Soot Sprites

Have you seen the movie Spirited Away? One of the best movies ever. I love it! A few weeks back, Sweet Pea and I made our very own soot sprites. A few pom-poms, some googlie eyes, a little glue and some star sprinkles and we have our very own fleet:

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Reginal Johnson

 Reginald Johnson has become a real member of the family. He routinely naps with the cat:

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Haunted by Margaret Thatcher?

  I now know entirely more about Margaret Thatcher than I ever thought I would.

Is she visiting me in dreams? No.

Is she haunting me? No

Am I attending a graduate course at the local college on the highlights and lowlights of her life and rule? No.

It's time to do a school project. Not me, but Sweet Pea. And being the wonderful mother that I am, I am assisting. And I have to say, I'm really sick of reading about her. That's all.

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Miniature Armadillos

So, the other day I spent some time gathering pill bugs. Yes, that's right. Gathering pill bugs. (also known as potato bugs, doodle bugs or miniature armadillos)

What?!?! Why on earth would anyone do that? Well, Doodlebug is doing something in school with ecosystems in jars and they needed some bugs. The first place we looked was the basement. In the spring, we always get some pill bugs down there. But could we find one when we need one? Of course not. But, spiders are also fairly common in the basement. There are several who have names, who stay politely in their webs, so I leave them alone. The brave and strong hubby attempted to capture one of these, but it was too wily and skittered into hidden spots before it could be captured.

So, we finally headed outside (gasp!) to look for bugs. We found some very cooperative pill bugs in the rocks out front. We gathered up about 5 of them along with some rocks and rotting leaves.

And this morning, Doodlebug headed off to school with his bugs in his backpack. Wait, what? What's that on the table? Is that a jar of bugs??

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Toast

So, as you may know from previous posts, we had 3 gerbils. A little over a year ago we got Dusty, Toast and Chippy. Dusty was always frail - thin and smaller than the other two, but she was very energetic and healthy, or so it seemed. She died after about 8 months or so. But Chippy and Toast carried on in their gerbilly way.

And the other day, little Toast died. She looked ill for the last few weeks so we knew she might not be long for this world, but it's sad to see her go. For a gerbil, she was a very funny little critter. she is the only gerbil we ever had who would sprawl out on her back, tummy up to the air, snoozing without a care in the world - as if she was taunting any would-be-predators. (the others always curled up in a ball to sleep). She was lazy, chubby and loved to eat. She loved to snuggle up with Chippy and really didn't seem to mind being held by us humans - she would sit contentedly for a little while while we scratched behind her ears. We gave her a nice burial in a heart shaped box in the backyard near Dusty. She will be missed.

And now little Chippy is all alone. We'll have to heap extra attention on her, which I'm sure she would prefer to do without. Hopefully she'll stay with us for a good long time.

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The Hootie Fiasco

It's spring and every spring we have a few weeks where the ants come into the house to explore. We get the little tiny ones that check out the sink, the counters and the dishwasher and the bigger black ones that just wander through the entire house looking for whatever it is that those ants look for. After a few weeks they mostly go away. But I don't like bugs. Ants aren't the worst thing we could have wandering around, but they do have 6 legs so I prefer they stay outside.

So, there I am, working diligently on my computer when out of the corner of my eye I see movement. Movement of the bug variety. It's an ant. On the wall. In my computer room! Ugh! So I grab a very large boot and smash it. It falls down behind the desk. I'm satisfied. I get back to work.

I should also mention that I have a small collection of stuffed owls. Not, like, taxidermy stuffed, but plush toys. I have 4 identical Hooties sitting on a shelf. For whatever reason, I glanced at the Hooties and what did I see? An ant! Walking across Hootie 1's beak! Ugh! I can only assume that my awesome, spectacular, panicked boot-smash was less than effective. That the ant I 'smashed' simply tripped and fell behind the desk, then promptly brushed off his mandibles and got back to exploring, no doubt cursing the whole time.

Anyway, so there's this ant walking across Hootie! I very carefully picked Hootie up by a wing and quick as an owl in flight, I ran to the bathroom and shook him vigorously over the toilet in an attempt to dislodge the ant who was circling Hootie, probably looking for my fingers so he could climb up my arm.

Then, no surprise here, I lost my grip on Hootie and he tumbled into the toilet, ant and all.

Nooooooooo! Hoooootieeeee!

Hootie rolled once or twice and managed to dislodge the ant. I snatched Hootie up by the talon, leaving the ant behind. I quickly flushed the ant away, breathing a sigh of relief that it was gone and that Hootie was out of harms way - a bit damp, slightly wide eyed, but just fine.

Damn ants!

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Tiny Little Beasties

I really like tiny things. I several shelves with miniature critters, like this one:

Eggshell Mozaic Shelf

I like to make miniature books. Like this one:

Miniature Book Made From an Old Record with Music Note Pages

And this one:

Rock Paper Scissors Book With Rock Covers

So, it only makes sense that I'm drawn to crocheting tiny little beasties. Like this little rabbit:

Leapfrog!

Posing with a favorite snack!

Hangin' with friends

 
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Wait! What? Who Switched My Dyes?

One of the things I have the most fun with when I'm working on my eggshell mozaics is coloring the shells. You can pick out the colors you want to make, but it's always a surprise to see what you actually get. I've learned through lots and lots and lots of trials that the shells absorb the red dyes the easiest. Even the tiniest drop of red dye can make a big difference in the results. So, I have a lot of reds, pinks, purples and oranges, but very few true blues and deep greens. Brown is suprisingly difficult to make.

I can't tell you how many times I've poured out my deep green dye only to reveal strangely purple shells. Sometimes I think someone is playing a trick on me because the color of the shells beneath the dyed water is completely wrong.

Here's one example - these nice purple shells came out of a deep turquoise dye. Very odd.

How did those purple shells get in that turquoise dye?

Definately purple

And to make things more interesting, my black dye has a lot of red in it. So if I try to make anything darker with the black dye, it invariably comes out reddish.

I've used mostly the McCormick liquid food dyes, but I've also used some of the Wilton gel colors. I've really gotten some incredible turquoise, hot pink and purples with those. And of course I've experimented with coffee, Hawaiian Punch, other red fruit juices and various other pantry staples, but the food dyes give me the best colors.

These were supposed to be forest green, but came out a funny gray.

Lots and lots and lots and lots of shells.

Sunny yellow.

Oh, so much fun!!

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Slowchet

  Sometimes in the evening when I'm sitting on the couch watching TV with the family, Sweet Pea and I will pull out some yarn and the crochet hooks. Most recently we've been focused on little critters - some photos of them are below. But as we go, you may here this conversation:

Me: OK, the next step is to do 12 single crochet, then a decrease, then 12 more
Sweet Pea: OK
Me: 1
Sweet Pea: 2
Me: 2 already?
[pause]
Me:6
Sweet Pea: 12
[pause]
Me: 8
Sweet Pea: 16

That's us counting our stitches. You can see that Sweet Pea crochets about twice as fast as I do. No matter how hard I try to go faster it just doesn't work. I end up dropping a stitch, then have to fix it which slows me down, or I get all tangled up and have to disentangle. We've decided that while Sweet Pea is doing crochet, I'm doing slowchet.

Hey, it works for me. What's the hurry anyway?
 

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I Must Be Nuts!

So, I've been doing a lot of egg shell mozaic-ing lately and having a lot of fun with it. I'll work on it in the evenings in front of the TV and whenever I can squeeze a moment in my crafty corner.

But I have to say, as I carefully place each tiny bit of eggshell fragment, I can't help but think I must be nuts!

Here's a few of the things I've done recently:

 

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