Our Enchanting, and Balancing, Butterflies

Inspired by the internet (as I often am), the girlies and I have spent a week or so making balancing butterflies. We didn't make a week's worth of butterflies, mind you, but we did work off and on for a week. Unlike in the cozier, more contemplative winter, when we can seemingly spend an entire day crafting felt food, summer projects tend to be worked on for several minutes, then set aside for several days, then worked on again. No matter, as all the project materials made themselves at home on a corner of the living room table, and eventually, we turned them into butterflies:

You can use the templates that I linked to above, but any symmetrical shape, with a wide wingspan that's forward of the front of the body, will do. You can also use any material that's slightly stiff, just enough so to bend a tiny little, but only a tiny little, under the weight of the penny hot glued to each wingtip:

I have one interior design project ongoing with these little beauties, involving some cardboard record album covers, some carpet tacks, and the ceiling of our living room, and another project altogether, an educational one, the reasoning being that if pretend butterflies balance, then why not real ones?

Rather, why not balancing copies of real balancing butterflies? I mean, balancing butterflies that are real butterflies.

Eh, just wait and see.

She Likes It! (and by extension, me)

My partner in the Bargain Hunter Swap received her package of goods from me, and posted them all in the gallery. Yay, she liked everything! I have to say, myself, that I did do some pretty swift bargain hunting. Here's my list (Mind you, the total had to be under $10, with as little stash as possible):

1. Broken China Pendant

• Piece of China plate—$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale


• Copper plate, solder, jump ring—stash


• Carton--$.25, Clearance at Joann’s


• Polyester padding--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale

2. Knit-It Mice Kit--$1, garage sale (haggled down from $2)
3. Crocheted and Knitted Afghans pattern book--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale (I reeeeaaaaallllly like the tiger-striped afghan!)
4. My First Storybook Dictionary--$0, dumpster-dived from behind the Salvation Army (I thought my recipient could use if for book-altering or scrapbooking; I think dictionaries are kind of fun for that)
5. Blouses to Knit and Crochet pattern book--$.25, Goodwill in Arkansas (vacation to visit my grandparents!)
6. Sweater Sets to Knit and Crochet pattern book--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale
7. Aluminum Size 15 Knitting Needles--$.50, garage sale
8. Building Better English--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale (I thought it might be fun for book-altering, and there is insane 1950s graffiti all over it!)
9. Aluminum Size 2 Double-Pointed Knitting Needles--$.50, garage sale (There’re only three left in the set. Can you knit with only three?)
10. Hot Blue Sugar’n Cream Yarn--$.97, Joann’s (on Clearance)
11. Aluminum Size 5 Knitting Needles--$.25, garage sale
12. Five Scrapook Sheets--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale (these were originally 50 cents!)
13. Aluminum Size 8 Knitting Needles--$.50, garage sale
14. Instructions for Making the Red Heel Sock Monkey Toy--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale (this was inside a half-full bag of polyester fiberfill that I also scored—awesome!)
15. Aluminum Size 4 Knitting Needles--$.50, garage sale
16. Hot Pink Sugar’n Cream Yarn--$.97, Joann’s (on Clearance; I thought it might go well with the blue)
17. Aluminum Size 6 Knitting Needles--$.25, garage sale
18. Espanol Lap Quilt

• Espanol T-shirt--$2, thrift store in  Arkansas


• Brocade fabric--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale


• Thread—stash

19. No Hablo Ingles purse

• No Hablo Ingles T-shirt--$.99, Goodwill (50%-off Storewide Sale!!!!!!)


• Zipper--$.25, garage sale


• Red ribbon with gold hearts—stash


• Thread—stash

20. Glen Miller Story record box

• Record album cover--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale

21. Scrapbooking Gel Pens--$.50, Half-Off in the Dollar Bin at Target
22. The King and I record box

• Record album cover--$0, Free Day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale
  GRAND TOTAL: $9.68

My favorite thing is the broken china pendant. I basically smashed an old china plate I picked up for free and soldered around it just like I do with my microscope glass pendants. This was the first time I'd made something like this, but it turned out just like I'd hoped, so I'll definitely make many more.

