The Little Things

This is Sarge's idea of "doing the laundry."

"Woman!" he says, "I do the laundry ALL THE TIME."
Whatever Sarge. More like you START the laundry all the time. Then the unfolded basket of clean laundry sits in the living room for a week staring at me while I'm on the computer. And the other half of the stuff stays in the dryer, half dried I might add. So now I have to re-wash that load. Thanks a lot!
Please stop "doing the laundry". Much obliged.

Science Fair awards. Still not reimbursed! Saw the school principal last night (she's no "Pal" of mine I tell you). "Great job on those ribbons Miss. DeGallo!" she tells me. Yes, she calls me Miss. Reallastname, yet expects to be referred to as Dr. Principal. And no word or mention on reimbursement for the cash I fronted.
They did look nice though. Damn, I hate this school.

Piko deGallo's School Sucks! With Tutorial!

Also known as, how I'm stupid enough to spend $90.00 of my own money so that the kids in the FIRST EVER science fair (which Piko deG is not even participating in!) can have nice awards. Hello!!! How do you even plan a competition without some kind of budget for awards?!?! So dummy me, goes ahead and buys what the teacher in charge says she "WANTS" to give out, thinking that's what she has money for. Surprise, surprise, she has not been approved anything for awards. Oh, did I forget to mention that the Science Fair is on Thursday??!?!! AAAAAAAAAGGGHGHGHGHGG!!!! Sarge is going to kill me.

I am The Awesome though, I was able to get a donation for 3 First Place trophies for the winners from the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classes, on their individual projects. If you're ever in the area and need trophies, may I direct you to the nicest trophy shop ever!!

This is actually my tutorial for making Rosette Ribbon Awards.
I forgt to mention what you get for $90.00. I was able to make 7 -1st, 7 -2nd, and 6-3rd place rosettes. And I bought about 24 "honorable mention" type flat award ribbons.

Materials:
Double sided satin ribbon. I used 1 1/2" wide ribbon in 1 yard lengths.
Marking pen
Ruler
Fabric or craft glue. I used this stuff:



Make your own pinback button. I purchased mine from AC Moore for $1.00/ea, because I needed them right away. You can order them from Oriental Traders for a better price. Create an appropriate image for your award using your graphics program and insert into the pinback.
Flat Award ribbons. Again, I paid about $1.00 a piece for my flat ribbons at the dollar store, but if you plan ahead you can order them for a better price.
Heavy thread in a coordinating color to the ribbon you are using.
Sewing needle
Hot glue gun.


Step 1.
Lay out your ribbon, and with your ruler and pen, mark out 1" increments. Remember I used 1 1/2" ribbon, if you use a wider or thinner ribbon, you may have to adjust the width of this mark.

Step 2.
Place a small dot of glue on the bottom tip of the WRONG SIDE/unmarked side of the ribbon, and fold the edge backwards to meet up with the first 1" mark.
Step 3.
Turn the ribbon over to the right side, and place a small dot of glue on the first 1"mark. Fold the second mark over to meet the first mark, and hold in place while the glue dries.

Repeat this process along the length of the ribbon.

When you get to the end, the second mark from the end will be left.

Fold the end edge backwards to the wrong side of the ribbon, and glue into place where the last 1" mark is.


Your 1 yard of ribbon should be smaller, and naturally starting to spiral a little.

Step 4.
Starting at the beginning of your now ruffled ribbon, fold the first ruffle in half, and sew it in place. This might be a little hard because the glue makes the ribbon a little tough.

Step 5.

I've placed the pin here to demonstrate where you should be folding your next ruffle. This is about half way between the two ruffles.

See here, I've folded it at the pin, and have created a more ruffly section. Sew these areas into place.
Repeat the folding and sewing along the length of the ribbon. When you get to the end, match up the edges so that they form a nice circle, and you've hidden the edges. Sew into place.

Ta-DAH! Your finished rosette.
Step 6.

Ribbon assembly. Using your hot glue gun, glue the flat ribbon to the wrong side of the rosette. Make sure that you check from the front to make sure that the wording on your flat ribbon is properly displayed, and not covered up by the rosette.

Step 7.
Draw a bead of hot glue along the inner edge of the front of the rosette.

Step 8.

Place your decorated pinback into the open circle so that the pin part of the button is showing through the center hole of the rosette. Press into the hot glue so that it stays in place.

TA-DAH!!! Your finished rosette ribbon award!!
2nd place was decorated with extra thin ribbon son either side of the flat award ribbon. I used wired ribbon for this one, and it didn't really make much of a difference in folding and sewing the ruffles.
1st place was added to with 1 1/2" satin ribbon and thin gold ribbon.
I pinked the edges of all the ribbons so that they would match the flat award ribbon's edge.

I Don't Get People

People, you confuse me.

Some examples.

