The Bunny and the Bee

Back when the kids were very small, there was a photography studio in a nearby mall that used to periodically send out the most EPIC coupons--one free photo session with one free 8"x10", no purchase required!

We never bought a single photo, but we have so many 8"x10" portraits from those years!

TBH, most of them weren't that great, so even if we hadn't been dirt-poor our money was pretty safe there, but there were a couple of gems from those years, and that above photo, of the kids in their Halloween costumes the year that Will was two and Syd was still my baby, was one of them.

I vaguely remember that we sent a copy of this photo out to all our family, and that one of them had it made into a present for us, but it wasn't until Matt was sent to work from home during the pandemic, bringing all his work stuff with him, that I saw this again:

And that's how his Father's Day present practically thought of itself this year!

I bought the onesies--

--the kids posed for a zillion shots, some of them super cute--

--some of them super weird--

--some of them that were supposed to be poses but actually turned out to be fights--

--some with friends--

--and some that were made of weariness at having to take a zillion photos while wearing onesies in the quite-seasonably-appropriate warm weather:

--and yet, finally, we got the shot, Syd removed my tacky bedroom background, and we were left with a true Father's Day masterpiece:

Here's my little bunny and bee! 

 

They haven't changed a bit in 13 years, have they?

P.S. Here's Syd wearing that bunny costume at age two!

Homeschool Art: The Kids Carved Rubber Stamps

This has certainly been the summer for handicrafts!

In a summer that has lasted both a billion years and one infinite day, we've had the time, the disposable income (thanks to all those canceled vacations, sigh...), and the boredom to indulge in handicrafts both old and new. Will created a hand-cut applique masterpiece. I've been turning corrugated cardboard, comic books, and SO MUCH GLUE into trays to put on on every surface in hopes that people will contain their crap there (spoiler alert: they won't). Syd has most of the school table taken up with the various supplies she needs to paint an elaborate portrait of Jones on the back of her denim jacket. We've been embroidering, and Will has friendship bracelets aplenty ready for a future when we'll see other non-family humans again.

But here's another handicraft that we've been doing, and you can see it in the background there, at the end of our table covered with crap, past Will in the process of making another friendship bracelet:

It's rubber stamp carving!

We still had some stash supplies for this project leftover from back when Syd was a Girl Scout Brownie earning her Letterboxer badge, but even if you don't hoard craft supplies for multiple years, here's all you really need to get started:

To go less fancy, substitute big pink school erasers for the rubber blocks, and to go fancier, substitute paint and a brayer for the ink pads. That's what we're working our way up to, as this particular project is one of the steps towards the retired Cadette Graphic Arts badge that Syd is trying to earn. 

We're also working our way up to real linoleum carving, screenprinting, and lithography. You can see why my handicrafts budget is so bloated this summer!

That linoleum cutter is wicked sharp, but here's photographic evidence from 2013 that even a seven-year-old CAN carve a simple rubber stamp:

And look at what a fourteen-year-old can carve!

Will had a lot of fun with this, too. Check out her zebra!

Seriously, how cute is that?!?

The kids' interest this summer in activities like wood carving, this stamp carving, and other tactile crafts remind me that even big kids--even teenagers!--can still benefit from sensory exploration, especially when their worlds are otherwise limited in many ways. I should make time this summer to get out the polymer clay, and the Perler beads, and the paracord, perhaps entice the kids into the garden with me, perhaps take them to the local lake if I can find a time when it's not overrun by racists...

But not today, because our brand-new paint-by-number kits arrived last night, and so after school today, we're going to try them out!

How to Make an Upcycled Playing Card and Upholstery Sample Bunting

I originally published this tutorial on Crafting a Green World.

There's nothing like a bunting to make a festive occasion just that much more special. That's why my daughter wanted a bunting as part of the decorations for her recent Alice in Wonderland birthday party--and also, of course, she IS my daughter. It's possible that a love for buntings is expressed at the genetic level...

Knowing what I wanted to make, I sorted through my stash of potential crafting supplies that surely will be useful someday (this is also known as my "stash of trash") and hit the jackpot when I came across a partial deck of souvenir playing cards. You can't play a lot of games with a partial deck of playing cards, and you also can't recycle them--and if you're me, you apparently also can't bear the thought of simply tossing them into the waste stream, not when you might want to make a bunting out of them six years later!

