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My Cat is a Fanilow

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“Copacabana”

(music, lyrics and vocal arrangement courtesy of internationally renowned superstar, Barry Manilow)

Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl
With yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there
She would merengue and do the cha-cha
And while she tried to be a star
Tony always tended bar
Across the crowded floor, they worked from 8 til 4
They were young and they had each other
Who could ask for more?

At the copa Copacabana
The hottest spot north of Havana
At the copa Copacabana
Music and passion were always in fashion
At the copa…. they fell in love…

With a hat-loving cat named Lola, it was only a matter of time…

Her name was Lola… she was a show-cat! …was Rachel’s comment on September’s feathered creation.
 
I can see your cat wandering around your place with a giant feather headdress…came from Leslie (aka. PartyMom), earlier this week.

So obviously, this needed to happen. The masses demand it.

OK, so, maybe “the masses” is two people, but I take all y’all’s comments very seriously! And besides, Lola loves her hats almost as much as she loves Barry Manilow.

There, I said it. My cat is a Fanilow. 

In case you were wondering…

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It’s that time of year again.

Halloween has barely past. The candy is off the shelves, the tinsel is moving in and White Christmas is now on television.
It’s not my personal favorite movie, but if it’s on the color TV, you can bet good money I’ll be glued to that screen long enough to watch Rosemary Clooney come out and sing Sisters, Sisters. Screw the skinny little blond snippet. Rosemary beats all! 
Please note, if the skinny blond snippet was your favorite sister, you probably just got offended. I deeply apologize. This deep seeded rivalry between Team Rosemary and Team Snippet goes back to ancient times. Let us look past our differences and unite together in this season in peace. 
Just as long as the uniting part goes down while listening to Christmas with Rosemary Clooney.
Also, please note, I’m not going to link to the real scene, because if you don’t know the scene in question, you should just stop reading this and go watch the full movie.  
“Ladies and Gentlemen, the Haynes Sisters”
Now, I’ll bet I have watched that scene more occasions than I can count, and yet, every time I see it, I once again ask myself the most important and pressing question of our time:

WHERE DO I GET ONE OF THOSE FANS?
And thanks to the internet, now I know. They can be found here, here, here, here, here.
I know plenty of women who have wonderful memories of dancing to Sisters, Sisters with their sister on the living room rug every December. If you are one of them, and you are in the market for an opulent gag gift, well, I think I just ticked one line off your holiday shopping list. Your welcome.

Speaking of holiday shopping, I could really use a new feathered headdress. 
Not the type of thing one can show off at the office Tuesay morning, but gosh, wouldn’t it be fun to wear one with your bathrobe while your picking up around the house?  Can you imagine how glamorous vacuming could be if you were wearing one of THESE? Or waving hello to your neighbor, Mr. Katzendanner, while taking the garbage out in THIS? 
Or, just screw the outfits and go for decor! Necklamann’s has a tremendous selection of fabulous feather goodies at reasonable prices. What about sprawling an ostrich fan across the mantle, or getting yourself a Bernadette to display a feathered headress on your dinning room credenza? Or, hey, how about an ostrich headdress on top of the Christmas tree? Now we are talking! 
And now you know where to get it. You know, in case you were wondering…

Friday Flowers: Making Sweater Felt in the Washing Machine

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Everyone loves felt flowers. Especially me! They are cheap, easy and add a dash of happy color to any outfit.

There are plenty of great tutorials already out there that use inexpensive, old reliable store-bought craft felt. Problem is, I avoid using craft felt whenever possible. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a great material to have around the house, but making your own felt from old sweaters has mucho advantages.

Felt made from wool sweaters is:

  • Thicker
  • Cheaper
  • More colorful (and if you can’t buy it – dye it!)
  • Cleaner
  • Healthier*

*Important note on felt in general: Anyone who has cut or sewn any sort of felt knows that it generates fiber dust faster than most fabrics. Problem is, unless you are working outside, those fibers get into the air we breathe. Dust from natural fibers like cotton, wool, silk, etc, are pretty easy for our respiratory systems to filter, but dust from synthetic fibers, like the acrylic used in most craft felt, can cause serious respiratory irritation. Personally, it doesn’t make me cough or sneeze but it does give me a headache after 30 minutes messing with it. This leads me to believe it is something to avoid, or at very least, avoid messing with indoors (Update: Sara had a great suggestion when it comes to cutting acrylic wool “why not buy some little doctor’s masks from the pharmacy?”…good idea Sara!) Y’all feel free to compare and draw your own conclusions. If you are working on a project where you need multiple yards of felt, consider looking into something made from cotton or wool. Chances are it will cost 4 times as much as the fake stuff, and it will not come in nifty colors, but it’s a fair trade for keeping your home and family healthy. 

