Snaps & Blabs » Homemade

Jackess of all trades

Snapping Blabber — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 18:10:29 +0000

With titles like that its no wonder I am not getting any traffic thanks to SEO (search engine optimization).

Its the truth though, I will attempt just about anything. You wont find me hiding in a corner, biting my fingers about how I will be terrible at something. I may very well be terrible at it, but I will at least give it a go and find out for myself. Call me a skeptic, thats me.

So awhile ago when Mr.Blab jokingly asked me to cut his hair, cause he was too lazy to go to the hairdresser, I said „Sure, dude, have a seat and hand me those meat scissors over there”. I said it jokingly too, but he turned out to be even crazier than me, because he handed his mane to my completely lost for words hands and the rest is history.

I have had my hair cut, I have watched other people do it, many times; I knew the proper technique to hold the hair, and who doesnt know how to use scissors?! It cant be that hard. And the truth is that even after I was done with him, he was safe for public viewing and didnt miss a day off work, to both of our surprise.

I still have no clear idea what I am doing when I grab the scissors, which now are proper hair-cutting ones and I even have thinning blades to complete my professional tool set.

Yours truly is now the official family hairdresser, which not only makes my man unappealing to other females, but also saves us not a negligible amount of money. (The kids get good doos, because of the blood connection)

My problem is that after every time I cut Mr.Blab’s hair, I forget how hard it is and next time he asks me, which is usually right before he looks like Big Foot, I agree to do it. And as soon as I stand there with my comb and scissors and try to moisten that mountain of hair, I feel half of my life run past me. The dread overcomes me, because ladies and gentlemen, he has way too much hair; I am certain, in fact, that he is the reason so many other men are bаld around the world.

I snap with the scissors and nothing seems to change. I have no idea what I am doing is what comes out of my mouth every once in a while with a nervous laugh. Its ok, as long as I have some hair — calmly responds my client and we usually laugh a lot. He pretends to be scared sometimes and is not appreciative of my assistant/s, which might be spraying him with a bottle or piling his cut hair on his pants, for example — what is this place?!

Oh, no worry, mistur, its all in bill…oups, that your ear?

By the end of it, my hands are falling off, and I am sure I patch up the last bits barely, barely. But he is always happy, bless his lazy heart.

Dodman, approved my work too.

And that is all that matters sometimes.

And then he is put to work.

I wonder who can make a blanket from all of that cut hair.

Or two.

No related posts.

From a scarf to a bag

Snapping Blabber — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 10:00:56 +0000

Here is another idea for you. Make a bag from a lovely woolen scarf. How? Follow these directions.

1. Go to the local op-shop and find a beautiful long woolen scarf.

2. Pay the $2

3. Leave the scarf in the laundry, so you dont forget to wash it, before letting the kids wear it.

4. Get yourselves a Mr.Blab (dont skip this step!) and let the said person loose around your house.

5. (this step is automatic, so dont worry about it) Mr.Blab will need to do some whites and will grab the scarf and chuck it in with the rest of the stuff, thus felting it.

6. It will take you a few minutes to figure out what in the world is the stiff woolen rectangle on the drying line.

7. Laugh.

8. Now you can dispose of your copy of Mr.Blab.

9. Toss around the piece of what looks like unusable use-to-be-scarf. Looks nice, but what can you do with it? Fold here, fold there — a hat, a collar, a weird short vest…a bag?!

10. Crochet handle out of wool and felt it.

11. Stitch the sides of the bag. Sew a button and cut a hole for it.

12. Put a bar of chocolate and a book in it, wrap it and give it as a gift.

___

As I always try to remind the kids, mistakes can often turn into great things.
All it takes is for us to look for them.

Garbage plus paint sample cards equals what?

Snapping Blabber — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:11:21 +0000

Furniture of course!

I have told you before of Mr.Blab’s eager curbside collecting lately (here there is tradition to put any junk you want to get rid of on the curb in front of your house for others to pick up for free). I have a whole reclining chair waiting for me to fix with my non existing reupholstering skills. Its still waiting for a spark of creativity to hit me, or just a little free time to force me to tackle it. Whichever comes first.

Another piece that was waiting in the garage was a bookcase he brought home months ago. I must say it got a lukewarm reception from yours truly. It was wonky, old, dented, puttied in places and had water damage on the back piece. I kind of shrug my shoulders at it and it was destined to the waiting line. Truth me told, I didnt think anything will come out of it and I had mentally thrown it in the next skip bin.

