More Newspaper Duct Tape Murses

It's not a glamourous-sounding name, but a murse is a murse.
Though I do suspect that a guy wouldn't be caught dead sporting one across his manly chest. I think that maybe I should change the size to make it more like a camera bag. What do you think?

I'm normally not a gray duct tape kinda gal, but this illustration from last weekend's New York Times made me reconsider it. And simply put, it's a lot more manly than the sky blue duct tape I used for a friend's utility bag-- despite the fact that I mixed in some black duct tape. (Please excuse the horrible photo. It reads "STUFF" on the front with an arrow pointing to the opening of the bag.)

My daughter Masana has also been searching through the newspaper for pretty pictures, though I am not quite sure what her intentions are. Sometimes, she'll squirrel away a page with interesting type or photographic images. Other times, she'll leave a stack of her findings on my chair as an offering to the crafting gods. Last week, I found the front page of the NYT Science Times section smiling at me from my perch. Well, maybe "smiling" is the wrong word. Take a look.

I am laughing as I write this because it has now dawned on me how appropriate this nonsmiling/smiling illustration is for my lovely daughter. And if you're a mother with a girl or (heaven forbid) girls, then you'll understand that the laughter is laced with a little anger, sarcasm, and heartache.

We had a rough few days. Did I mention that she's 9 years old and testing her boundaries? And that she's got mood swings that could give a person whiplash if you tried to follow them? I won't say exactly what she did to get me going because that wouldn't be fair. So let's just say it was a public display of her dissatisfaction for something she perceived as a slight, though for the life of me I cannot figure out what it was that I did wrong. I barely said anything to her before the metaphorical daggers came out.

When my husband Dave came home, I already had relegated the offending child to her room without dinner and the non-offending child (my son Mack) was sitting obediently on the couch reading a book. The eery silence immediately set off alarms in Mr. Dave's head and he found me sipping a beer in my work room. That night, dinner and dessert for the boys were gotten outside of my usually busy and warm kitchen.

The ups and downs of the mother/daughter relationship. That was certainly a down. And today I'll be spending some one-on-one time with Masana (or, as we call her when she's exhibiting bad behavior, Boo-sana) to change the trajectory of our arc. May it swing upward today.

And thanks for letting me vent.

This Ain't High Art, Buddy

Someone accused me of having a "high art" phase at the moment. To this person I say, "High art?? Really? That's what you consider a wallet made out of a Trader Joe's brownie baking mix bag?"

Here is the original packaging.

A little clear packing tape to make the surface waterproof, some sky blue Duck brand duct tape, and-- voila!--a wallet is born.

I've been trolling around my home for more Shade the Changing Man inspiration. Newspaper bin, magazine rack, the linen closet, the kitchen pantry--no place is sacred. I feel like there are so many interesting graphics out there, which really helps me since I can't draw very well.

A few months ago, I bought some pillowcases that were marked down to the "so cheap you have to buy it even though you don't need or want it" price at my local Home Goods store. And they had been sitting in my linen closet ever since. I imagined them giving me dirty looks every time I went in there to grab a clean towel. So guess what I did?

I used one of the pillowcases as the lining for this wallet. For the outside material I used black 3M duct tape.

So while it may not really be a high art phase I'm going through, I'm certainly experiencing a crafty phase. Maybe it's the crazy weather here in New York that keeps me indoors and somewhat chained to my work table, but I am churning out a lot of "stuff."

Speaking of crazy weather, today the kids stayed home from school AGAIN. I am considering home-schooling them at this point. Just kidding. That would require me to actually know math and the English language rather than simply possess opinions on these subjects.

This is the fourth snow day that the kids' school has used this calendar year. In addition to school closings, there have been two delayed openings and one early dismissal. I am sure that I am not the only mother who is feeling like her kids have suddenly regressed to the nursery school years. Back when my daughter and son were newly toilet-trained humanoids, I kept the peace in our house with oatmeal raisin cookies. And after my daughter harumphed at me for forcing her to practice the clarinet and my son rolled his eyes at me for not helping him figure out how to fix his video game, I made oatmeal raisin cookies. Because I didn't want to reach for that beer before lunchtime.

I loaded my cookies with my ultimate guilty pleasure: dark chocolate. And I made sure there was plenty to go around.

Yes, dark chocolate. It is quite possibly the answer to all my problems. So bring it on, Mother Nature!

Day Eighty Seven: Play

My son had a friend over this afternoon, and we were presented with the opportunity to play with our food.



