The Music Made Me Do It... and More Experimentation

     Okay, so it took me a while to recover from Christmas.  With four kids, I think it's amazing that I made it through the holiday without any help (husband deployed, but returning soon) and with my sanity relatively intact.  Go, me!  *fist pump*  Everyone still has all their arms, legs, toes, and fingers... so I'll call it a victory.

     Cheerleading aside, I've been busy since my last post.

     When Kai was a baby, his all-time favorite song was Owl City's "Fireflies".  If you haven't heard it, you can hear it here.  I've had it on my playlist forever, and he still requests it every now and then.  The last time he did, I had an idea to put fireflies in his room.

     How to do it?  VINYL!  More specifically, glow-in-the-dark vinyl.

     And if Kai was going to have fireflies, it was only fair for Cam to have them too.  So I got to work painting up some (4) canvases.

 And then designed a file in Silhouette Studio Designer Edition for my fireflies.

Afterwards, I cut the fireflies out of glow-in-the-dark vinyl and enlisted the help of my kids to put them on the canvases.  They had a blast!

And then we lined them up to admire our work.

Next, we tested their glow-in-the-dark abilities.  Believe it or not, they glow BRIGHT!  I just couldn't get my iPhone to cooperate with a good pic.

Finally, we hung them up.  The boys love looking at the fireflies when they go to bed at night.

     After the firefly canvases, my latest project has been dyeing fabric.  I tried a few different experiments, and I think that the shibori dyeing technique is by far my favorite.  (All the way to the left.)

     These were done on cotton gauze with Dylon fabric dye.  I'm still experimenting with different techniques and would love to carry some hand-dyed baby blankets in the shop once I've tested a few different things out and see what I like best.

     Hope everyone is enjoying their new year!

Glow-in-the-Dark "Ooga Boogas"

     My two younger munchkins have really been worried about monsters and aliens lately.  We use "Alien Spray" (Glade) every night and that used to do the trick, but either the scary guys are becoming immune to it, or the little kids are catching on.  Either way, I figured that something had to be done.  Waking up numerous times every night to soothe monster/alien fears is not the best way to feel like a well-rested and SANE mom in the morning.  :)

     I had an idea to create something with the glow-in-the-dark clay that I've had for awhile.  I thought that they should be kid-loving and cute, while also being able to scare away and/or fight monsters and aliens.  I came up with "Ooga Boogas"... since they're meant to scare away unwanted nighttime boogeymen. 

      These little guys are the best alien/monster fighting machines you can find.  Contrary to their adorable-ness...  they also possess the ability to scare away and/or fight off anything that is not welcome to their territory. 

      So monsters and aliens BEWARE!  These little guys pack a heck of a wallop.  They're loyal to their kids and will protect them at all costs. 

     Oh, and uhhh... I DID mention how cute they were, right?  ;)