Concrete Orbs

August/September Pinterest days involved the creation of concrete orbs.  We were just dying to do something with concrete.  We'd seen a few pins about these orbs and wanted to make some for Jackson's Garden (Jackson's Garden post will be added soon). So.....we had to do a little research.  We had two options.  We could use either a glass globe that you put over a light bulb in a light fixture (think '70s) and then break it off when it dried, OR we could use a rubber ball.  We chose rubber balls.

First, we had to collect our supplies. I called and ordered 5 bags of quikrete from Home Depot and had Melissa's husband, Ken, pick them up for me.  He thought we must be building a castle.

Then I bought a bunch of bouncy balls, at cheap places, like the 99cent store.  Melissa had a rolling planter box with potting soil in it that we fluffed up to place the balls in once they were filled.  We were supposed to use sand, but we figured this would do.  We had to cut off the tops of the balls and fill them with quikrete.

Here they are, nestled all snug in their beds.

We discovered that making the concrete on the watery side worked best.  The first one was not very good--just like packing rocks in.  We used a big plastic spoon to fill them.   We shook them occasionally so the air would come out.

We started with the smallest, working up to the bigger play balls.  We pierced them near their little plastic fill plug with scissors.  When we got to the big boy, above, UH-OH!!!!!!

It POPPED!!!!!  We didn't see THAT one coming, although I guess we should have.  So, we just wore them as hats for a while.  (Ignore my little mustache--I didn't realize my face was filthy)

I went home and Jack found some basketballs, so I took these over the next time and we filled them.  By this time, Ken (whom I call our Pinterest Sister) was getting tired of our "dainty" handling of the concrete and he got in there to help.

After everything sat for a long time (a week?), we used a utility knife to cut the outer covering and peel it off.  Some turned out a little lopsided and lumpy, like a man with a bald head who shouldn't HAVE a bald head...if you know what I mean.  This probably wouldn't have happened if we would have used sand as a resting place, rather than potting soil, but overall they are great.  They have little knobs where we filled them, but these go on the underside when used in the garden. 

 

My particular favorites are the two that were made in the basketballs.  You can definitely tell they are basketballs!  That works out perfectly for Jackson's garden. 

By the way, we didn't even use 1/2 of the quikrete.  My next post will be Jackson's garden, and you'll see all the orbs, sitting proudly in their garden homes.

Hello? Do I have ink on my hands?

July Pinterest Day.  Since Melissa and I have both fairly recently dipped our toes in the iPhone pool, she decided it would be a great idea to make iPhone covers.  As usual, we gathered all the materials:

You'll notice those beautiful black and silver FANCY Sharpies on the right.  The package told us that they were the right ones to use because they wouldn't smear.  WRONG!!!!!!  Do not use these:

We went about designing on the blank white cases.  We each had one hard-shell and one soft-shell (sort of like Maryland crabs).  Here is Melissa, diligently creating.  I don't think the tip of her tongue is sticking out as it often does when she draws.  I love that about her.

And here are our finished products! 

Melissa's (LOVE hers...):

and mine (just ehh...):

But, while we were working, I made some earring sets for a silent auction fundraiser we were having that night.  I like them.  I thought my presentation was quite cute.  Just a couple of blank notecards.

Now I know you are wondering about the title of this post.  Well....APPARENTLY even the regular sharpie rubs off a little.  I've been scared to try mine out after Melissa told me, days later, that she had to use some clear coat on hers to keep it from rubbing off.  Bummer.  I often talk while walking.  I can just picture myself with ink all over the side of my face!  Oh, the looks I'd get.  I may try to spray mine as well.  BUT, as USUAL, we had fun and learned a lot.  Stay tuned....August is CONCRETE GARDEN ORBS.  Oye.  







Memory Pinterest Day

Melissa and I met in June for our Pinterest Day (little late posting here).  This is what we made:

 It is a perpetual diary.  It has little index cards behind each tab, with the date on them (no year)...

Saw it on Pinterest (of course...) and loved it.  The idea is that you write down the year and then a line or two about what you are doing on that day.  After time has passed, you'll have an entry for each year and you can look back and see what was happening in your life over time.  If you want to see the original Pinterest post, click here.  Hers looks more "French Country" than ours, but we like ours!

 

Here's how we did it.  First, we gathered our supplies, including some old notecard boxes, pretty paper, adhesives, paper cutter, stamp pad, date stamp, index cards and photos.  Whew!

After cutting the index cards (4x6) in half (final measured 3" wide and 4" high), we took turns stamping the date on the cards.  You need a little backer paper, because you don't want the year to show, so you have to line up the stamp so only the month and day are on the card, with the year stamped off the card, on the backer paper--ours also had "rec'd" behind the date on the stamp we had.

Whomever wasn't stamping cards was trimming their photos and gluing them to a background.  Melissa choose to glue hers to cardstock.  She chose family photos.  I chose some vacation pics (that first photo is pottery in Pompei) and glued them to paint chips.



We were already tired when March came around...



But we persevered!  We felt like this was one of our more successful days!  We went out and got some lunch, enjoyed the day, and came home with a finished product...well, almost.  I think I am going to add the names of the months to my dividers.  Melissa wants to wait until the new year to begin hers.  I am starting a new job next week and think I will break it out in my new office.  Here, again, are our projects.  Love them!

Melissa's:

Suzan's:

Hooray for us!  We meet again on July 13th at Melissa's house.  See you then...wish us luck!

The Dreaded Grapevine

I told you I'd keep you updated.  It looks like we may be gaining ground on the grapevine.  Again, thanks to 4 young missionaries and Free, 1 hour's worth of work had a major payoff.  Here is the BEFORE:

And here is the AFTER:

Whoa.  That's all I can say.  Stay tuned.

Everybody into the Pool!

Last Thursday night, while babysitting, my iphone slid into my very large Diet Coke.  My FIRST iphone!  I'd had it exactly 20 days.  Bummer.  When I fished it out, it was doing some funky screen flashing stuff.  Since many of my friends had gotten phones wet, I knew to immediately plunge it into a big bowl of uncooked rice.  Sixty hours later I removed it and tried to turn it on.  Nothing.  Free plugged it into his charger.  About 30 minutes later, it started making sounds and flashing.  Hooray!!!!  After a good charge and other than the occasional unexpected appearance of the speaker icon, she seems to be working. 

 

The sad thing is I was so grumpy because I found it unbearable to live without that phone.  How did that happen?

Progress

You know that on April 5th, we worked hard, hard, hard in the yard, yard, yard.  (Look here if you didn't see the earlier post.)   Our yard is a MONSTER.  I am pleased to tell you we are making tiny bits of progress.  Hooray!  We've all been taking whatever time we have to work a bit here and there.  Admittedly, Free is the biggest contributor.  Thank you, Free.  The four missionaries from our ward came and helped this past Saturday and got a lot done.  While I know it is still a looooooong way away, hopefully you can see some progress.  We have.

I don't know if we had a photo of this before, but see all those leaves?  They were about a foot deep, and the avocado tree branches blocked passage.  That's our little shed in the background.  We used to have to use a machete to get to it.

These are branches from one of trees that the missionaries helped trim up.  Oh, the strength of YOUTH. 

The fun thing is that we have chosen not to wait until the yard is completely clear to plant our veggie garden.  We have two planter boxes that my dad made for us for Christmas this past year, and a strawberry planter that he made for us the year before that.  With all that was going on with Jax, we didn't get it planted.  We have now planted the strawberry box, one of the planters and have prepped the other box for planting soon.  

Here are our tomato and pepper plants.  Emily found an interesting technique on the internet that I'll share with you in another post.

Our Strawberry Planter.  We filled the top portion with herbs.  We'll probably plant some more things soon. 

Our first little strawberry!

Pinterest Day!

My friend, Melissa, and I have gotten together once a month on a Saturday for the past five months to do crafts.  We felt like we needed to MAKE time for creativity, or time just slips away and you never "get to" what you like.  Since we are such Pinterest hounds, we decided to take turns choosing a craft or project off Pinterest. The hostess picks the project, gets the supplies, provides the workspace and buys lunch.  I must tell you, when crafty people (or those who want to be crafty) hear about our Pinterest day, they tell us how awesome it is and that they wish they could do something like that.  You can, ladies! 

 

We've done it five times now, and it is working out wonderfully.  We've learned a couple of things.  The first is that things don't always turn out as picture-perfect as they look in photos.  The second is that it's OK if it doesn't turn out great.  The best part is being together, laughing, talking, laughing, crying, eating, laughing!  We've made dip-dyed t-shirts and wreaths out of ribbon and dyed-coffee-filter roses.  We've burned organza to make roses and various gift package tie-ons and tried our hands at painting canvasses.  Often one of us loves our creations and one of us hates them. 

 

Saturday at Melissa's house we treated glass (vases and candle holders) with different types of materials.  We learned alot.  We always say, "we're practicing this technique for later."  Not sure when LATER is???  Our results were mixed.  I think we agree that the best part was the bagel sandwiches....MMMmmmmm.  Melissa provided lots of glass options for us.



