Sewing Hexi Puffs

Are you sick of pictures of this project yet??  I feel like I need to work on something else for awhile, but if I do, I'm afraid this will never get done!

 Last progress picture

 Where I'm at now - that's 106 puffs all sewn together.  Somehow I thought it would be bigger than this by now :o)

 Don't they look so sweet together?!  I am also totally loving the weight of this thing.

 Some of the "special" ones - still trying to keep those somewhat near the middle.

The book I am reading.  It was recommended by one of my daughters.  Not quite sure what I think of it yet, she loved it so I will keep reading to see if I like it better as I get more into it.

Sharing over at Tami's, Ginny's, Kristine's, and Sara's.  Come take a look for more great Works In Progress!

Noon Art - Little Treasure Boxes

A new school year, a new noon art.  I organize (with the help of some amazing ladies!) noon art every other Thursday at our elementary school.

 We set up the tables - 9 of the 6 foot variety and lay out all the necessary supplies.  This year we made tablecloths to cover the tables and boy what an improvement that has been!!  Now when the glue gets all over the place, instead of having to scrub and scrub and scrub the tables, we just pull the tablecloths off, bring them home and throw them into the washing machine - easy, peasy!

 Lots of sequins, beads, markers - can't go wrong with sequins!

 Someone donated these little "specimen" containers for noon art.

 The kids loved this activity.

 Boys and girls alike - we had as many boys as girls in attendance.  That has been my goal the past two years since I started doing Noon Art -- to find projects that would appeal to both boys and girls equally and it has to be something that grades 1 through 5 can do in 20 minutes.  WHEW!!

 Lots of sparkle on this one :o)

 More than 100 kids came.  Many of them made several of the boxes - we went through about 350 of those little boxes.  It was fast and furious in Noon Art this day!

 This boy made about 12 of the boxes - he made one for all his siblings, parents and grandparents and of course the custodian - how sweet!

 If a little glue is good, more is better :o)

 We also put out left over Mardi Gras coins from a party my friend had thrown.  We absolutely did not anticipate how popular those were going to be.  One huge box of coins - GONE.

 So sweet.

 This girl thought she had "made a mistake" on hers and came to me in tears.  I asked her why she thought she made a mistake and she told me because she had glued things on the inside of the box.  I let her know that there are no mistakes in art - you can do whatever you want and it's perfect.  Then I asked her if she would like to make another and she nodded her head and got back to her art - glueing things on the insides of her boxes.

 This is one of my son's boxes.

 This is another - he loves to make 3-D stuff.

 I love the combo of pen and glue on this one.

This one is interesting - the student colored on the bottom of the box a solid color and then drew balloons on the top - you can't really tell here, but it does give a good shadow box appearance.  I tell you, these kids are fabulous!!  I love laying out supplies and seeing where their creativity will take them.

I can't wait for the next one!

Sharing at:  Fiber Arts Friday, Tami's, Creative Friday, and I've Made Friday

A Discouraging WIP

I am still working away on my placemats and things were going quite nicely when I noticed a couple of problems :o(

 Do you see it?  Up there, that little blank space with no blue lines?

 Here, let me give you a closer look.  I don't know why that happened, but for a small section, I must have woven differently, so that the white weft was above the blue warp.  AND...that's a long way to unweave...to unweave or not to unweave, that is the question.  AND, I've never unwoven and am not sure how to do it without all kinds of tangles happening!

 There is also a bigger problem that I just noticed that is throughout the ENTIRE piece.

Notice that "little" gap right there, the one where it looks like a line of warp is missing?

Well, it looks like that because there IS a line of warp missing--not missing exactly, but I skipped a dent in the reed when I was warping the loom and I didn't notice until now!!  This is the third of four placemats!  How could I have missed noticing that there is a huge gap in the weaving??!!  I walk by this loom and gaze at this piece many times a day--am I blind or something?  Just unobservant, I guess.

This is so discouraging.  I'm not sure what to do.  Finish and hope that at least some of these problems seem a little bit less after washing these, or just scrap them totally and start afresh.  For the time being, this WIP is on a complete and total TIME OUT!!

Sharing with:  Tami, Ginny, Ambassador Crochet, and Sara and Susan.

A Measly Four Puffs

That's all I got done this week - 4 measly little puffs.

I usually try to keep my blog upbeat and fun (that's how I usually am anyway), but this past week has been a little hard.  Sunday especially.  My mom went to the ER and I went with her.  She is fine, she is having a bunch of medical problems (nothing terminal - just the "stuff" that happens as you get older) and she is scared.  I brought my knitting, thinking I would get some of that done.  My mom really just wanted me to sit there and hold her hand and talk to her.  So, that is what I did.  I did manage to show her the virtues of Pinterest :o)  I think she might be now as addicted as I am to it.  We spent hours looking at things she was interested in and things she liked - easy to talk about all that.

Well, enough of that!  Mom is home and doing well.  I am tired, but fine also and the days keep marching on.

This week I want to plant some new things in my garden and work on my weaving.

Sharing at:  Gingerbread Girl, and Frontier Dreams.

Enjoying Daily Life With Kids

Our oldest turned 17.  Can you believe it??!  17 years old!  Time flies when you don't want it to!

 She wanted a plain white cake with chocolate frosting.  This is what we came up with.  4 layers of cake.  She and her friends loved it.  We had 12 of her friends over for dinner and a sleepover - boy, they had so much fun!!  I truly can't believe that next year at this time, she will be away at college.  She is a bright, thoughtful, well rounded girl and we love her to bits.

 I will still have other little monkeys at home keeping me busy :o)  10 year old daughter wanted me to put her hair in "many" braids.  This is what she wound up with - the best I could do.

 Several braids braided together.  I thought it looked nice.

 Obviously she did too!!  We left it in for a couple of days and her hair was super wavy when we finally took it out. 

 Someone lost a tooth.......

Don't mess with this boy and his dust buster!  He's good with it too!

Sharing over at Mindful Mothering