And then something happened. Mr.Blab brought it out one sunny day and requested we do something with it.

„What do we do with it?” — he said.

There went my garbage chucking plans. Something had to be done with it. And if I didnt add in my input, he will do ‘something’ with it and that something might end up in the house. I better get on with the program…

As the wood was not nice, we decided to sand it and paint it.

Enthusiastic child labor was not hard to find:

Then my input was needed. My creative juices were necessary to moisten the deal, you see.

„You are the creative one” — Mr.Blab would say. If that doesnt seem to work on me, he would shrug his shoulders and add — „I can do it, but do you really want me to?”

What to do with the bloody ugly bookcase that just wont go away? Ideas started coming, options, colors…and then I made an executive decision (why do people love this saying anyway?) — we will paint it white and have some graphic paper cover the back. Maybe even wallpaper. Yeah. Wallpaper.

Then I was off to the hardware store to get the paint so we can continue our productive streak. And then it hit my amateurish self how expensive paints are! For a tiny little can I had to pay almost $30. Now, that will be fine, if we were not going to slather it on top of curbside garbage. Then I realized that it will just about kill me to pay another $20 or so to buy the fancy paper. I was biting my lip and walking to the paint swatch panels to choose the white I was going to go with and then it hit me. The beauty of the swatches. I have used them before for party decorations, if you remember Dodman’s first birthday. But now I had an even grander idea. Better yet, cheaper. In fact free!

So I started picking them little colorful swatch cards. It takes time to pick a lot. I am sure people were watching me — methodically picking row after row. But I could care less. When I had a big ole pile of them I put them carefully in my bag and went to buy the warm white can of paint. Now much happier to do so.

Painting commenced.

Later on I realised that my novice self should have looked further and picked a better paint, as the one I got needed close to 2 weeks of open air offgassing (my word) before it can be allowed to enter the house.

Dont do the same mistake as me. Buy low VOC paint. K?

I also purchased new backing, as the old one was indeed water damaged and now we had high hopes for the project. Do you know how hard it is to cut MDF with a bread knife? It had to be cut to size before I start gluing the cards to it. We didnt have the tools, so I suggested the bread knife. It worked, but I will lie if I said we didnt laugh at ourselves while sawing through the sheets in the backyard. It was hard work, so one would use the knife, while the other had to provide support for the violently flapping about material.

Then it was my turn. I had enough cards to play with. My original idea was to just use the ready made pattern — from blues to pinks, saturated to desaturated colors. It had a nice appealing look to it. But once I set them up, I thought they are not bright enough. I was thinking of something more graphic, stronger, funner.

I tried little area with another idea and after playing with it for two nights I settled on a pattern.

Then it was time for the gluing part. I made a little trial on the offcuts of the mdf and had a plan. The newly glued pieces needed uniform pressure on top to make sure they stay flat and nice to the surface.

So I whipped out the weights and the process went like that after I had measured and lined up the board:

Brush glue on the surface. Position swatch card. Cover with board and weigh down with weights.
Brush glue on the next spot. Position swatch card. Move board with weights to the left to cover the new swatch as well.

And so on and so on, from left to right. From top to bottom.

It took 3 hours to finish the whole backing.

After it was done, I used a varnish to cover the cards to prevent them from being scratched by the books. In the end I used the whole jar in three goes.

After all was dried, offgassed and nailed together we had a most wonderful little bookcase.

Invoice:

Bookcase — free
Paint — $28 (we used less than half)
Swatches — free
Glue — $5 (I had the glue already)
Varnish — $10.50
New backing — $9
_______________
Total: $52.50

I say, not bad. Especially for complete novices in the field of home/furniture renovations.

And it goes perfectly with the pillow covers I had sewn for the comfy reading area in the kids room.

I like the color names on the swatches. I have heard Miss Fab reading them out loud the other day

The kids have given it the big stamp of approval and now we have space for the extra books that could not be fit anywhere and would end up piling on the floor.

And I stand corrected. I guess nothing is quite as horrid and hopeless as we may think.

Now if I can only apply this thinking to the chair that is waiting out there in the cold.

If only.

Party with Japanese flavor

Snapping Blabber — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:22:02 +0000

I am alive and the celebrations are over and now I am officially a mother of a preteen. Tween? Is that the new word?

