The Lady Beekeeper

Never do woodworking when you’re pissed off.  I feel like this should be the number one thing someone tells you when you buy a saw.  I was working on Julius’ birthday present last night and was in a bad mood over a particularly crappy router I purchased from Home Depot.  The thing was so horribly made that I spent a solid TWO HOURS trying to get the base to move above the collet and bit.  That is not an exaggeration. Anyway, I digress.

After being grumpy that I wasted my whole evening (and one of my drawer faces) I decided to cut off the portion of the drawer face that the router had ruined.  Problem was I didn’t want to remove the face from the drawer itself so I couldn’t cut it on my chop saw or band saw, and I decided the circular saw was too dangerous for this task.  Ultimately I decided to use my handsaw.  It was hard.  Repairing the side of drawer I had ruined meant I was ripping the wood by hand.  I also don’t own a rip saw, so I was using a cross cut saw (clearly in addition to forgetting to tell me the number one rule above, my saw benefactors also forgot to tell me about rip saws vs. cross cut saws).  I was about 3/4 of the ways through the wood and somehow the piece I was sawing broke off.  This did not deter me.  I lined the saw up with the broken edge and applied the same very firm pressure I had been using.  Unfortunately since I didn’t have a divet for the saw to follow the saw jumped the tracks and I got about 12 lacerations on my left hand.

The best part of the story is that I woke Will up for his ‘professional’ evaluation because I don’t trust my opinions with blood and guts.  I very quietly said “I don’t want you to freak out because it’s really not that bad, but I cut myself with the hand saw.”  I thought that was a very logical way to put it.  Will asked me to show him (which frankly I was impressed with because he doesn’t have the best track record with medical things) and when I did he exclaimed “you need to go to the hospital”!  So I went to the hospital (which is only 3 minutes from our house), and in the nicest way possible they told me that I’d probably be waiting all night for something that lame.

Another dose of realism for the day is that I’m a toddler push over.  I put Julius to bed 4/5 days last week because Will had to work late, and not once did I get Julius to bed at his bedtime. Honestly the closest I got was half an hour after his normal bedtime.  But really, how can you rush a little boy when he’s playing a ukelele while pooping on the potty?

If you feel like all you do is clean up poop all day I’ve got the perfect craft for you!  This is a little holder for your dog poop bags that you can clip onto a leash or stroller!  Will and I reuse the produce bags we get from the grocery store as dog poop bags while we’re on walks with Dany.  While we’re at home we use a giant pooper scooper to clean up the poop so we don’t waste bags.  You can fit about 15 produce bags in this little holder for when you need them.

Julius likes to show as much of the inside of his nose as possible now when saying “cheese”.

Waste Bag Carrier on the ready

Julius likes to pull out the bags for me… even when I don’t need them…

Doggy Waste Bag Carrier

What you’ll need:

• 1 square foot of fabric
• 1 small carabiner clip
• Pattern here

1. Cut out fabric following pattern.
2. Cut a strip of fabric 1.25″x2″.  Fold in half length wise, pin and stitch.  Stitch along the 1/4″ mark.
3. Using a chop stick turn right side out.  Press.
4. Fold rectangle in half width wise (right side on the inside).  Pin the long end forming a tube.
5. Fold small rectangle from step 3 in half width wise to form a loop and sandwich inside the pinned edges of the tube in step 4 about 1.5 inches down the tube.  The folded portion of the loop should be inside the tube and the unfinished edges should match the unfinished edges of the tube.
6. Take the circle of material and place on one end of the tube, right side facing in.  Line up the edges of the circle with the edges of the tube, pinning where the circle meets the tube without any folds.
7. Stitch.
8. Take one of the half circles of fabric and fold the flat edge under 1/2″ and stitch.  Repeat for second half circle.
9. Place finished edges of half circles on top of one another, overlapping slightly so they nearly form a circle.  Repeat step 6 using the circle you have created.
10. Turn the whole thing right side out.

Yesterday I went to yoga in the evening.  Before I left I explained to Julius that Dada would be giving him a bath and putting him to bed because I was going to yoga.  He got super excited.  I asked him for a kiss before I left and he got all sad.  Eventually I realized he wanted to do yoga!  They have a yoga instructor come in every once in a while and teach the kids yoga.  A couple weeks ago after I saw the pictures of Julius doing yoga I asked if he liked it and he said “yeah”.  After which I took him through several yoga poses that he was pretty darn good at!  This time I did a few more and he really liked it and was smiling the whole time.  He is VERY good at following instructions!  I guess I found a new yoga buddy.

