Baby proofing

The Youngling keeps getting bigger and more curious. He's always trying to get at things he can't quite reach. Lately he's been trying to pull down these books, and succeeding in a rather uncontrolled manner that leaves him at risk of big heavy objects landing on his feet, possibly hitting his head on the way down. So I need to stop him getting at it.

I've got this bit of card that's big enough to cover the space on two shelves. I paper mache it with one layer of kitchen towel, then squirt some poster paints on it. I want to make a green / blue spray from a white centre. 

I spread the coloured paints towards the edge, then towards the white centre.

I didn't really have enough blue poster paint, but luckily I still have a few blue and green shades left over from the paint by numbers that The Artivist bought me for our anniversary.

I paint lines spreading outwards using all the blues and greens I have left, trying to keep the darker shades nearer to the perimeter and the lighter shades nearer to the middle.

I want more white in the middle but there's a lot of paint on the card now. It needs time to dry before I do anything else to it. I leave it overnight then paint a new white centre. 

Next I look online for silhouettes of faeries. I save a few pictures that I like, then use photoshop to copy elements of each. I like the wings of one, the skirt from another. I take the parts that I like and stick them together to make my own design. 

Once I've created a silhouette I'm happy with I print it and cut it out. I put the template on my painted card (which is dry by now) and draw around it with a pencil. The wings and hair are a bit fiddly to cut out so I'll paint those free hand.  

Then I paint over my pencil lines and fill in the silhouette. Finally, I copy the wing detail and the female's hair by eye.

Last thing to do is fix the picture to the front of the bookcase. The bottom shelf is for The Youngling's books and toys. I fix two angle brackets to the bottom of the next shelf up, pointing upwards, and two onto the top of the middle shelf, pointing down. I leave enough space for the cardboard to fit between the bracket and the shelf. Then I slide my picture in sideways.

I'm sure if The Youngling wanted to get at the items behind the picture he'd be able to destroy it in 30 seconds flat, but he's so far made no attempt to do so, or even appeared curious about it. So I feel my mission is accomplished.

Baby Steps

The Youngling walked! His daddy put a toy on the floor just out of reach and he took 5 steps forward, unaided, to pick it up. We're so proud. And a little bit smug. He's only 9 months old.

We wanted to commemorate the occasion, and it just so happens we had something suitable that we'd been meaning to get round to since Christmas. My sister, The Excited One, gave us a baby hand print/ foot print kit. 

The kit contains: 

- some lightweight modeling material that I don't know the name of

- a tiny rolling pin, which turned out to be too little for what I wanted

- a circular cutter, which we discarded

- a little red ribbon, which now lives in our craft box

You're supposed to make two circles with a print on each (one hand and one foot) to hang on your tree, but it's September so there is no tree. Also it's taken us so long to get around to this that The Youngling's foot prints are too big to fit in the circle provided. 

I pressed the modelling stuff out into a flat splodgey shape, and The Artivist stood The Youngling on the splodge. One at a time, I pressed his feet into the stuff to make footprints. 

The Youngling was fascinated by what we were doing, and looked pretty pleased with the result, though it is difficult to know if he really understands what we we've made as his only word is 'boop'.

We left the prints to dry overnight and then I painted them. We went for yellow, with orange for the prints themselves. The Youngling likes yellow, plus it looks like footprints in the sand. 

Once that was dry, The Artivist wrote a note on it so we'd always remember when The Youngling first walked. 

Finally, I glued a fitting onto the back and hung it on the wall amongst our family pictures. 

Duct tape on the wall

Lately I've been doing my best to de-clutter my house; I seem to have taken to the idea of hanging things on the wall to get them off the furniture.

I came across this wall mounted kitchen organiser, which I thought looked pretty cool. But I wasn't willing to pay $350 (£230) for the privilege of owning one. Anyway, I don't need it for the kitchen - I wanted something like that but for stationary. I decided to makeshift one using my junk modelling stuff and some duct tape.

For the back, I found a piece of cardboard the right sort of size and trimmed it a little so it would fit into the space on my wall. James and I collected all the stuff we wanted to put in our organiser, then for each thing we found a container the right sort of size. And I've finally found a use for the decapitated triceratops body I've held onto for a long time.

I cut all the containers up - some I cut in half and others I just cut the top off. Then we arranged and re-arranged them on a piece of card for several hours until we were happy with it. During the process we found a few more things that needed storing so we added them into the design.

