Clouds

When I woke up this morning there was not a cloud in the sky. That I could see. Outside of my living room window. And that was all the incentive I needed to use this picture.

Can you believe I took this with my decrepit cell phone?

Sometimes it does alright.

And I have to confess, I actually took this in March... of last year, but when I saw that the photo for today was clouds it was the first thing that came to mind.

Perspective. Here's a picture of Logan that I took that same week.

Aw, what a precious little baldy boy. I love babies in these soft little sleepers. So squishy and cute, like a little stuffed animal.

Anyway, there you go.
Clouds. Check.

What you wore today

Oh boy.

These outfit posts always make me a little uncomfortable. It seems like just when I think I look good, I'll see a picture of myself and... no. 

But, I'm nothing if not obedient (to this challenge) so here goes.

 TWO good hair days in a row! I can't even believe it. 

Oh, I know! I'll move the mirror and sit on the bed and it'll be so cute and I can take the mirror all different places and do all these fun things and try new stuff and...

Oh. Hello there.

Never mind about that whole taking lots of pictures thing. I forgot it wasn't nap time.

Noted - Mom: showered, dressed, hair done, make-up on, looking good. Child: in mismatched pajamas, face dirty, hair unbrushed, diaper full?

And thus the photoshoot concludes.

In case you really wanted to know: Shirt, scarf - forever 21; Jeans - Old Navy; Shoes - Target; Child - Womb.

Um, NOT a pregnancy announcement. Just referring to whence Logan came.

Self portrait

Last night while I was at mutual Tyson made Logan laugh so hard that he threw up. So Logan really does like Tyson better than me. It's cool, I can handle it. To ease my heart Tyson did tell me that while he was rocking him before bed Logan stared at the door saying "mom? mom? mom?" for about five minutes straight.

So on to the real reason I'm blogging today. Uh... I'm doing another challenge for myself. My friend Kelly found this idea on pinterest (oh yes, I did just bring that up again, are you sick of hearing about it yet?) and I though it sounded fun. 

It's a 30 day photography challenge from White Peach Photography.

Now, I'm not trying to be a real photographer by any means, but I am always looking for things to blog about and it would be nice for me to actually be worthy of the equipment we have. 

I actually used our "real" camera (still on auto, I'm working on that) and Pioneer Woman's seventies action in Photoshop. Baby steps, baby steps.

I think I would have looked good in the seventies.

I love photos. They can do such a great job disguising the chaos that could be happening right next to you. For example, while I took this picture there was "momMomma!Pizza!Milk!Light!carsmomOUTSIDE!water?Water?WATER!!??" happening right next to me. 

I have to admit in spite of my recent complaints (which I feel kinda bad about) he really has been pretty charming lately. He has started singing to himself and copying what I sing as we go around the house. You know I love that. And he is so precious when he puts his little hands on my cheeks and says "Mama" in this voice full of love. So sweet!

I'll keep him still.

So anyway, that was day one, the self portrait. Hopefully I can come up with more interesting things to say about the rest of the pictures or this could be a loooong challenge. 

Love you all!

The Terrible Twos are on their way

Let's talk about this kid for a minute.

Even though he's not quite two yet, he is sure working on fulfilling the stereotype. Clearly one of his older friends slipped him a copy of How to Lose Friends and Alienate Your Mother: The Two-Year-Old's Social Guide because he has really been on one lately.

Take this morning for example.

Well, let's back up.

Last week Logan woke up early enough to see Tyson before he goes to work. And Tyson would usually get him out of his crib and start his breakfast since he's up anyway (it goes without saying that I was not up yet - Tyson leaves for work at 7 people!). I would eventually meet them downstairs and start the day with them, puffy eyes and all.

Well this week Logan has been waking up after Tyson is already gone. Like 7:01 when the garage door opens (master planning right there putting the baby's room above the garage) and he is mad when I show up to get him out of his crib.

So mad that he would rather stay in his crib than have the likes of me getting him out. Usually I pretend to leave and that makes him panic and then he'll let me pick him up.

Not today.

Today he did his usual scream and back away trick when I approached so I left the room. And he didn't care. No screaming or crying. So I went back in and tried to pick him up again. Fail.

At that point there was nothing to do but go downstairs, have some s'more cups for breakfast (you would do it too if they were sitting on your counter from your latest batch and there was no one around to beg them off you) and see if my blog made another 30 cents.