Here's the tote I made: 

It's made from a double-thickness of the T-shirt for sturdiness (which is why it's long enough but not so tall), with a zipper at top and a wide ribbon for the straps. I knotted the ribbon instead of sewing the straps together at the top so that you can adjust it for a variety of strap lengths.  The ribbon is wired, too, so that you can tie a bow or whatever and it will stay and the ribbon ends won't just flap in your face when you walk. I might make one of these for myself.

This lap quilt is made from a T-shirt I found while thrifting visiting my family in Arkansas--my swap partner speaks Spanish, so I thought it was a very fateful find. The brocade fabric I found at the free day, and I think it complements the T-shirt perfectly:

  

There's a pretty cool quote in Spanish on the T-shirt, about how to speak Spanish is to speak the language of fiestas, mariachis, happy children, sun-drenched lovers, etc. Matt thinks the quilt is a stupid size, but I say that it's a lap quilt, and consequently it covers the lap, so there. It's 20"x20"--is that stupid?

So, that's all for Bargain Hunting. What am I doing next, you ask? That's easy--Christmas in July Stash-Buster swap!!!!!! My partner is awesome, and likes cool things, so this will be much fun.

Record Album Cover Box Tutorial, Here We Come!

So even though my Bargain Hunter swap partner really wanted some nice storage containers, those were pretty much the only things I wasn't able to score for her at the various thrift stores and yard sales and dumpster-diving locations I visited during our swap. I found billions of knitting needles and yarn and books to alter and cool Spanish T-shirts, but no storage containers. 

So the day before I sent, hanging out at home alone with the girls, I made some record album cover boxes out of records I got at the free day at the Monroe County History Center garage sale. The kids could entertain themselves for an hour, I figured. Thus follows the course of that hour:

RECORD ALBUM COVER BOX TUTORIAL (INCLUDING WHAT YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE DOING/WRECKING/FIGHTING ABOUT WHILE YOU MAKE THE BOX)

1. Gather your materials. You'll need some record album covers, scissors, a good long ruler (bonus if you've got a ruled cutting mat), a pencil, and a hot glue gun with glue. While you do this, your children will be putting together a giant velociraptor puzzle:

2. Separate your record album cover into two pieces, front and back. Sometimes you'll need scissors, and sometimes the cover will be so old that it will easily separate by hand. When you're done, it will look like this:

 

You'll need to sacrifice a cover to your children so that they can do this, too, because tearing things up is fun. NOTE: The cover you sacrifice will NOT be usable after the children finish with it.

3. Starting with the cover you want to be the top, decide how tall you want your box to be. It will be a square box, and the taller you make it, the narrower the box width will be. 1" tall is wide and flat, 3" tall is tall and narrow, but 2" is a good height for a generic box. Using your ruler and your gridded cutting mat, if you have one--

--mark a line 2" from the edge of the cover all the way across on all four sides of your cover:

 

Press hard with your pencil, because you'll later be folding along these lines, and the pencil indentation will make it easy to fold. While you're doing this, the children will have moved on to clay.

4. Do the same with the side that you want to be the bottom of your box, only now you need to measure 2 1/16" from the edge of the cover on each side. This will make the bottom of your box slightly taller and narrower, and since the top of your box will be slightly wider, it will fit over the bottom snugly but not too tightly. When you're done your two covers will look about like this--

--and your two children will be done with clay:

 

5. Notice that in each corner, your lines have crossed to make a square. On each side, cut the right-hand line up to where it meets the perpendicular line--

--and then fold all the ruled lines you made, making sure they bend easily at a 90-degree angle:

 

While you're doing this, your children will be emptying out the dress-up bin, looking for their tutus that they actually left in the car after the last dance class.

6. So you can see how, when you snipped the right-hand line up to where it met the perpendicular line on each side of your cover, you made square tabs, each 2" square. Take two adjacent edges of your cover and fold them up to a 90-degree angle along those lines you drew. On the side of that tab that has the cover art on it, you're going to spread hot glue, and then tuck it inside the box and press it onto the inside of the adjacent edge:

 

This forms one corner of your box. Press firmly until the glue cools down, and then repeat for your other sides. It should now look like this:

And your dancing daughter looks like this:

  Repeat for the other half of the box until it's finished and looks like this:

 

And then quickly, while your daughters are blitzed out on Jumpstart Kindergarten--

--repeat three more times until you have this:

Whew! What an hour!