Artsy craftsy home stuff

I got a lamination machine about a month ago, used it for make-your-own placemat favors for A's birthday, and am now busting at the seams with other arts and crafts ideas. A lot of them center around artwork for A's room. Or life. Well, okay her life is about contained by what is in her room.

And all the toys in the living room.

But what is missing, is artwork. I want there to be some stuff that goes along with the Lithuanian songs and stories she is learning. Because while there are pages and pages of links for Peter Rabbit, Velveteen Rabbit, Goodnight Moon and other English kids books, as well as English nursery rhymes, there are pretty slim pickings when it comes to the Two Roosters (chickens, goats, a fly a mosquito and a mill all make an appearance here - they have yet to meet Nabisco), and I Planted A Clover (on a hill, it sprouted, it grew, it bloomed, I picked it, all on that hill, folks).

The clover song is the current favorite for bed time, after the lights are out. And I'd like there to be some reminders of this once she is older.

My first thought was to illustrate (or collage the hell out of) a laminated page book, with the song lyrics. Sure, it could be a plain paper book, but (1) it would get ripped to shreds, and (2) my laminator requires me to mention it by name in 76% of all craft project proposals I have in my head.

So then, after I made the requisite lamination pitch, I've been considering stamping or (due to a great connection I just met, who is also Lithuanian, 50 feet down the street from me) linocut type illustrations for a book or a piece of art to hang on the wall. Think old fashioned, heavy lines, each character is different colors.

Like from this Etsy shop: WindsparrowStudio

And now I'm also getting excited about the idea of making shadow boxes for some of the songs. The first step in this direction was this Etsy shop, theaterclouds, with its photographs of shadowbox type settings. (You could laminate them, of course). Cool already, but she offers different version of each done with different lighting conditions.

 Of course, I'm not going to be setting up my own photography studio, so making a real shadowbox is going to have to be enough. And I'm thinking of starting with just empty tissue or shoe boxes. To try out the idea. I see 5 hills, each with some lifestage of that clover taking shape already.

Yeah. At least in my mind.

Table manners

This year has been better. Better than last year this time. I made A's birthday cupcakes myself, instead of having someone else make them, and more significantly, I had the energy to clean up after the making of said cupcakes. We were still dragging quite a bit last year at this time, especially as the one year anniversary of A's birth came around. This year, there was nothing in my mind about her birth throughout our 4 days of celebrating her birthday, and singing to her and watching her open presents and eat cupcakes. There was no connection left to the difficult birth experience. Or the more difficult year following that.

And now, even though the Swiss do not celebrate Thanksgiving, I'm happy to say that we do. Not in any cook-it-yourself super meal, but we will be going over to some friends' with my grandmother's vermicelli stuffing in hand, for dinner. And a few hours later, we will come home, and go to sleep. No big family event, no black Friday shopping, no Friday off work. But it is still nice to take a half day off, cook some familiar food, and rest.

Now, given that we will not be at a big family gathering, the table talk will probably be pretty mild. Good manners between acquaintances are sure to lead the evening. Politeness, no name calling, talking back, inappropriate making fun of others. And hopefully we can all remember to keep our ever-moving feet off the table, A. There was a post this week on the NYTimes Motherlode blog about manners at the table.

As A gets older, we are having to once again figure out what is and isn't acceptable at the table, and how to ask her to use her voice and not her tears. Pacifiers and feet are not currently welcome at the table. We try to have a family meal together at least once a day, and everyone should get to participate. Not sure how we will teach A to not interrupt constantly. Turn taking is probably not high on the list of a small being who doesn't even get conversation yet. But of course, as parents, we want our kid to be polite and well mannered at a meal.

So what happened in academia? How come, within a culture which sometimes pursues the construction of intellectual family trees (who was whose advisor, or academic parent, etc), we don't teach table manners in setting where we all gather to interact verbally. Why is a rudely phrased question from a faculty member or postdoc allowed to ride? How come you never hear another senior member of a faculty ask an aggressive question-asker to please rephrase using a calm voice? How come you don't hear most advisors having a talk with (maybe this happens behind closed doors, but who knows) a particularly aggressive grad student to explain the rules of friendly science engagement How come we encourage shy women to speak up more and not be so scared to talk, but don't ask the people who constantly talk over their classmates to give others a turn? Dismissive comments seem to perfectly acceptable, as if being nice, or polite, or not getting into a raised-voice discussion about someone's work, and not calling other academics idiots behind their backs, marks a weaker scientist.