#1.
I did uniform patches for a guy Sarge works with. Normally these guys come grab their uniform, pay me and get the heck out. This guy though, well we discovered that we are both from Hawaii. Woo! Big woop. He ends up standing in my hallway talking for about 1/2 hour. This is not the confusing part. About 6:30, I tell Piko deGallo to start cleaning up her stuff, she asks me why, I tell her she needs to get to bed soon. The normal stuff we do/say every night. This guy is amazed. "She goes to bed this early? Damn! I wish my kid would go to bed early" How old is your kid? "He's 4. Last night he was up till about 2am!" Whaaaaa??!? "Yeah, I fell asleep, and woke up at 2, and he was sitting on my bed staring at me and eating a piece of bread." Ooookaaay... "He won't go to sleep, he always stays up till at least 11:00"

I'm seriously confused.

This guy works the opposite schedule as Sarge, which means he gets to work at about 4:45am, and gets off about 5:30pm. When Sarge worked that schedule he was in bed by 8:30 every night, needless to say this guy is not, and according to Sarge, he gets paperwork for being late all the time. Since when does your 4 year old dictate what time they "want" to go to bed? The hell man, they're freaking 4!! I think people like this are crazy when they're surprised that Piko deGallo goes to bed when I tell her, like I have some kind of magical power over my child. Well, actually I do I guess, it's called: I'm the adult and she's the child. I make the rules, she follows them. It's not amazing, it's not magic, it's not mean. I'm not saying that Piko deG always follows my direction, but I make sure she does for the important things that keep her safe and healthy. What the hell this guy is going to do next year when his kid starts kindergarten and has to be up by 6:15am, I have no idea.

#2.
Oooh, a big storm is coming!! We might be trapped in our home for, holy crap!, 24 hours!! Everyone and their mother must rush to the market NOW to stock up on bread, toilet paper, milk and eggs!!!

Obviously my marketing experience yesterday was less than enjoyable.

#3.
Why are you having a baby shower for a 4th child?? Especially when child #3 is going to be all of 1 1/2 when #4 hatches. Though this person gets a semi-pass when I found out that she's having her first girl.

No, I wasn't invited to the shower. I heard about it while having coffee with some of my PTA ladies (a whole other post in itself). I kinda, sorta know this lady, I we coached her oldest son in soccer this past year. I was going to make her a small baby quilt anyway, because she's usually pretty friendly to me. I didn't expect her to actually have a shower.

#4.
Piko deGallo!!! You confuse me the most!

Why do I have to drag you out of bed every day this week, moaning and whining about how tired you are (see #1, this is why I have her go to bed at 7:15, even with 11 hours of sleep it's a struggle to get her up sometimes). WHY??!! WHY?!! then do you get up at 5:30 AM on a snow day?!?!? Dude! We totally could have slept in!! It's not even really snowing, it's more like drizzly cold rain, that might turn into ice! So there's not even snow to get excited about.

And thanks for pointing out that Daddy's clock and my clock don't say the same time. For. Freaking. Fifteen. Minutes!!!

So...

So yesterday Piko came home crying. I though it was because we were making her come home so we could run errands. I'm all "Suck it up girl, you can play with them when we get back!" Not so much. Apparently her "friends" were calling her the "Queen of Losers!" And threatening to "tell on her" for what, I have no idea.

WHAT?!?!WHAT!!!???!!!

Now, I am the first to recognize that my kid can be somewhat of a namby pamby, and needs to grow some. But she's really not used to being called names. These girls that she plays with are sisters, and they can be pretty mean to eachother. Who knows, maybe the fact that they are now extending the name calling to Piko means that she's part of their family now.

I try not to get involved in this kind of crap when it goes down with my kid. But this time I'm a little torn between telling her to deal with it herself, and going over to talk to the mother. This mom's oldest child is being bullied in school, and she's under the impression that her daughter is not sticking up for herself, and is totally blameless in this bully situation. But based on what Piko is telling me, either she is not totally blameless, and/or it is affecting the way that she is interacting with other children.

Who the hell knows. I wasn't there to witness the interaction, so I don't know what exactly went on. The middle daughter is the one who walked Piko home, and was telling me a little bit about what happened, but I'm sure that she didn't really want to rat out her sisters.

Anyway, I'm really just venting, because it's anoying.

I ended up telling Piko that she was not going to be playing with them for the rest of the weekend. And that if they ever start calling her names again she is to stop playing with them immediately and come home. I don't care how much fun she was having, do not stay over there and take it. What else can I do? On a normal day she gets along very well with these girls, and they are the only kids on the block her age to play with.

Should I talk with the Mom? GAH!

P.S. We ended up staying inside, so we worked on Piko's science project.

VOLCANO!!!!

This Week's WIP

Oofah!!
File last week under "She'll never learn".

