Stuck at home. Everyone is sick. What to do? Emit a cloud of noxious fumes from some craft beads, of course!
A recent trek to the IKEA, brought us some great finds to bring home. We only go to IKEA once or twice a year, so we make the best of it when we go.

Who could resist this giant jar of craft beads? The kids have been playing with them, as well as using them for crafts. The beads are good for measuring, pouring, scooping, counting, stringing, and gluing. They are also small enough that if the odd bead gets popped into the mouth of a passing toddler, mamalibrarian might just turn her head the other way and pretend she didn’t see anything. Mostly because any more calls to the Poison Control are no doubt going to warrant some kind of uniformed personnel showing up at the door.

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Anyway, we embarked on the bead melting project one afternoon, when I was trying to keep everyone calm. It took a long time and a lot of dexterity to get the beads placed on the melting peg boards. (also from IKEA) The only instructions showed a woman with an iron and a piece of wax paper, so I had to wing it. I just set the iron to low and placed the wax paper on top of the beaded board. It took at least 2 or 3 minutes of the iron resting on top of the wax paper and beads to get them to fuse together. Then we let them cool, pulled off the wax paper, and removed them from boards.



I also picked up this cute hippo? fabric. With IKEA, you just never can quite tell what the animal is exactly. Flodhäst is what we are calling it. I am not sure what I am going to do with it yet. It is a little stiff feeling for clothes, but a little A-line jumper experiment would be awfully cute. In case you are in need of a chart with the translation of hippopotamus in many different languages, here is a link.



And for my friends Average Jane Crafter and Haiku Mama, I grabbed these market totes. I am anxious to see what kind of crafty gear Average Jane Crafter puts in hers.

I’m going to sleep with my cell phone next to me tonight. My son is having his first sleepover with a friend. Since it is 1:00 am, realistically I think he is going to make it through the night. Am I going to make it through? We have only been apart for 8 days since he was born, and now he is 8 1/2. I can see where this is going.

Firsts
We’ve had some great firsts and lasts around here lately.
I took my first sewing class and bought my first sewing machine. I took the Beginning I sewing class at Leslie Bonnell’s
Stitch Lab. It was fantastic. Leslie is a great teacher. I made this skirt. It is a linen, embroidered fabric.

For the first day of summer, the kids hung out in their pjs with some wax lips! (see flickr photo)

And obviously, a first blog post for me and for my son! We are both still working out the kinks.

Lasts
The month started off with my son H’s last day of 2nd grade. We marked the occasion by visiting a new candy store in town called Big Top. H and C chose large, rainbow lollipops, Bubble Tape gum, and wax lips. As a mother you sort of feel like they should be handing out toothbrushes at the door, but I tried not to be “no-fun mommy” on the last day of school, so I kept quiet. After all, it was my idea.

I helped my parents move into their new house. While the old house wasn’t the house I grew up in, it was the house I brought H to when he was only three weeks old. We all had things that we would and would not miss about the house “in the country,” and we were thinking about them on the last day in the old house.

We’ll be missing:
The quiet – At night especially, it is what made living in the city so shocking for me.

The seclusion – Where else can you sit out in a lawn chair half dressed and eat a popsicle? (Both my parents might add to this, where else can you have a corvette with a huge engine that will not disturb the neighbors, but that is a whole other argument.)

The wildlife – Never a dull moment, there were giant pigs loose, wild turkeys, herds of cattle, gophers, wild hogs, deer, turtles, and armadillos.

We sure won’t be missing:
The snakes-a special thanks to the neighbors’ cats for keeping them somewhat at bay. The cats and a good hoe go a long way.

The drive-twenty minutes doesn’t seem like a long time, but if you have three kids in the car, it can be an eternity. No pizza delivery, no quick trip to the store, no let’s go rent a movie.

I have to throw in scorpions falling from the ceiling. Although this only happened a couple of times, it was enough to make me look up at the ceiling all the time.

And finally, my mom announced her last day of work. While she is young to retire, we are all looking forward to what the next stage holds for the grandma, librarian, mom- extraordinaire.