Since I’m not the best planner I’ve been making up the activities as I go, but if I were more on it I would have printed the activities on the back. As it is, I left the backs blanks and convinced my skeptical and smart 5-year-old that I am reading magic ink that only grown-ups can see. Click here for a free printable of the countdown numbers!

Today’s activity was making Christmas trees from scrap paper and styrofoam cones. And we did some balls the same way. I used this tutorial from Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom.  I found that the paste wasn’t as sticky for my kids so I added some glue to the mix.

It was tons of fun for them.

So much fun that they wanted to the styrofoam balls I had on hand. This was a bit harder and less fun– the strips of paper didn’t stick as well on the round balls. My daughter gave up to play with her Transformer Rescue Bots.

When they are totally dry we are going to place them in a window for all to see!

So far their favorite project has been painting on our large windows. I used Speedball car window paint. Super easy and fast to clean up.

One day it occurred to me that maybe a portable washing machine would work. I started seeing if anyone else was doing this. I checked Craftster.org and did a google search but couldn’t find any other details about it.  So I took the plunge and bought a Basecamp portable washing machine, I chose this because of the size and simplicity of use. (It’s set up next to my utility sink– which where I clean all my screen printing supplies–hence the mess).

MY PROCESS:

1. I use Dharma Trading Company Procion Dye and soda ash fixer.

2. I add 3.5 gallons of water to the washer (and 2 cups of diluted salt).

3. In an old mason jar I mix my dye with warm water and mix thoroughly, depending on the color it’s about 1.5 tbs, and I set it aside.

4. In another old jar I mix 1/3 a cup of soda ash in warm water and mix and I set it aside.

5. After I am sure the dye powder is dissolved I add it to the washer and then mix again.

6. I add my wet clothes to the washer. In one wash I can fit 6 bodysuits and 10 kids shirts (up to size 10). ** Note I prewash the clothes using a professional textile detergent. And I just use the express setting and turn off my spin cycles, I prefer really saturated clothes.

7. I set the timer on the portable washer for 15 mins and I set my phone for 14 mins so I can make sure I’m there right when it’s done.

8. After it’s done I take the clothes out of the washer and set them in my clean sink next to the washer. I then add my soda ash solution to the dye bath and mix again. AFTER it’s mixed thoroughly I add the shirts back in and I set the time for 15 mins and reset it 2 or 3 times, so the clothes are in the soda ash dye bath for AT LEAST 30 mins but 45 is better. **Note: the portable washer only goes to 15 mins at a time**

9. When the times is up in the portable washer I drain the machine (per the machine instructions) and take my clothes out, squeeze them out a bit and put them in my real washing machine. I run a rinse and spin cycle, with the added option for a second rinse. I set the spin to low.

10. After the rinse and spin cycle (twice) I do normal wash with a tad of the detergent (to get off any soda ash solution) and I do an extra rinse cycle but a normal spin cycle. When it’s done I hang to dry or lay them flat.

In the green shirts I used a 50/50 cotton poly blend because I love the look of heathered shirts. The bodysuits are my attempt at American Apparel’s galaxy blue color.

Thanks for reading! I’d love tips or comments!

Here are some samples of how great the coverage is:

It’s a great photo by Posy Quarterman

One of my favorite purchased pieces is from Portland artist Sarah Landwehr.

We also traveled a lot pre-kids. We had a dream trip to Italy and a dream trip to the Cook Islands. In prepping some photos put on some 16×20 canvases my husband commented on how different the originals and the completed photos looked. There is a big difference.

For this series I want to do a set of Italian alleys, for some reason I had a lot of alley shots.

Both of these shots were taken in 2005 in Siena Italy, a very old and amazing beautiful city.

For these I used some of my favorite action sets from Florabella. First I went in and lightened and did some of my own recoloring in iPhoto (and a tad in Photoshop). Then I used Florabella’s “Clean Color” and “Milk” action sets.

Here is a picture of the 3rd piece we are going to use on our wall. This transformation wasn’t as dramatic, so I didn’t do a “before and after”.

These pictures aren’t photographic master pieces, they were taken with tiny Minolta point-and-shoot before I knew anything at all about photography (not saying a lot now either). But they are perfect for us and our house.

We love guacamole, pre-kids (okay post kids too) we’d just eat chips and guacamole for dinner. We have rankings of restaurants based on their guacamole. The chunkier and fresher the better.

I love my husband more. Which say a lot and when he sees this he will know the true magnitude of my love!

I have the Cameo Silhouette so making the stencil for this was easy. I could have just attached the vinyl  to the wood, but I miss painting. So yea there are mistakes, but that makes it better.

Next I got the kids involved. Using one of my favorite shapes from Silhouette’s library we made this. This is actually version two. Version one was ruined by old paint (it’s been a long time since I painted, a long time). For this we used the vinyl as the negative space and painted around it. It was super simple for them and they had fun.

I decided to do a little makeover on it. It was raining so I couldn’t spray paint it. I decided to decoupage pretty paper to the top and side of it.

It didn’t turn out well. Bubbled, tore and wouldn’t stick properly. Sigh.

Oh well. That same weekend we had a project win, I’ll post those pictures later.

Husband came home early and we loaded the kids up at went to OMSI to watch the RARE transit of Venus across the sun.

Gathering crowd

Wearing my awesome glasses

Pink Doggy looking at Venus too!

Look at the top of the flag, my iphone captured an inverted image of Venus

Seeing it via a telescope

You can see the sun spots in this one

My favorite feature (which is why I talk about here a lot) is my website‘s demographics. Sure I should care about age or gender, because that would be very useful in how I market to my target audience. But really I just like to look at the map of where my store views come from. I love maps.

That is the map of my demographics from Jan 2012 to today (May 8th).

I love the internet and how universal it is. I love that someone in Estonia has looked at my store. And I love that people from other countries are shopping with me. My international sales are ever-growing. Very cool.

Here’s the 20 locations of my website’s viewer.

After my last post I joined a site called Clickin’ Mamas. From there I read tutorial after tutorial on improving my product photos (well photos in general). I learned that for me shooting in RAW (versus .jpg) gives me the control I need  (and the speed I need) to get my photos processed right.

I also went through every single setting in my camera (Nikon D40) to reconfigure it from scratch.

Then it came to asking a new friend to let me takes pictures of her– not an easy task. Lucky me she agreed. She is also a fellow business owner and in her Etsy store– Mairwear– she has wonderful and fun product photos.

When she came over she was already comfortable with posing, which is good because I was clueless at it.

Here is a picture under my direction:

It is a nice photo. Mary looks great. You can clearly see the design. But with Mary being comfortable moving around I captured some more interesting shots.

I enjoy the playfulness she brought and over all I am really happy with these product shots.

More shots and some of my newer designs: