Girly Spider Webs

I can't claim to have come up with this idea, I saw the idea here on Betz White's craft blog and decided to try it myself. Out here it's pretty easy to find inexpensive (PA has plentiful antique malls and junk stores, I love it) handmade doily items, so I found some that were cute but that I wouldn't be pained to cut up.

So you take your doilies...

...and find some wooden embroidery hoops. Paint the outer hoop black and leave the inner one natural.

Add some ribbon and spiders and voila!

You get some pretty easy and fast girly Halloween decorations!

I used an 8" hoop on the square doily, and got a 6" and two 3" hoops from the rectangular one.

I wanted to make my own beaded spiders, but that didn't happen this year.

I think they're cute enough to have up all year- sans spiders!

I like decorating my hutch!

You like my little cast iron stove?

Have a Happy Halloween!

Thrift Store Spooky

I found these candelabras for literally $3 for the pair at a local thrift store. But what to do with them? They were almost cool, but not quite. They were pretty ugly in their original state- the center posts weren't even metal, but cheaply painted grey plastic. The arms were of some kind of base metal, definitely not the good stuff. And there was some sort of heavy stone at the bottom (you do not want to get socked in the head with one of these!). But I looked past all that and saw some potential.

 I took my happy can of black glossy spray paint, and voila!

Insta-macabre:

Painting them (it took several tries- lots of nooks and crannies!) makes the pieces more about their form then colors. I love how they turned out- I don't want to put them away!

I also love having an old beat up black piano- perfect for scenes like this! Usually we put the headstones outdoors, but this year I leaned them against the wall and added my spooky cloth (love $1 stores!), crows and my glitter skull. I like my Halloween to be a bit glam.

I so love Halloween- if I had oodles of $, you know what I'd do? I'd buy some big old cool spooky looking house (I'd own a bunch of houses) and devote it solely to Halloween. I'd have so much fun making it over into a deliciously spooky haunted mansion of my own. And I'd let people tour it, too. And so what if the shutters droop and the paint peels and there's cobwebs inside? It's a Halloween house, for crying out loud! That's the dream.

That, and a house devoted to Christmas.

I Love: Fall Edition

I do love fall. How can you not? At the very least, the humidity's down!

I thought it would be fun to turn the "I love" concept into a series...it's a good way to show all the random photos that I take. So here we go:

I love...

 ...people's displays of pumpkins for sale.

I drive by this every day on the way to school and when I got out to take the picture a big chocolate lab came barreling down the driveway to come love me!

I love...

... Mom's homemade apple fritters. YUM!

 ...the red and yellow corn we grew this year.

 ...and chocolate cupcakes with orange frosting!

I love...

...carving pumpkins with the YSA. Did a fence with a kitty and a moon.

I love...

 ...seeing wildlife, like the flocks of turkeys just down from the house.

I love...

...the bright blue skies and pretty trees.
The lighting this time of year is lovely.

I love...

...butterflies with spiderweb designs (I think these came from Michael's).

I love...

...tinsel spiderwebs from the dollar store.

I love...

...having homegrown pumpkins and cornstalks on our front porch!

I do not love...what will be coming soon!

Time to find my hats and gloves and snow shovels.

What do you love about this time of year?

Oh Snap!

So the second project in my metals class was to make a ring or a pin or a pendant. You had to sweat solder an element, which is soldering a flat piece of metal to another flat piece of metal. You were to use your 1x3" sheet of sterling silver (you could add copper if you wanted, brass does not bond well to real silver) which costs $22 (versus $8 for 6x6"of copper) and was a little nerve wracking to cut into.

I was pretty busy at this point in time and nothing fabulous came to me so I went with the best idea I had- a camera ring:

I cut out a teeny tiny camera shape (with flashbulb), hammered the flashbulb into a rounded shape, and sweat soldered it to the band while it was still in strip form. I textured the camera and the band. Then comes the challenging part: aligning the ends of the band perfectly so there's no gap and soldering the ring together without undoing what I'd already soldered. Whew, I did it!

People got a kick out of having this on the side, wish I had an exclamation point stamp:

The other side had some random texture- what I'd tried for (hammering "film holes" didn't work so it just became this:

And I "signed" it with an E. It still cracks me up when people ask why there's an E on my things....HELLO!

Then there was filing/clean up work and I antiqued it with liver of sulfur so you could see the texture and lettering.