The faces of the playing cards would work as-is in the bunting because playing cards are on-theme for Alice in Wonderland, but as for the backs... well, my daughter for some reason didn't want scenes from Yellowstone National Park in the 1980s decorating her party. Silly girl!

Instead, I turned to another super useful piece of trash, a giant book full of tacky old upholstery samples. These sample books are notorious for being snapped up at thrift stores by avid crafters with stars in their eyes, who then take them home and never, ever figure out a way to separate the samples from their glued-on paper backings.

There isn't a way, Friends. Stop breaking your hearts on the effort.

So you can't sew those upholstery samples into anything, because they have thick paper backings glued onto them (you'll never get that glue off! Stop trying!). What you CAN do, however, is cut and glue them, stencil and paint on them, and embellish the snot out of them. That's what my daughter and I did to make her upcycled playing card and upholstery sample bunting, and here's how we did it!

Directions

1. Cut Bunting Pieces Out Of The Upholstery Samples

Use a playing card as a template to trace the bunting pieces directly onto the back of each upholstery sample.

Cutting these pieces out is sort of a nightmare, at least for my own set of upholstery samples, because the glued-on paper backing doesn't cover the entire piece. I obviously can't use my fabric scissors to cut paper, and my paper scissors are too dull to cut fabric, so I had to use two different pairs of scissors for every piece, ugh.

2. Embellish as desired

The possibilities for embellishing buntings are practically infinite, but for this bunting, I wanted to spell out a welcoming message.

Stencils and paint to the rescue!

I have a very old-school Cricut on which I can cut letter stencils, but happily, a set of store-bought cardboard stencils that I already had on hand turned out to be perfectly sized for this bunting--yay! I traced each letter onto the front of an upholstery sample piece with black Sharpie.

Because this bunting isn't washable, you can use any kind of paint on it. My fabric paint is getting a little old, though, so I've been using it on any even remotely fabric-adjacent project lately so I can use it up and have an excuse to buy more.

3. Adhere The Upholstery Pieces And The Hanging Cord To The Playing Cards

You can use any type of hanging cord that you'd like for a bunting, from a kid-made yarn cord created on a knitting spool to store-bought bias tape. Bias tape actually would have looked really cute with this particular bunting, except that I filled nearly all of the available space with my letters, and bias tape would definitely have cut the tops off of some of them. Instead, I decided on simple brown twine, to be sandwiched between the upholstery fabric and the playing card.

You can also attach the two sides of the bunting pieces together in a number of ways. I seriously considered machine-sewing them together with a wide zig-zag stitch, but then my daughter happened by and got involved, and her solution to every problem is to hot glue it. So she hot glued it!

I wouldn't use a bunting that was hot glued outside in all weather, but it was perfect for a beautiful, mild birthday party day. Afterward, we hung the bunting in her bedroom, so that every time she looks at it she can remember what a wonderful time she had at her Alice in Wonderland birthday party!

P.S. Do you also have a book of wallpaper samples that you're wondering what to do with? You can make a bunting with those, too!

Five Reversible Tote Bags

I wanted to use my obnoxiously large stash of felt to make enough tote bags that we wouldn't ever have to get paper OR plastic at the store ever again.

GOAL ACHIEVED!!!

Since I also wanted to de-stash my felt, I deliberately over-engineered these bags by making them reversible--

--AND I deliberately over-designed them by adding hand-cut felt applique embellishments to one side. Here's the tote that I designed, with my interlocking gear appliques that DO look as cool as I'd hoped they would, but all that changing direction to sew all those gear teeth was a massive pain in the butt:

I wanted the kids to each create a tote design. Syd went super simple with a single cupcake--

--but Will went all out by hand-drawing, hand-cutting, and sewing--

--EVERY SINGLE ASTROLOGICAL SIGN onto her tote bag. How awesome is this bag?!?

 

It's my new favorite thing.

Remember how I used to do craft fairs, back when the kids were tiny? It's been a VERY long time since I've set up at a craft fair, and yet I still had the felt tablecloth I made to use at my booths.

Now that felt tablecloth is a tote bag!

So now I've made a new stash of cloth napkins to replace paper napkins, I ripped an old sheet up into dish cloths to replace paper towels, I've got enough tote bags to hold all of our groceries, and the only thing left on my to-do list is to make some more mop pads for my steam mop.

