We made special Father’s Day cupcakes for David.  Pinterest of course was the source, although I found them through my friend Carol.   We decorated the cupcakes with lawnmowers sitting on half-mowed grass.  Not that David, in a million years, would leave the lawn half-mowed.

I will say that his first guess was that these were wagons.  I can see it.

We used Wilton melted chocolate disks as the “glue” which was a little messy. Those lawnmower handles were very tricky, but overall, they looked pretty cute.  I also made David a key lime pie.  I’d take a picture but it was GONE too fast to be photographed. It was a great recipe.  It called for plain Greek yogurt, and it was a reduced fat pie.  It was the best recipe ever as you’d never guess that it was a “healthier version.”  I’d like to say that Davey discovered that he loves key lime pie and that he really laid into that pie.  But that ain’t so – it was all David and me.

We had a nice Father’s Day afternoon as well.  David and Davey played with the playdoh outside.   They were probably having a discussion about Harry Potter here.  It’s always a safe guess these days.

And the picture of the day may be this:

Davey, as always, loves a celebration.  We had a nice one.

David and I have been making this really good egg salad lately.  4 hard-boiled eggs, 1 smushed up avocado, a little red wine vinegar and mayonnaise.  It’s really really good!

Davey had a Father’s Day party today at his pre-k Summer Camp.  They’d made some fun father’s day crafts for gifts.  They decorated the tables, and they had donuts.  He also made a craft with David.  It is a pet rock.  David texted a picture of him to me.  I replied “that’s awesome” but I messed up and the auto-correct replaced it with Aerosmith.  Aerosmith?  Turns out it’s a fairly fitting name for this little pet rock.  He reminds me a little of Steven Tyler. David and I have officially dubbed it Aerosmith.

And finally, I’m once again trying to actually write little notes, put them in an envelope, add a stamp and send them off the old-fashioned way!  I found the cutest little Mary Engelbreit notecards today at Michael’s.  I came home and wrote notes to my 3 oldest nieces.  It’s kind of fun to write a little note and send it off (I did this promptly before I got sidetracked!).   I also think it is very fun to receive a little note in the mail too.  I’m going to try to be better about occasionally doing this!

We are well into the second book now.  Davey is Harry, I’m Hermione and David is Ron (he began as Hagrid, but Davey re-dubbed him as Ron).  Oh yes, and Buster is Hedwig. Davey says, “Mama.  I don’t mind spoilers.  I want to know EVERYTHINGGGG there is to know about Harry Potter.”  Fortunately, I can’t deliver on too many spoilers, because I just don’t remember!  It’s been too long since I read the books.  I’ll remember this time.  We have discussed the first book thoroughly.

So today we pretended to have Potions class.  The potion we made was actually another Dollar Tree find:  a little sand art craft.  Davey and I carefully mixed up the potion which consisted of pouring sand slowly into the little plastic bottle.

Davey very carefully mixed his potion.  Then he said he had to go show it to Professor Snape.  He already finds Snape to be quite a complex character, and he loves to discuss his relative “badness and goodness”.  Davey is convinced that he is more good.

This is the finished rainbow wizard potion.  Not quite sure of its magical purpose yet.

I found some great stuff.  One of the little crafts I found was a bumblebee foam picture.  We made the bumblebee with what looked like little foam sprinkles.  Those little foam things get everywhere, so we took the craft outside.

Davey has little patience for drawing, coloring or painting, but he enjoyed this craft a lot.  We just pulled off the paper to reveal a sticky surface, and then Davey started dropping the sprinkly things onto the bee.

He was very happy with the result.

I’d packed away the glue so I found some glitter paint.  Davey liked squishing the foam down so the glitter paint peeked around the edges.  Nice sparkly touch.

This was a lot of fun for $1.00!

So arm knitting is what it sounds like.   Your arms are the knitting needles.

I looked around a little and found a blog where there were tutorials for both an arm knitted scarf and an arm knitted blanket.  Of course, I wanted to jump in and immediately knit a blanket.  But then I actually stopped to think for a moment and decided that maybe I should not begin with quite such an ambitious project which would also require me to buy yarn.  I realized that I had the yarn in my stash to knit a scarf.  I found two skeins of chunky cotton/acrylic and a skein of worsted weight cotton.

