F is for Film

Isn't film awesome?  By film I mean photographs, you know, back in the day when you had to buy film and had 24 pictures at a time to carefully use?  Unless you're extremely young, you remember 35mm film, and if you're a nerd like me, you can read a bit about it here.  Inevitably you would find out when you finally took it in to be developed that some were blurry or had a thumb in the corner, or you had accidentally taken a picture of your feet or chopped off someone's head?  If you can't tell I'm rather ecstatic to have digital cameras now, so those mess ups don't cost me money and I usually end up with a somewhat perfect picture to preserve the moment.

But back to film!  Have you ever stopped to think about how lucky you are to be around in the time of film? We tend to think that things we use every day have been around forever, but in reality?  The first person in my family to have their photograph taken was my great-grandmother at age nine.  It was a some-what family portrait of her with her sisters.  When was your first photo? I'm guessing most of us had amassed numerous photos before our first birthday.  And think of the memories preserved!  Can you remember exactly what someone looked like 5, 10, 20 years ago?  Film has let us remember all the things that once were, whether we were there personally to experience them or not.

My grandma around the age of 6

My grandpa around the age of 8

E is for Education

No matter how old we get, we never stop learning.  So for this "E" post, I'm going to share some educational sites that I've come across that either I've enjoyed or my nephew has.


Reading:

Starfall:  Great for beginning readers.  This site was designed with grades k-2 in mind.  For the newest of readers, they have a section that will walk you through the alphabet.  You can then move on to phonics with short stories and then onto more advanced stories. Well...advanced up to 2nd grade : )  The nice thing is that each word has the option of  being read to the user, so if you're not sure what the word is or how to pronounce it, click on it and it will be sounded out for you.  The site also has some holiday activities and it looks like they're beginning to branch out into math as well.

International Children's Digital Library:  This site has children's books from around the world.  Granted most of them are rather old, but it's interesting to see how far children's literature has come over the years. 

Math:

Math Fact Cafe:  A good source for practice math sheets.  Gives basic math along with time and money.  You can chose from premade work sheets or set your own parameters to create your own.  They also let you change the font size used along with how much work space is for the problem.

Social Studies:

Kids.gov:  An interesting site dealing mostly in U.S. currency, past, present, and future.  There are quite a few things to chose from on here, but here are two that we enjoyed:  Design your own bill lets you try your hand at designing paper currency.  The time machine lets you learn about the history of all those different designs on the backs of your coins.

Science:

Celestia:  This is a must for anyone interested in space.  The controls take a bit of getting use to, and be sure to check out the add-ons section to even further enhance the experience.  Celestia is an interactive map to the universe.  It allows you to track planets in orbit, watch their rotations, and see the night sky like you never have before.  Some interesting features include turning on a night view of earth.  This allows you to see the city lights from space and makes it an interesting way to spot some of the more populated places on the planet.

Edheads:  An interesting mix of virtual activities.  Kids can design virtual cell phones, learn about predicting weather, how simple machines work, and perform hip replacement surgery.  There are a few different virtual surgeries, and they allow for the view of actual surgery photos, so preview this to make sure it's okay for your kids!  A good way of showing what a family member will go through if a child is upset about their upcoming surgery.

D is for David Bowie

To bad I though of him after "B" had come and gone.

Everybody has heard of David Bowie, unless they've been living under a rock for the past few decades.  In the event you haven't heard of him, you have definitely heard his music (it's everywhere) or have seen him in a film.

The man's a genius, constantly evolving himself through the years.  He never seems to stay the same for long, which is why I'm always surprised to "discover" he did a certain song I've listened to for ages on the radio, or played a certain role in a movie.

I'm fairly new to the Bowie fanclub.  Labyrinth was my gate way drug just a few years back.  However I'm fairly certain that had I been a teenager during his early years of success my room would have been plastered with his posters.

                   

     

C is for Coupons

It seems like every where I look these days I hear about coupons and how great they are.  They've had coupon gurus on the news, commercials for various stores saying how great their in store coupons are, and they even have a new tv show dedicated to hard core couponers.  It's crazy.

My mom recently got into the coupon craze after taking a couponing class...yes, such things really do exist....and now happily (I assume) spends a few minutes each day going through the coupons from that days newspaper.  Her little coupon pile is getting impressive and today she managed to save $100 and some change at Publix.  She was thrilled and is still showing the receipt to everyone.

If you're in the central Florida area, this is the site mum loves and browses before shopping:

http://www.couponersunited.com/

It takes a bit of getting use to at first, I had to play around a bit to find out where everything was, but it has this really nifty section if you go to coupons > coupon database. Type in what you're looking for, the more generic the better I've found, and hit search.  If a coupon for it exists it'll pop up and tell you where to find it.  