I bought some duct tape and started taping the boxes to the card, making sure to cover everything. I put the items back into their containers as I went along, so I could make sure I wasn't blocking anything from getting in and out of its box.

James and I agreed that the triceratops body would look better not covered in duct tape - we wanted to see its original colouring. So to attach it I did something a little bit complicated.

First I blue-tacked pins to its feet, then I pushed it down onto the card base, to make guide holes.

Next I took the same pins, put them through the guide holes the other way and superglued them in place.

That's when I realised I hadn't made a spot for the superglue.

So, back to the triceratops. I taped over the pins at the back for extra security then stabbed them into the dinosaur's feet. The plan was to then remove the dinosaur and glue it on, using the pin holes as a guide, but it didn't want to come back off so I left it there. It might just stay put.

Once I'd finished building I had to figure out how to hang it up. I noticed at this point that it'd gotten quite heavy, so I figured I wouldn't be able to use string for this.

I bought some garden wire stuff from the 99p store. I made two holes on each side of the organiser and threaded the stuff though. I tied it at the back and secured with more duct tape (front and back).

Next I took my organiser and hung it by the wire using two picture hooks from B&Q. Having cut the wire way too long (on purpose) I was able to play about with how low it would hang. Once I was happy with the length I took the thing down and wrapped the excess wire down the length, taping the ends to the back of the cardboard.

Then I hung it back up and filled it up. So here's how it looks:

Roman Blind

This blind came with the house. It's in our bedroom, which is at the front on the ground floor, so the massive gaps in it just won't do. And that's why there's been a blanket covering the thing since we moved in.

 

Time for a new one. One that doesn't have gaps in the first place so they can't get bigger. I'm going to make a Roman Blind.

I need sticks of some kind that will go across the blind horizontally. These are called batterns. I've been to the 99p store and bought this trellis. I need to take it apart. It's held together with these little plastic knob thingies; I just pull them out so I'm left with a bunch of sticks.

They're not long enough so I'll need to stick them together. I glue cocktail sticks inside to make them more stable. They don't need to be very strong - they won't be taking any weight, they're just there to help the blind keep its shape.

And then I trim them down so they'll fit.

I need a big piece of fabric. As luck would have it, we have way too many bedding sets (and nowhere to keep them all) so I can use a duvet cover.

I want my batterns to be 27cm apart, with an extra 4cm above the top one. I turn the duvet inside out and mark where they'll go before gluing them down.

My duvet cover is too wide for the window so I need to trim it down. I trim one side and glue a new edge on.

I found some curtain rings in Wilkinsons, which I'll use as guides for the cords. I'll sew them in at regular intervals across where the sticks are. The rings will be on the outside of the finished blind (on the back). The stitches go around the batterns to make sure they stay put. I do the bottom battern first, and turn the blind right side out as I go.

Next I need to attach my blind to its window. I've been to B&Q for some wood. My top piece is two bits, which I've glued together and cut to size. I trim the corners so it will fit around the picture rail. Then I glue the top of the blind to the wood and staple the corners in place at the back. I glue a final row of curtain rings to the wood and secure with staples. While I've got my stapler out, I use it to secure to join between the two wood pieces as well. And I screw the wood to the window frame.

Now it's in place, I attach the last battern to the bottom edge of my blind, using the windowsill as a guide. This one's made from wood, also from B&Q, because I wanted something a little bit heavier to weigh the blind down. I glue it to the lining then chop off the bottom of the fabric. I glue the fabric to the bottom of the stick. Once it's dry I trim the excess.

Finally, I need something stringy to use as the pull cord. I know! I'll use some string. I get 4 pieces of string and tie them each to a bottom loop. Then I feed the string vertically through all the other loops, and once at the top I feed them all to the left. I tie them just outside the top left hand ring so they'll stay together.

And when I try to open the blind, the top rings just fall off :( I guess gluing them in place wasn't going to do the trick. I need to figure out a plan B.

I went to Wilkos and got these little screw-hook things and screwed them into the wood by hand. And I thread the cords back through and tie them together. To open it, I just have to pull on the cord. To keep it open, I wrap the cord around this bit that was there to hold up the original blind.

Well, it works. It's not perfect; that's because I made it quickly without all the obsessive measuring and re-measuring that you're supposed to do. Maybe I'll be a bit more careful when I make one of these for a house I actually own.