Man, that was a downer. 

Now back to the fun stuff!

The Magic Bag: Making Felt the Easy Way
Anyone who has accidentally thrown a wool sweater in the dryer knows how easy it is to turn knit fibers into felt. There are lots of ways to approach it, but I like to use the Magic Bag method because it means I can felt while I do my other laundry. This saves water, energy, and money (major bonus when you live in a city apartment with giant coin operated machines!)


The Magic Bag
Get yourself an old pillow case and fill it with:

  • Wool. Take yucky old thrift store sweater and cut away any seams, cuffs, collars or fancy edges (save them though—they could come in handy on future projects. More on that next week!)
  • 1 teaspoon of soap shavings. I like to scrape them from a bar of old fashioned ivory soap, but most any soap will work, just be sure it isn’t “moisturizing” or “with conditioners” or stuff like that.
  • 1 teaspoon of baking soda. This helps the detergent really scrub and fluff up those fibers.
  • 1 large old towel or pair of jeans, or both. Most anything with a scrubby surface.

Put them all together in the pillow case, making sure there is enough room to wiggle around. Tie it off with a sturdy rubber band and throw it in the washing machine with your other hot water laundry, same as always. Adding detergent is fine but no fabric softener. Wash on the hottest setting possible.

The combination of hot water, abrasive detergent and constant agitation, will make the yarn FREAK OUT and turn to felt in no time. When the wash cycle is finished, pull your items out of the bag and inspect. Pull a scrap piece of wool from side to side. It should be reasonably stretchy.

Can you still see the individual strands of yarn?
If the answer is no, then you have felt!
If the answer is yes, then put it back in again for another wash cycle and try adding another towel. If you can set your machine to repeat the “wash” cycle more than once (turn back the dial) then just repeat that process over and over til you get what you want.

Once the wool is felted in the wash, you are ready to cut it. I like to cut mine while it’s still damp from the washer (keeps the fiber dust down) but you can also dry it at this stage to encourage the fibers to puff up. Either way is fine.


Alternative Method
Get a big old pot and boil the wool on your stove. No agitation required in this method, but it could take up to an hour and will make your kitchen smell like sheep.

Will any sweater turn to felt?

No. Generally, natural fibers work best. After enough of these, you will be able to feel a sweater and know if it will felt, but you’ll have to read labels until you get the hang of it. Here is a quick-n-dirty list of popular fibers and their success rate:

Wool: Great
Lambs Wool: Excellent
Wool with 10% Something Else (spandex, rayon, cotton, polyester, etc): Fine, but anything more than 10% is risky
Alpaca: OK in the washer, but the boiling method works better
Camel: Fine, but it smells horrendous when hot
Cashmere: Sorta…it felts but remains thin and never puffs up nice and thick
Angora: Mixed results…100% angora is no good, but vintage sweaters made from angora AND wool are like the Holy Grail; they come out big and pillowy and soft. I wish I had a sample but I gave them all away and more sweaters are hard to find.
Cotton: Nope
Rayon: Nope
Silk: Nope

And don’t limit yourself to sweaters! Coats, hats, gloves, scarves, blankets work great too.
And don’t limit yourself to solid colors! Use the stripes and patterns to your advantage. 

How do I make the flower?


1. Cut a rounded circle sort of thing roughly 10″ in diameter.
2. Cut a spiral shape.


3. Make incisions around the outer edge of the spiral every 1/2″ or so, making sure to leave at least 1/4″ remaining at the bottom.
4. Snip the corners of the individual petals. Note: Some thicker weaves and fibers will puff up so much with step 5 that you can even skip step 4.


5. Throw the spiral in a hot dryer. This will puff it up and suck the loose fibers into your lint trap.
6. Optional: If the drier puffed it up too much for your taste (top), you can flatten it out with an iron (bottom). I happen to like it puffy, but some fibers will create curly/twisty petals that will be easier to work with after ironing.


7. Starting rolling at the center of the spiral (if you can still recognize the center!) making sure to keep the bottom edge lined up. this process is easier if you give yourself a base after 2 or three rolls around, but you decide for yourself.
8. Once you finish rolling, your flower should look like a cinnamon bun. Stab the needle and thread straight across the back of the flower and repeat several times over in multiple directions.

