Laudry Bottle Caps, Toilet Paper Rolls, & Tin Foil

I heard that a church was seeking supplies for thier vacation bible school week and at the top of the list were three items-- laundry bottle caps, toilet paper rolls and tin foil.   Hmmm...you know I couldn't just let that go--I had to know what they were making with these things!   I pondered long and hard, my creative juices were flowing so much I was salivating.  What in the world would they use these items for?   I had ideas! 

I paced, I pondered, I imagined.  Was the bottle cap the head, the toilet paper roll the body and the tin foil the feet for some craft-project creature?   What about planting seeds in the laundry detergent caps, making hobo meals on the grill with the tin foil and making homemade marracas with the paper rolls?   Or perhaps the toilet paper rolls were going to be painted bright colors, strung together with tin foil balls between them for a garland?   Maybe the bottle caps were going to be used as sand castle molds?    Oh boy was I flowing with ideas!  Before the day was out I had thought of a myriad of ideas for the three items and I was quite proud of my crafty self for the follow-through.  When it was all said and done I found out the toilet paper rolls were going to be kindling for the camp fire, the tin foil was for leftovers and the bottle caps were going to be used as paint cups.   My creative bubble was deflated.  Where is the imagination?!  Where is the ingenuity?!   Where are my like-minded crafty peeps!? 

So I'm throwing down the challenge--what crafty things could one make with these three things--I'd love to know your ideas!   I know what you're saying--don't get caught up in her post PMS madness--but just do it--may the (creative) force be with you!

Susan
www.etsy.com/shop/Pinoodles
www.pinoodlesblog.blogspot.com

Frugal Unique Greeting Cards

Anyone who loves fabric, sewing or crafting likely has a bin of  fabric scraps.  If you have a bin you're likely a person who sees possibility and value in these scraps or you would have tossed them.  If you're really a fabric lover you might even see them as precious children in your family of supplies.  (My emotional attachment to fabric is a whole other blog!)

With age, I'm getting more frugal.  I have the notion that I'll never see Social Security benefits, and I figure I must find a way to curb expenses.  Enter the bin of scraps.  

Using my sewing machine, a heavy duty needle and my scraps, I created these frugal and unique greeting cards.  

   Inside the cards you can see the stitching

  Some stitching turns out better than others!

Now, if you're going to try this (and I hope you do!)   here are some tips:

1) Avoid any adhesives under the fabric unless its a very dry, thin type that fully evaporates otherwise it gums up your needle.  Don't use adhesive backed ribbon if you want to stitch through it.

2) Set your stitch length to long or the many tiny needle pricks actually create a perforation and your paper falls away!

3)  Change your needle about every 10 cards or as soon as you feel a drag or your thread starts breaking.

4) Don't be afraid to allow the stitching to be shown on the inside of the card--it definitely shows you've made it by hand!

5) If your machine doesn't give neat stitching on the bottom, simply cut a piece of card stock and glue over the stitching on the inside of the card.

6)  Don't be afraid to gently roll the card as you maneuver it in stitching area of your machine--large cards take a little more finesse but paper can be rolled back to a flat position, so don't stress too much.

7)  You can stitch paper to paper, but it doesn't stay as securely as fabric--every machine is different so I just encourage you to experiment. Avoid glittered papers as they muck up the inside of your machine!

8) If you will mail these, keep embellishments small and flat.

 If you come up with other ideas and tricks, let me know and I'll include them in an updated blog post!

Happy Frugal Card Making! 

Susan

www.etsy.com/shop/Pinoodles

www.pinoodlesblog.blogspot.com

Pinwheels Take 2

Since I've had so many requests, I'm reposting this from last year.

Did you know that whirlygigs, pinwheels, spinny thingys--whatever you call them--are known to date to perhaps as far back as 400 BC? The Chinese believe they are a symbol of turning one's luck around. The Iranians are said to have developed the first vertical windmill in 644 BC to aid with irrigation. By the time the windmill came to Europe in the 1200's the form of the pinwheel is much more recognizable. In Pieter Bruegel's Children's Games of 1560 children are seen with whirlygigs on sticks. Whatever you call them, I don't know anyone that doesn't love the color and spins of a pinwheel!

I've recently starting seeing pinwheels everywhere. Pinwheels galore actually. Since I've always loved them, I made my own garland version above and thought you might want to learn too--so here's my brief pinwheel "how to" lesson--they take some time but I think you'll be pleased--get the kids involved--a perfect summer project! While these don't actually spin, hanging, they look like they could!

Materials Needed For Your Pinwheel Garland

12 inch ruler, pencil, 3- 5 sheets of square paper, spools of ribbon in coordinating colors, large pony beads any color, scissors, hot glue gun, large colorful patterned or plain buttons (1.5 - 2 inch recommended), eyelet set, eyelets

• Start with a thick piece of colorful square paper that you have previously painted, decorated, stenciled, etc... (I hand painted handmade paper. Handmade paper is key to the textured look above) BUT scrapbooking paper is so incredible these days you'll have no problem finding preprinted papers to use.
• I used 12 inch paper but that makes these very heavy. I guess I would recommend 9 - 10 inch square--if it's double sided you get a great look!
• Using a ruler, find the center point of the paper and mark with an x. You'll need a center circle around that x--I used a clear votive cup, centered it over the x and traced--trace lightly with pencil.
• Now, four cuts need to be made from each corner of the paper to slightly outside of the center circle on the diagonal-- eyeball the cutting if you're good at it or use the ruler to make faint pencil lines.