Marshmellows? Check.
Pretzel sticks? Check.
Grapes to raise the good nutrition quotient? Check.
Mango lemonade to wash it all down? Check.
Three kids that wanted to make something with their snack foods? Check, check, and check.

While they made buildings and other "structures," I also played, but not with food. I made a tiger print on a brown bag:

The black stripes are acrylic paint on brown paper bags.

Now I'm presented with the question "now what?" As in "now what the heck do I make with this thing?" Of course, a brown bag tote is my first instinct. But I'd like to think that I was more than a one trick pony, though. Oh, decisions, decisions.

As for my little cork map project, I've discovered that my sewing machine Kenmore is more than capable of sewing on cork tile. This makes my fingers very, very happy. The last time I made a cork map, I embroidered everything by hand. Let's just say my iron thimble got a lot of use.

Let's hear it for Kenmore! Yay!

Slowly coming together. You'll see...

I love being around kids and being influenced by their sense of play. It reminds me that whatever I do should always be fun and never a chore.

Sew It Begins: Making Amends

I was trying to get re-acquainted with my sewing machine Kenmore.

But I had a problem: there was nothing to sew. I didn't have any fabric or patterns for cool projects; only a "to-do" list that included ordering materials and shopping for supplies. There were no rips to mend or holes to patch. There was just stacks of brown paper bags, spools of thread, and duct tape.

So I turned this:

Into this:

Thanks, Kenmore.

Sew It Begins: A Tough-Talking Piece of Hardware

Much to Kenmore's chagrin, Tunkey became very fond of it. 

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And who was I to get in the way of their beautiful friendship?

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Of course, I also thought Kenmore needed an attitude adjustment. What a misanthrope!

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Tunkey told his friend Bluey all about Kenmore.

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And pretty soon all of Masana's "pets" were interested in Kenmore.

Yeah, I'll eventually tell the "pets" to scram. But for now, I'll enjoy the moment.

Sew It Begins: The Beach Towel Bag

My sewing machine Kenmore has become demanding and a bit verbally abusive. I guess you could call it a diva.

But I try to keep calm and do what it wants.

Today Kenmore wanted to transform an old beach towel into a bag. But there was a problem: my daughter Masana LOVED this old beach towel. And she wasn't so keen on letting it go. So she tried to show Kenmore that the old beach towel still had some use left in it.

Masana finally relented and gave up the old beach towel. 

In no time, Kenmore whipped out not only one bag but two. It was very proud of itself. And Masana was extremely happy with the results. In fact, she wanted to give Kenmore her beloved monkey pillow.

But Masana just couldn't take no for an answer. And she presented Kenmore with her beloved monkey pillow named Tunkey.

Tunkey quickly became quite attached to Kenmore--maybe a bit too attached. 

And sew it begins...

Embroidery Bits

I guess you can say that I like to embroider. But here's the thing: I really can't.
I rely mainly on the running stitch and only know how to do 3 other types of stitches (and 2 of them I can never remember the names of). So when people ask me if I embroider, I say "Yes" but it's always followed by a question mark.

"Yes?"

Here are some examples of things I've done:

I know, what the heck is it? 

I embroidered this orange carton and then decided it would be a purse for a little girl named Jamie. Hmm, is this a craftfail? Jamie didn't think so, but then again she's a very forgiving 4th grader.

This is a doodle drawing that I did with my kids during a recent trip to London. That's my lame version of Big Ben. I tried to embroider Van Gogh-like swirls to cover up my poor artistry. It graces the cover of a book bag we use to hold all our trip memorabilia.

Sometimes I do get the embroidery thing right. Here are two bags that I made.

Not bad, I know. Not practical, either.

And, of course, there's my New York City cork board. I only embroidered Manhattan and Brooklyn because they are the two boroughs that I actually lived in. And that 3rd piece of cork on the upper right corner is the little village that I currently live in--which is in Westchester county, but who's really counting, right?

Maybe one day I'll actually learn how to properly embroider. Right now, I'll still answer the "do you embroider?" question with a uncertain "Yes?"

Sewing Buttons by Machine

I found this via Twitter (ya gotta love Twitter). It's a tutorial on how to sew buttons by machine. And since I'm a newbie at this, I thought it would be great to share what I'm learning as I'm learning it!

Click here for the full tutorial.

The blog is SEW4HOME and I'm going to add it to my blog roll for future reference.

Sew It Begins...

Meet my new sewing machine. He and I were getting to know each other this morning...

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I told him that my daughter's pants had a hole in them. I thought this would be the perfect ice-breaker...

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We worked on the hole together...

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This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I think he really likes me!