Chicken Butt

WTF is up with sudden spam?

I'm buried in comment notifications the last couple days. All of it spam. Maybe if I post something it will stop? 

Nothing exciting going on. So I'll just share that I've started practicing my Ukulele again. I bought it a few years ago as a birthday present and then put it away after a brief period of practicing. A friend borrowed it to see if she really wanted one and would practice. She bought her own and when I fetched my own back we played and sang duets for about an hour. It was lovely. So lovely that I want to do it again, but with more competence on my part. So I've been practicing every day for about a week now. My finger tips on my left hand are sore and sort of tingle-y numb at the same time. Like the pins and needles of a limb with blood returning. I'm very aware of my fingers as I type this. Not sure how I'll manage the four finger chords, that is one of the things that discouraged me before. My left pinky tip was ripped off when I was two-years-old. It is shorter than usual and fleshy with no nail. It was a problem with playing the cello and guitar too. But if seems like Uke strings are even closer together. My pinky smooshes out and deadens the neighboring strings unless I manage to get into perfect position, which is often painful. I may have to use some sort of thimble.

I am having fun practicing though.

Tax Day or Where is that F'n form?

I have a 5pm Appointment with my guy at H&R Block. I spent all my time between meetings today hunting for some missing tax documents. Though I found my missing property tax bill from last year, I could not find this year's form. Luckily most forms can be found online these days. I searched the physical and virtual today before resorting to calling the companies. Turns out there are none for 2011; not enough interest to require a form. I think they should send a notice that says, "You are not receiving a 1099 this year, even though you did get one last year." Like a "This page intentionally left blank" notice.

Fingers crossed I have everything for once. I have a basket in my office where I stick all my tax docs in theory, this year I was not consistent in that. Wish me luck.

Here is a picture of a wreath I started in February and stalled when I ran out of pins and then my dad got sick.

Pinned it, made it: How tools multiply through disorganization

I'm late to the Pinterest party, but holy cow is it addictive not that I've arrived. Here are my pins. So many awesome ideas it gets overwhelming. Today I saw this and had to repin it. The link within the pinned blog post was broken so I didn't have details of beads, but thought I could wing it. Suddenly that was exactly what I needed to do RIGHT AWAY.

I have all the needed materials and tools: empty plastic bottles, Sharpie markers, pliers and heat guns. Excellent. No problem. Except after I looked in the two most obvious bins for my heat gun I realized I had no idea where it could be. I kept looking, but was thinking I was going to end up buying a new gun. I probably would have been at Joann's tonight if I hadn't spotted the Stampin' Up glitter-funnel tray just after giving up the search. Luckily the larger tray of the pair is too big to fit in the bin.*

This is how I made some beads. I included some notes about what I will do a differently next time.

I cut up a 2L Diet coke bottle to make these two beads. Probably any brand that doesn't shape their 2L would be a better choice for this project. I ended up using strips cut from under the label goes, since that was the only smooth part. Then I colored with some blue sharpies I had out already. The horizontal stripe made the best bead. Also, I could probably use half that length and get a good bead, especially on the smaller pliers.

 Here is the bead I used with regular needle-nosed pliers before I heated it. I wrapped the strip first with my fingers and then held it together with the pliers. I tried gripping one end and wrapping around both sides, but then there is nothing to hold it together while heating. Next time I will wrap with color inside. I got blue all over my fingers and suspect color will still come off after shrinking.

I didn't take any pictures of actually heating it. The original post said it only took a few seconds to shrink. Maybe the thinner water bottles go faster or maybe her heat gun is hotter than mine. You can see it change as soon as it starts melting. I moved the bead and gun around to try to get even heating. I waited for a bit before taking out of the pliers.

Here is picture of the first one done. You can see how the edges are a bit curly. I think the plastic would have shrunk more if I didn't have the whole width of the plastic strip in the plier grips.

I used a smaller pair of jewelry pliers for the second bead. I thought my kitchen rug would make a better background (and it is right by the sliding-glass-door, natural light is best) but it just made it harder for the camera to focus on the right thing. I think the tighter the wrap, the shorter the strip should be. This is too long.

And here are both beads done. I like the larger bead best, but I think the smaller one has more potential for beads I'd actually use for a project. A narrower, shorter strip could be interesting. I'd also experiment with just holding one edge of the bead together to see how curly the whole thing would get.

This has potential for a Mother's Day craft with my nephews, but I think I'd have to man the heat gun and I don't think that would go down well. I know I let the oldest use one at around aged 5, but that was embossing on flat paper, not on a hand held small piece. I we used a vise instead of pliers it could work.

 

* I forgot how much stamping stuff I own. Those supplies are so fun to shop for and those little jars of embossing powder and glitter sure pile up in a hurry. Plus, I have 2 bins of stamps, and most of them have never even been cut and put together. What a pain those Stampin' Up sets are.

26 pound gummy bear

Nephew the First's b-day party. Blue raspberry. No I did not try it.

March 15 already?

I wore Capri pants today in the warm weather. I like the show Terriers so far on Netflix instant watch. What else? Oh yeah, my dad was in the hospital because he has a shit-ton of blood clots in his lungs. Pulmonary emboli to use the medical term. We took him to the ER on March 1 because he could not catch his breath. His BP was 209/136, actually I think the lower number was higher but that is the number that stuck in my head the first day. He also has congestive heart failure. He is home now. Until last night I was sleeping outside his room so I could put his oxygen back in when it came out in his sleep. He goes for a sleep study next week for his sleep apnea. It has been a really long fifteen days. I don't think he understands how sick he is.

I meant to just post a poor quality pic of some felt daffodils I made. I finally tried Pinterest. Love it.