When did being mean become equated with scientific rigor?

Easy black bottom cupcakes

A's birthday is coming up, and I've been looking everywhere for pumpkin cupcake with cream cheese frosting recipes. And I'm fine in that department. But I've spent way too much time at a time when I don't have time, looking for the chocolate cupcake recipe.

Because I feel better this year and don't have to buy a cake for it to be healthy. I can make my daughter's birthday cake myself. And I have cocoa powder and chocolate pieces (haven't opened the bag yet, but I know better than to call them chips) in the pantry waiting for me to find a recipe. And it started getting too much.

Not in a depression way, but in a mind-racing sort of way.

And then it hit me.

I have Whole Foods brownie mix in my pantry. I have just out easied all the "easy" recipes on the web. And will not have to put vinegar in a cupcake the day I will serve it, never having tried this before.

Boo. Ya.

The other-people-on-the-bus are "not so bad, not so bad, not so bad...."

Actually, this has nothing to do with the bus, other than being about the Swiss people who are the polar opposite of the tsk-tsk-ers. Yesterday was the first long, grey, chilly day. Ooh, it took all I had to get showered and actually go into work, where I am still struggling to find a groove, and not just feel like I do random things no one cares about. (Note: I may actually be doing things no one cares about, I'm just not ready to feel that way yet. Hey, we all have an ego.)

I had the dog with me and went to get A from school. Since all our potential playdates are busy throwing up all over their moms and dads, and it was grey, we walked through the fields, talked about the cows and goats and other dogs we saw, and headed down to our street, destination: home. For some Ovomaltine, and some baking and playing inside. On the way, we met a black man with a cute little dog.

He said her name was Caramela, and I found it strange that we had our discussion in English, and that he seemed so upbeat. What was that all about? Was he a hustler? Why was he smiling so much. Yeah, this place does that to your brain. He went ahead of us into an apartment complex and as we got near it, a woman was getting out of her car. She looked at me (baby on my back, dog in hand) with this huge smile.

"Seriously, who are these people?", I'm thinking. She wanted to meet the dog. Suddenly, she wanted to know how she didn't know us since she knows most dogs in the neighborhood. Ok, she must be a hustler, because what neighborhood? The people around here barely look at each other, much less interact in a neighborly way most of the time. We got to chatting, that she and her husband have a dog named Caramela, and the man walking the dog must have been one of the foreign exchange students coming to their potluck they host every year, and got asked to walk the dog. No wonder he spoke English first, and had a skip in his step. The man hadn't ridden the tram enough yet! He was newly from Ghana. A ha. And, thank god. For Swiss people like this woman, who was not only hosting newcomers but within minutes of meeting me had made sure I called her phone, knew what apartment she is in, and said we should come over, with our dog, for dinner some night.

What? Awesome.

At work, I had found that one person I thought totally ignored me by email had just sent a note to a different, unused e-mail account of mine.

And later last night I spent 2 hours out swing dancing with some smiling Swiss people. Who dance really well.

Do you know how much I needed just one of those things to happen yesterday? I have to figure out how to make them last for the week now, because it is a gray day again, I continue not to have a standard way I spell that light black color, and I could learn to like it here if the frown-to-smile ratio stays below 50%.

And to bring it on home, how cute are these alligator scarves? Am I going to knit one? I doubt it, I found them while looking for a tutorial on putting a pocket on a knit vest. I can barely knit straight, these babies would probably break me. I'm sticking to things I can actually finish. Hmmm. Maybe I'll just sew some pockets on afterwards....

The judgemental old ladies on the bus, go "tsk, tsk, tsk,..."

