Get Yer Gun…

While I was out in the garage, working on my home made picture frame project, Son decided he had to build something too.  As a parent, and a teacher, I am a huge advocate for teaching your children at home by allowing them to teach themselves.  By this I mean, you give them the tools, and minimal guidance, to figure things out on their own.  This day was no different.

Son came up with all sorts of ideas of what he wanted to build.  Seriously, a house?!  Come on kid, I’m glad you’re thinking big, but we just don’t have that amount of wood in the scrap bin.  I decided to send him for his sketchbook and a pencil, and have him draw up what he wanted to build.  I told him that this was called a Plan, and that everything that gets built starts with a plan.  So off he ran…

When he was through, he had drawn a gun.  He’s a boy, after all, so I just smiled.  And then I helped Son get the wood.

We laid out our pieces much like a puzzle, until we had the rough shape of a riffle.  Hey, I’m Texan, I’m OK with guns, but I’m no gangster, so I try to limit our arsenal to shot guns.  Even though I understand that my logic is flawed, I figure you can hunt with a riffle, not hold up a liquor store.  Yes.  I know it is completely illogical.  You may shake your head at me.  But back to the story.  We made our shape…

Then, I traced the butt of our BB gun to get the right shape.

Since two of the boards needed curved cuts, I did the sawing with our band saw.

But the barrel of the gun was a simple straight cut, and even though I helped, I left most of the work up to Son.

We used simple nails and a hammer to put the pieces together.  I helped Son line the boards up in the vice, and then helped him hammer in the nails.

And yes, he was beyond excited that his ears are finally big enough to hold a pencil.  It’s the little things!

Once the gun was fully assembled, I handed Son a sander, and told him to get busy.  After a few minutes, though, he got bored, and gave up.  Even in it’s rough shape, he still loves it.

Even better, will be the pictures I can get when he wears his coonskin cap.  Son likes Davy Crockett, and I can only imagine how awesome having a riffle to hunt bears, and maybe wabbits, will be… even if it’s not properly sanded….

 

Framing Matisse…

A few days ago, Son decided to draw a picture.  In most cases, his artwork isn’t kept for long, unless it shows some sort of  developmental he hasn’t portrayed before, in which case I stash it in a folder.  He also has a sketch book where he can draw, and once it’s filled up, I give him a fresh one, and put the used one away for safe keeping.  This method works wonderfully for us; it satisfies that parental urge to save everything our offspring creates, and the organizer in me that doesn’t want to be buried alive by aimless scribbles.  Well, the other day, when Son decided to create another masterpiece, I thought nothing of it.  I wasn’t concerned that he was drawing on an unusual, and used piece of plastic.  After all, his canvas was really just trash that we hadn’t gotten around to recycling.  But once he finished, and gifted me with his artwork, I immediately wish I had giving him something truly keep-worthy.  He had drawn me, his mother, a beautiful garden of flowers.

I knew I was going to keep it the second I saw it.  I think I may have nearly cried.  His drawing wasn’t of superheros, or machines like usual.  Instead he drew something to show me he loved me, and I wanted to show him how pleased I was, and how much I loved him.  I wanted to frame it.

First, I thought about the words scrawled across the top, written by my long passed grandfather, apparently in an attempt to make some money off his pond.  Since I don’t know the story, the text has always seemed odd to me, and I have no emotional attachment to it.  I can’t even tell you why I have it in the first place.  So I figured I would try to remove the words so that Son’s flowers would shine.

I learned that I could remove permanent marker from a dry-erase board by coloring over it with a dry-erase marker, and erasing.  Since the fish sign was made on a corrugated plastic board, I gave it a shot, being sure to test on an area I planned to crop.

It worked, but it wasn’t working quite as well as I had hoped.  My grandfather has been gone for over ten years, so that permanent marker had plenty of time to settle in.  So I stepped back, and looked at the picture a bit longer.  I decided to leave the words.  I guess on some level it’s neat to think my son’s drawing shares a space with the handwriting of the great grandfather he never had the chance to meet.

