The Newest Bark Ranger of Indiana Dunes National Park: Day 3

 

We had some business to accomplish on this morning! Our prospective Bark Ranger had finished pretty much all of her required activities, but this prospective Junior Ranger still had some work to do, so we went on a hike:

It was a misty, overcast morning on the Bailly Homestead, but we had the place to ourselves as we wandered around:

Look how lush and green the trail was!

After a short hike through a forest full of sugar maples, we reached the working Chellberg Farm:

Luna had a BIG adventure here!

I am very unsure of Luna around farm animals. She embarrassed me by barking at draft horses at Kentucky Horse Park, and I still hold over her head the one time, years ago, that she lost her mind and mortally wounded a chicken and I had to behead it.

Honestly, I might still be in low-key hysterics from that one...

So even though these sweeties looked as content and happy as... well, this--

--I was extremely reluctant for Luna to do this--

--and then this--

--and then this!

The pig didn't seem particularly fazed by our slightly overexcited dog, but pigs have a lot of teeth and I didn't relish the idea of carrying a dog with her face half bitten off the long hike back to the car, so I made Will pull her away and we all hiked back, faces unbitten, through a woods that was now looking a lot more like this:

It started raining before we were quite finished, but don't you find that weather that's unpleasant to humans is often the best for spotting wild critters? Look at my new friend, the gray ratsnake!

Back, then, to our Airbnb for snacks, a glass of wine for the grown-up, and a lovely interlude watching Luca courtesy of our Airbnb's Disney+ subscription.

I REALLY liked our Airbnb!

Luca was perfectly timed, because by the time the credits rolled, the sky was blue again. 

Back we went to the beach!

I could have really liked Central Avenue Beach--it was much quieter than West Beach, and had a much easier walk to get to with a fun scramble down a dune at the end--

--but the whole time we were there, we were absolutely mobbed by some sort of horrible, stinging fly. I didn't bring any anti-stinging fly repellant, and anyway, they were also clearly biting Luna, as well.

We, at least, could escape entirely into the water--

--but Luna is still scared to go out beyond her knees.

Will had the brilliant idea that Luna would be less susceptible to horrible fly stings if she was covered in sand:

It was obviously the best of many good decisions made during this trip:

As I was taking four thousand photos of our adorable dog with sand on her snoot, I happened to notice that the beach we were on was clearly adjacent to the beach that Matt and I had walked on our own trip to Indiana Dunes the month before:

And that's how I came full circle on this trip, happily achieving my dream on almost the very same spot where I first dreamed it.

The Newest Bark Ranger of Indiana Dunes National Park: Day 2

 

On our first full day at Indiana Dunes National Park (here's Day 1), our main plan was to spend the day at the beach with Luna.

We took the long way round:

This Dune Succession Trail happily led us to the part of the beach adjacent to West Beach that dogs are allowed at! In the middle of all the other well-behaved dogs playing gently in the water, Luna had an absolutely ridiculous time barking her fool head off at the waves, running Will back and forth while barking and snapping at the water, stopping dead to bark her food head off some more, etc. I was both delighted at how happy she was, and secondhand-embarrassed at how much of a scene she was making.

Luna is wearing her new Ruffwear Float Coat, because I am apparently a doggy smother mother.

It's not the first time it's occurred to me that dogs and toddlers are quite similar.

Here's another way that they're similar: when Luna had finally worn herself out enough that she was willing to come away from the waves to our nice beach umbrella and towels all laid out comfily on the sand, she immediately proceeded to gleefully dig herself the largest hole of her entire life:

And then she promptly laid down in it and fell asleep in the shade:

Notice that nose facing the water, just in case it makes any sudden moves and she needs to go bark at it some more:

With Luna nice and tuckered out, I babysat for a while so Will could get wet past her knees:

Even though this dog kicked sand ALL OVER my beach towel, I love her so much I can't even stand it:

We spent most of the day here at the dog-end of West Beach. Luna chilled out enough to enjoy the water without barking hysterically at it--

--and we got plenty of time, as well, to just lounge in the shade of our umbrella and read and eat snacks. Not gonna lie--Matt filled my thermos with margaritas before I left home, and I quite enjoyed them here, along with the little snoozle to follow.