Technically, the store-bought mop pads aren't disposable, but they ARE all microfiber, which is also terrible for the environment. If you want mop pads made from natural fibers, you pretty much have to make your own.

So if you find me on Facebook busily cutting up my old towels and stitching 2" elastic onto them, that's what I'll be doing!

Six Months Ago: December Favorites: The British Navy, Suicidal Misanthropes, and Drawing with Waffles

One Year Ago: June Favorites: Good Omens and Good Dragons

Two Years Ago: How to Make a Wood Burned Leather Bookmark

Three Years Ago: Greece with Kids: The Acropolis, Falafel, and Feral Cats

Four Years Ago: Homeschool Field Trip: The Tulip Trestle Beam Bridge

Five Years Ago: Compound Sentences against Humanity

Six Years Ago: Magnetism and Electricity Self-Directed School

Seven Years Ago: New Haven, Connecticut, to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Eight Years Ago: At Turtle Park

Nine Years Ago: A Horse and Pony Obstacle Course

Ten Years Ago: Drawing Dinosaurs

Eleven Years Ago: Rain on My Parade (Again)

Twelve Years Ago: America the Delicious

June Favorites: Captain Aubrey, Tamora Pierce, and What I Watch during Physical Therapy

We made it through June without a zombie outbreak, so yay!

I am currently jumping with both feet into the world of the public school parent, as I watch 5 hours of streamed school board meetings on 1.5 speed, trying to determine whether or not the younger kid should try out her first year of public school in person or via the district's brand-new "online academy." The online academy ought to be a no-brainer, since, you know, there's a PANDEMIC going on, but of course the information about what the online academy will actually look like is as vague as vague can be, so right now there's no way for me to evaluate which looks like a better fit academically, much less socially and in terms of my child's health, our family's health, and public safety. You'd think that would mean I could stop worrying about it, then, until I know more, but instead I am all-aboard the fret train.

Welcome to public school, I guess?

In the service of the escapist literature that I've been craving so much lately, I allowed myself to read TWO Master and Commander books in June!

• Desolation Island
• The Fortune of War

It was GLORIOUS, even though all of Aubrey's shore-side finance misadventures stress me out, and I swear that every time I fall in love with someone who is not Aubrey or Maturin, they die. I also really, really, REALLY hope that Patrick O'Brian's information about the British Navy and its sailing ships is accurate, because I now talk about this stuff all the time as if it's full fact, and not something that I read in a genuine work of fiction. It's become my OTHER conversation buffer, along with how people die in national parks and why it took so long for Jeffrey Dahmer to get caught (spoiler alert: police racism and homophobia!).

The biggest logjam in my June reading was this massive tome:

• Alan Turing: The Enigma

I'm really interested in Alan Turing, and the chapters about his childhood were quite engaging, but most of the rest of the book is a slog. I mean, he was a cryptoanalyst and mathematician. Most of his actions consisted of cryptography and math. So that's what the author tells you about! I also like cryptography and math, but I found Alan Turing's level of cryptography and math hard to follow, so the book as a whole wasn't a very pleasurable read.

I would recommend it, however, if you enjoyed The Imitation Game, because a lot of what's in The Imitation Game isn't quite accurate, and how can you rave endlessly about Alan Turing to all your friends if your information about him isn't quite accurate?!?

Here's what else I read in June!

• Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy
• Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet

The younger kid joins me in my recommendation of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. I'm a MUCH bigger fan of the original novel than she is, but we both found this modern re-telling quite satisfying in a couple of specific ways.

The big kid has settled into using our library's online hold system/curbside pickup appointments. I know she's missing her entire days browsing and reading inside the library, but right now, at least, she's doing a great job requesting books that she's already pretty sure she'll like, so check out her list of favorites from June!

• Vessel
• The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding
• The Last Life of Prince Alastor
• The Eye of Zoltar
• Daja's Book
• Briar's Book
• Rough Magic
• Book of Names
• Book of Signs
• Book of Magic
• Book of Thunder
• Shatterglass
• To Night Owl from Dogfish
• The Circle Opens
• Alanna: The First Adventure
• The Best of James Herriott

That's... a lot of favorites. But to be fair, that's a lot of fantasy, too, and you know how my kid feels about fantasy!

My greatest accomplishment is that James Herriot collection. It's my own beloved copy that I recommended to the kid, and I had to practically staple it to her hands before she'd consent to read a Mom book now that the library has curbside pickup, but once she jumped in she loved it, as I knew she would. It's so lovely and pastoral, full of animals--a remarkable book!