• Now you will have four triangle flaps on your paper. In the upper left corner of each triangled section make a small x.

• Decide which two opposite flaps will be the sides of your pinwheel and dry fit the flaps in place by lining up the x on your flap to the x in the center. With a flap hand held in place, find a good spot for the eyelet to be placed--look in my photo below and you'll see i placed them just slighly behind the center point of the flap. As long as they are in the same place on both sides, it will hang evenly--but no fear, this isn't rocket science and you have some wiggle room--I eyeballed all of mine and never used a ruler!

• Now, make a small dot where you want the eyelet to go and put your eyelets in now while the flaps are flat--I did mine afterwards and they worked but this will be easier! Now, you don't really need the eyelets--you could simply poke or punch a hole--totally up to you! And if you wanted to reinforce the holes (the purpose of the eyelets) the low tech way, you could also paint or color those round donut-shaped adhesive reinforcement stickers. After the eyelets or holes are in (you need 2 holes for each pinwheel on opposite sides), dry fit again by connecting the x on the flap to the x in the center and see if they look about right. You can manipulate where you put the corner in the center if you need to correct an error of an inch or less--just put it slightly higher or lower on the center x--remember the large center button will hide a lot!

• Bring each x'd left corner to the center x and hot glue down. Let the glue dry between each subsequent corner being glued down--you don't need a lot of hot glue for it to stick, but you do need to hold them in place while it sets. On the last corner, put a bit of hot glue on the button you've chosen and let that help you secure all the pieces together--hold til it has set.
• I used pony beads to help secure the ribbons on the insides of my pinwheels--i love using organza ribbon but it would take 20 knots to be thick enough not to go through the eyelet so simply tie the ribbon to the pony bead and feed through the holes--at each end I tied in bunches of coordinating ribbons with a knot.
• The finished garland in the photo is about 80" long but it hangs best when the ends are between 73 - 75 inches.
• How long the ribbons will be is up to you--just make them even on the ends and between the pinwheels. The heavier your paper, the shorter your ribbons should be between them or they hang funny.

Have a colorful, spinny, historically creative day!

Susan

www.etsy.com/shop/Pinoodles

Love

What is it to love another fully?   We use the word unconditional as a descriptor for a loving relationship, but I wonder if the word selfless is the better descriptor and the higher path to full communion with another.  In any relationship we will hurt one another, disappoint and be disappointed because when you care for someone it comes with expectations, hopes, needs. To love fully means you are fully invested in the life of another, fully aware of their strengths and weaknesses without exploiting (or reminding them) of either, fully invested in their successes and failures, fully invested in what others think of them, fully invested in the strength of your union, and fully aware of when that union is shaken.  

Single and 43, I will never claim to be an expert in matters of love. Full communion with another for more than a few years has eluded me, but love has not eluded me.   It's easy to love, harder to live out that love. My approach to relationships is often very practical before it is emotional--this is the rational side of my brain at work.   I am almost never attracted to the physical aspect of any man before I am attracted to his brain and his heart.  “What good is the beautiful package if the contents are ugly,” I say in my head.  That's not to say that I don't appreciate physical beauty, but it’s all subjective isn't it?  

I know some women who get upset with men who say they like tall thin women for instance.   That's like getting upset with a man for liking the color green or lasagna or The Rolling Stones. Taste is what it is--a preference.    So no one can get upset with me for liking intellectual, sensitive and articulate men...that is my preference.

Love is the subject of most songs, much art, literature, plays, novels...it is pursued with great fervor and paraded with much pomp and circumstance. Americans in particular seem to be in love with love. The wedding industry and greeting card makers alone profit every minute from our love of love. But in the trenches anyone in love knows that love for the sake of love is short term. Selfless love is the kind that lasts and the kind that requires one to first acknowledge that God loves us fully and we did nothing to deserve it. In other words, love starts with humility.  To understand God’s love means we’re more likely to be understanding and accepting of others--it is the higher path, the narrower path and the less traveled, but it makes all the difference. 

I must examine my heart daily—I am not the giving, selfless person I’d love to be and a daily moment before my heavenly cardiologist shows me how clogged my arteries are with the gunk of being earthly minded.

Do it:  Ask God to unclog the arteries of your heart so you can be free flowing in all that He desires for you.

