Crafts part 2!

This one is about crayon melting! It's pretty self explanatory, but if you don't get it, I also recorded a video of the last one I did. 

First things first: Holiday Crafts. Part 1.

In part one I am going to talk about  a wall hang I made for my brother and sister-in-law, and a play mat I made (with help from Mom) for my nephew. 

I got the ideas from blogs and stuff. Some of them were from Pinterest, which a friend showed me was a great place to get craft ideas. :)

 The playmat started out in parts like this. Mom hemmed the blue fabric for me, it was something she had laying around. The rectangles are colorful felt pieces bought in packages. The package came with a bunch of them for like $2, and I got 2 packages (cuz some of them were yucky colors like brown and black.)

I drew the numbers on the hopscotch and circles to make a fun design on the other side. Then my mom and I cut them out.

 I laid everything out, and made a smiley with some extra felt, then I began to glue!

Here's the fun design side:

And the hopscotch side:

He loves it!!

The next thing I made was a wall hang for my bro and sis in law. I got frames from the dollar store, scrapbook pages from the craft store, paint and ribbon from Walmart, curtain rod from Ross. I think altogether it cost me about $20. 

 Well one of my frames was broken, so first thing first I had to fix that:

(I first tried to glue right in between the two pieces so that the glue wouldn't show... but that didn't work. SO I used a squiggle to kind of stitch the pieces together with glue. If that makes sense...)

Trace a letter the right way on glass with a crayon.

Use the glass to cut out your scrapbook paper.

Paint the letter on the OTHER side of the glass. (I should have took pictures of this with a letter that does not look the same way backwards lol). This way the paint is inside the frame, and not exposed. It makes it look more polished, I think.

Once you are done, put it all together!!

Next you have to add the ribbons. (Unless you want to just hang them on the wall without ribbons.)

Cut a bunch of ribbons the same length, then hot glue the ends of each one together.

Then hot glue the ends all the same distance from the top of the frame. That way the pictures are all level along the top.

Hang them all on the curtain rod, and you're done!! This looked much better in person. Sorry I didn't get a prettier picture of it. I was on a time crunch and had to get stuff done! :)

S o . m u c h . t o . b l o g . a b o u t ! ! !

I have so much to blog about that I am writing a blog about how much I have to blog about.

Look forward to:

1. Craft adventures
1. crayon melting
2. spoon bending
3. magnet making
4. magnet board making
5. eraser carving
6. play-mat making
7. bracelet making
8. wall-hang making
   
   Holy crapola I made a lot of stuff!!
   
2. Ein, my  our new puppy
3. Christmas (and all it entailed) 
4. New years!!
   

See ya!

Innerpole and Outerpole.

Have you ever seen the tags on poles? They are black strips with yellow numbers. You've probably never even thought about them... but I KNOW you've seen them. They're on loads of kinds of poles... utility poles for the most part. Well that's part of what my parents' business does. Innerpole was founded when I was a little bitty kid. They test and treat utility poles... which often also involves giving them a tag with their pole number. Right now, Innerpole is working down in Vancouver. They have a TON of work to get done and only a small amount of time to complete it. Coincidentally I owe my parents some money, and I'm not getting any hours over break in Bellingham... so off to work I went! Les has been working for them for a little while now. This particular job involves inventorying light poles. We're entering them in the computer system, numbering them, adding in poles that are unaccounted for, tagging them, etc. 

Here is one of the light poles with a tag on it. Fiberglass cobra I believe... lol.

We go out in the early morning when there is ice all over... and set to work. Most of the tags are built, but sometimes...

Frosty the smiley man.

 ...sometimes we need to build them out in the field.

This is a number kit.

Here I'm entering this pole into the computer.

Les shows me on the map what section we are doing. Each of those little tiny squares is about a square mile I think. Maybe a little less than that. And that map is only a small piece of the big area of work that Innerpole is covering! 

Double click the pole to open it. This shows one little section of poles. One of those teeny squares on the paper map.

 Tags... tags... more tags......

Now THIS is dedication. Les tags a pole.

Anyway, it has been really interesting and even kinda fun to learn and work for the family's company. I just thought I would share a taste of what they do... because not a lot of people know. This is only a very small chunk of field work. There's lots of other types of field work, paperwork, and computer work.


In other news, right now we are home for a little breather. I think Les will go back to work tomorrow night or Monday. We are picking up our xmas present probably on the 23rd.

I CAN'T TELL YOU WHAT IT IS!!

Since we both know what it is, we decided we are surprising the people who don't know what it is... because you GOTTA surprise someone!!  Right?!?! :P

So you will see if you see me and Les on Christmas what we got ourselves, or when I blog or post pics on or after Christmas.

When Les goes back to work, I'm going to get to work crafting. Pretty much all our gifts this year are going to be hand made. And not just the usual cookies or xmas sweaters... some pretty dang neat stuff!!

I plan to also blog about that. But it will have to get posted *after* Christmas... duh!! Otherwise people would see what they are getting!

What else....

I  came home to an awesome hole in my couch... sorry about the laundry. Still working on that. Yeah. Waylon is a monster. No, dogs aren't allowed on the couch. Yes I know that's not a cat claw.  No. I am not happy about it. Seriously? Did you ask that??? lol

This is us in our hotel room. We got awesome MLP t-shirts. BE JEALOUS!! 

And today I decorated a bit for Winter/xmas. 

I did this during finals week, actually. I needed a break... so I was like FUCK THIS I'M PUTTING UP A GARLAND. haha.

OK I am pretty sure this brings you right up to date except for things I can't share just yet!! :) Please leave a comment... or at least check a box below!

Five Places, Five Years.

Well, my sister Em got me to drag out this old WBT post called "Five Places in Five Years". 

Wow, that was a really great read. I love blogging... great time capsule feeling for yourself.

Anyway, I'm still really hoping for #1.

But 5 years from NOW is a different story. Because if number one happens, it will likely be in the next like 2 years. I think it's too soon to re-evaluate the next five years for me, but let's still keep our hopes resting with number one. Maybe even dream a little bigger.

Oh. And our amazing corgi dog Ein comes to work with us!! :)

(but he's not allowed where the "magic" happens unless its dog portrait day)