Oh sure I tried going upstairs every once in a while to get him out, usually when he would start to cry but with no luck. I even pulled him out of the crib once and set him on the floor but he went running back and clutched at the bars. So I put him back in and went downstairs again.

I even cleaned a toilet in between attempts.

I even did my clown-like version of if you're happy and you know it stomp your feet. He joined in on the foot stomping but he was not happy.

I even offered cars, movies, and cereal as a bribe.

Eventually, an hour later, he decided I was worthy/dad wasn't coming and reluctantly allowed me to carry him downstairs, serve him the breakfast of his choice, and put on the movie of his choice.

Lucky me.

Logan's all about equal parental mistreatment though. At bedtime he only wants me around. Too bad it's Tyson's turn for bath tonight.

Lucky Tyson.

Pinterest Bonus round!

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Unsimple Living

My friend Kelly showed me this on her pinterest and I linked it immediately because I HAD TO HAVE IT.

I wanted it in the playroom I'm creating for Logan, stat.

I used the advice from Unsimple Living and grabbed a box of 64 crayons plus a box of 24 crayons so I could sub out the blacks, grays, and browns. I wanted this art to be all bright colors baby!

I wasn't sure what size canvas to buy so I got one that was 24" by 30". For that size I would recommend buying more crayons than what I had. Mine didn't end up going as close to the edge of the canvas as I wanted but I was ready to craft so minor details like not enough supplies wasn't going to stop me.

I started by laying out the crayons in the order I wanted them, and then hot glued them with high heat across the canvas.

 Um, can you guess what brand I used?

I did this during craft day and although this was the easy part we were holding our breath like I was performing brain surgery.

After I got them glued down I set the canvas outside in the sun to try and soften the crayons a little bit. 

Once they started to sweat I got my blow drier out and used the lowest speed with the hottest temperature to melt the crayons.

I could not even believe how fast it started to work. Within seconds the crayon started to drip down the canvas. 

Wahoo! I would have started dancing if I didn't need to keep melting crayons.

Once the melting began it went fast. Wax was pouring out of some of these paper tubes. 

Don't you love these colors? I love them! Love the colors! Love the blow drier! Love the world!!!

It was around here that I had the unfortunate incident of bumping the melted wax with the end of the blow drier. CURSES! Thank goodness all it took to fix that little dent was 2 more seconds of hot air.

But then that blob of pinky/purple crayon dripped off the end of my blow drier into the green area.

CURSES!

AND JUST WHEN THINGS WERE GOING SO WELL.

Always quit while you're ahead, friends. Just do it.

So I hoped for the best and scraped off the suicidal crayon then painted over the mark it left with a bit of white paint.

You can't even tell, can you?

Rah Rah sis-boom-bah. I'm not even sure why I loved this project so much (other than that it's awesome) but I do. I totally have plans to make a couple smaller melty crayon canvases so I can have a collection on the wall. And I'll need frames for them all. And of course I'll need to actually hang them.

Why is that always the hardest part?

This room is gonna be so awesome when I'm done that I'm not even gonna let Logan play in it.

True story. 

It will be a shrine to me and my craftiness. 

The skinny: Well, if you haven't figured it out yet I loved this project. If you do it be sure to have your blow drier on its lowest setting otherwise the crayon will splatter. Unless that's the look you're going for of course. This is also another great way to get inexpensive wall art. I think the whole thing cost me about $17. 

Well that officially wraps up pinterest week. Whew! I have to say it was pretty fun though, and I will probably take the suggestions of others and do a tutorial on something once a week. It just won't always be pinterest. I already have more projects in mind for the playroom... 

:)

Pinterest 7: Toilet paper roll art

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Suzy's Artsy Craftsy Sitcom

Oooohhhhh myyyyyy GOODNESS this one took forever!

Man.

I've even made toilet paper wall art before, you'd think I would learned my lesson. There it is, in a bathroom. It seemed appropriate at the time. 

That one too forever too, mostly because I was dumb and painted it by hand with a junky paintbrush after I had glued it all together. There are a lot of nooks and crannies in those things, let me tell you. 

But I wanted something fancier. And as close to free as possible so I bought a few skinny sticks of balsa wood at the craft store and gathered up all the paper towel and toilet paper rolls that I had been stashing in preparation for this. 