Note: You will want to use a thick sturdy needle and thread. Thin cotton thread will break. If you don’t have button thread or upholstery thread on hand, try dental floss.

Another Note: I know you are thinking you can skip the sewing and go for a glue gun. You would be right, although the results never come out quite as nice; the glue bulks up the back and the excess globs are hard to conceal, but if you think you can get around it, then go for it.


9. Stitch on pin back.
10. Cover your handy work with a leaf and your done!

Experiment!  Expect your first attempt to come out a little wonky, but you will improve quickly. Once you make a few of these, you will find them very addictive and easy to do. These pins make great gifts but you can also do plenty of stuff with other parts of the sweater, then embellish with the flowers…think vests, hats, capes, cuffs! More on this in the weeks ahead!

Or don’t even bother making the flowers; look at the felt as a special something you can add to other projects.Imagine a pillow edged in ric-rac or pom-pom trim…now imagine it edged in sweater felt trim. Cool huh?
 

Since you can make 6-12 flowers out of a single sweater, I tend to make them in batches. Pick up a few sweaters and you can start mixing and matching colors and consistencies. Its always good to have at least one green sweater for making leaves. A few years ago I was REALLY into making stuff out of sweater felt. I gave felt goodies to everyone I knew and sold them at a couple of craft fairs. Eventually the fun fizzled out and I haven’t touched the stuff in two years. This morning I opened up the giant Tupperware bin full of spirals I cut years ago, just waiting to made into flowers and scarves and caps and capes and cuffs and stockings and ornaments and …..what’s that? What is that I hear? Why, that’s the sound of something fabulous coming down the pipeline!

Happy Friday Y’all!


Leftover Halloween: Pumpkin Pedestal Bowl

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I’m pretty sure you have a plastic pumpkin bucket in your house.

Doesn’t everyone?

A while ago I was staring at mine and noticed that the lines of the pumpkin are really, quite nice. Similar to a fishbowl, almost. They are deep enough to hold a flower arrangement, or sewing notions, or legos, or crayons, or kitchen utensils, or rolled up towels, or…or…or…or…or…STRAWS!

I’m wild about drinking straws. Can’t get enough of them.

I also can’t get enough pedestal bowls. Everything looks better on a pedestal. Everything.

There is no tutorial on this because I didn’t take photos as I made it. And, as someone who is known to, ahem, ramble on occasion, I’m trying to challenge myself to rely on visuals more than words.

Tip: If the pumpkin’s eyes/mouth are indented, cover them with duct tape before decoupage.
Tip: Dilute the glue with equal parts water and mod podge, for a smooth, water resistant finish.
Tip: Scraps from leftover coffee filter flowers make THE BEST decoupage materials. If you have ever made your own confetti by punching holes in tissue paper, you will recognize where the gold bits came from.

Now you have the fanciest candy bucket in town!



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Leftover Halloween Mask Turned Vase: A Cow for Madame Violoneux

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Sometimes people ask me: So what do you do with all the paper flowers?
Answer: I give them to Madame Violoneux.

I initially made Madame Violoneux as a vase (right), but she could certainly be used as a fun storage container (left).      That’s Right: Cow Shaped Storage. BOO YOW!

Paper flowers are something I have been making since childhood, but the first time I got serious, I mean really serious, was in high school. I came home from a school field trip and made 100 blossoms in a single night. The unusual creative surge was spurred by, of all things, a cow.

Yes, I said cow. I know. Technically, it was a whole herd of cows. They were dressed up like Carmen Miranda and I was jealous as hell. 

See, years ago, I lived in Switzerland. Yes, Switzerland. I know. It’s hard to imagine anyone who comes from a place so pristine would use words like peckerwood and produce fingernail necklaces, but hey, it takes all kinds. It was only for a few years but my time there changed my whole perspective on how I view the world. It changed how I think about myself. It changed the way I think about the people I never met before. It changed the way I think about you.

Who knew, right?

If you ever get a chance to go to Switzerland, especially the mountains, promise me you will jump at the chance! It’s an astonishing place filled with especially intriguing people. The term diverse doesn’t do it justice. The cities in Switzerland are known for innovative, cutting edge design, while the mountain towns, like the one where I lived, resemble something pretty close to that Heidi picture book you had as a kid; green pastures, cheese makers, cuckoo clocks by the dozen, and old men who walk the streets with wooden sticks and feathers in their hats.

My secret talent: I can yodel the Star Spangled Banner.

