Bridal Shower Projects

Over the weekend, I attended a bridal shower and bachelorette party for a friend who is getting married in July. Since I am a bridesmaid, I helped with some of the decorations and planning. My favorite thing to make was the lighted marquee sign. I got a pinterest email on Monday that showed one and I thought, "I can do that!" I can't believe I was able to find materials and order lights in time, but I got it done pretty much all between Thursday and Friday, and I think it turned out great!

I made this apron because the shower was sort of "kitchen" themed.

Here's the start of the marquee. Unfortunately, her soon-to-be-new-last-name has a lot of popular letters, and I could only get a G in the big letters. Plus there were no Es at all ... I bought two number 3s and flipped them around. Actually, I ended up liking the eclectic look.

I marked enough spots for 35 holes, since I bought a strand of christmas lights from LED warehouse with 35 lights. It was only $12 with shipping, it came in like, 3 days, and the LEDs should not get hot, so it should be fairly safe.

I glued and nailed the letters overlapping, but in the end this was not strong enough and I had to cut a backing, But, that helped hide the cord.

I drilled the holes with a 3/8 bit once I got the light strand and figured out how big the holes would need to be for the lights to slide in easily.

Oops, small accident. As I was cutting, the E broke a little. These letter are not exactly wood, they are like, chipboard sort of, but anyway, more fragile than cut wooden letters might be. I might cut my own in the future if I were doing a larger marquee.

After a lot of work, the holes are cut and the letters are glued to the backing and painted. The only bad thing was that since some letters are overlapped, those lights have to push through the backing and a space before getting through the letter, and some were not lined up exactly perfect, even though I tried to mark them well. So, in the future I might not overlap letters like that.

It works!

Fancy!

I also put these flowers in the colander using "wet foam" and aluminum foil to cover the holes.

All the decorations! I made bottles that say "Eat, Drink, and Be Married." Also, there is a frame with a sign that says "All you knead is love." I got the idea for that on pinterest. I'll include a printable version for you!

 All in all, it was a fun weekend and I was excited to make these things for my friend. I am definitely going to try the lighted sign again on a project for me! 

Here is the printable:

Summer Projects So Far

Well, the busy school year slipped into a busy summer. With a summer class and a lot of weekend trips in the last few weeks, I did not get back to blogging about my summer projects as soon as I wanted to. The other reason I have not made time to blog about the projects is that, well, I've been out working on them so much! But, I wanted to at least share some pictures of what I've worked on so far this summer, in case they inspire you to do some summer projects of your own!

(As I went through pictures, there were also some from our trips that I wanted to share. I love Matt's new camera. It can make anything look lovely, including me, and especially our handsome kitty!)

This is a greenhouse made of windows and with only cat-safe plants (catnip, cat grass, basil, mint, etc). It has plants growing now, but Llyr still prefers yard grass to the cat grass, unfortunately.

I put together the blocks of this quilt earlier this year and I just got it back from being quilted. I'm not exactly sure who did the blocks, because they are hand stitched. I think my grandmother or her mother. My mom recognized some of the fabric but was not sure who made them. I plan to give it to my grandmother and ask her then.

These glass doors came from Matt's great-grandparents' house. They were hung in the kitchen in front of an in-wall shelf. We rescued them last year before the land and house were sold. I wanted to make a standing bookshelf/cabinet out of them and it is now finished! That's right, Matt and I are the masters of making more furniture fit in our overfull house. The picture wall had to change up a bit, but we got it to work. The blue decorative things on top of the bookshelf also came from the house - they'd been in the corners of the porch. It is really cool to give new life to these neat old things from Matt's family.

Learned last year that polyurethane is not meant for outdoor furniture. Oops. It all peeled off our pew. Finally got around to fixing it. Matt sanded off most of the peeling poly. I jig-sawed off the yucky leg and the other to match (which means it is kind of short now, but I could build something for it to sit on later). Then, I used Thompson Water Seal and a couple of layers of Besty Ross House Blue outdoor paint after that had dried. Hopefully now it is protected against the elements! I don't mind a bit of wear, I mean, we saved it from a brush pile .... but I want it to stay in the condition it is, not get any more worn down.

Here is the pew and the chairs I am painting to match. Again, another failed attempt with the polyurethane that had to be fixed. Oh well, bright blue is nice, too. 

Big Events !