I sat down with the videos and followed her guide.  She walks through doing a long tail cast on with her arms.  That was a little tough on my brain, so I had to turn off the video and visualize my arms as knitting needles.  Once I did that, I was able to figure out how to “cast on”.

After that, it was pretty easy.  It was a little hard at first to manage the three skeins of yarn, but then I put them on the floor so they could bounce around, and it wasn’t difficult at all.

David kindly helped me with the pictures.  I tried by myself, but with yarn loops on both arms, that wasn’t happening.  At all!

I’m pretty happy with my first result.  It takes awhile to visualize what’s going on. For awhile, I thought I just had a long stringy mess.  This is looser and more  ”hole-y” then I would like.  It looks a little like a fishing net to me.

Davey modeled for me.

I want to do this again with more skeins of yarn.  I’d like to make a blanket that looks more like the rug from the first link where I learned about arm knitting.  He’s using at least 5 skeins of yarn I think, and his rug is much more solid looking.  However, I am currently in a “knit from my stash” mode, so this will go on my to-do list!  It’s really fun though. I’m not sure what you do when you want to take a break.  I did this in about 30 minutes or so, but I had to carry my 3 balls of yarn with me and leave the scarf on my wrist.  It probably wouldn’t be a big deal to run some yarn through the loops to hold them if I wanted to take a break.

It’s really relaxing though.  I liked the motion of moving the yarn loops from arm to arm.

Time to google more arm knitting ideas!

We followed the tutorial provided by Elsie Flannigan on her blog.  She has a really fun blog.  I used to follow her more when I was scrapbooking.  I’d not checked it out in quite awhile, but then I found her photo transfer tutorial on pinterest.   She had such a positive response that she wrote a follow up FAQ to photo transfers which you can find here.

She provides great photos and explanations of how to do a photo transfer.  It’s not too hard to do; you just need a little patience.  It requires only gel medium, a photocopy of a photograph, and a canvas or, as I found out, just a piece of wood.

Davey helped me apply the gel medium to our first canvas.

After we applied a thick coat of gel medium, we took the photocopy and placed it face down on the picture.  I read that the photograph should be copied onto just cheap copy paper.  I have experimented just with black and white so far.  I want to try color next. 

We waited several hours for the gel medium to dry.  I even let a couple of them go overnight.  Then I took a spray bottle and sprayed the paper.  I let it soak in a little and start to loosen up.  Then I carefully started peeling and rubbing the paper off. The image stays behind. I had to be careful though otherwise, I’d pull off some of the photo.  I did this a few times, but it just gives it a kind of aged look – I like it.  This is the tedious part that takes awhile.  I had to keep respraying to get off all the small bits of remaining paper. 

I was pretty happy with my first transfer.  

It’s kinda wrinkled at the top and it’s a little messy still around the edges.  When the photo is wet, it’s hard to know what it will look like dry, and so I missed a few spots.  While it was still damp, I finished it off with another coat of gel medium.

At this point, this became my fun project for me.  Davey wasn’t too interested in the delicate process of pulling the paper off.  It’s not too easy.  He’d rather be goofy.

Next I tried another favorite photo.  This is my current header photo for my blog page.  I love my little heart shaped tree.  I took this picture in Boulder at Chautauqua Park last summer. 

I like the beat up edges.  It’s still kinda wrinkly.  I need to make sure and smooth the photo even better.  

So for my last transfer, I tried a little 97 cent wooden plaque.  I think it might be my favorite so far.  The wood gives the picture a little bit of a warmer hue, and I liked that.  I just plain love this picture anyway, so it was fun to see how it would transfer.  It was not anymore difficult to transfer to wood.  I think it might have even been a little easier.

This transfer is a little bit beat up around the edges, which I like, but it’s not too wrinkly – came out pretty smooth.  

I’m just having a lot of fun with this!  I’m looking forward to hanging them up in my craft area once we move. 

Yesterday I went looking for fun craft ideas for Davey and me.  I found several.

Our first project required that we make a trip to Hobby Lobby to get a canvas, masking tape and some paint.