So instead, I went forward with the cropping.

Of course, as I began cutting the sign in half, Son said that I should have cut off the top, and not the side.  I guess I should’ve consulted the artist before I went to editing his work.  It would have looked nice that way, slicing off the top line of text, but I hadn’t thought of that.  It’s OK, since I had already chosen a place in my hallway to hang it, and the wood I chose probably wouldn’t have worked in any other size.

Yep, I chose some scrap wood I found in the garage, and measure out the 18″ length needed for the vertical sides.  I made one cut, on two separate pieces of wood, and ended up with the exact size needed for the top and bottom that way.  I know I got lucky.  I only needed to saw once, since I taped the wood pieces together before breaking out the tools.

I used two nails for each corner, and hammered the pieces together.  But just because I now had a rectangle didn’t mean I was finished.  The most important step to making a frame is putting in some sort of gusset so the box doesn’t rack, or lean to one side or the other.  For this, I cut four triangles out of some press board left over from Son’s Chalkboard project, and attached them to the back.

I sanded down my new frame, and then painted it gloss white to match the other frames hanging on my gallery wall.  More on that hallway here, here, and here.

It makes me happy to see Son’s flowers hanging on the wall.  Until now, all his art has hung on the fridge, or been relegated to a folder, or worse, file thirteen.  I think he’s pretty pleased with his official art, too.  What do you think?

Red Sangria…

Just like Jerry Jeff Walker, I too love that Sangria Wine, and since last weekend was our Texas Independence Day party, I made a double batch.

It always starts the same way, with two lemons, two oranges, two limes, one cup of sugar, and lots of rum.  Slice the oranges, and lay them out in a bowl.  Sprinkle with sugar, and then top with sliced lemons, more sugar, and then the sliced limes, and more sugar.

Then measure out 3 cups of white rum…

…That’s 1.5 cups measured out twice, and pour it over the fruit.  Muddle a bit with a wooden spoon, cover, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.  I always make this in the morning, and let it meld all day.

Just before you are ready to serve, add 2 cups of orange juice, and two bottles of red wine.

Since it was a party, I chose to serve mine in mason jars.

Since I like my sangria festive, and a bit less of a punch in the face, I top each serving off with a bit of club soda.  Of course, it was a hit!  We finished off the double-batch before the night was over.  In the past I’ve gone ahead and made more at the last minute, but this year, we all opted to wake up headache free.

Red Sangria Wine

Ingredients:

2 Oranges, sliced thinly

2 Lemons, sliced thinly

2 Limes, sliced thinly

1 Cup Sugar

3 Cups White Rum

2 (750ml) Bottles of Red Wine

2 Cups Orange Juice

________________________________________________________

Layer the fruit in a large bowl with the sugar.

Muddle lightly with a spoon to release a bit of the juices.

Add 3 Cups of White Rum.

Cover, and chill for at least 2 hours

Muddle more, and add 2 cups orange juice, and red wine.

Stir to combine.

Serve chilled.

Mix with club soda to taste, if desired.

Enjoy!

 

Puttin’ On the Shine…

Winter is boot season, and even though Winter pretty much left town weeks ago — it was 80 here the other day, I’ve still been wearing my boots.  So it goes without being said that my boots were looking a bit, well, worn.

Even worse, one of the boots has some odd bleached spots.  No, I have no idea where they came from.

But, since I grew up in Texas, and have watched both grandfathers and my own dad fixing up their dress boots before some big event, I knew just what to do.  I went to the store, and bought this…

Since they only had black and brown shoe polish to choose from, no variations like ox blood, I went with brown, and then I tested the color in a place where it wouldn’t be seen, like under the strap.  It matched well enough, so I went to work rubbing the polish onto a rag that I didn’t mind losing, and then rubbing it into my boots, being sure to move in a circular direction to avoid stripes and color gaps.  When I was through, my boots looked like this…

Unfortunately, those bleached spots didn’t want to accept any color!