Llyr has made a friend! Actually, he has made three new friends, but this guy brought them over to our house to meet him after Llyr had cozied up to him (and after we put out some food for this friend ... he was starving!). We just call this guy Friend for now. Llyr loves to go out and visit him. Llyr has gotten a little more bitey and rowdy with him in the last couple of days. I hope it is play fighting and they will stay buddies, because Llyr needs some kitty friends to play with. This picture captures Llyr's awe during the early stages of making friends. He's like, "It's another cat, like me, and he's not running away from me or being mean! Joy!"

We went to Harry Potter Trivia Night with friends and got 15th out of 25 teams. Some of the questions were tough! I was proud of us for our first year. It was a blast. I loved dressing up and making snacks.

We took a trip to see a Cardinals game and to visit the Arch with my family. Matt had never been in the Arch before (I had).

 Just Some Final Pretty Pictures I Wanted to Share

 

 

Review: Witch and Wizard by James Patterson

Just finished Witch & Wizard by James Patterson. The bad news: it was not exactly what I was expecting. The good news: it made me feel more confident about the writing abilities of my 10th graders this past year. I'll explain what I mean by that later on.

First of all, my expectations. I had seen this book around and--this is pretty superficial, but don't judge--the cover looked cool and the title was catchy. I was intrigued. After reading the back cover, which introduces Whit and Wisty Allgood, the teenage protagonists, I was even more interested, A) because it was Young Adult fantasy literature, which I enjoy, and B) (again, perhaps superficial) because their names were cool. I guessed quickly that Wisty was short for Wisteria, and I thought Whit was short for Whitman. I thought, that would be a neat baby name for an English major (I would probably not name my own kid that, not being a huge Whitman fan, but it's interesting nonetheless). Whit is a cute nickname. I expected literary allusions galore. There were a few. Whit actually stands for Whitford.

I think the problem was that I was expecting a Young Adult novel geared towards adults, or that would interest adults. For example, I think the Harry Potter series is a  Young Adult series that could be appreciated by adults. Also, books by Tamora Pierce. I should maybe have taken the hint that the readership age was intended to be a bit younger when one of my 8th graders was reading it, but some of them read a variety of books which are intended for slightly older readers.

While the idea behind the novel was interesting (the New Order bans books, music, and art of the previous era, and most importantly, anyone associated with magic), the set up of the book left something to be desired. I expected more detail and background about the New Order and about the main characters, but the reader is thrown right into the action. Sometimes that is an interesting choice for a novel, but in this case everything just went very fast, the villains were kind of flat, and the chapters were very short and sort of episodic. It was very plot based. Whit and Wisty narrate the story to the reader, which is ok, but their voices are a bit too ... stereotypical "teenager," is the best way I can describe it. Like, a little contrived, maybe?

I did not hate it, but I was expecting a little more grown up fantasy, I guess, especially from James Patterson, who regularly writes books for adults. I'll admit, I've only read one, and it was a long time ago, so I don't know his writing style well, but I know he writes a lot of detective stories. Not to say there is anything wrong with him writing this, but I see that it is not what I was looking for when I picked it up off the shelf.

Regarding how it made me feel about my 10th graders: I will say that reading this book made me feel better about the novel my 10th graders wrote for National Novel Writing Month and that I am working on final-editing so we can self publish it. Their main characters were all teens, too. The characters' way of speaking could have been more realistic in some cases (I thought, how many of you speak like this? Why are you making your characters speak like this?). Their novel was very plot-centric, with not a lot of character development, but there was some sporadic background information and some attempts at making the characters change or grow. The chapters were a bit longer than Patterson's, his being around 2-3 pages each, very choppy. My students' chapters were very episodic, too, but that's because I gave each person a different chapter and we tried to plan out the chapters by events that would happen in them so that it was easier for them to outline and write them in one month. The story itself was a little inconsistent in some places--I tried to amend some of that here and there without changing too much of what they wrote--but for forty 16-year-olds who are not all keen on writing, I was pretty proud of them. Patterson's novel was fast-paced, like theirs, with one thing popping up after another. I feel not so critical of them after reading his novel.

I am afraid that sounds cruel to Patterson, but really I think it's just that I expected something meant for older teens and adults. Geared toward younger teens, I'd say the story would definitely keep them reading. Perhaps the same can be said of my 10th graders' novel--geared toward their age group, it's definitely an action-packed story that, although it may not be the peak of literature, is enjoyable nonetheless.

P.S. Just after posting this, I found what looks like a graphic novel version of the book - I think that might work well. The artwork would be a fun addition and maybe the style of the story would work better in graphic novel form.