Jealous much? Just wait till you see the view out my former window.

Awesome much?

I know.

Photos from St. Cergue CH, courtesy of Vinylmeister.
Every year, on a sunny Saturday in autumn, Swiss communities celebrate Désalpe, or sometimes called Almabtrieb, or Descent of the Cows, or, as my cousin John called it, The Bovine Beauty Pageant.

When Alpine pastures thin out in the fall, the cows are led down to the valley in style, wearing huge bells on their necks and flowers attached to their horns. It’s fabulous. Cattle play a critical role in Switzerland’s economy and agriculture, so the Swiss take their cows very seriously. People in Wisconsin might talk about ‘cow tipping’ as a local right of passage, but in many parts of Switzerland, it’s a criminal offense. Lesson: Don’t mess with Miss Bessy!

Photo courtesy of Mark Cowlishaw

One year, my school took us on a field trip to watch the annual festivities in a nearby town. Ignorantly, I assumed a cow parade would be a peaceful, folksy event. I could not have been more wrong; it was a LOUD, raucous, blaze of color and noise, smelling of old cheese, fresh grass and cow poop.

You cannot imagine the noise! Back in the day, the giant old bells were made so that farmers could locate their herd from half a mountain away. These days, the cows still wear bells, but the big guns only come out for the holiday. And, if it wasn’t LOUD enough already, the town folk like to trumpet the arrival of the cows by playing their alphorns.

The lion tamer on the field trip that day was the principal of our tiny school, a kind man from Minnesota who greeted everyone with a smile. He was one of those people who never forgot your name. I appreciate that in people, don’t you?

He fit right in with the rest of the happy local Swiss folk that day, but his wife, Madame Violoneux, did not blend so well. They were an odd pair, everyone agreed. Where Mr. Violoneux was warm and friendly with strangers, Madame Violoneux was distant and suspicious. She was a tiny thing with ice blue eyes, and although it was a solid year before I saw her truly smile, it was easy to imagine her as a giggly baby. You know, one of those beautiful old soul babies who look at you with wariness and wonder. And still, as intimidating as she was, there was still something child-like about her presence.

She was a stickler for manners. Rumor had it when a boy wore a hat in her class she made him eat it. Not the whole thing, but just chew on the brim for a minute with everyone watching. I’m not sure if that story was just a rumor but deep inside I sure hope it’s true.

She was never exactly mean, but she didn’t bother with typical teacher niceties. There were no pats on the back or good morning greetings. People didn’t mess around her classroom. Expectations ran high. With most educators, when you turn in mediocre work, it comes back with a grade, a few marks and a message at the top that goes something like
Try harder. Rework that last section and you’ll get it next time!  

Madame Violoneux once returned a trigonometry test to me that read
Your can’t be serious.
    
I was crushed.

Even as an adult, I’m still not sure what it was about Madame Violoneux that made me want to try harder. Maybe it’s because I was a spoiled-rotten adolescent seeking approval from a Spartan-style authoritarian. Maybe it’s because she was more discriminating with her praise than every one else. Maybe it’s because underneath her exterior, I wanted to think she cared more than any one else. Maybe it’s because she could chew you up and spit you out before you could say Double Angle Formula. 

When I was tiny, my Aunt Honey Shirley once told me an ancient Scandinavian folk legend about a Magic Fog/Clould/G-d/Thing (name, anyone?) that would gently sweep over towns and villages, weighing the soul of every person in its path. If your soul was heavy, you would remain on the ground, but if your soul was light, you would be carried away in the fog. The souls of children weighed the heaviest and the soles of mean people weighed the least.

Moral of the story: be nice or you will get eaten by a fog monster.

Lovely tale. Scared the crap out of me every time it got cloudy outside, but a lovely tale just the same. Ever since Honey Shirley told me about them, I started looking for fog monsters.

!!!SURPRISE!!!  

Fog monsters are everywhere! 

I’m talking about people who can measure your soul. That must make me sound crazy, but I swear it’s true. They are out there. Everywhere. I’m talking about people you already know–people who can look in your eyes and see you for what you are. They will measure your worth in an instant and decipher your value. They won’t tell you how much you measure up, but if you are light on soul, they will gobble you up and move on to the next person right quick.
    
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind: Madame Violoneux was a fog monster. The woman could see my soul. She could see yours too. For me, back then, this was something to worry about. My teenage self-absorption was out of control and I could have been eaten by a fog monster at any time.