I have no idea what I did, but short of pulling out some paint, or maybe a marker, I’m at a loss.  I may have to get used to the spots.  Besides, they add character, right?  At least that’s what I will tell myself.  Luckily, everywhere else looks good, and my boots look more like fashion statements, and less like work boots.  I gave up my steel toes long ago.

Crescent Roll Pies…

The other night, Husband was working late, and I wanted something fun for Son and myself to eat for dinner.  You know how even though you’ve eaten better, and certainly made better, food, you still sometimes get a craving for something terrible like those rectangular lunchroom pizzas with the mini, cubed pepperoni?  Well, I was wanting something like that.  I was wanting a hot pocket.  To be more precise, I wanted a ham and cheese hot pocket.  Don’t sneer, you know there’s a soft spot in your tastebuds for those things.

Since I never buy that stuff, I didn’t have any on hand.  I decided to try and make them myself.  I started with a tube of crescent rolls.  That’s right, Sandra Lee doesn’t have the market cornered on the semi-homemade thing.

So I rolled out the crescent roll dough.

I wanted to make two different pies, and I figured that by simply rolling the dough out, using the puff pastry 1/3 envelope method, would get rid of all the crescent roll cuts.  Turns out, this was a bad idea.  Sure, rolling out the dough removed all traces of the cuts for the rolls, but it also became impossible to roll the dough out as thinly as it was before I started messing with it.  So if you decide to make these, DON’T roll out the dough, just pinch the seems together like all other recipes that use crescent rolls as a base tell you do.

After I marred my dough a bit, I went ahead with my plan, and cut the dough in half.  I then placed each half onto a pan lined with parchment, and added shredded cheddar to one, with sliced ham that I cut up, and then mozzarella and pepperoni to the other.

I then folded each piece in half, and pinched the sides closed.

I baked the pies according to the package’s roll direction.  When they were nicely browned, I removed them from the oven, and allowed them to cool slightly.

They tasted pretty good.  The pepperoni was sharp and salty, but the ham and cheese pie was missing that fake taste that makes hot pockets so good.  I think next time I’ll use American cheese, instead of cheddar, it might add to that fakeness that I was missing.  Of course, now I want some lunchroom pizza.  I bet I could use a tube of dinner rolls for that….

If You Clean It, They Will Come…

As part of my Get On That Already challenge, where I finally move my tail, and complete a project that I’ve been staring at, and saying “Tomorrow,” I decided I should really turn my attention to my guest room.  There is a strong possibility that I will actually have guests coming this very weekend for Texas Independence Day, and it’s only polite to offer a nice place for them to stay.  Unfortunately, my guest room looked like this…

Yeah.  Welcoming, right?  The bed isn’t even clean off!

Well, I finally got on that, and my guests should be much more comfortable, now.  The room is all cleaned up, and organized.  The bedding is washed, the rug vacuumed, and I even have a water pitcher with two glasses on the night stand.

Pretty swanky, huh?

So after all that work, my guests have to come, right?  I just hope they don’t look in the closet….

Our Giving Tree…

The tree in our backyard is amazing.  As far as trees go, it’s a simple fruitless mulberry, and not really anything special, but I love it.  I love it because it provides just enough shade to cool the sand box and our thrifted hammock in the summer.  I love it because it holds Son’s swing.  And now, keeping with the idea that this tree is the hub of our backyard, it holds Son’s scavenged slide and tree house.  I happened to spot the slide on the side of the curb one day, and Husband carried it home for me, in a truck, of course.  To Husband’s credit, he rigged up something to make the slide usable for Son, but I was getting tired of looking at this…

A few months back, I shared with you my tree house template idea.  I used some cardboard to trace out the basic shape of the tree house platform.  I figured it was lighter, and more easily handled than wood would be.  Then over the weekend, Husband and I finally built the actual, wooden platform.  Cardboard isn’t exactly recommended for a tree house.

