Baby Shower Gifts

My cousin's baby shower was this past weekend. I had decided to get more creative and found a fun presentation and packaging for some of the registered items.
 

Thanks to the directions on Little Birdie Secrets blog, I made cupcakes out of receiving blankets and burp cloths. 

I packaged them in a cake box with a window.

  I turned diaper cloths, washcloths, and socks into tiny babies.  Thanks to the blog entry by pharMa that showed how to make these cuties.

 I put these in a cake box too and then stacked the boxes and wrapped twine around them.

They seemed to be a hit at the baby shower.  It did take me several hours to make all these so being creative can be time consuming!

Coordinating cards, envelopes, and postage stamps

I enjoy making greeting cards.  When I saw that the US Post Office was coming out with a bicycle stamp, an idea for a coordinating card popped into my head.  After that I checked the USPS website for other postage stamps that I could coordinate with my rubber stamps.  

Below are the cards I made.  The bicycle set even has an envelope seal that matches.  Two were birthday cards and one was a thank you card I sent to my aunt & uncle who gave me a wonderful manual typewriter (Yeah!).  

I know a postcard that has coordinating front image, postage stamp, and cancellation stamp is called a maximum postcard or maxicard.  I don't know if there is a term for a greeting card / envelope version.  I have no idea how to get coordinating cancellation stamps in the USA for postcards or envelopes or if the USPS even gives an option unless it is a special event of a first issue or something.

Glass Blown Pumpkin

 

A week ago I took a glass blowing class at Glass Axis (through the UA Parks & Rec).  We made pumpkins!  I had to wait 5 days to pick it up since the items have to cool down slowly.  There was a paper weight class at the same time and we all used the same "cool down vat" (don't know the proper name for it) and solid glass sculptures takes a lot longer to cool down than blown glass.  

Since this was my first glass blowing class, I had LOTS of help.  I am sensitive to heat so the thousands of degrees coming out the the gathering vat was rather intimidating.  Plus when working with glass, constant rotating of the rod is important. Below are some pictures I took during class.  I lost a few photos when I downloaded my camera to the computer so there aren't any of the glass being rolled, in the mold or being blown [I am bummed about that].

 

Some of the color selection

 

The rods preheating on the left and the big heating kiln / vat with the glowing hole and a heat shield (metal board with the writing on it).

  

 Some of the shaping tools.  Notice the wooden tool have to stay wet and the long tongs have beeswax applied regularly.

 

The molds: the big and medium one for the pumpkin and the small one for the stem.

 

Adding the stem and preparing to mold it around a pipe.  All colors look brown when heated to such extreme temperatures.

National Postcard Week 2012

Today is the last day of National Postcard Week (NPCW) {May 6-12, 2012}.  I had considered making my own postcards to send out.  There is a group online that each member designs a postcard for this week (with the words National Postcard Week and the dates) and swaps with the other members.  Sounds cool to me.  But I didn't have enough time to design something and get a bunch printed / copied.  Maybe next year.  Instead I sent out store-bought postcards (various ones) to some family, for some swaps on swap-bot.com, and through PostCrossing.com.  I sent out 17 postcards to 12 different countries and 4 USA states.  Not bad for deciding to participate on Friday (and with the current postage rates)! 

Today is also the USPS Letter Carriers Stamp Out Hunger food drive.  So I have many postcards for the mail carrier to pick up along with a bag of non-perishable foods for the food pantry.  Our mail gets delivered quite late in the day (anywhere between 4:30pm and 6:00pm).  If he has lots of food donations, I expect him to be even later today.  It's tough to be an impatient person waiting for real mail when it really feels like SNAIL mail some days.  ;) 

Holiday Homebrew

Today my husband has a work holiday (Good Friday) so he is at home making beer - an Irish lager.  He has been a homebrewer longer than I have known him.  He has done the 5-7 gallon single batch beers but he is in the middle of making a new brewing contraption that will allow larger batches and has its own heating element (and not take over the kitchen every time).  Anyway, our cat Grady is a BIG fan of malt extract and the wort (he has a sweet tooth).   Today he a got quite a treat when an empty malt bag made it to the floor (my husband took this picture before retrieving the bag to throw it away).

 

 Grady will hang out in the kitchen and supervise the process and lick any drops that make it on the cabinets or floor. 

 Right now he is guarding the "beer" (wort) while it cools down so the yeast can be added (and napping as he is probably on a sugar crash).

My 100th PostCrossing Postcard

I received my 100th postcard through PostCrossing in February this year.  I find it interesting that the postcard is of the doorway of the Natural History Museum in London, England.  I lived in London for a year while in college and I went to the museum to do research for a paper I had to write.  I also like doors and doorways with interesting designs or carvings.  The postage stamp is fun too since I love books & reading and have enjoyed Roald Dahl's books.  It was a great postcard to be my 100th!!

Texas Trip - Part 2: Galveston

We did a day trip to Galveston, an island on the gulf.  (TV show "Big Bang Theory" fans may know it as the hometown of Sheldon Cooper).  It was a hot, humid, windy day so the surf was quite rough.

This was the view we had while eating a yummy lunch. 

 Unfortunately, John got a call from work during lunch.  We had to find a place with free wi-fi so he could use his laptop for a couple of hours. 