So that day in the town, with all the cows marching by with people watching, I was watching Madame Violoneux. With all the color and sound and clapping and giggles and happiness in the air, I wanted to see if she would laugh. I wanted to see if she could laugh. If 200 cows dressed as Carmen Miranda didn’t put a smile on her face, I don’t know what would.

The parade progressed slowly. The cows were supposed to run by but they mostly just stood there swinging their bells and shaking their headdresses.  

Cattle herding is a funny science; give cows an open road and they will run neatly, in a single file, almost as fast as a some horses, but put them on a narrow path and you may as well be herding cats. They won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. If one stops to rest or dodge a rock, it’ll take ten seconds before another cow, 20 yards back, will have to stop too. It’s like rush hour traffic with poop.

Photo courtesy of Mark Cowlishaw

At one point the traffic jam came to a full out halt and the crowd infiltrated the herd. People were taking pictures left and right, but no one touched the cows. Even small children knew to never to touch the creatures for fear they would catch some human illness, or get scared and start a stampede. Everyone knew you should never touch the cows.

Imagine my shock when I turned around to see Madame Violoneux standing directly in front of a heifer, holding her giant slimy chin in one hand, while smoothing a tuft of hair away from her horns with the other. From a distance I could see the cow was different–full grown, slightly smaller than the rest, brown on the bottom and all white from the neck up. Most of the cows had headdresses like giant, swaying funeral flower arrangements, but this cow had only four rumpled flowers on display. Madame Violoneux lovingly fluffed each flower, then pulled back and tilted her head to the side to look at the cow long and hard, as if to say Why so sad little cow?

This was unusual  because, 1. Madame Violoneux did not look sympathetic on people, much less livestock, and 2. If you have ever been near a full grown Swiss heifer, you know they don’t let people cradle their head without putting up a fight.

There was only one explanation for such a curious sight: that little cow was in a trance as Madame Violoneux weighed her soul. The fog monster strikes again!

Eventually the cow noticed the rest of her herd moving away and broke out from under Madame Violoneux’s trance. As she trotted toward me, sauntering tall and proud, I heard my Uncle Thomas’ voice ringing through my head in all his hog calling glory; That is one sweet looking heifer!

I felt like Miss Ameroca was walking my way. Like I should be honored to look up on her and courtsey or something.

Then she got close enough for me to see her face.

I had to turn away.

She was mangled. Half the left side of her face was sunken in. Her eye was gone and there was a deep gash running down the length of her snout. For a second there, I almost thought the deformity might be the mark of the fog monster, but in reality it was probably just a a birth defect or an injury. A friend of mine who is in the cattle business tells me young cows get seriously injured all the time, but usually they are put out of their misery before a vet is ever called in. Perhaps things work differently with small time farmers in Switzerland…I don’t know.

As the heifer passed, I grabbed one of the flowers from her head. Red crepe paper. The minute I got home I took it apart and used it to make a pattern, similar to these roses. Crepe paper wasn’t easy to come by that night, so I made the flowers out of paper towels. When the paper towels ran out, I used magazine pages. When the magazine ran out of pages, my old homework did the trick. This went on for hours…

Making art is a funny thing. It drudges up all kinds of thoughts and feelings and insecurities. It loosens up your mind just enough to untangle the knots in your head. That night, I thought about Madame Violoneux and that cow. It rattled me to think, out of all the cows in the bovine beauty pageant that day, she saw the beauty in the one with the most obvious flaw. The one that made me turn my head away in revulsion. The one that got passed over by everyone else.

Why?

I don’t know the answer, but I can tell you, in that single act of doting benevolence, Madame Violoneux changed my whole perspective on how I view beauty. It changed the way I see my surroundings. It changed how I think about myself. It changed the way I think about the people I never met before. It changed the way I think about you.

Since that day I have looked at cows as my own personal lucky charm. I don’t collect them so much as I revere them. Not that my reverence stands in the way of a good cheeseburger.

For years now, every time I see a cow, I want to decorate the poor beast with paper flowers. I dream of bringing Désalpe to the cattle ranches of America. Something tells me the cattle ranchers wouldn’t like it so much, but hey, a girl can dream!

In the mean time, until all cows can be free and fancy for a day, I like to celebrate Désalpe by keeping my paper flowers in a faux-ceramic cow shaped vase, appropriately named, Madame Violoneux. She sits on my dresser, next to a mirror. She greets me every morning and night. The flowers are tied to a couple of branches stuck in the back so I can replace and freshen them constantly.

Holy cats, that sounds like I’m keeping a shrine on my dresser.

