Corner View: White

Besides causing me to hum Billy Idol's song "White Wedding" quietly to myself, this week's Corner View sent me in search of white things in my corner of the world. Here is what I found.

Clouds


The moon


A pizza box from Leonardo's


The strange free-form play house in our apartment complex's playground.


the ugly orange plastic fencing is to protect the play house from the construction workers, who are replacing all the gas pipes in our complex.



And, coincidentally, this was the week that the fraternity down the street decided to paint their lion statue white (it was purple last week).




I begin quietly singing to myself again,
"I'm dreaming of a white Corner View..."
I guess I had better head over to Spain Daily to see what white things other people found.

Costume Creation: Steampunk Airship Pirate

Even though it is not yet October, there has been lots of talk about Halloween costumes around here. Blaze has decided that he wants to be an airship pirate, so being the obsessive crafter that I am, I have been spending every spare moment planning and creating an airship pirate costume.

Blaze's favorite thing about the costume so far, is the squirt gun. I had never allowed him to have a toy gun of any kind before, but I decided a sky pirate should have a ray gun, or something of that sort, so I bought a brightly colored squirt gun for $1.49.




I then painted over it with acrylic paint. I used black, silver, and a mixture of equal parts of brown and gold paint to achieve this new look.





The Utility Vest:

Starting with an old quilted vest and a beaten-up leather purse ( both $1 at a resale shop), I combined the two to make a vest for the costume.



The purse strap became two shoulder straps and the front pockets from the purse became the breast pockets on the vest. I also removed the zipper from the vest and replaced it with large hook-and-eye style fasteners.



The side pockets from the purse are going to be used for another part of the costume.

I found some charms at Michael's craft store that were perfect for making a flight pin:





There will be more parts of this costume posted in the days to come, as I complete them. I'm working on a pair of goggles right now.

Shopping for junk

This weekend we went to two resale shops, looking for ideas for a Halloween costume for Blaze, and then we went to the largest junk dealer I have ever seen.









Nothing was marked with a price , but everything we asked about was $1.

Where's Ula?

For those of you who have been following this blog for awhile, you may remember that when this blog started, my oldest daughter, Ula, was a major character in my stories of family life and she was also a regular contributor to the comments. Although she did make a major contribution to my pirate literature entry (that being one of her favorite subjects), she has not been seen around here much, and you may be wondering what's going on in her life. Well, the official stories I've been getting are that she has been keeping quite busy with school ( this is her junior year in college), moving out of the dorm and into a shared house with friends was a good thing (except when the bathroom floods and the water runs under her bedroom wall), she is working a few more hours at her campus job this year, and that she has met a nice guy.

But... I think the picture one of her friends posted on Facebook tells the real story.




She is working towards World Domination!

I wonder what the perks are for the mother of the Empress of the Universe?

Two Color Soup

When I was a teenager my mother taught microwave cooking classes at various appliances stores and at the local community college. This way of making canned soup more exciting was one of the tricks she taught her students.

Start with a can of tomato soup and a can of cream of mushroom or cream of chicken.



This works best if you use condensed soup and use about 3/4 of the amount of milk that the can directions recommend. Heating the soup in microwave safe, glass measuring cups makes it easy to pour.

When soup is hot, pour a couple inches of one flavor of soup into a glass and set a soup bowl up-side-down on top of the glass.



Holding the glass in place, firmly against the bowl, flip the two things over, so that the bowl is right-side-up. Continue to hold the glass in place to prevent all the soup from leaking out, while the other flavor of soup is poured into the bowl around the glass. Make sure the the soup depth outside the glass matches the depth of the soup inside the glass.



Gently lift the glass out of the bowl. The two types of soup will remain separate.



So, that is how my mom always made this. Now, here is my variation. I discovered that a cookie cutter can be used instead of the glass ( I have an entire kitchen drawer filled with cookie cutters, so I'm always looking for new ways to justify having so many).

Corner View: Out the Car Window

My husband is so good about indulging my hobbies and odd requests. Like last night, when I asked him to drive me, as slowly as traffic would allow, down 34th Street, so I could take a movie of the graffiti covered wall. He not only did that, but took us out for pizza afterwards.


This is what Wikimapia has to say about the wall:

"The "34th Street Wall" is a 1,120-foot-long slab of concrete formed in 1979, which forms the western border of the University of Florida's golf course along SW 34th Street and SW 2nd Avenue in Gainesville, Florida. The wall was put into place when SW 34th Street was widened, to provide a smoother roadbed and to prevent erosion of the hill onto the road.

It is the only place in Gainesville where public graffiti is permitted; at least, The Alachua County Sheriff's Office and the Gainesville Police Department reported they have not charged anyone with "criminal mischief" for painting on the wall. Graffiti is not a big problem in town, but some people consider it an eyesore, some people say it's part of the town's character.

Artwork ranges from basic "buckets and brushes" to professional sprayers/taggers; sometimes it can be artistic, other times downright crude and profane. Typically, the nicer the work is to the community, the longer it stays in place. Memorials, celebrations, congratulations, and other statements which are made here in paint on concrete. The paint averages about three-quarters of an inch thick from the concrete surface.

The most iconic part of the wall is a tribute to the five victims of the 1990 Gainesville murders: A simple black panel with the names of the victims painted in red and white. Occasionally, if the nearby panels or if an ignorant painter covers it up, within a day or so, the "memorial" is restored to its former glory and simplicity."