June got me through another podcast from my absolute favorite podcast producer(s), Minnow Beats Whale/PRA. Their podcasts are always spooky, postmodern serial fiction, and they're always super-engaging. My absolute favorite of theirs is The Black Tapes, although I highly recommend all of them.

The thing is, though, that they're all LONG, and if you take a break for a few weeks or months or whatever, it's kind of hard to re-find that thread that they've been laying out for the billion previous episodes, you know? That's why The Last Movie is so good, because there's only a few episodes! Plot-wise, it's not my absolute favorite of the shows... maybe because it's not long enough for all those tangled threads to get woven?... but I did appreciate being able to listen to the whole dang thing during five morning walks.



There wasn't any new YouTube that I was obsessively into in June. Usually I manage to discover something cool, but this month I've been doing a lot of physical therapy for rotator cuff tendinitis, and I always leave those physical therapy sessions with a LOT of painful, boring exercises to do at home, so I've become very fond of finding long-format videos of people droning on about various pop culture or historical stuff. Sometimes they're experts, and sometimes they're just opinionated, but if they're willing to simply talk at me for 45 minutes while I do various things with a PVC pipe while trying not to cry, I am there for them. Here's someone who got me through my last PT session!



And yes, J.K. Rowling IS so embarrassing, and I'm glad, now, that the November Universal Studios trip I'd been planning with the older kid is completely off the table, because I'm no longer willing to buy any products that will result in Rowling getting a portion of my money. I mean, is she now so rich and powerful that she's only surrounded by yes-men who just let her say whatever she wants and they just agree with her? Does she have nobody in her life who is willing to help her understand gender? Did anybody tell her about intersex people yet?

I also profoundly do not get that argument that people, including Rowling, keep rolling out, consisting of something along the lines of "OMG IF WE LET TRANS PEOPLE EXIST THEN MALE PEDOPHILES WILL JUST PRETEND TO BE TRANS WOMEN SO THEY CAN GO INTO WOMEN'S BATHROOMS AND MOLEST LITTLE GIRLS!!!!!" I know Rowling is all fancy now and probably only uses secret fancy people bathrooms, but has nobody mentioned to her that, actually, pedophiles are already physically able to enter any public bathroom? Gender-exclusive bathrooms don't, like, have locks that you can only open with the biologically specified genitalia--they're just a cultural convention! A pedophile doesn't have to pretend to be a trans woman to go into the women's bathroom. They could just, you know... go in there? Or... they could go into the men's bathroom where the little boys are?

Okay, I really need to stop thinking about this right now and instead go show my partner the zillion screenshots that I took during the zillion hours of school board meetings that I just burned through, so we can both fret together about how on earth teenagers are meant to learn honors biology via ipad and whether that terse "all students receive core instruction per the Indiana standards and our pacing guides" that they didn't elaborate on actually means that online kids will in fact receive a limited selection of basic classes that simply meet standards and no more.

What stressed YOU out the most in June?

P.S. Want to know more about my adventures in life, and my looming mid-life crisis? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page!

How to Make an Upcycled Denim Slipcover for a Couch

I originally published this tutorial on Crafting a Green World.

Our couch is horrible.

It's got good bones, I guess. I mean, isn't that what you're supposed to say about a couch that you bought used 15 years ago and brought into a house with toddlers, knowing that before you bought it the couch lived in the lounge of a freshman dorm for who knows how long previously, and the darn thing is still standing?

It's still standing, but it looks horrible. Like, really, really horrible, in a way that even I, the queen of Lived-In Chic, am embarrassed about whenever people visit and I have to expose them to the horror of its appearance.

But here's the thing: a couch that looks horrible? That is SO fixable. Just throw a slipcover over that little monster and go on with your life! And if you don't have a slipcover? It is SO easy to sew one from scratch!

The key to this DIY slipcover project is lots and lots of upcycled denim. Fortunately, old denim is easy to come by--as soon as I announced this project, I had family and friends and people I didn't even know practically throwing their old blue jeans and denim shorts and jean skirts at my head.

I finally had to start saying a flat-out no to anyone who tried to hand me a bag of clothes (even then, sometimes I'd wake up to find a bag on my porch), and I've still got enough to slipcover all three sections of my horrible couch and probably make my entire family warm, heavy denim quilts this winter, as well--stay tuned!

