Jennifer's 365 Project

It's windy and rainy out, so we opted to stay indoors. We've had several small branches come down from all the wind, so that's been fun to watch. I'm glad we did the majority of the raking yesterday. 

In the morning while the little one was playing Minecraft with friends I made some donut sticks with the twinkie pan we have. One of these days I will buy a donut pan, but for now, we get twinkie-shaped donuts.

I played some Pillars of Eternity on and off throughout the day. I have it on PC, but I loathe clicking to move. It's hell on my wrist. So I started over on the Xbox, thanks to GamePass.
I also started work on the Minecraft Creeper hat to go with the TNT scarf. I don't crochet or knit nearly enough to remember what all the acronyms are, or different stitches, so I have to keep re-watching youtube videos and reading websites. I'm happy all of these tools exist, otherwise I'd be harassing my mother non-stop because I can't retain basic crochet info.
 

I finished up a Minecraft TNT scarf I've been crocheting for the 5 year old today. He's been enjoying running around with it on for awhile now. I found the pattern on Ravelry.

I finished the junimo plushie today and the 5 year old was over the moon. For those who don't know, junimos are forest spirits from Stardew Valley. I used this pattern here.
 

It's the last warm day for awhile, so I took the day off so we could run around and have fun together.
We ran around outside, enjoying the warmth even though it started to sprinkle a bit part way through the afternoon.
Late in the afternoon I started crafting a junimo plush for him, which is a little forest spirit from the game Stardew Valley. He stayed up late waiting for me to finish it. I finally convinced him to take it to bed and I'd add the legs in the morning. He was happy and passed right out.
 

We did some coloring with markers....
And some painting... Painting takes too long, he says, so he doesn't like it. He wants to make the thing and then play with the thing, immediately.
 

We made a few paintings out on the deck this morning. The 5 year old created a cool backdrop for his characters.
We also made a rainbow tree together!

We colored eggs in the afternoon. I didn't have the kit, so I just used food coloring and vinegar I had on hand, which was perfectly fine.
He had a good time coloring the eggs. 
 Later in the afternoon we did some rock painting.
We painted just a few rocks, which was just about the right time for him before he decided to run off and do something else (like enjoy the sunshine).

I tested some shrinky dink blank sheets I picked up and drew a little junimo from Stardew Valley.

It's nearly Halloween! Halloween is the favorite holiday for two out of three people in our house! We spent some quality time doing crafts together and decorating the year year old's room.
These two had lots of fun together too. Sometimes it's good to have a giggle fest.

Last weekend I bought a cheap suitcase from the dollar store. Tonight I was able to put together a quick diorama with posterboard, road tape, and construction paper. Now to see how long it survives the toddler in the car.

There's a hot dog contest at work so the team I sit by invited me to craft a petting zoo. It was an...interesting experience.

 We did some arts and crafts this afternoon. We colored some pictures...
...and sculpted the stone from Moana out of Sculpey, using this tutorial.

I made a few felt ornaments this evening for the toddlers Christmas tree.

All in all my last day of vacation has been a pretty productive one. Quinn has been chewing the railing on his crib, so I used a pool noodle we'd purchased awhile back, some extra fleece, and tied the ends of the fleece together along the crib railing. Now if he wants to chew something, he can chew on the fleece and not the wood, which is probably better for his teeth and certainly better for my nerves.

The curtains we bought for in the closet in the baby room are a little long. For those that don't know, we are using these curtains instead of the traditional closet doors. We have closet doors in the basement from the previous owners, but when they put in new carpet they didn't cut a place for the door track to lay and, honestly, the curtain seems to work just fine.

Now they hang better! I wasn't really keen on doing the hemming. The curtains didn't really bother me, but now that it's done, it does look nicer. When it comes to aesthetics, Chris is usually right.

This is our second year having a full size Christmas tree, and it's sorely lacking in off the wall ornaments. Mostly what we have on the tree are a plethora of decorations I had as a kid, and while I love them and they have meaning for me, I think it would be nice to have a tree decorated with things that mean something to both of us.

We do have two Green Lantern themed cross-stitch ornaments I made last year, so we're getting there. But we're still missing something that honors his Noodliness. I am speaking, of course, about the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
So, we picked up two packages of Sculpey. I used ecru colored (Premo!) for the noodles and hazelnut for the meatballs.

I ended up using half the pack of hazelnut for the meatballs (so two bars) and about a third of the ecru for the noodles.

I did create a little bridge to hold the meatballs together before threading the noodles around the base of the ornament.
Assembly took about 10 minutes, maybe 15, which is a lot less that I would have thought. I set everything up on parchment paper, even using a bunch of it folded under the eye stalks for extra support. I didn't want them falling backward while baking in the oven.

I also created a little loop in the center noodle for a hook or string.
After baking for about 30 minutes at 275 degrees Fahrenheit, the sculpey was hardened.

After letting it cool for a bit, I painted on the eyes...
...and adorned our tree with his noodliness once the paint was dry!

Now that we're back from up north and I have a little more time, I wanted to finish working on the Doctor Who pillow I'd started earlier.
The original Tardis didn't come out so well, but it was an excellent learning opportunity.
I learned pretty quickly that the original setting I had were crappy but I didn't have to use a blanket stitch. I could still use the zig-zag stitch and not bunch things up (setting information below).
I soon started to get the hang of it, and while things are perfect, they're a lot better than Tardis #1.
Anyway, here's a slideshow of all of the steps, plus materials and measurements.

• Find an image to trace...

  http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3770/9693881035_c68621da23.jpg
  

• trace!

  http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7335/9697108482_83f6f83ec7.jpg

  once traced, then cut out and get ready to iron...

  

• Ironing

  http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3762/9697107800_e419ee0372.jpg

  with an iron, fuse the Heat n Bond Lite to the fabric

  

• cut everything out

  http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3756/9693880285_768573772e.jpg

  once cool, cut out the shapes

  

• Lay everything out

  http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2841/9697107356_6d8dcdba67.jpg

  to ensure it looks good and all the small pieces fit

  

• Iron On

  http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5545/9693976337_3f71efebb4.jpg

  remove paper backing and iron onto fabric

  

• Fuse-N Tear

  http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2870/9693952873_a7f7bfa740.jpg

  once all pieces are ironed on, cool, flip over, and iron on Fuse-N Tear stabilizer

  

• Applique in progress

  http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2807/9693952381_0f21df1188.jpg

  stitching all of the different pieces down

  

• laying everything out one last time

  http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3671/9693952207_4692a2212d.jpg

  just to ensure everything still looks ok

  

• pin the pillow

  http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7362/9693952667_e663e1e52b.jpg

  pin the two pieces of fabric together, wrong side out

  

• Tardis side

  http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7416/9693882489_f96814e1da.jpg

  Tardis side of the pillow

  

• upclose Tardis

  http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3815/9693881297_d8a9e5944c.jpg
  

• Dalek side

  http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7345/9693882103_df5926d476.jpg

  Dalek side of the pillow

  

• up close Dalek

  http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5331/9693881855_518382a672.jpg
  

Materials used:

• Fusible Heat 'n Bond Lite (adhesive)
• Pellon Fuse-N-Tear
• fabric and thread
• PolyFill (polyester fiber filling)

Measurements & Sewing Machine Settings:

• 14.5" x 14.5" pillow fabric
• 3" tall Dalek & Tardis 
• Applique pieces placed 3" from the edges of the fabric
• zig-zag stitch set to stitch width of 3.0 and stitch length of 0.2 for edges
• zig-zag stitch set to stitch width of 2.0 and stitch length of 0.2 for smaller detail pieces (like eggs on the Dalek skirt)