Ordinary Time

One of my constant purchases at the thrift store is glassware. We never seem to have enough glasses... first, they break, and then everyone uses multiple glasses throughout the day so that by the time dinner rolls around the cupboard is empty. There is not a glass to be seen. And when you are trying to pour 12+ glasses of milk or water, that's a problem. My solution was to continue to buy more and more 25 cent glasses, though that only seemed to provide more single drinks for the masses during the day. A. came up with a much, much better solution. See? She created glass place mats which sit on the kitchen table during the day. She took pieces of regular paper, drew on circles, wrote each person's name, and then laminated them. Now, if someone takes a glass out of the cupboard, or a cup out of the drawer, they set it on their circle and use it throughout the day. And it's worked! I still find an unclaimed glass now and then, but very few, so there are still glasses...

Yesterday was the moon festival which is celebrated in both China and Vietnam. It's handy for us that there are similarities between the major holidays of the two countries. As I had mentioned before, we were going to set about making our own paper lanterns this year. They turned out pretty well and were fairly easy, so I thought I would share how we did it. The first thing you need is some paper. I went to the paper store (a really nice, but pricey affair which I rarely go into for that reason) and found some thin, nice paper that we could use. I first picked some really beautiful papers with Asian designs, but put them right back after I looked at the $10 per sheet price tag. Here is what I ended up with. The next step is to make your lantern base. We used both heavy paper plates and chip board boxes (like cereal boxes). You can see the thermos in the picture that I used to make the pattern. Either find something with a nice size or make a 5-1/2 inch diameter circle. ...

Summer starting to drag?  Need some new activities to keep people busy?  What you need is my daughter A. to come up with new things to do.  But, since I am rather fond of her and not willing to share, I'll give you the next best thing:  instructions for how to do this cool thing yourself. We went to a street fair a few weeks ago and one of the entertainers was making enormous bubbles in a park.  A. evidently paid very close attention to how it was done (far better attention than me) and was able to recreate the technique at home yesterday. It's actually very simple to make these very large bubbles: This is G.,  and how cool is this picture? To do this yourself, you need two dowels (or some type of long stick), some yarn or string, and a small carabiner (I'm pretty sure some metal washers would work as well).  Cut the yarn into two lengths.  The shorter one (perhaps about a yard long) and tie each end to the dowe...

( Sorry, the contest is now closed .... though you're welcome to leave a comment if you like.) [This picture has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but is here solely to give Blogger a different photo to post in the thumbnail.] It's Sew, Mama, Sew Giveaway time again.  I love bias tape.  It is so useful and so easy to use... finishing edges ... finishing seams ...  And while the pre-packaged stuff has it's place and I use it often, I really like to have patterned bias tape as well.  Enter one of my favorite little tools: the bias tape maker.  This one make 3/4 inch bias tape and I will be giving one away at the end of this post.  But first, I thought some of you might like to see what it does if you've never used one before. I don't have a rotary cutter, nice cutting mats, or even a proper cutting table (I cut-out things on my floor), so if I can do this, so can you.  Here is my admittedly quirky method. Step 1:  Lay out the fabric an...

[Go here for my Sew, Mama, Sew! giveaway.] I've been spending my days working with miles of flannel which means I end up surrounded by piles of flannel scraps.  While I sew, I ponder what I can do with all the scraps.  Then I remembered about the stuffed fabric wreaths that my mother and I made one year as a fundraiser.  They were cute, but large and involved much turning of long fabric tubes and then much stuffing of the tubes.  So I came up with a miniature version which does not involve stuffing and has an easy way to turn the little, tiny tubes.  Here it is: It's hard to judge scale, but this little wreath is barely 2 inches in diameter.  I will probably use it as a Christmas ornament, though it would also look pretty cute on top of a package. How do you make it?  It's pretty easy.  First you need to cut three strips of fabric, approximately 8 inches long and 1 inch wide.  I used flannel, but you could use anything.  I would b...