In the midst of preparations for every birthday party I wonder why I am putting myself through this, but seeing the little ones excited and so happy does make it worthwhile, even though I can really appreciate it afterwords. After a nice long sleep to rest the tired eyes and body. And its not like I do anything huge or extra special.

Back to the important bits for those of you who have been waiting.

The day started early on with Miss Fab getting the presents from us. The new digital camera went quickly on the charge to be ready for the party and then it was time to open the pile of cards and gifts from the rest of the family. Some of them have been sitting and waiting for months.

Handmade card by my aunt. Drawn on silk.

Little gifts from grandma and auntie and more cards.

Then it was time for last minute preparations and getting ready. Both girls have gone with street fashions for their dress ups. Miss Fab and I made a bunch of trips to the op shops and had a few outfits ready for her to choose from. While Little B got to wear the wonderful baby doll dress her grandma had sent years ago for her big sister. Pony tails, red cheeks and Cons completed the look.

I repaired a short kimono I had bought years ago for myself and Mr.Blab stole the show with a kimono type flowery robe on top of which I tied one of my slings on his waist then a made a lovely pony tail on top of his head and he finished the look with a wonderful facial hair shaving job — Fu Manchu style. I think I laughed every time he passed me.

The guests didn’t disappoint either. The girls had mostly gone with Tokyo street fashions too, although we had one traditional look for a good mix.

The boys didnt get left behind either — footwear, headwear, hairstyles were all in order and I have to say they were all one smashing looking group of kids. And according to the parents they all had great fun dressing up and most of them did it all by themselves after careful researching on the net. Gotta love home schooled kiddos

I had great plans for decorations and piles of paper to work with , but alas never got to it. Instead I quickly did a few things last moment, like the lanterns hanging from the lamps.

And then I got in the kitchen and thats pretty much where I could be found for the next 4–5 hours.

First on the menu were Japanese style noodles.

Then while the kids were having fun, doing their own thing…

I made the sushi.

Do you have any clue how hard it was to find flying fish roe (tobiko)?
Or more precisely a small amount of it?

Not very.

Gifts were opened and I can safely say all were wonderfully thoughtful and useful.
She will be doing lots of origami for sure

And then it was time for the cake.

I usually surprise the kids with it just before the candles go on it. This time the cake was out for all to see and admire as is done at weddings. So much sweat went into it that I wanted to make it worthwhile. For me, people, for me. I am a human too.

When I got it out, Miss Fab was lost for words and started jumping about and I got a breath stopping hug.

Thats all that I needed and I knew my job was well done.

The idea for the cake came to me out of the blue. The way most ideas come to me. Hey, look at that tree..lovely leaves…hey, why dont I make a temple cake for the birthday!…

And since my cake decorating skills are very very basic, my knowledge too, its not surprising that the execution of my „wonderful idea” was a bit painful. There was a lot of propping, praying to the good spirits or whomever may be listening, deep breathing, crossing fingers and most of all winging it. I had no plan, I had no clue and took it one step at a time.

I think from now on I will stick to normal cakes with frosting decorations and leave novelty cakes to others. Yup, sounds like a good idea and please remind me of it if you ever hear me saying „I have a wonderful idea for the cake!”.

The important bit is that the final result, no matter how wonky, was a success.

One of the boys said to his mom that she should ask me for some pointers and another kid exclaimed that this was the best cake EVER!

Hahahaha!

„Double Decker” pieces went to all the kids and all the plates came back empty.

PHEW!

And before everyone knew it, the five hour party was over.

Miss Fab gave out the party bags.

I hate the party favors we get — pile of cheap lollies and crap.

I cant bring myself to do that, so this year I made up bags — hand drew in Japanese symbols „Thank You” and I sincerely hope its just a bad handwriting and I didnt manage to screw it up too much so it says something obscene. In the bag went a box of dark chocolate Lindt squares, two hand made bean bags filled with azuki beans (ojama) as done traditionally in Japan for their otedama games; and a selection of patterns for making paper toys, another Japanese born and loved art.

And then we send off our guests..

Mr.Blab deserves a special mention, because he was my incredible helper. I had given him the cleaning job before and after the party and he did a wonderful, no, perfect job. I didnt have to worry even a bit about his part of the prep and after the party I needed a quick nap and he cleaned up and there was not a sign of a dirty dish or mess left over when I woke up.

Thank you, my wonderful man!

Miss Fab was happy.

And older.

And there was not much cake left over, so we took care of that.

And we had a good long sleep.

The best kind — when one is tired and with a smile on their face.