I used the balsa as the frame for my art, cutting it with a craft knife thing.

 Then, for the curly parts I cut the toilet paper roll once lengthwise and then cut strips roughly the same depth as the wood width wise. For the straight pieces I cut a paper towel roll into strips length wise and for the pointy ended oval shape I pressed a toilet paper roll flat and cut strips width wise without cutting length wise first. 

Oh gosh. That seemed really confusing.

But... I guess I'm just going to leave it? Go see what Suzy did if you're confused. I think she explained it better. Or you could always ask me of course. No shame in that, we're all friends here. 

Anyway, then I came to the really hard part. 

Coming up with a design.

 I didn't want to copy anyone else's work so I was trying to come up with my own look that wasn't totally lame. 

That was the part that took the longest if I'm being honest. Sometimes the ideas do not flow. 

 But things eventually started to come together and a short million hours later I was about done and hadn't taken any more pictures.

Sorry about that.

By the way, I had plans to use a tacky glue but after 30 seconds I realized I wasn't going to be patient enough to wait for it to dry. So I busted out the glue gun and went with the finger burning method instead. I do think that if you have the patience a different glue would probably hold it better. My project hasn't fallen apart yet but I used hot glue on the ones in the bathroom and I had to re-glue some spots before I even hung them up.

However you choose to do it, eventually you'll be ready to paint.

I used an oil rubbed bronze spray paint that I had heard other bloggers raving about. Plus it was on sale, so yeah, that made it my first choice. 

Da dada da da daaaaaaaaaaaa! Picture me singing that in a triumphant way.

If you try and take a picture, or even look at this straight on, it creates an optical illusion that makes you feel like you have 20/200 vision (bad).

Guess that would be why you always see pictures of this stuff from the side.

 So if you make this I guess I would recommend putting it in a hallway or a place where people can't stand back and take a good look at it head on.

The skinny: If you want to try this I say go for it. But just know that it will take forever and when it's finished it will feel lighter than air and you will be able to crush it with your bare hands. Possibly by accident. Very fragile stuff here. 

It is a nice way to create an original piece of art for your home though, and I am always up for that. I was also surprised that it turned out this well because precision isn't really my thing and this seemed like the kind of project I would need math for. I would recommend using a ruled mat to work on. It helps make sure you do things evenly without have to whip out your ruler every five seconds.

And we're done with pinterest week!

Or are we...?

Pinterest 6: The magical powers of dryer sheets

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Under the Table and Dreaming

I love this blog. She is full of great ideas that I am continuously being inspired by. On Tuesdays she does The Tuesday 10 where she highlights tons of clever ideas. Like 10 uses for dryer sheets besides putting them in the dryer. 

One of those ideas was using a damp used sheet for cleaning soap scum off your shower. 

Here's where I have a confession to make. 

I am not a great housewife. 

I like to have a clean house and I do try to keep it clean, but there are some things that I really REALLY hate cleaning. 

Like the shower. 

I would like to apologize to the world for allowing this to exist. 

These are the times I am grateful that Tyson is blind without his contacts. And that he doesn't wear them while he showers.

So, in accordance with the website, I used my dryer sheet to scrub the shower doors.

 Well this is boring.

And not user friendly. It was kinda like cleaning a glass with a wet piece of paper. It did start spreading a film of something all over that was maybe the soap scum coming off? That's the optimistic point of view anyway. When I was done I sprayed the door with water and wiped it with a microfiber towel.

In order to know if it worked any better than regular cleaner I thought I'd do a comparison with what I usually use, Clubbing Troubles (not its real name), so I cleaned one door with the sheet and one with the cleaner.

There was a difference. 

By the way I totally used one of Tyson's socks from the laundry basket (okay fine, FINE it was on the floor) to wipe dust off the baseboard before I took this picture.

Maybe it was because I didn't use Pounce (the most magical of all dryer sheets, perhaps weaved with unicorn hair?(also not its real name)) but I wasn't impressed.

Clubbing Troubles was the champ by a mile.

And did I clean the rest of the bathroom once I cleaned the doors (door)? No.
Did I even clean the rest of the shower? No. Terrible!

Stop me before I tell you how often I wash our sheets.

But at least the blog lives on.

Only one more day of the challenge. Sad!