Julius doing yoga at daycare

Julius has also been doing a lot of play with his stuffed animals in the morning.  The last few days he tells me stories about his animals when I get in there.  Will said this morning Julius refused to get out of his crib when he woke up (singing).  Instead he wanted to play with his toys.  And Sunday after his nap Will sent me a picture of Cookie Monster wrapped up snug in Julius’ blanket.

Since Julius has started to get into imagination play, I decide to make him a silly bib for his “bunnies”.  (We call all his stuffed animals “bunnies” since 70% of them are actually bunnies.)  He loves to feed his animals breakfast in the morning, and even though they are pretty clean eaters, I thought a bib would be fun.  He liked it and has moved it around to different animals a couple times but now it’s almost a permanent addition to “Big Bunny”.  He does have some trouble with the velcro, so if I make more I may use snaps instead, which he is quite good at.  This project is super quick so I have no excuse for why I haven’t made more…

Pretend Play Mini Bib

What you’ll need:

• scrap square of PUL fabric
• 1/2″ square of velcro
• pattern here

1. Cut out PUL fabric using the pattern provided.
2. Stitch hook portion of velcro to position marked on the pattern, on the top (right side) of the fabric.
3. Stitch loop portion of velcro to position marked on the pattern, on the bottom (wrong side) of the fabric.
   

   Julius is feeding Big Bunny a carrot!

Today Julius collected a dozen acorns on our walk with Dany.  He was getting extremely frustrated because every time he’d drop one, Dany would crunch on it and try to eat it.  When we got home he didn’t want to eat dinner and just wanted to play with his acorns.  He really just wanted to hold all his acorns at the same time, but his little hands did not allow that, and thus he was unable to do anything but drop and pick up acorns for a solid 15 minutes.  I finally convinced him to put them into a bowl, which he carried around.  Eventually I coaxed him to the sink to wash his hands by asking if he wanted to wash his acorns.  He did, and I snuck some hand washing in.

Eventually I got Julius to sit in his high chair, but only if the bowl of water and acorns sat on his tray.  I put his chicken nuggets on his tray as well as some corn, and he grabbed a chicken nugget and popped it in his mouth.  After he’d finished chewing that, I asked him to try some corn and he grabbed an acorn out of the bowl and went to pop that into his mouth.  I shouted in fright that they were not edible and he cried for a while until I convinced him that they were yucky and not safe to eat.  I sent him some serious mixed signals by letting Dany eat acorns, having him wash the acorns in a bowl just like we do the cherry tomatoes from our garden and “serving” them next to corn.  I really can’t blame him.

Julius has toned down the hitting the last couple weeks.  The other day he accidentally whacked me in the nose while he was busy doing something, and he leaned over and kissed my nose.  Now he gives me a kiss whenever he accidentally hits me.  I consider this a big improvement over the hitting.

Speaking of improvements, I’ve been contemplating a kitchen renovation of some kind.  I haven’t decided on anything yet, so to contain my urge to renovate I’ve been doing lots of very small crafts.  One such craft was a bunch of dry erase boards for my fridge.  A month or two ago I made some cute dry erase boards from frames from the thrift store.  I very cleverly replaced the glass with some acrylic I had downstairs, so when Julius inevitably drops them they don’t shatter.  The problem I realized later is that dry erase markers on acrylic do not erase.  Instead I purchased Lexan to replace the acrylic and it has been perfect!  Just like glass.  It made my project way more expensive though…

Dry Erase Fridge Frames

What you’ll need:

• a lightweight frame
• fun paper for background of your frame (I used recycled wrapping paper)
• Lexan cut to the size of your frame insert (have them do this at the store you buy it from)
• 4 heavy duty ceramic or rare earth magnets with holes
• Screws for rare earth magnets, or E6000 for ceramic

1. Remove all hangers and stands from the back of the frame using a flat head screwdriver.
2. Remove the glass from your frame and insert Lexan.
3. Cut paper to size of Lexan and place on top of Lexan so it shows through the front of the frame.  Replace backing of the frame.
4. Depending on the size and weight of your frame, choose rare earth magnets or ceramic magnets that will fit in the corners of the frame.  Flip frame over, take the magnets and either screw into or glue onto the frame.