Obviously, we had to take some puppy portraits to commemorate Luna's first full day at a real beach!

Then we trekked the LONG trek back to our car with our tired dog who kept wanting to lie down, and happily spent the evening sitting on the couch of our AirBnb, eating delightful snacks and binging Schitt's Creek:

I'd say that was a pretty good last first day of high school for Will!

Make a Cardboard Record Album Cover and Duct Tape Bookmark

 This tutorial was originally published on Crafting a Green World in 2016.

If you need something a lot sturdier than plain paper, but you still want to craft with some upcycled materials, then this cardboard record album cover and duct tape bookmark is for you! 

 The vintage cardboard record album cover, taken from a damaged record, makes an awesome front for your bookmark, while the duct tape strengthens the entire thing and covers up the back of the bookmark, concealing any stains or rips or other flaws. 

 Got a favorite record album cover that you've been wanting to upcycle? Here's how to make a cardboard and duct tape bookmark for yourself! 

 You will need: 

  vintage cardboard record album cover. Take this from a record that's no longer playable, and do something else awesome with the record! 

  duct tape. It's not an eco-friendly crafting supply, but when used in moderation, it's SUPER fun! Check out the time that the kids and I made duct tape wallets!

  hole punch. You can use any size, although I think one that's just slightly wider than the diameter of your yarn looks better than one that's really wide. 

  yarn or embroidery floss. Choose a color that matches your bookmark.  

1. Cut out your bookmark. Using a favorite bookmark as a template, trace a bookmark outline onto a scrap of cardboard record album cover (these are the scraps leftover from my upcycled record album cover folder project), then cut it out. 

  2. Back with duct tape. I LOVE our duct tape in novelty colors, and I have a pretty great time matching cute duct tape colors to stuff. For the most eco-friendly project, make the bookmark no wider than your roll of duct tape.  

3. Cut the duct tape away from the bookmark. If you have duct tape scissors, this will be MUCH easier to do. 

  4. Add the tassel. Punch a hole at the top center of the bookmark, then cut off a length of yarn or embroidery floss that's about double the length of the bookmark. Thread it through the hole and tie a square knot.  

This cardboard and duct tape bookmark would make a pretty cool present when presented along with a brand-new book, and an especially cool present if you can manage to make it from someone's favorite album.

DIY Potion Bottles

 

Will and I had a ton of fun making these spooky potion bottles for our Halloween decor, but I was the most stoked to figure out that I could make them from the antique (but worthless) bottles that we're continually pulling out of the back of our woods.

Dear 1950s, please stop leaving your trash lying around.

To make these spooky potion bottles, I first scrubbed 70 years' worth of mud out of some old amber beer bottles. I have so many of these lying around that I'm sick of them, and while I ought to just recycle them, I always feel like I ought to DO something with them, you know? I mean, they're part of history!

It's the history of people bringing beer to a drive-in movie, guzzling it, and then throwing out the bottles, so, not exactly interesting history, but still. History.

When the bottles were clean and dry, I painted them with the primer plus flat black spray paint that I'm currently obsessed with (it's the new slate grey!), then Will and I drew our designs on the bottles using pencil and traced over them with hot glue.

My hot glue devil's trap is pretty killer, right? Lay the hot glue on thick, so that it stands out really well later, and rub away all the little hot glue strings so they don't mess up the painting that you'll do later. 

After this step, you're mostly just going to be dry-brushing the bottles in different colors, letting them hang out to dry between coats. It took Will and I a couple of days to finish, but most of that is hands-off time.

We used artist's acrylics for all the painting. Just between us, I use them even when craft acrylics are called for, because I like how thick the paint is, and how saturated the colors are.

The first coat to be dry-brushed on should be black. Don't worry about covering the entire bottle, which should already be flat black; instead, you're deliberately covering the hot glue, especially in the cracks and corners where it meets the glass.