I was sick for part of this project, so I missed some work time. And I wasn't terribly motivated. I was happy just to have something to turn in. I like the ring, but it's not really resolved. At critique people liked it, but thought it could have been better, which is how I felt. I look at it as being a practice piece of sorts. I wound up getting a C+ on it. I was bummed about the C, but you can't win them all. Thankfully this project isn't weighted as heavily as the others, though this means I have to kick butt the rest of the semester. Other people made better rings, other people did worse, I was in the middle. Some people really didn't think things through- a loop for a heavy pendant that is too low will just make your pendant flip over!

The other issue I had was that cutting teeny tiny things out is hard- especially for me cause I have nerve damage in my hands. Sterling silver is softer and was more slippery to saw through then brass or copper, which didn't help. My teacher knew I was sick, but she doesn't know about my hands and I didn't want to sound like I'm copping out or making up excuses. It's frustrating.  

There's times like this that I wish I could cast things instead of fabricate them to get volume. This is one of those times. At least this ring is more comfortable/wearable than the rings I casted in the past! Those turned out big and heavy.

So I still have a bit of silver left (and really $22 isn't bad if I want to do more) so I'll have to figure out what to do with it! Maybe a pendant or another ring...

Next project? Metal boxes! Maybe I'll try another camera...



PASFGTKYG

So there's two things that make me yearn to turn 31 and leave the YSA program. The first is the long multi-stake YSA conference calls that I somehow find myself having to participate in. The second?

The Get To Know You Game (aka GTKYG).

They're a staple at nearly every conference I attend. Of every singles ward or fhe group.

My theory is that people tend to marry young in the church so that they don't have to play these games anymore- or at least much less frequently. Then they can play get to know you games of their own.

When we were planning our 2nd Jamestown conference, we were discussing what to do that first night. Of course the senior missionary couple suggested "Let's play GTKYG!"

*facepalm*

I'm sure these games can be fun- if you like that sort of thing. Or if you were young in the early 1960's. But the older couples who married young probably don't realize that those games are not fun. Especially when you've had to play them over and over and over. And over and over and over again. I've been playing these same games for approximately 12 years in YSA- and that's not counting any times that I played these games as a child or youth.

That's a lot of GTKYG if you do the math. I've had more than my fair share. It's to the point now that it makes my skin crawl to think of playing these games.

Here's my main beef: You don't actually get to know anyone by playing these games.

I made an objection to the GTKYG at our last conference- and you know what we had the first night? An opportunity to sit and eat and chat with people! People actually getting to know one another? What a concept! You could play a board game if your heart desired. And you know what? People loved it! We now have two couples (that are fairly seriously dating) in our stake that met at that conference. You get to know someone a lot better by actually communicating than by stating if you love your neighbor or not. And isn't getting to actually know people crucial at a YSA event?? It really is out here because everyone is so spread out- it takes so long to actually get to know someone out here. It takes months of conferences to accomplish what you could in about two weeks in a singles ward.

I'm not a 20 year old with all the time in the world to get married. People, I'm 30. I don't have time for games. I need to actually communicate with members of the opposite sex!

Beef #2?

In all my experience of playing GTKYG, I've found that some are not so appropriate. There's two types of inappropriate- those that are blatantly not appropriate, and then those that mean well but weren't well thought out.

Some blatants?

The Orange Game:

While I love the scene with the orange game in Charade, in person it's not so funny. There's two lines of people, alternating boys and girls. The point is to pass the orange from neck to neck without the use of hands. First team that passes the orange down the line wins. Basically this is just an excuse to get guys and girls together in a pseudo-kissing pose, and there's a serious loss of personal space. It's real easy for that orange to go too far south on your chest.

There's now footage that exists of me and my friend Ivan where it looks like we are making out big time. Oh my! When I complained to him that girls didn't like this game, he responded "Oh us boys like this game." Exactly. At least I didn't get all scratched up from stubble like my poor galpals did. And boy am I glad that footage is not on FB!

The Lifesaver Game:

Players line up like the above game, and each player is armed with a toothpick. The point is for players to pass a lifesaver candy from toothpick to toothpick. First team done that doesn't poke someone's eye out wins. I opted out of this game, but I've seen it played at conferences. Again, the point is to have people of the opposite sex with their faces right next to each other, pseudo-kissing. No thanks.

Kissing Rugby:

This is one that really irritates me. There's a line of guys and a line of girls and someone gets called to the middle. Then a guy and a girl get called and they run around trying to kiss one another. If the person in the middle is a guy, then the girl that was called is trying to kiss him before the guy that was called kisses her. This game is against my religion. I remember first watching it when I was like 19 in the singles ward and I was just horrified.

Some not thought out games?

The fence:

A hoard of people are inside a roped enclosure. The rope is about 5' off the ground. The point is to get the group over the rope- without touching it. Basically this entails people grabbing and hoisting other people over the "fence" and they are caught by a mosh pit on the other side. Sounds innocent enough, but when I watched it there was a lot of inappropriate grabbing to get people up and over. Who wants people touching your butt?

