She Sews!

I imagine that some people have a lovely little (or big!) basket where they collecting mending and all of those other little jobs that require a few stitches here and there.  I'm sure it looks lovely all sitting there and that those same people are religious about mending weekly or so.  Not me.  When it needs mending/altering I throw it on the sewing table, then shuffle it around for weeks, sometimes even months before I buckle down and do it.  Sewing what I want to sew is so much fun than sewing what I need to sew!  Sunday I got down to business and tackled the pile, though.  I mended a dinosaur puppet for the preschool teacher, altered two pairs of pants and fixed a PJ top for Stacy, took in two shirts of my own, finished up a project I teased you with a long time ago,  and made myself a new skirt!  Most of it is not photo-worthy, but here are a few shots of the more fun things.

Here's my colorful and festive birthday banner.  I first showed you pics of it in the works back here.  I am planning to use it to decorate for the girls' birthdays.

And here's my new skirt! I'll be honest, I feel weird putting these pictures of myself up like this.  I bought a remote for my camera and I first tried it out here, where you'll notice I cropped my head off!  It worked there, but to me these photos looked even weirder without my head, so here I am in all my cheesy glory!

The skirt was quick and easy and only took 1 yard of fabric!  I used this tutorial over at Darling Petunia.  Worked out quite well and it isn't bulky in the waist which is always my fear with pull-on skirts.  The fabric is a remnant I have been holding on to because I knew I wanted to make a skirt from it.  Just wasn't sure which skirt!  Now...where to wear it?  After I made it I decided it would look great with some boots like these..

image source

But so far I have resisted ordering them.  Given that I have worn a skirt less than a dozen times in the last three years I guess maybe I should see if I wear the darn thing before spending $30+ on some boots, huh?

Making Me Smile!

Last year it appeared on February 4.  The year before on February 3.  This year...January 31!  This has been a rough winter and realistically we still have several months of winter ahead of us.  But it feels like spring is just around the corner when the sun starts shining on Whittier again!

Help me...PLEASE!!

So...I need some help! 

I really had fun with the January photo-a-day thing and I am going to continue it on into February.  The thing is that I can't decide if I should keep posting all of those photos here or create a separate blog for them.  Do you like seeing all of that when you come here or are you here mainly to read what's going on up here?

I know that my reading audience aren't big commenters, but *PLEASE* help me on this one.  Just leave me a quick little note in the comments section letting me know if you'd prefer one blog with it all, or two blogs--one with the usual Northern Lights Mama stuff and one with the photo a day.  *PLEASE*! 

Thanks for your help!

Photo a Day--Day 31

Today's subject:  You, again!

I got a remote for my camera, so here's a shot I took while playing with it!  Pretty exciting outfit, eh?

Photo a Day--Day 30

Today's subject: nature

It's dark out there today!  And gray.  Supposed to start snowing any minute, and overall it's a dreary day!  But Alaska is truly a beautiful natural paradise on a sunny day, so I'm thinking about spring...and remembering last spring!  Here's one of my favorite pictures from last March...

Papermakers

Recently someone here in town handed down an old paper making kit to us.  Kelsey has been begging to do it, so yesterday we finally tackled it.  10+ years ago (gasp!) during my first year of teaching I was lucky enough to have a visit from Debbie who was at the time doing outreach and education for Fort James Corporation.  My dad had introduced me to Debbie when I worked at the mill during the summer.  Debbie came and did an outstanding job of making paper with my students and teaching them about the process.  I tried to remember as much as I could from that visit since our kit came without the instruction manual!

First we tore up some paper scraps (that I had fished out of the garbage--yeah for recycling!).

Then we dumped them into the blender.  We added some water and blended them up!

We dumped our puree (pulp into the dishpan).  Because I don't have 6 hands I didn't photograph the next couple of steps.  I added more water into the dishpan because you really need the pulp to float.  Then we submerged our screen, put our top screen on and pressed out some excess water.

We removed some excess water by rolling as well. 

Then I put them on our cooling racks to allow them to dry a bit faster with better air circulation.

I am hoping to convince the girls to use them to create Valentines...I'll let you know how that goes!

Photo a Day--Day 29

Today's Subject: your fridge

I cheated a bit with this photo and took it a little early.  I took the "before" half on Wednesday night before we went grocery shopping and the "after" half on Thursday night after grocery shopping.  As you can see, we needed to go!

Gee...aren't you glad that I labeled them for you?  As if it isn't painfully obvious which is which!