Archive for June, 2010

FabMo

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

Do you live in the SF Bay Area? Do you live near Mountain View? Well, if you do

Have you heard of FabMo? It’s this wonderful small organization devoted to re-distributing all of the fabric cast off from discontinued designer fabric samples. Apparently after trade shows and product cycles and what not there are dumpsters full of fabric samples, and this local organization gets them, before they go into the dumpster, organizes them and has free distribution days once a month where you can make an appointment and go take whatever you want. Really. They have a donation tube to help pay for their small warehouse space, but it’s free and fun and great for teachers and crafters. Their website explains it better than I did.

But we went, and it’s the real deal. Rebecca picked out a treasure of small mosaic tiles and hand sized leather samples. I picked out a stack of roughly 1′x1′ fabric samples and a stack of doormat sized wool rug samples. Penelope has been falling over a lot lately…

I realized near the end that since they are mostly upholstery samples, even though I was sticking to the ones labeled as linen & cotton, they were probably covered in teflon and brominated flame retardants. And, being me, I sort of freaked out and haven’t really figured out what to do about it. I washed them all, and then started worrying that my washing machine was contaminated and the next load of baby sleepers I put in was going to be poisoned for ever. Yes, at the same time I am quite aware that I am being silly and have a problem. My home is statistically likely to already be full of bromine so, chill mama, right? We do what we can and try not to worry too much. How did we get on the topic of my plastic phobia again? Darn, I need to stop doing that.

Ahem. FabMo! They’re doing something cool, check them out if you live in the SF Bay Area.

Marigold

Monday, June 28th, 2010

Marigold is a doll I made roughly based on the Black Apple pattern. I drew the pieces myself, changed the directions around, embroidered her face, and boxed the bottom so she would sit up. I should have stuffed her butt with beans or made it thicker… The jersey I used for her face/arms/legs is too thin unfortunately, and I think her inner leg joint is already tearing a little, because Neleepop likes to yank her around by her skinny legs, which are fabulous for grabbing.

Also, she is quite fond of poking, or smashing her eyes. But they are quite sturdy. And then there is the head biting. But then, then there is the hugging and squealing!!! So thrilling! Obviously 10 months is the perfect age for first doll love.

Shiny Painting

Sunday, June 27th, 2010

I am so behind. But I’m not apologizing! Very important. I do have so many things to write about, and I just haven’t been finding the time. But now we are in Maine, and then Vermont, (getting here was a long long day). I have less time and more time… Vacations are funny like that when you’re a mom.

The paint isn’t shiny, although I think it was supposed to come out glossier than it did… but we’ve been using ‘real’ tempera paints instead of the washable ones, things have been working a little differently. (They have so much more pigment!!!) But. Tinfoil around cardboard, and tempera paint cut 50/50 with white glue. We had a good time.

Fizzy Painting

Friday, June 18th, 2010

I made this project up, but I’m sure I wasn’t the first! I gave my daughter a small glass jar with some baking soda in it, and asked her to mix in enough liquid watercolors to make a liquid. Then she painted with the baking soda paint. When she started asking me for a second jar so she could have another color I handed her a spray bottle of vinegar instead. It was fun and a bit silly.

This is also not the way to create archival works of art, and in fact, should not be stored with any other paper you want to save, since the acid in the vinegar will destroy paper over time.

The next thing we tried was making a thick paste – taking baking soda and adding just enough liquid water color until it stuck together. Then you can make little colored clumps and put them on your paper to make a fizzy colored circle. Lots of fizzing colors = fun!

Fun times. You should have seen my table when she was done. The vinegar and paint ran all the way from one end to the other. Next time… oh, hmm, you know, I don’t HAVE any cookie sheets with rims anymore… they were all non-stick and I got rid of them. I forgot that I used them for art projects too… OOPS!

Playing Mail Man

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

I’m not supposed to be blogging right now, I’m supposed to be meeting my deadline. But it’s been a week! My house is getting messier and messier and older daughter spent an unheard of amount of time in front of the computer today. So here, here is something I whipped up before I was sucked into this One Yard Wonders 2 thing.

Birthday. Mother suggested that she would appreciate play acting props, careers other than ‘princess’. I chose mail man. This hat, other than being too small, worked wonderfully from my imagination to implementation!

The bag, well, it is recycled from a shirt in the rag bag. I got a new serger! Named Sammy. This was practice using it, quite a different thing than I’m used to, it was quite fun! I made the strap about twice too long and tried to just lap it and sew to make it shorter, but that was a disaster, ended having to undo the bag seam, remake a bunch of it, but it was still a quick satisfying project. So what if I did write the letter shapes with permanent marker rather than erasable marker… It is still quite good for play acting, not going to be winning any design comps with it though!

Bubble Painting

Monday, June 7th, 2010

It may not be obvious from first glance, but we painted with bubbles. Take some bubble blow, mix in some liquid water colors, and blow bubbles onto paper. When it works you get perfect swirly circles. When it doesn’t work you get lots of drips and bubbles in each others faces… But, hey, drip painting is fun too! We won’t talk about the bubble wars, except to note that we (almost) always use non-toxic art supplies.