DIY Non-Skid Socks for Babies

So it’s that time of year. 

The leaves are turning fiery hues of orange and red and yellow… 

The grass is newly dusted with crystalline tendrils of frost every morning… 

Beloved family members gather inside the kitchen for a fresh, steaming cup of cider or a marshmallow-adorned mug of hot cocoa...

The crickets are chirping and singing in the evening... the crickets are chirping and singing and skipping their way into our basement… the crickets are chirping and singing and skipping and creepy-crawling all over our basement...  

Yikes!  I am tired of the crickets!  My poor hubby has to chase one or two (or five!) out of our basement every single day for the past week!  Who knew crickets could be such a problem?

But  still, I will take crickets over spiders any day.  My heart does the same initial “oh-my-gosh-what-is-that-giant-moving-black-thing-in-my-house?” but after the initial adrenaline surge, I can safely say that I am equipped 

to handle a cricket with much more dignity than I can a spider. 

(Translation: I can use a sing-song voice to call for my hubby rather than clutching the baby, dashing away, and screeching.  Oh, what, you thought when I said "handle" it that I meant I would actually do something 

about the creature?  Hahahaha….)

But back to my topic.  Because of the change in the weather (and the ever-present threat of crickets!), I like to keep my little one’s toes safely encased within a cozy pair of socks.  Unfortunately, her somewhat-newly acquired mobility skills involve a lot of running and tip-toe-ing -- both of which are dangerous feats to attempt while wearing socks on tile. Or linoleum. Or wood floors. Or basically, anything other than carpet.

She has two pairs of Rubber-Roos, which we love, love, love.  These thick-weave, rubber-bottomed socks do a great job of preventing the slipping, 

but just because we have them does not mean that I can find them,

and regardless of their location, eventually they do need to be washed.  Which means, she ends up in regular, slippery socks 

and usually shortly thereafter, tears.

Hence, this project.  I saw somewhere online that a lady used Puffy Paint to skid-proof her child’s socks, and decided to give it a try. I ended up getting black, white, and silver Puffy Paint since the store was out of most of their cute little girl colors (which was probably a good thing, all budget-type things considered, but a little disappointing at the time). Armed with the classic-but-boring color combo and whatever of her socks I could actually find, 

I got to work.

I had a challenging time getting her socks to stay flat enough for me to actually apply the Puffy Paint to the bottom in any reasonable design.  They kept twisting and folding up on me.  Enter: my handy-dandy… holepunch?  Hey, it worked!

                           

                        

I did have to be careful when pulling the sock off, since the handles of the holepunch were wider than her little socks were, I found that it was easiest 

to hold the tip and heel of the sock down flush against the table as I slid 

the hole-punch out of the sock... otherwise the sock would rebound with 

terrifying rubber-band type action, threatening to smash 

newly-squeezed paint all over the bottom of the sock. 

Also, because the holepunch was wider, a couple of my designs came out slightly distorted once the sock was removed and back to it's normal size. Among them were a sadly elongated ladybug, and a flower that was 

a work of art... until i took it off the holepunch.  Then it just looked kind of wilted and sad. For the most part, though, it was easy to compensate 

just by eyeballing how much the weave of the sock was stretched and 

using the thread lines as my guide.  

Another thing to keep an eye out for: keeping the applicator tip of the Puffy Paint clean.  I blurred a few of the smaller words and designs by letting extra paint smudgies build up around the tip.

All in all, I was pretty pleased with how they turned out!  

Here are a few, just to show you.

                  

                                                      

       

Hope this is helpful for you!

DIY Pencil Holder: Formula Cannister/Tin Can Upcycle

I was looking online for some kind of pencil holder to display my colored pencil collection and corral my ever-defiant bundle of kitchen pens, but after searching multiple websites for pencil holders and toothbrush cups and even just regular old mugs and not finding the perfect thing (at a price I was willing to pay!), I decided to try to make my own.  

The idea I was inspired by these beautiful up-cycled containers from 
Shannon at Fox Hollow Cottage:

  

She gives a wonderfully descriptive and amusing tutorial on how to redo basic household recyclables, so if you like what you see in the picture, I would definitely advise following the above link to her post!  

However, I didn't know if her lovely shabby-chic DIY would particularly fit with my home decor, and I was looking more for a pen holder and less for a centerpiece.  As I am an addict dedicated collector of scrapbook paper, I decided to see what I could whip up using that.  A quick Pinterest search yielded a tutorial from Em at Olive on Blonde that I used to make my project.  If you decide to attempt a similar project, I would suggest taking a look at her tutorial - she lays out every step with great pictures.

Based on her recommendations, and armed with my itsy-bitsy mini-glue gun, I grabbed an empty infant formula can and set to work!

Picking the paper was the hardest part... I must have sorted through the pile for the better part of an old Star Trek: Deep Space Nine rerun.  I finally found a piece of brown-and-crème scrapbook paper that I liked, measured the height of the can, and cut the paper to fit between the tiny ridges lining the top and bottom of my can.  Because the paper didn’t go all the way around the can, I cut another piece of dark purple paper to cover that glaring space.

I hot-glued the can according to Em's suggestions, wrapping the larger piece of paper around the can first, tacking down all the edges, then adding the second piece of purple paper to cover the seam and gluing it in place as well.  

After the papers were secured, I cut two strips of ribbon – one plain beige piece from a burlap textured wide ribbon, and a cord made from white and gold strands twisted together. 