The next color to be dry-brushed on is whatever you want for the final color of the bottle. Will and I made all of our bottles grey (slate grey?!?), but brown/bronze would be really cool, too.

You still want to mostly cover the bottle with this color, but leave a lot of the base color showing underneath. Also try not to get any of the paint into those areas where the hot glue meets the glass; you want those lines and cracks to stay black to emphasize the embossed look you'll be adding later.

After this, Will and I added a few more colors, just a little and very lightly, to give the bottles more depth and texture and age. Some darker and lighter greys, a little bit of brown, tiny bit more of black, etc. It was a nice day, we were listening to Halloween music, and Matt was puttering around outside, too. Why not hang out, add a zillion more colors, and enjoy your kid's company?

My devil's trap looks pretty great, right?

I don't have a good picture of this next step, because I was having too magical of an afternoon to even so much as breathe too loudly, much less take tutorial photos. But in the background of the below photo, you can see that Will is finger-painting silver paint onto the very top of her hot glue designs. 

Use your absolute shiniest, most silver paint, and dab it on so that none of it gets into those cracks that you so carefully painted black and kept that way.

Is there much better than shirtsleeves weather on a sunny early October day?

To make the tops, we used whatever bits and bobs and fancy little things that I had squirreled away. You can sand the winery stamp off of a real cork--

--then slice it and shave it down so that it looks like it's a stopper in use when you glue it to the top of your bottle. 

You can glue any further embellishments to the top of the cork, but I have a billion eye pins on hand, it it worked really well to add my embellishments to the eye pin, push it through the top of the cork all the way through the bottom, and then glue the bottom so it didn't show.

Use an epoxy glue to attach the cork to the top of the bottle--

--and then sit back and admire your handiwork!

Will and I had a lot of fun making these, and we both think they look super awesome. I wouldn't be opposed to adding a few new bottles to our set every year...

...and we might just leave them out all year round, especially considering the large percentage of the rest of our decor that also wouldn't be out of place in a Halloween store.

The Newest Bark Ranger of Indiana Dunes National Park: Day 1

While my partner and I were exploring, we learned that not only are most of the beaches at Indiana Dunes National Park dog-friendly, but that they also participate in the Bark Ranger program!

And that's how one week after we returned home from our trip, I was pulling out my credit card to book an AirBnB for my older kid, Luna, and I to come back later this summer and have our own fabulous adventure. Because as much as my kid enjoyed 60 hours of screen-time without adult interference, she's also my best travel buddy, and Luna is hers. 

I packed only the essentials, as you can see.

We stopped at the visitor center so the big kid could see the museum, watch the informational film (I fell asleep during my own viewing of that film, so she is now more knowledgeable about Indiana Dunes than I am!), and collect both Junior Ranger and Bark Ranger books:

And then it was off to Luna's first real beach!

Luna doesn't really know how to play, so once upon a time when the big kid and I took her to our local dam's spillway, we were absolutely delighted to see how absolutely delighted Luna was by the rushing water and the waves. She ran at them, leaped at them, snapped at them, barked at them--we had NEVER seen her act like that before, and would never have believed that it was part of her character if we hadn't seen it with our own eyes.

The big kid and I started dreaming, then, of taking Luna to a whole entire beach full of waves, but I'm pretty sure that when she snaps at the water she's actually swallowing it, and I worry about salt poisoning from seawater. But Lake Michigan is salt-free, and when Luna saw it--or rather, when she saw its waves--she lost her ever-loving mind:

With the kid in tow, she ran up the beach and down the beach and up the beach and down the beach, barking hysterically most of that time:

Meanwhile, I hung out in a supervisory role:

When Luna had worn herself out so much that I was pretty sure she'd try to lie down halfway through the long walk back to the car (spoiler alert: she did!), we made the long walk back to the car, then hit up the grocery store, then found our AirBnb. This was my very first AirBnb ever, and it was thrilling. So much space! So many amenities! SO MANY TV CHANNELS!!! 

I mean, I know we came here to go to the beaches, but this Airbnb had Netflix AND Disney+! 

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to random little towns, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!