Lapstackers:

You have a circle of chairs, and a person reads statements. If you have done the statement, you move to the right. Regardless of who's already in the chair. Maybe not so bad for little kids, but I didn't like sitting on my male YSA advisor's lap. Or anyone's lap. Rather awkward.

Most 'Teambuilding' Exercises:

Most start out innocent enough but then require some kind of contact that I'm not too crazy about. One of the last ones I played involved a team on a board and you had to have people climb over each other to get off the board. Which was fine and dandy til I realized that people's nether regions were rubbing on my shoulders as they climbed over me. Ew.

==============================

Anyhow, I find it to be an oxymoron to have the leaders of our church say things like "Your kisses are precious- save them" and then show up at YSA events where they're playing kissing rugby. Not to mention that the odds are not in your favor- you think you'll get paired up to kiss McDreamy? Oh contraire, you'll get paired up to have to run after some slob that just ate Doritos.

I don't run around kissing everyone because I do believe that kisses are precious and I don't want some guy who's been kissing the free world. I want to be special- he'll be special to me.

Sometimes I have to wonder about who's planning these games- what are they thinking? "Oh, if we get them up in each other's personal space, we're bound to get someone married off."

When asked how they met their spouse, who wants to say "Well, I grabbed her butt in this game and we've been going out ever since"? How romantic, no?

Some of the YSA are a little too into these games. It's a bit amusing to watch. They're not getting any action in real life, so they'll take whatever they can get. My friend came up with the term "Sexually Frustrated Get To Know You Games" (aka SFGTKYG) and I think that's pretty accurate. I think that's where a lot of these kinds of games come from.

So I proposed to her that we have shirts and signs that say "PASFGTKYG"- People Against Sexually Frustrated Get To Know You Games.

 I'm really tempted to wear one to the next conference. Really tempted. Maybe I'll make a button that says that.

In talking to my galpals, I know I'm not the only one who feels this way about these games. Some of my guy friends feel the same way too. Who'll join with me?

As I Search

Last weekend I drove down to Cranberry, PA for the N. Pittsburgh stake's first YSA conference. The theme was "As I Search". There were a few glitches (they should've invited Ohio) but overall it was a good conference and they did a good job. It was a little smaller conference, but that was okay. Sometimes that's nice. We had 6 YSA come from our stake, which was great considering it was just me last year that went to the fall Pitt conference.

Friday was spent getting there (darn construction traffic!) and then the mission president and his wife spoke. Later was get-to-know-you-games in the gym with refreshments. Don't get me started on get-to-know-you games (or GTKYG for short)...I'm not a fan of most of them and I've been forced to play them for far too long...

We stayed at a very nice home- the nicest accommodations I've had at one of these things. We had beds available, two showers and a powder room for us 4 girls, and even a finished basement with internet access. It even had a real tiger on the wall! I always get a kick out of what people have in their basements.

Saturday was full of classes- I did the one on scriptures and then there was a really nice one on testimonies (resolving our hearts and minds) too. Then I did the one with drums- finding your inner beat. Kate has all these instruments and it was so much fun to learn African songs (like their version of Head Shoulders Knees and Toes) and play drums and dance around. We were all big kids. We took turns leading the group in the drum circle. I even danced up in front of everyone with a tambourine- how Esmeralda!

I loved the little reptile xylophone that I played!

 Drum circle:

The next class was salt dough sculptures- there were some good ones, some funny ones. My butterfly won "Most Pretty":

My sis made some cute puppy dogs:

Later in the day we did service- they had people bring laptops and learn how to do indexing on the church's family history site. I'd never done that before and found it to be fun. I also had to have the spirit help me decipher some of those names- not very good handwriting! Their cursive L's looked like cursive G's!

We also did a scavenger hunt where you read a list of scriptures, figured out what object was mentioned, then you had to find the object! We did not win. We had a speaker afterwards talking about how singles fit in a church centered on families. Basically the answer is to be of service. It was a good talk.

We had a rather lame dance- Pitt never seems to pull off a good dance, I think they are cursed.

On Sunday I had an early meeting with the leaders and other YSA reps- how did I get drug into this? It was a good meeting, but not terribly productive. Everyone just kept saying the same thing over and over. Got a bit old. I did like that the Priesthood leaders gave each of us YSA a chance to speak our minds. I talked about how things have to be done with the spirit- I get tired of YSA groups that only meet to play volleyball or games, that never have a gospel conversation. Anytime you involve the spirit, it's better- whether its an fhe night or a friendship or a relationship. And if the spirit is at an activity, then people will want to come back.

