Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Christmas Memory Tablecloth Part Deux

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Whew. What would I do without my mom?

I finished cutting out the rest of the pictures while chatting on the phone with my dad and waiting for my mom to arrive. We laid out all the transfers and thankfully they all fit with room for this years too!


I was a little freaked out to start actually ironing them on. I mean what if I overheated one? What if they moved and were wrinkly? What if, what if??

terrified to actually commit to ironing!

I bit the bullet though, and with mom helping to hold them and reposition any that moved around, I managed to get them all ironed on without scorching anything!

The real moment of truth though was taking off the backing.


Tada! It turned out sooo good.

Can you spot the oops?

I'm so thankful for my mom. I mean we may have wrecked the table's finish and we may have put one of the year's upside down, but without her I'm pretty sure I'd still be sitting here thinking about getting it done!

And now that I've seen results I can't wait to get the rest of it done! And make four wall hangings too.  I'm going to go back and grab another clearance tablecloth but this time not cut off the excess length and make four longer wall hangings with their names and birthdays at the bottom. I sincerely considered just cutting this one apart! I mean how often do I use a tablecloth? But mom wouldn't let me! I think she just wants me to do another one without the mistake..and possibly make her one too!


All the hand prints are true to life size, so next time you're here, feel free to put your (clean) hands on there and see how you measure up next to the kids!

Christmas Memory Tablecloth

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So many titles for this post. The Never Ending Project. What the Heck was I Thinking?? How Long Can One Person Really Delay?

Every year for the past fifteen years my mom has gave me a tree ornament with the a picture of the kids and their hand print on the back. Well they started out as tree ornaments with Clayton but as he's gotten bigger so have the 'ornaments'. Usually I hang them on the wall instead on a bead rope with all the years in order. The kids love looking at them and remembering when. 


Earlier this year, I was purging out my Christmas stuff and thought I had better do something with those ornaments to preserve them. I debated laminating but some are too thick to go through the laminator. Or perhaps scrap booking them, but that idea was quickly tossed as I liked them out on display. Then I remembered when the quilt my mother-in-law made for Ryan's sister for her wedding. She took family pictures and used transfer paper to put them onto quilt squares for a really nice quilt.  I figured I had too many for a quilt but I could make a tablecloth with the same idea.

I decided to take a picture of each ornament, crop it out on Paint and flip it, paste it into a word document and print it out on some iron on transfer paper. Oh, doesn't that sound so simple? Like a quick little weekend project even? Yea, started this in April, crunch time aka Christmas is quickly approaching,  and we're not done.

The cropping took forever. I'm sure there are many easier ways to do it than the way I did it, but I don't want to hear about them as I'm finally done every last one of those 60 billion pictures. Work got in the way. Avoidance got in the way. You get the picture I'm sure.

Anyways, Mom and I stopped in Bed, Bath and Beyond and grabbed a really big white tablecloth that was on clearance. It happened to be so long that I could use the end of it as a trial area as I was going to have to cut it off anyways.


I wanted to see if the fabric was even going to hold the picture or not. It's not cotton like it's supposed to be but it was only 8 bucks for a huge tablecloth!


The test picture after washing. Success! Although I did learn not to leave the iron on as long as the directions said. You can see the outline of the iron in one spot where it got too hot.

I decided that I wanted the tablecloth to be just a little more, so Mom and I grabbed some green cloth from the fabric store and sewed on a strip around the outside and also down the middle, sectioning off each kid's area.


Ignore the fact that's it's wrinkly! I just grabbed it out of the bag a few minutes ago to take this picture. I've now got all of Clayton's pictures printed out onto transfer paper and need to cut them out.


Then comes the real test. Can I fit all of his pictures onto his area leaving room for this year's and possibly next year's too? Also, how long can I delay doing this? Will I ever get the rest of the kid's pictures printed out? Did I mention that we rarely, if ever, use a tablecloth??

I think I'll have a shower and call my mom. She'll make me finish it. And she'll iron for me too!

Monday, November 14, 2011

A different kind of Before and After

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Saturday was Ryan's appointment to go in and get his tattoo re-inked and expanded.  It started off looking like this.


He had this tattoo when I met him. I never did like how it just ended at the top of his shoulder and after 15 years it was looking faded and needed to be re-colored.

We went into the local place and had them draw out a revamped tattoo that would be slightly larger and all black. He also has plans to tattoo down the front of his chest so they made that drawing as well. After some tweaks in the initial drawing here he is partially lined in.

Sorry about the quality of pictures. I, of course, only remembered to bring my iPad and not my actual camera. The purple part was where a lot of redraws were happening to make the shoulder look right to me.


A wee squint of pain. There was a lot more squinting, tensing and general breathing through his teeth by the time the top was colored in!


All outlined. I love it so far. You can hardly see where the original tattoo was. Too bad the real pain was about to start.


Oh, there's the real pain! Sorry if the picture's making you squeamish. It's mostly smeared black ink if that makes it any better!


All done! Well except for the healing. See all the red area. Yea, those muscles are going to hurt for a bit!

After bandaging it for 6 hours, and avoiding taking any really gross pictures of what it looks like then, Ryan had a shower. The tattoo looks amazing. She did an excellent job. If you're local and need a tattoo artist, let us know!


Doesn't even look like the same tattoo does it??


I think he might wait few months to get the chest one. The pain is still fairly fresh in his mind! I didn't feel a thing...but I do get to enjoy the results!!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Grandpa Dirt Hill

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There's not much more that my kids love than tromping around through Grandpa Dirt Hill's forest.

Unless it's building a fort in the forest with a leftover tarp.


May not look like much to you, but quite a few battles and invaders happened upon that wooden fortress!


Dad's been known as Grandpa with the sheep for most of Clayton's life. It was his way of sorting out which grandparent I was talking about. However, Dad got rid of the sheep a few years back so the other kids decided he needed a new name. Since he has this big dirt hill that they love to climb up and down and have amazing battles on, they decided he should be called Grandpa Dirt Hill from now on.

It works.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Worst Luck

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I went rummaging through my paint supplies, hoping I might not have any tape. Perhaps not have an extra roller, or a clean brush? 

No such luck.

I have everything I need on hand to paint that wall on my list. I knew I shouldn't have bought paint the other day when I was downtown with mom!


There's only a few things missing. Ambition. The Will to do it. My attention span.


My camera. You'll have to settle for an iPad picture until I can find the silly thing.

Perhaps I'll have to issue a stop work notice so I can find it.... Yea that's the ticket!