Ponder it: “Age does not protect you from love but love to some extent protects you from age.”    -- Jeanne Moreau

Bigger Than Mary

Several years ago I was driving near my parents home and saw a modest Christmas display.  A manager and a plastic virgin Mary were cast in dim lights.  And in the manger was a plastic baby Jesus, clearly a left over from another nativity set and not at all proportionate to the manger or the Mary.   And a great theological truth came to me like a light bulb going on: The baby Jesus was much bigger than Mary. Not just in their plastic presence on the snow covered lawn, but in life.  Jesus is our source though we both acknowledge and are humbled by Mary’s courage and purity.  Jesus is bigger.  God even uses the mismatched leftovers for his glory. Amen!

Merry Christmas Everyone,

Susan

www.etsy.com/shop/Pinoodles

Aiming for Mediocrity

I am a perfectionist and its a curse!   But last year I decided that I give too much of myself away in striving for perfection and instead my new motto was simply "Aiming for Mediocrity."  A friend made me a card with a target on the front with the arrow missing the center with the motto below--it was perfect--I still hit the target, but I wasn't quite in the center.  Perfect!

In my new found liberation, I vowed to do enough to fulfill all my obligations but I also vowed I would no longer expend myself to the Nth degree in this silly and counter-productive pursuit of perfection.  Unattainable and probably unhappy with something even if I reached perfection, I finally climbed down off the mountain of pressure I had created for myself and decided to breathe.

What did this do for me?   I relaxed about some things that used to drive me nuts.  "Let it go," became something I uttered frequently as a new mantra of sorts.  And my work didn't suffer one bit!  Aiming for mediocrity was a worthy pursuit! And yet, I still slipped into my old ways now and then.  

So, my motto as of late, lowering the bar even further, is, drum roll..."Aiming to show Up."  
Now you may laugh, but for a perfectionist, this has been a major turning point for me.   Sometimes when you care less you can actually achieve more.   I got to a point in some aspects of my life where I could literally say, "I don't care about this, why do I stress over it?" So I let the contral freak in me go on vacation. 

One would assume then that my work has in fact suffered in some way.  To the contrary, dear friends!   So perhaps everything isn't as I would love it to be, but nothing is greatly out of place.   Yes, there may be a typo in a document, yes, I don't return all my calls within 20 minutes. But the pay off?  A calmer, happier, nicer me.  

Where did I become such a stress ball in the first place?  I really had to take stock of this question and find the answer--this was the key to my transformation.  

After some soul searching and encouragement from a patient friend who just tells it like he sees it, I saw myself through a different lens.  Sometimes hearing the perspective of others is difficult but most of the time we really need their perspective.  The reality?  We are not objective and cannot be objective about ourselves.   Ponder this-- Even if you see yourself head to toe in the mirror you cannot ever truly see yourself as others see you--you can only ever see a reflection.  How humbling is that?   God knows we need others and proves it by making us unable to see our entire body.  We need another to complete the vision.

We need the perspective of others to whip us into shape, motivate us, affirm us, and change us.   So, with a new perspective, a desire to still achieve that life-work balance, I decided to focus on the things that really needed to be focused on, and to "let it go" where everything else was concerned.   I decided that others come to expect things of me because I exude that expectation of myself.  If I expect less of myself that others may come to expect less of me as well.   And in fact I found that to be true.  

So my new goal was simply to show up to life.   And when glitches happen, instead of stressing over them, I can embrace them.  Well, ok, not all of them, I'm human!   Remember, sometimes when you care less (and I don't mean that I don't care) you can achieve more.  Relax.  Make your goal either Aiming for Mediocrity or Aiming to Show Up and see if you don't feel better and actually achieve more.  

Either/Or: Time or Money

It seems when I have time, I have no money and when I have money, I have no time.  If I had both simultaneously I’m not sure I would know what to do!  I might be very impulsive and buy Gucci or Prada. 

But, I’m not a Gucci or Prada kind of gal, you see.  I’m not sure I would even know designer accessories if they were mingled with a whole bunch of no-name ones.  I would probably have a thought process about the practicality, color and number of pockets in a purse and the height of the heel and width of the toes in the shoes and never even notice the brand.  

I am practical at heart.  $500 for a purse?  Not on your life!  $1,250 for a wool coat?  Never.  If money was no object I would buy the best (within reason).  But I'm a starving artist.  And I don’t own one thing that’s expensive or glamorous.  I love my $12 Dress Barn heels!

It's not that I abhor the idea of designer labels and fashionable things.  I admire people with a real sense of fashion and flair.   But in fact, according to one special person in my life, my wardrobe more resembles Marian the Librarian.  Perhaps the glamorous ritzy lifestyle is more for someone who would appreciate the signature characteristics of top brands.   Or maybe I'm just too practical and consider comfort too important to wear the latest things.  Whichever reason prevails, I strive to be myself...and perhaps I, in fact, resemble Marian the Librarian :)

If I had time and money simultaneously I may have the propensity to be reckless or a spendthrift.  I might also do a lot of good.  Only God knows.  For now, I'll cherish what I have and hope that one day I might be blessed with a personal style coach.  Until then its back to the library for me.

Think about it:  If you had unlimited time and unlimited money, where would you put yourself in the world?  Do brand names and labels mean anything to you?  Why is that?   Do you know the label on you reads: Made in Heaven?