The Dino Name Game

1. I am a big nerd about etymology.

2. I have a reading knowledge of Greek and Latin.

Hopefully, this has made clear to you why I have made my four- and six-year-old children a game based around Greek and Latin word roots.

It's super-fun, I swear.

Will is always fascinated when I translate dinosaur names for her--the names actually make sense!--so I collected the most common Greek and Latin word roots that are used for dinosaur names (ignoring, of course, the other two ways in which dinosaurs are named, which is after people or places), copied them neatly onto word strips, wrote the translations on the back, and then laminated them and cut them out:

I like the table of Greek and Latin dinosaur descriptors, but the most important thing to me was to include all the word roots for the girls' favorite dinosaurs, and the word roots that are the most descriptive and evocative, so I also did a lot of flipping through our dinosaur encyclopedias to pick up ideas.

Now that we have a nice, big stack of descriptors in a drawstring bag (more on that later), the girls enjoy pulling the cards out and using them to construct funny dinosaurs:

Here Willow, who wanted to face the cards so that I could see them, was trying to make "the longest dinosaur name in the world."

Her plateotripteroderm just may win the prize!

My New Kitchen Aid

My mother-in-law, noticing that I cook with the girls nearly every day (and also, likely, noticing that the recipes that I cook with the girls are inevitably shockingly elaborate, outrageously messy, and have had a seriously detrimental effect on the state of my kitchen and my emotional health), took pity on me and bought me a new toy for Christmas:

I have owned my new Kitchenaid mixer for approximately five days now, and so far the girls and I have used it to make vegan strawberry cake, four loaves of bread dough, and the vanilla cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, complete with the vegan "buttercream" frosting, also made with my new Kitchenaid mixer:

Yum:

Yum!

and YUM!!!!!!!

This afternoon, my Kitchenaid and I are going to mix up some meringue, because baked Alaska doesn't just bake itself, you know.

Tiny Little Memorials

Down on my belly in the cold to photograph this interestingly and lovingly decorated grave near where my grandmother lies:

 
Doesn't every cemetery need one fabulous eyesore?

Acrylic Paint and Fabric Paint Duke it Out!!!

Y'all, don't get locked into that whole "only use fabric paint on fabric" business. It's a conspiracy, I tell you, and frankly quite unnecessary.

These past couple of weeks, I've been sewing up a coupla dozen personal peace flags for a long overdue pumpkinbear etsy shop update (I have to take photos outside for them to look at all decent, and in this weather...brrr!), and if I had to use my uber-expensive Jacquard Neopaque fabric paints on every single PEACE, I would be out of business!

That's not to say that you should never use fabric paint on a non-wearable fabric project, or should always use fabric paint on a wearable fabric project...basically, you have to experiment a little, and figure out what paint to use based on the properties of the individual paints.

For instance, acrylic paint dries stiffer than fabric paint--good quality fabric paint shouldn't dry stiff at all. So for a T-shirt, or baby clothes, you def want to use superior-quality fabric paint. But for your jeans, or a hat, or any other article of clothing for which drape isn't important, knock yourself out with acrylics, if you'd like. But if you're painting even a non-wearable fabric project, but you need it to be flexible and have a lot of drape, you probably want to use fabric paint. With my peace flags, the stiffness of the paint doesn't make a difference, so it doesn't matter if I use fabric paint or acrylic.

Coverage does matter, though, and it pretty much depends on the color of the paint, and a bit on the brand, how well a particular paint will cover a particular fabric color. Even with the Jacquard Neopaque fabric paints, which are supposed to be, well, opaque, the yellow needs two coats before the blue fabric print behind it doesn't show through. Same with the green over the silvery-white fabric that I chose. The white, however, gives perfect coverage in one coat, even over the green fabric that I'm using, as do the rest of the darker colors. With the craft acrylics, every color that I've tried needs two coats before it's opaque over a dark print, so if I have to do two coats anyway, I'd rather use the cheaper acrylic paints than the waaaay more expensive fabric paints.

I like to work with what I already own, too, so for me color matters--I'd rather use the perfect color in a more expensive paint that I already own than go shopping for the perfect color in a less expensive paint. For instance, I like the green of the fabric paint much better on this particular fabric, and I thought the red of the acrylic paint gave the best contrast on the trickier-to-match red fabric, so that's what I used:

Of course, you can always purchase textile medium to give acrylic paint the draping properties of fabric paint, but that's just something else to buy.

The Darkness that You Make for Yourself

The time is 11:00 a.m.

SYDNEY: "I want to play with my glowsticks."

ME: "Then you have to go into the bathroom, close the door, and turn out all the lights."

 
 
 
 

It turned out to be a workable solution.

Work in Progress: DANCE

 
 
 
All I need now is to acquire some ribbon someplace or another, and my little dancing girl will have a tidy place to keep her tights, leotard, and ballet shoes.

Bedtime Stories

Everybody gets their own.