Crafty Friday: Procrastination

So here’s my to-do list:

1. Make the kid’s Halloween costumes before the 31st.

2. Finish painting furniture for studio.

3. Do Crafty Friday project with kids.

4. Prime, paint, and install Audrie’s shelves for her window seat.

5. Make slipcovers for my ugly chairs.

6. Clean house.

7. Cook a meal or two.

8. Bathe.

Here’s what I worked on instead:

It’s hard to carve out time to paint with the hectic schedule of our weeks, and when I go too long without painting or creating something, I go through withdrawals. The past couple of days I had a major painting headache and the shakes [withdrawal symptoms], so I decided to forgo my to-do list and just create.

I didn’t completely forget about Crafty Friday, though. I planned to make masks in my art class today, so if you want, you can join us in doing so. Here’s the template I used for the project:

You can decorate the masks however you want, but remember, the dotted lines are where to cut, so don’t decorate inside the eyes.

Once the mask is all decorated, cut it out, the eyes out, and cut the four slits. Then, overlap one side of the slit over the other and secure it with tape. Continue this with the rest of the slits. This will give the mask some shape. Lastly, punch two holes on either side of the mask, and tie a piece of yarn or ribbon to each hole. You can now wear the mask and scare your friends.

Now I have to figure out how to make a dragon and Wolverine costume before Sunday. Wish me luck.

Happy procrastinating…er…crafting!

nessa dee

IF: Racing

Racing to the moon.

xo

nessa dee

Shirt Problem

Finn dressed himself, as he always does, but this particular morning, he had a slight wardrobe malfunction. When I finally discovered the malfunction, I had to document it, as a good mom should. However, the subject didn’t like the fact that I was trying to photograph his mistake.

He ran away…

and up the playscape.

Then I went around the corner and waited.

He came back.

Then he spotted me and ran away, again.

Again, I went around the corner and waited.

He returned once more and pleaded.

“Please stop taking pictures of me,” he requested.

“Can I take one picture of the back of your shirt? I’ll stop after that,” I replied.

“Okay”

Then I fixed his shirt problem. And he was happy. And I was happy. And all was right with the world.

The end.

nessa dee

Pumpkin Patch

With all the craziness in our life right now, I’ve almost forgotten that we have a holiday fast approaching. I still haven’t made my kids costumes, I’ve eaten all the candy I bought on Friday, and themed craft projects have flown right out the window. We did, however, manage to make it to a pumpkin patch, thanks to my mom who asked us for help in carving a pumpkin. It was 5:30 PM, I hadn’t yet taken my morning shower, but I figured my frightful appearance would seem intentional given the upcoming spookfest.

This particular patch was at the Methodist church in Taylor, TX [if anyone’s interested], and they had quite a variety of beautiful and unusual pumpkins. The kids ran around like crazy people, picking up and examining each pumpkin, and I ran after them like a really crazy [and scary-looking] person snapping their picture.

I told them to pick out some unusual looking pumpkins since we can’t get those just anywhere. Finn was the first to snatch his up. He chose a beautiful blue-grey pumpkin to take home.

Audrie had a much harder time picking the perfect pumpkin. She couldn’t choose between the variety of rainbow colored pumpkins and red gnarly ones. There was also the butt pumpkin, who made its way into the final round of pumpkin picks because, well, it looked like a butt …

She eventually settled on a red knotty pumpkin.

And then I picked out a couple of pumpkins for myself. I chose the large, freckled, hairy pumpkins which already had silly faces carved on them.

I plan on setting these two pumpkins by front door to scare any trick-or-treaters away since I already ate and thoroughly enjoyed all of our Halloween candy.

xo

nessa dee

Crafty Friday: Macaroni Mosaics

I have to apologize for the completely unoriginal, repeat craft project today. I haven’t had much sleep lately, my brain is mush. I should have taken a nap with Finn on the hospital bed while I had the chance.

One of our very first Crafty Friday projects was bean mosaics. Well, this time we’ve upgraded. Not only do we have 15 bean soup, but we have an array of pasta pieces to make our project exciting.

That’s not a very good angle. Here’s a better view:

Please don’t ask me how many pictures I took of this pasta. It’s a ridiculous number.

Now all you need is paper and liquid glue. I’d recommend a sturdy paper like cardstock because our flimsy stuff didn’t hold the weight of the pasta too well.

You can have your kids draw a picture, our copy a coloring page from somewhere and fill in the picture with food as I exhibited here. OR, if your kids aren’t as patient, they can just start globbing glue and sticking macaroni on the paper. Here’s the picture of my kid working to make this post more exciting:

When all is said and done, you have a beautiful piece of food art!

“Map” by Finn:

“Stagecoach” by Audrie:

If you want to add a little more excitement to the craft, you can dye the pasta pieces in fun colors before you make the mosaics. I would have done this had I had the time. Here’s a great link that shows you how: How to dye pasta

I’m going to tackle the rest of my day in a zombie-like state. Fitting for Halloween.

Happy Crafting!

nessa dee

The children’s nuseum

No, that’s not a typo. That’s another Finnanigan. To let my dad get some much needed rest in the hospital, we as in my aunt, cousin, her kids [Heath and Jacqueline], my brother, Audrie, Finn and I walked the couple of blocks to the children’s museum to let the kids run off some energy. The kids were mesmerized, and there have been several requests since to add some of these elements to our game room. We’ll see.

I honestly don’t know who had more fun in the museum, the kids or my brother. He’s in just about every picture at each station, playing right alongside the kids. He told me it was the best $6 I ever spent on him. I agree.

[Heath: our manual luggage conveyor belt]

I spent a lot of my time staring at this sweet little face:

This is baby Jacqueline, one of our newest additions to the family. She’s so sweet, so happy, and oh so squeezable. I wanted to sneak her in my purse and take her home with me.

After a bit of time at the museum, we decided to break for lunch, but the excitement didn’t end once we left the building. We saw a fire truck:

had horsey rides provided by Uncle Van at the restaurant:

and rode the hospital bed up and down:

instigated by none other than the guy in the black shirt:

After a while at the hospital [in lockdown thanks to a fire on the floor below us], we took the kids back to the museum for a little more playtime.

The grocery store was my favorite part. It was an entire store, miniaturized for kids. It had real scanners to scan your food at checkout and showed how much you owe for your groceries. So cool.

After about 8 baskets full of groceries and a huge grocery bill, we left the museum [only because it closed, otherwise we would have stayed there all night].

Heath held Ornery [as he calls Audrie] in a death grip hug the whole walk back to the hospital.

Then, the kids took a few more bed rides.

I took a few more pictures of this cutie pie:

And we called it a day.

Now, there are constant questions as to when we are going back to the nuseum with Little Heath, and when can we get a full sized airplane, giant chessboard, trolley and fully stocked grocery store in our game room. There’s your Christmas list grandparents!

xo

nessa dee