Wikipedia adds:

"The wall itself is most notable for being covered with layers of graffiti up to an inch thick in some areas. Messages painted on the wall have included marriage proposals, birthday wishes, graduation announcements, celebration of athletic victories, public awareness, promotion, and tributes. Musician and Gainesville native Tom Petty once noted that among the first things he saw when returning to Gainesville for a concert was a welcome message painted on the wall. Although most of the graffiti on the wall is done by students at the university and members of the community, there is occasionally "tagging" and professional graffiti."




The host for Corner View is Jane of Spain Daily. She always has beautiful photos of her corner of the world. Then continue your tour of the world with the other blogs listed on her sidebar.

Happy First Day of Autumn !

Autumn Fire

by Robert Louis Stevenson

In the other gardens And all up the vale, From the autumn bonfires See the smoke trail! Pleasant summer over And all the summer flowers, The red fire blazes, The grey smoke towers. Sing a song of seasons! Something bright in all! Flowers in the summer, Fires in the fall! "Come said the wind to the leaves one day, Come o're the meadows and we will play. Put on your dresses scarlet and gold, For summer is gone and the days grow cold." - A Children's Song of the 1880's

Blaze and I found just enough pretty colored leaves to make an Autumn crown, which we took turns wearing, and to make two leaf pictures to hang above our nature table.

Our Autumn Nature Table:




We also read the book, The Magic School Bus, The Wild Leaf Ride

Backyard Blimp

There were two exciting things that happened yesterday. One was that the temporary fencing that had been blocking our access to the yard behind our building, where the swings are, was finally gone. The construction crew is still working in front of our building, but at least now, the children who live in this building have a place to play.



It's a bit barren looking right now, but I'm sure it won't take long for things to grow again.

The other exciting thing, was that after repeatedly listening to the song Airship Pirate for the past couple days, I walked out of the apartment to find this flying over my head:



Yesterday was another big football game for the Florida Gators Football team and the Direct TV blimp was circling overhead, taking aerial movies of the stadium.

Pirate Music

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!
For today this blog 'as been hijacked by Cap'n Grania of the pirate ship The Surly Toddler and her trusty cabin boy. We be celebrating Talk Like a Pirate day by listening to our favorite (not so) old sea shanties. Join the fun or walk the plank!







This be Blaze's favorite pirate song:


My current favorite pirate song at the moment is Airship Pirate by Abney Park. This is just the song, not a video.

Felted Fall Leaves

Blaze and I spent a couple days this week working on a little Autumn tree for our nature table. We started with a small clay flower pot that we filled with air drying clay.



Then Blaze stuck a dead tree branch into the clay, so it looked like a little tree.



We then made wet-felted Fall leaves, using some beautiful multi-color wool roving and small leaf shaped cookie cutters.



Each cookie cutter was filled with the fluffy wool and then squirted with a bit of dish soap. Then hot water was drizzled over the yarn (just enough to get it thoroughly wet, but not enough to make it float).
Blaze started out, gently poking the wool down and into all the curves and corners of the cookie cutters with a knitting needle. Then as the water cooled down and the felting started to happen, he was able to use his fingers, as well as the knitting needle, to poke at the wool.





It took about 15 minutes of rubbing and poking to get the wool to stay together in a satisfactory way. We then gently rinsed each leaf while it remained in it's cookie cutter, pressed the water out the best we could with our fingers, and carefully removed the "leaf" from the cookie cutter onto a folded towel. The "leaves" were then left to dry over night.

The next day, we used some orange embroidery floss to make loops, threaded though the "stem" of each leaf, and hung the leaves on the little tree.





While Blaze was busy making tiny wool leaves, I made three larger ones, using a bigger size cookie cutter.





The larger ones are to use as coasters.

Skip Counting

I was looking at the math book that came with the Christopherus Second Grade Curriculum and there was a page that showed a very clever, visual way to teach skip counting. It said to draw circles, with the numbers 0-9 marked around the circle. The child then draws a line to each number they count, and different designs are then made for each number they skip count by. For instance counting by 4's produces a perfect 5 cornered star.
Instead of drawing these circles over and over, I decided to make a permanent one out of wood.


The first step of this project was actually the hardest, which was marking out 10 equally spaced spots around the circle. As you can see from all the pencil marks, I had some unsuccessful first tries.


Next, using a 7/32" drill bit, drill a hole 1/4 of an inch from the circle's edge on each line.

Sand until both sides of the board are smooth and all the pencil marks are gone.

Put a drop of strong glue in each hole and insert a wooden peg in each hole.






Number the pegs from 0 to 9. This can be done with a permanent marker or with number stickers.


Tie a long piece of yarn to the "0" peg and it's ready to use.

To Use, wrap the yarn around each peg as you say the number.

Counting by ones will look like this:



Skip counting by 2's:



Skip Counting by 3's:



Skip counting by 4's:



Skip counting by 5's:





Blaze thinks this is a great toy, but not for the reason I intended. The first time he used it to count by ones, he kept going after he reached 10 and went around and round until the yarn was all gone. Then declared that he had made a wrestling ring and wanted to use it for thumb wrestling.

"One, two, three, four,
I declare a thumb war!"