Hodgepodge - dead, beer, and cassettes

Book #1 2012 Dead, She Said by Steve Niles and Bernie Wrightson. A dark, gritty, and quite twisted graphic novel.

As I clean my study, I come across tidbits from my Forgotten English calendar from last year. October 24 marked the date of the Dalton-in-Furness Fair, where the Lord would pick a few ale-tasters, assigned to visit all of the pubs in the town and taste the beer. They report back and prizes for the best are awarded.

One technique used by European aleconners was to pour a bit of a brewer's ale onto a pub bench. Wearing a pair of leather breeches, the official would sit in the beer for 30 minutes and then rise. If his trousers stuck to the bench, the brewer would be fined for serving inferior "taplash".

My question - does the dude get to change pants between pubs?

We finally got together to exchange gifties with Jenny & Aaron this weekend and the major craft give of 2011 was finally unveiled...

A lamp made from clear cassette tapes.

I had seen a couple of these online. Turns out the one I was trying to recreate actually used a specially molded plastic framework, but I adapted another version to get this.

I used 6 inch pieces of beading wire to hold it together. Here are some in-process shots.

Outside

Inside

Two

Holiday crafts & books, Part II

To continue:

Small welcome mat for Jenny:
Crocheted from yarn made from plastic bags, including mulch & soil bags. I hear Stewie loves it.

Book #21:
We Are Their Heaven by Allison Dubois. I like what she has to say - that the dead stick around their loved ones because that makes them happy. I find the examples of readings both from her point of view and her clients' interesting. But she needs a better editor. As someone who puts value in how a book is written, it made me wince. No flow. Chapters, paragraphs, and sentences that could not stay on a consistent subject. Still, I will pass it on to others who may value her message.

A "nelly", microwave heating bag for Mom:
I used a sleeve from an old hoodie for this. A fancier fabric would have been nice, but it has to be all cotton to go in the microwave. Filled with rice, oats, sage, lavender, and lemon balm.

Book #22:
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith. I have another book of his, but need to brush up on the original material a bit to appreciate it (Sense & Sensibility). This was quite fun. Based off of Lincoln's journals, Grahame-Smith tells the tale of an axe-throwing hero. The photos are a bit hokey, but the storyline is good and - as someone who is curious about history but not hardcore - I found out details about Lincoln, the political life in DC in that era, and the Civil War that I had not known prior.

Light-bulb vases w/ origami flowers for Tina, Shruti, Mom, Lorraine:
These were fun and easy (for someone OK w/ cracking some glass), I have more light bulb plans...

Book #23 (that's as far as I got for 2010):
Welcome to Marwencol by Mark E. Hogancamp. Hogancamp was brutally beaten one night - "left brain-damaged & broke". After, as part of his recovery, he created a 1:6 scale (Barbie & GI Joe sized) WWII-era town in his backyard and photographed the dramas that unfurled there. This is the first installment in the saga of that town - artful though the violence makes me a little sad. There's also a documentary that has wowed the festival circuit. Hmmm need to see if I can find that.

And, finally - a beaded basket for Laura:
I rolled almost all of these beads (with the exception of a few spacers in the bottom rows) from strips of old magazine and catalogue pages. There's got to be between 250 & 300 of them. Note to self - if you want to do a big bead project next year - start making beads well ahead. Just a couple of days makes life quite crazy.

Holiday crafting and books, part 1

Phew! It's been a BUSY December! In addition to crazy work stuff I'll talk about later, I made handmade cards and crafty gifts - some of which were more than I had bargained for. (Some didn't turn out and will be put into the roster for next year - after I hopefully get a better idea of how to make them). I also wrapped up a bunch of books, though of course I did not get to 50.

Cards:
Our cards were pop-ups this year. This is a simple dove pop-up that I modeled after a photo, with some adaptations to make it work inside a card.

Book #19:
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. A reread that I read aloud to J before bed. Twain does an awesome job with dialects, which I'm pretty sure I didn't notice when I read this in school.

Cranberries:
I made small tins of these for almost everyone last year. This year I shared them more "party style" - gifting some and then bringing large jars to family gatherings and letting people take their fill. They pop in your mouth and they're sweet and tangy together...