The cylindrical vase we put rubber bands around to create a masking effect.

Next, we took them out to the back yard and sprayed them with white primer.

While we worked on some other stuff, we left them to dry.  After removing the rubber bands, we came out with this!  I sprayed mine with some clearcoat so the primer wouldn't flake off.  It's not perfect, but I like it. 



Here it is filled with some of Melissa's beautiful Calla lillies. (I'm jealous.  I love Callas and I can never seem to get them to grow at my house.)

And here are some of our other finished projects.

So next month is my turn.  Wait and see!











Quiet Book

My mom and I made grandboy Strong a quiet book to use at church.  We bound it with rings and grommets so that we can add new pages and take some away as he gets bored with them.  It was a fun project and many of my friends have asked to see the finished product since they saw all the cutting out, etc.  I am including just a few pages....my favorites.

 





This is the first page.  It a tactile page he can feel.  The different ribbons and loops are fun to play with!

 

This is the work truck page.  Strong loves the trash truck!  There are little trucks in the garage...

 

 Here is my absolute favorite!  I love the counting page with the buttons and the paint palette with paint brush.  He can button and unbutton the paint blobs or use the paint brush to pretend he is creating a masterpiece.

 

Strong can put his hand in the baseball glove like his uncle and grandpas.  In the barn are finger puppets to play with.

 

 Last, but not least, is the toolbox with tools inside!  Strong can pretend to hammer and saw, and use a wrench and screwdriver.  What fun! 

 

We created several more pages, not shown here.  I am appreciative of the many people online who have willingly shared their ideas and patterns to make it easier.  Everyone's always look a little different, which I really love.  Thanks for working on it with me, Grandma Ina! 



Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

Today is my daughter's birthday.  Emily Suzan Dunbar.  She's a beaut.  From cradling her as a newborn...

 

...to loving her fun and entertaining growing up years...

 

 

...to enjoying her holding her own little babe...

 

 

I have loved everything about being her mamelah.

 

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

 

 

Jackson's Garden...really?

 

We had a big yard clean up day last Friday.  This is just one of the views before we started.  Oye.  If anyone knows how to get rid of grapevine that has grown out into the yard a significant amount, please leave a comment!  We started the day nice and early, with the full intention of getting everything cleared in one shot.  HA!  I think this photo doesn't adequately show the tangle of vines that this area had.  You can't see it, but there is an actual tree under there.  And it looked like some"one" or some"thing" may have been taking refuge inside.

And here is another view...sort of behind the house.  This is actually quite embarrassing.  Who let's their yard get this out of hand?  Us, that's who!  As the day progressed, Free and Emily were hacking away at the grapevine, Jack was taking out some other bushes, and I was weed-whacking my way through this part of the yard.  There is a little, OLD shed back there, and I had to do considerable work just to find it.  On my search and destroy mission I found a little apple tree that was in the process of being overtaken by a beautiful, blooming wisteria vine.  Although, I doubt the apple tree thought of the wisteria as beautiful.  Behind the apple tree is a pomegranate tree, with brown, dried-out, hanging fruit.  Sort of creepy looking.  And in the corner is a very tall mulberry tree that I thought belonged to the neighbors!  Nope...all ours.  I feel quite sorry for those neighbors...    

Little Strong was having a great time playing under the tree, watching all of the madness.  He loves being outside more than anything.  We need to remember that a big part of why we are doing this is so that he can be safe outside.  He was filthy by the end of the day, and was thrilled when Grampa carried him around.  

Free discovered termites in the avocado trees.  Since we really can't do much about it now, we needed to make sure that the dead parts were removed from the roof.  He got the job of getting up on the roof.  He cut off the smaller branches, and then he tied an old hose (that's all we had!) to the large limb. Jack and I held the hose really tightly while Free cut the limb.  We wanted to keep it from hitting the greenhouse window you see here.  Success!  I was actually amazed that Jack and I didn't tumble over, but we were good!

The question really IS "why now"?  Jackson always loved a yard.  He didn't always follow through, but he often planted tomatoes or peppers, and he had great dreams of a nice, relaxing yard.  When he was preparing to come home from Mexico, he talked about it.  He finally allowed himself to think of a life at home.  His desires were simple.  Mowing the lawn, watering, sitting outside.  Such simple things.  He never got to achieve them in this life.  We are preparing for a celebration of his life on Saturday, September 14th, when we will dedicate this space, whatever it may look like, as "Jackson's Garden."  We will work hard to make it a place he would be proud of.  I will keep you updated on our progress...