We had good speakers for Sacrament meeting, talking about prayer and fasting. The couple who spoke got married later in life. There is hope.

Why, yes, we are cute girls!

I like my ruffledy Michael Jackson coat.

Oh, and on a totally girly note, I really liked our host's bathroom..totally loved this shower curtain:

I love aqua!

I also loved that they took the motif from the shower curtain and decorated the wall, too. So cute!

After saying our goodbyes, I jetted Laura home (two hours in the car) and then was home for only an hour and a half til it was time to pick up YW for Standards Night all the way up at the Stake Center. Phew! I had one girl go with me and it was a nice evening. It felt like an extension of my conference! Our stake presidency spoke about the plan of salvation, dress and appearance (was glad that he spent as much time talking about modesty for boys as modesty for girls) and then our stake president spoke about the law of chastity. Afterwards were refreshments (chocolate fountains! Yum!) and a slide show of my trek pics played.

It was brought to my attention that I had a flat tire that evening...and sadly it was true. I don't know when it happened, but my tire was totally flat. Of course life would be easier if it hadn't happened, but if it did have to happen then it happened at the right time/place. I was so glad that I made it home from Pittsburgh ok and made it to Standards Night without trouble. And I was surrounded by hoards of willing Priesthood who changed my tire for me. Everyone asked if I was ok. It was nice to see that there are nice guys out there- though sadly the guys who changed my tire were either married or 14! I teared up a little out of gratitude that I had help when I needed it. I felt very watched over.

A rather tiring weekend, but a good one. I'm excited for the next conference- going to spend Halloween at the same conference I did last year!

A Long Time Ago...

...in a galaxy far, far away, there was an alien fruit. Carved out of wood.

Here's how that happened:

We each got a chunk of wood, you had to cut it in half to make your halves to carve. Some people made a  cut widthwise, others cut lengthwise, but I cut it at an angle to make the most of my piece of wood. They weren't very wide across, maybe 8 inches. Then we had to drill and put in pegs for alignment.

I spent a long time, several weeks, carving out the inside with gouge tools. And then you have to use a scraper and scrape and scrape til your sides are smooth. And then you sand, sand, sand your heart out. It's kindof amazing that wood can become that smooth.

Then it came time to address the outside. I cut it out using the bandsaw, leaving the "fringe" to stick out on the one side. And then I carved, carved, carved the outside away. There was a lot of carving involved to round the edges. And you had to be careful not to go too deep for fear of carving into your interior hollow. I purposely made my carving marks radiate out from the middle to be intentional. I liked the carved marks and kept them instead of smoothing them out.

Next came time to pick a finish. I mixed up milk paint in several shades of blue and a contrasting peachy orange color. Since milk paint is comprised of more natural elements, it doesn't come in very bright colors. It does adhere to wood nicely. I also mixed some of the blue with the peach to make a purple-y color for shading.

The light color on there is paste wax residue that dried and I couldn't buff very well since it was down in the crevices. It didn't bother me too much- since when is nature neat?

I like the contrast of rough and smooth places:

The underside:

I kept the bottom dowel so it could pivot open, but removed the side one and filled in the hole with wood putty. Some kept theirs open, others glued them shut so that you could only see the interior through an opening.

I wasn't very motivated for this assignment. I found that I liked carving with wood, but I didn't care about making an alien fruit. I do like my fruit better then I thought I would, but I basically came up with a shape that I knew my teacher would like. She does this assignment year after year and I have seen several semester's worth in the display case and was never excited to make one of my own. It was a pretty boring, painful critique to have to sit through, though my fruit fared well.

The really lame part of this project was that you had to write a page about your fruit and make up it's functions, etc and also make up where this fruit came from. I came up with some hairbrained story at 1 am simply to fulfill the assignment. Having to make up stuff just seemed really juvenile, very grade school. It was also lame to have to read your story and have to listen to other students read their stories that you knew they made up last minute, too. 

Also, what do you do when classmates have really immature pieces? One girl did a mutated mushroom that came from a planet where you ate things and (and I quote) "they expand your mind." One boy did a fruit that was very obviously inspired by male genitalia and had a perverted "planet" story as well. No one took them seriously, everyone just laughed. This boy is in the art ed program, I'm kindof doubting his future teaching abilities. I'm not going to be the Censorship Police, but it was all very immature high school and I found it to be pretty lame.

I like carving- I want to carve a carousel horse now! It's not too different then this project, all you have to do is laminate a bunch of wood together in a rough horse shape, and then hack, hack away til you get a horse!

The rest of the semester will be spent constructing a table of my design, I'm excited about that.