Sorry everyone who was awaiting my post last Tuesday morning – I had it all ready to go Monday night at 9pm (early, mind you) and apparently I didn’t hit “publish”.  I only noticed on my way to my car after work when I went to check to see if anyone had left comments and discovered it hadn’t been posted!  Kudos to those who noticed!

Will and I took vacation the last 4 days because my family was all in town!  It was so fun to see everyone again, and I am so sad it is already over.  Julius had fun playing with his cousin Finn, though I think he was a bit annoyed to not be the center of attention for once!  Ha!  As the first grand baby on both sides he is a bit spoiled.  He started recently acting out for attention, though I think he only does it to me.  He likes to hit, punch or hit me and then watch my reaction.  I hate it.  I started out saying “please don’t do that, you are hurting mama” in my no-bullshit voice, eventually I moved onto my stern voice.  Neither of those worked.  Will caught him doing it one time and hollered at him.  Julius of course started crying.  Later he hit me again.  I am hoping this is just part of the terrible two’s phase and he will outgrow it soon because it really makes me sad.

I’m secretly worried that he learned the hitting thing from this stupid video that he loves (one of only two youtube videos he has ever seen) of the minions singing Barbara Ann.  Will first showed it to him because he was eating bananas and wanted to show him a song about bananas.  Since then he asks us to play it on our phones, and we’ll each show it to him occasionally.    The other day I noticed that halfway through the video one of the minions punches another minion!  I honestly never noticed it until recently because it happens so quickly.  When I noticed it I stated that it wasn’t nice how the minion hit his friend, and that we don’t hit our friends.  I have never let him watch the video again.  Maybe someday I’ll cut the video to take out the hitting, because he really likes it and likes the little yellow guys.

After the snack scare, I decided to make Julius some cute snack bags.  Since the fabric was on clearance – they have minions on them.  The bags are nice and small for little hands and little snacks, and they have a convenient spot for a label!  Will and I had been writing his name on masking tape and attaching them to containers to label Julius’ snacks, but this is far easier.  If you’ve mastered the sandwich bags these are just as easy!

Small Reusable Snack Bags with Labels

What you’ll need:

• 10″x7″ Eco PUL or other food safe PUL
• 10×7″ cotton fabric of your choice
• 7″ of 3/4″ velcro hook and loop fastener
• 5″x2″ strip of clear flexible vinyl (mine was leftover from an old pool toy)
• parchment paper

Follow the instructions for the sandwich bag here making a 4″x7″ pocket with a 2″x7″ flap – steps 1-8.

9. Pin the loop tape portion of the velcro to the inside edge of the bag’s flap.

10. On the outside of the flap, center your 5″ strip.  Place a piece of parchment paper over the vinyl.  You can masking tape this whole thing if desired.

11. Placing the vinyl/parchment side down, stitch along all 4 edges of velcro.

12. Remove the parchment paper.

13. Trim the vinyl close to the stitching.

14. Insert small cardboard tag into the vinyl pocket to label.

It is completely bizarre how Julius cannot identify colors.  Remember when I told you about the bug game where Julius was supposed to pick out the blue bug, and 90% of the time picked the white one instead – even after showing him just before the blue one?  Well that trend continues.  He has become quite enamored with my sad excuse for a garden, when I showed him how to pick tomatoes.  Every day he’s been helping me pick the ripe cherry tomatoes, and we take them inside to wash them, then Julius gets to eat them.  He loves tomatoes so he always wants to pick them.  The weird thing though is that he ALWAYS picks the green ones.  I have explained to him dozens of times that we eat the red ones, and yet he still picks the green ones.  Today there were more red than green tomatoes on the vines, and so I walked away for a bit to see what Dany was doing.  When I turned back around he’d picked 4 green tomatoes only.  I really have no idea what to do about that.

He told us this weekend that a horse is his favorite animal.  Who knew?!  He’s been hanging out with bunnies, doggies, and sheepies for his whole existence but horses are the ones he really wants to spend time with.  No wonder he loves the pony rides at David Farmland!  My parents neighbor has a horse (named Colton – no relation) so we walked over to chat with Colton.  Julius was too scared to pet him but he did smile a bunch at him and say “hi” in both English and horse.  Future equestrian?  I always wanted to learn to ride a horse (and swordfight) so that if I were thrown back in time I would be able to hold my own.  Very practical I know.