We started with some 2x6s laid out, using screws for spacers between each plank.  The spacing will allow for both water runoff, and swelling of the wood.

Then I laid the template on top, and traced around it.

Then Husband had to cut through each 2×6 to get the required shape.  It wasn’t exactly easy, cutting curves in a 2″ thick piece of wood, but Husband indulged me, as he often does when I get neurotic about a design.  It’s nice to have good help.

Once the pieces were cut, I had the task of putting the puzzle back together, but in reverse, being sure to include the spacers.  Then we placed some ripped 1x boards across to hold the platform together.

We quickly discovered that each piece of 2×6 would need 2 screws to keep it from twisting.  Once we had it all attached, we placed it into the tree.  It suddenly became apparent that I hadn’t fully thought this out.  While the platform shape looked great, and fit fairly well, we had no way to support the platform.  I guess I was hoping it would simply rest of the tree limbs, but it wasn’t exactly stable.  Instead, Husband attached some 2×6 scraps between the platform and the tree to create shelves.  Of course to test its security, I climbed up and jumped a few times.  I’m still here, writing this post, so it obviously worked.

Now we just had to attach the slide.

I stayed in the tree house, and Husband thought about the slide.  After a few back and forths, we finally worked out a way to hang the slide, and once it was finished, I had the scary job of testing it out.

The last step was getting boards attached to the trunk of the tree so Son, and anyone else, could climb up to the tree house.  We decided to go with the traditional wooden plank screwed to the tree method.  We chose to use some scrap 2x4s that had been outside for a while, so they were nicely acclimated to the weather.  They were also part of the previous slide setup.  We cut them down, and then added spacers behind each board as needed for stability.

Naturally, we still had to get Son to climb up the ladder, and slide down the slide.  He was a little unsure, but I showed him where to put his hands, and reassured him the whole time.

Once he overcame his fears, he was ecstatic.

He played on the new slide all evening.  He doesn’t have mush use for the ladder, still, preferring to climb up the slide, but he’s getting there.

I can’t help but smile when I look out my back door.  I love it.  It’s just what I wanted.  The tree house is compact, fun, and it doesn’t take over my back yard.  It also cost us a grand total of 30 bucks, and we have several boards left over to use on other projects.  Even better, Son loves it.  I can’t wait to see what it looks like when the leaves come in.  I may also paint the platform with some of our leftover house paint.  Of course, I’ll share if I do.

Thinking of Thank Yous…

I am still working on being a beautiful homemaker.  The kind of homemaker that does more than keep a home clean.  One that supports her mate, and teaches her children to be supporting, and kind adults.  To that end, I set Son to business.

Last week, he had his 4th birthday, and he received a truckload of presents.  Of course, we gave out party bags, and the kids took home armloads of junkfood from the homemade pinata, but I wanted Son to say thank you to his friends.  I wanted him to send thank you notes.  The only problem was that I don’t have any kid-friendly thank you cards.  Not one to let that stop me, I decided to make my own.

First, I took three sheets of card stock, and cut it into quarters.  Then I folded each quarter in half, and handed it to Son.  It was his job to use the side of a pencil to set the crease on the folded card.

This step is crucial if you want your homemade cards to look better than a grade school card, and it’s a simple step to execute.

Once Son finished, he tossed the card back to me, and I wrote “Thank You” on the front with a marker.

Then, I handed it back to Son, and had him write each child’s name on the inside top of the card.

Of course, I did have to write down how to spell each student’s name; he is only 4.  And once he was finished, I wrote the actual thank you note.

Making the cards ourselves saved me money, but more importantly, involving Son in the task gave him a sense of ownership and pride.  I’m also hoping that having him write the names, even if it was just the names, began than often long process of teaching him the importance of thank you cards.  I guess only time will tell on that front.

 

To Green, or Not To Green…

That was my question.  I even sent some texts to friends hoping for back up.  None of them responded in time, and I was forced to come to a decision on my own.

What about?

Cupcakes.  Specifically, Son’s birthday party cupcakes.