Now I hear you ask, why more generic? I'll tell you!  I was looking for candy for Easter and typed in Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, at the time I got nothing, no coupons in existence.  For fun I typed in Reese's and located 3 different coupons for a mixed bag of candy that had Reese's in it.  Since I liked the other candy it came with I was able to use a great coupon that I might have otherwise overlooked.

Should you want to learn more about couponing, the lady that runs that site will teach a class for you if you ask, but you'll need (I think) 10 people in attendance, so go gather up your friends! 

I did learn one nifty trick from my mom after she took the class if you're lucky enough to have a Publix to shop at, you can use coupons for their BOGO...in fact you can use 2 coupons.  So say I buy 2 packs of X that are on BOGO.  I also have 2 coupons for $1 off X.  When it rings up at the register it shows you've purchased 2 X's, then the store takes off the price of one of those X's (BOGO) then also your coupons, so that the one pack of X you're actually paying for just got $2 knocked off, which in some cases makes it practically free.

Now if you want to see the far end of couponing, go check out TLC's Extreme Couponing

http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/tv/extreme-couponing

Don't feel bad if you never reach their level.  I decided after watching it that this is a form of approved hoarding for people with addictive personalities.  When 1/3 of your house is stuffed with the spoils of your tri-weekly shopping trip, it's time to take a step back.

B is for Blog

As in I redid mine. Sure it took me an entire day, but I think it looks way better than it did.  I managed to keep the rose theme too which was a bonus for me : )  The lace was a pain to do, too many small parts!!!  Oh well.


I don't know if this really qualifies as a "B", but I'll say it does :-p

A is for Amber

Happy Halloween!

Well, Jem didn't pan out.  By the time I found fabric that would work for the dress and had given up all hope of ever finding shoes that matched but wouldn't kill me (helloooooo stipper heels lol) I had run out of time.  But fear not! I had just enough time to whip up a little something to fit in.

Obligatory mirror shot

I love this wig!  Totally makes me think I should get my real hair cut and dyed to look like this forever. 

Vest is slightly modified from Burda 8448, to make it a lace-up front.  Head band is just a strip of fabric tied in the back.

Burda pattern # 8448 Peasant dress ensemble. Size 12-28

Truly Outragous!

So I'm thinking of going as Jem for Haloween...I have the pink wig and makeup, it's all hinging now on whether I can find an easy wrap dress pattern and shoes to match.  Here's a makeup/wig test, I'm so excited to try this!

 

Pyramid Cake

My brother is a rather adventurous sort, and each year he tries to outdo his birthday cake from the year before.  This year was a pyramid cake.  It was delicious, german chocolate. Yum! 

Pics of the progress:

Baked 3 9x9 square cakes, lopped off the curved top

Tops lopped and prepared to be frosted

Mmmm...frosting

Frosted! Layer the cakes, frosting only on the bottom and middle cake!

Carefully cut at an angle down the front of the cake, then the back

Frost the top layer and add the pieces you cut off, frosting between the two added pieces as well.  Confused?  Imagine the new top 3 layers as a door on a hinge, rotate it down and you can see how you cut it off the original square cake : )

Top view...almost there!

Now we have to cut the sides to make it a pyramid instead of a prism.  Discard these pieces, or save them to eat later : )

Tada!

Frost the heck outta that cake!

It was very crumbly from all that cutting...if you're good with fondant I think that might look nicer lol

Add the candles...

Top view, 6 on each side, one at the point on top : )

Make a wish and blow those candles out fast!

 

Gobble Gobble Gobble!

Ry's family project was to make a turkey to carry in the Turkey Day Parade.  We asked him what he wanted it to look like and he said he wanted lots of feathers and a pinecone. We were a little stumped at first, a pine cone is so small this was supposed to be a decent sized project. Then my sis got a brilliant idea- disassemble a pinecone and use the...parts?...to creat a huge pinecone. So we did.

We gave Ry a grocery size paper bag and had him stuff it with newspapers, which we then taped shut and somewhat squashed/molded into an oval-ish shape.  We all sat and took apart pinecones, and hot glued them on strips of ribbon that covered all but the bottom of the bag, working back to front. This took FOREVER.

Then Ry helped draw the turkey head/neck on a piece of cardboard, we had to cut it out since it proved to be a little to thick for him. then he wrapped it in strips of batting and I sewed the brown fabric and yellow felt to it.  He cut out the waddle and glued it on, along with the wiggly eyes.  We then miraculously managed to glue/tape it to the bag.  The legs were 3 extra thick pipecleaners twisted together and glued/taped to the underside.

We hot glued the feathers on last, he handed them to us one at a time since we didn't want him to burn himself.  Then he cut out the wings and wedged them into the pinecones.

I think it turned out rather cute : )