Create: Halloween 2011, Part II

For once, I am done with Halloween costumes days before Trick or Treating starts.  Normally, I procrastinate until at least the day before.  But not this year.  I have too much to do to let those costumes sit around unfinished.

The Kiddo (and I've decided it really does need to be capitalized and will insist he includes Kiddo on his list of aliases now) shortened his desired costume to Wolf Demon Archer after flirts with Spartans, Time Travelers, and Steampunk.  I made a few accessories and he found some clothes in his closet, added on a fox tail from the Renn Faire, and he is ready to go.  Today he took a canned food item to school so he could wear his ears as a hat all day.

For the arm guard, I sewed a few straps of felt onto a shaped rectangle and called it good.  You can find how to make the ears, and the quiver on this blog.  For the glove, we found an old winter glove without a mate and cut it.

For me, I decided not to be a witch again this year and found some things in my closet to throw on.  The necklace I made a while back.  The vest I found at Salvation Army a few years ago to go with my Steampunk fairy outfit for the Witches Ball.

These aren't big, detailed costumes, but I've never had much luck with those.  These are comfy and winter coats can easily be added.  Plus, all parts can be worn in normal day to day clothing.  Yes, even the fox tail can be used more than once.

Happy Halloween!

Inspire: Take a Breath

Ah, the last week of October.  As the week before I try to write a 50,000 word novel, I'm rushing to get lots of things done.  Today we are going to take a step back, breath in, breath out, and enjoy a few slices of life.

Green on brown leaves

A dandelion in September.

The bunny, Konijn, posing.

Ah, no!  It's Basket Head! Run away!

Create: Halloween 2011, Part 1

With Halloween almost upon us and my sewing machine out of commission, I've been floundering on what is going to happen.  I planned on whipping up a quick tunic/toga for the kiddo, but without my sewing machine I feel like I can't do anything.

Of course, it doesn't help that the kiddo keeps changing his mind on his costume.  Just this morning, he said something about time-traveling.  Last I knew, he wanted to be kitsune Spartan archer.  Although if he wants to go time traveling, I'm going to demand he add a bit of steampunk to his costume. 

In order to at least have begun his costume, I pulled out my trusty glue gun and some bits from around the house to make a quiver for the kiddo.

Materials:
Glue gun and sticks
Brown felt (leftover from another project)
Cardboard tube and stopper (from the pile for the bunny to chew on)

I found a large tube with a plastic stopper on the end and cut out the felt to fit around it, then glued it into place.  The end was folded and glued down. 

I was going to try to do something fancy with the top, but decided simplicity was a better idea.  I put down a line of glue and folded the felt down, then cut it to size. 

The straps were two inches wide and cut to the length of my remaining felt.  I glued one strap to each end of the quiver so the kiddo could tie it on.  I'll add a few safety pins to make sure it stays on all night.

The kiddo has a couple play crossbow bolts and a few nerf arrows that will fill the quiver.  I'm not having him take the bow as it will just get in the way.  But now he has a quiver that he can play around with.  Hmm, maybe I need to make myself a shield now before he takes over the house....

Inspire: Conversations over Dinner

The kiddo and I have some interesting conversations.  Especially when he is grounded from TV and has no other option but to talk to me.  Mwahaha ahem. 

Recently, he watched the Disney movie Hercules in school.  Why?  We aren't exactly sure.  But it was his favorite part of the school day.  Me being me, and the kiddo being the kiddo, I had to ask if he shouted out any inaccuracies about the movie.  He didn't, mostly, but he really wanted to!  Ah, my kiddo, he takes after me so much.

So began a conversation about Hercules' twelve labors that he had to do because he killed his family.  Then the thought came to me....  Hercules was on probation.  He became famous because he was sentenced to community service.  How odd is that?  And so we pulled out the myth books and read up on old Heracles to find out that he was a repeat offender and hadn't gotten the message the first time around.  The second probation lasted a much shorter period of time, and he didn't even write home!

The kiddo thought this would be a great story idea and I have to agree. 

See what can happen when you sit down and talk?

Create: Phoenix Pouch

On the list of school supplies this year was a three hole punch pencil pouch.  The type that you could put into a binder.  Last year, I made the kiddo a plain zippered pouch that was black on the outside and red on the inside.  I felt like I needed to step it up a bit this year, and so I got to work.

I found a really nifty phoenix outline online (and can't remember where) and printed it out.  The kiddo loves phoenixes, red, and black.  It used to be armadillos, then dragons, and I remember sighing when orange was the favorite color.  Now I want things that are yellow and orange, I guess it sunk it a little too far.

I'm not going to give directions for making the actual pencil pouch because I feel I goofed several times.  Like somehow the lining was an inch or two bigger than the outside... 

Once I cut out the fabric, I chalked the design into place and went over it with a silver sharpie.  It was what I had on hand.  After consulting a couple different embroidery books, I got to work with no plan but to make it look cool.