A crazy cow-slash-fog-monster shrine.

Awesome much?

I know.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

To make a faux-ceramic cow-slash-fog-monster-creature vase you will need….

  • One leftover Halloween mask. Animal masks are good, but those rubber celebrity masks work great too. Why not make a David Letterman vase in the foyer, or a Snooki bucket to store junk mail. It’s a thought.
  • One container. Should be slightly larger than the face of the mask. Here I used a square shaped kitty-litter box because, not only do I like the shape, I like that it will sit nicely in a bookshelf, making the finished product look like a traditional bust. A traditional bust with hidden storage, no less. Did you say hidden storage?!?!
  • Paste Mixture. Any paper mache mix will do the job, but I like to mix 1 part white glue, 1 part Mod Podge, 2 parts water. You decide for yourself. 
  • Tape. Masking tape works fine, duct tape works better.
  • Filler. I like to use the plastic bags from the grocery store and junk mail. Whatever you have around the house will work fine.
  • Fibrous Paper strips. Torn up newsprint, paper napkins and coffee filters.
  • Gesso. Not paint. Not glue. Gesso. I’m a fan of Blick brand Master gesso, but that’s just me. A lot people skip the gesso step on art projects —Mucho Mistake Muchacho! Usually I urge people to work with whatever they have around, but gesso is not to be skipped. I am confident you will be happier with the end result if you use gesso. You can find a bottle at any art or craft store for less than $5. It’s what painters use to prepare their canvas…like a combination of paint/primer/glue/liquid starch that simultaneously smooths and stiffens any surface. Try it. You’ll like it!
  • Gloss finish. Polyurethane or mod podge will do the trick.

 1. Line up your mask and container to make sure they are proportionate. You will never like end product if you aren’t happy with the foundational balance. That goes for stuff outside art projects 🙂
2. Tape that sucker on. Use as much tape as you want. The thicker the better.
3. Plug gaps with filler materials. Tin foil is great for spots where you want to keep a smooth surface.
4. Smooth out the edges by covering any detailed patches (like around the eyes) with more tape.

5. Prepare paste mixture. Tip from Grandnanna: save cleanup time by lining a bowl with a plastic bag. No one likes cleaning glue. Not even Grandnanna. And she likes cleaning everything.
6. Cut paper strips into strips. I like mine about 2″ wide, but don’t sweat it. Dip them in the paste mixture and smooth over the base, criss-crossing as you work. For the first layer, I always try to use a few coffee filters around places where container-meets-mask. The filters are made of such strong fibers that they really help strengthen the joints.
7. Once your first layer of paper is down, let it dry, then go back and do a second coat. Embrace texture!
8. Once it is COMPLETELY DRY, cover with 2 coast of gesso.
9. (not pictured) After the gesso is dry, spray with glossy polyurethane or coat with mod podge. The final coat is what will really help give it the ceramic look, so take your time and don’t skimp!

Not a bad way to make use of that old Halloween mask, huh?
Happy Fall Y’all!



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It’s Election Day Y’all!

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Election poster from Zimbabwe. Peeps: If the people in Zimbabwe get it, we should too.

It’s election day Y’all!  Are you excited as I am?

Yes? Then quit reading this and get down to your polling station!

No? Why is that?

If you are one of the 60% of Americans who will not be voting today because you think…

I don’t follow politics enough to make an informed decision…
I don’t have time to research the candidates and the issues…
I don’t think my vote counts…

… then I  have news for you my friend: your vote counts. Big time.

I will never dare to tell another person how to vote, however, I will urge you to take a few minutes to check out THIS WEBSITE and decide for yourself. Project Vote Smart a legitimately non-partisan organization that provides information about every candidate running for federal and state races. Just enter your zipcode and skim the results to see where your candidates stand on the issues. It takes three minutes, maybe five if their servers are busy. It’s easy! And regardless of your ideology, it is a valuable tool for getting quick and accurate information about the people asking for your vote.

Look, I get why people are discouraged with government these days. I know I am. If anything, our government has become more partisan and our politicians have become less accountable. But that’s not an excuse to give up.

When you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain about the choices our government makes. You forfeit your voice in the public forum, and that would be a real shame. Your voice should be heard. Your representatives work for YOU and they want to hear what you have to say.

VOTE!

Need to find your polling place? Click here.
Need to register so you can vote in the next election? Click here.