There was the Cruise backdrop. First, I bought the wrong kind of paper, it is a bit too thin, and the paint made it wrinkle something awful. It got better as the paint dried though.
Here is a stage one shot. See the wrinkles and the pulling?

And the finished product. I am getting better at remembering that I have to work back to front, and top to bottom to save myself painting over and over the same areas.This was not my favorte project ever, but I have to say that when I would be working in the kitchen I would catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye, and it was like I was looking out a large window. That was kind of cool.

Valentine's Day projects galore!

Fabric flower corsages for the teachers and staff at Piko deGallo's school. Fabric flower pattern can be found at Wise Craft.

I was a bit worried that the feathers and ribbon might be a bit much for the teachers. But I was reminded by another mom that the teachers are mostly older women women of a more "mature" taste level. Right.

I was also up until 1:30 Saturday night compiling the master list for the PTA's Valentines Day lollipop fundraiser. I would have been done earlier, but Piko and I watched POTC Dead Man's Chest. I was sitting for so long that my butt got sweaty. EW! The PTA sold over 600 lollipops at the school. Something that I noticed while making up the list is that it looks like the people who bought the most pops for their friends received very few pops in return. Hmmmmm....school social politics, I sure don't miss that.

Here is how the flowers are going to be given to the teachers on their sacks of lollipops for their classes.


Piko got some as a hair clips too. She's so spoiled.

These felt flower hair clips are gifts for Piko's female classmates and friends. This pattern is from Betz White.

The action shot.


This is a very crappy picture of it, but I made this "pet carrier" for Piko's favorite stuffed animal. It's a bit of fabric fastened with velcro around the belly of the cat, with a short and long handle to carry her around with. Piko likes to bring this cat along whenever we go out, but worries that she'll lose it somewhere, so this way she can brng it along and keep her hands free without worrying about it getting forgotten.


Another thing for Piko deGallo. When we move she'd getting our guest bed, which is a Queen, so I'm making her a big, big quilt for the bed.

I just love fabric charm squares. These charm squares are Moda "Full Moon Forrest".


And then the funniest thing happened Sunday morning, Piko came out of her room strutting around in this ensemble. The first thing that I thought was "OH NO!! It's LiLo!!" Love the leggings and the scarf there Piko.

My plastic valentine...

I mentioned yesterday that I just realized that next week holds Valentine's day.
Woo-hoo.
So, I was at the commissary this afternoon picking up afew things, and I though I would get some caaaannnndeeeee for Piko deGallo.

Question.

When the hell did Cinderella turn into Dr. 90210 plastic Botox Cinderella?!?

View.

Cinderella circa 1950


Cinderella 2008!!

She looks like she had cheek implants, collagen, Botox, an eye job, and some major veniers put on those teeth! Man, I know she's like 58 or something, but good plastic surgery "freshens you up", not makes you look like a totally different person!

Is she a candidate for Awful Plastic Surgery?!!

And so I find that it is Wednesday.
Looking at my calendar I realize that not only is next week Valentine's day, but I have a mini mural to do for some officer's club. Oh yeah, by tuesday. Oops.
I kind of ranted a bit last time about having to do a last minute mural, but who the heck am I kidding, that's the way I work even when I have a 3 week lead time.

I guess this means that I'm off to the store to pick up my painting supplies. So I'm off, and it's a bit early so Michael's is not open yet, so I hit the Target next door. I need some lightbulbs anyway.

8:30 am in the middle of the week, I figure I'll pretty much have the place to myself. Not so much.

The hell?!?! Target is chock-a-block full of mothers and their young spawn precious angels. Which, hey, I get. They probably have been up since 5 am (which is when Piko used to get up), and need something to do, Target is clean, open, and probably empty. Kids are fine, don't get me wrong, I like kids, have one of my own. What I hate is this:

Mommy: Don't touch!
Mommy's Little Angel (MLA): I'm nawt towching.
Mommy: Don't!
MLA: I'm nawt!!!
Mommy: Don't touch that or I'll put you in the cart!
MLA: OOOOHHH!!! Look Mawmeeeeeee!!!!!!! Can I have some candy?
Mommy: I said don't touch that!
MLA: I'm nawt. Candy Mawmeee!!
Mommy: No!
MLA: Caaaaannnndddeeee!!!!Maaaawwwwmmmmeeeeee!!!
Mommy: Didn't I tell you not to touch?! I'm going to put you in the cart!
MLA: No cart Mawmee!!

I swear to whatever deity is the most powerful!!! Put your damn kid in the damn cart already!! I'm not buying anything from that aisle because I can hear very well that they touch everything in it!!! Can a person not browse the totally cute baking and packaging aisles in peace?!?!

I'm so evil, but when I'm with Piko and we hear that kind of behavior, and if she is behaving herself despite outside influence. I loudly offer to buy her some candy.
Evily.