 The coffee shop we found had a plaque on the wall showing where the water level was during Hurricane Ike in 2008.  It seemed to me that Galveston hasn't completely come back from that devastation as some buildings were still boarded up and some stores have gone out of business.  While we were there, a cruise ship was in port but I didn't know that until we got to the harbor.  Not many people disembarked for Galveston.

During my walk while John worked, I saw several of these solar powered parking meters.  One meter for the whole block.  The parking spaces had numbers that you keyed into the machine so it knows which space you were paying for.

 This is a photo of the 1877 Tall Ship Elissa.  She was made in Scotland and sailed all over the world.  She is a museum - and is still sailed on occasion!  Engines were installed some time ago so she is not limited by the winds.  We enjoyed exploring the compartments on the vessel and learning her history.

 There is also an oil rig museum but we didn't have time to visit it.  Galveston is a place where oil rigs and ships are brought to repair.

 

 This deep sea oil rig was being serviced.

 Here are the ruins of the S.S.Selma, one of 12 concrete ships, built in 1919 (steel was in short supply so someone thought concrete might be a good alternative).  She was an oil tanker that had some successful trips but then ran aground and got a crack about 60' long.  She was towed to Galveston for repairs.  Supposedly the crack was repairable but the crew available did not know how to repair concrete.  It was decided to scrap the ship.  A channel was dug for her final resting place in Galveston Bay.

  

 I was not aware that Galveston was a major point of entry for immigrants - supposedly just as many as Ellis Island in New York!  Many arrived in Galveston from Germany and the Netherlands.  The Texas Seaport Museum has a database of the ships and immigrants.  I found a couple family names in the database!

This partial wall indicates where the hospital for incoming immigrants stood.  People were treated here or kept in quarantine if they were sick upon arrival.

A photo of the Galveston Island-Port Bolivar Ferry making a run.  The Texas Department of Transportation runs the ferries that are part of Highway 87.  The free ferry runs 24/7 and crosses 2.7 miles of water one-way.  We saw three ferry boats operating during the evening rush hour carrying cars, school buses, pedestrians, cement trucks, sheriff vehicles, and work vans.  We rode the ferry across and back as pedestrians - free boat ride!

On our return ferry to Galveston we saw even the birds were having their "rush hour" flights.

PostCrossing and postcards

I collect postcards and love receiving them in the mail (I love receiving "real mail" no matter what it is since it is not a bill or ad).  Several years ago I learned about PostCrossing (“send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world!”) which has helped my collection grow.  I also enjoy seeing the postage stamps from around the world and the airmail stickers in various languages.  This is the postcard I received this week from Germany.

  

Texas Trip - Part 1: capitol building

Earlier this month, John and I traveled to Texas for 10 days.  We visited several cities {note: blog entries about the trip are not in chronological order}.  While staying in San Antonio, we did a day trip to Austin to see the state capitol building.  There is also a visitor's center for the capitol with lots of interesting information about the history of the capitol and of Texas (the building is designed by a man from Iowa and search the 'net for XIT Ranch for the story about how some Chicago guys helped "settle" Texas with the world's largest ranch).

Inside the dome

 

Info about the rotunda floor representing the flags flown over Texas.  We had learned at the Alamo in San Antonio how Texas has been a part of six different countries.

Walking around the building, I noticed the ornate, protruding door hinges.

The ornate door knobs and hardware also caught my attention.

  Look at the open hinges of the door (you can click on the photo for a larger image) and you can see the inside says "Texas Capitol".

After our visit, we found our personalized Texas Rangers badges (no, we didn't buy them).

Spring (or Summer??) has arrived

We returned to Ohio from our trip to Texas this past weekend to bare trees.  Then a couple days ago, all the trees in the neighborhood were showing their buds.  It seemed to have happened overnight.  Although spring officially began on Tuesday, central Ohio has had 5 days this month that tied or broke record high temperatures ...and today could be the 6th.  I think the average temperature for this time of year is around 53 degrees but it has been in the mid-80's the last couple of days.  Luckily a cold front is coming through tomorrow evening to cool things off.  I hope they aren't severe storms as the ones last weekend created a tornado warning and some hailstorms in the area.  Not quite the welcome home I wanted. 

Spring Equinox!

I have been on an unintentional hiatus from blogging.  I have ideas and subjects for posts...but haven't been writing them.  It is spring and I am taking on the challenge of blogging again.  Blogger has changed format so it may take me a bit to adjust and figure it out.  I prefer to post with photos instead of just text to make the entry more interesting and visually appealing.

This blog has been a combination of arts/crafts, travel, and whatever else comes up.  It started as "hey, I can write a blog" for an entry.  Then months later I used it to share my experiences with my family while traveling in China.  When I returned, I posted about house-hunting, doing improv comedy, some art I created, and other miscellaneous things.  

I had considered doing different blogs by subject...but that would be more for me to keep track and post on.  Simplicity is what I need.  Depending on what draws you here (I don't have very many readers anyway at this point), you may find new topics or ones that don't interest you scattered among all the entries.  Think of the variety as a way to learn new things and expand your horizons.  

Expect to see entries about arts/crafts (creations, inspirations, swaps, challenges, experimenting), creativity, travel, dealing with a wheat-free diet in Western culture, progress on my projects, exploring my/the world, being a homeowner, learning new things, trying new things, and anything else that pops up and I deem blog-entry worthy.


Thanks for reading and I welcome comments!