Currently, A is singing a lot. Swiss German songs from daycare, the ABC song from (I guess) the Fish School app on the iPhone, and now The Wheels on the Bus. Each verse has great little hand gestures, and it repeats well, and no wonder kids like it. Good stuff.

And, heck, we ride the bus a lot. The wheels on those buses go round and round. The doors go open and shut. The driver, however, does not say "move on back", or even the Swiss German version, and sometimes we wish he did. And the people on the bus, instead of going "up and down", kind of get flung forward and backwards, sometimes landing on the floor during a particularly, um, enthusiastic application of either accelerator or brakes.

And there is a characteristically Swiss verse to "the Bus" song here, that keeps getting my goat. See title of this post.

Twice now, in the last two weeks, as A and I have been riding public transport to a birthday party, once in matching puppy outfits, once in plainclothes, the 60 and over age group ladies have decided to fix their disapproving gazes, curled sneering noses and lips, and shaking heads on us. The first time, when A and I were in puppy outfits, and looked pretty home made, cute, non-Halloweenish, A on my back, I went from smiling on the outside and inside, to barely smiling at the b)(*#&$ on the outside. People here judge you a lot.

Yes, they judge you everywhere. But in India, I knew I didn't fit it, and that just my lighter colored hair meant I was going to be stared at. In Chicago, they know better than to show it lest a "oh no you di'nt" altercation starts up, and my British friends tell me that although you are judging left and right you never, ever, show it on your face and you may even apologize or smile for nothing in the direction of the one you are judging.

Here, they put on their nasty face, shake their head, stare, and sometimes even wag a finger.

So it happened again last weekend, the second incident, when we were not in costume, and this time it was two ladies. I assumed it wasn't us they were looking at at first. But when we got off the tram, they were still staring (this part still amazes me), and when I smiled at them, they just stared back. This time, I was ready for more action. As the tram pulled away, I raised my eyebrows, kept smiling, and waved at them. And kept my inner smile.

It sort of redefined that first incident for me, too. Of course it is them, and not me. And since people so openly judge you here for their version of right and wrong, one day you get told off for having the dog off leash on the walk near the house, and the next, for having her off leash. On the same walk.

Still, it would be nice to have some more ammunition (not the metal, live kind, as one of my Facebook friends suggested, tongue in cheek, that he would lift his jacket and show them his piece). Like some things to say. And a particularly vexing way (to the perp) to say them. My friend L, who was over for a playdate with his daughter yesterday, and is Swiss, recounted his approach to some people on a train once. I think he is self-possessed, and not flustered, enough, to handle these things well. Or at least in a way I would like to. So I've decided there should be an iPhone app, where we come up with the most common 100 finger-wagging situations you encounter here, that he can record a slightly shaming, but smiling, video response to, and the app user can play them in the direction of the disgusted party. We could name it "L tells you off, in Swiss German."

On failing, and then not.

Given that I work in science education, reading over and over articles and websites and books that stress the importance of trying things out yourself, it is surprising how often I still forget to apply that to everyday life. I have spent, my usual, 5 hours thinking about this bathroom light contact paper cover. I have found that there are no single hole punches of the office supply variety for sale in Switzerland (I refuse, so far, to buy a craft one with smaller holes, for $17). I have seen all sorts of images on my Google searches for Scandinavian designs, patterns, animals, and Mid Century Modern designs, patterns, animals. I've gone from the idea of abstract shapes to sheep silhouettes, to fish, to triangles arranged all over the place when I realized how poorly one pair of scissors cut contact paper.

I had two pieces cut out with the nasty scissors, that were rough on the edges, was just thinking how to get my hands on a friend's hole puncher since the cheap two hole one I bought really is for Swiss bills only, and this morning I finally got fed up. I found the better scissors, I told myself just to try something, anything, to get a feel for the light, the material, the results.

And there it is. I'm done, happy enough with it, it dims the light as I wanted, and since it is a nasty fluorescent lamp, the cover on it was plastic that doesn't get very warm. Perfect for white contact paper.

And I have a much better sense for working with the stuff now. There really is no substitute for learning something in context, instead of just trying to perfect the idea before even touching, playing, ripping, and messing up the material.

