

So much for all that thpeech therapy.
Okay.. R? Ignore this next part please? Just skip to the lj cut at the end. I know what you'll say. I don't want to hear it.

I'm reading knitting mysteries. See, mysteries to me? Kind of like potato chips. I can go weeks, months without, then I need 10 in a week. I can't stop. And I read Hooked on Murder which is a crochet mystery, and I've read some coffee themed mysteries. Themed mysteries are a lot of fun.
So where are the bead mysteries? Early to Bead, Early to Die. To Bead or Not to Bead, Death is the Question (okay, long book title) but there needs to be beady mysteries to go with the miniature mysteries and the chocolate mysteries and the mystery of the secret formula of Coca-Cola. Really.
Now, my only problem with a lot of themed mysteries is our heroine, the hobbyist/cook/barista/foodie/werewolf whatever.. seems to stumble into the answer after a few gut jumped wrong answers.. what I'd really like is pulpy bead themed mysteries with a bit of Nancy Drew in them. You know how Nancy Drew actually found clues and figured out the answer from there? Heck.. Trixie Belden even. But figuring out as you find the clues instead of stumbling onto the answer that makes sense of all the clues.
And.. as a side note.. I like themed mysteries. But referring to a spinning teacher, in a spinning class who was in love with the guy who got murdered as "tightly wound".. well.. I hope that was deliberate. Because it tossed me right out of the book and it took a while to get back in it. And she didn't do it just once. She described the spinner as tightly wound a couple times, maybe even a few times.

Okay R, you can come back now.
I made a couple printable alien boxes to email to anyone who donates to my printables page this month, I'm thinking of offering a different box monthly.
( here's a picture of the box )
Aren't they cute? I'm probably going to give them to W, they are sized for collectible trading cards. The one on the left is a lidded box, and the one on the right is a standard deck box.

Mike got this sudden urge to mess around the kitchen yesterday and spur of the moment decided I needed more shelves (not gonna argue that) so he built more shelves. And stocked them with stuff that needed a place to be. So now in that window that shines directly in my eyes too often, I have shelves built and canned goods neatly stacked. Now.. he just needs to call me to give me his new work number.

I made a little paper clone me. So if you want me to go with you someplace fun and take a picture I'd really love it.
( Paper clone me )
Well.. that's how I wasted my morning. E wants me to make her one too.

I'm debating taking limited orders for custom paper clone people, I just don't know that anyone would be interested, or what a fair price would be.

( making little purse notebooks from junk )
Check out this post for more ideas or to contribute your own uses for lightweight cardboard boxes.

I also found myself wondering if you could use prong set rhinestones to hold together a little notebook of this sort. Wouldn't that be fun? Bedazzled mini notebooks?

I dreamt I was an origami bird commander being followed by paper sharks, and when I woke up, I asked Mike how a sheet of paper wound up sheet of paper sized? Because really? It's a neat rectangle. If you fold in half the right way, it keeps the same proportions. If you fold down the top diagonally to make a square, what's left is a dollar bill proportioned piece. He didn't know the answer though. But he did pat my back and tell me the paper sharks weren't going to cut me to pieces.

But that made me wonder what all could you do with a cardboard box? Not the big huge kind you get occasionally, LOTS of uses for thoses, but the lightweight kind like cereal boxes.

101 Things To Do With An Empty Cereal Box
(list in progress, please make suggestions)

1. Cut yourself a set of tangrams.
2. Use to create the skeleton of a duct tape purse
3. Make little gift boxes with it in different sizes.
4. mini notebooks. Seriously, scratch paper or paper that's only been printed on one side cut down and stapled into a little "matchbook" made of cardboard that size is handy in a purse.
5. Make a boat out of it. My daughter has boats out of all sorts of things, she saves her drinking straws from when we go out for the masts.
6. HEY! Cool holiday/movie themed packaging. If you have a spiral binder, spiral bind a small notebook.
7. This stuff? Really perfect for ATCs if you aren't too worried about acid content, but also you can cut a window template with it, where you cut a window out of a sheet that's the size of an ATC, then you position the window on your magazine page or whatever your using and find a piece of the page that looks right. The neat thing about this method is that it lets you look at a magazine page differently, in diagonal or whatever until you find that just right piece.
8. Quilt templates or patterns for all sorts of things.
9. Build an armature for a paper mache piece.
10. Put a cat toy in it, and make your cat paw it out. Hours of entertainment! beaddreamer maybe cut holes in it, and put in a crocheted ball filled with catnip then tape the box shut? A little more challenge?
11. valentine boxes from omega85
12. Stencils, a little sturdier then paper.
13. foil and cardboard go together nicely. Not just notebooks, think crowns and costume accessories as well.
14. This wonderful waller!
15. Weave a placemet
4 ideas from plum pudding
16.a puppet theater
17.Check out thisadorable toy.
18.Postcards and envelopes! With instructions for an envelope.
19.Traveling felt boards
From meepa 20-27
20. Cover with contact paper or not.. and pick one of the narrow sides to be the back, and from the top corner of the back, cut diagonal lines down both wide sides to about 4 inches from the bottom of the box on the opposite edge. Cut a straight line connecting the two diagonal lines on the front narrow side. Magazine holder! Adding the contact paper makes them a bit stronger. Don't forget to add a label for the name of the magazine and the years.
21. Binder tab separators, when I can't get free ones from the student recycling place. I cut off the two big faces, cut down to an appropriate size for my binder, then just hole-punch with my hole-punch. The advantage is that I can have the tab exactly where I want it and sized the way I want it, so I can have a big tab for my notes and then like little tabs for things like the course syllabus.
21. I also use them cut down to slip into homework drop boxes as a late/not-late separator and to separate homework while grading it.
22. Put them in the bottom of my reusable shopping bags as a stiffener.
23. Doll house furniture, but don't just think cereal boxes. I remember making cradles out almost any cylinder shaped box I had too! Most furniture is pretty basic shapes when you break it down.
24. Emergency cd/dvd cases. (from me: and on that note, folders of almost any sort. You could make mini folders to hold coupons for shopping or to save receipts)
25. Use to keep extra paper for your printer. You can cut in any shape that's going to be most convenient for you.
26. Drawer organizer. You can make separators or even custom boxes to keep drawers nice and neat, or in her specific example, keep your drawers in your drawers neat! (sorry, I couldn't resist)
27. And this? is brilliant. Since they hold food, they are food safe and make good disposable cutting boards.

After seeing the Crafted By Us podcast on domino necklaces, E decided she wanted to make them. I've been a member of the dominoart group at yahoogroups forever and never had. So we decided on not drilling them, but gluing beads to the top, and I made one tonight, she'll be making them tomorrow.
( this is the one I made )
Wooden bead glued to the top, alcohol based ink to color, stayzon black ink with a simple stamp, and stickers. I'm not a rubberstamper, so all the supplies were stuff I had to buy. You know what? I couldn't AFFORD to be a stamper and a beader! But E is enthused.