Tools & Supplies

Here's what else you'll need to make this upcycled denim slipcover for your couch:

• Large-format pattern paper. Newspapers work well for this. If your paper isn't large enough, tape additional pieces to it until it is.
• Cutting and measuring tools. I work with a fabric tape measure, ruler, self-healing cutting mat, rotary cutter, and fabric scissors.
• Sewing machine with a denim needle and heavy-duty thread. For extra security, you can use the thread that's designed specifically for denim.

Directions

Grab your tools, and let's get sewing up that ugly couch!

1. Measure And Piece Together The Big Rectangle

Your couch definitely has a big rectangle. Maybe it's the back, or maybe, like mine, you'll get a whole straight section running from the bottom in front, up to the seat and across, up to the back and over, and down the back to the floor. Thanks to that big rectangle, the only slipcover pieces that I need to sew are the big rectangle and two matching side pieces.

To measure this big rectangle, here's where your fabric tape measure comes in handy. My couch is 45" across, and using my fabric tape measure I could measure everything from the bottom front to the bottom back as one continuous length of 92".

Add a couple of inches to each measurement for a seam allowance, and go piece together a GIANT denim rectangle!

To actually piece together that big rectangle, simply start squaring off pieces of denim and sewing them together. The goal is to create a piece that's larger than the required dimension so that you can square again, if necessary, and trim it down to size. Pretend that you're making a crazy quilt; the nice thing about using denim is that everything is basically the same colorway, so it'll all go reasonably well together.

And yes, feel free to include pockets and embellishments! Keep metal pieces off of this big rectangle, because you don't know yet what part will be the seat and what part the backrest, but in a minute when we do the sides of the slipcover, then even grommets and zippers are fine.

When you've got your big rectangle finished, drape it over the couch and, if necessary, trim it further.

2. Make A Pattern For The Slipcover's Side Pieces

Tape together newspaper or large-format paper until you have a piece that's larger than the side of your couch.

Line up the bottom of the paper with the floor, and hold the paper against the side of the couch.

Trace the edges of the couch onto the paper. When you've got the outline, lay it flat on the floor and use a straightedge and a french curve to help you neaten the lines. You can also add an inch of seam allowance.

Cut out the pattern piece and hold it up to the couch again to double-check it. Redraw or trim as necessary.

3. Trace And Piece Together The Slipcover's Side Pieces

Again, your goal is to piece together denim that is larger than the pattern piece, then trim it to size. I don't know who gave me their old denim skirt, but I was STOKED to see that when I cut it in half and cut out the zipper and waistband, it was still enough fabric to make one entire side panel of my slipcover! Yay!

Conversely, I did a LOT of piecing for the second side panel. Don't forget that those large pieces of denim are nice to work with, but using up small pieces and scraps is just as important when you're trying to save as much material as possible from the waste stream. In the photo below, I pieced my trimmings from the big rectangle to the panel, then traced the pattern piece directly onto it and cut away the extra. As a note, I seriously overestimated the dimensions because I was paranoid, and it's easier to trim away than to add more fabric!

I did the same trick of piecing together a section made of small scraps, sewing it to the panel, and tracing the pattern to trim the excess to make this backrest section. Since the section that I was adding was pretty small, I dove deep and used up some pretty small scraps to piece it:

4. Sew The Slipcover Panels Together

When you have the big rectangle and both side panels complete, you can sew them together. Double-check your work first by placing everything on the couch and checking its fit; when I did this, I discovered that I should cut a couple more inches off the width of my big rectangle. I don't know if I accidentally added my seam allowance twice, or was just, again, overly generous with my measuring. Regardless, the slipcover looks much nicer when it's clearly well-fitted!

I'll be frank: this is NOT the cutest thing that I've ever sewn. Patchwork denim furniture is not one of the goalposts of my interior design aesthetic. But you know what? I don't have it in my budget to buy a brand-new couch this year, nor do I have the desire to trash a perfectly decent piece of furniture that is still super comfy and only looks like garbage. This upcycled denim is just as sturdy as upholstery fabric (with NO flame retardants!), and, as I've already discovered, when a kid leaves an uncapped Sharpie lying on it, it's just as easy to patch as a pair of blue jeans.

Besides, the worn denim has made that couch even more impossibly comfortable, and the whole thing doesn't look half bad when it's covered in throw pillows and kittens and happy kids.