We began by “writing” a word on the canvas with masking tape.

Then I set Davey up with paint and off he went.

He painted and he talked. He talked and he painted.  I think he really liked discussing the entire process more then he liked painting. Although he did have fun with the paint.  I did too.  We both just painted randomly all over the canvas.

Buster rested at our feet.  He’s such a good boy.

No rules.  No strategy.

Once the paint was dry, I peeled the tape off.  Davey and I are pretty happy with the final result!

Speaking of love.  Davey was explaining the workings of the human heart to me yesterday.  He explained that there are no bones in our hearts.  Just blood and Love!

Off he goes!

He was pretending about something.  I can tell this primarily from the “expression” of his hand.

He asked me to take a picture of the “sparkly lights” in the water (something about coming here always inspires him to ask me to take specific pictures of things.)

We have a nice view of the mountains here.  We will still see mountains after we move to Washington, but I will miss seeing the Rockies.

We had Buster with us.  He was thrilled to be with us.  It’s a nice trait that dogs have.

We followed a little trail through the woods.  We debated for a little while as to whether or not we should try to cross this bridge.

We decided against it.  I wasn’t sure I could maneuver Buster across without splooshing into the creek.

David was playing golf with a friend.  He was just down the street, so he stopped by when he was done.

Davey required his assistance in inspecting some type of injury on his leg.

They determined that Davey’s leg was going to be just fine!

It’s a cool cloudy day today.  (It’s been a few days since our visit to McKay Lake.) It hasn’t gotten out of the 50s I don’t think!  I’ve been exploring crafts on Pinterest.  That is too much fun.  We experimented with tape and paint on canvas today.  We also tried a photo transfer technique.  Everything is in the process of drying now.  We shall see how it all turns out!

One of the games they played was called hot potato.  Cool game – there was a water balloon on the inside of the potato which popped after a certain amount of time.  It was too much stress for Davey although he hung in there for just a little while.

When it came time to open presents Davey waited very patiently for Olivia to get to his.  Then he leaned in to watch her open it.

Then Olivia gave him such a sweet hug:

I also got my Icelandic Knitting book in the mail and had to start on a scarf pattern in it.  I usually get bored with scarf patterns, but this is lace and is really fun so far.  Part of it is that I am using this incredible yarn:  Filatura Di Crosa Superior.  It’s mostly cashmere with some silk and merino wool blended in.  It is so soft and light – ethereal (there’s a word I don’t get to use every day.)  It is amazing.  It is a laceweight and so light that the knitting does go kinda slowly, but that’s ok.  It’s so nice to work with.  I actually bought it from Knit Unto Others when I was still in Arkansas.  I fortunately got it on sale there, and I was always waiting for the right project for it.  I think I found it.  This yarn is so light and lacy that my iphone can’t focus on it properly.  Really! I have tried multiple shots with no luck.  I need to get the light just right.  Either that or break out my regular camera!

And finally –  Davey asks so many random questions.  I love to hear what he is going to ask next.  This morning, very first thing, I heard him ask David:  ”Daddy who was your best friend when you were a kid?”  I don’t know why he thought of it very first thing, but I liked hearing his sweet voice asking the question!

Right now he’s watching a little tv in his fort.  I found the neatest Little Tikes fort kit yesterday.  He thinks it is great fun.  Unfortunately, I am getting ready to have to maneuver it to the garage as we have a house showing this afternoon.  This picture is a little blurry, but I like the expressions on both David’s faces.

Davey also has been enjoying playing with Buster.  We have just realized though that Buster’s herding instincts are emerging.  Davey often says that “Buster is hurdling him.”  At this moment, Buster only has a tennis ball to hurdle.  He picks it up, moves it a little ways, puts it down and then walks around it.  He has also started nipping at us – well it’s more of a mouthing – not biting – and moving us around.  It’s pretty hilarious.  For now.  Poor dog needs a job.  He’s a herding dog who maybe also feels the urge to mush at the front of a sled.

Finally, I am working on the Regrowth Shawl.  It’s beautiful.  I like to take pictures of my progress, but at this point it is just turning into a bigger and bigger blob.  I can do no justice to photographing the beautiful patterns in the lace.

It is coming right along though!