Son actually requested cupcakes for his party, cupcakes and a pinata, and being the awesome mom that I am, I figured why not.  I found a new recipe online, and went to work making his dreams come true.  Everything was golden until I came to the point of the recipe where I was supposed to put the batter into the cupcake tin.  That’s when I froze.

Not literally, but I was faced with indecision.  I pried myself on being less wasteful than I could be, and on saving money; to me, these qualities pretty much go hand in hand.  So what’s wasteful, or expensive about cupcakes?  The wrappers.  I even wrote a post about it way back in the infancy of my blog.  I think I may have wrung my hands over the issue, to wrap, or not, for a good 5 minutes before I deiced to simply jump in.

That’s right.  My cupcakes went naked.  Really, I’m still talking about cake here.  The kind you eat.  I’m not making this sound any better, am I?  Maybe a picture would help!

See?  Cupcakes.  No?  Maybe you should get closer….

No wrappers.  No extra trash to clean up, and throw away.  No extra expense.  Even better for parents of young children, no one had to peel the wrappers off the cupcakes for the kiddos.  Seriously, this can be an issue.  Now sure, there were some asthetic issues to deal with.  The cakes looked more line iced cornbread muffins.  And it turns out that the wrapper gives some stability to a soft cake; they weren’t so easy to pop out of the pan.  All the same, I think I have convinced myself that  this way, my way, is the better way.  I still have cupcake wrappers in the pantry, so I didn’t save any money, but I did enjoy not having to pick up all those soggy rounds of paper after the kids were finished with them, and if you ask me, I think they were easier to eat that way as well.

So the next time you are frozen in the kitchen with a cupcake dilemma, just remember What Would Gettin’ By Do?  She’d let them eat cake, naked.  I mean, without the wrappers!

Swag Bags on the Cheap…

Everyone with children knows that it is a social requirement to hand out goody bags to birthday party guests.  Even when I was young, this was a common practice.  Today’s favours are generally of the Oriental Trading junk variety, and Son never seems to make it home before he’s broken something in the bag, and it has to be tossed.  Add that to the fact that I hate tiny bits of plastic crap lying about, and that I’m just plain cheap, I’m not particularly fond of the goody bag requirement.  But Son was really looking forward to giving presents to his friends.  I told him we would see what we could do.

We went to the store, and came back with all of this….

That’s $10.25 worth of party favours for twelve party guests.  So how did I get it so cheap?  I’m lucky, and smart.  Son’s birthday is a few days after Valentine’s day, and with all holidays becoming so commercialized, it’s encouraged to give out stuff in addition to cards.  It also means that the same stuff that would normally go into a party bag is marketed for the big V-day, and afterwards goes on sale.  With the exception of the stickers, I got everything for 50% off.  Yep.  That exact same junk, with out the hearts on the packaging, would’ve cost me 20 bucks!  And since I didn’t want his party guest’s parents to know that I am cheap, I chose things that didn’t look so hearts and kisses.  I mean really, what in the world to foam airplanes have to do with love and St Valentine?  Did cupid get a travel upgrade?

You’ll also notice that I opted for things that are less likely to disintegrate on the drive home.  Bouncy balls?  Not going to crumble for a while.  Pencils?  Pretty stable shelf life.  I only got the silly spiky balls because Son begged me, and it was his party.

I also still had plastic cellophane bags left over from Son’s party last year where I handed out home made cookies, left over bubbles from my mother’s wedding eons ago, and wind-up robots.  So I put Son to work sorting the new swag, and placing them into bags.

Did you notice that I found a use for my newly acquired wine box?    I used it to carry all small party supplies to the party.

You can see it packed with goody bags, napkins, plates, spoons, and decor.

There is also the rope for the pinata, and our family birthday crown that my mother made for me.

So, in closing, if you have to buy swag, and your event is near a give-away holiday, be sure to check the clearance isle before pushing your cart to the party section.  And of course, always use a freely acquired wine box to carry them to your event.