Be the change you want to see in the world. 
Mahatma Gandhi

Leftover Halloween: Batman Candy Bucket Planter

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I hate throwing stuff out. It’s a problem. I especially hate throwing out stuff related to holidays because it reminds me that it’ll be a whole year until that holiday comes around again. Sad. This is how I end up with Christmas lights above the bed and Easter eggs in the bathroom.

Like I said: It’s a problem.

Lucky for me, Halloween offers some creative solutions. There are plenty of festive goodies that are perfect for non-Halloween purposes. For example, some people like to buy candy on sale this week to use in Christmas stockings down the road. Me, I like to save trick-or-treat buckets to use as planters next summer. I picked up this here Batman candy bucket on sale for 99cents three years ago, plus an Elmo and Sponge Bob Square Pants. The other fellas are now planted with oregano and living happily with friends, but Batman stays on my front stoop all summer long. My pink impatiens thrive inside Batman’s head and nobody recognizes him as a Halloween item–they just think Batman got a nifty new hairdo!

Do you find ways to use Halloween leftovers? If so, please share –I would really love to hear your ideas!   

It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood!

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Welcome to Hyde Park: expect long lines, political satire and serious candy.

Is there a neighborhood in your area that is known for spectacular Christmas lights? You know, the one where neighbors get competitive trying to out-do each other until one day someone ends up with a live alpaca* and a Santa sleigh on the roof?

You know, THAT neighborhood.  Well, imagine THAT neighborhood, but swap Christmas for Halloween, then throw in ten thousand children, 25 metric tons of candy, blaring music, a few fog machines, then shake and stir: welcome to Hyde Park!

Would you like to be known as “the house with the headless mummies”?

If you are ever in Chicago this time of year, you need to get your butt down to Hyde Park. No one does Halloween quite like Hyde Parkers. It’s a point of pride. Everyone participants. Everyone. Even those of us who have been over-scheduled slackers who couldn’t do more than make some luminaries and buy candy and feel bad because we got hungry and ate half the candy before the first kid rang the bell it lead to bellyaching on the couch for hours.

*blushing*

My friends who live in the suburbs tell me they most often recognize their neighbors by their car. Hyde Park folks most often recognize each other by their Halloween decor.

Real conversation:

“You know the Hirshes? The ones with headless mummies on the porch?”
“Oh yeah, the ones that dress their Labrador like a dragon, right?”
“No, no, that’s the Calvin’s house. The Calvins have the dragon dog and the Hirshes have the graveyard driveway.”
“Oh yeah, of course, the graveyard driveway. Now I know.”

One year my friend Josh sat on the steps of his apartment building and handed out candy dressed as a dead bride. Five years later, neighbors see him at the corner store and say  “Hey man, where is your veil?”

Harper Street traffic is shut down to make way for thousands of pedestrians and a 20′ scarecrow  

The crossroads to all the Hyde Park Halloween hoopla is 57th and Harper. It’s almost like a block party, but hardly anyone at the party lives on the block. See, trick-or-treating isn’t exactly safe in every neighborhood in Chicago, so the Harper Street folks put on a show and welcome children from all over the city. It’s a wonderful tradition, not to mention, Serious Business. Sometimes I think I would love to live on Harper so I could join in the spectacle, but then I think of all the time and expense that goes into the Halloween season and thank my lucky stars I don’t live anywhere near Harper Street. Folks on Harper prepare for months. My friend Jeanna’s parents rented a house on Harper a few years ago and reported purchasing 2,000 mini boxes of Milk Duds, only to run out of goodies by 7pm.

TWO THOUSAND BOXES OF MILK DUDS Y’ALL.

Lots of University of Chicago folks live on Harper Street, including the skeleton of a law student who died of boredom reading “Criminal Procedure and the Constitution”….and down the block, the Ghost of Davy Crockett who hands out candy alongside anecdotes of American history.

Election years are the best. Every two years, Halloween is guaranteed to fall within a few days of the election and it makes for great fun. In addition to its most famous **resident, Hyde Park is home to the University of Chicago, and like most college towns folks tend to be pretty politically active/aware. On any given day of the year, it’s not unusual to find neighbors engaging in a friendly argument over foreign trade policy or health care legislation or religious convictions, etc.. Hyde Parkers don’t shy away from confrontation, even when it comes to infusing political ideologies into their Halloween decorations. For a number of reasons I’m not going to show you pictures of any overtly political Halloween themed decorations this year, sufficient to say, there was and ample supply of zombie tea parties and references to a certain “witch” in Delaware.

Never a dull moment in Hyde Park.