Of course, once I got most of the way finished, we went school supply shopping and the kiddo decided he would rather have an accordion file instead of a binder.  That's cool with me since I don't have to make the holes right now.  I can always do that later.

Now I just need to make something about accordion thieves...

Create: An Arsenal

By now, dear readers, you should remember that I have a wonderful son running around my house.  As he was growing up, I thought I could take the high road and keep him from playing with guns and pretending to kill things.  That didn't last for very long and now, at the age of eleven, he has a whole arsenal of nerf guns, swords, and crossbows. 

Being a boy (and a child in general), his room is a mess.  Being a Magic: the Gathering player, the carpet in his room is typically Magic cards.  I've recently introduced the notion that if you don't take care of your cards, you don't get any more.  That has cleaned up the cards, but the weapons tend to stay scattered. 

How do you manage to keep weapons picked up when they are odd shapes?  You make an arsenal.

I just bought this wire shelving as a place for him to keep baskets of toys and other bits and pieces scattered across his room.  I picked this wire shelving because it allowed me to put hooks through it.  On the hooks hang the the guns.

The kiddo is spending the weekend picking up his room and making it look nice.  I think that just having the guns hanging up makes a big difference in his room. 

Inspire: Back to the New

My son starts school in a week and a half.  Don't ask me why they start on a Thursday, because I don't understand it.  It's a new school and the earliest he's ever started.  The kiddo will also be in a regular classroom for the first time since kindergarten.  In his old school, he was in the multi-age program which was is two grade levels in one classroom, the older students helping the younger, and much more hands on and active.

So, he isn't really "going back to school" this year, he is "going back to the new" or "going forward to school."  New school, new rules, new patterns and habits.  It's a turning point, like every year is, but this one holds the potential to be so much more.

It has made me think about my patterns and what new habits I want to create.  I haven't changed anything but my location - still going to the same work place, the same events.  But I feel that I am ready to change, and have begun to change.  Like junking my broken down car and riding my bike to my vanpool site.  Now I just have to remember that summer is always sucky weather and that doesn't give me a reason to grab a ride all the time.

Our Inspiration for this week is moving forward with new habits or in a new way.  How are you changing?

Create: Going on an Adventure

I admit, as a kid (and still) I was a geek.  Possibly a nerd for awhile.  Definitely a dork.  But the definitions aren't clear and they really don't matter.  What matters is that I'm happily raising my son into a geek.  Unfortunately, he wants to geek out to things I am not always into.  One of his new hobbies is Magic: the Gathering.

While I spent most of my high school lunches playing card games such as Egyptian Rat Screw or Mao or Rummy, my son likes trading card games.   It's not a big deal, and it gives me several hours free on Fridays while he goes to the comic book store to play tournaments.

To help him on this new adventure of his, I made him a box to carry his deck around in.  Tadaa!

This was made from my stash of plastic canvas from Freecycle, and some left over yarn.  Putting it together was amazingly simple.  I do believe I am growing in skills.  The one thing not shown here is a button.  I put a button in the center and a loop of braided yarn to hold the front down. 

It's a little larger than the size of the cards because I wanted to give him room for his dice. 

Have a great weekend!

Create: Naruto Headband Pattern

My son loves Naruto.  And he is always talking about wanting to save money to buy a Hidden Village of Sound headband.  I like Naruto, if you can space out the annoying voices...  There are many reasons I want to learn Japanese, unsubbed anime is one of them.  I made my son a cloth/cardboard/tinfoil headband for xmas but it ended up not holding together as well as I thought.  So I decided that this week I was going to crochet him one.

The music note isn't exactly like it is in the show, but it's close enough for me.

The pattern is pretty simple, only the note is a bit tricky.  Here it is for all you anime geeks. :)  Enjoy!

Naruto Sound Village Headband:
G Hook
Acrylic yarn

Headband:
Row 1:  Chain 120, chain one and turn.
Rows 2 - 6:  sc in each chain, chain one and turn
Row 7: sc in each sc across, fasten off, weave ends.

Plaque:
Row 1:  Chain 18, chain one and turn
Row 2:  sc in each chain across, chain one and turn
Rows 3-6:  sc in each sc across, chain one and turn
Row 7:  sc in each sc across.  Sc around the whole piece putting three sc in each corner.  Fasten off and leave a long tail for assembly.

Decoration:
In each corner of the plaque, use black yarn and a needle to make small x's to represent the connectors.  There should be three to a side, now that I look at the actual plaque.

Sound Symbol:
With a magic circle, sc 8.  Join together and chain twelve.  Turn and ss in second chain from hook, sc, dc, sc, ss, fasten off, leave a long tail for assembly.

Assembly:
Place the sound symbol in the middle of the plaque. Use the long tail to sew the symbol onto the plaque.  Attach the plaque to the center of the headband and use the tail to sew into place.

Tadaa!  You are done.