I'm thinking that any design tradition that embraces imperfect lines and organic shapes, is the one for me.

In other news, I realized last night that upgrading the desktop computer to iLife (iPhoto) '11 has deleted all my photos of A and anything else from before one year ago. Her whole first year pretty much, and M and my life together before that. I am extremely disappointed with Apple. I have all the photos also on my laptop which will never be getting that upgrade, so I am just pissed off instead of completely destroyed and emotionally broken. On some of the Mac forums, people are chiding those who did not back up their computers and actually lost their kids' first many years of life photos, comparing it to preparing for a natural disaster. Because, of course, we all decide to upgrade to earthquake '11 as soon as it hits the stores and we should treat a company like Apple as a force of nature, and not expect more from it. Uh huh.

Craft websites

I need a place to store all of these links and ideas, so this is a purely selfish post.


1. play kitchen from recycled nightstand

2. DIY rubber stamps made with old erasers.

3. Heck, just the CURBLY website in general , for things like popsicle stick magnets, and, well, just go look.

4. And Pinterest

5. Knittable floor poof





6. And for those of us who still wind up at IKEA more than flea markets...IKEAHACKERS

I may put more stuff up here, especially if anyone has suggestions. For now, I am sated.

Kids and art and such

In the previous month, we've started collecting craft supplies at our house, hoarding them for the impending cold, rainy, grey winter months when A and her friends will be spending more time inside than at the playground. We're going to need something to keep us occupied. And instead of buying new toys, M and I have decided to see what we can make with the empty water bottles, eggs cartons, tissue boxes and toilet paper rolls. While the other objects are all still waiting the arrival of enough peers to make a bowling alley/construction set, the toilet paper rolls have already made their debut. M draws little people on them. It may still be a bit early for A to appreciate the roll people.

A paper towel roll became a crocodile that could eat, and then poop, all manner of object. That one went over a bit better. I state for the record, that was not my idea.

It seems that other people also reuse toilet paper rolls for art projects. Just a little more highbrow and fricking amazing.

I found that artist's website while searching the internet for paper cutout patterns or designs I can use on some white contact paper I have, that I want to cover A's bathroom light (one of those soul sucking long fluorescent deals) with, to dim it a bit for evening tooth brushing time. I think that detail is out of my league. Perhaps a few stars or moons might be achievable with minimal self injury from the exacto knife.

A has just gotten over a long cold. Ok, not gotten over, but the fever and extreme cough are gone long enough that she can go back to school, we can all sleep through more hours of the night, and I can recover. And I know she's feeling better because she has her characteristic energy back. To jump and sing, to wail and cry on the floor, to say "NO!" over and over again, and to eat. All the raisins out of many slices of Panettone. I used butter on the remaining bread parts to get those in as part of yesterday's snack.

And just as parental exhaustion over a toddler illness gives way to parental exhaustion over a back-to-normal force of nature, I think again about the second child.

When you start dating someone your family likes, "when are you getting engaged?" seems to come up way earlier than you are ready to answer. This doesn't stop through "married", "having kids", all the way through "second kid." I think people who ask this have either lower-key kids, no kids, or lots of help with their kids.

Sure, I'm getting to the edge of my 30s, and it may take us a long time to conceive again, it may not even be possible. Who knows. And friends of mine whose first kids are about A's age are either pregnant or starting to talk about that next child. And I feel like I should to.

And then I find myself exhausted. One more great day, with so much to do and see, and some tantrums to calm, but a lot of wrangling and not a lot of down time, and I'm spent. It is time to put that question away for now. Because I can't plan on another child at this moment. Even the thought of being pregnant while I have such an active kid and such a weak back, is daunting. I still need 95% of what I bring to any given day, to mother, but also to get to where A and I are enjoying each other. It isn't time yet for us. I think it is just time to enjoy our crazy, laughing, screaming, singing, kissing, kicking, talking kid full on a while longer. The second child question will have to wait.

For now. I think I've found a cute pattern that is within my reach...using a hole punch. Wait, where am I going to get a hole punch?