Book #20:
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. My first read on Kindle on my phone. I was skeptical at first. I associate Card with classic sci-fi. His intro started with a lot about his faith and life events related to a certain church and I'm always wary that will leak through into the narrative. But it wasn't and it didn't. A great, fast read about gifted kids and their relationships with their cohorts and elders. I thought the end was a little long and could have been cut off when he crests that final hill and sees....

Zombies:
Danny gave me a Zombie Cross-stitch kit for my birthday and I made 2 projects from it - Jack's messenger bag:

- and a coffee cup holder for Dan that I forgot to get a picture of. Here's a picture from the book:

That's it for now so I finally get this post out. Part 2 should follow closely.

Projects

Well, this is going to be a shorter post than originally planned because I accidentally wiped my before/ after pics of my latest projects off of my memory card. I'm excited, though, because something kicked into gear last weekend and I've started on some projects that had been mulling around in my head for some time.

Project 1 is a transformation of an old dresser into a bookshelf. I should be able to find a pic of the dresser before, so it will just be the in-progress stuff I've lost. This project isn't quite complete yet - I need to finish assembly and then finish it off. At first, I was just thinking of a plain paintjob, but now I have a couple of experimental ideas based on other interests of mine that I'm thinking I may as well try (the shelf itself will be a basement shelf, at least at first, so I can take some more risks than normal). I'm hoping to get back to this a bit on Sunday.

Project 2 was an effort to freshen up the bathroom just a bit. The window was always covered by the vinyl blinds for privacy. These were dusty and the brackets holding them in had yellowed - sad shape and sad enough that I despaired of getting them clean without devoting an entire day. I got rid of them, cleaned up the window and frame, and put a textured glass film over the lower pane to maintain privacy. Not only does it look sooo much cleaner - the bathroom is a ton brighter on sunny days - could help cut back on use of the light as well.




Book #5 -The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. A reread from high school days. It was alright. The forward was excruciating, but the pace of the book itself was much better. So many mixed metaphors in the portrayal of Pearl. And was the minister poisoned? Could he really have been that frail? More time on characters and less on clothes and the inherent evil nature of the wilderness they lived in would have been good. But overall, not torture.

(Currently reading Cold Mountain. A bit of torture there. Just seems to slog.)

Holiday crafts

I made a ton of crafty gifts for the holidays - several categories, each gift in a category was different. If I try to do that again, I'll get J to shoot me. Here's a sampling of what I did, though.

Books from scrap paper w/ postcard covers














Purses made from woven wrapping paper














Purses made from books











































Bracelets of beads made from catalogue pages





























Table made from books














So there it is. What do you think?

The final books of 2008 and Christmas crafting

Did I get to 50? No, still not there. ALMOST 30, but not quite. It really depends on mood, type of book (I don't weed out the slow ones to improve my count), and the type of intermediary articles and things that crop up. (The system is a bit complicated and very ocd'ish).

So, here they are:
Book #27 (I actually had 2 #20s before, so this is correct) - Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman. Nice, light, and simple. A series of 30 vignettes, with interludes, that could totally have occupied Einstein's thoughts as he was honing the theory of relativity. Each vignette looks at one way of relating to time and envisions what life would be like.

Book #28 - The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. A horror classic and I can see that. But I want MORE. I wanted more details on the sordid history of the house - maybe somebody should have found a journal or something. I love big old houses - so I wanted more on the house. As it was, I almost drew it because the description of how the house gets you turned around - well, it really turned me around and I was baffled. What were the outbuildings like? *sigh* Still, pretty good.

Book #29 (that's the last one) - Under the Banner of Heaven: A story of violent faith by Jon Krakauer. Fascinating. Depth in areas of Mormon history I had not known - Krakauer even visited Palmyra for the Pageant! I found his style very straightforward. He admits when he is baffled by it all, but still lays it out as the various fundamentalists see it. His analysis of how a faith could spawn such splinter sects was very insightful. I would love to see a postscript that continues the story given recent stories, or just an ongoing commentary.

For Christmas, I did 3 categories of craft projects.
1) Newspaper yarn: (pic not working for some reason)

2) A bag crocheted from plastic bags - Caveat - This deviates from the pattern because it's the first thing I ever crocheted and I used the wrong stitch for the entire thing.


3) Spa stuff! I made lotion bars, herby oatmeal bath soak, and sugar scrub: