This is what I do for fun

But really, the finished product (or, actually, draft), is nothing if not accompanied by this.

I was attempting to make the biggest pentagon possible on my tracing paper.  In the middle of the night.  While my child was crying.  Yes, this was the distraction/relaxation I chose when Peter Potamus was going through a rough sleeping patch and I sent his father in so I could take a little break.

Eleven tracing paper pentagons, some wire, fishing line, and complicated glue stick maneuvering, and we have a starry dodecahedron lantern.  It doesn’t light up because I haven’t found my paper lantern cord, and I think a second draft is probably in order.  But I’m still pretty happy.  Especially because I got to whip out SOH-CAH-TOA.

Showering in Style

That’s our new shower curtain.  Did you know that charcoal shower curtains don’t seem to exist?  They don’t.  Or, at least not at prices that this girl can/chooses to afford.  But this cheap polyester is slightly sheer (the curtain on the window is the same stuff).  Which means that light from the bathroom filters in nicely, the better for dimly lit calming showers.  Yay for unintended consequences.

Oh, and the bigger rectangle?  Is a golden rectangle.  Just for that little touch of nerdiness.

Problem solving at our house

What do these

have to do with this?

Creative uses for cooling racks. And, my husband would have you believe, the only good use for cooling racks. Apparently he doesn't appreciate cakes that are in one piece or cookies with crisp bottoms.

What's a girl to do?

What's a girl to do when her husband tells her that his college roommates want to get together? Offer to host, of course.

What's a girl to do when they take the girl up on her offer and she finds herself contemplating feeding 6 just-out-of-college age males? Get out her folding table and her biggest tablecloth, of course.

What's a girl to do when the only tablecloth she has that fits is a pretty dark red one that she got on Christmas clearance. She can envision such a tablecloth as a good Christmas or Valentine's Day, or Fourth of July staple, but it doesn't say "It's spring! Happy May!" to her. Go shopping for some fabric to make a table runner, of course.


And what's a girl to do when she's finishing the edge of the table runner and wants a little something extra? Sew a swoopy squiggle, of course.


And what's a girl to do when grocery shopping for this great adventure? Buy a bunch of flowers ostensibly for her guests, but also partly because she likes having flowers, of course!


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We're having a great time, and we're so glad that all of the guys were able to make it down to Nashville for a get-together. And I'm glad that they let me tag along (even if I did find myself confronted with more toilet seats up than I've had in a while).

Bedroom Makeover

They say that if you don't like the weather in Nashville, wait five minutes. As a matter of fact, I think I've heard that same adage said about pretty much everywhere I've ever lived. Oh well. Suffice it to say, spring in particular is a time of great variability and unpredictability. Which is why pulling out our "let's try to not spend the inheritance of our firstborn on air-conditioning" quilt in March might not have been the best plan. But I do believe the worst is behind us. And in celebration, a picture of our spring/summer setup.

To compare--here's what it's like in the winter*:


*I really wanted to do one of those nice rollover effects, where you put your mouse over the picture and it displays a new picture. But trying to figure that out took me down a whole wormhole of JavaScript and/or CSS, and at this point I know too much of these things to just follow instructions blindly, and too little to really implement it well. Maybe later.

My own March Madness, Day One-- Jewelry Storage

Being as I have a fair amount of time this week to pursue crafty endeavors, I decided that it was time to post some more on this here blog. I need to get organized a little for the rest of the week, so today's post is a short one.

I'm not a huge jewelry wearer. I tend to put in a pair of studs and wear them for a couple weeks. Part of that was the fact that all my jewelry was in a little 3-drawered mini bureau, kind of tangled up. And, as the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. So I'd like to share my jewelry tree.



It's just a candle holder that I got at Big Lots. The branches hold necklaces, the leaves (and little bird) hold dangly earrings, and the actual votive holders hold necklace charms and pins.

And they all sit atop my grandmother's handkerchief, which is lovely (and keeps the tree from scratching my dresser!).

Don't I clean up nice?

Well, not me, my closet. Having the luxury of a closet just for my crafty pursuits (thanks honey!), means I'm sometimes overzealous about what I'll buy or keep for scraps/refashioning/repair. Add to that occasionally wanting someone else to be able to use the room (it is, theoretically, a guest room, craft room, and office all in one), and I end up with a heap of stuff piled precariously in the closet, like those parodies of closets you see in cartoons.

This weekend, seeing as I did not forsee anyone else suddenly needing to use the room, I unloaded the closet, assembled some new shelves (a story in itself, really), and re-loaded.

Phew! I haven't quite done the major purge that needs to be done, but at least I can do that in an organized fashion, without fear of things falling on my head. And one of the coolest things?

It's like my very own fabric store! (a la splityarn).