* That alpaca on the roof story is totally true.
** President Obama officially resides in Hyde Park, although I have never tried trick-or-treating the Secret Service. Next year 😉

Friday Flowers: Riboon Rose Rehersal Bouquet

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Excessive alliteration – it’s a good thing.

Confession: I haven’t thrown out a ribbon out since 1988. 

Y’all, I’m not even kidding. It’s nuts. We are talking eleventy hundred random ribbon scraps stuffed in drawers and boxes and hanging from hooks in the wall of my dining room. It’s not like they are especially impressive in quality, I just can’t bare the thought of throwing them out. The hoarding obsession started the first time I saw the ‘evil ribbon peddler’ scene from Faerie Tale Theater’s Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, produced and hosted by the fabulously peculiar Shelley Duvall.

What ever happened to Shelley Duvall anyway?

I heart Shelley Duvall.

She’s got those crazy eyes.

The eyes of a fellow ribbon hoarder.

I can tell.

OK, enough about Shelly and her crazy ribbon hoarder eyes….So, tradition dictates that the Maid of Honor collects ribbons from wedding gifts at the Bridal shower. This was right up my alley. Usually people tie them to a paper plate to be worn as a hat, or a bouquet to be used at the wedding rehearsal. Try as I might, BFF did not go for the hat. Poo on her! That hat would have been Hello Dolly! awesome.

Most of the bouquets I have seen are just pinned/stapled randomly and come out looking great, but I wanted something sturdy. Something that would last. A memento she could add to her children’s dress-up cupboard down the road, or to stick in a vase in the hall bathroom. Nothing too precious, just sturdy with the silhouette of a traditional bridal bouquet.

Enter ribbon roses!

Instructions.
These are so easy, I feel stupid posting a tutorial but the results are really satisfying. I have been collecting wire edge Xmas ribbon for years in hopes of one day collecting enough to cover an entire tree with these ribbon roses. It’s a lofty goal, but I’ll get there one day. These babies are fast!

PS: If you are working with ribbons without a wire edge, make a simple running stitch instead)

1. Throw a Bridal Shower and collect the ribbons. All of them. Even the plastic purple ones. Make cat toys out of the not-so-pretty ones.
2. Pull the wire out (demonstrated on a 21″ length of ribbon, but you get the drift.)
3. Keep pulling until it gets all rumpled up.
4. Wrap the wire around the end of the ribbon forming a stub.
5. Swirl the ribbon around like a cinnamon bun.
6. Pull the two stubby ends together and wrap with a pipe cleaner. The pipe cleaner will keep the shape pretty well, but if you are worried about long term use, reinforce with a safety pin or a dab of glue.
7. And there is your rose!
8. Repeat on all the ribbons and pull them together into a dense cluster. Dangle some longer green ribbons on the bottom if you like.
9. Give it to the bride and be prepared to sing She’s Getting Married in the Morning allllllll night long!

Spider Web Luminaries

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Not much time for Halloween hoopla this year, a few festive luminaries go a long way!

Luminaries are so good at creating atmosphere, especially now that the days are getting dark and chilly. Candlelight alone is lovely, but candlelight glowing through crumpled wax paper bags is really something to be seen! The effect is almost like an old parchment paper lamp shade, but cheaper, prettier, and slightly spooky.

Tangent: Wax paper bags are amazing. They are great for wrapping gifts and organizing odds and ends like photos, receipts, and paper scraps. I like to use them to pack a snack and seal it with a ninja turtle sticker. And no, I don’t have children. And yes, I keep a giant roll of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stickers around the house. What? Don’t look at me that way. I enjoy a well packaged snack. Everything tastes better with ninja turtles. Also, wax paper bags are far more Earth-friendly than plastic baggies, and significantly cheaper when you buy them in bulk. For smaller quantities, you can find them at the grocery store, usually down on the bottom shelf. Y’all have to try them out!

To draw the spider web, just get yourself a permanent marker and go to town. I’m guessing that if you are reading a blog like this, you are probably comfortable with drawing a spider web, but just incase, I did a demo for you just like Mrs. DuCharm showed me back in the day. Just make a cris-cross and loopty-loo each segment. That’s right, loopty-loo I said. We are keeping it technical today.

And there it is! Make a bazillion of these and cover your house with them on Halloween night –a sure fire way to scare the kiddos!

Trick-or-Treat, smell my feet…for anyone in the mood for two minutes of literary candy, read “Haloween: A Love Story” by Rodes Fishburne. A personal favorite.