Speaking of practical, check out this extremely practical craft I made.  It’s supposed to look like  a pussy willow, but in multi colors, but it really doesn’t.  Will calls it the Dr. Seuss tree, and Julius calls it “mama tree” because I told him I made it and it is my silly tree.  Every morning of the first week it was in the upstairs landing he would go over to it and feel all the pom poms laughing at it.  (Because clearly it was silly.)  It was incredibly easy to make, so I’m almost embarrassed to post it, but hey, here it is.

Dr. Seuss Tree (Mama’s Silly Tree)

• 3 tree branches (I collected mine about 9 months ago in the woods with Julius & Dada on a hike. Will thought I was insane.)
• ~36 pom poms in assorted colors (I bought 2 packs of pom poms from Dollar Tree)
• hot glue gun

1. Strip off bottom branches until you will be able to fit each branch in the pot of your choice.
2. Organize your pom-poms into color groups. I used pink, red, yellow, light blue, dark blue, lime green, green, black and purple.
   

   Branches and pom pom clusters

3. Glue a pom pom at the end and junction of each branch.
4. Stick in a vase and watch your child go wild.
   

   Julius, Gaga & the Silly Tree

   

   

Julius has started asking “why?”  He seems to be using it in context, but I’m not entirely sure what he expects to get out of it.  Frequently he’ll ask “why” to which I’ll give him an answer and he’ll ask “why” again about the next thing, in an infinite chain of “whys”.  Honestly I love it.  I have been waiting for him to ask me why for months!  I know lots of parents complain about the “why” phase, so ask me in a month what I think of it, but right now it is just the bee’s knees!

The little guy is just so darn cute.  He is picking up more and more words every week.  A few weeks ago he finally started saying “Dany”.  He was saying “Deedee” because ‘n’s were difficult.  Yesterday I told him to ask Dany if she wanted to go for a walk.  He walked right up to her crate, knelt down, stuck his head all the way in and shouted “Dany”?  I could not stop laughing.  I eventually had to explain that he needed to move so Dany could get out of her crate and take a walk.  Thank goodness Dany likes him.

He of course has his negative moments as well.  Today I had to buckle him into the high chair and told him he couldn’t leave until he ate a small amount of peas and chicken.  He had eaten exactly nothing before I gave him the ultimatum and was trying to squirm out of the chair to go play.  Julius eventually ate all the required food to leave his chair, but it took 30 additional minutes.  But I won’t let that get me down – I consider the eventual eating of his dinner a win!

Another win is this mailbox makeover I completed!  I’ve been wanting to upgrade my mailbox for a while now, but I finally got the time to sit down and do it.  I created the stencil by hand sketching the line and vine art on my Lenovo yoga.  I got the laptop partially for drawing, and I’m really happy I did.  It’s fun to sketch on!  If I’d had this years ago when making mine & my friend’s wedding maps, things would have been so much easier.  I love that after sketching I can resize easily and now – send it to my cricut for cutting!  The one frustrating thing about this design was that I had to split the design in 2 so it would fit on the mailbox.  I split it into two horizontal pieces, but if I did it again I would split it on the vertical so the seam is on the top of the mailbox.

DIY Mailbox Makeover

What you’ll need:

• Sticky vinyl – I used leftover contact paper
• black spray paint
• gold spray paint
• cricut or die cutting machine (or if you are extremely adventurous an Xacto knife)

1. Remove hardware (flag) and measure your mailbox – mine was 18″ long by 20.5″ circumnavigating the top.
2. Set up your electronic drawing space to be proportional to your mailbox dimensions.
3. Start by writing your name in cursive on the bottom of the page.  Add vines, leaves and flowers as desired.
4. Thicken all lines so they are no narrower than 3/8″.
5. Transfer your design to the Cricut and increase/decrease the size until it fits in the dimensions of your mailbox from step 2.  Split design onto two mats if necessary (I found this link helpful).  I recommend doing split between the top and bottom of the design (instead of right and left) so the seam is along the top of the mailbox where no one will see it.
6. Use the cricut to cut out your design on sticky vinyl. (Technically you could use and Xacto knife…)
7. Tape off the area around the mailbox and it’s pole, so nothing will accidentally get painted.
8. Spray the mailbox black.  (I used flat paint first, but decided I hated it and switched to a glossy spray paint which I liked a lot better.)  Let dry.
9. Apply stencil to mailbox and press firmly at the edges of all the cuts to adhere. Tape off any areas on the mailbox that you don’t want painted gold.
10. Spray paint the stencil gold.  Let dry.
11. Remove the stencil, admire your handiwork!
    

    Front view