  I wrapped the burlap ribbon around the can and hot glued it in place, then added the cord on top of that.

For my final touch, I added a (faux) burnished gold and pearl necklace pendant I picked up on sale + coupon from Michael’s a little over a year ago (my validation for keeping various art supplies on hand!).  The back of the pendant was uneven, leaving only three tiny surfaces that would be touching the can, so I added one of the nifty foam squares sold with the glue and tape section of the  scrapbooking materials at Jo-Ann's and secured it with a little extra hot glue.

 Ta-da!  Finished product.

  You may notice that some of the edges are a little crooked and the corners aren’t as smooth as I would have liked.  As a recovering perfectionist someone who care about my art, it grates on me a little... ok, a lot.  

But I am reminding myself that I have been wanting to do this project for a while now, and that I had a rare window of time in which all of my art supplies were available, the baby was in bed, and the sink was suspiciously lacking in the dirty dish department. (Is there such a thing as a dirty dish thief? My kitchen looked so bare without it’s usual décor….)

I had to take advantage of the moment, and if I hadn’t finished it that night it would have taken me a week to squeeze in the last steps between all of my other commitments.  So I might have rushed a little more than I should have.  Next time I do this project, I will plan on taking a little more time to piece it together perfectly more carefully.

Would love to hear about it/see pictures if anyone else has done something similar!

Caution in Cyberland

The internet is a place of anonymity, and therefore a place of apparent safety - safety for the inward contemplation that I might find myself able to place on a website for the unknown masses, but never actually share with the people that I know in real life.

And then there is this odd intersection between the Cyberland and the “real world”… commonly recognized under the names of Facebook, Twitter, personal blogs, even Pintrest.  They are all arenas in which personal thoughts can be shared openly and instantly, without the tempering of time, or the awkward sensation of looking into another person’s eyes as you share your heart. 

Yet, the people who exist on your “Friend” list, or follow you on Twitter, or read your blogs – no matter how close of a friendship you share with them, or how distant an acquaintance may be – suddenly have total and complete access to your heart.

The threat from this ability to be open comes, not necessarily with the ideas you may spend hours preparing to share, but with the quick, reflexive rebuttals we may make to a “Friend’s” status update or an stranger’s blog when their heart-felt commentary (or even off-handed remarks!) begin to strike a little too near to the things we hold dear.  Our hearts may race, our fingers may pound, and then…

BANG!

Before you know it, the ugliness of your heart is displayed for all of the virtual world to see.  I have seen it happen many times when my friends (in the real world!) get dragged into a debate on the internet and end up saying harsh, judgmental things – things which end up affecting their real-world friendships, things which could not be erased with the simple typing of the words “I’m sorry.”

So the point of this?  This is my challenge for myself – and for anyone else who may find my little corner of Cyberland – to be careful what we write about, to be careful how we respond to others that we may disagree with, and to be careful how we respond to others who may disagree with us.

Blogging Goal #2:  Writing with Spirit-led honesty and love, despite any anger, criticism, or selfish desires that may be tempting.

Ultimately, all our Cyberland interactions should work to bring glory to God.  If they do not, than our Cyberland-selves are just another point of proof to the case of our great need for His grace.

As if I needed any more convincing.

I love this blog post by Heidi St. John, where she talks about her “5 Ways to Just Say “No” to Drama.”  With a fun sense of humor, she showed me just exactly what online drama looks like… and there was a WHOLE lot more in my Cyberland-life than I thought!  Heidi also gives a fun retake on the old “Stop, Drop, and Roll” phrase as her easy mantra about staying out of the unnecessary commotion.  I would highly suggest you take a look her blog!

Write, I Must

Welcome, fellow bloggers

Hello, Internet world.

This is ridiculous.... no one is even going to read my first post probably.  Except maybe my mom.

gababaa;sdfijadopguhaobg;agfblahblahblah?

OH!! Uh.... Hi.  *sheepish smile*

What an odd sensation: whatever I write here today will, within moments, be thrown into the vast space of the internet.  True, from the start, it will be tucked away where no one can see and hardly anyone will find it, but it will be there.  Where the whole world could see.

I love to write, but that idea is a bit terrifying.

I already tend to be a bit of a perfectionist. I can spend hours writing something that should only take a few minutes because I have to go back and change every other word. And look up a boring tedious, dreary, and uninspiring word, to find an un-boring electrifying and sensational  word to replace it with.  But I can't take a month to write a blog post, ugghh.  How boring would that be?

Blogging Goal # 9: Making myself write, for the sake of writing (even if it means it's not perfect!).

So that's a goal: teaching myself to write - and create - without fear of failure, because if I am ever going to get my novel published, I will need to know how to do that!  (keep your fingers crossed on that one, for me.... of course, I have to finish my novel, before I can get it published.  *sigh*)

Mostly, though, this blog is a tribute to other people who have written. I hope to help direct anyone who may find this blog to some of the things that have most touched me. So many books and blogs are packed full of recipes, ideas, inspiration, and encouragement to brighten your home, serve those you love, and become the best person you can be.... the person that God has called you to be.

There are talented authors that have, with a few simple words, changed my life.

Changed my life.

How, then, could I resist being apart of the writing world?

Not that I expect that I will change anyone's life, but if what I write here can touch one life, bring one smile to someone's face, or encourage one person in midst of there struggle, that is reason enough to write.

And so.

Write, I must.